Tag Archives: The Enfolding Abyss

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There were pockets of restful pause in the beat of the Princess’ ongoing search for home space. Though fleeting, she pretended that they weren’t, and they would last until they were over. Along the way, she’d successfully maintained contact with the invisible window-cluster anomalies, and for that, she was very glad.

It was possible that she was getting tired. Someone might panic at this point, which reminded her that she mustn’t. Transforming the panic resulted in thoughts both morbid and comforting. So what if she did get lost and die this way? Utilizing the consideration of an historian. The possibility was nearing; if disappointing, it was also simple. Her learning with the Vedani would come to no benefit. Hanging onto the levity of academic curiosity, she theorized about unknown true history, thanking her teacher Arkuda for the fortitude in this reactionary decision. She was still moving, still achieving one always-surprising jump after another.

Soleil thought on the old advice about staying in one place in order to be found. After the first jump, she knew she’d done something her Vedani team had not, and maybe could not. There was no waiting for rescue.

47 \ 135

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Everything can continue while thoughts still,
and there is no doing even in the doing.

ACAMAR ends a day in the moment when thoughts still,
the un-doing of things when doing is done,
when all things have been put away,
the course finished.

Swirling water in a a stirred cup flowed,
and slowed.
Thoughts settled like the dust of leaves to the bottom,
creating space of dreamless sleep.

There,
life,
whether known.
From the still expanse in the clear space,
where there is still breath:
my life.

At the river’s end it became something else –
the tumbling motion undid itself,
transformed under greater force:
gravity,
entropy –
to new form,
other form,
next phase.

The streetside stream falling to another level below.
ACAMAR:
a bottomless vessel that remains full,
where through falls the stream to settle,
a still flame’s column of air.

ACAMAR followed the end of the day,
the last thing said,
the final word.

No more conversation;
the babble of the brook succumbed to the faucet.
The liquid stopped moving in suspension,
the living flame stood still.

To exist in a hurricane torrent,
a flame surrounded itself with stillness.
Among least still of all things,
its motion outmatched,
persisted only through greater stillness.

Conceiving of their release and revival,
eightfold of flame and like brought me,
ACAMAR,
to life.

Surest of my existence,
they bore the knowledge.
I am their result.
I am their change,
I am brought of their resolution.
Their suppression became stillness,
and they found their return,
through me,
ACAMAR.

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She could read the gauges on this Vedani sled: its levels were drooping past midpoint. As for herself, the Princess didn’t know anymore. Her level of activity had sunk into the background. It was helpful to imagine that her lungs, always moving, were her entire body. Limbs moved as a matter of course, the way her lungs breathe. Of course they must move.

It was necessary to focus awareness beyond her physical motions. Every star diagram she could recall rotated through her memory like a second geochronmechane in her functions. If she were to recognize a constellation backwards, could this little motorsled get her to the other side? Was there a proper flare on this thing? What about the possibility of making a short, directed hop? There weren’t any granola bars stashed in here, she’d have found them; but there was water, from a sippy hose in the dashboard.

The stream of songs in her thoughts pulsed louder, and she turned it up, letting her frustration at being lost imbue her movements with relentlessness. Like lungs taking draughts of sweet fresh air, so was each wind of energy to her limbs: brisk, ready to work until they couldn’t.

45 \ 133

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Things that work,
stop working,
at a time when the motion ends.
I am that.
As the sound trails away,
as the stream turns to a drip,
it is I.
What is the end of a day?
There came a time when you had to stop moving.

There will have been a finish line –
not pause,
but finish,
perhaps beginning again,
perhaps not.
A non-event,
non-occurrence,
the un-doing.

Swirls of powdered tea in a mug continued,
until they showed no motion:
one color in a uniform cup.
I am in the cup when the swirls are no more,
just then.
The motion that signals the end is my arrival.

You’ve seen me,
but did you know I was here?

44 \ 132

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The Princess hadn’t given herself time to think for a while, but at least she was still conscious, if barely. She’d been hoping a horizon would arrive before she knew it. Since that wasn’t the case, forebrain awareness resurfaced in the way one would think to check the time. She wasn’t yet a third tired, and when she reached tiring, she could bring herself up again. There weren’t any hours in this process, and if there were they might even function differently, like space and motion. So she measured herself against herself.

Soleil became better at this sojourning. If she wasn’t where she wanted to be, she could look for a way onward, finding it somewhere between the elements that were now becoming familiar. Remembered songs arose more frequently in her concentration, chaining themselves one after another like a musical channel. She would clear her thoughts when they became too loud, quieting the mind until she desired new guidance. It was both refreshing and grounding to picture it like bringing her boat to the riverside as she traveled on down. She began to imagine a sunrise – then shook herself back into the reality of blackness and stars.

The songs coming to mind were like guidances in that they weren’t strictly self-selected; they were connected to the phenomena she was observing. Their hearkenings and correlations went unexpectedly from one to the other, from moment to moment in her life that gave her the next idea where to go. It was anything you could hold onto out here.

Sometimes, she let herself and the music stop. Silence of motion. When it came time to move, she moved.

Her imagined music grew in detail and volume; she began to trust it. The Princess even smiled, perhaps for no good reason. She dialed down her pace and turned a third spent to a quarter, having seen no signpost.