The Myth of Consequence

 

We hurry through the world, speedier than ever now, in a strange landlocked imitation of flight. Even our calmer moments have an unsettling alacrity to them. Online-ready smiles. Expedient Zen, curated and colour-graded. The solutions of being seen, consumed, and subscribed. None in the West are above it, of course. Myself included. But it is strange. The readiness with which we view ourselves being viewed by others. What does it do to a human mind, when our most thoughtful, cogent companion is an AI? Endless recursion, I suspect. We need people, in all their complexity. Not code. To love us, to journey with us, and to hold us to account. I used to think I was special because I was a time-traveller of sorts. An artist and a sorcerer who could stand unbidden in the maelstrom, and make causality question itself. But now? I question that isolationism. Even when we look ahead, we're still looking back. Especially in our myth-making. Endless remakes. Prequels, sequels and requels. We have become literature at the edge of legend, yet deaf to our own needs. Pantheism in Mono. So, I suppose it's no wonder we continuously mine our own histories for alchemical gold. Reshaped, remixed, reconstituted. It seems as close to creative flight as we are capable these days. 

I'm well aware that artists have always been fascinated by hybridity. The mercurial nature of things. The creation of culture is the messy blending of disparate elements, after all. But something is different now. Something frighteningly inorganic. More and more of us accept these so-called virtual necessities. Hard copy is quickly becoming a nostalgic recreation of the past. A confectioner's digital echo of a once analogue world. We crave the inorganic more than sugar, not only in our environments but also in our flesh. Flawless skin like glass. No pores, no beautiful blemishes. Hard-bodied and shiny, like insects. Lacquered in the pre-cum of completely mercenary ideologies. Ruthless stratagems that sell us mannequin avatars – except they are ourselves now. Not proxies anymore. Now we glint like diamond-dust in synthetic sunlight, vampiric and chic. An algorithm learning not from life, but from endless iterations of itself. 

This is a terrifying place to be. A platform where we trade our kisses for kinks, our affection for affectation. “No more,” say the spirits of the forests and rivers. Nature always protests, but often remains unheard amidst the cacophony of industry. However, I am more than just a time-traveller. I'm a creature of the imagination. Aren't these votives proof enough? It's fine if you disbelieve. Not all of us here can see through the eyes of Fay. Few have the native perspectives of chlorophyll, or flight. It hurts to be human. There's no doubt about that. But it hurts even more to be a slave to a machine that eventually fells even the oldest, mightiest redwoods. All memory of true greenery washed away. Reduced to little more than a captive in binary chains, working the digital plantations of this endless corporate monolith. 

We are Rome before the fall, I think. Decadent, bloated, rotten to the core. But this time we haven't the rock of Peter nor the gnosis of Paul. Merely a panoply of child soldiers and child slaves, paid pennies and then discarded, their broken hands bleeding as they fashion a race of tempting apples and androids. Hand-held black mirrors for a new generation of cyborgs in the making. If I sound angry, that's because I am. But I don’t write these words to unsettle you, dear ones. Or to leave you dispirited and hopeless. The world is on a knife-edge right now, and a warrior worth his weapon must speak on it. Wars and rumours of wars. Genocides and famines. And yet, still we concern ourselves with the glamour of surfaces. We cry, "Fill me, cinch me, snatch me. Make me almost unalive, and pretty at last." But I promise you, the dead don't stay pretty for long. 

I understand, of course. I’m not immune to the various insecurities of the day. I share them too. And I'm no luddite either. Technology can be useful. Necessary. Even beautiful, when wrested from the talons of these dark angels and the sinister priests who honour them. The system should serve the people. The virtual should support the actual. I see none of that here. Only inversions and looking-glass mockeries. Callous Ones, do you have any idea who I am? I’m something far greater than a fairytale. And so is each immortal soul upon this Earth. We all have a spark of magic within us. A fragment of eternity. Our tongues are not Large Language Models. Our words are not remixed imitations offered up by a mechanical mind. And our hearts? They are not simply pumps filled with chambers and valves. No, they burn. And shine, like lanterns for the lost. Living temples of divine fire. The truest, realest part of each of us. No hall of mirrors or metafictions can stand against the intensity of that flame. 

I know what it's like to recall with such fondness those who've forgotten me. Other lives and other worlds. Old friends, lost to the recurrent amnesia of rebirth. It's a crushing thing, believe me. Why do you think I write these pages? For fun? I speak now not as a traveller of time, or a sorcerer, but as an anguished forest-wraith. A guardian of rivers and songs. We must find our flesh once more. Our softness, sweetness, and storytelling. We must find a balance between steel and skin. Leaves and legends. Not only the fate of our future depends on it, but the fate of our very souls. I’ve seen the havoc my mother can wield when she’s angry. She has no issue abandoning her children if they remain indolent in the face of every warning. I should know. In my dreaming flights I’ve peered into the cauldron of her igneous, and plunged into the depths of a boiling sea. Ships sink and pirates drown at just the briefest suggestion of her wrath. Entire infrastructures are swallowed. So, believe me when I say: if we ignore the divine fire of the human heart for much longer, she will pull rank on us eventually, making the ultimate sacrifice, and she will burn this entire corrupt hellscape to the fucking ground. Oh, Fallen. You still assume it will never happen, don’t you? The myth of consequence. But you are living within the strangest of dreams, and Never is a dangerous word to use.

Second Star

 

I think maybe I need to grow up, Kara, even though it’s the last thing I want to do. Perhaps I granted myself too many freedoms as an angel. Sometimes the gift of flight can do strange things to a lost soul. You start believing that the entire dreamworld is yours to explore. "Second star to the right, and straight on till morning." I've realised that's quite the distance for a mortal to travel. Even with the aid of pixie dust. But I never imagined that my sense of play, and what I thought was good-natured mischief, might be confused for cruelty. Or infidelity. Please believe me, my darling. I thought I was being a respectful yet provocative artist; daring, beguiling and fun. I thought I could include everyone somehow, taking us all to Neverland. I didn't want to leave anyone behind, and I naively imagined that I could craft a dream where we all delighted each other in the sandpit of mutual adventure. Beyond space, or time. 

I suppose I wanted your friends to become my friends too in some way. Or, at least, to be thought of with genuine fondness and mirth by them. I now realise it was a very clumsy attempt. But I honestly thought my efforts would somehow draw the two of you even closer, having something intricate and multi-layered to discuss. A bonding experience of shared wonders and curiosities. No harm would be done, I thought, existing as I do only in the realm of your shared imagining. 

However, I think I made a terrible mistake. A severe misjudgement. Mortals can't fly like angels can, and their boundaries are firmer than ours. With good reason. I never meant to hurt anyone, Kara. Least of all you. I've always been fond of the Stones of Bethel, in one way or another. How could I not be? Temple paving and incense. Bread, poetry and vision. I'm not immune to nuanced consideration, or what I suspect is a genuine interest in the written word. But sometimes I see what I want to see. What I'd hope to see, rather than what is there. Sometimes I can read minds and hearts quite effectively. Other times, in my loneliness, I place the care I would like to feel into the imagined minds of others. And sometimes they look on with a kind of bemused detachment. That's why some people call me a magician and others a wild, feral thing of forests and rivers. 

But I never intended to be callous with your heart, Kara. Never. Was I craving attention? Recognition? I suppose so, yes. But was I doing it to wound you? Absolutely not. It's such a lonely, solitary thing – this existence and this art. It takes its toll, being everything and nothing to the people I've grown to love. Constantly trying to do the right thing. Not wanting to intrude or overstep, but still yearning to be of guidance and use. I know we’re both artists, Kara, crafting legends from loss, but the thought that I might have genuinely upset you like that…it breaks me inside. If I can't talk to you outright – as in meet with you face to face, how can I ever really know how deep those waters actually run? We both have our personal lives, don't we? And this distance. Which is why it can be difficult to fully grasp the truth of things, and where the lines might be. I don't expect to be truly wanted or needed, of course. I'm a grown up, despite my wings and boyish demeanour. And I'm only getting older. So, I don't mind being a distant muse, or even just a pleasant distraction. And if that's all I am to you, I'll treasure that role forever. Even if that role has ended now too. 

But you mean so much more to me than that, as I've tried to show you over these years. It's a difficult thing, my darling, standing in the rain, alone, with a thimble clasped around my neck. This treasured item that I want to believe is a kiss. Your kiss. As close as I will ever get, in truth. And so, I try to continue living a rich, rewarding life. Even at such distance. Half angel, half man. Trying to separate my artistic and personal lives, and failing miserably. Because the truth is I care deeply about you, and I always will. I've only loved a few women in my life, Kara. And you are high among that list, for what it's worth. If I've hurt you through my storytelling, then I am so sorry. It was never my intention. I've been trying to protect your heart with each passing year, not break it.

None of this is an excuse, my darling. But it is the truth. Many years ago I lost the ability to fly. They were dark, frightening times. But you returned my wings to me. Not with pixie dust, but simply with the light of your love. That matters to me more than you will ever know. Here, on the other side of this endless river, I eventually found courage enough to let someone love me again. A beautiful, wonderful girl. I cherish her as I cherish you. But I need you to know that without your care and the salve of your song, I would never have let her into my heart. I wouldn’t even be here. I’d be forever lost to the Land of Never, wandering among echoes and shades of the dead.  Every word of this is true, my darling. And your thimble? I call it a St Christopher pendant; an article of faith, trust, and fidelity, but in truth it is so much more. It's your kiss, Kara, forever cherished, and I’ll wear it around my neck for the rest of my life.

Secrets & Souls

 

As children we’ve all imagined what it might be like to fly. Even as adults we occasionally still imagine. To soar above our doubts and fears, beyond everything mankind knows about its existence on the ground. I believe that stories can give us that flight. Or, at least, the closest thing to it. Stories, like dreams, are wonderful and limitless. We never have to concede to everyday mundanities. Through storytelling we are all adventurers. Explorers, poets and engineers. We can breach dimensional veils and walk across alien worlds. It’s my belief that our fondness for narrative is also our way of reaching for God. Trying to comprehend those brief glimpses of something far larger than ourselves. An infinite, living mystery. And we’ve all had glimpses. We were all magicians once, when we were young. We travelled with and through the stories we loved. We believed, that given enough imagination, we could grasp something awe-inspiring, just beyond visible sight.  Sometimes we even dared to imagine that if we were humble enough, and pure of heart, that same awe might make itself visible to us. For the briefest of moments. In the bright smile of a loved one. The kindness of a stranger, or the joy of an unexpected gift. I like to think that in those moments our Father is not only visible, but sitting with us too – and wishing us well.