The Playdoh Republic
The stuff of dreams...
Originally published: 15th January, 2002
BY MING
THIS IS AN O.'. T.'. S.'. UNHOLY BOOK IN CLASS 0:
PLEASE BURN BEFORE READING
(C)opyright is a nasty word but the real author would appreciate being given the credit/blame they deserve and a link back to this site.
Paradox
Originally published: 15th January, 2002
Para Dox waging a war behind enemy lines. Hunting in the forest Para chases his Ideals, rejecting distractions until he dies. In another part of the forest he awakes to begin the chase again, dying and waking until eventually he does. When rested they awaken, their Ideals once again the quarry. Dox sits and waits for her Ideals, rejecting the distortions until one sits with her and they wait for the next.
This Pair o'Ducks flew overhead, but this world wanted only one, shooting at them until ... Para Dox came down to land. Will they classify me and pin me to a tree as a classyfiction?
Plato & Epistemology
Originally published: 15th January, 2002
There are flickering shadows upon the walls of our caves. Plato's dream imagery has manifestations in the physical or what some may call the "real" world. It is a matter of perception to shift the dreams of existence into that of physical reality or as Lewis Carroll indicated, of going through the looking glass. With the aid of these powerful dream images my perspective can be shifted in relationship to the physical world and this is how it came about…
Medusa & The Bees
Originally published: 15th January, 2002
I was seated in Aneesh's Playpen, one cave amongst many that has been imprinted with its own particular dream-reality. To see this "reality" is a matter of acceptance that it is there. The television was on and my attention shifted between that and the lit candles in the fireplace and of that I shall elucidate further at a later stage in this journey into my tail.
The candles appeared so much more real than the shifting lights emitted by the flickering screen and it was at that moment that Plato's dream became a physical reality for me. The television set occupied the modern-day equivalent of the flickering shadows in Plato's allegory of the Cave, stating and re-stating "truths" from one particular perception of reality. The irony of the situation was that Aneesh had oft quoted Plato as her favourite philosopher, and yet here she was sitting in her cave watching the shadow play. At the present she is unwilling to leave her cave, for she appears to have been enchained within it. This is a "real" situation and yet exists on the other side of my looking glass, the imagery of dreams.
At the moment of realisation, flickering shadows became uncomfortable to gaze upon. As I looked about I noted that all had become turned to stone, once again the dream shifted and T.V. was now Medusa. The shadows were her hissing snakes and behind my looking glass I was not turned, as had been the others. She could not see me behind my own mirror, for she is but a reflection herself. If I should sneak quietly would it be possible to behead that fascinating muse that can turn another's dreams to stone? Oh, what japes! But that would mean to become a hunter in the kingdom of Human-Animals, so her time will come later when my own cave, filled with fears is left behind.
My dream shifted again then and the flickering became a dancing of bees, communicating with the hive-mind dreams of sweet nectar. These caves became cells of drones, serving Queen Bee to secure her fertility. Medusa was ever jealous of others fertile dreams and having evaded her watery grave now ruled the airwaves, usurping the throne of the true Hive-Queen. And so with stolen vitality she infected our cells and made our dreams infertile, unrealised.
Let us now return to the fireplace, for it was by this means that this particular journey through the looking glass began. Its dimensions reveal much. The candles had been placed in the gateway where fires had been built in the past. Today, only candles, tomorrow any other object of attention. One image to be the focus of the journey. Yet again it merely takes awareness of other gateways to make the dream a reality for yourself but it was always there.
Around the gateway were carved images, these served to act as a guide for perceiving the nature of the fireplaces gateway. This is not necessarily required if a different path suggests itself. It was on a different, earlier occasion that I noticed the carvings. In the centre, the shape of an eye, perception was offered to those who might notice. On either side a being seated in a vehicle, the vehicle of the minds eye. One appeared to face outwards and the other faced away from me, an inner reality of dreams presented in the forms of the physical world. These two reflections from the eye, revealed that the looking glass shows both sides in much the same way that the physical eye is a perceptual form that translates through mirror images as any optician or biologist will tell you. These two reflections of the same entity existed in a watery world bordered by shorelines, displayed in the carving of wave-like forms and boundaries. Our minds flow between the physical and the inner world of dreams, yet they both exist in the sea of consciousness.
Below the watery world was carved the physical, immediately below the split entity on both sides was a head of bestial features, our connection to the hunting grounds of survival. Below that a tree carved by cunning craft into a club, a compromise between ideal dream and physical limitations. Finally an acorn, the seed of wisdom that exists in the kingdom of matter. These lower levels had only one facing, for they lacked a direct connection to the perceptual world. The seed of wisdom could only take its true form in the mind's eye, the perceiver of light that does not overlook the truth in the physical, but rather extends that truth as a reality to the beholder.
What then is this light the mind's eye doth perceive? Is it this which is the gateway to the world of ideal forms that Plato envisioned whilst dancing in the sun? And how does it reveal its existence but through the form of dreams, an internal light in the darkness of sleep. Both images in the looking glass require light. The physical has the glowing orbs of fireflies if daylight is scarce. The dream has perceptual lights from the mind's eye. Look in the mirror, what do you see?
Some are strangers to their dreams, looking glasses distorted and cracked under Medusa's gaze. With infertile dreams they seek to emulate this usurper and serve her as drones, the beautiful dead. Oh, how Medusa does cherish her prizes for her cave then dances with shadows. Her shard of reflected light hides from its own reflection and masquerade as the light itself and yet she lacks connection to the looking-glass gateway outside of her cave in the sunlight. Does she hide because she is jealous of dreams that are not hers? She holds but her own in vain pride, afraid to become the gateway, afraid of losing herself through the looking glass. She is trapped in the physical world or "reality" as some may call it and like Aesops fable of the Fox who lost his tail, similarly seeks to convince others that it's a good idea. And so some hate their reflections for they have become chained to Medusa's infertile dream. And what do I see?
Gardening For Idiots
Originally published: 15th January, 2002
Upon a hill it came to pass that a speck of glass grew into a tree. The tree coiled and spread wings of reflection. The wings were mirrors fragmentary. Branches of sharded leaves were strong and beautiful. One day there came Monkey wandering in the forest about the hill. He looked up and saw this striking and individual tree, deciding there and then to make it his home.
Time passed and Monkey sat on a branch, admiring his surroundings. The fruit of summer fell to the ground, resolving a part of a part of a cycle. Monkey caught one of the glittering leaves and admired his reflection. It cut into his hands however and blood poured from his wounds. Unconcerned was Monkey, for fascination can be strong indeed; two red rivers flowed and fed the tree. Monkey slept with closed (I).
Cuckoo flew in the skies above the forest and was, like Monkey drawn to this singular tree. Seeing it's simian fellow she grew envious and not appreciating it's own beauty Cuckoo brought forth a jealous seed and planted it within Monkey, becoming a new heartbeat. The rivers became a flood and Monkey awoke startled, crying out in sorrow. Now all he had was pain and Cuckoo had the reflection.
Gradually Monkey's waging became the cackle of Cuckoo, his body sickened whilst all around life blossomed. Jester saw this peculiar sight as he came dancing along the earthen path. He began to laugh at this sorry creature gazing with rheumy eyes at the fruit of a year long dead, oblivious to the once again blossoming tree. The laughter infuriated Cuckoo with it's easy and open character for her own charms became unpleasant in its presence. Cuckoo's retorts however only served to make Jester laugh yet louder as it danced around the hill ever upwards; Cuckoo was overwhelmed and shrunk from view.
Monkey felt empty, having no more volition, vocation or values than a corpse. Jester chuckled with good-humoured charity and offered the flower that grew from its spine. As Monkey took hold of this bloom, the cutting shard of glass fell from his grasp and the flower filled his wounds. Within him its roots formed a new tree banishing Cuckoo and sending it to flight (for now). Monkey fell inside the tree and now became a speck, then a chuckle and dancing to become Jester.
The Sun and The Sea
Originally published: 15th January, 2002
Gazing at the firefly on the wall in this hive constructed of wax in this our Ether Lamp, I see a moth. His goal is oblivion through a flaming gateway, the dream of moths. And what is a philosopher's dream? This dream I recount is a flapping wing, for a moth I be. Dancing in the sunlight, I know nothing and yet everything to learn in the gateways of the looking glass. I do not see Medusa and she not me. I am free to dance, my dreams unturned. But what is cast in the flapping of my wings? Shadows to those below, other dancers create more. Each moth seeks nothing, a non-sense, but to those below I can only say "Don't search for it in our shadows and proclaim that we made sense."
And so saying, my attention shifts to this page. As I make shapes in the sand fresh from swimming in the sea, dreams and the bed become impermanent both. The gateway exists in all things if you can so see it, yet I cannot hold the water for it slips through my fingers and I accept that it is so. The sand slips through my fingers too, so why hold onto that? I can reach no conclusions, for sandcastles they be and return to the sea. Scratched words in the sand or a wave from the sea, which to be, they're both me.
Plato was afeared of changes wrought by the sea, for he thought that the end of his sandcastle was the end of an ideal form. Yet is it possible to ward off change with sandbanks of legislation? His dream is a Playdoh Republic; the ideals exist yet their forms are changed. Dreams mould the Republic and they can never manifest in their entirety for we are both sides of the looking glass. Are we the little hands that emerge from waves to shift the sand? Dreams re-arrange old forms for none of our creations manifest the sea of consciousness in one wave, for the sea is all of them in concert. Our wave plays games in the sand for we do not fear and why do we not fear?
Aquarium Dreams
Originally published: 15th January, 2002
Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin... The Sun in the Sea is but a bubble and yet also glistens. Brightness on the surface and eerie in depth. Strange flows in the hidden wave where language is new.
Below the surface in a small, dark cave Playdoh Republic gloried in it's air-trap. It was hidden so from the glistening that it created it's own lights, fireflies indeed. Playdoh, brittle under the assault of the flies was a constraining fight for the line. There was not enough room and ugly it became.
The Sun in the Sea braved many dangers, yet he laughed at the world in his cheery way. Laughter for he was a jester of the ocean, a Sea lion in the eerie glow of the fireflies. Sea lion reached the shoreline and played games in the sand, yet an altogether different game presented itself with this Republic.
Playdoh had for many years been reshaped within its original guidelines and had become a crazed construction of tunnels. Sea lion could not fit himself into any of the specifically shaped holes and became trapped. They were not too keen in the Republic of course, but sandcastles left too long become unpleasant anyway. Another inhabitant of the cave, King Newt was smitten with this strange home he had guarded for the flies, for he appreciated their aesthetic. And so he snarled at the playful, childish newcomer. Of course King Newt was terrified for no waves had emerged since he had been washed up long ago on a wave from the rivers, that once had flowed. This is when it would happen then, for he had sickened from an encroachment of this, unpleasant brine. It had been but a trickle once, but now it had become a flood. Lands had sunk beneath the sea before and now the waters had become very deep. What had once been a garden for foolish apes was now a cave for crafty flies.
This decrepit creature fought hard, or so he thought. Sea lion however hardly noticed for the flies did burn his eyes with their hatred of strangers. They burnt him as they burnt their Republic. Sickened their protector as they had their home with unpleasing odours and ghastly residue. Sea lion was a sensitive soul, more used to the rhythm of the waves, but he was trapped now in an alien environment. Flexing his tail wildly in panic he cried in pain. The call was made, Mother Ocean heard its child. Many more had been similarly inconvenienced on islands and in caves of decaying lands.
Thunderous tidal flows came in response and King Newt's guardianship was at an end. He was taken by the flow to the MemorSee, to learn how to swim in this his new home... His sandcastle was gone to become the seabed. His beloved fireflies transformed into explorers, travellers in the wave. The Flies had become star-plankton and their Playdoh Republic? Well, some new child would one day come and play on the beach again. But what you say happened to Sea lion? Mother Ocean's children played tricks on each other and couldn't care less about sandcastles, for they never turned out right.
P. S. Before, you mark this >dream-realityno< lest you say
>know...< Read backwoods or fourwoods
(I) Personal I, Communal I,
Universal I and uncertainty of distinctions between them.
Love and Kisses To
Originally published: 15th January, 2002
Plato's allegory of the Cave from "The Republic"
Lewis Carroll's allegory beyond the Looking-Glass from "Alice Through The Looking-Glass"
Aesops Fables
Derivations from Greek myth
Dreamtime
Excerpts from "Ming's Celestial Travel Diary"
Various submerged themes from childhood
The Ether Lamp
Three different aspects of the Mother Goddess
(I)
Steve Popham for tolerating my swim insanity
Good ol' Kev for allowing me to utilise Brainiac for this typing malarkey, flying my CNS under the watchful gaze of Medusa, in her pitched battle with Queen Spider.
That stuff of dreams, Playdoh.
Mr. Walford for pronouncing Plato as above in his lectures, for I had conceived of the Playdoh Republic the night before the first lecture. The Multiverse it would appear has a wicked sense of humour, and if it doesn't take itself seriously, then can we rationally justify doing contrariwise? Unless of course, a serious disposition is the ultimate philosophy joke and we'll all be having tea and biscuits round an open fire arguing over whose joke was funniest at the end of time / the dawn of slime.
Your faithful scribe for even attempting to talk this foreign language everyone else from England appears to use quite wonderfully.
Socrates for admitting that we all talk bollards.
Order, Chaos and the Eternal Balance
And for my next trick my words will disappear*
Editor note: Find a way to make the word "disappear" disappear somehow.