#beyond the river lethe there is memory healed

[soracities]

Chris Abani, from "Fragrance", 3 poems pub. Air Light Magazine [transcript in ALT]

#q #lit #quotes #poetry #fragrance #chris abani #d #beyond the river lethe there is memory healed #typography #m #x

[lethe-rpg]

Perhaps he was just born a few centuries too late. That’s what Fionn figures. Back in the day, when the world was young and fae things were properly fae, he’d have done just fine - carousing and thieving, making merry and managing all sorts of mischief. Without anybody getting their knickers in a twist. By the time he came along, though, there were just too many hidebound traditional types around the Otherlands. Fussy old bastards. That’s what he tells himself. Fionn, cut adrift by parents he never knew, chased after by a brother and sister who had better things to do, understood that he was something of a burden. Had he asked to be born? No. Wasn’t his fault.

But he was here, now, and he wasn’t about to let a moment pass where he wasn’t drinking life’s splendor dry. That’s what they were supposed to be about, wasn’t it? Those elder fae seemed to think he drank too deeply, though. He neglected his lessons in the history and magic of their kind, shook off stately affairs and protocols to run through the hills and dales with stranger, wilder faeries. Young and cocksure, Fionn took what gifts he’d been born to and scoffed at those that came harder, the ones that took work and thought to develop - the shifting of energies, that fae spark, the knowing of another’s heart. It was envy, maybe. His sister was so brilliantly talented in those crafts, his brother so respected, an artisan in iron. Was it fair, to hold himself to their older example? Perhaps not, but he did it all the same. And no matter what he managed, Fionn always, always came up short. Who was he trying to please, anyway? Those runaway parents? His beleaguered brother, his stifled sister? Himself, even? Fionn couldn’t say, so he couldn’t do it. And, in time, he stopped trying altogether.

A few duels, a couple scandalous affairs, and several spectacularly destructive incidents was all it took to turn the Otherlands against Fionn, in a decided sort of way. Let the humans deal with him, and his brother, too. Cora had already left, tired of the same old, same old staling madness of life among the fae. When they struck earth in Ireland, Fionn was too indignant to feel bereft. Or even awfully responsible. He was just being what he was meant to be, what they were all meant to be - a rover and a rambler, a lover and a singer of songs. And the human world was wonderful, really. Even if, eventually, they wound up having enough of his nonsense too. That was alright, though. He’d move on. To someplace new. There was so much to see, and so many people to share his music, his art, and, of course, himself with. So much for them to share with him, too - their revels and whiskey, ugly violence and breathtaking creativity. Study in contradictions, humans were. For once, Fionn found himself fond of research. Inevitably, that pulled him further and further from Faolan’s side. Then, of all things, his brother got himself a family. Started settling down. Like… humans, or something. So off Fionn strayed, for good, wandering from scene to scene, bed to bed, taking in all the wonder and mess humanity had to offer. Which was plenty. His family, such as they were, didn’t want or need him. And he didn’t want or need them, or anyone else, did he? Best to live in the present, with the company he had. Fleeting, mortal company, but lovely. His unnatural talent and his fae charms, roguish though they might be, made sure of that.

Unfortunately, now and then, even Fionn’s honeyed tongue and handsome eyes aren’t enough to get him out of the shit he stirs up. He’s quite literally stumbling into Lethe held together with duct tape and will, after falling afoul of the sort of people you really shouldn’t fall afoul of. Ever. Usually, his unnatural luck looks out for him. This time, he was very nearly gutted like a fish, a rabbit. He’d heard of a place, hidden in the woods, that drew magic and held it safely; somewhere like that would have somebody who could help, perhaps even one of his sort, to do a proper job of patching him up. So here he’s come, battered and worn. Never had the knack for healing, not for a scratch, nevermind anything so bad as this. But somebody around Lethe will. Probably. Not that he has money to pay, not at the moment - had to drop and run, after all. But he’ll find a way to make good. Or leave, quickly, whichever winds up being simpler. That’s the notion, anyway…

Unsurprisingly, Fionn hasn’t the foggiest idea what’s been going on in Lethe. He doesn’t even know his brother, sister, and daughter, all long lost, are in town, nevermind that people have been crawling out of the river on the regular. You’d think a creature with a life so long as his might be disturbed by the thought of your memories getting washed away, but… honestly, Fionn doesn’t remember terribly much with perfect, sober clarity. He’s been drinking, drugging, brawling, sleeping, and musing his way across and around the world for centuries, and the Otherlands are a distant recollection. Even his many sweethearts have faded away, with the years. All but one, the one he tried to forget most, honestly - Aurora. Beautiful beyond sense, for a human; every bit as sweetly ferocious as the summer he was made from. They shared some sweet times together, months in the California sun, tearing down the boulevards, tumbling about in the soft, fine sand. It was all fun and games, and love. You can have all three, he’d insist. Then it turned out she was pregnant. Fionn was gone by morning, slipping away in the dark. Only, he couldn’t keep going. Not this time. He’d never had a child of his own. Not that he knew of, at least. Never even met his own father. What could he do for Aurora, now? Put down stakes? It wasn’t in his nature. Be contrary to everything he’d ever been. But Fionn came back, all the same, slinking through the door. And he left. And he came back. And he left. And so on, flitting about like some frightened bird, bringing gifts and money when he had any, trying to feel right about any of it. Aurora, bless her, wanted him to be there. Fionn couldn’t understand why. Still, there he was, when the time came; her hand in his, and, then, a beautiful baby girl in his arms. Then, then… a crush of screaming hospital monitors, nurses, and doctors, pushing him out. As his Aurora left, without warning. Their girl wailed. It was just the two of them, now, and Fionn, he’d barely been prepared for the three of them. He tried, though. For a while, anyway. But it was obvious, wasn’t it? Fionn had never been nothing but trouble. An incapable wastrel. They were right, weren’t they? For all the magic in his blood, there’d been nothing at all he could do; another faerie, a better one, could have saved Aurora, made sure she lived to see her little girl grow up. But Fionn wasn’t better, and he wasn’t going to get better, and even if he did, it was far past time where that meant anything. She was gone. He didn’t even have the strength to name their child - it could only be unlucky, couldn’t it? A name from her craven, bastard father. She deserved more. She needed more. And so, he did the only thing that made much sense at all: tucked her into another baby’s bed, bound for a family. That was the last time Fionn saw his daughter, the last time he ever expected to see her. Like the rest of his blood, she would be better off without him.

Fate appears to have other plans, as ever - meaning a few Riverborn will be far from Fionn’s mind. Far and away…

#taken #taken male #taken fae #cillian murphy #fionn meadowes #Fionn Ó Lonán

[jessiejack]

Ancestral crime, generational curse. Does not stop until there has been a ritual cleansing

Jessica Ullevålseter sept. 2021 We have come here to heal the broken bonds and our motherwound, as ancestral orphans. The high priestess was burned and her children scattered; symbolic order that establish reality. We are left on our own without understanding the identities we sustain. Father, what happened to mother? Scientists' world view is dominant and the spiritual contexts of our political landscapes are fundamental.

We regard the many approaches to myth throughout history to have proven to be projections of the current moments paradigme. The mythological landscape sustained by the collective through various rites, ranging from the courtrooms to the temples, decides how we react to reality. We encounter dimensions such as the past, identity politics, health, nature and everything that interacts in culture through a specific lens conditioned by the dreamspell we sustain. We normally identify the word ritual with spirituality, but in a broader sense, we call ritual anything that symbolically embodies an intention, through hierarchical structures that bring order and direction to itself.

The mythological landscape is the dreamspell we knit together rhizomatically and the space we performatively give reverence and signifier to through ritual. This is how ritual and myth belongs together. Where are the mythogonies of today? There is a myth of separation and there are stories of pandemics. There are rituals of fear and there are ceremonies of war. There is a myth that the earth does not communicate. Another myth is that there is no invisible reality, even though human species are aware they cannot see the magnetic field or even the trees' growth. We are yet to know the mysteries of our own bodies. Many of these myths originated in the midst of a scientific search, expressed in reductionism.

The ancient Greeks coded myth into analogues and named it logic. As we approach life inductively, the union contains it all. Analogues braids the web of totality,- able to sustain polarity, cause and effect, even degradation and rot within life.

The illustration looked at myth through the peoples they called “savages” to try and understand the ancient mind. We could argue we live in a culture with deep roots in the illustration. Tables were turning as time and matter were seen differently. The famous quarrel of the moderns and the ancient was a call to question the ancients´ authority, whom through history have been praised and honoured. Allegories was now a childish character, while deduction triumphed.

The conclusion of the enlightenment was that of myths being childish absurdities. The ancient men of a golden past were reduced to children as other cultures were savage and folk medicine reduced to witchcraft.

The “savages” of the enlightenment could not only have been found in faraway cultures; the old pagan religion was still alive with its folkloric medicinal practice, word-magic and aetiological stories. But the holistic practitioners of Europe were killed and eliminated. A rhizomatic choir fomented the mythological landscape of the enlightenment: a self hatred that averted and violated one's own ancestral roots, in the name of the "correct truths".

The political landscape changed dramatically throughout Europe, after the release of the book the Witch Hammer,- a book that prophesied bonfires,torture and public executions, the very rite of passage that created the contemporary image of the witch. Only tortured does she exist. The peoples of europe sustained her myth through rites of exorcism: embodying and performatively signifying diabolism - a refound image of the devil that would justify the natural woman's relation to nature as evil: a myth seeded from the church through missionary work with their detailed torture techniques that would provide "scientific proof" of pacts with the devil .

The mythological landscape conditions our ability to react. The deep structures of myth reveal codes; sociological, cosmological or nationalist and many more codes that condition our moral and guidance. How we react to the various challenges of today is dependent on the myths we sustain collectively. The artist does not react to reality, but creates their own. Thus seeds new imaginaries into existence. Similarly, the healer does the same as she seeds an image of health onto the patient. As the collective sustains ritual that verifies the common myth, the artist and healer teaches rituals to embody the new paradigms. The make-real in the performatic act is the ritual that seeds new pathways.

The ancient Greeks called remembrance mnemonic art. To drink of the nectar, to acquire divine memory- opposed to drinking of the river of Lethe- of forgetfulness, such as forgetting one's history. Through mileena, the origin of time was sacred. Something shifted, as we rather look towards a promised future, we forget our birth and the womb, that becomes the motherwound. How do we heal, mother? How do we heal mother?

And where do we look, to which trails and what archetypes can we lean on? What myths will create new imaginaries towards the balance between the nature of things?

The analogue mind understands these new relations. The heart of the ritual. The ritual dimension sustains the myth of the archetypal beyond the present moment and beyond human.

Venn, hva, vann, hva vil du si ? Jeg kaller deg venn, vann. Water, what, water, what way? Water I call you, warm, I call you, River-mother.

Has time matured to yet again consider sacred relations?

The ritual recreates an a-temporal dimension and reverence to the all-inclusive present moment.

The analogue mind traces back to its origin, like a geomantic pattern, that the shaman, the artist, the child and the natural man and woman can read. The answers to today's problematic situations may not lie in a debate about risks of living or survival, but in an unrelated book, in a completely other way of Seeing Life.

There is only one sacred book, that of the ever expansive nature and its deeply embedded code of union, which is found within its inherent spiraled structures, for the one who can See.

We seek to see- through play with plants, prayer, circular techniques and archival research. With great care for the questions, the subtle and the symbolic reality in channeling new ways of communication. By no means we mean religion in the sense of its institutions. While the planet hunger for reunion, religion-reconnection should be used in its actual meaning. The deeper code of the sacred space is union. As we construct our mythological landscape, we move through a common ground, a third space- elevated as a sacred mountain. The ritual and the performative act is the make-real of the invisible mountain.

Together we initiate us into an ideal landscape, we baptize us in its waters. We reconstruct symbolic order with the intention of hacking the institutions that need profound cleansing and relational reordering. Cleansing is a subtle art and art is central in the psycho-magical act.

We have come here to heal the evil-eye onto pantheistic practice, the oneness of the ecosystem. We aspire a golden relation to existence, the legacy of a golden past; our birth. In memory of the water; a circular dimension, how we handle our past- is our future.

We have come here to weave new praxises for the sustenance of a new mythological landscape that sustains the code of oneness. Our universe is retracting as we become One planet by globalization. The collective is only in the totality of all collectives; mineral, human, animal, spiritual, vegetal, the visible and the invisible. Our motherwound is healed by drawing the circle. The choir is joining.We call them to us. We call you.

[freechoicedreamer]

Body and Soul (Ch. 4)

AO3

Opening Theme

“ Both shadow and persona are archetypes that affect behavior towards others and ourselves which can result in betrayal, shame, guilt and remorse. In other words, can cause suffering.

First a brief definition of shadow: it includes all the repressed content that is in the personal unconscious as well as unconscious material from the collective unconscious. It includes unacceptable components of psyche whether those be dark affects like envy and anger and fear or lighter aspects that were not available to us as we developed.

Persona is the second archetype that can give rise to betrayals, particularly of ourselves. In simplest language, persona is like a social mask. When it is working in concert with our authentic selves, it is a presentation of that authentic self in ways that are appropriate to the situation one is in. When it is not the presentation of authenticity, it comes closest to the psychoanalytic concept of the false self.  It develops primarily because of others’ expectations, especially when the infant’s or small child’s needs and feelings are encroached on by the adult caregiver’s needs. The false self is the self that is fabricated because of social compulsions.

Guilt is a cognitive or an emotional experience that occurs when a person realizes, whether accurately or not that he or she has compromised his or her own standard of behavior and bears significant responsibility for that violation.  Guilt’s strength lies not in the failure of others to grant forgiveness, but in our failure to forgive ourselves. Shame, on the other hand, is a painful emotion that can, like guilt, result from a comparison with one’s standards and one’s behavior, but the more damaging shame comes from the feeling that one is so bad and so damaged that one really has no real right to existence.  This latter type of shame, called by some, primary shame, is the result of early childhood injury either from abandonment, parental disengagement, or childhood abuse - sexual, physical or emotional. Healing from this type of shame requires an understanding that responsibility for the transgression lies outside one’s self.  Self-understanding and self-forgiveness are required.”

(Julie Bondanza, On Betrayal, Shame, Guilt and Remorse)

*

Storybrooke, the Fairies' Convent

For the fairies, time is an abstraction that becomes concrete in face of the cycles of nature, which they have guarded for eons. In particular, for each flower species, flowering cycles are measured at the small branches of the delicate fairy wings that protect them, and each line of the intricate tissue accumulates, at the level of its molecular structure, the entire history of that botanical species. Throughout the history of mankind, fairies, also associated with stars, have always been present, witnesses of countless adventures and misadventures of civilizations in apogee and decay. For men time passes, for Faeries men pass, but the cycles of life and death remain unchanged. Or they used to remain, until now. Now, even for the Fairies there are no certainties anymore.

The Lilac Fairies live with the gods at Olympus, though some of them often come to Earth on a special mission. Today, with a massive peril threatening both Earth and Olympus, the gods sent a special delegation to Storybrooke, led by Lavender-lady, and another delegation to the Enchanted Islands, led by Lily-of-the-valley, to organize and assist two work fronts: one next to Blue and Wish-Blue and the other next to Tiger Lily and Wish-Tiger Lily.

“So,” says Lavender-lady introducing the other fairies to Blue and Wish-Blue, “here with me came Angel White, Primrose, Sensation, Petunia, Purple-flash, Verbena, Peach-leaf, and Bell-flower. To the Enchanted Islands Lily took with her: Clematis, Vista, Salvia, Summer-snapdragon and Veronica. We came to share what the gods know, so far, and to help you in organizing the protection and resistance groups.”

"It's a relief that you can join us," Blue replies, after greeting the fairies and inviting them to sit in the convent meditation room, "there are so many gaps about the threat that it has been more complicated to organize a more combative defense scheme. With what we already know, we have been able to move forward, but there is still a lot of work to do.”

“Tell us what you already know then we will fill as many gaps as we can, based on what we already know. No secrets here.” Lavender asks.

…

“Well,” Lavender sighs, “From what you’ve just told us, I have to say that we bring more worrying news, I'm afraid. As previously explained by Persephone to Zelena and Chad, the merciless Titans' secret of bodies' cloning, registered in the Mysteries & Secrecies book, was stolen by Cruella and, according to what was later revealed by a condemned soul that betrayed the rebellion, Cruella shared her new knowledge with Pan, only, before their escape from Tartarus with more than 2-k condemned souls. On their way through the Mourning Fields they enlisted circa of 3.5-k souls and now there's a total of nearly 6-k rebels, apparently nowhere to be seen. Despite being hidden, we suspect that they managed to retransmit the cloning spell to Wish Pan and Wish Cruella and that has likely been done across one of the few Underworld's connections with the Upperworld. We don’t know for sure but there are strong evidences pointing to that suspicion. So, the possibility that their accomplices on Earth are in possession of two spells - the one of cloning human bodies and the one of cutting off the gods' immortality source - is high. That's because from the same traitor soul we've been given important pieces of information. I mean, besides stealing the Mysteries & Secrecies book, he told us that, before being sent to Tartarus, Cruella had also explored the Dead Ambrosia Garden ruins and... there she found an ancient scroll describing a ritual based on a recipe, also written in the scroll, for drying the ambrosia orchard at Olympus. The gods connected the dots and figured out that, ashore, Wish Pan and Wish Cruella, while touring the dungeons of Wish Rumple’s Castle, might have discovered the hidden underground net of tunnels that links the mountain, where the castle sits, with the Underworld rivers and, also, with Mount Olympus' Fountain of Youth, from which the gods extract the water for preparing their Ambrosia Nectar – the source of their immortality.”

“Do we know this traitor soul?” Wish Blue asks fearing the answer.

“You probably do. You know his brother, David Nolan. Apparently, James Nolan used to be Cruella’s main partner in depraved activities but after their escape from Tartarus she has exchanged him for Pan, who became the new inseparable and it seems, now, exclusive partner of hers. Disgusted at being deprived, James isolated himself from the rebels and sought refuge at the Mourning Fields, when the rebels were crossing it. There, he contacted the guardians of this Underworld sector and was taken to Persephone’s Golden Palace. The soul of his brother, Wish James, who was in the Lethean Fields, was located and prepared for talking to him. As all souls in the Lethean Fields, Wish James had drunk the waters of river Lethe but Persephone’s magic restored his memory. Wish James was quite successful in persuading James to confess his crimes and to quit his hunger for revenge, at least temporarily but, we hope, for good. Persephone took pity on him and now, in quarantine in the palace’s dungeons for an assisted and prolonged detox season, James has cried nonstop since his confession, ashamed and guilty...”

“What a sad story,” Blue laments.

“Indeed,” Lavender agrees, “but maybe for James Nolan there is still hope. Though he is suffering now, his sad story is in fact a miracle, a rare opportunity for his redemption in the future, which can no longer be said for other rebellious souls. James will suffer for a long time, but salvation may come to him, sooner or later. Through new chances of reincarnation without the low tricks the rebels devise, he can still come to the Light."  

"There is a lot to process in these statements of yours,” Wish Blue comments. “Is there more?”

“Yes, and this time it comes from the gods themselves, from Morpheus, more precisely.” Lavender proceeds to explain. “Despite not understanding the whole process yet, Morpheus, the god of Dreams, has detected part of the rebels’ plot through the ominous activities of Wish Pan and Wish Cruella. Once he identified the threat those two represent, he went to Olympus to warn its inhabitants about their plots, and in parallel he is now working on his own plan with his two brothers. He told me that they are seeking the most efficient way to warn the mortals about the developments in the Underworld, as the rebels advance. He mentioned something about communicating with the mortals using werewolf dreams because for them the barriers that separate the dream and waking worlds are weaker.”

With a sad smile, Lavender concludes her speech to an attentive audience: “these are all the news we brought, dear sisters. Beyond that is mere speculation but before starting the Sijainti (*Location) ceremony I can describe in more detail how the cloning magic works. This will help you in understanding the purpose of the rites we are about to perform.”

…

Positioned in a circle, the fairies are initiating their concentration for performing a powerful magic rarely used in all eons of their existence. Before the rite, properly, they need an individual preparation by cleaning their auras of any stains of darkness, accumulated in their long past, which may be hidden in some fold of their wings. Fairies from Haven and Earth - the later in wish and non-wish versions, including  Nova and Wish Nova (married to Grump and Wish Grump), Tink and Wish Tink (with restored wings), Glinda (from Oz), and all fairies/nuns of the convent – are gathered, least the ones that flew to the Enchanted Islands to perform the same ritual that will empower them for flying out over the Enchanted Sea.

…

The cleaning session took almost all day because not only each Fairy had to confess her malpractices; after each confession the others needed to chant specific cleaning mantras for each type of fault until they were certain that all accumulated dirt had been removed from the wings. Apparently all fairies had accumulated stains of guilt and shame. The last one to close the circle was Blue. To clean her aura Blue brought in the open many strains of her wings: she has lied, despite claiming to Rumpelstiltskin that fairies don't lie, when she told Snow White and Prince Charming, at Gepetto’s insistence, that the magic tree could only protect one person from the Dark Curse, when, in actuality, it could save two. Also when Rumpelstiltskin asked her if a curse can be used to travel to the Land without Magic, she said no, even though she witnessed the creation of the Dark Curse in person. She was also aware of how the Black Fairy turned dark since she witnessed it, despite telling Belle that "no one knows exactly".

…

Ready to perform the enchantment, the fairies hold hands, locked in a circle, flapping their wings in sync. After starting a choir of mantras, from their magic wands attached to their heads by means of a tiara, a rainbow of fairy dust is sprayed into the room, transforming the suspended molecules created by all fairy confessions into tiny gray arrows. The more the fairies sing their chants, the longer and thicker the arrows become until all matter generated by their confessions is condensed into quite distinguishable pointed vectors, all positioned in the center of the circle. At this point, the fairies release their hands but, maintaining the circle formation and the synchronized flapping of their wings, they start to fly counter clockwise, initially slowly, then at a fast and accelerated speed, circling the center where the arrows are. With the thrust of their flight, the arrows begin to rise in the air in a helix-like structure spiraling upward until, suddenly, tilting towards the main window of the hall they fly out the window in all directions.

…

After the ceremony, the fairies flew in all directions of the United Realms following the locators of dark magic radiation sources, enchanted to locate the places that can be used to store cloned bodies (still hibernating bodies: soul voids but not life voids).

Once located, ground teams will try to magically isolate the places. The nearest sources are in the convent neighborhood: the mansion where Cruella stayed during her short period in Storybrooke, and the old residence of Mr. Gold, aka as Rumpelstiltskin, and his wife Belle.

Greater Storybrooke, Wish Jolly Roger

“So here is the plan, my loyal shipmates. When you return, about three days from now, I’ll join you for a new mission. Until then, we will keep in touch by radio. In my absence, W. Smee assumes the post of captain. Mr. Smee will sail the other Jolly Roger and the two ships will remain close to each other in the same route. My brother is right now giving these same instructions to his crew. For our ship the crew has increased a little bit and the same happened in the other Jolly – but not too much because we need as many free space as possible to accommodate with safety as many people as possible. In our case, besides Bill Wyatt and Kevin Smith, who will travel accompanied by their wives, there are two more sailors joining you: Bryson Taylor and Eli Moore. Wyatt’s kids are already young adults and cannot go so they will remain in Storybrooke, waiting for the inland gathering calls to start.”

“Your mission will be to sail straight to the Enchanted Archipelago; they are the populated islands of the realms and their only two big buildings adequate to operate as safe shelters will have to be isolated because they're hosting clones. There you'll meet Tiger Lily and Wish Tiger Lily, who will help you to gather all inhabitants of the villages and will travel back with you to assist the arrangements for accommodating the passengers on the ships.  Bring as many people below 40 years old as the Jollys stand. Actually, your mission is to bring everybody below 40, our girls are strong, do not leave anyone behind. If necessary, save only the food and leave the excessive cargo in the islands. If need be, ask Nemo for help, the Nautilus’ capacity is smaller but you can share the load with them.”

“We discussed the need, on your way back, to pass by Hearty Island and Carnation Island, I suggested your ship for the detour towards south because most of you have already been there and know those waters. However, considering the high demographics of passengers, we ended up deciding against the idea of going there just for a check since we already know they are not inhabited. With the help of Triton, his daughters and Ursula we may quickly scan those quarters later, during the next mission to which my brother and I will be joining the two Jollys’ crews. Therefore, remember: Mr. Smee will always sail near you, captaining the other Jolly, with the same mission as yours. By radio, you will also be in contact with Captain Nemo, who will be navigating under the sea.”

“Any doubt?”

…

The two brothers walked along the docks until the concrete bench where Killian used to go with Emma in search of a horizon to open up new angles for their perception and bring the calming breath of the ocean. Key took with him the battery charger, which is solar-powered, and they are now recharging their prosthetic batteries. Sharing a flask of rum, they sit there, rarely talking, just looking ahead into the width of the open sea.

…

"I'm grateful to Poseidon for healing you from your addiction, your alcoholism. Back in time, when she returned from the Wish Realm, Emma tried to convince me to stop drinking, did you know that?" Killian tells Key with a grin, without taking his eyes off the horizon.

“Aye, she told me once, and you mentioned something when we first met… We both have a great deal of gratitude to Zeus and Poseidon. The same cannot be said for the other family member, their brother Hades..."

“Definitely not… Zeus and Poseidon are at the top in their lineage. You know, not all brothers are like the Brothers Jones…” Killian replies with a mix of humor and nostalgic feelings. Key just nods, searching, beyond the horizon, for distant memories guarding their brother Liam.

…

“How was it, Killian? How was it in your heart? I'm not referring to your physical core, since you didn’t have one at that moment, but to your spiritual heart. How was meeting Liam in the Underworld? The love I feel for him is the same love you feel for him, as the magic that created the wish and non-wish ‘us’ happened after his death. We share the pain of losing him but not the joy of meeting him again… You see, I’m not envying you, I’m proud of parts and ashamed of other parts of my journey from the moment our paths diverged. My path has its unique ups and downs, its unique redemption journey after a unique past of villainy. Past I'm not proud of but it's part of the unique story that brought me here and made me what I am today: a United Realms citizen, Emm’s husband, the father of Alice and of two babies to come…. I- just wish I could know the feeling of meeting him too, you know?”

“I can imagine your burden... as you said, we share the same intense love for him - and the same regret for not being able to stop that idiot from being so stubborn. I’m not sure if I can put it into words but I’ll try… you ask me what it was like meeting him again… Well, it was an immeasurable joy in seeing our brother but... To the joy shortly thereafter followed a mixture of anguish and disappointment. First, the disappointment: the golden idol, the man who put the bar of honesty, integrity and incorruptibility so high that we would never be able to reach it, became a clay idol. Then the anguish, the despair on the brink of the abyss that leads to hell. And there, at the lowest point, I felt the overcoming and the clay idol became a man in his true size and grandeur: a good man. Our brother Liam spent hundreds of years in the Underworld because of his guilty, he was ashamed and felt like having a debt with us that wouldn't allow him to move on, to move upstairs...”  The two little brothers chuckle and look up to the clouds, imagining their big brother looking at them from upstairs. “Throughout our childhood and youth, Liam raised the bar of virtue and heroism to his height, and we grew up cultivating the idea that we could never reach that level. Physically, in fact, we did not grow as much as he did, but the rule of virtue he used was not honest. While we got lost in gambling and drinking, to be an example of dignity for us Liam corrupted himself and kept this secret from us. After I finally met the truth, on the brink of the precipice, Liam decided to sacrifice himself to save my soul from the cruelest fate. At that moment my spiritual heart vibrated at the frequency of survival, which I cannot explain or define, it is something of our nature I guess, I’m sure you know what I mean… "

"Of course I do, it’s our second skin, we may kind of joke about that sometimes but deep down our survivor nature is part of what we are..."

"Exactly, it was as if through me flowed a magic pulling force that prevented Liam from falling into the abyss, and at the same time as if the gods, who judge the souls, witnessing our pain took pity of our suffering and decided to be Just. What I felt, at that moment, the strength of Forgiveness, mutual forgiveness, forgiveness of myself, I think Liam felt too. At that it followed the farewell, our goodbye. Somehow with melancholy but also carrying a promise that in the transience of life no goodbye is final, I saw Liam setting sail on a ship, Captain Liam Jones finally back to the 7 heavenly seas where he has always belonged..."

"Thank you, Killian, for bringing these tears to my eyes," Key wipes his eyes with a tissue and smiles. “In the midst of the uncertainties and anguish we are experiencing, these tears, in particular, are tears of joy, tears of love for the idiot of our brother…”

"If he's watching our conversation on some of those transcendental screens that, it seems, they have in Paradise, our big brother must be really pissed off at the affectionate terms we use to refer to him ..." Killian comments and they both laugh inwardly.

“But he was an idiot…”

“That he was!” Killian giggles. “And then, as if to compensate for his past mess by creating a new mess, our father gave us another brother Liam…” Killian adds after a pause.

“You mean, two Liams!!” Key corrects him.

“Aye, two Liams, from two Brennans: Liam Junior and Liam Senior… At least they cooperated with us and did not use the rejuvenating magic so popular among wish and non-wish people, it is easy to distinguish who is who. At least, after all, they both found a good father-model: a redeemed Nemo and a redeemed version of Brennan,” Killian sighs.

“I never told you, but I understand the feeling that moved you, Killian, the revolt in finding out that our father named another son with the name of our Liam, after everything he had done to us, to Liam. I think that, in the same circumstances, I would have done the same.”

“I went out of my mind when I heard him saying to the boy the same words he said to me – that is, to us, hours before trading Liam and us for a boat, selling us as slaves in the process, and abandoning us on that ship. I was going to help him escape but I lost my mind seeing him with Liam and I’m not proud of that moment of weakness; it is actually one of my deepest regrets, something like a bad writing of who was in charge of writing our story, I mean ourselves. At the same level of guilty - bad writing guilty - for having murdered David's father, among other crimes. "

"Hate blinded us, Killian, you and I both know that very well and learned this lesson in the hardest ways possible. Remorse is a heavy burden for any soul to carry. But Forgiveness is redeeming and liberating. Forgiveness has a savior property.”

“I just wish I could apologize to our father, or better saying the version of our father I killed.”

“He probably has moved on, probably has forgotten all of that, and if he did not forget, I’m sure he already forgave you, the same way we both forgave Wish Brennan,” Key comforts his brother.

“Talking about regret, another one I have, actually, not exactly regret since it wasn't my fault, but I resent having missed the opportunity to meet Milah in the Underworld.” Killian confesses. “At least now we know that she has moved on and is in heaven, close to her sons, her wish and non-wish sons.”

…

“Do you know what I have just realized?” Key asks, after a silent pause. “I’m here connecting some dots. Zelena told us about how Persephone, by helping Arthur to free some souls from the river of lost souls –unwillingly created the opportunity for this whole rebellion of dark souls in the Underworld to happen… That means that the two stories are connected, our Milah and a few others are behind the moment Cruella took the opportunity to rescue malign entities, inclusive Pan!”  

“The liberation of Milah is a price worth paying. Her freedom and of other souls who did not deserve that horrible fate, victims of the cruelty of Hades and Rumple, at least in her case, is a price worth paying. As for Pan, we know him well enough to fight and beat him. Our old acquaintance Pan is still causing harm from hell, as old and malign as his wish version haunting around in the Upperworld,” Killian completes.

“Two demons… I’m not sure about that devil soul’s magic powers but, at least one of them, Wish Pan, possesses magic ability of invisibility which means he can be doing his wronging anywhere without being seen,” Key remembers.

“You are right, two demons threatening all realms … our wives, our kids… And you and I know them; we do know that one of them may be right now working his dark magic really close to where we are. We can’t let them, Key, we won’t let them get the final word, I swear, we won’t let them. We know these two demons quite well and we will defeat them.”

“They have in their favor the utter lack of scruples, intrinsic to darkness in the lowest frequencies, which usually allows a faster action, and a concentrated dose of venom in their sneaky tongs, which may shamelessly spread discord and disunion. But we have in our favor the strength of the highest frequencies vibrating in unison, as a collective spirit that will make us stronger and, also, the fundamental fact that no darkness can withstand the intensity of Light for too long…”

“We also have more magic; ours is light magic powered by the strongest force: love, which is much more than they will ever have… Talking about magic, have I told you how Hope called Emm?”

“No, you haven’t.”

“She said that Emm is, I quote, “the Aligner”, in other words, while my Emma is the Savior, yours is the Aligner. She also said that you and I, as Survivors, have magic power coming from the sky and from the sea. I think that part of this is my daughter’s fantasy, but I’ve learned to not underestimate what she says, Hope is a surprisingly accurate seer, so...  What do you think?”

"I think you just puzzled me, because Emm has repeatedly mentioned that our job is to align the lives of those who vibrate in the frequencies of light, peace and love into the 'here and now'. As for the magic of the Survivors, I don't know, maybe our survival instinct is magic by itself, but I need to think more about it.”

"Speaking of our wives and children, it’s past lunch time, which means… time to go home; besides, the batteries are already recharged," Killian stands up, searching for his car keys. "Want a ride back to the loft?"

"Aye, I had planned to walk but I’ll take the ride. My car is with Emm, who brought me here. Thank you, brother."

"The loft is on my way, no problem at all. So … Emm is already driving alone? I’m impressed." Killian asks admiringly.

"Aye, easily learned, she is a natural pro..."

…

The two brothers keep talking while walking into the parking lot, their batteries recharged, in more than one sense, and their souls lighter from the weight of past regrets, now dissipated into the horizon landscape.

Storybrooke, Cruella's House

In a circumspect silence, the four people head to the mansion once briefly occupied by Cruella. Since her death the house has remained closed although it has been placed in the Storybrooke real estate market for sale or rent. From time to time a housekeeping crew comes in to clean it up and wipe out the mice and grooves that insist on making it their permanent home. Back in time, although Cruella, Maleficent, and Ursula used to plot and conspire at a log cabin in the woods, Cruella did not relinquish a mansion in the upscale Storybrooke area, "resembling the place that witnessed my diabolical person's arrival into this world," she used to tell her accomplices. Nowadays, for Mal and Ursula those villainous times are over and they finally earned what they sought: a happy ending. For Cruella, however, the replica of Deville's Manor, owned by Rumple, represented luxury, the ostensive and questionable exuberance of an aristocracy based on appearances, and the few times she occupied the residence were enough to impregnate it with her dark energy.

…

"Tell me Emma, what was the explanation on the cloning magic given by the lilac fairy, what's her name again?" Maleficent asks as they approach the mansion’s main gate.

“Lavender,” Emma responds. ”Her name was Lavender but, hang on please… Dad, Mom, wait!” Emma calls David and Snow, walking a few meters ahead of them. They stop in their track and sit in the garden bench at their daughter’s request. “Before continuing, I’m not sure how much you’ve heard of Tink’s explanations and I want to make sure that we are all on the same page.”

"Well, Emma," Snow begins, "we are aware that James' soul reported activities of thousands of fugitives from Tartarus and Mourning Fields. We are also aware of the fairies’ ritual which resulted in the location of various places in all realms - residences, in general, and a few castles - with potential to house the clones casted by W-Pan and W-Cruella in association with the rebel souls. And this house, in particular, Cruella’s ex-house, is one of these places. We also know that our mission is to spray its outer and inner walls with the potion prepared by the fairies and given to the teams - formed by at least two magic practitioners, responsible for isolating the places pointed by the arrows. Ah, and we can’t touch the clones without gloves. Is there anything else we don't know?"

“Yeah, Mom, there are a few more relevant facts that I’ll share with you.” Emma and Mal approach them and sit in another bench close to theirs. “First, we can sit here, in these benches, because even though you didn't know, fortunately, these benches are more than 3 meters from the outer walls of the house and besides, between them and our skins our clothes protect us. Therefore, from this point, you know: no skin contact with anything in the house. You might ask - as I asked, if our clothes and shoes would have to be incinerated, and the answer is no, there is no need. The effect of the cloning spell is not transmitted to any other matter – only skin, so we can later touch our garments that will be in contact with the sources detected by the enchanted arrows."

Apparently feeling great discomfort, David closes his eyes, shaking his head, desolate.

“Dad, are you alright?” Emma asks concerned as Snow caresses her husband's back, trying to comfort him.

“Not much, my dear. Of course, this whole situation is complex, challenging, risky and scary. I was - I am - prepared for all of that. But I wasn't emotionally prepared for the sad story of my brother, or rather my brothers, considering James's Wish version.”

“David…” Snow tries to speak but he cuts her.

“I know, Snow, none of this is my direct fault. I know that. But that doesn’t prevent me from feeling somehow guilty, I should have tried harder to talk to him in the Underworld, instead I let jealousy dominate me, I don’t know anything anymore…”

“David, I was going to say that I should have controlled myself too, you were not the only one out of your mind with James, but envy and jealousy were dominant in our interactions with him. Most importantly, for me, I should feel as guilty as you, or even more, after all he tricked me. In that passage, none of us had the insight, or the self-control to think better. Mostly James, he was guided by dark instincts."

"He's my brother Snow; there was a time in our lives when we were inseparable friends and I loved him, deep down, I still do. Fate was very cruel to James."

“You are doing a lot for him, David,” Snow reassures him with a sad smile, “with your love, you are making the difference between the salvation of his soul and the eternal condemnation to suffer in hell. Remember what Tinker told us, it may take a lot of time, many reincarnations, but he will heal, his soul has escaped a tragic end, my love, you must believe that.”

"Dad, when Killian came back from the Underworld, when he resurrected and reunited with me, knowing Robin's fate, he said this same sentence: Fate is cruel - but… I don't know, I really don't know. In my experience life has taught me that we make our destiny through our choices. We all suffered and still suffer the effects of cruel actions – see this whole crisis we are in; what differentiates us from people like James is how we react to these actions and their consequences."

"About that I understand quite well," Mal enters the conversation. "You see, you are talking about Fate but, by a curious plotting of Fate and Destiny, here we are, the four of us, in a team, working together as a group aiming at a common good. It’s really ironic, considering the serious disagreements that have crossed our destinies, mine and yours, David and Snow, and the destinies of our daughters. We all carry our burden of guilt and regret because we all have suffered the cruelty of Fate. Emma is right; from the moment we made the right choices Fate wasn't so cruel to us. Fate even plotted to gather us here, in this group of four, to perform a risky job in Cruella’s house."

“It really is ironic, Mal, especially considering that I am responsible for Cruella being sent to the Underworld, in the first place.” Emma sighs, head down, but quickly recomposes and picks up the skein. “You know... this is a past that I don't regret. I carry lots of regrets, but not this one. For instance, it's still hard for me to accept my inconceivable, insensitive and out of character behavior towards Killian when he was mortified for having realized who my grandfather's murder was..."

"We'd rather not start to list past regrets," Snow sighs, thinking on how unfair she was with Killian, in the beginning, and also with Emma in many occasions, some of them when she opted to unfairly support Regina instead of her daughter.

"You're right, mom, these are past stories. What I need to reproduce now are Lavender's explanations. According to her, all of us have been cloned, no matter our age: under or over 40, that doesn’t matter. This powerful spell is related to the geographic area it covers, once the area is demarcated every human being within its boundaries will be cloned. The same applies to the Olympus, if it is demarcated. As W-Pan and W-Cruella have already demarcated the United Realms, we must be prepared to find many clones in hibernation in the places located by the enchanted arrows. The rule ‘a soul for another soul’ can now be applied the moment someone dies. In principle, the clone would be a backup body for the dead but that wouldn't be straightforward and wouldn't avoid a time slot long enough for a soul from hell to enter the clone. Of course, the souls aren't interested on old people's bodies because once incarnated they would be subject to a shorter life cycle. So, obviously, their main target are young bodies and that's an extra reason to protect the youngers: no matter their age – they may be babies - the evil souls will preserve their evil persona.”

“This is monstrous!” Snow exclaims, shocked.

“Exactly, and there is no guarantee that we will be able to completely isolate these places, though we'll try and will do our best. The castles will require extra effort because of their huge size, so the teams working on them are bigger than ours and a few others, responsible for 4-5 rooms’ residences like  this one. With the potion that we will spray on the walls of these places, we will prevent – hopefully – any soul to cross their walls aiming at inhabiting a cloned body. Last, but not least, we can never, ever, touch the cloned bodies with our skin because that may trigger unexpected effects that not even the Fairies or the gods know about and are not willing to learn. So… I think we are ready to proceed now.”

David, Emma, Snow and Mal stand up and walk in silence towards the house carrying with them a bag with a lot of sprays of magic potion. They are aware that with every step they take, they are getting closer to the real battle. The preparations are ending and the final fight is coming.

Storybrooke, the Elders' House

“Granny,” Killian tries to soften the old lady's disappointment, “I’m really sorry but there is nothing we can do to avoid this house to remain closed for as long as this crisis still remains. In the meantime, you may relocate your restoration work to the Apprentice Mansion; it is much larger and can accommodate you and all your friends.”

“Mrs. Lucas, both of you,” Key approaches them, “I am sure that you will be able to adapt well to the new circumstances. Actually you will be much needed for the logistics of our arrangements. We rely on the elders’ abilities –in your case, for example, your cooking abilities, promptness and, most importantly, relatively higher freedom degree. In every corner of the United Realms the Elders are right now being asked to organize into Councils and to remain together. Here in Storybrooke, three other groups like yours are being formed, and because you are not the target victims of the rebel souls, you will be able to move more freely among shelters. The Dragon and Nemo are working on the wireless devices that all of us will use to communicate and we expect to distribute them very soon. The collaboration of all the elderly will be critical to the success of our Body & Soul Operation. "

“We do understand, Killian, Key. And, obviously, you can count on us, although I'm a little sad that it has to be this way," Granny laments. “You see, my sister and I were completing the renovation of the 4 bedrooms to suit our present and future needs, starting with installing an elevator and a rolling chair on the stairs. We do not plan to retire completely, the diner's activities will  continue because they're part of our lives and we love it too much. But we're leaving the hotel business. Storybrooke has grown and needs modern and larger hotels. In view of that, we decided to accept the gift from Gideon, who has transferred his father's properties to all tenants residing on them. The only exceptions were this house, where he used to come in vacations with his parents when he was a child and, it seems, the house where Cruella lived for a while, both empty. However, as Gideon is no longer living here and doesn’t plan to move back, he wanted to find a good use to his parent’s house too. So, one day, having lunch at the diner, he overheard our talk about moving into a more comfortable house and decided to present us with his old residence. Since then, we've been working on the renovations.”

“We've already given it a name! We call it The Happy Elder’s House, did you know that?” Entering the conversation with a loving and humorous tone of voice, Wish Granny asks Alice and Zelena, who have just joined the group standing in front of two houses: the Golds home and its neighbor’s house, Sir Morgan’s (father of Violet) residence.

Zelena and Alice, who were just talking to Key, approached the group with their heads bowed, wrapped in thoughts. However, the loving manner of the old ladies quickly soothed and touched them both, sparking in them a small flame of gossip about the unfolding lives of the elders. Always a curious, Zelena answers the two ladies and asks back: “I didn’t know, I guess neither Alice. Interesting… So, tell me, in total, how many residents were planning to live in the two elders’ mansions, that is, the Apprentice's house and the happy one here?”

“Hmmm, let me think, help me here sister,” Wish Granny starts to count. “Let’s see: So far we have you and me, Gepetto, Dragon – count on him just as an eventual guest, because he never stays too long in any place, Moe, Jack, Grandmother Fa and Jiminy….”

“You are forgetting Brennan; remember that we have invited him to join us when he mentioned, in the diner, that he was thinking about retiring and he said yes… Ah! And there is also Wish Johanna, who was Wish Snow’s former maid!” Granny adds.

“I know a few of these people you mentioned but… Who is who, Mrs. Lucas?” Alice interrupts them. “Starting from… Moe?”

“Call me Granny and my sister you call Wish Granny, my dear Alice. Now, about your question, very well,” Granny sighs. “I suppose you all know Dragon, Gepetto and Brennan, to be precise, Wish Brennan but you don’t need to use the pronoun because the other Brennan is already dead, and Johanna, again without using Wish - at least I guess you’ve heard about her. So, Moe is Maurice French, Belle’s father. Jack is Wish Apprentice – he is blind but with a very powerful magic and really wise. Fa is Mulan and Wish Mulan’s grandmother. She was saved by the Dragon, who found her frozen but not dead in a cave of the Chinese Village.”

Cutting her sister, Wish Granny intervenes. “I think an explanation is required here, then I’ll open a parenthesis: Fa was not duplicated during the Wish Realm creation because in the past, when Mulan and her people were magically teleported to the Enchanted Forest through the Earth’s grid, she was accidentally inoculated with drops of a sleeping curse and disappeared into the ground so that her granddaughters couldn’t find her. I’ll close the parenthesis here, sis, you may continue…”

“Right, thanks,” Granny goes on. “So, Fa stayed in a casket, kept in that cave, and only a few years ago was found by the Dragon and brought to Wish Mulan and Wish Red’s house. More recently she was awakened by a true love kiss. Sometimes she spends a season with Wish Mulan, sometimes visits her other granddaughter, Mulan, in DunBroch. And sometimes, she comes to Storybrooke. In her last visit, she brought her enchanted prince, and since then they are considering living here in Storybrooke with us."

“Stop the press!!” Zelena shouts, really excited. “In this part you both got me: a true love kiss, really? Enchanted Prince? How come we’ve never heard of all of these stories?”

“Well, Zelena, we may be old, but we are alive, you know?” Granny responds with a chuckle. “The story is really fantastic. I will tell you in short. It all started with Archie...” At all interrogation sights, she giggles and continues, “As you all know, Archie chose to remain a man, and by the way, very much in love man, these days…”

“Really?” Wish Granny cuts her sister to ask, interested, “Who is the lady? Is she whom I’m thinking she is?”

“Hmmm… I think…” Granny gossips in a low voice, “Yes! She is Lily, the Dragon, but you keep that just between us, they are really shy about their romance. They are horrible at hiding it, though, the same way as Mal and Zorro, who lives in Westside Storybrooke. Even though they don’t know how to hide it, they try to be quiet discreet about their affair. But we should go back to Fa…. Want to continue, sis?” Granny asks her sister.

“Sure.” Wish Granny responds. “So, let’s go back to Archie. In the past Archie was a cricket but doesn’t want to revert to his cricket persona anymore. However, the same cannot be said about his wish version, which has aged more than him due to a life under fewer dark curses, and chose to remain an old cricket – a very talkative and wise one. (By the way, Killian and Key, you would love to chat with him for hours). But back on track, since the creation of the United Realms, he moved to Storybrooke to live with Archie. So, in one of our granddaughter’s visits to us – I’m referring here to Wish Red, okay? - she got to meet Jiminy, the Wish Cricket, and invited him to spend a time in her house because she remembered that her wife, Wish Mulan, had mentioned that her sleeping grandma loved crickets, back in China. So, after staying with them for a few months, old cricket fell in love with sleeping Fa and kissed her with a true love kiss and… the rest is history!”

“Wow!” both, Zelena and Alice say in unison, smiling dreamily.

“I wonder how a true love kiss works when the lovers did not know each other before one of them got cursed under a sleeping curse…” Zelena murmurs.

“Ask Brennan, next time you see him,” Granny suggests. “He experienced this same situation, he probably knows…”

“Or ask Jimmy and Fa,” Wish Granny complements.

…

While Granny and Wish Granny kept dominating the gossip circle, Killian and Key exchanged so many glances and rolled their eyes so much that their eyeballs almost pulled out to orbit around the sun. Even though they realized what the two old ladies were doing - i.e. easing the tension of the extremely heavy mood after Key transmitted Lavender's instructions to Zelena and Alice - they know that it is time to move on. Now the brothers are exchanging a new type of glances, nodding and discreetly signaling that they need to put an end to the recess time.

Hugging tightly to his daughter, Key sighs deeply before saying as gently as he can: “Alice?”

“Aye, Papa?” she turns to her father already sensing the outcome and restoring her seriousness.

“Star Fish, we need to be ready to enter the house.”

“Zelena,” Killian turns to the red haired woman, “please, take the two Grannys to Sir Morgan’s house. He’s aware of what is going on; besides, Violet and Wish Henry are right now with him, they will help with the ladies. We will stay here, carrying the bag with our sprays, waiting for you to come back, and then we will get there, together.”

“Right,” Zelena nods and gently takes the two old women with her. “I’ll be right back.”

Storybrooke, City Hall

Two General Staff fronts, gathered at the capital's City Hall, worked all day coordinating intense activities throughout the geographic area known as United Realms - practically corresponding to the entire Maine’s area and 2000 nautical miles - proven already delimited by the cloning spell by the amount of cloned bodies that have been found during the day. The first front was responsible for organizing field teams at the places pointed out by the locating arrows, which included the complex logistics of distributing magic potion sprays. They had the help of one dragon (Lily), two airships piloted by Phileas Fogg and Passepartout, and the Nautilus, which delivered, to a team of Nymphs, potions specially prepared to isolate an underwater palace. All potions were produced by the fairies, on a mini-industrial scale, in a makeshift laboratory in the Convent's kitchen. In parallel, the second General Staff was responsible for the creation of 20 Councils of Elders in all quadrants of the realms and in the capital, accommodating the elderly (in average over 75) in houses specially assigned to host them, as well as overseeing the supply of food and transportation they will be assigned to distribute to the Shelters during the curfew.

A third General Staff, coordinating the extensive activities of 3 Shelter groups met at Storybrooke Elementary and Secondary School. Finally, also there, the fourth General Staff worked on two fronts: the first, using the Physics labs of the Secondary School they produced hundreds of small communicating devices and a few other devices employing scientific and technological knowledge; the second one, bringing together a team of wizards and magic practitioners across all realms, supported the creation of a basic infrastructure for the shelters and, in parallel, compiled magic potions, spells and amulets that could be useful for the frontal combat teams. According to the newest reports from the Lilac Fairies, these combat teams will get reinforcements from some gods of Olympus - already without means to produce more immortality nectar and nearing the end of their stock of Ambrosia - and from some luminous souls in bodies temporarily densified to remain on Earth, coming from the Elysium Fields.

At the end of the day, the final reports began to be printed and emailed to all heads of state and groups.

"So Regina," Cindy asks, "What do you think?"

“Overall, everything went according to the planned. So, because of that, first of all, I feel a relief,” Regina replies, looking at several spreadsheets scattered over the long table, “the reports tell us that all demarcations to isolate 2 castles on land and 1 palace undersea, plus 20 residences, occurred without serious incidents, just a few small waves of panic in founding the clones, especially when they recognized their own clones or of their children, and of people who lost their gloves but they used the spare gloves that, fortunately, someone had the brilliant idea to include in the spray kit. I only hope that enough arrows have been generated to point out all sources of dark magic with potential to house the clones, meaning no buildings have been left out. Remind me, in preparing the topics of the pronouncement tomorrow, marking the beginning of Operation B&S Phase 2, to include the warning that everyone should wear gloves as much as possible.”

"Noted," Cindy replies, writing on a tablet.

“Secondly,” Regina continues, “My Split sister, who is working in the Magic Staff, has just called from the School and it seems that the communicating devices are ready, which means that tomorrow morning our special deliverers, with the reinforcement of Dragon and Mal, will be able to distribute them all in the morning. Besides that, from the Magic Staff, Gideon reported that all planned activities have been concluded and he is thinking about investigating a bit more in the underground of his father's antique shop, he will do it tomorrow or the day after tomorrow…”

“But is there still something there? I thought that after the shop closed Gideon had removed all objects and documents that had not yet been returned to their former owners....” Cindy interrupts, to ask.

“I once asked him the same question and, as he explained to me, he wanted to leave some objects behind in case he ever reopens the shop - since Mr. Gold’s Pawnbroker & Antiquities dealer still physically exists although, at the moment, closed - and he didn't see any practical use for them in his new residence, that is, in his father's old castle.”

“And what about the Elders’ Councils?” Cindy keeps asking, always taking notes in her tablet.

“In the final count, there are a total of 20 Councils spread across the realms. By tomorrow the elderly will be already gathered at their headquarters. Care has been taken that in all Councils there are people able to cook and to drive minivans. We didn't have all these vehicles, but with the help of a little magic, the problem was easily solved. Magic practitioners have been working a lot all day, especially in the Shelters for the 3 groups. Virtually all of the housing supplies, including the bed and table infrastructure, were all created with the aid of magic in record time. I haven't seen all the reports yet, but work on the other staff groups gathered at Storybrooke School is far ahead. Amazingly, Emm Sweet has been invaluable, it seems. She has taken on the responsibility of creating, through magic, a series of musical instruments that will be used as recreational activities but also as preparation for eventual collective and simultaneous performances of magic music in all shelters. She didn't explain it well, it seems like she doesn't know very well how this is going to work, but she is doing the work inspired by insights, which we have to respect deeply given the history of her intuition when starting the Sweet Suite process.”

"Very well, my dear Good Queen," Cindy finally sits next to her mother-in-law, stretching her arms and legs and massaging her back, consumed by the strenuous work of the long day, "all considered, we can say that today was exceptionally productive and that Phase 1 of Operation Body & Soul has been completed on schedule."

“So far, no big surprises, but these are the preparations for the battles that haven't really started yet. We know that our enemies do not rest. While for us, rest is important, for the souls there is no day or night. ”

“But Wish Pan and Wish Cruella - as far as we know, the only two living agents on Earth working with the rebel souls - need to rest as much as we do,” Cindy counter argues. “And as for the souls, they also project their energies into the dream world; remember what we’ve been told about Morpheus discovering the dirt activities of Pan and Cruella.”

“Cindy, it just occurred to me: what if it's not just Wish Pan and Wish Cruella? We're not sure, David's intelligence services haven't detected any anomalies, but that doesn't mean they no longer have more villains involved in their Upperworld network. Oh, what a nightmare....”

"Have you been dreaming about Robin, have you talked and met in dreams?"

“Only once, since the crisis began. Robin and I, in a way, by the mysterious magic that allowed his soul to lodge in my heart, share with me what I get to know, so he knows the events, this massive problem. But I've been feeling so tired lately that I can't even dream, or if I dream, I don't remember in awareness of what I dreamed. Maybe I'm meeting him, but I don't remember. In fact, I've been feeling so tired that sometimes I fear like I'm going to lose consciousness and fall into a deep sleep, never waking up again.”

“Regina, you are under enormous pressure. We all are, but you occupy a leadership position that doesn't allow you to relax, and that's not good. Henry and I have been talking a lot about this, we care about you and want to make sure you set aside at least one hour in your fully populated schedule, stop everything you are doing to include this one hour, and go see a doctor. You are visibly downcast; we all care about your wellbeing, several people have noticed and would like you to give yourself a little time to look into the mirror of your eyes, to take care of yourself.”

“It's curious, what you are advising me to do: looking into the mirror is what I always did, what I did the most in my life. But I think you're right, I'm on the brink of a collapse, I really don't know if I'll have the strength to drive the whole Phase 2 process, but let's move on. I promise I'll exchange a few words with Whale. ”

"And today you're staying with us again, Henry and I have made a point - and we won't take no for an answer."

“Thank you, my dear, I love you so much, and I will accept your offer. I'm just going to send a few more messages to the School, it seems the work there is not completely finished yet, but it's almost over and then we can call it a day!”

Storybrooke, Elementary and Secondary School

Night has fallen but the school lights are still on for the final arrangements to be completed. The fluttering of fairy wings echoes through the school corridors, coming and going carrying the communication devices in small scuppers that will be distributed tomorrow. Meanwhile, in the teacher's meeting room, the latest conferences on the monitor lists for all shelters are held and, as it turned out, the number of volunteers exceeded expectations. In the shelters of the youngest children, group A, the parents themselves will be the monitors; in group B, with adolescents and preteens, the monitors will be members of group C reallocated to group B. And in group C there is no need of monitors although the infrastructure to house its hundreds of thousands of occupants is the most complex. Despite the large numbers, the solidarity network has grown exponentially and simplified the coordinating work.

Some coordinators are already in the Shelters, taking care of the latest arrangements. At school are still working: Snow, the two Henrys, Gideon, Elsa, Guinevere, Tiana and Jasmine.

“I know you even joke because I really have as a striking feature the belief in the strength of Hope,” Snow addresses them all. “But I have no other words that can best describe what is happening in the United Realms: much hope that we will overcome this crisis and emerge victorious, stronger and more united. I imagine I am not the only one who has noticed the wave of Love that is spreading in the air; all people are more loving, affectionate, and open. The solidarity that results from this energy is cumulative and growing, really impressive. It is Love being used as the most powerful Magic of all magic. Have you noticed too?”

Everyone agrees with Snow, going over the latest spreadsheets with a dreamy gaze projected on their love ones, all out there, busy, completing the tasks for which they were assigned. Elsa and Gideon exchange furtive glances and smiles.

“Emm is absolutely right,” Gideon then comments, “about using Music as a magic tool. We must keep that in mind. Even in the Land theoretically without Magic, Music finds its way to take Magic there. No matter if the person can’t play any instrument, or sing with a perfectly tuned voice, singing produces what is technically known as endorphins and oxytocin, which for us are simply, both, feel-good hormones. Besides, singing works to help in lowering stress levels and to reduce anxiety – extremely important for all of us, now.”

“It can also boost self-confidence,” Tiana adds.

‘‘Don’t I know that?” Guinevere agrees. “See myself, for example, I love to sing in a choirs but I’ve never felt that much confident to sing solo. A lot of people are so terrified of singing on their own or public speaking, but Emm’s idea of working in a group, with choirs of voices, is fantastic because when we’re in a group the group energy gives everyone that confidence and the result may sound amazing.”

“My Mom has always loved Music, even when she didn’t know it was the main source of her Magic…” Wish Henry tells them. “Now, more than ever, after the Sweet Suite, she praises the power of music in everything that matters for her.”

“A few days ago Hope said that, while her mother is the Savior, her Aunt Emm is the Aligner ,” Elsa confides them, “but she didn’t explain the concept beyond that and Emma and I didn’t push her. You know Hope, when she doesn’t want to talk about something. However, I asked Gideon…” and she looks at him and he nods. She then continues, “He has read about the Aligners in an ancient book, could you share what you have told me, Gideon?”

“Sure,” he answers. “Aligners are a rare group of people responsible for setting special resonant frequencies that induce a lot of people to vibrate collectively, thus enhancing the power of a given magic. I guess these frequencies are related to Music, in Emm’s case. Elsa and I told this to her, this morning, and I think that after processing the information she came out with the inspiring idea of magically creating musical instruments for the shelters, something like forming orchestras everywhere.”

“I remember the concept!!” Henry exclaims. “By coincidence, or maybe not, there is a technical term describing music alignment as a kind of music synchronization. I’ve read about when I lived in Seattle. Technically, for them the alignment refers to interrelate multiple information sets associated to a given musical work, for example, sheet music, symbolic representations and audio recording. So it is taken to mean a procedure which, for a given position in one representation of a piece of music, determines the corresponding position within another.”

“You mean, is it a kind of translation?” Jasmine asks.

“Sort of,” Henry continues. “The synchronization forms the basis for novel interfaces that allow users to access, search, and browse musical content in a convenient way. That is what music alignment means in the Land without Magic. I guess, in the UR, it means much more than that…”

“I agree, it might mean much more than that,” Gideon ponders. “I have yet to research more about this subject, I promised Key and Emm I would look after the issue, but given the emergency we are in, I haven’t had the time to browse in my books. However, I think I could prioritize this search because it may be the difference between our defeat and our victory…”

“I propose that we all sing a song to attract good vibes toward our victory. Our work today is done, and this may already be a good workout for what Emm will propose ... how about?" Snow suggests.

“Could we just hum?” Wish Henry asks. “My Mom loves to sing and is an excellent singer, but I’d rather hum a little, if we want to keep the vibes toward our victory!”

“Which song that would be?” Elsa asks everybody.

“I was thinking about a lullaby,'' Snow explains, “but no music came to my mind…”

“I thought of one,” Gideon tells them timidly, “but I’m not sure if it would set the mood correctly. But it was the one that came to my mind, anyway.”

“And that would be…?” Elsa inquires him seductively, as if encouraging him to share the impulse.

“Since we talked about the Land without Magic, it is in the soundtrack of a movie made there. A real masterpiece, I must say, a fantastic story and… thinking more about this impulse of mine, I have to say that it surely appears to be a message sent from the spiritual plane to us…”

“Stop the suspense, Gideon,” Elsa giggles, “and split it out!”

“Have you watched Pan’s Labyrinth?” Gideon then asks them.

“Of course, I have…!” Henry exclaims. “Man…. You are so right; this movie has everything to do with us.”

“I haven’t watched it,” Snow says and Elsa and Wish Henry nod with her.

“Neither did I,” Jasmine and Guinevere join their group.

“I did.” A thoughtful Tiana whispers, “It’s a great movie with so many interpretations for all tastes - from psychological, sociological or political angles…”

“But mostly,” Gideon adds, “for me, I’m more concerned with the occult symbolism permeating the story with an underlying esoteric story of initiation. It is a kind of parable with numerous references to occult mysteries: full of mythical and archetypal symbolism that fit into a rich story.”

“Yeah…” Henry confirms dreamily, scanning his memory files, “Those archetypal myths and symbols deeply resonate in the collective and personal unconscious, even though people in the Land without Magic do believe that they do not exist in a real, organic sense, as we know they do.”

“You are talking in riddles,” Elsa complains. “What is it about?”

“I’ll try to give you a brief summary while searching here in my playlist for the soundtrack Gideon referred to, the humming part…” Henry says, and prepares to develop his abstract. “Based on the Greek mythology, Pan is a god, a Faun, resembling a man with legs and horns of a goat, a representative of a natural energy, a phallic deity symbolizing the impregnating power of the sun. He sort of becomes the spiritual guide to a girl, named Ofelia, and helps her through an actual and figurative labyrinth she must go through. Despite his monstrous appearance—which leads us, as viewers, to think at first that he is the “bad guy”—he is actually the only being in Ofelia’s life that understands her desire to “become more” and to reach her full potential. The actual “bad guy” in the movie is not the hideous creature, but the cruel step-father.”

“Not exactly the same description applied for the Pans that are threatening us but almost the same regarding this step-father of the movie. And for me and Henry Mills it’s a cross-over impersonating our cruel Great-Grandfathers…” Wish Henry mumbles.

“They are my Grandfathers; I don’t know which is worse…” Gideon replies with a bit of sarcasm.

“The movie story has so many layers...” Tiana resumes the conversation. “Ofelia is given some tasks to accomplish and the first one, I remember well, is to find the Sacred Feminine."

"You know..." Tiana smiles, with a sigh, "among all challenging mysteries that we have endured, many of us here have already experienced the loss of identity caused by a dark curse. Particularly, I'm referring to the kind that can send us to the "land without magic" to live under the skin of another persona - Sabine, in my case. And the more I think about Sabine the more I realize that the real me, the essence of Tiana was always present in Sabine during her journey in Hyperion Heights. Her task, I mean, my task, was actually the rescue of a sacred essence that no dark curse is capable of erasing forever - temporarily, perhaps, that can happen, but Light always finds a way to shine again. And that can happen, at times, completely unexpectedly. For me, the discovery of Cinema, of this wonderful expression of the purest Art, was one of these unexpected forms - from the Enchanted Forest to a cinema room I found myself being profoundly touched by the fine art. I remember that Pan’s Labyrinth, which I watched with my roommate Jacinda, I mean, Ella, or Cindy, worked its magic on both of us, thus proving, after all, that the Land wasn't really Without Magic! Ofelia's journey resonated deeply inside of us. She has to retrieve a key from a giant toad that is sucking the life out of an ancient fig tree - the quest for “returning to the womb” and rekindling the oppressed feminine. The interior of the tree is damp and moist, symbolizing once again the womb-giver of life. The tree itself looks like a uterus. You would love this part, girls!” she turns to the women in the group.

“First thing we will do, after all of this is past, is to watch this movie, we need to increase the number of movie theaters in the UR,” Snow comments, intrigued and touched by Tiana's testimony.

“There are other tasks for Ofelia but I won’t spoiler more, I will let you find out when you watch it. But in summary, it’s a must watch, I totally recommend it and I will re-watch it with you…” Tiana concludes.

“I found it!” Henry exclaims, already selecting the song out of his playlist. "We could hum together while it plays, as Key used to do in the Sweet Suite...

...Let’s do it before going home!”

*

#Body and Soul #Chapter 4

[drjacquescoulardeau]

EVGENY KISSIN – BEETHOVEN – 2017 (2006-2007-2012---2016-2006-2013)

 Of course the purists are going to regret the fact this CD is recorded with a standard grand piano of today that has so little to do with the piano forte Beethoven was only able to use. It is said that he more or less “visualized” in his private ear the sound of what it was going to become after him. But even so this piano sound is not the one Beethoven composed for. But we can forget about purism and let that purified notion for some very specialized festivals where the audience is supposed to be – but are they really beyond any amount of trendiness – illuminated and enlightened in that pure approach of things. After this remark let’s say Evgeny Kissin plays with the instrument he knows and has learned to play on since he was a child, a very young child, and let’s enjoy the way this pianist uses his piano to give to Beethoven’s music a dimension it would not have otherwise, because of the instrument and because of the performer who plays more with his piano than the piano itself. This piano is a toy and a living toy at that for Kissin and God, how he tickles it, he manhandles it, he brings it to the extreme limits of its possibilities, of both its (the piano’s) technicality and his (Kissin’s) expressivity, emotional expressivity. More than ever in the history of music we are shifting from the simple inner pleasure of reverberating the harmony, the tempo/tempi and the coloration of the music to something more carnal, more sexual even, some kind of inner, sentimental, sensual, spiritual at times, always sensuous experience of the music in one’s flesh, mind, brain, imagination, at this level of abstract representation that cannot use words any more to speak of the inner circulation of humors and subterranean flowing, seeping and dripping of impulses, needs, desires, flashes of unconscious possession from the deepest of our irrational mental spirituality. That’s the music of the last fifty years, maybe slightly more. Kissin is just injecting this experiential and existential vision into Beethoven who was from another age but finds a new life in this performance, under these obviously erotic fingers that want to bring all the hormonal and vital fluids of the music and the musicians down into the piano via his fingers and feet.

 Kissin seems to practice Beethoven as if he were an onanistic toy for his sole and only pleasure that he accepts to scatter around and to sprinkle us with, and we end up drenched with this music from another mental cosmos. That’s so fabulous.

 Piano Sonata N° 3 in C major op. 2/3 is thus alternating the most extreme moods from pure rebellion and violence to the deepest sadness of total deprivation. And the trio is taking us so fast in its turning movement we feel like a top on a hot, very hot surface and we turn, and we whirl, and we spin like a maelstrom in the mouth of an erupting volcano. And do not hope for an end, since the pleasure is in the never ending spinning swiveling rotation that can only finish up in a brutal fall, and it sure does. So after that inebriating experience we can only get up and dance this time with birds, flowers and nature all around, with nymphs and satyrs, elves and gnomes, if gnomes can dance. The violence and rebellious tone of the beginning has thus vastly been replaced by an enticing universe that attracts and appeals us more than repulses us. We end up in joy and serenity, in satiated enjoyment more than a blissful climax. And we can go on reverberating, resounding, broadcasting all around us and inside our inner world that the rest of the universe cannot hear, the maybe skillfully satirical, humoristic playful mockery life is all about. And that will explode in our dreams, and only in our wet dreams inundated with music.

The thirty-two variations on one theme, practically without any real stop between one and the next, a continuous cut up flow of music on one theme, on the same notes, but the mood changing over and over again. It is probably not a prodigious and phenomenal work, but it is perfect for Kissin since he can erratically, at least it sounds like it, change moods, pass from one to the next, and go back to the previous one, and next just jumps over two, and then go on playing his hopscotch jump, skip, hop, dance, swerve, skip again and hop on forever and ever. It is as if he were swiftly turning or flipping the pages of a book of enticing images you don’t even want to see too long not to fall into some phantasmatic folly, some unethical voyeurism. A crazy running race on a catwalk for and with dozens of models trying to exhibit the most provocative underwear, socks or ties so fast that you could not see any shape, any form, any skin, just a sort of whirling merry-go-round whirlwind of colors and sounds but with no flesh to wear them, no bones to construct an architecture with, just the slightly onanistic pleasure of beating your ears with both hands and expecting the birth of the new Messiah that is to bring the second coming of some apocalypse. Gosh, this Kissin is apocalyptic to the point of frightening you out of your own shoes and socks directly into some black hole beyond the moon. And it all ends up in the last but longer variation, bathing with naiads and fawns in some wild mountain river far-far-away-from-home.

 To conclude the first CD, Piano Sonata N° 14, in C sharp minor “Moonlight” op. 27/2 is so famous that we are afraid of going to sleep on it before it starts as if it were a lullaby. So what is Kissin going to do with it, this ecstatix amphetamine of a pianist? The opening adagio is so sad, so even mournful that we may think the end of life has been reached and the moon is shining on an immense cemetery just after the foolish humanity we are has eradicated all life with the Trump-card of a nuclear war, just for fun of boasting about a red button bigger than another, like a teenager in the school toilets comparing their magic wands before they finally learn it is not only for urination. No life left, no future possible, no past left either since the past only exists in our memory and we are no longer there. The moon can cast its sad light and its side-looks on what’s left of us but that will not bring anything back. We have been annihilated by a pair of idiots for the fun of their vanity. Kissin expresses that so strongly with Beethoven’s music that we would like to die right now for that sadness to come to an end because life is nothing when we are no longer there to see it, to hear it, to taste it. Let’s go and get the rope, throw it over the main beam of the attic and . . .  A little whirling trio comes to dare us and mock us since we were so naïve to believe the moonlike sadness of this first movement. Mock, make fun, play the Mickey out of the clowns we have been, we are, we will always be. Kissin reaches some reasonable tone like a teacher telling two schoolboys who have had a fight how irrational it was and how painful it is going to be for them due to their wounds, the healing of them and the punishment the whole school is going to impose onto them. Not to speak of the fury and the fire of the fathers that are going to rain hard and hot and burning onto the two boys from their fathers tonight or tomorrow, when the doctors will declare the boys healed. And they will get a second week in hospital to crown it all. Beautiful spanking of the two trump-unwise hardly pubescent teenagers that have not yet poured their first map of France and are playing with nuclear weapons as if it were some Christmas chocolate or Easter eggs. The rabbit and the hare will have to be captured and cooked in a big pot together. Thank you Kissin, the chastiser of all those morons who would like to be Charon on his boat on the Lethe river descending into Hades and hell and taking the whole humanity with them. Childish, infantile, ridiculous, absurd, unfit for life actually. Kissin the great Doomsday supreme executioner of this apocalypse.

 The second CD gives three sonatas.

First of all, Piano Sonata N° 23 in F minor “Appassionata” op. 57. The first movement rings many bells or rather tolling bells in you with some rhythm we recognize like the four notes of the fifth symphony, not quite exactly the same, especially the last one slightly higher, but…But from there Kissin jumps into the passionate fury of someone who wants to get something, who is moved by some dark plotting intention, impulse or desire but he may explode as much as he likes he won’t get it. Because there is another force in this passion that is so powerful and destructive that he ends up in smithereens. One can listen to one’s passion but that will never lead to happiness, stability, satisfaction. Kissin is so easily shifting from mild and somber to violent and brutal, back and forth with a melodious sentence coming back and back again always in a new mood, in a new color, in a new tempo and temper. To write a love story with anyone or for anything is as easy as it is impossible. Easy to court that person or this thing into listening and even liking you but that will never go through because the passion will take over and brutally end it up. And the deadly four notes of this fate that makes life impossible because passion is death and death is passion can recur a couple of times.

 The second movement has to be a lot slower and darker if not somber. We can go down into the pit – and its pendulum – or the grave – and its tomb stone on top – step after step, gravely down into it, benighted as it is with foul deadly and morbid thoughts springing from the tolling left hand of the piano. How can such black night in the music lead to something else but a tomb and god’s eyes watching Cain in his crime and punishment. The passion of the first movement is leading to an entombment in the second movement. This poor enamored person that did not get anything he wanted and is so close to despair and even death, a slow and cruel death mind you, is rocking his burning heart to sleep, rocking its or his passion to sleep, or at least to slumber. Come on my heart let me live some more. But there is no respite, no rest, not intermission for the passionate lover, nothing but the torturing passion in him that cannot even accept to rest for five minutes after its defeat.

 And the tolling left hand is back again. And it explodes into another allegro. The beast has been released again and this time for good. It starts spinning like a crazy top on a burning oven. It turns left. It turns right. It turns upside down. It turns downside up. It turns backward and forward, and even catty corners. Turn, passion, turn like a diabolical merry-go-round, and you will not catch the prey of your predating passion. It sounds in 1805 so much like the full deception of a man who had believed in the possible regeneration of the old world with the French Revolution, with Buonaparte, but the revolutionary passion had turned into a satisfied and war-mongering empire and Buonaparte had become Napoleon. The fire of the revolution was contained, locked up in our passions and curbed down into an inexpressible forceful fury that cannot in any way come out and dance in the main square. The feast is finished. Good night, Liberty, Fraternity and Equality. All that is the past and we can only go on dreaming about it in an empire that only speaks of Glory, War and Conquest. But maybe there might be some hope in the belief of the cyclicality of such passions and passionate ideas. Let’s start it all over again, if we still can.

 The next Piano Sonata N° 26 in E flat major “Les Adieux” op. 81a has three movements that are the whole program of romantic love. “The Farewell,” first; “The Absence,” second; and “The Return,” last. Trinity of love satisfied, dissatisfied and satisfied again. You can cry, you can scream, you can moan and suffer as much as you want, the departure will take place. Better get up to it and accept it. But the music is an eternal departure and return with violence, some pause and some violence again. It is so Sturm und Drang that we kind of believe it is nothing but natural. Storm in gales of wind, rain and successive pockets of exploding thunderous violence, and reckless drive in that impulse that makes you jump at what you want and yet makes you flatten yourself on the ground in the mud where you end up over and over again when your prey escapes your passion, your love. You do not love for love and peace and calm. You love because of the storm it drives into your brain and the drive it storms up into your hormones. Rational is the opposite of this romanticism.

The second movement then is the slowly expanding obsolescence, and dissatisfaction, and frustration you try to ponder upon, you try to conquer and tame, uselessly of course because there is no taming the wild beast of the absence of the loved and desired one. The dragon is more dangerous when absent than present. You can fight against a present dragon in front of you, but you cannot fight against an absence, a void, an emptiness that uproots your heart out of any soil of any sort and kind. After this slow decomposition, with the promise of the return, maybe, that keeps some sense in this insane situation, luckily that return comes when Kissin reaches the tip end of nothingness.

 And then the passion is revived, the passion is regenerated, the passion is salvaged from the churchyard of the mind and brought back to life and to the front, out towards the object of this passion. You can hear the joy of the mind, the second life of the spirit, the new energy of the body in every single note, particularly the notes that are tied up together in long lines of pearls around your naked neck, around your bare breast and on your chaste and clashing chest. There is something insane but so joyful in this return that we just wonder if the child has not taken over in the man, if the baby seeing his mother coming back to him after he has cried for quite a few minutes is not the victor of this battle against the absence of the nurturer: the joy, the pleasure, the bliss of the satisfaction of his desire, his thirst, his hunger. This romantic love turns men into infants in a crib. A man in love is forever a newborn in a world that he feels hostile except when the mother, the female caretaker appears with what he has been calling for all the time and more minute after minute. In the end is there any satisfaction in sucking the offered breast, in possessing this breast, at last, if that intermittent service can be called possession.

 Piano Sonata N° 32 in C minor op. 111 opens like a dirge dedicated to the defeat the whole life of the composer was in his eyes now he is closer to death than ever. A dirge, a tolling tenebrae, a dying hope that there might be some more life after all, but the certainty that life has to come to an end, even if you do not hear it at all in your ears, but you sure hear it in your mind and brain. And it is here we can imagine Beethoven was hearing the modern version of his piano forte, a modern version that made his old piano forte so weak that even a cat would be ashame if it were told it is a lion. A lion, you said? Mind you that lion has no mane, no claws, no teeth. But Beethoven heard his piano forte with the teeth, the claws and the mane of the modern piano and you can hear it too. Under the fingers and the feet of Evgeny Kissin. He is galloping like some stampeding herd of wild horses across the keyboard as if it were a race track or probably a trail in some wild forest or plain swept by some strong wind and the blizzard of some hard winter. The gallop is always coming back over and over again, eternally in this vast plain of the deaf composer’s mind.

That’s why the andante that comes after this stampeding quest is like the song you sing to babies, the lullabies you sing to dead people when they are lowered into their tombs. Slow and dark, sad and somber and yet each note is powerful with reverberation and with some strength that comes from the pianist. He wants to make the long, very long lament that never comes to the peace of a final note, a final tonal note that would conclude the elegy. You may, the dead person may remember in his blank post mortem state some good feelings, some fine moments, and yet that is only an impression, a passing illusion probably because what is left after death, apart from the memory of the survivors, is just plain nothing. But strangely enough there is some peace and if there is some peace there is also some possible reconciliation with life, some forgiveness for this untimely death. Forgive this egotistic death and you may survive a little bit longer in the mind of the people you leave behind, because they are left behind while you continue your voyage to the promised land. Listen to the nearly dancelike and happy music along that way to whatever promised land you are walking to. Suddenly a wave of strong joyful probably diabolical and very nervous music turns up around a street corner in this messianic Jerusalem that you are trying to reach. Listen to it and go fast to that messianic city. The joy is in you. The music is in you. In fact, you cannot hear any music around you. You are deaf to the real human world, but you can hear the music of the heavens and of the salvation beyond the apocalypse of your death. Yet some realism brings you back to the dirge that accompanies you in your coffin, the dirge of the survivors. But you escape the temptation to be reduced to the corpse they are burying. You are a lot more than that. Follow the light and high pitched melody that leads you to beyond the dirge that alas comes back. Will you ever reach your paradise, your new home? Not as long as the grieving and drunk relatives who are taking you to your grave precociously rejoicing in the opening of your will after this sad moment. Forget about it, forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing. And some vigor comes back to you. Are you going to survive your own death in your own mind and eyes? Or will the earth that will be piled up onto your casket close the door to any future whatsoever. You doubt one way or the other, don’t you? Kissin then sounds as if he were the musician of the cosmos trying to make you realize that death is a big black hole full of anti-matter, powerful anti-matter that no one can even describe. Yes, you will be alive there and one day, human beings might be able to reach you again in some Space Odyssey that is not planned any time soon though. It becomes as beautiful as the northern lights of some Aurora Borealis right at noon under the equator and you have to fall to your knees to thank the universe for this beauty – even if you have to die to finally experience it. Divine Kissin is kissing divine.

 Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU

#Piano #piano music #beethoven #sonata #concerto

[soracities]

Kahlil Gibran, excerpts from Sand and Foam [ID in ALT]

#q #lit #quotes #kahlil gibran #sand and foam #beyond the river lethe there is memory healed #reading #lebanese lit #m #x

[soracities]

J. Estanislao Lopez, "What the Fingers Do" [transcript in ALT]

#q #lit #quotes #poems #j estanislao lopez #what the fingers do #beyond the river lethe there is memory healed #the imprints of our hands will merge #m #x #*

[soracities]

Tomas Tranströmer, “Midwinter″, The Deleted World: Poems (versions by Robin Robertson, bilingual ed.) [transcript in ALT]

#q #lit #quotes #midwinter #poetry #tomas tranströmer #the deleted world #beyond the river lethe there is memory healed #where ghosts and shades do tread #typography #the bone bare season #reading #swedish lit #m #x

[soracities]

David Whyte, on the death of his friend John O’Donohue, in conversation with Krista Tippett, On Being [transcript in ALT]

#q #quotes #david whyte #on being #beyond the river lethe there is memory healed #here and where you are #favourite #typography #m #x

[soracities]

Tomorrow death will extinguish me, but extinguished I will not be. Tomorrow I 'll exit from one light to another.

Adonis, from “The Time” (trans. Kamal Abu-Deeb)

#q #lit #quotes #poetry #adonis #the time #beyond the river lethe there is memory healed #d #m #x

[soracities]

“A week [after Sven's funeral], I'm cooking fish on a wood fire outside and my son, Yves, brings me a glass of wine to drink and holds a bowl of olives. It's getting dark and my eyes are sore from the smoke, so I feel for a couple with my fingers without looking, and pop one into my mouth. As I spit out the stone and try to define the flavour--sharp, bitter-black, Greek--a thought crosses my mind: From now on I taste olives for Sven too.”

John Berger, ‘Et in Arcadia Ego’, Confabulations

“The woman sets the table. She watches me beat the eggs. I scramble them in a saucepan, as my now-dead friend taught me; they stand deeper and cook softer, he said. I take our plated, spoon eggs on them, we sit and eat.”

Andre Dubus, “On Charon’s Wharf”, Broken Vessels

“When a dead tree falls in a forest it often falls into the arms of a living tree. The dead, thus embraced, rasp in wind, slowly carving a niche in the living branch, shearing away the rough outer flesh, revealing the pinkish, yellowish, feverish inner bark. For years the dead tree rubs its fallen body against the living, building its dead music, making its raw mark, wearing the tough bough down as it moans and bends, the deep rosined bow sound of the living shouldering the dead.”

Dorianne Laux, “Cello”

#q #lit #quotes #quote compilation #john berger #andre dubus #dorianne laux #beyond the river lethe there is memory healed #the topography of love #forever favourite #m #x

[soracities]

I’m sure you’ve been asked this a million times but do you have a master list of all the different tags you use for posts? Possible to share?

i have been asked— so many times— but never gotten the chance to sit down and compile them all, so hopefully this will do for now:

basics

#photography:

#shadow play   /   #still life   /   #light

#hands   /   #bodies

#people

#places   /   #views

#black and white

#quotes:

#poetry (excerpts)   /   #poems (poetry posted in full)

#reading

#quotes about x

#poetry recs   /   #book recs   /   #book talks

#art:

#art detail   /   #flesh and bone

themed tags

intimacy, love, affection, connection etc.

#you are my sun and moon and all my stars

#the topography of love

#the lovers

#a country of two

#with your love as my witness

#infinitely and inexpressibly

#here and where you are

#to the point of invention

#one more kiss before we turn the lights off

#the world is ending and i love you

#two solitudes   /   #relation without relation

#it was you i drank (new tag)

#in this life and the next

#carnal appetites

#the aftermath of love

#the shadow side of love  /   #liebestod  /   #koschei

#dolor ante lucem

#a heart is a heavy burden  /   #foul rag and bone shop of the heart

#i love you like a cold river

#a lexicon of love

#variations on desire

#variations on a kiss (old tag, to be updated)

#i slithered here from eden

#bread is love among strangers

#anam cara

on literature, art, writing etc.,

#sanctum

#on poetry   /   #on writing /   #notes on an art form /   #art and the visual / #notes on the canon

#portrait of the artist

#on narrative /   #on books and reading   /   #language

#die Grenzen meiner Sprache—die Grenzen meiner Welt

themes / specific topics (literature and visual tags, some are both)

#the woods are lovely dark and deep

#mother of otherness eat me

#deep sea dreaming (visual)   /  #wine dark

#a beast is pulsing in my heart

#if i show you the roses will you follow?   /   #gulistan

#eyes exist in the savage state

#tongues of flame

#touch is a sacred language   /   #the imprints of our hands will merge

#this too sullied flesh   /   #the body electric

#fragments of selfhood   /   #echoes of the other   /  #diaspora blues

#sing me down into the dark   /   #notes on the human condition

#um unter den Wissenden zu sein oder allein  /   #i wandered lonely as a cloud

#the futility of speech   /   #the limits of understanding

#nocturnes   /    #only the moon and i  /   #astral hymn (visual)   /   #a softness came from the starlight

#we are but ghosts tonight (visual)  /   #where ghosts and shades do tread /    #beyond the river lethe there is memory healed

#the persistence of faith   /   #divinities   /   #old gods

#on culture /   #of war and violence   /   #dispatches from the revolution (no longer active)

#notes on a haunting   /   #the witching hour is upon us (visual)

#monster theory   /    #wolf song

#the book of women /   #she; portraiture

#a whisper from times past (visual)

#home fires

#what the water gave me   /   #a dream of water

#the new romantics   /   #the mystic   /   #the dreamer   /   #the scholar

#girl reading

#glimpses

seasonal tags

#the bone bare season   /    #winter (visual)

#autumn dreaming 

#sing me a song of summer

comfort and hope, etc.

#on earth we're briefly gorgeous

#the wide wide world

#hope is the thing with feathers  /   #its not that we have hope we shelter it

#without tenderness we are in hell

#who is my neighbour? my neighbour is all mankind

#devotionals  /   #moments

#humanity i love you

#and still i rise

#life everlasting  /   #i was a bride married to amazement  /   #all these wonders still to be ours

#a brief primer for the hopeless days

#in the dark times there will be singing

#at the end of the world we learn to dance

specific asks compilation

#the road is long and we have time

#the kids will be alright

#notes from elsewhere

#ask #anonymous #tag directory #navi

[soracities]

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, “On Writing On Your Own Terms”

[Text ID: “I mean I’m writing to remember. I’m writing to remember. I’m writing to remember.

But also I’m writing to challenge memory. We’re back to the gaps, the places where language stops. Let me in.”]

#lit #quotes #essays #mattilda bernstein sycamore #on writing on your own terms #on writing #beyond the river lethe there is memory healed #sanctum #typography #m #x

[soracities]

Hart Crane, from “My Grandmother’s Love Letters”, The Collected Poems of Hart Crane

[Text ID: “There are no stars to-night But those of memory. Yet how much room for memory there is In the loose girdle of soft rain.”]

#q #lit #quotes #poetry #hart crane #my grandmothers love letters #the collected poems of hart crane #beyond the river lethe there is memory healed #forever favourite #archive #typography #reading #m #x

[soracities]

Each night has one sound I know: the moon against the water like your cheek across mine in another life.

Sara Eliza Johnson, from “Grief”

#q #lit #quotes #poetry #sara eliza johnson #grief #the aftermath of love #beyond the river lethe there is memory healed #archive #m #x

[soracities]

Her hands. Her eyes. Her bitten fingernails. All this I remember, intensely remember, yet all is disparate, I cannot assemble it into a unity. Try as I may, pretend as I may, I am unable to conjure her [...] She wavers before my memory's eye at a fixed distance, always just beyond focus, moving backward at exactly the same rate as I am moving forward.

John Banville, The Sea

#lit #quotes #prose #john banville #the sea #on memory #beyond the river lethe there is memory healed #favourite #reading #irish lit #m #x