The Loom

(Excerpt from A Vision of Dyplopia)

Oracle shambled in her way from where we had been standing and pulled aside the dark cloth covering the entrance to her hut. The elementals had gone and I followed her inside. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust to the dark of the wooden hutch. The curtain effectively sealed out all outside light and there was a small fire beneath a brewing kettle in the far corner. Opposite the fire there was a mat and what appeared to be a large wolf lie there, his wary eyes tracking my movements but otherwise disinterested in the Oracle or her guest. A massive loom took up the majority of the living space and I could see no place where the Oracle might rest. Should she have any need of sleep at all.

“Come in. Over here. Hold these threads for a minute while I stir my kettle.” I came over and placed my hands on the loom as bid and the aroma from the pot was now in my nostrils and I felt the pangs of hunger. The threads I held in place were moist and coarse and the design of the tapestry sprawled out before me was difficult to determine.

“What are you making?” I asked.

“What does it look like to you?”

“A tapestry or quilt of some kind.”

“Yes. Look again.” I did. As I watched streams and dots of light began to dance from my fingertips where my hands pinched the fabric along the tapestry. It was not flat at all but filled the entire space with the lights of the cosmos in front of our eyes. The room now bathed in celestial light. Even the light from the fire was washed out.

“What is this?” The spectrum of dots spread out like constellations. Stars scattered across the infinite. Among them, barely discernible was a gaseous glow. It pulsed stronger in certain areas and ran between various clusters of stars.

Oracle returned from the kettle and fire and took the edges of the tapestry from my hands. She resumed her weaving as the luminescent threads continued to emanate in the darkness.

“This is one soul and one spirit reaching across the multiverse to find one another. Again and again they do this.” Holding the fibers taught with one hand she pointed. “Look here. This is a point of origin.” Running her hand along the cloth it blazed brighter in green and the pulsing matter spiraled out in too many directions to trace. They appeared as neural pathways within the human brain. Knowing these thoughts, Oracle nodded. “Your kind know much about the workings of this organ. How the logos within transmits it's signals and messages from one organic constellation to another. Yet they do not truly consider the latent meaning in such inner workings which serve as a living symbol of how life truly operates and communicates in the eternal. Far beyond the mere cognitive faculties they allow the organic structure to accomplish. There is a design. As purpose and utility, yes, but they are also maps, symbols and art of a most divine purpose. One must only look to see.

What you see before you is not to be described easily to another for words cannot contain the infinite. What you now behold is the infinite man. Each soul has it's own frequency, a resonance that exists and is carried through the darkness, the invisible energy of the multiverse. Dark to the faculty of reason, yet matter all the same.There it connects a man to his greater song, his greater self. And every individual frequency in every one of these visions of a reality calls to one another. It calls to itself. That is why such sage prophets and shamans have existed in one form or another. They guide people into themselves that the frequency there might be heard and known well. Upon release, through death or metaphysical transportation in rare cases such as yourself, they are to follow that tone they have been intended to learn in each life that is lived. This is how an individual aspect of a man finds the Vale. There upon arriving they reunify the self with the greater, ancient self. Do you see? It is a chorus of one's own soul, a song we sing daily joyous, mournful or content."

I reached tentatively to touch the tapestry and Oracle tied off her weaving. The wolf hound had his head raised and cocked to the side with interest. I was struck by the composition of the fabric. It was as soft as the tallowed skin of a lamb, yet as light and delicate as flowing silk. Running my fingers over it gently I felt logos energy leaving my body. The cloth went darker but the constellation of lights swirling above changed. My logos now channeling through the loom and fabric of the cosmos.

Oracle came behind me and put her hands over my eyes. “Remember these are mere physical organs. What you will gaze upon is your infinite self seeking it's wholeness across the multiverse, and you will only understand if you see with your hidden eye. That which is cleansed of the cloudiness of perception. Ready thyself first to receive, to absorb and drink deep of the visions of the loom. There before you will appear your many paths, your many selves. Some will shoot off into oblivion like a meteor or comet and others will have found the frequency which seeks to unite them all. It sings in you Samuel. Listen to it now.”

She took away her calloused hands and my mind was light, open. As if purified by her touch. Struck with the recognition that here I now stood as so many ancestors in so many ancient times and multiverses had done, pilgrims and prophets. Charting one's progress and connection in the universe and according to the celestial bodies in order to discover a greater and more whole sense of self. The mirror of the cosmos that gazes back upon a man.

I looked upon all of my life paths and was overwhelmed with the expansiveness of this vision. Unable to fully comprehend, only accept that I was as infinite as this fraction of the multiverse I now beheld. I knelt to pray and Oracle joined me, clasping my hands in her own. I poured my soul into hope and good choices for all of these aspects of myself from every conceivable reality. That the wholeness that man sought to achieve lay in this vision, in this understanding of what eternal reality might truly be. I longed for this wholeness and ached to know what these other portions of my soul could bring to my higher self.

I then felt for the face haunting the back of my dreams. Oracle squeezed my hands knowingly, having seen this one's series of discernible timelines that crossed my own frequently upon the loom. Now emanating lost love. The weight on my heart amidst such wondrous visions and revelations.

When I looked up again the green pathways shown brighter. A dimmer green had been illuminated as well. I studied the spectacle of light and the way they crossed my own constellations. Sensing my amazement, Oracle spoke. “Your love is a powerful force Samuel. It is a fragment of power Dericho revealed to you and a balm to the worlds you shall walk and the men and women you shall love. It is as caustic as acid on rotten flesh and clears the way to open wounds to begin healing again. Your love for this man proves that. By conjuring his presence here on this loom. Notice how these nebulas, trails of energy and light cross one another often. This one is special to your greater self and will be until you both become whole. This is the specialness of the love you have shared, many lifetimes over when you have been fortunate enough to find one another. You harmonize and hear one another across the multiverse and this song is beautiful enough for you to hear in the quiet of the Vale. Away from the psychic noise that emanates from the denizens of Dyplopia.

The pain of his loss, the understanding one man has of the state of the soul of another and his place within eternity weighs so greatly on you. You hear the frequency and you feel it's beauty because of your love and your only desire is for him to find that awareness within himself. It is the pinion that draws you to his path. For if he were to fail on a grand scale, without support you fear you may never see him in his wholeness. Do not fear, this is for him to discover, for no man can share his wisdom unto another."

Flashes of memories flooded me. Blood-drenched hands and weeping. An uncontrollable clinching in my throat and a pang that wracked my bones. Oracle let go of me and I sensed the hound draw near to us both protectively. I held Julian in that moment briefly. He was naked, draped only in his own lifeblood and my arms. “Jules, oh Jules. Why didn't you come to me? I was here, forever and always. Like I promised.

This was something you could overcome. It was within you and I showed that to you. Don't die. Don't leave me alone. I have been alone for so long. I remember you blooming unbearably briefly. If only your heart had found it's eternal Spring. Winter may try to claim us, but we are creatures of life and beginnings begun each day.

We are not as weak as we feel. This love was proof enough. Don't go...please don't go.”

 I looked into those still eyes once before closing them, but he was gone.

Coming back to the present an echo of an ancient prophet rang in my mind and I unconsciously recited his words in my sorrow, “No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.” Oracle acknowledged this.

“There is no fate in the infinite, save that which is only chosen as destiny. In some multiverses you appear to have shown him this light and in others he appears to have darkened your own. In others he has found this within himself and also existed without ever considering his greater self. So it must be one life into the next. Bound by love that is never quite attained you draw one another deeper towards the truth of the Vale, of which your eyes have only recently at last been opened; and a realization you must carry until you too become fully whole. Only you both may choose which life this love will manifest it's true potential.”

Envisioning this truth, these many manifestations of our lives and love breached my conscious walls and I was lost in recitation of these thoughts and what Dericho and Taggart had attempted to tell me. “I am different because of my blood. I am one of the old ones, or partially. The awakening in us is different and so we do not merely die but coalesce between these multiverses, never gathering in the vale as the human manifestations have done. I am more kin to the Order than humankind. In this I am bound. Will I ever be free? Will this love ever redeem one of the fallen? I love my humanity. I would die for these men and women again and again but these denizens are far removed from their previous form.

 From what he's shown me it has happened again and again. Yet I continue on. Reassembling each surrection. What does Dericho become each time he surrects? Does he ever break free of his own humanity to the plane of the immortals? How many times and ways has he manifest so darkly?"

"Dericho's stories are his own to tell. Your salvation, of all angels and man lies upon a similar path. The significance of your heritage is now null. You are as human as you are angel and the forgiveness and acceptance of the Divine extends and courses through each and every drop of blood in the fabric of eternity. The separation is necessary and complex but it is not for you or any creature to worry over, for it is in motion and it's purpose is divine. As the rivers flow.

The tapestry is a vision. Dyplopia is an aspect of a total reality. As is the world from whence you came. Slivers of a sum, cross sections of each and every aspect of existence. Held within the bosom of Sophia, the spirit of Wisdom. This is why all must evolve her gift. So that we may truly be born children of the Divine, again and again until we one day wake up whole."

“Then I must choose in each of these strands of life, when love can save and when love must be replaced by a faith in such a cosmos that I will be with Julian again. When his or my path threatens to darken the other, we must let go and pray for one another that our greater selves are growing stronger as a result.” I traced with my finger the various paths that gleamed where they intersected and dimmed the farther they strayed and I mourned the memory of when this had occurred. The events leading up to my present metaphysical existence. The unwanted vision of his blood on my hands unable to be shaken still.

“You are astute and it is why you have journeyed this far. Only a short time has passed since you have gazed upon this loom and already you are becoming capable of grasping patterns in the cosmos.” Oracle paused. “As to your observation. Only the All knows for certain in those times when to let go and when to hold on to the path love points you. But the portion of divinity within speaks to such higher truths and observations. And for those of ancient bloodlines such as yourself, not born purely children of the Divine as those borne of humanity, you must exist among these fragments of men and remember in each awakening that they are aggregating into their greater selves along a similar but much different process than your own. Come, let us eat awhile."

As we sat in silence and ate, the wolf hound gnawed at the edges of the tapestry, green eyes blazing where the darkness had now returned to the hutch. Mischievous creature, unraveling the threads of eternity Oracle would patiently resume when she had regained her strength again. 

~AR