As Autumn progresses towards her equinox, I having been playing with Twilight Consciousness. This has been accomplish by using dimmer lights in the evening, fires in the yard, and natural lighting as much as possible during dusk and dawn. This has lead to a greater appreciation of the interplay of light and shadow. This "flickering" time has also triggered interesting perceptions of "reality"; a growing awareness of the beings that dwell in shadows, the ease of entrance into the Magonian or Fey realms, a shift in the boundaries between Industrial Consensus Reality, and the Mythopoetic Realms.
I have been watching and studying Wayang Kulit, Indonesian Shadow Play, there is a rich vein for the Mutant Mage to explore. I have also renewed my interest in Jackalope, and Goblin Lore, twilight seems to suit them both. Instead of writing a blog-post, I have used the cut up techniques of two of my favorite Mutant Mages, William Burroughs and Byron Gysin. In fact if you want to experience the full effect of flickering light, build yourself a
Dream Machine.
I have included links to all of the original texts below, none of what follows is my original work, but I felt it more aptly captures the interplay of light and and shadow that I have experienced this Autumn. Go outside in the evening or morning and experience these shifting perspectives for yourself, the Shadow Realms await.
Shadow Play: Goblins and Jackalopes
The Indonesian word 'wayang' is derived from
a word meaning 'shadow' or 'ghost'. These intricately cut and perforated
shadow puppets are made from buffalo hide. 'Kulit' means 'leather'
or 'skin'. 'Wayang Kulit' has a documented history of existence of
at least 800 years in the Indonesian archipelago.
I'm writing this story as a result of a pact I made with a goblin
ghoul last night as I was walking home up the hill near Withdean in Brighton.
Every part of it is true and exactly how I remember, though the events of last
night now seem like they happened in another world. As I look at these words it
seems strange that I could be writing them. Who will believe what I have to say?
You, Dear Reader, safe in the daylight or under the protective glow of your
electric light can have no conception of the horrors that dwell so close to our
twenty first century civilization, just beyond the reach of the shadows. But I
must hurry. My life depends on completing this tale before she returns.
It’s an aggressive species, willing to use its antlers to fight. Thus,
the jackalope is also sometimes called the “warrior rabbit.”
The word crepuscular derives from the Latin crepusculum ("twilight").[1] Its sense accordingly differs from diurnal and nocturnal behavior, which respectively peak during hours of daylight and dark. The distinction is not absolute however, because crepuscular animals may also be active on a bright moonlit night or on a dull day. Some animals casually described as nocturnal are in fact crepuscular.
There is no hiding the mechanics of the show as in Western theatre since the bamboo platform had no sides. The audience is free to sit either facing the screen, or can watch the dalang at work.
Gunnar, king of the Old Wessex Division of the goblins, had a
problem. His old slave, Eric, had died. That usually happened to humans once
they became about seventy or eighty, and there was nothing you could do about
it, except get a new one. The king had grown quite fond of Eric who had been
captured by the goblins in 1925 as a young boy. It was best to catch them
young. There had been a hue and cry. There always is, when a man child
disappears. You can't hush these things up. Some people blamed the gypsies.
Others said: perhaps he had wandered off to join the circus.
Twilight is the time between darkness and sunrise in
the morning, and sunset and complete darkness in the evening, when there
is light outside, but the Sun is below the horizon. There are 3 types
of twilight: civil, nautical, and astronomical.
Before a play begins, the dalang undertakes
several ceremonial acts and rituals to assure a successful performance.
With great reverence, he taps three times on the wooden box containing
all his puppets in order to wake them up. Figures of deities representing
good and evil (sometimes over one hundred) are ranged in their prescribed
place to the left and right hand sides of the screen. When quiescent,
the puppets are spiked into the soft flesh of the trunk of a banana
tree at the base of the cotton screen. This represents the earth.
It was after he beat one poor old woman to death that the evil monk was
imprisoned and sentenced to hang for his crimes. But just after he was
cut down from the noose and pronounced dead, his corpse began to
transform before the horrified eyes of the people. The face twisted and
small tusks sprang from either side of his nose. His shock of white hair
grew long and greasy, and two pointed canines emerged from his slit of a
mouth. The goblin-monk opened eyes that glowed yellow even in the light
of noon-day, and sprang to feet that now ended in claws rather than
toes.
Special classes of crepuscular behaviour include matutinal (or "matinal") and vespertine,
denoting species active only in the dawn or only in the dusk,
respectively. Those that are active during both morning and evening
twilight are said to have a bimodal activity pattern.
Civil twilight occurs when the Sun is between 0 degrees and 6 degrees below the horizon.
In the morning, civil twilight begins when the Sun is 6 degrees below
the horizon and ends at sunrise. In the evening, it begins at sunset and
ends when the Sun reaches 6 degrees below the horizon.
The dalang underscores the action and the rhythm
of his chanting while sitting cross-legged by tapping loudly with
quickening tempo on the wooden puppet box at his back with a little
bronze knob held between the toes of one foot. He also uses this device
to conduct the small Gender Wayang orchestra of xylophones and gongs
sitting behind him, all the time maintaining a number of different
body rhythms as he manipulates the puppets.
The various patterns of activity are thought to be mainly antipredator adaptations, though some could equally well be predatory adaptations. Many predators forage
most intensively at night, whereas others are active at midday and see
best in full sun. Thus, the crepuscular habit may both reduce predation
pressure, thereby increasing the crepuscular populations, and in
consequence offer better foraging opportunities to predators that
increasingly focus their attention on crepuscular prey until a new
balance is struck. Such shifting states of balance are often found in
ecology.
She was tall, Very tall. Then as she got closer and stepped into the light I realized that her shadowy outline had looked so tall at first because she was
wearing an old fashioned riding hat, from out of a Victorian novel. As she
stepped closer her features took shape. She was about my height, thin and was
dressed all in black. She wore a veil and I couldn't see her face, but I
imagined from her voice she might be quite pretty. She stopped a few feet in
front of me. Her perfume was strong and heady. Like the strong sweet scent you
get in the perfume departments in the major stores at around Christmas when all
the smells from the testers and the customers blend into one.
The jackalope is the product of a male jackrabbit and a female
antelope. Jackalopes possess an uncanny ability to mimic human sounds.
In the Old West, when cowboys would gather by their campfires to sing
at night, jackalopes would frequently be heard singing back,
mimicking the voices of the cowboys. Jackalopes become especially
vocal before thunderstorms, perhaps because they mate only when
lightning flashes—or so it is theorized—which explains the rarity of
this species.
A number of familiar
mammal species are crepuscular, including some bats,
hamsters,
housecats,
stray dogs,
[5] rabbits,
ferrets,
guinea pigs, and
rats. Other crepuscular mammals include
jaguars,
ocelots,
strepsirrhines,
red pandas,
bears,
deer,
moose,
chinchillas, the common
mouse,
skunks, Australian
wombats,
wallabies,
quolls,
possums and
marsupial gliders,
spotted hyenas,
bobcats,
tenrecidae,
capybaras,
African wild dogs,
sitatunga, and the extinct
Tasmanian tiger. Crepuscular birds include the
common nighthawk,
owlet-nightjar,
chimney swift,
American woodcock, and
spotted crake. Many
moths,
beetles,
flies, and other
insects are crepuscular and in particular,
vespertine.
But no
one ever thought of blaming the goblins... That's because 1925 was the twentieth
century and people didn't believe in such things any more. Gunnar's great
grandfather, Aleric the goblin had once met King Arthur, and now most people
thought Arthur was just a legend.
Nautical twilight occurs when the
geometrical center of the Sun is between 6 degrees and 12 degrees below
the horizon. This twilight period is less bright than civil twilight and
artificial light is generally required for human activities.
So what is the effect of all this? When the
puppet is pressed up against the cotton sheet, its shadow is sharp
and steady. Where it curls away from the screen a little, the shadow
rapidly softens. The flickering light from the uncertain oil lamp
causes these indistinct portions to quiver and waver. Sometimes puppets
are presented to the screen from behind the lamp instead of entering
from the wings. When this happens, they seem to magically materialise
out of the very air itself as soft indistinct forms darken, gathering
form and substance as they near the screen. The effect is ethereal
and utterly mesmerizing.
When chased, the jackalope will use its vocal abilities to elude
capture. For instance, when chased by people, it will call out phrases
such as, “There he goes, over there,” in order to throw pursuers off
its track. The best way to catch a jackalope is to lure it with
whiskey, as they have a particular fondness for this drink. Once
intoxicated, the animal becomes slower and easier to hunt.
Astronomical twilight occurs when the Sun is between 12 degrees and 18 degrees below the horizon. In
the morning, the sky is completely dark before the onset of the
astronomical twilight, and in the evening, the sky becomes completely
dark at the end of astronomical twilight. Any celestial bodies that can
be viewed by the naked eye can be observed in the sky after the end of
astronomical twilight.
The
headquarters of the Old Wessex Division of the goblins was in the tunnels
beneath the
old bookshop in
Petersfield. If you went into the dark forgotten corners of the shop, and moved
aside the dusty bookcase with the really old falling-apart books with no covers,
which were hardly ever sold, you might, if you looked carefully, see the outline
of a secret door which led into tunnels underground. The goblins liked living
there because, if they got bored at night, they could sneak upstairs and "borrow"
some of the old books. They didn't like modern writers. They even regarded Jane
Austen as modern.
The compelling visual appeal of a Wayang Kulit
show might easily be explained by the physical laws and properties
of light. The spiritual and metaphysical dimensions of the shadow
play are much harder for a Westerner to describe.
Jackalope milk is particularly sought after because it is believed
to be a powerful aphrodisiac—for which reason the jackalope is also
sometimes referred to as the ‘horny rabbit.’ However, it can be
incredibly dangerous to milk a jackalope, and any attempt to do so
is not advised. A peculiar feature of the milk is that it comes from
the animal already homogenized on account of the creature’s
powerful leaps.
She touched my face with her fingers. A light caress. Then she flicked her
fingers and the light went out. I heard a clip clop as she walked away up the
hill and then a clippety clop but I never saw her horse or her minions who had
been holding me from behind. The street light started flickering its yellow
sodium glare again, and I was too deep in thought to notice anything else
unusual on my way home.
The shadow play is magically powerful. At times
the dalang appears to be in a trance. It is commonly believed that
the audience is protected from evil influences during a Wayang Kulit
performance. Its vast repertoire of tales covers all aspects of life.
As well as having an educational role in society, its stories provide
spiritual guidance for the people.
It
is as though this translucent screen with its play of light and shadow
is the interface between two realms of existence - a small rectangle
in the fabric of the world mediated by the dalang from where spirit
beings from other planes of existence impart the wisdom of the ages
to mankind. Wayang characters provide types to be emulated, giving
the young an idea of what qualities to strive for.
The people screamed and fled, and no prayer of his former
brothers-in-faith could banish the goblin. It disappeared deep into the
forest, only to return at night and prey upon the monks of the mission
who had been responsible for its death. After five of the brothers had
fallen to the goblin, the rest of the monks abandoned the mission and
moved to another part of the country. Since that time, the mission-house
had slowly fallen into ruin.
The jackalope is now most commonly sighted in the states of
Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska. However, the jackalope does appear to
have a European cousin, which in Germany is known as the
wolperdinger. In Sweden, a related species is called the skvader.
With a trick of light and shade
and a deft exchange of the puppet, characters were made to transform
before a wide-eyed audience into mystical beings, a garuda, a snake.
You're right. Anyway this doesn't affect the
story line. Our pact was, or is, that not one word of the story would change. OK
here are the few details which set the record straight. And this is exactly as
I remember, without varnish and honest gospel...When
I first heard her clip clopping down the road it was too dark to see her horse.
But as she left and the street lights glowed back on - I saw there was no horse
- as she clip clopped away on all fours on her claws like a wild beast. Her
perfume too, was not quite as I described. It was more like the smell of rotten
cat food which has been left in an open tin too long in summer, and which the
flies and the maggots have got into. And finally, her appearance. It is true
that she was tall and slim but by the light of the sodium lamp her skin seemed
green and wrinkled like old walking boots. When I wrote these facts in my
original draft she was very displeased and I learned how vain a goblin queen can
be. She made me change these points, on peril of my life, but bade me keep all
else the same.
These are my sources:
http://minyos.its.rmit.edu.au/~dwa/WayangKulit.html
http://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/different-types-twilight.html
http://jackalope.com/legend-of-jackalope/
http://www.goblinsearch.com/mypactwiththegoblinqueen.html
http://www.goblinsearch.com/story1.html
http://americanfolklore.net/folklore/2010/07/the_goblin_of_easton.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crepuscular
I'm done with Apocalypse Culture. Labels are helpful but they can also enchant the mind. We only have what we have always had, right now. This is augmented by nearly instantaneous global communication. Sure, humanity can now see what the sum total of its civilization has cost the planet, but we can also see where to fix problems first. For the first time in history we have the capability to coordinate global efforts to heal and transform the planet. Make no mistake, it will never be the same, but when has it ever been the same? What level of restoration do we achieve? Do we bring back dinosaurs and surrender the planet to them? Perhaps we should consider our impact as a stresser in every decision made about the planets future. Either way we have always been here, life is nothing more than a set of transitions book-ended by two more transitions. Forever folding in upon itself or forever expanding, ultimately it is the same thing.
Time is mysterious to three dimensional beings such as ourselves, it appears to be linear and cyclical. Unlike space which we can perceive omindirectionally, time seems limited to us. The existence of fourth dimensional beings would go a long way towards explaining paranormal and Magonian occurrences. Fey, aliens, angels, demons, etc., could all be either entities or intelligences of a fourth dimensional nature that are interacting with time as easily as we interact with air. Our inability to percieve something does not negate its existence, this is the arrogance of science. As Mutant Mages, Witches, Sorcerors, Sacred Artists, Reality Engineers, et al, we know all to well the fallacy of assumption.
Time for us to confront the Elder Gods of Deep Space, communing with the natural spirits of this world is fine but we are cosmic beings also. Like the early christians who demonized the daemon, so to did Lovecraft present a horrifying vision of what he could not comprehend. Fear is the mind killer. Instead of the fearsome great Old Ones, let me introduce Aditi and Ptah. Aditi is the Hindu Primal Goddess, who is boundless space itself that gives birth and form to all things, the void from which all things are borne, Ain in Qabala. Ptah on the other hand is Egyptian, and is considered to be the primal reality and primal creator, or Architect. His eyes are said to be filled with stars and reflect the infinity of space. He is also believed to be the eternal moment of creation manifest, Ain Soph Aur. Cosmic Gods and Goddesses await you, personally I work with Mother Void, and the Architect.
Not only does walking facilitate learning, the physiological evidence is very encouraging, as are the psychological benefits. The upside of all of this that you brain will function better and that will have a positive effect on your magical work. You don't need a group, daily walks while thinking are great for exploring topics. A meditation on death while walking around a duck pond filled with fish can open your eyes in ways that sitting in a dark room will not. (Not to dismiss the power of darkness.) Walking is not the only exercise that will benefit your practice.
