BOOK FOUR

ON WORDS AS WEAPONS
To speak a word is to communicate an intention or idea. By combining these words into
sentences, over distances long or short, we are able to communicate complex ideas.
But there is a darker side to communication. It is the nature of the intent behind our words
which causes them to heal or hurt. We all possess weaknesses and insecurities, and the words of
others are able to direct our attention to these. Thus an overweight person may feel hurt after
being described as a 'fatty'. This particularly hurts as it is addressed to a truth, albeit phrased
rather nastily. Another may pride themselves upon being well dressed. Here, a word criticising
their new shirt may evoke a barrage of negative emotion in this person. Such a criticism is
subjective by nature, but it is hard for us to be rational in the face of the subjective criticism.
More often than not we feel the hurt anyway.
Our words may be true or false. One may make a false accusation against another, bringing all
manner of trouble to them in the real world. Yes, words are abstractions relating to ideas and
intent, but they can cause very real problems for another. A reputation, for example, may be
sullied by false accusations and insinuation. There is little defence against such a move by
another, we may only hope that the truth prevails.
We must also include the standard insult. This may refer to a real deficiency in a person,
exaggerating it for comic or ill effect. It may not refer to any such thing and merely be a
negative intention hurled at the abused, expressly designed to hurt or provoke.
Another instance where words may do harm is when a threat is issued. This warns of a negative
occurrence to the recipient. Words, here, are able to generate fear in another, usually with the
express wish of controlling that person's behaviour. A parent may warn a child that if he
continues with a given action he will be punished. The child now experiences fear and may
adjust his behaviour accordingly.
Words are powerful. They can elicit strong emotion in others. Surely then we should seek to be
responsible regarding our everyday choice of words. But it is the intention behind our words
which is of prime importance. Do we seek to harm or heal? To encourage or discourage? Is our
intention one of love or hatred?
ON CLOUD WATCHING
I lie here on the cool grass looking upwards. Clouds manifest in all their bulbous, ethereal
glory. They drift lazily across the sky, some evaporating, some continually evolving. A grand
celestial symphony unfolds before me. Naturally I begin to meditate.

My mind maps onto these so transient of creatures all manner of its inner contents. Human
figures and faces of all types appear, galloping grey horses too and all manner of animals. Great
onion domed buildings and cloudy cathedrals emerge then separate into smaller equally strange
units. All effortlessly suspended, all communally transversing the flattened blue backdrop.
I am witness to my inner confusion projected upon this multitude of creamy, celestial rorschach
blots. Near to hallucination but not quite, my mind interprets the myriad of ever moulding
shapes in ways so strange to me. What is inside has momentarily manifested outside. This is a
waking dream, this is a beautiful drifting symphony of shapes and shades.
And each shape, each ethereal entity seeks no fame. Eternity is unknown to them, no
permanence here permitted. I find no immortality vehicles cast into the future in order to
preserve an essence of what once was. Any individual essence is purely of the present.
No weight up there, all is light, all is effortlessly suspended beneath the pallid blue. With all in
flux, each figure and form is moulded for only a few seconds before slipping back into the
primal chaos.
No depression either. Because I cannot grasp, I relax into this ocean and begin to tread its
water. To grasp would be to drown, instead I feel a flowing through my fingers and around my
legs. Figures come, castles go but still I am afloat, still able to breath this purest of air. The
moment is here to enjoy without meaning and without madness.
Nothing lasts forever up there. Nothing lasts forever down here.
ON THE LIMITS OF KNOWLEDGE
How far does the universe stretch? If we travelled far into space would we reach a boundary of
sorts or would we continue on indefinitely? Or would our experience of space-time gradually
become warped and the supposed constants of the physical universe begin to break down? The
answer is we don't know.
And what if we cut an atom down indefinitely, particle by particle, would we come to a final
particle or unit of energy? Can a defined space contain an infinite number of units? To what
destination do we arrive?
So far, despite our best efforts in the advancement of science, we have to hold up our hands and
admit that in both cases we simply don't know. We have reached what may be termed a
'boundary of knowledge'.
At present, past such boundaries we cannot go and so imagination must travel onwards where
science and measurement has faltered. Certainly mathematically there is no limit to size, large
or small. Does our answer therefore lie with mathematics?

At knowledge boundaries our reason also fails us. Clearly there is no reason why space
shouldn't have 'infinite limits', and no reason why particles shouldn't continue to get smaller
and smaller indefinitely. But then again it is reasonable to assume that the converse may be
true.
However my intuition tells me that when we zoom further and further into matter all we will
find is an 'energy principle'. This could best be explained as an energy that has been shaped by
intention. It is the eternal form manifest in energy which we shall locate. And such forms
probably manifest on varying scales, thus we will be familiar with them when they are
discovered. The spiral we find as we stir milk into our coffee is the same perfect form that we
find manifest in a tornado. Can we then extrapolate that such a form manifests on the
infinitesimally small scale?
And what of the source. Who or what is it that intends or initiates such patterns or forms?
God?
ON DARKNESS
Darkness envelops all.
In the darkness there is no time, no form, nothing manifest. All is as one, all is blackest of
black.
And our minds are free to imagine anything and everything within that darkness. Fears rise up
within us, fantasies suddenly seem possible despite the lack of shadow and shape.
Darkness is the womb of the mind. From the womb we came, dark and warm, safe and all
enveloping. It was our first experience, the pristine, prime phenomenon.
And from far back in time we are haunted by memories of the savage forest, bristling with
nocturnal life before twilight, peopled by menace and threat. Yes, darkness is also dangerous.
We look up to the heavens, and witness the solitary star, stationary and utterly lonely amongst
the vast nothingness of space. A celestial candle, faintly wavering within the eternal,
unoccupied darkness.
And possibly, just possibly, once her energies have all been spent, the Goddess will rest within
this very darkness.
For Starling*