Word – EDEN by FREI

{The Fire Breather}

Though he be strong, he is not fierce; though he be powerful, he is not violent. Although he be dependable, righteous he can’t be; though he be wise, he is not heard. He is a Fire Breather: his word burns like a torch; like Elijah’s does it purify – but can it ever be understood? By whom?

He casts a curious figure in the wilderness, as he stands by the shore, by the riverbank, on the mountain, on the traffic island in the city; in the square; shadowless, peerless, ageless. The inner beauty of his mind obscured and masked by the dust on his brow and the mud round his ankles. His hair all a-tangle, his white beard streaked now only with the occasional charcoal, with a strand of dark blond here, or there ginger. His scent is not sweet, nor is he a joy to behold, at first glance.

At second glance the wrinkles around his eyes show as laugh lines, and they are merry with wisdom. At third glance the light in his eyes shines bright as a flame: the oxygen of an insight beyond.

Through meditation and study and practice he has mastered the art of putting his mind above matter, and so he has learnt to walk on water, but he can only do so when nobody’s watching because he knows that if anyone were to see him, they would turn him into a miracle worker, a prophet, a freak. A messiah. A wonder of no more worth than that it defies the simple laws of contemporarily understood physics.

He will not have it. He will not be entertainment. He will not speak of his understanding, nor will he surmise his premonitions other than to those who are able and willing to pause. And stay silent, but for a while. Ere they ask questions. Those who are capable of phrasing these questions from a hunger for knowledge, a desire to learn. They are not many. The shouting, the screaming, the screeching, the demands for explanations, the sarcastic tones and the jibes, the heckling, the laughter, the desire—the instinct—for tearing him down, the lust for his failure, for his destruction, for him to be hung drawn and quartered, for his undoing, are great.

He knows this, and he inwardly smiles. He has the capacity in his heart to forgive. He is magnanimous in his disposition towards those who hate him, who wish him silenced, who relish him misunderstood. Because he knows: one day something or someone will catch fire from his word and the fire will spread and will cause a great conflagration from which the lands will emerge purged and fertile for new thought to grow.

That is not his aim nor his goal nor his intention, that is just his purpose. His purpose is to quietly whisper into the din of the crowd that will not heed him, and plant the seeds he was given to sow. Until one takes hold. Until from just one or just two or just three or four, and then four or five more, some thing starts to grow.

He doesn’t even know what that could be. He has no certainty that it will not be dangerous, poisonous even, or be made thus by others who will take what they find and turn it upside down, inside out; who pervert him and his gentle teachings into dogma and strife. He cannot prevent this from happening, if it must. He can only be true to his purpose, his purpose being his word.

Fear not the Fire Breather, but neither dismiss or ignore him. And doubt not the might of the Word.

< {Connexum} {QED} >

Read Insomnia in Paperback or as eBook

The Ice King – 6: The Core

Into the core I dissolve.

I remember The Ice King, he lingers. In my body. In my senses. My mind. In my nature; my idiom. In my eyes. In my aptitudes. I was never like The Ice King at all, yet I am he, he is me, was that unavoidable, or was it my wish?

Down at the core of the centre of the stem of the flow of the pulse there is no movement, no stillness, no anger, no pain. No cold and no ice and no view and no argument, no perspective. There is liquid lava only. The core is the place at which everything starts and everything comes together and everything ceases to be, and everything is alive, but the heat melts the molecules and causes nuclear fusions: it’s as close as we get to the sun. The energy. The source.

As I come up for air I realise to my joy I’m still breathing. In, breathing out. Im Atemholen sind zweierlei Gnaden. I remember things I never knew were instilled in me, but they, like The Ice King, remain; they are rooted, they grow.

I grow. I grow out of the core and through the pole, and I form into something almost human. I laugh inside. Not happy, relieved. The fact alone that there is a core. That there is a pole. That there is a word. That there is a thought. That there is a kiss. That there is a chamber. That there is ice, that there is a king. That the king rules me because I want him to only. He has my permission. I am his subject, he is my slave. We get on swimmingly.

Like happy spermatozoa we float in the semen of our need towards the egg of our imagination, flagella wagging, willing us on to imminent fertilisation. Often we fail. But we are not unique, we are two among millions, and the consciousness from which we have squirted is generous, patient. There is more. There is plenty. We are not alone. We are not lost. We are not meaningless. We are not wasted.

Up through the salty water I burst, slithery wet and elated. If this be living I’ll have me some more of it, yes. The Ice King, tranquil now, regal, mischievous, hot, smiles at me knowingly. He knows me better than I care to admit, but I care not. I have him in my mind and he has me in his gonads. Together we’re strong. Let this be our universe. The force that holds us together may yet tear us apart, but for now there is only the idea of what may be.

Strengthened, revived, I emerge. The Ice King walks with me now, as I go. I am The Ice King, I am the snowflake, I am The Snowflake Collector, the wonder and George. The innocence lost and found. The anguish, the great satisfaction. The invention. The story.

I walk on an empty plane that extends into all directions, without end. Absence of colour surrounds me. I have conquered my fear. Not lost it, not abandoned it, no: embraced it, loved it, wrestled it, made it my own. I am the master of that I create. I am god. I breathe in, I breathe out. I breathe in, I breathe out. The swirls of air from my mouth form a flurry of flowers whose pollen disperse and populate the void. It is a paradise. It is rich. It is the land of beauty, abundance. This is where I belong; this is home.

< 5: The Pole 7: The Beginning >

Read The Ice King in Paperback or as eBook

Listen to the Audiobook

The Ice King – 4: The Word

Hand in hand we walk north in the night, now upon the ice that stretches ahead to the pole and beyond. Can there be a Beyond, beyond the pole? Another pole, perhaps, where the penguins are asleep. They know not of The Ice King, they care not for me, their dreams are of flying turtles and jellyfish in a trance.

Above us the sky is a fantasy of too many colours; those yellows, those greens, those purples again, I have seen them before: I saw them, I’m sure, in the chamber, but here in the open, we are naked and free.

Naked we walk hand in hand on the ice that has no horizon, it just yields to the sky. It extends so far that the eye wants to rest, but the light and the ions and the glow of the heart have emboldened us to go on.

After the water, the land, and now the ice once again, only this is no glacier. This is the home of The Ice King, it is where he belongs. I’m not sure I should be here at all, but with his palm in mine and the steady sound of his breathing beside me I feel safe and assured. His step too is steady and strong; his eyes are determined now, and his hair, which I hadn’t noticed before, here in the open waves in the wind. The wind cuts our cheeks and our chests and our thighs, and the ice is so cold that it burns the soles of our feet, but we are not afraid, and we are not tired, and we are not alone: we have each other.

I don’t know what having The Ice King means, or he having me. Are we now one? I glance across to him as we stride, and we are so far gone now, the aurora has left us behind, and all about are the stars: magnificent molecules in the sky. Never have I seen them so clear, nor so many. Numbers no one can name. In the light of the night that is moonless and large The Ice King looks like an invisible force, a presence that cannot be known, that can only be sensed; that cannot be fathomed, it can only be lived. Am I living The Ice King?

The Ice King inwardly laughs, and his mirth appears on his lips as the memory of a trace of a smile. I love these lips, and I have no regrets. I regret not kissing them, nor sailing on them to the pole, nor listening to them as he speaks: I do not hear what he says, the wind is too fierce, the snowy crystals it blasts our skin with too sharp, the tremor of thrill of being exposed to his world too intense for me to indeed understand, but the melody that emanates from his body, and the idea that shines in his temple, and the soul that has taken me on make me trust in his language, his word.

His word that I do not now nor ever imagine I shall comprehend grows in my brain a new constellation of axons, and I tingle at the realisation that this is an initiation, it is certainly the commencement of something, it is a whole new creation. I do not know what this is, but I know it is good.

< 3: The Thought 5: The Pole >

Read The Ice King in Paperback or as eBook

Listen to the Audiobook

{The Fire Breather}

This post has moved. You can now find it here.

EDEN was originally published in random order. Starting 1st August 2018 it is being reposted in sequence. To follow it, choose from the subscribe options in the lefthand panel (from a laptop) or in the drop-down menu (from a mobile device).

If you are the owner of the link that brought you here, please update it; or if you know them, then please do let them know.

Thanks & enjoy.

The Ice King – 6: The Core

This post has moved. You can now find it here.

If you are the owner of the link that brought you here, please update it; or if you know them, then please do let them know.

Thanks & enjoy.

The Ice King – 4: The Word

This post has moved. You can now find it here.

If you are the owner of the link that brought you here, please update it; or if you know them, then please do let them know.

Thanks & enjoy.