This was no place I wanted to live, if this was what I believed it to be. It was but a burrow within twisted pipes and screeching gears. As I progressed forth, I reached a cavern blown out with dynamite. Was it safe to keep going? I was alone: my thoughts of the earlier day dragged me down. I felt I needed to press onto the others about her. They did not understand. They did not want to understand.

At the university I studied a prophesy, if you may, about a young woman. It was said that many many years ago she would go out into the streets of several of our cities and try to educate masses of citizens on what she referred to as simply, “the wind.”

The wind is a force; a series of developmental patterns that define the evolution of life on this planet. In essence, she claimed, those patterns were on a collision course with humanity’s own development. In her words, humanity would eventually try to outstrip the planet’s resources, but the wind (the eventualities of meta-ecosystems) would always reaffirm its flow. She predicted this flow to wring destruction from every appendage of our lives.

She most certainly was not alone. She accompanied her public relations staff in holding town meetings, distributing brochures, and circulating a newsletter speaking about her research team’s latest findings.

My most impressive finding about her story was tucked away in the cellar of a family’s home. A diary was passed down through the generations right into my hands. The author: a man to whom I owe great admiration. He noted in his diary that he vistited this woman on a near-daily basis. They would sit alongside a pier and watch the waves - a distraction for their ongoing conversations. He was in love, but I do not believe she felt the same. From this awkwardness came a friendship. This man called himself Alazanto, and after a few years, he gave the woman a name that, surprisingly, she kept. She eventually became known as Cognis.

At this pike in history, Cognis’ team released a special serum to the public. For a considerable sum people could purchase this to be injected into their bloodstream. This serum contained an unbelievable form of technology. Essentially, tiny machines would be injected into the bloodstream. They would deposit themselves in our living cells to perform regular repairs and aid the communication between one cell and another. Alazanto noted that this technology slowed the aging process, increased resistance to illness, and changed the very blueprint that defined how cells (and eventually whole people) would develop.

Interestingly, Alazanto was conducting his own research at the time. He and Cognis were intrigued by each other’s ideas, but Alazanto was only beginning his work. He had many more questions for Cognis than she had for him. She was his mentor, but his ideas differed fundamentally. Eventually this lead to a chasm in their longstanding friendship. As a result they no longer met to watch the waves. He would not write another entry in his diary for years to come.

The cavern into which I stepped spanned for a great height. Atop hung a bright white light that, with the distance, glittered faintly onto the floor. I turned a knob on my helmet to strengthen the flow of oil into my headlamp. I was afraid of what I might find ahead. I reminded myself that I was a researcher for the university, not an explorer. With improvised training I was pushed into this expedition by myself. On the other hand, the scope of these caverns was never predicted. My return was already expected. I checked my watch and surely my mother had begun dinner.

My carrier contained enough food for three days. With smaller meals I could string its utility to five. From the cavern I found another tunnel through which to press. Mother will worry.

When Alazanto had finally emerged in his writings, he noted that Cognis’s team had completed the second phase of their project. The phase was a sort of experiemental city. It was a single massive structure with what appeared to be long tentacles reaching from the curved rooftop to the soil. Portruding from the top were rows of fins that spanned the width of the structure and matched the length. The outer shell contained the same tiny machines that were found in the serum (and with it a pool of volunteers). In his journal, Alazanto explained that the shell gave an irridescent glow, but the fins were completely transparent - configured somehow differently to draw power from an element in the air.

Many hailed this city as a crowning achievement. Cities of the time drew fumes into the air and leeched toxins into the soil. Citizens paid a price for their level of material well being, but the new technologies in development by Cognis brought hope that people may have material well being in a healthy environment. Child-borne illnesses from pollution would be something of the past. Celebration, however, was warranted cautiously.

During the first trials of the serum, ambiguous deaths were reported, but quickly snuffed out by Cognis’ public relations staff. Within a year, however, many new mothers reported birth defects in their children. Fear eventually caught the public’s imagination. Governments wordwide conducted studies on the serum. Nearly all reports of death and disability surfaced in the media. It was concluded that depending on one’s body chemistry, there was a serious risk of heart failure and nervous atrophy in elders, and severe birth defects in newborns.

Cognis conducted an exaustive self study and produced the results for the public domain. She was granted the right to reintroduce the serum to a select number of children who suffered from chronic immune deficiencies. Many of these children were bed-ridden and some even requested euthinasia. Critics argued that Cognis was practicing a cruel form of human experimentation in the name of medicine. During this period one of her research staff was murdered in protest to the continued development of the serum.

The experiment persevered and the children arose from their beds.

Cognis was hailed as a bringer of miracles. Not only could the serum strengthen the children’s immune systems, but it gave them physical capabilities that outmatched their peers. Demand soared for the serum to be distributed throughout citizenships, but all governments kept tight controls on its distribution.

Carefully, the gates to this serum were opened for the new city’s capacity of ten thousand volunteers.

Interestingly, most politicians were outright hostile toward the contstruction of such a city. They felt it was an unecessary abandonment of proven values. They clamored on about the potentially negative economic impact. However, upon habitation, the city’s internal factories quickly proved these claims false. If anything this city was several times as productive as its settled counterparts. Markets from every shore purchased the transportation units, computing devices, and power generators that its citizens specialized in.

Alazanto was growing worried. People only knew of this city through its productive capacity, not its newly-found citizens. He did not deny that the demonstrations of the serum on those first children were a near-miracle, but he wanted to follow up with their long-term progression. He did not deny that the city was producing goods without seeping pollution into the immediate environment, but he wanted to know about the environment within.

Cognis emerged from the city embodied in a flowing blue robe. Millions of citizens from nearby cities traveled to see her. They grew worried of humanity’s direction and looked to her for guidance. She met with government leaders behind closed doors, but emerged after a week of talks to speak directly to the developing crowds.

She claimed that the winds were beginning a realignment and that humanity would soon be purged into hardship. She then made a promise that she would return in two centuries with a solution - a solution she called the machine.

Cognis returned to the city.

In the course of a week, the massive power-generating fins atop the city shattered. The tentacles that one lined the edge of the roof ripped themselves from the ground in an explosion of blue light. The city was never seen again.

Until, of course, a rusted mass of twisted metal surfaced near the mountains. I was confident this was the prophesy in motion. My colleagues grew impatient with my claims and dared me to explore the interior to return with clues. We surmised that a series of small rooms were beyond the doorway of this mass. However, I would have never imagined the interior to span so deep underground. Were these remnants of the lost city? Was the prophesy of Cognis to manifest?

The earth inhales while we walk along the path. Gently, waters tumble over an outcropping. I felt as if the world was listening to us: one and…the other. He was younger than myself. His face, pointed so, walks carefully, cautiously. He is so quiet this morning. I needed no words to reassure myself why.

I drape an arm around his shoulder. We stop to sit at a wind-worn park bench settled in untamed tufts of grass. I look into his…I look into what was left of those eyes. Empty sockets they were; still gazing.

“I did this,” he musters.

My thoughts sit in between the two of us. He could feel it. His voice, calm with courage, battered with horror. “I couldn’t go on to see something so…”

I cut his words cleanly. “You aren’t vile, or disgusting, or whatever words you choose to describe yourself. You’re beautiful. I can see that. I can see why I love you…but…why…”

“I’m sorry.” he spouts.

The winds warm with curiousity press against us. My fingertips carefully caress down the side of his face. I avoid his eyes, but my motions point them out. He backs away; I can see his tousled hair sway with the breeze.

I lean back. With a creak the bench becomes comfortable with my new pose. I begin to speak hoping that today’s words would lift his chin and bring back his vision. “What you saw…”

I pause.

“Day after day
  the vility seeps into your wounds.

This is a projection woven for our eyes;
  we are bound into the undergrowth;
    the soil is pure.

Paved with a false light
  we are invited
  in a leap to the surface.

Two branches two lovers,
  drinking from a trunk shared,
    enveloped in sky light glare.”

Tears fell where tears did not exist. He inched close again.

“The poison pools beneath our toes.” He sullenly whispers. “The poison is real. The poison must be real. If we know our future is so, why do we choose to grow?”

“That is our nature.” I conclude. “Whither cast if we do not believe in our nature.
  We are exposed whether or not our vision beholds.

  In vision destroyed we can still see the vility borne from our own horror.”

His body curls as it had in previous times. It was at these times when I never knew what to say. But I knew of his love. I knew he was here. I could hold him once again in my arms. This is his gift.

I assure, “I know you are still here. I know you can still see…see that we are still two branches.”

From beneath his breath, “Drinking from a trunk shared.”

O’ nascent crystalline:

drumfire of colliding potentialities;
  springs of patterns amidst viscosity;
    reticulating bonds…

do you draw your strength from further dissonance?

Upheaval breaks through your lattice -
  a broken dream -
    languishing down the stream.

Dissonance, it seems, is a euphony for the beguiled darkness.

But inside you, new patterns emerge;
  with whispers in bloom undertows converge.

In ebullience, drawn from these visions rent,
  each evident floe is a new love disclosed;
    bound in its entelechy unending;
      never to be chapfallen.

Tiny lights - glistening teeth -
  body’s edge exposed.

A hand sways to the melody of short fires.

Fingers leap onto broken glass
  and visions embrace an angled stance.

Cell by cell red explores each chaff.

The fires become weary:
  aria to aria, they fall from regard.

In pursuit of winds listening
  companions, once trinity, draw themselves to glisten.

But a gust of wind turns about
  lifting those fingers into the default.

From pause the companions follow.

Their breath, encircling red;
  embracing both hands;

they step inside;
  and visions align:
    edge to edge, impregnable to light.

For some time I wanted to develop a new character - a warship butterfly - as I call it. The butterfly’s cliche is in its innocence, but in a spiteful rush, this butterfly blows through the breaking point of any web, no matter the strength.

I assure you this is no small feat, for a strand from the web is stronger than steel. However, we must remember that the web symbolizes the connection we have to (and for) each other. The spider is illuminated as a weaver of compassion and the butterfly becomes a bringer of destruction.

Am I simply saying that being entangled in a web is like being entangled in compassion - where we are unable to move and unable to see where each strand ends? Cornell West speaks of something called tragicomic - a celebration of misery - an acknowledgement that we suffer because we have souls - a compassion for the world around us. We might not know what to carry into the next moment, but we can celebrate.

The warship butterfly comes again into view as a celebratory force. Fluttering about, then gliding through webs (stronger than steel) unable to trap a free spirit into bondage.

The web catches us. Through contemplation we learn that we have become entangled in our own compassion. We long to see the weaver, but we learn that the weaver is in fact the self. Like this new character - the butterfly - we break through the webs - we glide and flutter above them. We learn to celebrate our own compassion - the beauty of the butterfly’s wings - realized as we return to the world and affect all around us.

Celebration is a focusing of compassion. Celebration does not require knowledge of what to say in the following moment.

Please keep in mind that the site does not work in Internet Explorer (any version). I cross my fingers and hope the situation may improve with version 7, but as of now, I am alienating 80% of the browsing populace. This feels good in a sadistic way. I hope to find a way to present a less fanciful set of styles to this family of browsers.

Recently, I was given a short introduction to VXML and aural CSS (now only supported in Opera 8). This would be a wonderful addition to the commenting system in wordpress.

Wordpress - I made the switch and couldn’t be happier. Now to learn PHP. I’ve become far too accustomed to working with ASP.NET/C#

The theme is based on the K2 beta from Binary Bonsai