The Genii

A surreal tale...           

       Take a walk with me. Let us visit an imaginary universe of astonishing richness and diversity. Let us voyage to places that symbolize the undefined in dream-like escapes, where in our urgent desire for perfection, we create a home for our uncertainty, a place where the impossible does not clash with its surroundings but instead sits pronouncedly upright, satisfying our insatiable desire to rise above the lumbering of our fellow travelers.  

Allegory of the Genius of Alexander I. Prince Heinrich Lubomirski

Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755 - 1842)

              In this excursion, let us draw a map for the younglings, for those who, bound by their energetic resonance, search wildly for their rightful habitat. So that they might avoid getting lost in the labyrinth of imprisoning realms, let us call upon those authorities that have ventured there and back again.

Porträt der Graham-Kinder (The Graham Children) 1742

William Hogarth (1697 - 1764)

 ...

From the ruins of a walled city

The southeast echoes songs by night

The songs of a past time are carried by an secret dynasty

In the light of the moon, you can see their flight…

Follow with me down into the cave

Wearing two golden helmets of Geniian lineage

Stones tremble as they try to conceal the silent gateway…

We realize that the path of the past is endless

As we stand upon a distant ridge

We continue searching for the wide valley

Where we heard the sounds of younglings play…

The gateway is ruled by an unconscious planet

Entangled veins disclose hidden clues within their twists

Who is welcome to cross the waters whose streams are filled with granite?

On the bank of the river

The answers follow the bird that rises from the mist…

            Legend has it that geniuses are descended from and named after Genii, an offspring of the guiding spirit or tutelary deity of this land.  The Ancients spoke of how its divine nature manifests in extraordinary proclivities: seeking harmony, the pleasantness of a place, the strength found in upholding an oath and the natural inclination propelling it forever onward.

            The decendents of genii, those whom we refer to as geniuses, cannot flourish amid the shackles of conformity unless they find a refuge to house their intellectual throne. Imprisoned by incipit tragoedia, ruled by a people with whom the genii have no common language, genii tend to wander ceaselessly, roaming along the coast of life, barely peeking out from their blanket of amnesia; all the while, unable to communicate with the local inhabitants, and more importantly, with themselves.

Memories that cannot remember having been…

Thoughts that take us to the other side of time.

            For those who wish to embark upon the quest of freeing their young genius of their amnesiac chains, know that it is possible to deliver them to another realm where contradictions are not seen as impediments, but rather delightful, fabricated niceties that arise from intellectual independence in a landscape that permits multitudes of coexisting possibilities without the fear associated with losing one’s mind: the annihilation of coherency.

Far, far away from the tyrannical and unwilling nature of the Highlands, a genius might again find faith in the vastness of their mind, encouragement for their dreamy maunderings and fantastical, seemingly irreconcilable imaginings that challenge others to expand their own mindset rather than limit it to what others deem are acceptable limits of one’s imagination. A place where genius might transform their guests into kings or butterflies or believers of all and nothing simultaneously just to explore the notion without the biased opinion that these transmutations are impossible.

            The realm of which I speak is strangely beautiful, with shimmering torrents of mercury, blazing lakes of fire and swift rivers of rose-colored liquid flowing across golden sand beneath mountains of sulfur and bitumen.

            Along the Stream of Universal Remedy, a golden liquid flows, curing all ills and wounds. Here, genius discovers that it can heal itself of the pain it suffers above ground in the Highlands. No longer imprisoned for intellectual misconduct, the genius tears itself free of the iron shackles associated with faulty reasoning, and in a single gesture, with a point of the finger, dissolves the metal into a tiny needle and thread with which it can mend its own wounded spirit ~ should it be torn.

            Oh look! There is a youngling cleansing themselves of the negativity associated with free thought. She notices a welcoming leaf on a tree, which she then presses upon her face. The royal imprint of the genii appears, dissolves, and then fuels the natural energie of this land.

            This world is fueled by the energie associated with imagining and guarded by defenders of The Deep Wonderment. Caverns of thought are filled with fantastic gems and veins of precious ores, and their fluted and twisted pillars of white, saffron and pink that support the roofs are mirrored in the still pools surrounding its many forests.

            History has it that the Genii settled here at the end of the Great Greek Awakening. In this realm, the Genii developed their inquisitive skills. Among other services to humankind, they adopted a mindset, which later became law and was inscribed on monuments and temples across the land:

Free thyself from the chains of belief

According to those travelers who have ventured into the Caves of Genii, the kingdom is rich and flourishing. It is place where all younglings recognize a powerful essence dwelling within. An essence that instantly resonates from a synchronicity they experience with their surroundings.

Taking a moment to breathe in vastness of this moment, another youngling notices that the trees are surprisingly tall, with broad tapering leaves. The fruit of which is the size of a melon and so light that it bounces when dropped. He plucks one and bites into its skin, its transparent juice is intoxicating, its flesh tastes like sweet bread.

Memory is the theater of the spirit

I am the shadow my word’s cast

The moment scatters

I write not knowing the outcome of what I write

Like a memory inventing itself

            A vast forest surrounds these fruit trees. The ground to the north rises to a mountain with three peaks. The two outer peaks are densely wooded but upon the middle one, the highest, proudly stand orthostats, their presence quietly beckons those who curiously traverse the mountain onward toward a vista on the east side of the river where a polygon of trilithons make up one of the largest sanctuaries in the land.

            There is an airy freedom here; one that welcomes the boundless nature of the mind to gaze upon the triad before taking flight into the majesty of existence. No longer plagued by cultural philistinism of the Highlands, the genius’ mind flows effortlessly to the point that it can identify with the sun, with the energies that form into matter, and even with the background information upon which this celestial dance takes place. 

Golden whirlwinds insubstantial as my own thoughts

In a ghostly theater of reflection

A single monotonous intensity

Do I believe in man or in the stars?

            It is here where deities are born… where the genius witnesses his own becoming… where the ground rises up to meet him and the sky bows down to curtsy at his feet… where the birds swoon from the fragrance of fauna… where boundaries are forgotten… where from quietude emerges a symphony of natural harmonies that awaken an essence that was hitherto enclosed in the mortal trappings of life.

           

            Championing their ideals, the Genii considered intellectual freedom one of the cardinal virtues. They sought, not out of an insatiable desire for possession, but for the undisputed right to explore without conforming to a festival of ignorance that limits such exploration.

            A moment passes and the genius sits in deep thought. Taking in the color of his surroundings, he thinks about how in the Highlands he felt like an imposter. How despite his best efforts he could not align his insatiable propensity for further exploration with the deeply held beliefs of others. How was it that he could understand and appreciate their perspectives and yet find himself so utterly misunderstood in the process? If he was born in the Highlands, shouldn’t he be a Highlander? Could it be that biological origin and energetic origin are different? Could an individual be born into a specific configuration and simultaneously belong to or coexist in another form?

There is another life within this life

Another you that recognizes you

Another you, you do not know…

Look between the lines

Open yourself to the invisible

Your thoughts are still en guarde

            Just then, an eagle pecked at its own shadow. The genius wondered what it meant.

            
          “Is this a sky-god presiding over the three peaks of this realm offering me a gift of supremacy, a fount of the auspices upon which the relationship of genius rests with the gods? Perhaps it is nothing other than bird tired of its Oak tree, curious about its shadow. Curious? How curious! How is that a bird could be curious? Why would it not be so? Am I limiting my mind out of habit or fear of reproach?”

            In this moment, the genius realized that he had habituated himself to follow the Highlanders’ customs, that he was accustomed to limiting his thoughts to please the gods of conformity.  Indulging in only a few eccentricities, which he readily labeled as “eccentric” to appease Highland officials, observing an ancient punctilious regard for rules and comparing those rules to those other rules held by other Highlanders, he lamented.

            Perhaps neither the genius nor the Highlander recognizes that what was once bizarre had become usual, that what seemed normal was now an oddity, and that virtues and faults had lost merit or honor in a different code of virtues and faults.

            The Highlanders approach to knowing is called science, and yet all their scientific accounts are aimed at creating a solid and compact image of a world they cannot see from outside themselves. The Highlands is a place where diversity, the type of thinking that might be inferred from a different subjective opinion, has less substance than the structures that house it. Highlanders speak of what is needed to exist, but exist on less than what can be spoken.

If through us the universe speaks with itself,

why do we try to silence it?