Niketas, eyes closed, hand outstretched, muttering under his breath in Latin syllables, struggles to hold back a deep chuckle, as if he'd just pried the most delightful splinter from his paw.
"Oh... mmm..." he smiles he mutters.
Raising a second hand, a knife from the counter rises, spinning in the flickering candlelight, glinting. From a bookshelf, a sheath of paper fans out into a long stretch, arcing towards the spinning blade in a single smooth line. The sheets of paper, one after another, pass the blade, slicing cleanly into streams and assorted shapes.
His eyes closed in deep focus, he smiles, a hint of teeth. Ribbons of paper spiral towards the lit candles, spinning around them in a dance. Stray shapes cut from the same parchment join the promenade, and the room darkens as light and shadow pulse and a procession of shades form on the walls.
The Night After The Party We Don't Talk About
Re: The Night After The Party We Don't Talk About
by alanwrotethis » Fri Jan 10, 2020 2:10 am
Nathan Dukes - Elder of Clan Tremere
Played by Alan Gowing
Played by Alan Gowing
- alanwrotethis
- Posts: 259
- Joined: Tue Dec 20, 2016 12:27 am
Re: The Night After The Party We Don't Talk About
by L . » Fri Jan 10, 2020 2:47 am
The shadows themselves remain inoffensive in their speed; one rubs itself, slowly and catlike, up and down Dukes leg; it curls around his wrist and moves almost wetly down, to slide and pool around his hip. To others in the room, the shadows are less familiar; they move away at a moment's twitch, elaborating the story on the wall in little dances and shadow picture shows. One approaches Valentina's foot.
It pauses there hesitantly, four feet out, and turns over onto its own thickening belly, this alien black thing, writhing gently, as if to show itself off. To Aldrich the shadows are less cautious, they poke at his ears and his hair and they tap against his knee. Laurence is taken with caution, much as Valentina. Any that are welcomed in without anxiety become fractionally more familiar; Dukes has no such privacy. They are cold to the touch, some smokier or less substantial than others; but those upon Andross and Dukes look almost frightfully tangible. They move in the background while Aurelia speaks.
"The man became drowsy, slid under his sleeping skins, and soon was dreaming. And sometimes as humans sleep, you know, a tear escapes from the dreamer's eye; we never know what sort of dream causes this, but we know it is either a dream of sadness or longing. And this is what happened to the man."
"The Skeleton Woman saw the tear glisten in the firelight, and she became suddenly soooo thirsty. She tinkled and clanked and crawled over to the sleeping man and put her mouth to his tear. The single tear was like a river and she drank and drank and drank until her many years-long thirst was slacked."
"Then, while lying beside him, she reached inside the sleeping man and took out his heart, the mighty drum. She sat up and began to sing out 'Flesh, flesh, flesh! Flesh, flesh, flesh!' And the more she sang, the more her body filled out with flesh. She sang for hair and good eyes and nice far hands. She sang the divide between her legs, and breasts long enough to wrap for warmth, and all the things a woman needs."
"And when she was done, she also sang the sleeping man's clothes off and crept into his bed with him, skin against skin. She returned the great drum, his heart, to his body, and that is how they awakened, wrapped around one another, tangled from their night together, in another way now, a good and lasting way."
"The people who cannot remember how she came to her first ill-fortune say she and the fisherman went away and were consistently well fed by the creatures she had known in her life underwater. The people say that it is true and that is all they know."
"Inability to face and untangle the Skeleton Woman is what causes many love relationships to fail. To love, one must not only be strong, but wise. Strength comes from spirit. Wisdom comes from experience with Skeleton Woman."
"As we see in the tale, if one wishes to be fed for life, one must face and develop a relatioinship with the Life/Death/Life nature. When we have that, we are no longer bumbling along fishing for fantasies, but are made wise about the necessary deaths and startling births that create true relationship. When we face Skeleton Woman we learn that passion is not something to go 'get' but rather something generated in cycles and given out, freely. It is Skeleton Woman who demonstrates that a shared living together through all increase and decrease, through all endings and beginnings, is what creates an unparalleled devotional love."
"This story is a metaphor, for the problem of vampiric love, the fear of the Life/Death/Life nature, the Death aspect in particular. In much of our cultures, the original character of the Death nature has been covered over by various dogmas and doctrines until it is split off from its other half: Life. We have erroneously been trained to accept a broken form of one of the most profound and basic aspects of the wild nature. We have been taught that death is always followed by more death. It is simply not so, Torpor teaches us this; Skeleton Woman us this. Death is always in the process of incubating new life, new animation, new nights to awaken to, even when one's existence has been cut down to the bones."
"Rather than seeing the archetypes of Death and Life as opposites, they must be held together as the left and right side of a single thought. It is true that within a single love relationship there are many endings. Yet, somehow and somewhere in the delicate layers of the being that is created when two people love each other, there is both a heart and a breath. Even as undead we breathe to speak, to gasp, to moan, to laugh, to snarl. In humans while one side of the heart empties the other fills. When one breath runs out, another begins. We have forgotten this, because we have the gift of immortality, and we have become frozen in our hearts, and in our breath."
"If one believes that the Life/Death/Life force has no stanza beyond death, it is no wonder that some humans and most vampires are terrified of commitment. They are frightened to go through even one ending. They cannot bear to pass from the veranda into the inner rooms. They are fearful, for they sense that there in the breakfast room of the house of love sits Lady Death, tapping her toe, unfolding and refolding her gloves. Before her is a work list, on one side what is living, on the other, what is dying. She means to carry through. She means to maintain a balance."
"The archetype of the Life/Death/Life force is grossly misunderstood throughout many vampiric cultures. Some no longer understand that Lady Death represents an essential creation patterm. Through her loving ministrations, life is renewed - real life, the life that breathes love into the bones of those frozen and cold. In many folklores the female figures of death often receive much sensational press: she carries a scythe and 'harvests' the unsuspecting, she kisses her victims and leaves their corpses scattered behind her, or she drowns people and then wails long into the night."
"But in other cultures, such as East Indian and Mayan, which have preserved teachings about the wheel of life and death, Lady Death enfolds the already dying, easing their pain, giving them comfort. In curanderisma, she is said to turn the baby in the womb to the headfirst position so it can be born. She is said to guide the hands of the widwife, to open the pathways of the mother's milk in the breasts, as well as to comfort anyone who weeps alone. Rather than villifying her, those who know her in full cycle repsect her largess and her lessons."
"Much of our Old Knowledge of the Life/Death/Life nature is contaminated by our fear of death. We fear the loss of power because ultimately, we fear powerlessness will lead to death, be it social, romantic, financial, emotional or physical. Therefore our abilities to move with the cycles of this nature paradigm are quite frail. These forces do not 'do something' to us. They are not theives who rob us of the things we cherish. This nature is not a Victorian murderer who cuts into and collapses what we value."
"No, no, the Life/Death/Life forces are part of our vampiric nature, part of an inner authority that knows the steps, knows the dance of Life and Death, more even, than any mortal human. It is composed of the aspects of ourselves who know when something can, should, and must be born and when it must die, when it must awaken, and when it must sleep. It is a deep teacher if we can only learn its tempo."
"Toreador poets and Malkavians especially understand that there is nothing of value without death. Gangrel know this too. Without death there are no lessons, without death there is no dark for the diamond to shine from. While those who are initiated are unafraid of Lady Death, the culture often encourages that we throw Skeleton Woman over the cliffs, for not only is she fearsome, it takes too long to learn her ways. A soul-less vampiric world encourages faster, quicker, thrashing about to find the one filament that seems to be the one that will burn forever and right now. We burn through lovers, we remake ourselves in court and intrigue, we pass the next, move on, move through. We tire of love before even risking a beginning. However, the miracle we are seeking takes time: time to find it, time to bring it to life."
"It is not surprising that people trying to love become confused and harried, as in the story, running right past or away from the things they, in their deepest hearts, cherish the most. Yet, there is another way, a better way, which takes into account vampiric foibles, fears and quirks. And as so often happens in the cycles of individualism, most of us just stumble over it." She slants a tender look to Dukes.
It pauses there hesitantly, four feet out, and turns over onto its own thickening belly, this alien black thing, writhing gently, as if to show itself off. To Aldrich the shadows are less cautious, they poke at his ears and his hair and they tap against his knee. Laurence is taken with caution, much as Valentina. Any that are welcomed in without anxiety become fractionally more familiar; Dukes has no such privacy. They are cold to the touch, some smokier or less substantial than others; but those upon Andross and Dukes look almost frightfully tangible. They move in the background while Aurelia speaks.
"The man became drowsy, slid under his sleeping skins, and soon was dreaming. And sometimes as humans sleep, you know, a tear escapes from the dreamer's eye; we never know what sort of dream causes this, but we know it is either a dream of sadness or longing. And this is what happened to the man."
"The Skeleton Woman saw the tear glisten in the firelight, and she became suddenly soooo thirsty. She tinkled and clanked and crawled over to the sleeping man and put her mouth to his tear. The single tear was like a river and she drank and drank and drank until her many years-long thirst was slacked."
"Then, while lying beside him, she reached inside the sleeping man and took out his heart, the mighty drum. She sat up and began to sing out 'Flesh, flesh, flesh! Flesh, flesh, flesh!' And the more she sang, the more her body filled out with flesh. She sang for hair and good eyes and nice far hands. She sang the divide between her legs, and breasts long enough to wrap for warmth, and all the things a woman needs."
"And when she was done, she also sang the sleeping man's clothes off and crept into his bed with him, skin against skin. She returned the great drum, his heart, to his body, and that is how they awakened, wrapped around one another, tangled from their night together, in another way now, a good and lasting way."
"The people who cannot remember how she came to her first ill-fortune say she and the fisherman went away and were consistently well fed by the creatures she had known in her life underwater. The people say that it is true and that is all they know."
"Inability to face and untangle the Skeleton Woman is what causes many love relationships to fail. To love, one must not only be strong, but wise. Strength comes from spirit. Wisdom comes from experience with Skeleton Woman."
"As we see in the tale, if one wishes to be fed for life, one must face and develop a relatioinship with the Life/Death/Life nature. When we have that, we are no longer bumbling along fishing for fantasies, but are made wise about the necessary deaths and startling births that create true relationship. When we face Skeleton Woman we learn that passion is not something to go 'get' but rather something generated in cycles and given out, freely. It is Skeleton Woman who demonstrates that a shared living together through all increase and decrease, through all endings and beginnings, is what creates an unparalleled devotional love."
"This story is a metaphor, for the problem of vampiric love, the fear of the Life/Death/Life nature, the Death aspect in particular. In much of our cultures, the original character of the Death nature has been covered over by various dogmas and doctrines until it is split off from its other half: Life. We have erroneously been trained to accept a broken form of one of the most profound and basic aspects of the wild nature. We have been taught that death is always followed by more death. It is simply not so, Torpor teaches us this; Skeleton Woman us this. Death is always in the process of incubating new life, new animation, new nights to awaken to, even when one's existence has been cut down to the bones."
"Rather than seeing the archetypes of Death and Life as opposites, they must be held together as the left and right side of a single thought. It is true that within a single love relationship there are many endings. Yet, somehow and somewhere in the delicate layers of the being that is created when two people love each other, there is both a heart and a breath. Even as undead we breathe to speak, to gasp, to moan, to laugh, to snarl. In humans while one side of the heart empties the other fills. When one breath runs out, another begins. We have forgotten this, because we have the gift of immortality, and we have become frozen in our hearts, and in our breath."
"If one believes that the Life/Death/Life force has no stanza beyond death, it is no wonder that some humans and most vampires are terrified of commitment. They are frightened to go through even one ending. They cannot bear to pass from the veranda into the inner rooms. They are fearful, for they sense that there in the breakfast room of the house of love sits Lady Death, tapping her toe, unfolding and refolding her gloves. Before her is a work list, on one side what is living, on the other, what is dying. She means to carry through. She means to maintain a balance."
"The archetype of the Life/Death/Life force is grossly misunderstood throughout many vampiric cultures. Some no longer understand that Lady Death represents an essential creation patterm. Through her loving ministrations, life is renewed - real life, the life that breathes love into the bones of those frozen and cold. In many folklores the female figures of death often receive much sensational press: she carries a scythe and 'harvests' the unsuspecting, she kisses her victims and leaves their corpses scattered behind her, or she drowns people and then wails long into the night."
"But in other cultures, such as East Indian and Mayan, which have preserved teachings about the wheel of life and death, Lady Death enfolds the already dying, easing their pain, giving them comfort. In curanderisma, she is said to turn the baby in the womb to the headfirst position so it can be born. She is said to guide the hands of the widwife, to open the pathways of the mother's milk in the breasts, as well as to comfort anyone who weeps alone. Rather than villifying her, those who know her in full cycle repsect her largess and her lessons."
"Much of our Old Knowledge of the Life/Death/Life nature is contaminated by our fear of death. We fear the loss of power because ultimately, we fear powerlessness will lead to death, be it social, romantic, financial, emotional or physical. Therefore our abilities to move with the cycles of this nature paradigm are quite frail. These forces do not 'do something' to us. They are not theives who rob us of the things we cherish. This nature is not a Victorian murderer who cuts into and collapses what we value."
"No, no, the Life/Death/Life forces are part of our vampiric nature, part of an inner authority that knows the steps, knows the dance of Life and Death, more even, than any mortal human. It is composed of the aspects of ourselves who know when something can, should, and must be born and when it must die, when it must awaken, and when it must sleep. It is a deep teacher if we can only learn its tempo."
"Toreador poets and Malkavians especially understand that there is nothing of value without death. Gangrel know this too. Without death there are no lessons, without death there is no dark for the diamond to shine from. While those who are initiated are unafraid of Lady Death, the culture often encourages that we throw Skeleton Woman over the cliffs, for not only is she fearsome, it takes too long to learn her ways. A soul-less vampiric world encourages faster, quicker, thrashing about to find the one filament that seems to be the one that will burn forever and right now. We burn through lovers, we remake ourselves in court and intrigue, we pass the next, move on, move through. We tire of love before even risking a beginning. However, the miracle we are seeking takes time: time to find it, time to bring it to life."
"It is not surprising that people trying to love become confused and harried, as in the story, running right past or away from the things they, in their deepest hearts, cherish the most. Yet, there is another way, a better way, which takes into account vampiric foibles, fears and quirks. And as so often happens in the cycles of individualism, most of us just stumble over it." She slants a tender look to Dukes.
Last edited by L . on Fri Jan 10, 2020 8:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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L . - Posts: 227
- Joined: Wed May 08, 2019 4:30 pm
Re: The Night After The Party We Don't Talk About
by alanwrotethis » Fri Jan 10, 2020 3:07 am
Nathan Dukes - Elder of Clan Tremere
Played by Alan Gowing
Played by Alan Gowing
- alanwrotethis
- Posts: 259
- Joined: Tue Dec 20, 2016 12:27 am
Re: The Night After The Party We Don't Talk About
by L . » Fri Jan 10, 2020 3:49 am
The Accidental Finding of Treasure
"In all tales there is material that can be understood as a mirror reflecting the illnesses or the wellbeing of one's culture or one's own inner life. Also in tales there are mythic themes that can be understood as describing stages of and instruction for maintaining balance in both inner and outer worlds."
"While Skeleton Woman could be interpreted as representing the movements within a single psyche, I find this tale most valuable when understood as a series of seven tasks that teach one soul to love another soul - deeply and well. These are: discovering another person as a kind of spiritual treasure, even though one may not as first realise what one has found. Next in most love relationships comes the chase and the hiding..." here a sly look, a smile hidden. "A time of hopes and fears for both. Then comes the untangling and understanding of the Life/Death/Life aspects of the relationship, learning how to compromise as, ideally both sacrifice together to lessen the impact of any individual's sacrifice to the other. Next comes the relaxing into trust, the ability to rest in the presence and goodwill of the other, and after that, a time of sharing both future dreams and past sadness, these being the beginning of healing archaic wounds with regard to love. Finally, the use of the heart to sing up new life, the intermingling of body and soul."
"The first task, the finding of treasure, is found in dozens of tales throughout the world that describe the catching of a creature from beneath the sea. When this occurs in the narrative, we always know that a big struggle will soon take place between what lives in the topside world and what lives or has been repressed into the underworld. In this tale, the fisherman snags more than he ever expected. 'Oh, it is a big one,' he thinks as he turns to gain his net."
"He does not realise that he is bringing up the the terrifying treasure he will ever know, that he is bringing up more than he can yet handle. He does not know that he will have to come to terms with it, that he is about to have all his powers tested. And worse, he does not know that he does not know. That is the state of all lovers at the beginning: they are blind as bats."
Vampires who do not know any better have the proclivity to approach love - if they approach at all - in the same way the fisherman in the story approaches the hunt: 'Ah, I hope I get a good one, one that will feed me suitably for a long time to come, one that will excite me, make my life easier, one I can brag about to all the other hunters back home.'"
"This is the natural progression of the naive and famished hunter. The very young to this philosophy, the uninitiated, the hungry, and the wounded have values that revolve around the finding and the winning of trophies. This is often where Toreador especially, and Ventrue, fall down. They do not know what they are seeking yet, the hungry seek sustenance, and the wounded seek consolation for previous losses. Yet all will have treasure 'happen upon' them, usually when they least expect it."
"When one is in the company of the great powers of the universe, in this case the Life/Death/Life woman, and if one is naive, then one is sure to get more than what one is fishing for. But that is well; what matters is what you then do with the catch. So often we entertain the fantasy of being fed from the deep nature, through a love affair, a position in court, a political career, or by Prestation, and we hope these feedings will last for a long time. We would like not to do any further work, after establishing ourselves well. In truth, there are even times when we would like to be fed without doing much work at all (this at least is where Ventrue, I find, differ; they always do the work, even the work of others; they just do the wrong kind of work when it concerns love). In reality, we know nothing of value ever develops this way, by not working. But we wish it anyway."
"To lay inert as we elders do only dreaming of the yesteryear of love, is easy. It is an anesthetization from which we might never recover, indeed; we grow more numb as we age, and our Beast grows ever older. Slowly, we lose the ability to claim for ourselves the one thing that keeps up at our most powerful, and most sharp."
"The fisherman motif shares some archetypal symbolism with that of the hunter, and these two in Old Stories represent, among many things, the psychological elements of humans that seek to know, that strive to nourish the Self through merging with the instinctual nature. In stories, as in life, the hunter and fisherman begin their quest in one of three ways: ina sacred, or mean-spirited, or bumbling manner. Always - look at other stories - you will find this is so. In the Skeleton Woman story, we can see that the fisherman is a little on the bumbling side. He is not mean-spirited but he does not exactly have sacred attitude or intention either."
"Vampiric lovers often begin this way, too. At the beginning of a relationship they are only fishing for a little excitement, a political move, or a little 'help me make it through the night' antidepressant. Without realising it, they unwittingly enter a part of their own - and the other person's - psyche in which Skeleton Woman resides. While their egos may be fishing for fun, this psychial space is sacred ground for Skeleton Woman. If we troll these waters, we are guarenteed to hook her for certain."
"In the opening motif - that of a woman lying under the ocean - Skeleton Woman is similar to Sedna, a Life/Death/Life figure from Inuit mythology. Sedna's father threw her over the edge of his kayak, for unlike other dutiful daughters of the tribe, she had run off with a dog-man. Like the father in the fairy tale 'The Handless Maiden', Sedna's father chopped off her hands. Her fingers and limbs sank to the bottom of the sea, where they became fish and seals and other life forms that sustained the Inuit ever after."
"What was left of Sedna sank to the bottom of the sea. There she became all bones and long, long hair. In the Inuit rite, earthbound shamans swim down to her, bringing peace-food to quiet her snarling dog-husband and guardian. The shamans comb her long, long hair while singing to her, begging her to heal the soul of the body of a person above, for she is the great angakok, magician; she is the great northern gate of Life and Death."
"A part of every woman and every man resists knowing that in all love relationships Death must have her share. We pretend we can love without our illusions about love dying, pretend we can go on without our superficial expectations dying, pretend we can progress and that our favourite flushes and rushes and honeymoon periods will never die. But in love, psychically, everything becomes picked apart, everything. The go does not want it to be so. Yet it is how it is meant to be, and the person of a deep and wildish nature is undeniably drawn to the task. You know who you are, if you have a wildish nature, in love. You plunge deep, letting your heart be taken and trust that it will be given back. And the strongest love again, even when it is not; they regrow a heart all over again."
"Refusing to allow all the cycles of life and death in the love relationship causes the Skeleton Woman nature to be ripped from her psychic lodgings and drowned. Then the love relationship takes on a strained '... let us never be said, let us always have fun,' face to be maintained at all costs. The soul of the relationship sinks out of sight, set to drift under water, senseless and useless. Skeleton Woman is always thrown over the cliff when one or both lovers cannot stand her or understand her. She is thrown over the cliff when we misapprehend the use of transformative cycles: when things must die and be replaced by others. If lovers cannot stand these Life/Death/Life processess, they cannot love one another over and beyond sexual and politicial aspirations."
"People ask me how I stick by my travelling companion despite his... eccentricities. It is the same in platonic love as it is romantic. I see a phenomenon time and again in lovers regardless of gender. It goes something like this: two people begin a dance to see if they would care to love one another. Suddenly, Skeleton Woman is accidentally hooked. Something in the relationship begins diminishing and slides into entropy. Often the painful pleasure of sexual excitement is abating, or one sees the other's frail, injured underside, or sees the other as 'not quite trophy material', and that's when the bald and yellow-toothed girl rises to the surface. This will hurt me politically, they think."
"It seems so gruesome, yet this is the premier time when there is real opportunity to show courage and know love. To love means to stay with, at this point. It means to emerge from a fantasy world into a world where sustainable love is possible, face to face, bones to bones, a love of devotion. To love means to stay when every Beast cell says, 'Run.'"
"When lovers are able to tolerate the Life/Death/Life nature, when vampires are able to understand it as a continuum - as a night between two days - and as the force that creates a love that endures a thousand years and more, they are able to face Skeleton Woman. Ironically this is why Clan Cappadocian was widely known to hold the strongest and most enduring intraclan relationships that has ever been seen, in all vampiric history. It is not surprising that the Clan of Death understood more intimately than any, the Life/Death/Life nature. A Cappadocian Sire would remain with its Childe or apprentice for centuries, sometimes, millennia, with no bloodshed, and only strengthening kinship. They were albatross' for love. The bonds in that Clan were legendary, and permit so many of them live and study together in very close confines. Vampirism and love do not stand as mutually exclusive."
Here her gaze softens on Valentina, Aurelia's earlier compliment to her coming to mind.
"When lovers or companions face Skeleton Woman, together they are strengthened, and both are called to deeper understanding of the two worlds they live in - one in the mundane world, and the other, the world of spirit. Facing Skeleton Woman means facing your own ugly bones: jealousy, posessesiveness, anger, fear. It is accepting them, tending to them with warmth and patience, all through the night as you untangle the net, and finally casting off the ugly net. Each and every time."
"For most, when first confronting Skeleton Woman, the impulse of any naive vampire is to run like the wind, and as far away as possible. Even running is part of the process. It is only in our nature to do so, as we were once human, and humans run. But not for long, and not forever. We are no longer human, and we are stronger than it - in love, as in flesh."
Last edited by L . on Fri Jan 10, 2020 8:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
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L . - Posts: 227
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Re: The Night After The Party We Don't Talk About
by L . » Fri Jan 10, 2020 4:35 am
The Chase and the Hiding
"We see this phenomenon in all love affairs: the faster he runs, the more she picks up speed. When one or the other lover attempts to run from the relationship, the relationship is paradoxically invested with more life - more fish to eat, as the two get more tangled up with one another. And the more life that is created, the more frightened the fisherman becomes. And the more he runs, the more life is created. This phenomenon is one of life's central tragi-comedies. As Skeleton Woman bumps along behind the terrified fisherman, she begins a primitive participation in life; she becomes hungry and eats dried fish."
"The running-and-hiding phase is the time during which lovers try to rationalise their fear of the Life/Death/Life cycles of love. They say 'I don't want to change my unlife'; or 'I can do better with someone else'; or 'I don't want to give up my - anything really, fill in the blank'; or 'I don't want to face my wounds, my traumas, or anyone else's'; or 'I'm not ready, I don't want to be transformed without first knowing absolute detail what I will look like/feel like afterward.'"
"It is a time when all thoughts are all jumped togetger, when one makes a desperate dive for shelter, and the heart seems to beat again, not from cherishing, and being cherished, as much as from abject terror."
"To be trapped by Lady Death! Ai! The horror of metting the Life/Death/Life force face-to-face! Double Ai! Some make the mistake of thinking they are running away from a relationship with the lover. They are not. They are not running away from love, or the pressures of the relationship. They are trying to outrun the mysterious Life/Death/Life force. Psychology diagnoses this as 'fear of intimacy, fear of commitment.' But those are only symptoms. The deeper issue is one of misbelief and distrust. Those who run away forever fear to truly live according to the cycles of the wild and integral nature of their spirit."
"So the Death Woman chases us across the water, across the boundary of the unconscious, to the conscious land mass of the mind. The conscious psyche becomes aware of what it has caught and tries desperately to outrun it. We do this continually in our lives. Something fearsome raises its head. We aren't paying attention and keep pulling it up, thinking it some booty. It is a trove, but not the kind we've imagined. It is a treasure our Beasts have unfortunately taught us to fear. So we attempt to run away or throw the treasure back, or prettify it and make it what it is not. But this will not work. Eventually, we all have to kiss the hag."
"The same process follows in love. We want only power and beauty but wind up facing the 'baddie' instead. We push Skeleton Woman away, but she proceeds. We run. She follows. She is the great teacher we have been saying we want. 'No, not this teacher!' we shriek when she actually arrives."
"There is a saying that when the student is ready the teacher appears. This means the interior teacher surfaces when the soul, not the ego, is ready. The teacher comes whenever the soul calls - and thank goodness, for the ego is never fully ready, the Beast is never ever ready. Trust me on that. If we were to solve up the Beast's readiness to draw this teacher to us, we would remain essentially teacherless for eternity. We are blessed, since the soul continues transmitting its desire regardless of the ever-changing opinions of our Beasts."
"People fear that when things become tangled and frightening in love relationships that the end is near, but this is not so. Put off, Skeleton Woman sinks beneath the water, but will rise again and again and give chase again and again. If one wishes to love, there is no getting around it. To love pleasure takes little. To love truly takes a hero who can manage his or her own fear."
"Granted, many people come to this escape-and-hide stage. Some unfortunately arrive here over and over again, as with most Toreador - which is why I am so pleased to find one that breaks that mould with the Envoy here. With most other vampires the story entrance to the ice burrow is rutted with all the scrambling. But those who care to love emulate the fisherman. They strive to light the fire and face the Life/Death/Life nature. They contemplate what they fear, and paradoxically, respond with both conviction and wonder."
"We see this phenomenon in all love affairs: the faster he runs, the more she picks up speed. When one or the other lover attempts to run from the relationship, the relationship is paradoxically invested with more life - more fish to eat, as the two get more tangled up with one another. And the more life that is created, the more frightened the fisherman becomes. And the more he runs, the more life is created. This phenomenon is one of life's central tragi-comedies. As Skeleton Woman bumps along behind the terrified fisherman, she begins a primitive participation in life; she becomes hungry and eats dried fish."
"The running-and-hiding phase is the time during which lovers try to rationalise their fear of the Life/Death/Life cycles of love. They say 'I don't want to change my unlife'; or 'I can do better with someone else'; or 'I don't want to give up my - anything really, fill in the blank'; or 'I don't want to face my wounds, my traumas, or anyone else's'; or 'I'm not ready, I don't want to be transformed without first knowing absolute detail what I will look like/feel like afterward.'"
"It is a time when all thoughts are all jumped togetger, when one makes a desperate dive for shelter, and the heart seems to beat again, not from cherishing, and being cherished, as much as from abject terror."
"To be trapped by Lady Death! Ai! The horror of metting the Life/Death/Life force face-to-face! Double Ai! Some make the mistake of thinking they are running away from a relationship with the lover. They are not. They are not running away from love, or the pressures of the relationship. They are trying to outrun the mysterious Life/Death/Life force. Psychology diagnoses this as 'fear of intimacy, fear of commitment.' But those are only symptoms. The deeper issue is one of misbelief and distrust. Those who run away forever fear to truly live according to the cycles of the wild and integral nature of their spirit."
"So the Death Woman chases us across the water, across the boundary of the unconscious, to the conscious land mass of the mind. The conscious psyche becomes aware of what it has caught and tries desperately to outrun it. We do this continually in our lives. Something fearsome raises its head. We aren't paying attention and keep pulling it up, thinking it some booty. It is a trove, but not the kind we've imagined. It is a treasure our Beasts have unfortunately taught us to fear. So we attempt to run away or throw the treasure back, or prettify it and make it what it is not. But this will not work. Eventually, we all have to kiss the hag."
"The same process follows in love. We want only power and beauty but wind up facing the 'baddie' instead. We push Skeleton Woman away, but she proceeds. We run. She follows. She is the great teacher we have been saying we want. 'No, not this teacher!' we shriek when she actually arrives."
"There is a saying that when the student is ready the teacher appears. This means the interior teacher surfaces when the soul, not the ego, is ready. The teacher comes whenever the soul calls - and thank goodness, for the ego is never fully ready, the Beast is never ever ready. Trust me on that. If we were to solve up the Beast's readiness to draw this teacher to us, we would remain essentially teacherless for eternity. We are blessed, since the soul continues transmitting its desire regardless of the ever-changing opinions of our Beasts."
"People fear that when things become tangled and frightening in love relationships that the end is near, but this is not so. Put off, Skeleton Woman sinks beneath the water, but will rise again and again and give chase again and again. If one wishes to love, there is no getting around it. To love pleasure takes little. To love truly takes a hero who can manage his or her own fear."
"Granted, many people come to this escape-and-hide stage. Some unfortunately arrive here over and over again, as with most Toreador - which is why I am so pleased to find one that breaks that mould with the Envoy here. With most other vampires the story entrance to the ice burrow is rutted with all the scrambling. But those who care to love emulate the fisherman. They strive to light the fire and face the Life/Death/Life nature. They contemplate what they fear, and paradoxically, respond with both conviction and wonder."
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L . - Posts: 227
- Joined: Wed May 08, 2019 4:30 pm
Re: The Night After The Party We Don't Talk About
by L . » Fri Jan 10, 2020 5:07 am
The Sleep of Trust
In this stage of the relationship, a lover returns to a state of innocence, a state in which he is still awed by the emotional elements, a state in which he is full of wishes, hopes and dreams. Innocence is different than naivite. There is an old saying in the backwoods: 'Ignorance is not knowing anything and being attracted to the good. Innocence is knowing everything, and still being attracted to the good.'"
"Let's see how far we have come: The fisherman-hunter has brough the Life/Death/Life nature to the surface. He has, outside his will, been 'pursued' by her. But he has also managed to face her; he has felt compassion for her tangled state, and he has touched her. All these are leading him into a full participation with her. All these are leading him into a transformation, into love. While the metaphor of sleep can denote a psychic unconsciousness, here it symbolises creation and renewal. Sleep is the symbol of rebirth. In creation myths, souls go to sleep while a transformation of some duration takes place, for in sleep, as in Torpor, we are re-created, renewed."
((...Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care, [sleep is] sore labor's bath, [the] balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course, chief nourisher in life's feast. - Shakespeare, Macbeth, II, ii, 36.))
"If you could lay your eyes upon the most fire-hardened, most cruel and unpitying person alive, during sleep, as in death, you would see them for a moment the untainted child spirit, the pure innocent. We are re-assembled from the inside out each dawn, fresh and new."
"This state of wise innocence is entered by shedding cynicism and protectionism, and by reentering the state of wonder one sees in most humans who are very young and many who are very old. It is a practice of looking through the eyes of a knowing and loving spirit, instead of through those of the whipped dog, the hounded creature, the mouth atop a stomach, the angry wounded human below the Beast. Innocence is a state that is renewed as one sleeps. Unfortunatelt most throw it aside with the coverlet as they arise."
"Though an initial attempt to return to this state may require scraping away centuries of jaded viewpoints, years of callous and carefully constructed bullwarking, once one has returned one never has to pry for it, dig for it, ever again. You go forward with these tools, painstakingly crafted; they are yours to keep. Is is said that all that you are seeking is also seeking you, that if you lie still, sit still, it will find you. It has been waiting for you for a long time. Once it is here, don't move away. Rest. See what happens next."
"The fisherman trusts the Life/Death/Life nature enough to rest and revivify in her presence. This lover sleeps the sleep of the wise instead of the war. There is wariness that is real, when danger is near (abusive partners and the like), but also wariness that is unwarranted and that comes from having been wounded previously. The latter causes men and women, both, to grow touchy and disinterested even when they feel they would like to display warmth and caring. Persons who are afraid of being 'taken for a ride' or of 'being trapped' - or who vociferously state their claims over and over again of wanting to 'be free' - are those who let the gold slip right through their fingers. By all means, determine if it is a safe place to sleep. But know that the Beast will never find it safe enough. You will have to risk your wariness for your wisdom, and determine that it is as safe as can be, before closing your eyes, and letting go. Sometimes there are no words to help one's courage. Sometimes you just have to jump. Minimalise the risk - and then go. Just as you do with any of your political leaps."
"There is no real sense in waiting until we feel strong enough to trust, because that night will never come. So, yes, we take the chance that what we have been taught by our lives to believe about the Life/Death/Life nature is wrong, and that our deeper, old instincts, are right. If there's even a hint of that gold in there, it's probably bang on, because the Beast is so eclipsing as to hike your wariness right up to impossible levels. For love to thrive, to return in and nourish the soul and a vampire's humanity, you need to trust that love will be transformative, and worth every mile. Man or woman, it-creature or neither, the vampire must let themselves enter that state of sleep that returns one to a wise innocence, something that creates and re-creates, as it should, those deeper coils of Life/Death/Life."
"Ultimately, ironing yourself into gradual indifference to love and the soul will see you die more surely than any risk you can take in love. With no risk, you will become a mummified corpse sat on a pile of bones."
Aurelia smiles, bittersweet, and empty of all humour. "And then - some younger vampire will eventually come along and gobble you up. Certainly, you will have no friends who will care to defend you."
In this stage of the relationship, a lover returns to a state of innocence, a state in which he is still awed by the emotional elements, a state in which he is full of wishes, hopes and dreams. Innocence is different than naivite. There is an old saying in the backwoods: 'Ignorance is not knowing anything and being attracted to the good. Innocence is knowing everything, and still being attracted to the good.'"
"Let's see how far we have come: The fisherman-hunter has brough the Life/Death/Life nature to the surface. He has, outside his will, been 'pursued' by her. But he has also managed to face her; he has felt compassion for her tangled state, and he has touched her. All these are leading him into a full participation with her. All these are leading him into a transformation, into love. While the metaphor of sleep can denote a psychic unconsciousness, here it symbolises creation and renewal. Sleep is the symbol of rebirth. In creation myths, souls go to sleep while a transformation of some duration takes place, for in sleep, as in Torpor, we are re-created, renewed."
((...Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care, [sleep is] sore labor's bath, [the] balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course, chief nourisher in life's feast. - Shakespeare, Macbeth, II, ii, 36.))
"If you could lay your eyes upon the most fire-hardened, most cruel and unpitying person alive, during sleep, as in death, you would see them for a moment the untainted child spirit, the pure innocent. We are re-assembled from the inside out each dawn, fresh and new."
"This state of wise innocence is entered by shedding cynicism and protectionism, and by reentering the state of wonder one sees in most humans who are very young and many who are very old. It is a practice of looking through the eyes of a knowing and loving spirit, instead of through those of the whipped dog, the hounded creature, the mouth atop a stomach, the angry wounded human below the Beast. Innocence is a state that is renewed as one sleeps. Unfortunatelt most throw it aside with the coverlet as they arise."
"Though an initial attempt to return to this state may require scraping away centuries of jaded viewpoints, years of callous and carefully constructed bullwarking, once one has returned one never has to pry for it, dig for it, ever again. You go forward with these tools, painstakingly crafted; they are yours to keep. Is is said that all that you are seeking is also seeking you, that if you lie still, sit still, it will find you. It has been waiting for you for a long time. Once it is here, don't move away. Rest. See what happens next."
"The fisherman trusts the Life/Death/Life nature enough to rest and revivify in her presence. This lover sleeps the sleep of the wise instead of the war. There is wariness that is real, when danger is near (abusive partners and the like), but also wariness that is unwarranted and that comes from having been wounded previously. The latter causes men and women, both, to grow touchy and disinterested even when they feel they would like to display warmth and caring. Persons who are afraid of being 'taken for a ride' or of 'being trapped' - or who vociferously state their claims over and over again of wanting to 'be free' - are those who let the gold slip right through their fingers. By all means, determine if it is a safe place to sleep. But know that the Beast will never find it safe enough. You will have to risk your wariness for your wisdom, and determine that it is as safe as can be, before closing your eyes, and letting go. Sometimes there are no words to help one's courage. Sometimes you just have to jump. Minimalise the risk - and then go. Just as you do with any of your political leaps."
"There is no real sense in waiting until we feel strong enough to trust, because that night will never come. So, yes, we take the chance that what we have been taught by our lives to believe about the Life/Death/Life nature is wrong, and that our deeper, old instincts, are right. If there's even a hint of that gold in there, it's probably bang on, because the Beast is so eclipsing as to hike your wariness right up to impossible levels. For love to thrive, to return in and nourish the soul and a vampire's humanity, you need to trust that love will be transformative, and worth every mile. Man or woman, it-creature or neither, the vampire must let themselves enter that state of sleep that returns one to a wise innocence, something that creates and re-creates, as it should, those deeper coils of Life/Death/Life."
"Ultimately, ironing yourself into gradual indifference to love and the soul will see you die more surely than any risk you can take in love. With no risk, you will become a mummified corpse sat on a pile of bones."
Aurelia smiles, bittersweet, and empty of all humour. "And then - some younger vampire will eventually come along and gobble you up. Certainly, you will have no friends who will care to defend you."
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L . - Posts: 227
- Joined: Wed May 08, 2019 4:30 pm
Re: The Night After The Party We Don't Talk About
by L . » Fri Jan 10, 2020 6:20 am
Giving the Tear
((Stuff in green is OOC only, not given IC. I just thought you might like it for narrative fun, and impact. It's a recent memory and Aurelia is thinking of it, just to herself, at this time, while she speaks.))
Another shudder. Vykos rolled his head ever so slightly and pushed back through the root tendrils of energy that Aurelia's power crawled over. Not an aggressive push, more of a curious nudge. With his hands still by his sides, he turned his palms forward, displaying them in openness to her as he bowed his head slightly.
"Ultimately I want your counsel, but even I know that is asking too much."
A hint of a smile, an admission of his tendency to greed and grasping ambitions.
"If you would allow it, I would settle for your ear. I think I have much to explain before asking anything of you. Would you listen to the stories of your reckless old friend - just one more time?"
"As the fisherman sleeps, a tear is released from the corner of his eye. Skeleton Woman spies it, is filled with thirst, and awkwardly crawls to him to drink from the cup of his eye. What, we ask, could he be dreaming that would cause such a tear to come forth?"
"Tears carry creative power. In mythos, the giving of tears causes immense creation and heartfelt reunion. In herbal folklore and magic, tears are used as a binder, to secure elements, unite ideas, join souls. In fairytales, when tears are thrown, they frighten away theives or cause rivers to flood. When sprinkled, they call spirits. When poured onto the body, they heal lacerations and restore sight. When touched, they cause conception. I cannot quite emphasise enough the extremity of symbolism for the vampire in this, of whose tear is their very life's blood, their only source of existence and tie to this reality. For the vampire, the tear is the one of the most powerful symbols used in Old Magic."
"What game is this?" Her voice is low. "You spoke only weeks - months? - ago of your place in this Jyhad, that we stood on different sides, that I apparently took myself to this fantasy other place which meant that no, we could not talk."
The grey veins that are normally faint and partly invisible across her neck and forehead deepen, turn slate grey, some black in the light. The slight twin bulge beneath her lips suggests extended fangs; her eyes are very alive, bright and slitted.
"I don’t even remember most of the conversation because it was so stupid but you’re made it abundantly clear that you wanted to keep yourself as you saw yourself: shackled, and at odds with me, everyone sensible, in some perceived war. And whatever was keeping you there was more important than anything you valued here."
"When one has ventured this far into the relationship with the Life/Death/Life nature, the tear that is cried is the tear of pain and passion and even compassion all mixed together, for oneself, and for the other. It is the hardest tear to cry and especially for vampires."
As she picked apart their previous meeting with acerbic accuracy, Vykos only stood and listened in uncharacteristic silence. His eyebrows raised slightly, either in realisation or surprise, and his lips parted ever so slightly - shock? His fingers furled inwards towards his open palms and eventually he held his hands together in front of him - an ages old composed habit of his that somehow only made him look uncertain this evening. Although she spoke only in facts, the emotional weight behind what she raised seemed to be dawning on Vykos for the first time. The roots of his power crept in a fraction. Retreat. Regret.
"It is not game."
When he finally spoke, there was no trace of the mockery or defensiveness that would be customary for him to adopt when confronted in such a manner.
"Although in reflection, I have treated our previous meeting as just that. It is... difficult for me to convey how much has changed since we last spoke. For me."
This last admission was difficult and he blurted the words like an afterthought.
"I could not divise how reveal to you what I could and so I chose to reveal nothing at all. I was standing on the brink of a paradigm shift of sorts - everything was at risk. I will not deny that I am pathologically secretive when I am close to getting what I want. I dismissed you and your knowledge to, ah -"
"This tear of compassion is most often wept after the accidental finding of treasure, after the fearful chase, after the untangling - for it is the combination of these that causes the exhaustion, the disassembling of defences, the facing of oneself, the stripping down to the bones, the desire for both knowledge and relief. These cause a soul to peer into what the soul truly wants, beyond the shackles and limits of the Beast, and to weep for loss and love of both.
Vykos swallowed and cast his gaze down and to the side, his hands clenching tighter together. His body swayed forward a little, as though he were fighting the urge to step forward. Fingers twitched again.
"To protect... it is no matter now. I made a serious misjudgement in that. A mistake. I underestimated you, because I could not see beyond what was about to come to pass. Forgive me - the words evade..."
He looked up from the ground and back at her, something akin to embarrassment flickering behind those eyes for a moment before it was replaced with keen passion.
"But you are right again, of course. It is not truly I who is seeking your counsel. It is my teacher. I want - I need - to explain them to you. It would go some way towards explaining my behaviour of late. But I do not know how to begin. They are... it is a lot to explain."
"As surely as Skeleton Woman was brought to the surface, now this tear, this feeling in the fisherman, is also brought to the surface. It is an instruction in loving both Self and another. Stripped now of all the bristles and hooks and shivs of the world, the man draws Skeleton Woman to lie beside him, to drink and be nourished by his deepest feeling. In his new form he is finally able to feed the thirsty other."
The first problem was: she wanted him in her life again; but she didn't need him. And if he was lying to her now, she might well lose everything else that she did need.
The second problem was his casual statement: 'But you are right again, of course. It is not truly I who is seeking your counsel. It is my teacher.'
She was already saying, "Why don't you start with -" but cut herself off, absolutely livid. "What? No."
She entered into a very... human tirade for a moment, entirely in Spanish. She made visible effort to calm her Beast.
"Her ghost has been summoned by his weeping - ideas and powers from far off in the psychic world unite over the warmth of his tear. The history of the symbol of water as creator, as pathway, is long and varied. Spring comes in a rain of tears. Entry to the lower world is upon a waterfall of tears. A tear, heard by anyone of heart, is understood as a cry to come closer. And so does the fisherman cry, and closer she does come. Without his tear, she would remain only bones. Without his tear, he would never awaken to love."
"The tear of the dreamer comes when a lover-to-be allows him or herself to feel and bind up their own wounds, when they allow themselves to see the self-destruction they have wrought by the loss of faith in the goodness of Self, when they feel cut away from the revivifying cycle of the Life/Death/Life nature. Then, the fisherman weeps, for he feels his loneliness, his acute soul homesickness for that psychich place, for that wild knowing. Heaven is within each soul. It cries for the separation; it is returned in union with another."
"No. Eso es suficiente! If you were anyone else I would care less, I wouldn’t say anything. But you are my oldest - my - Fuck -"
"I have known you for almost a millennium, Myca. Longer, almost, than Anatole. I have bled with you, fought with you, I have risked death - no shut up - I know we all were hot-headed during the anarch wars, and survival was this dream for any of us, on any side, so we did things we might not now, but we were friends for centuries after that."
"And now you -" the muscles in her jaw leap. She clenches her mouth shut. Furiously and humiliatingly, she realises she can feel her eyes burning.
"This is the man healing, the man growing in understanding. He takes on his own medicine-making, he takes on the task of the feeding. To love another is not enough, to be 'not an impediment' in the life of the other is not enough. It is not enough to be 'supportive' and 'there for them' and all the rest. The goal is to be knowledgable about the ways of life and death, in one's own life and in panorama. And the only way to be a knowing man is to go to school in the bones of Skeleton Woman. She is waiting for the signal of deep feeling, that one tear that says, 'I admit the wound.'"
"This admission feeds Skeleton Woman, causes the bond to be made and the deep knowing in a man to begin. We all have made the mistake of thinking someone else can be our healer, our thriller, our filling. It takes a long time to find it is not so, mostly because we project the wound outside ourselves instead of ministering to it within."
"The tear of compassion comes up all across mythology, in every culture. In Greek myth, Philoctetes was wounded with a wound that would not heal, and instead grew so malodorus, and his cries of pain so horrible, that his companions abandoned him on the island Lemnos and left him there to die. His wound festered and the smell grew ever greater, so that any sailor even remotely near the island had to steer clear. However, a group of men conspired to brave the stench of Philoctete's wound in order to steal his magical bow and arrow from him."
"This is different. I can’t just pretend this is politics for me, it’s not. I care enough about you, I must do, to be so angry. This should be more than just... you being ordered to do something that just happens to be related to me. If you were anyone else I might agree, because it boosts my position in the Jyhad to make an ally in your... mentor. But I don’t think I can. There's too much history here."
"The men drew lots and the task fell to the youngest - the innocent. The older men encouraged him to be quick and travel under cover of night. And so the young man had to wrap his face in a cloth wrung in seawater in order to breathe freely. Nothing, however, could protect his ears from Philoctete's terrible cries."
"The moon was shrouded in cloud. Good, the young man thought as he moored his boat and crept to the side of the agonised Philoctetes. As he reached for the precious bow and arrow, the moon suddenly shed her light upon the haggard face of the dying man. And something in the young man - he knew not what - suddenly moved him to tears. The young man was overwhelmed with a compassion and mercy that endured."
"Instead of stealing Philoctete's bow and arrow, the young man purified the wound, bound it, and stayed with him, feeding him, cleaning him, building fires, and caring for Philoctetes until he could carry him to Troy, where he could be healed by the semi-divine physician Aesculapius. And thus the story comes to a close."
"The tear of compassion, when it is wept for the Self or another, is wept in recognising the reeking wound. The reeking wound has different configurations and sources for each person. For some it was caused by spending a lifetime pulling oneself up on the mountain hand over hand - belatedly to find they've been working their way up the wrong mountain all along. For others it is unresolved and unmedicated abuses and agonies in childhood, and even into their unlife, for some of us. Others still, it is a crushing loss of some sort in life, unlife, or in love."
"When the young theif cries the tear, he has come upon another's pain, and he knows it when he touches it. Many, touching their own wound, see how their own life has been lived protectively because of the wound. They see what of life he has missed because of it. In fairytales, tears change people, remind them of what is important, and save their very souls."
"It - hurts, that this means nothing to you, that you would just discard it at his whim, and pick it up now, again, at his whim. I cannot work alongside you as if I have never known you. Go fry asparagus; I am not a fucking yo-yo. I am not one to spout this bullshit of 'the Myca I knew...' no, I know we we change. We all change. But fuck you if this is just convenient to you suddenly, and fuck my place in it. I can't help you."
"The internal feeling of tenderness that moves the fisherman to untangle Skeleton Woman also allows him to feel other forgotton longings, to resurrect his self-compassion. Because he is in a state of innocence, that is, thinking all things are possible in sleep, he is unafraid to say his soul desires. He is unafraid to wish."
Her English was becoming thick with her native accent. "Unless you can give me a genuine reason that is unrelated to him, for why I should be risking my life by even talking with you, when you have said your fucking shadow methuselah wants me dead - then this is the last time we will meet. The next time, we will be on opposite sides of the Jyhad."
"He draws Skeleton Woman to him; causes her to thirst, causes her to desire further participation with him. As in fairy tales, tears call things to us, they correct things, provide the missing part or piece. In the African tale 'Golden Falls' a magician shelters a runaway slave girl by crying so many tears he creates a waterfall under which she takes refuge. In the African tale 'Bone Rattle', souls of dead healers are summoned by the sprinkling of children's tears upon the earth. We are reminded again and again through history of the power of this great emotion. There is drawing power in tears, and within the tear itself, deep, old images that guide us."
"The fisherman lets his heart break - not break down, but break open."
She was not expecting the telepathy, when it came - nor the floodgate of his mind, and his emotion.
((Stuff in green is OOC only, not given IC. I just thought you might like it for narrative fun, and impact. It's a recent memory and Aurelia is thinking of it, just to herself, at this time, while she speaks.))
Another shudder. Vykos rolled his head ever so slightly and pushed back through the root tendrils of energy that Aurelia's power crawled over. Not an aggressive push, more of a curious nudge. With his hands still by his sides, he turned his palms forward, displaying them in openness to her as he bowed his head slightly.
"Ultimately I want your counsel, but even I know that is asking too much."
A hint of a smile, an admission of his tendency to greed and grasping ambitions.
"If you would allow it, I would settle for your ear. I think I have much to explain before asking anything of you. Would you listen to the stories of your reckless old friend - just one more time?"
"As the fisherman sleeps, a tear is released from the corner of his eye. Skeleton Woman spies it, is filled with thirst, and awkwardly crawls to him to drink from the cup of his eye. What, we ask, could he be dreaming that would cause such a tear to come forth?"
"Tears carry creative power. In mythos, the giving of tears causes immense creation and heartfelt reunion. In herbal folklore and magic, tears are used as a binder, to secure elements, unite ideas, join souls. In fairytales, when tears are thrown, they frighten away theives or cause rivers to flood. When sprinkled, they call spirits. When poured onto the body, they heal lacerations and restore sight. When touched, they cause conception. I cannot quite emphasise enough the extremity of symbolism for the vampire in this, of whose tear is their very life's blood, their only source of existence and tie to this reality. For the vampire, the tear is the one of the most powerful symbols used in Old Magic."
"What game is this?" Her voice is low. "You spoke only weeks - months? - ago of your place in this Jyhad, that we stood on different sides, that I apparently took myself to this fantasy other place which meant that no, we could not talk."
The grey veins that are normally faint and partly invisible across her neck and forehead deepen, turn slate grey, some black in the light. The slight twin bulge beneath her lips suggests extended fangs; her eyes are very alive, bright and slitted.
"I don’t even remember most of the conversation because it was so stupid but you’re made it abundantly clear that you wanted to keep yourself as you saw yourself: shackled, and at odds with me, everyone sensible, in some perceived war. And whatever was keeping you there was more important than anything you valued here."
"When one has ventured this far into the relationship with the Life/Death/Life nature, the tear that is cried is the tear of pain and passion and even compassion all mixed together, for oneself, and for the other. It is the hardest tear to cry and especially for vampires."
As she picked apart their previous meeting with acerbic accuracy, Vykos only stood and listened in uncharacteristic silence. His eyebrows raised slightly, either in realisation or surprise, and his lips parted ever so slightly - shock? His fingers furled inwards towards his open palms and eventually he held his hands together in front of him - an ages old composed habit of his that somehow only made him look uncertain this evening. Although she spoke only in facts, the emotional weight behind what she raised seemed to be dawning on Vykos for the first time. The roots of his power crept in a fraction. Retreat. Regret.
"It is not game."
When he finally spoke, there was no trace of the mockery or defensiveness that would be customary for him to adopt when confronted in such a manner.
"Although in reflection, I have treated our previous meeting as just that. It is... difficult for me to convey how much has changed since we last spoke. For me."
This last admission was difficult and he blurted the words like an afterthought.
"I could not divise how reveal to you what I could and so I chose to reveal nothing at all. I was standing on the brink of a paradigm shift of sorts - everything was at risk. I will not deny that I am pathologically secretive when I am close to getting what I want. I dismissed you and your knowledge to, ah -"
"This tear of compassion is most often wept after the accidental finding of treasure, after the fearful chase, after the untangling - for it is the combination of these that causes the exhaustion, the disassembling of defences, the facing of oneself, the stripping down to the bones, the desire for both knowledge and relief. These cause a soul to peer into what the soul truly wants, beyond the shackles and limits of the Beast, and to weep for loss and love of both.
Vykos swallowed and cast his gaze down and to the side, his hands clenching tighter together. His body swayed forward a little, as though he were fighting the urge to step forward. Fingers twitched again.
"To protect... it is no matter now. I made a serious misjudgement in that. A mistake. I underestimated you, because I could not see beyond what was about to come to pass. Forgive me - the words evade..."
He looked up from the ground and back at her, something akin to embarrassment flickering behind those eyes for a moment before it was replaced with keen passion.
"But you are right again, of course. It is not truly I who is seeking your counsel. It is my teacher. I want - I need - to explain them to you. It would go some way towards explaining my behaviour of late. But I do not know how to begin. They are... it is a lot to explain."
"As surely as Skeleton Woman was brought to the surface, now this tear, this feeling in the fisherman, is also brought to the surface. It is an instruction in loving both Self and another. Stripped now of all the bristles and hooks and shivs of the world, the man draws Skeleton Woman to lie beside him, to drink and be nourished by his deepest feeling. In his new form he is finally able to feed the thirsty other."
The first problem was: she wanted him in her life again; but she didn't need him. And if he was lying to her now, she might well lose everything else that she did need.
The second problem was his casual statement: 'But you are right again, of course. It is not truly I who is seeking your counsel. It is my teacher.'
She was already saying, "Why don't you start with -" but cut herself off, absolutely livid. "What? No."
She entered into a very... human tirade for a moment, entirely in Spanish. She made visible effort to calm her Beast.
"Her ghost has been summoned by his weeping - ideas and powers from far off in the psychic world unite over the warmth of his tear. The history of the symbol of water as creator, as pathway, is long and varied. Spring comes in a rain of tears. Entry to the lower world is upon a waterfall of tears. A tear, heard by anyone of heart, is understood as a cry to come closer. And so does the fisherman cry, and closer she does come. Without his tear, she would remain only bones. Without his tear, he would never awaken to love."
"The tear of the dreamer comes when a lover-to-be allows him or herself to feel and bind up their own wounds, when they allow themselves to see the self-destruction they have wrought by the loss of faith in the goodness of Self, when they feel cut away from the revivifying cycle of the Life/Death/Life nature. Then, the fisherman weeps, for he feels his loneliness, his acute soul homesickness for that psychich place, for that wild knowing. Heaven is within each soul. It cries for the separation; it is returned in union with another."
"No. Eso es suficiente! If you were anyone else I would care less, I wouldn’t say anything. But you are my oldest - my - Fuck -"
"I have known you for almost a millennium, Myca. Longer, almost, than Anatole. I have bled with you, fought with you, I have risked death - no shut up - I know we all were hot-headed during the anarch wars, and survival was this dream for any of us, on any side, so we did things we might not now, but we were friends for centuries after that."
"And now you -" the muscles in her jaw leap. She clenches her mouth shut. Furiously and humiliatingly, she realises she can feel her eyes burning.
"This is the man healing, the man growing in understanding. He takes on his own medicine-making, he takes on the task of the feeding. To love another is not enough, to be 'not an impediment' in the life of the other is not enough. It is not enough to be 'supportive' and 'there for them' and all the rest. The goal is to be knowledgable about the ways of life and death, in one's own life and in panorama. And the only way to be a knowing man is to go to school in the bones of Skeleton Woman. She is waiting for the signal of deep feeling, that one tear that says, 'I admit the wound.'"
"This admission feeds Skeleton Woman, causes the bond to be made and the deep knowing in a man to begin. We all have made the mistake of thinking someone else can be our healer, our thriller, our filling. It takes a long time to find it is not so, mostly because we project the wound outside ourselves instead of ministering to it within."
"The tear of compassion comes up all across mythology, in every culture. In Greek myth, Philoctetes was wounded with a wound that would not heal, and instead grew so malodorus, and his cries of pain so horrible, that his companions abandoned him on the island Lemnos and left him there to die. His wound festered and the smell grew ever greater, so that any sailor even remotely near the island had to steer clear. However, a group of men conspired to brave the stench of Philoctete's wound in order to steal his magical bow and arrow from him."
"This is different. I can’t just pretend this is politics for me, it’s not. I care enough about you, I must do, to be so angry. This should be more than just... you being ordered to do something that just happens to be related to me. If you were anyone else I might agree, because it boosts my position in the Jyhad to make an ally in your... mentor. But I don’t think I can. There's too much history here."
"The men drew lots and the task fell to the youngest - the innocent. The older men encouraged him to be quick and travel under cover of night. And so the young man had to wrap his face in a cloth wrung in seawater in order to breathe freely. Nothing, however, could protect his ears from Philoctete's terrible cries."
"The moon was shrouded in cloud. Good, the young man thought as he moored his boat and crept to the side of the agonised Philoctetes. As he reached for the precious bow and arrow, the moon suddenly shed her light upon the haggard face of the dying man. And something in the young man - he knew not what - suddenly moved him to tears. The young man was overwhelmed with a compassion and mercy that endured."
"Instead of stealing Philoctete's bow and arrow, the young man purified the wound, bound it, and stayed with him, feeding him, cleaning him, building fires, and caring for Philoctetes until he could carry him to Troy, where he could be healed by the semi-divine physician Aesculapius. And thus the story comes to a close."
"The tear of compassion, when it is wept for the Self or another, is wept in recognising the reeking wound. The reeking wound has different configurations and sources for each person. For some it was caused by spending a lifetime pulling oneself up on the mountain hand over hand - belatedly to find they've been working their way up the wrong mountain all along. For others it is unresolved and unmedicated abuses and agonies in childhood, and even into their unlife, for some of us. Others still, it is a crushing loss of some sort in life, unlife, or in love."
"When the young theif cries the tear, he has come upon another's pain, and he knows it when he touches it. Many, touching their own wound, see how their own life has been lived protectively because of the wound. They see what of life he has missed because of it. In fairytales, tears change people, remind them of what is important, and save their very souls."
"It - hurts, that this means nothing to you, that you would just discard it at his whim, and pick it up now, again, at his whim. I cannot work alongside you as if I have never known you. Go fry asparagus; I am not a fucking yo-yo. I am not one to spout this bullshit of 'the Myca I knew...' no, I know we we change. We all change. But fuck you if this is just convenient to you suddenly, and fuck my place in it. I can't help you."
"The internal feeling of tenderness that moves the fisherman to untangle Skeleton Woman also allows him to feel other forgotton longings, to resurrect his self-compassion. Because he is in a state of innocence, that is, thinking all things are possible in sleep, he is unafraid to say his soul desires. He is unafraid to wish."
Her English was becoming thick with her native accent. "Unless you can give me a genuine reason that is unrelated to him, for why I should be risking my life by even talking with you, when you have said your fucking shadow methuselah wants me dead - then this is the last time we will meet. The next time, we will be on opposite sides of the Jyhad."
"He draws Skeleton Woman to him; causes her to thirst, causes her to desire further participation with him. As in fairy tales, tears call things to us, they correct things, provide the missing part or piece. In the African tale 'Golden Falls' a magician shelters a runaway slave girl by crying so many tears he creates a waterfall under which she takes refuge. In the African tale 'Bone Rattle', souls of dead healers are summoned by the sprinkling of children's tears upon the earth. We are reminded again and again through history of the power of this great emotion. There is drawing power in tears, and within the tear itself, deep, old images that guide us."
"The fisherman lets his heart break - not break down, but break open."
She was not expecting the telepathy, when it came - nor the floodgate of his mind, and his emotion.
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L . - Posts: 227
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Re: The Night After The Party We Don't Talk About
by L . » Fri Jan 10, 2020 7:10 am
Heart as the Drum
"It is told that the skin or body of a drum determines who and what will be called into being. Some drums are believed to be journeying drums transporting the drummer and listeners to various and sundry places. Other kinds of drum are powerful in other ways."
"Drums made of human bone call the dead. Drums made of the hide of certain animals call those specific totemic spirits. Drums that are particularly beautiful call Beauty. Drums with bells attached call child-spirits and weather. Drums that are low in voice call the spirits who can hear that tone, as with those of high tone."
"A drum made of heart will call the spirits that are concerned with the human heart. The heart symbolises essence. The heart is one of the few essential organs humans and animals must have to live. Remove one kidney, the human lives. Additionally take both legs, the gallbladder, one lung, one arm, and the spleen; the human still lives - not well perhaps, but there is life. Take away certain brain functions and the human still lives. Take the heart, the person is gone instantly. Stake the vampire in the heart - not the brain, not the legs, not the arms, the heart - and she is paralysed immediately, cast into the Little Death until the heart is returned to functionality, whole."
"The psychological and physiological center is the heart. In Hindu Tantras, which are instructions from the Gods to humans, the heart is the Anahata chakra, the nerve center that encompasses feeling for another, feeling for oneself, feeling for the earth, and feeling for God."
"When Skeleton Woman uses the fisherman's heart, she uses the central motor of the entire psyche, the only thing that really matters now, the only thing capable of creating pure and innocent feeling, They say it is the mind that thinks and creates; this story says otherwise. The Beast doesn't drive the mind wild - it targets the heart. It suffocates it. It blackens and dries it. The Beast knows."
"The story contains this promise: allow Skeleton Woman to become palpable in thy life, and she will make your life larger in return. When you free her from her tangled and misunderstood state and realise her as both teacher and lover, she becomes ally and partner. Giving one's heart for new creation, for new life, for the forces of Life/Death/Life, is a descent into the feeling realm. It is astonishingly difficult for vampires, especially if they have been wounded by pain or sorrow. But it is meant to be drummed through, to bring to full life the Skeleton Woman, to come close to the one who has always been close to us, we creature of Death and Life. We are quite literally consumers of lifelbood, of the essence of life. We are closer to the cycle than any other species of the supernatural world."
"When a man gives his whole heart to someone, he becomes an incredible force of power - he becomes an inspiratrice, a role that in the past was reserved for women only. When Skeleton Woman sleeps with him, he becomes fertile, he is invested with feminine powers in a masculine milieu. He carries the seeds of new life and necessary deaths."
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L . - Posts: 227
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Re: The Night After The Party We Don't Talk About
by L . » Fri Jan 10, 2020 7:51 am
"In this story there are two transformations, one of the hunter, one of Skeleton Woman. In our terms, the fisherman-hunter's transformation goes something like this. First he is the unconscious hunter. 'Hello, it's just me. I'm just fishing and minding my own business.' Focus on this, you'll be surprised how it describes practically every vampiric love. Then the hunter is the frightened and fleeing hunter. 'What? You want me? Beyond boons and politics? Beyond sex? Oh, I think I must go now.' Should their lives remain intertwined, and their hearts tangled up, he reconsiders and begins to untangle his feelings and finds a way to relate to this other person. 'I feel my soul drawn to you. Who are you really, how are you put together?' He wants to know what's happened to him or her, what came before, how does this fit together to form the person he sees now."
"Then he Sleeps. 'I will trust you. I allow myself to be exposed by your eyes only.' And his tear of deep feeling is revealed and it nourishes. 'I have waited a long time for you.' His heart is lent to create her wholly. 'Here, take my heart and bring yourself to life in - my - life. Join me, I open my life to you.' And so the hunter-fisherman is loved in return, in the successful story. This is a typical transformation of a person learning to truly love."
"Skeleton Woman's transformations take a slightly different trajectory. First, as the Life/Death/Life nature, she is used to having her relationships with vampires end right after the initial hooking. It is no wonder she heaps so many blessings on those who will go the distance with her, for she is used to having vampires cut bait and dash for land. But Skeleton Woman is stronger than the Beast, when untangled carefully."
"First however, she is thrown away and exiled, by practically all of us. Then she is accidentally caught by someone who is afraid of her. She begins to return to life form an inert state; she eats, she drinks from him who has raised her up, she transforms herself by the strength of his (or her!) heart, by his strength to face her... and himself. She is transformed from being a skeleton into a living being. She is loved by him, and he by her. She empowers him and he empowers her. She, who is the great wheel of nature, the vampiric being, now live in harmony with one another. It is a lie that vampires exist outside of the natural cycles of this world. We are more deeply embedded into it than any living creature."
"We see in the story what Death requires of love. It requires its tear - its feeling - and its heart. It requires to be made love to. The Life/Death/Life nature requires of lovers that they face this nature straight-on, that they neither faint nor feint from her, that their commitment to one another is far more than political convenience or sexual need, that their love is based on the combined learning and strength to meet this nature, to love this nature, to dance with this nature together. This is the truth behind all stories that show a glimpse of the potential of Vampirism."
"To make love is to merge the breath and the flesh, spirit and matter; one fits into the other. In this tale there is a mating of the mortal and immortal, and this too is true in a love relationship between vampires that will last. The strengths you take from the Old Life, from mortality, is to feel. The strength you gain in vampirism, is a means of brightening and immortalising this emotion as strong as the raging infernos at the core of this earth. And through that blisteringly gorgeous sunrise - lies freedom."
"In the end of the story, the fisherman is breath to breath, skin to skin, with the Life/Death/Life nature. What this means is different for each man, and each woman. How he experiences this deepening of her relationship with him is also unique. We only know that in order to love we must kiss the hag, and more. We must make love to her. We are the images of our own divinity, and the mucky back foot of the fox, all rolled into one. We are flawed, and we are perfect, we are the paradox within the paradigm."
"True Faith is not the perfect adherance of a martyr vampire to some Christian dogma - or indeed, the adherance to any religious faith, in any spiritual deity. No. It is the recognition of the divinity in others, through the gate of love. It is compassion, dizzily perched on the edge of ourselves, where Gods and love and tragedy and Death and Life are the objects of our ragged soul's discourse, and wherein that endless archetype lies the breathless ecstasy of savouring the greatest of pleasures between souls. Love offers knowledge on a level beyond illusion, it tends to the raging wounds of the Self, it adminsters medicines to the sobs of others. To reach this point is to suffer for it, and come out that tunnel into blistering light. Love is the touching of truths for the first time, it is the thinking for the first time, it is walking, running, dancing, singing for the first time - since awakening from that endless sleep. It is the absolute and irrevocable transformation of the vampire from that frozen tundra of its uninitiated baseline. It is metamorphosis. It is evolution."
"Fear in the heart of vampires has driven the magic of their souls beyond reach. Now, the place where it is absent aches, it strains, it bays like a hound on a too-tight leash."
"That is what makes all souls sing, when they reach it: love. Stripped of its falsehoods, stripped of its prison. The reality beyond the looking glass. Witnessing a dawn of creation by oneself is beautiful - but doing so deep amid the drumbeat and body-thrust and burning bright hearts of your loved ones as they coalesce in ancient song of soul, is a religious ecstasy no experience will equal."
"... Or so my travelling companion tells me." Aurelia gives a brilliant smile, full of warmth, and affection, as she looks at Dukes. The shadows begin to recede. "And in this, I am given to believe him."
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L . - Posts: 227
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Re: The Night After The Party We Don't Talk About
by Manacledairman » Fri Jan 10, 2020 11:21 am
Aldrch's head snaps upward as Aurelia begins to speak, his eye transfixed on her completely. Her voice moving his muscles almost involuntarily. He listens intently unable to tear his gaze away despite the shadows.
The further into the story he visibly stuggles, as if the message is leaving his brain to walk away but it is just not making it to his arms, his legs. Still he remains
Something feels moist on his face and with every ounce of his being he wishes to wipe it clean but is unable. Entirely paralyzed. Outwardly there is nothing but a sensation he cannot begin to fathom.
This breaks as Aurelia finishes. He breathes, as if he needed the air, a strange reflex, one he isn't used to.
He reaches up to his eye and wipes it clean, looking at this hand there is nothing, he reaches under his eyepatch and does the same, looking at his hand there is a small amount of blood, his brows furrow as he rubs it in his fingertips, clean again.
He scans the room, outwardly calm, inwardly fighting against some instinct. His aura flashes across many different colours, coming to rest on green, it fades, the message finally reaches his legs. He stands
"Please excuse me for a moment." he states calmly, practiced, as if he has just replaced a mask.
He turns and walks out of the door to the hallway, his cane clattering to the ground in the process, his right hand reaching down to support his leg although he doesn't apear to limp.
He dutifully closes the door behind him and is gone from sight.
The further into the story he visibly stuggles, as if the message is leaving his brain to walk away but it is just not making it to his arms, his legs. Still he remains
Something feels moist on his face and with every ounce of his being he wishes to wipe it clean but is unable. Entirely paralyzed. Outwardly there is nothing but a sensation he cannot begin to fathom.
This breaks as Aurelia finishes. He breathes, as if he needed the air, a strange reflex, one he isn't used to.
He reaches up to his eye and wipes it clean, looking at this hand there is nothing, he reaches under his eyepatch and does the same, looking at his hand there is a small amount of blood, his brows furrow as he rubs it in his fingertips, clean again.
He scans the room, outwardly calm, inwardly fighting against some instinct. His aura flashes across many different colours, coming to rest on green, it fades, the message finally reaches his legs. He stands
"Please excuse me for a moment." he states calmly, practiced, as if he has just replaced a mask.
He turns and walks out of the door to the hallway, his cane clattering to the ground in the process, his right hand reaching down to support his leg although he doesn't apear to limp.
He dutifully closes the door behind him and is gone from sight.
Dan McNamara
Elder Aldrich Beaufort, Paragon of Clan Ventrue, Architect of the Camarilla
Elder Aldrich Beaufort, Paragon of Clan Ventrue, Architect of the Camarilla
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Manacledairman - Posts: 276
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