The Shamblings understood. Only they didn’t call it “ingwaz” or “sacrifice” or any of those high-crowned words that would spawn a thousand tweets of faux philosophy and/or ad hominem insults.
What they did call it is not directly translatable into English. They without mouths have no use for verbal language. They without eyes have no use for visual language. They have themselves when times are good, and they cease being themselves when times are bad. They know when to shift and when to remain. They know shifting out of turn makes the good times bad and the bad times worse. It is not just the shifting itself that is important to know and understand, but when to do it. This is the state they understood better than I know how my blood sings in my veins.
To share that state with me, they gave me the understanding that I have labeled [unbeing]. I use brackets and italics to write that, because there is no word in the English language for it. It is a symbol I have made up to distinguish it from all the other symbols made up for other constructs, concrete or abstract.
[Unbeing] is death. A dissolution of the individual into the mass of All. The concerns of the individual are ignored and not even allowed to be remembered. Missed meals and missed opportunities don’t exist. That time a fool was exposed is equal to that time an achievement was made is equal to nothing.
[Unbeing] is timeless to those within it, as entering [unbeing] dissolves the notions of past, present, and future. It is all happening at once. The memory of the fire is happening with the memory of the freeze. There is no mark of time, only the decision by the [unbeen] to [become] a memory of good times.
[Unbeing] is the precursor to [becoming]. I suspect I do not need to mark “becoming” as something special, since we already know that to become is to reveal what you really are. When the Shamblings have made themselves [unbeing], there is no difference from one teaspoon of mud at one end of the hive and one teaspoon of mud at the other end. But when they pull themselves apart into individuals again, they remake themselves utterly. Personas and personalities form. Idiosyncrasies that determine which will lead the hive and which will leave the hive are made firm. This lump of mud will remind the hive to save water. That lump of mud will lead the hive to the preying grounds.
You can not [be] unless you are [unbeen], because it is from the nothingness of [unbeing] that you [become].
Simple, no?
Last week, as physical Americans count time (my week starts on Sundays), the Shamblings pulled me into their [unbeing] embrace. My awareness was split, and I had to function for the next four days being in several different places at once. I sought conscious entry to the birch grove that is the domain of the Antler-Crowned and Green Masked Figure several times, and a few times I did see the grove itself, but ultimately, I was turned away.
“You are not ready for [ingwaz].”
When I sought entry before, it was to serve as a willing sacrifice for a then dear friend. Who did I have now to sacrifice for? No one. What did I have to sacrifice for? Nothing. Where was I made untouchable, that my sacrifice was required to enter? No where.
I chased the few clues I had. Whenever the ACGMF turned his attention to me, my “dead” eye turned to stone, and my [replaced] hand [did a thing]. Then that means I had to go to those that had previously replaced my eye and hand for insight, right?
“You have to die to enter that space.”
Not helping, guys. Not fucking helping at all.
And the entire time, the Shamblings held tight to the piece of me they had smothered. Because I had to be awake to do living human required things like earning income (and shit), they did not pull me into a complete state of [unbeing]. Instead, they anchored me. They dampened my responses (high and low) and prevented me from getting into shit.
Last night, the Shamblings called out to me as they have each night since they grabbed me. It is time for me to join them in [unbeing]. This time, I yielded.
~*~
I remember…
… the maggots and the roaches eating my blueing flesh.
… the mud soaking up all the water leaking from the burst cells of a rotting body.
… the opalization of my bones as eons flashed through the forest.
… the split of the outer membrane of a swollen germinated seed.
… the unaware desire to reach for the light and the heat.
… the disconnection from [unbeing] and being forced to [become].
~*~
He lain above me, face down, as I lain above the barrow, face up. His cloak lain above him as my cloak lain below me. I could feel the grave complaining about the sudden loss and I ached to rejoin it.
“Who am I?”
It took me a moment to remember I could speak, and a moment more to remember the thought of it. I blinked and realized we were both naked. I chose to ignore any shame of knowing it.
I looked him in the face and realized his “mask” was him. To see beyond it would never be my right to have. My tongue uncoiled and I answered with a name that I felt to be wrong even as I spoke it.
“Are you sure?”
No. I wasn’t. I remembered my quest to reunderstand the Ingwaz rune and the discovery that everything I thought I understood about the [Elder Futhark] runes were distorted or flat out wrong. Which meant my associations for him was distorted as well. I did not answer, but did my best to hold back sudden tears.
“I am if you need me to be.”
“At the cost of what truth?” I finally found my voice. It reverberated the thin spaces between our bodies.
“At the cost of knowing what you thought was true but is not. At the cost of it becoming false once you know more. Should you know more. Would you know more?”
The ending question made me wince but I did not understand why. I felt our bodies pushing into the freshly turned dirt under us. (How did I know it was freshly turned?) “Ingwaz. I’m supposed to ask you about Ingwaz. He said any fool could recite letters but I seek understanding.”
“What will you give me for understanding?”
Ah, shit. Back at this again. The combination of the long week and the head games broke what thin veneer of arrogance I had left. I started to sob.
“I have nothing to give. Nothing to sacrifice. Nothing to sacrifice for. I have been burned, strangled, and vivisected for everyone else all my life and now I have nothing to give for myself.”
“Nothing?”
“Everything I have is stolen. Everything I am has been rendered worthless. What secret do I have to sell when everyone already knows it? What product could I make that [those god damn fuckers] can’t make a thousand more in a thousandth of the time for a thousandth of the cost it takes me to make one? I don’t even have the rights to my own body! WHAT THE HELL COULD I OFFER IN SACRIFICE TO YOU THAT YOU CAN’T TAKE AT YOUR WILL?! WHAT IS THERE ‘FRESH’ FOR YOU TO CLAIM?!”
As my anger surged I realized I was no longer in the grip of the Shamblings. My fire was free to flow and the sudden release from restraint made it easy to flare. Angry at myself for losing my cool, I turned my head to the side and noted the ring of young white birch trees that hemmed in the barrow.
He moved only his arms to pin mine down. Finally my cognition recognized how else he had pinned me already. I was reminded of what happened the last time (the first time) I was in this grove, only now the barrow under me is empty as I have no one to pay the price for.
It was so much easier to bear when I thought it was the right thing to do.
“Who are you?”
I turned my face back to his. I did not answer verbally but my face betrayed my confusion.
“Who are you… this time? What are you trying to buy from me? You are correct. There is nothing of you, this you, that I can not take against your will. You say you come seeking understanding. Then why are you trying to buy knowledge? Who is this you that you have become? And is it the right you?”
I searched his face with my eyes as he waited for me to recognize a thing.
With my eyes… I have two eyes…
Two?
Wait.
“I’m the wrong me. I have two eyes. I’m the me that I was when I first came here, when I offered myself in sacrifice to purchase safety for [him].”
“Why are you, this you?”
“Because that is what I expected I would have to be.”
“And is it?”
Good question. I struggled to remember what happened before waking in the birch grove again. Surely the memory of what was will lead me to what is…
Leading me to become…
I closed my eyes and sought [unbeing].
I opened my living eye as my dead eye turned to stone.
Our positioning never changed relative to each other even as I changed completely between him above me and the empty barrow under me.
“Tell me.”, he commanded. “Tell me of [Ingwaz].”
“It is the release of what came before so that what comes after can become. It is the surrender of what is so that what may be, can. It is the unmaking of yesterday so tomorrow can be remade, today. It is the sacrifice of what you thought you knew so you can learn something new [true]. It is the willful yielding of what I thought was myself so that my self can be revealed. It is painful. It hurts to let go of what I thought I knew. It hurts to become.”
The Antler Crowned and Green Masked Figure closed his eyes.
“Then I have nothing to give you that you do not already have.”
Quickly he shifted his hands and grasped me by the neck securely. With a push, he buried me and the cloak I was lying on into the hollow barrow below us. The grave swallowed us both with vicious quickness.
~*~
The sensation of free falling woke me.