One Eye: A Short Story Co-Authored by Rob J. Kuntz

Below is the story that evolved between Lord of the Green Dragons and Journalizer in the comments field of the post Re: Creative Stirrings. What is that metallic ball that has a sponge-like substance within it?
Lord of the Green Dragons started Part 1 and explained, "anyone can add to it... or change it completely."

artwork original © JournalizeThis 2010

One Eye

January 23, 2010 6:45 PM
Lord of the Green Dragons said...

This mysterious globe, or eye, is in part the representation of the sacred ibis, revered by the Egyptians, each globe otherwise known as the "One Eye" which was so esoterically popular as a symbol among them. The fight with the birds by Hercules was in fact the beginning of the cultural myth challenging the Egyptian preeminence in knowledge and ascendancy. These were manufactured in strange ways much as their pyramids or the Labyrinth were constructed, under divine guidance, and were in turn lost after the destruction of Alexandria and the burning of the Great Library-museum there. Certain entrusted merchants took these south where they ended up at a southern island mass (modern day Madgascar, later to be referred to by Clark Ashton Smith as an island comprising part of Zothique [perhaps Ullutrol], part of a dying land reeking of ancient magic). The eyes in fact contained the knowledge of those eldest of mysteries preserved through divine intercourse and as transferred from the papyri of the Great Library, especially the over 6,000,000 scrolls detailing astrology and astronomy, and as copied from the most ancient of Babylonian texts.

From there they later find a home in Southern Africa, whereat their history becomes obscured in the wars of petty tribes and witch-doctors who fought for their mystic knowledge. A rite partially written, partially etched in pictographs, and which was found on a petrified tree-etching near Johannesburg, notes that a very hard and glassy substance similar to ebony was used as a table to spin these upon, much in the same manner as it occurred for Rod Taylor in the adaptation of H. G. Wells, "The Time Machine," where he spins the rings shown to him by the Eloi, thus summoning a greater knowledge of the past via interaction with the Ether.

The three concentric rings found on one of the objects in fact relate to their origin, one being so inscribed to note their association with the many tripartite arrangements of gods formalized in the Labyrinth, whereat these were actually utilized in open air ceremonies...


January 23, 2010 7:27 PM
Journalizer said...

The inscriptions on the objects later led to a map being discovered that detailed the entrance and maze of the Labyrinth. By decoding the map and understanding the Labyrinth, further knowledge of ancient Egyptian wisdom was revealed. The map proved essential in decoding the knowledge of those eldest of mysteries contained in the eyes...


January 23, 2010 8:05 PM
Lord of the Green Dragons said...

As further maps were found within the Great Labyrinth, enlivening a growing reason as to why these edifices were at various times and epochs created worldwide.

A peculiar inscription, first thought to be of the hieroglyphic set, was incorrectly translated as "At Corners They Arrive." This was later debunked by Doctor I. R. Bhyz of Transvaal University. Supporting this idea of energy and matter converging at specific points in space and time within such constructions was a Conjunction Theorist from Aestaphally, Germany, Dr. Jourese Haukenlaurm. Dr, Haukenlaurm immediately departed for points south, taking with her a great store of formerly cached sacred objects that she felt sure were partial if not whole keys to the mystery...


January 24, 2010 9:39 AM
Journalizer said...

... of the Ether, because Dr. Haukenlaurm had a hunch that the sacred objects would fit perfectly into "keyhole" shaped cracks in the eyes. However, despite Dr. Bhyz's research that debunked the translation of the peculiar hieroglyphics, she could not help but wonder if there was some connection with the peculiar inscription, "At Corners They Arrive" and the sacred objects that appear close matches to the cracks in the eyes.

Upon further inspection of the eyes Dr. Haukenlaurm was amazed to discover that the cracks were actually perfect circles matching the circular shape of the sacred objects. Clearly, she would need to send them out to the lab to be professionally cleaned of the residue accumulated over the millennium. As the eyes were being restored her mind kept coming back to the debunked inscription, "At Corners They Arrive." She thought to herself, "after all, isn't there always a little truth to every conspiracy theory?"

These thoughts prompted a thorough investigation of Dr. Bhyz's research, along with the map and other images. Scientific investigations of the Ether by Carl Jung held essential information needed to decode those eldest of mysteries that would reveal the Truth. Jung's investigation read, "the entire Cosmos is filled with a hidden, flowing, geometric energy matrix commonly called “zero-point energy” or “aether” that is the source of all things, including life, and is therefore alive in its own right. With this matrix, all elements of the Cosmos are very intimately and directly connected through “synchronicity” (defined by Dr. Carl Jung, pg 9 The Science of Oneness by David Wilcock).

The statements, “Zero-point energy” and "At Corners They Arrive" kept running through Dr. Haukenlaurm's head. What was the connection to the eyes and the sacred objects and would this answer the fundamental question that science cannot explain? Would this connection be the key to understanding the Ether? She was determined to figure it out because she knew that greater knowledge of the past was available via interaction with the Ether.

But, she was stumped about the inscription. What corners is the inscription referring to: if Dr. Bhyz was in fact wrong about debunking? Then, as she flipped through past research, she came across powerful statements about ancient wisdom. She read, "There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self" by Aldous Huxley. The statement stopped her dead in her tracks. "Corner of the universe," she repeated in her head.

That's when she realized the inscription was symbolic! She realized that "At Corners They Arrive" was not referring to actual corners, but to the infinite nature of the universe. With that revelation she continued to flip through the pages of research on her desk.

Then she came across two pages paper clipped together. The large paper had a detailed drawing of symbols depicting wormholes and the space time continuum... then she read the small scrap of paper attached.


Reading this scrap is when she knew it was all about the shape of the eyes and the shape of the symbolic objects: it is all cyclical! The wisdom of the past is present today, but we are looking in the wrong places. Dr. Haukenlaurm realized, that the answer was within her, and not outside her in the artifacts. She was certain of this when she reread the scrap of paper, "'When there is no more separation between 'this' and 'that,' it is called the still-point of the Tao. At the still point in the center of the circle one can see the infinite in all things' - Chuang Tzu."

Illustrations Copyright JournalizeThis 2010:
Originals are 33” x 27” Graphite on Strathmore 400 Series Bristol Drawing sheet, framed.

Fragments from the Beauty of Imagination vs. the "Lawyers" of Fantasy: Rematch Round #1

An oft-told joke: A millionaire called into his drawing room three of his employees--a maid, an accountant and a lawyer.

He asked of the maid: "What's 2+2?"
She responded promptly: "Four, sir."
Turning to the accountant he asked the same question.
The accountant took out his adding machine and after some diligent pressing of keys looked up and responded in turn: "Three, sir."
Turning to the lawyer he posed the same question.

The lawyer instantly moved to the window and drew the curtains shut, casting the room into a faint darkness. Turning to his employer he smiled and said: "What do you want it to be?"

If anyone has any question what I am here referring to, please read on.

"Like calls like. At best scholarship, by placing in our hands knowledge which we should otherwise not possess, can fit us to read the works of the poets, to decipher what they have written. Yeats, a poet of this century, can no more be understood by those who do not possess the knowledge of the 'learned school' in which he himself studied, than can poets of other periods; and to such knowledge _there is no critical short-cut_ [emphasis mine]; we have to acquire it or remain in ignorance"--Kathleen Raine. "Defending Ancient Springs."

And so on to a dichotomy in our time... "Everybody's talking into their pockets; everybody wants a box of chocolates and a long-stem rose ..." ..."Everybody knows it's coming apart, take one last look at this Sacred Heart, before it blows."--Don Henley, "Everybody Knows".

But I leave you not with an uppercut to the mind, but with several exhortations for the soul...

"Indeed, you might think of genre boundaries not as obstacles, but rather as dikes and levees that hold out the river or the sea. Where-ever they are raised up, they allow you to cultivate new land... If enough of us like your story we'll accept your new boundary as the true one, and plant a few stories in your newfound land... We're all harvesting crops in lands opened up by the pioneers in our field-- Wells,Verne, Merritt, Haggard, Lovecraft, Shelley, Tolkien, and many others. But we're none of us confined to the territory they discovered. It's just a starting point. ...How can we create the literature of the strange if we stay in well-mapped lands?"--Orson Scott Card, "How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy."

And an insight about Algernon Blackwood, who H. P. Lovecraft regarded as one of the best contemporary horror/supernatural writers of his time: "My fundamental interest, I suppose, is signs and proofs of other powers that lie hidden in us all; the extension, in other words, of human faculty. So many of my stories, therefore, deal with extension of consciousness; speculative and imaginative treatment of possibilities outside our normal range of consciousness." ...--From correspondence with Peter Penzoldt.

It is well known that Blackwood also loved children: "Blackwood was of the opinion that children, like animals, had not lost their instinctive closeness to Nature or their innocence, both of which became dulled by civilization and overbearing adults. Children adored Blackwood because he behaved and saw the world like them -- the world of wonder in a daisy, a cloud or a butterfly."--extracted from a summary of his book, "A Prisoner in Fairyland."

And in closing, a lesson from one of the masters: " To recapitulate then: — I would define, in brief, the Poetry of words as The Rhythmical Creation of Beauty. Its sole arbiter is Taste. With the Intellect or with the Conscience it has only collateral relations. Unless incidentally, it has no concern whatever either with Duty or with Truth.

A few words, however, in explanation. That pleasure which is at once the most pure, the most elevating, and the most intense, is derived, I maintain, from the contemplation of the Beautiful. In the contemplation of Beauty we alone find it possible to attain that pleasurable elevation, or excitement of the soul, which we recognise as the Poetic Sentiment, and which is so easily distinguished from Truth, which is the satisfaction of the Reason, or from Passion, which is the excitement of the heart. I make Beauty, therefore — using the word as inclusive of the sublime — I make Beauty the province of the poem, simply because it is an obvious rule of Art that effects should be made to spring as directly as possible from their causes: — no one as yet having been weak enough to deny that the peculiar elevation in question is at least most readily attainable in the poem. It by no means follows, however, that the incitements of Passion' or the precepts of Duty, or even the lessons of Truth, may not be introduced into a poem, and with advantage; for they may subserve incidentally, in various ways, the general purposes of the work: but the true artist will always contrive to tone them down in proper subjection to that Beauty which is the atmosphere and the real essence of the poem.--Extracted from Poe's essay and lecture on "The Poetic Principle."