Animal Gods

And so we arrive at the end of another season, and the beginning of a new one, as Earth crosses the threshold of another solstice.

For the creative team of Metapsychosis, it means we’ll be taking a few weeks off to rest, recuperate, and regenerate—perhaps a month of dreamtime—before we revive this newsletter with new work to share. Although, there may be a couple of surprises along the way…

For our last edition of the year, we are pleased to conclude our Creature Consciousness series with a whimsical, deep, humorous, and touching collection of poems by Metapsychosis editor Geoffreyjen Edwards, titled “Animal Gods.” It is a fitting cap to the series, as each short poem brings us into communion with a kind of divine essence of the creature being illumined.

Delightfully, each poem is accompanied by one of Edwards’s illustrations.

Meet: Snake God, Spider God, Rat God, Wasp God, Rabbit God, Hummingbird God, Donkey God, Leech God…

These poems are excerpted from a larger work in progress, The Third Testament—a text that proposes a unification of all religions—attributed to Ionian Nazari and first published at the end of the Second Exodus of the Humanitat from The Ido Chronicles. You may especially be interested in the first volume of the series, titled Plenum: The First Book of Deo, which was released in 2022.

Also this week, we present the third and final installment of “Art in the Age of Dreams,” by Duncan Laurie. Here, the exploration of cosmic consciousness becomes even more… elemental. Laurie recounts how he got into the field of radionics and a few of the galvanizing discoveries along the way. He writes:

“One fascinating discovery was rock electricity, the capacity of certain stones to create very small voltages. We amplified and changed these voltages into pitch, and assigned them instruments. Rock Music. What emerged wasn’t just random notes; what exactly were the rocks expressing?

[…] Science has difficulty investigating consciousness because it requires consciousness to do so, muddying the results. But what is Art, if not consciousness investigating itself?”

Click through to hear examples of the “rock music” that Laurie and his colleagues were able to coax out of the stone. The essay concludes with a reprise of its original themes, confronting the mystery of consciousness simultaneously in its most abstract and elemental forms. Quoth the instigator of the essay, Brian George:

“Against all modern theory, I believe that our presence goes very far back in time, towards a point of origin that can also be conceived as a point in an alternate dimension. From what I have been shown, we human beings have existed before the human body, in its current form, had even been imagined. We are the witnesses to the half-formed dream life of the Absolute. It is our job to lift relics from the bottom of the ocean.”

Speaking of whom, dear reader, you might also be interested in a new essay by George just published in Dark Mountain Journal: “Stranger, Tell Me How To Translate From A Language I Don’t Speak.”

As the darkness of solstice brings the light back to the world, Brian George takes us on a metaphysical journey into the eternal question about the purpose of human beings on Earth. A long winter read that explores a forgotten role of ourselves as messengers and bridge-makers between what has been riven within the cosmos.

Our last offering this week comes courtesy of Andrea van de Loo, whose memoir The Pressing Stones: The Healing Journey of a Nazi’s Daughter, was published in September. Here is the recording of her recent book launch event, where, it was reported, you could “hear a pin drop” in the room:

You might also be interested in van de Loo’s recent KSQD (Monterey Bay)  radio interview.

As one more reminder, our call for submissions on Crossing Thresholds remains open for another month. If you have some time over the holidays, why not get your submission in?

As well, our Cosmos Co-op Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign has only 10 days remaining. Please make a contribution to support our creative co-op as we launch into the new year.

And/or: consider becoming a patron member of Metapsychosis. We have some creative plans in the works for members next year, including the revival of our Writers’ Circle with author Mary Thaler. You’ll want to become an “Illumined Mind” level member to take part in that.

As always, we welcome your comments, questions, and feedback. I hope you’re having a beautiful solstice weekend. Thanks for being a part of this journey with us!

Stellar regards,

Marco V Morelli
Editor-in-Chief, Metapsychosis journal
@madrush on Mastodon