Nine minutes to One, part two – Like Her
And as he grew he dreamt of the mountains. Vast ranges of freedom in which his ideas would fly and soar through lake-filled valleys in the high passes, and his heart would beat in a different way, as though the body she fed had no place in those heights.
And as he grew he grew to be like her. Not in everything, but in so many ways. His young self watched and copied, imprinting itself with the rules that led to the smiles, the hugs, the squeals of joy. When he began he knew he was studying what was happening out there, on the clock face, knew that there was something else that wasn’t the studying. But later that faded, and there was just the studying; and the studying became him.
And then he copied much more of her, and at a faster pace, like running, until he could act and–to others–be, as she was. He copied her thinking, her icy drive for what had to be right, her sense of knowing how to reach for the heights…and sometimes…no, often…he copied her anger.
And the sun moved around the clock face, every day the same.
He watched her make things becomes perfect, and he loved what she did, but then she would tear them up, to begin again, ending up exhausted when the latest thing fell short of the taunting chimera in her mind. At such times he couldn’t bear her pain and would walk away, to lose himself in the flowers or climb the little hill nearby that she never seemed to notice, and gaze into the blue sky; and then she would be the most angry and shout for him as she searched. At first, he would run back to her, becoming little again and throwing himself into the arms of her forgiveness; but one day he noticed that there was a special place in the unseen quiet; a place where you could watch dramatic things unfolding but not be them…and in that moment he began to understand fear – not experience it, for that had happened many times – but understand it… and someone laughed, and he turned to find the source of the friendly voice, but there was no-one there, just the blue sky and the sun.
The first time he did this, he found her, hours later, crying in the early afternoon. He watched the small, thick hand of the clock face cover the One and turned to see her holding her head in her hands. He held her then, with his little arms, knowing that where he had been was higher than where she was.
But he loved her… Her loved her so much that he wanted to understand the anger and fix it for her. But he couldn’t do that here… He didn’t understand why, or even if it was right, but it felt right. So he knew he had to be not-here, so that he could find a way to fix it for her, because here couldn’t be where that healing was, and his love wasn’t strong enough to fix her anger.
Then came the day when he climbed his little hill and saw it…
The Sun, his lovely sun, high overhead, began to be two Suns, and something new begins. The new Sun shows him that there are hidden pathways from his little hill to the next place; the place where he might find how to fix what is wrong with she-the-most-warm.
The second Sun glides down in the sky and hovers over a point on the horizon where it kisses the green grass, though he can see that it is far away, as the best horizons appear to be. The second Sun draws a line over the earth, a line that is not on the clock face and leads straight to where he is now; and he begins to see that the clock face is beautiful, but is also a cage. That, in its never ending circle, it sets a pattern for all to follow, but that there are other paths which are not shown on the clock face.
And he begins to dream of another clock face that would look very different to the one in which she lives and to which she has brought him.
And so he leaves; with only what he is wearing and the penknife in his pocket, and the old, yellow rain mac tied around his waist. He walks across this new path, towards this new sun, and he knows he is, finally, going somewhere new… But he is also leaving home, and, though it is quite a new home, he knows no other, apart from the dreams of the mountains.
He walks for a whole day and is very hungry. Eventually he falls asleep under a bright moon, with the things of the night around him, but he is not afraid, and neither is he angry, in fact, deep within, he glimpses a great serenity. Falling asleep, against an old apple tree, he says a prayer as she taught him. The prayer is for her. In it, he holds her and tells her that he is coming home, soon; as soon as he knows how to fix things.
When he woke, as the summer sun was rising, he was cold, but rested.
A small man with intense green eyes was standing over him, and the little yellow mac felt very tight on his shoulders…
©Copyright Stephen Tanham 2016.
Nine Minutes to One is a short story, in 20 episodes, published on Thursdays.
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Ali crystalises the emotions in the approach to our April Workshop, Leaf and Flame….
Very soon, I shall be setting off up North for the fourth Silent Eye April Workshop/weekend of Ritual Drama and lovely fellowship. I am looking forward to it enormously.
Two years ago, I played the role of Sekhmet – and an incredibly powerful and life-changing experience it was too. My character’s imprisonment and torture at the hands of the mysterious and ambiguous cyborg, Setaxa, mirrored much that was going on in my ‘real’ life – and Sekhmet’s eventual liberation, and great-hearted forgiveness and love, gave me hope.
This year, I have been asked to take on a very different part. I will say more about the details once the weekend is over.
But what I will say is this: The drama chosen this year takes me back many, many years – to the Arthurian Cycle (a passion of mine since I was a child) and, specifically, to that fantastic, evocative…
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“Love you!” says my granddaughter, wearing a huge grin and blowing soggy kisses She still can’t pronounce the words quite right, nor does she really know what they mean. She only knows they always bring smiles when she says them. She has learned them from the big people who feed, cuddle and play. The ones with whom she is safe and happy. She knows they mean something to do with that… but can have no real definition of the words at one year old.
Although she is never quiet and babbles away constantly, she has, as yet, no real use of language above the few nouns and verbs with which she navigates her world. She is learning fast, having grasped this concept of verbal communication. Expression and intonation she has already acquired and we have long, involved conversations, that are still communication regardless of the fact that technically, neither of…
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The ‘Heart Unafraid’
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We Trudge treacherous trails
Rough mountains and the thorny plains of tomorrow
We listen as landscapes keep up their crying
Memorizing wounds and their places
Hot sun rises, leaving burned faces
Here, human hatred, there is no shade
We taste the tears of the left behind
Wander the day, sharp with remembering
Never stop building
The changes we wish for our children
Never stop moving
Toward something, anything good
Again and again feet step around boulders
Hearts heavy with sorrow
We are holding onto the edges of hope
Often simply for balance
The vision blurs
The directions weave in front of drooping eyes
We fall, but do not lie down
We stand, but are never still
Only the steps, one, and the next
Out into a sharp and staggering world
Stumble through actions
Hope the helpful ones take hold
Whatever end you are seeking
You might reach it on the…
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River of the Sun, chapter 18 – Rider on the Dawn
The marshlands by the great river gave way to the firmer, broken rock of the valley’s floor as the mule track climbed towards the far hills. The many trails fanned away on either side, as the possible destinations thinned to a single, rocky path. The great white horse did not slow in its thundering passage. The finest breeders in Egypt’s long history had gradually refined the purposeful form of the mighty creature which now bore its rider up the steep incline in the pale light of a the high desert’s pre-dawn, with barely a faltering of its elegant speed.
The air was cold, but the rider felt little discomfort, assured within his lithe and powerful young body of the limits of his endurance. He did, though, pull his cloak around him against the last of the short night’s biting breeze. He smiled at the brightening rocks as mighty Ra edged over the far hills beyond the East bank of the great river, covering in a breath the distance the horse had travelled in the whole time since the boatman had rowed him ashore and made ready his prepared and favourite mount.
He liked to ride with the dawning sun behind him. It brought him into alignment with that very special feeling within his breast – that sense of immense destiny. He knew his real life was about to begin–could sense his passing father’s imminent death on the wind.
Pharaoh at last! No longer just the youth, the boy-regent, the King-in-Rising. Now Egypt would tremble in obedience to the ways of his mind, to the cleverness of his strategies; and he would, of course, tell them as his campaigns brought riches flooding into Egypt’s coffers, again, how very fortunate they were to have the Unchosen as their God-King.
Except that he never used the word Unchosen. It was his private key to inner power. It was a word that described how he would spring back from adversity, overcoming what may have appeared to have defeated him, what had stood in his way, as he played with it… teasing out victory in the manner of the truly confident warrior. “Learn to build greater edifices, Egypt,” he shouted at the dawn, “you will need them to honour me!” His voice, thin in the cold air, dissipated, unheard, on the ancient rocks that were turning to gold.
Approaching a plateau, he slowed and wheeled his great steed around in a tight circle. He let it rest and breathe, reaching into his well stocked provisions to open a skin of water and let it drink. He pushed himself high in the saddle. Now facing East, he had to shield his eyes from Ra’s glory as the rays streamed along the paths he had ridden, creating a shimmering ghost of his journey. “See how Ra honours me!” he shouted at the dawn.
And then his eyes caught the newly glowing top stones of the Isis temple on the island from which he had made an early departure, secure in the knowledge that his orders would be creating havoc, below. “I will have you, Neferaset!” he shouted into the golden light, his loins surging with energy. “But when all your choices have dried like water on the sand…” the white horse pawed the rock before them both, adding to the combined symbol of power, “…then you will come begging for the touch of royal flesh!”
He thrilled at the thought, imagining how he would prolong their lovemaking, how she would marvel at his prowess as her own body betrayed her in its writhings. But, then, she would be discarded, another fallen priest, if a pretty one. Trust none of them, his father had said the last time they had talked, the last time – he now knew – that they would ever talk. Events in Thebes had turned his father’s loyalty against the resurgent priesthood. There is coming a new age, he had said. In which the royal line will need to be much cleverer than its priests… Cleverer. That had become his watchword, first-chosen or not. A new age… and the mind would be the arrow that took the new royal line forward into that golden tomorrow.
He looked down at the vision of the brightening temple on the island far below. His beloved Talatat would be waking to the possibilities of the day, would be stretching mind and body in the service of the wishes he had left in coded form, written on Obion’s scroll. Poor Menascare, he thought. What chance do you stand now? He laughed, a bitter noise against the golden force of the rising sun. Perhaps it is time for you to die along with my beloved father?
The wings of light streaming over his head formed themselves into an imagined escort as he turned Salama to face their upward path, again. The narrow plateau echoed one last time to his laughter, and then there were only falling motes of dust to mark the passage of the rider; that and the sound of thundering hooves on the single trail.
—
The dull ringing of two alabaster goblets striking each other was an incongruous accompaniment to the rising of the sun over the natural walls of the place Rameses had named, The Crescent of the Lost. Sarkur was uneasy in the gesture, just as he was uncertain about the wisdom of drinking temple wine so early in the day, if at all…
“Come, old friend,” said the royal rider, smiling through the unwiped film of white dust that covered his face. “Drink with me and we will mark the birth of the day that will see you finish my Tower.”
Sarkur the Stonemaster did as his companion bade him. But sipped the wine, rather than gulping it down in his companion’s fashion. “Majesty,” he said. “We do not know if there are enough hours in this day to accomplish the task!”
Despite his years of experience with Seti, the master builder took no chances with his son. It was like dealing with a snake, indeed, one of the early royal child-names of Rameses had related to that similarity – and the watchful stare of his early guardian. You had to be certain of your intent before you responded – if you responded at all… Now, in the full glare of the other’s unblinking gaze, the older man swallowed, acknowledging by gesture that he was uncertain of the wisdom of what he had just uttered.
The Regent raised his hand, and, for all his strength, Sarkur winced at the anticipated royal strike. But Rameses cupped his head to his ear. “Hear that, Sarkur?” he said, smiling in a way that was more chilling than any royal rage could be. “Do you know what that is the sound of?”
Sarkur gulped at the wine, despite his earlier resolve. He looked down over the edge of the tower. Below, and under the Regent’s careful guidance, his men had formed a perfect moon crescent around two-thirds of the base of the edifice. The pillar on which the two were seated rose out of this cradle, phallic and proud. The human crescent mirrored the canyon walls in this airless place. Seated on the ground and chanting their prayers to the distant royal household, the stone workers below kept their eyes to the ground, well away from those of the royal predator above.
“He’s dying, Majesty.” said Sarkur. “They lament the passing of their great King,” and quickly added, “and the great fortune which sees his son, the King-in-Rising being with them at this terrible time…”
“Terrible?” whispered Rameses, looking up at the clear, blue sky, with its burning heat, and smiling, cruelly.
“Would you not rather be there, Majesty – at your noble father’s bedside while he passes from this world?”
Rameses lay back onto the stone platform, letting his palms touch the stone, and feeling how the heat had begun to make the perfectly sculpted blocks intolerably hot, despite the earliness of the hour. Sarkur watched as the Regent’s fingers traced out the strange design which the Stonemaster had, himself, carved and fitted.
“My father is Pharaoh of the whole world, Sarkur,” said Rameses. “It does not matter where his body is, he will pass from all the places in this land as sweat passes from the tiny caves in the skin.”
“This, then, is your chosen place for your witness-watch?” asked Sarkur, gently.
“There is no right place,” answered the royal son. “He is a great man and his passing may be honoured by all, everywhere…” his lips formed a narrow line. “And why should I bow to the rituals of another clutch of Priests?”
Sarkur said nothing, holding his breath and willing the moment to pass.
“Life and death,” said Rameses. “Your men are making the sounds of life and death.”
“Majesty?”
“This very platform is a place of life and death…” He turned his body over, lying prone on the hot stone and looking down over the deadly edge, again. The heat passed quickly through his robes, warming his lower body. The energy reminded him of the ride up to the Tower, of the heat in his loins at the thought of Neferaset’s slow demise. “Be careful which you choose, Stonemaster…”
Rameses uncurled and sat up, his strong back sinuous and flexible in its raising of the royal head. He held out his goblet for Sarkur to join him in the gesture. The older man did so, but much more awkwardly.
“To life, then, Majesty,” the Stonemaster said.
“To death,” said Rameses, the fingers of his other hand idly tracing the edge of the strange design now set into the stone. The Cobra’s eyes were fixed on the far horizon, where, through the smooth gap in the crescent canyon’s wall, the end of the trail up which he had ridden was visible.
But Sarkur was not following the King-in-Rising’s gaze. He was studying, in minute detail, the patterns made by Rameses’ stroking fingers.
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Index to previous chapters:
Chapter One – Gifts From the River
Chapter Two – An Agony of Sunset
Chapter Three – The Dark Waters
Chapter Four – Touching the Sky
Chapter Five – The Fire Within
Chapter Seven – The Crystal Air
Chapter Eight – The Unchosen Darkness
Chapter Nine – The Priestess Calls
Chapter Ten – Darkness at the Door
Chapter Twelve – Above and Below
Chapter Thirteen – The Binding Voices
Chapter Fifteen – The Intimacy of Enemies
Chapter Sixteen – Old Friends, New Dangers
Chapter Seventeen – The Rule of Three
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Introduction to River of the Sun
In April 2015 a group of people gathered in the Derbyshire hills to enact the Silent Eye’s annual Mystery Play, entitled, The River of the Sun. The five-act mystical drama formed the backbone of that Spring weekend, and told the fictional story of a clash of ego and divinity set in an Isis-worshipping temple located on an island in the Nile, during the the fascinating period of the 19th dynasty, the time of Rameses the Great.
The 18th and 19th dynasties were a period of deep upheaval for ancient Egypt. The reign of the ‘Heretic King’, Akhenaten saw Egypt’s religious structure torn apart, as the revolutionary Pharaoh became what Wallis Budge called the ‘world’s first monotheist’; re-fashioning the power of the many Gods with one supreme entity – the visible sun disc, the Aten, for which Akhenaten, alone, was the high priest. Many have pointed to the failure of the ‘herectic’ Pharaoh’s politics, but few have doubted the sincerity of his religious vision. He will, forever, remain an enigma.
Whatever the nobility of his goal, the actions he took were ruthless, and included the shutting down of the annual deity festivals which were the sole point of ritualistic contact between the ordinary people of Egypt and their locally-worshipped gods. In addition, Akhenaten paid little attention to the domestic and military affairs of Egypt, allowing the country’s enemies to encroach on its borders, greatly weakening Egypt’s power at that critical time for the region.
After Akhenaten’s brief reign, culminating in the Pharaoh’s mysterious death, shadowy military forces took control of Egypt, instigating the 19th dynasty in the persons of Rameses I and, soon thereafter, Seti I, whose throne name derives from the god Set – often considered the ‘evil one’ because of his slaying of his brother, Osiris.
Seti I is judged by modern historians as having been one of the greatest-ever pharaohs, yet his importance in the 19th dynasty was eclipsed by the actions of his second son, the brilliant Rameses II, whose long reign of over sixty years included much self-promotion and the alteration of Egypt’s recent history. Both Seti and Rameses II (Rameses the Great) were passionate about the evisceration of the last traces of Akhenaten’s ‘chaos’, as they saw it.
But, although, by the 19th dynasty, the the ‘Son of the Sun’ was long dead and the buildings of his embryonic and doomed city of Tel-al-Armana were reduced to rubble, something of that time remained in the Egyptian consciousness. A new kind of connection between Pharaoh and God had been established, one which elevated mankind, if only in the being of the Pharaoh, to be someone who ‘talked with God’. It was, at the very least, a bold experiment and, though the world would have to wait until the 19th century to re-discover the ‘erased’ pharaoh, the philosophical waves of that period rippled out and dramatically affected the way the incoming 19th dynasty had to repair the worship of the Gods, uniting the people of Egypt under a trinity of Amun-Ra, Khonsu and Mut.
Our fictional story is a tale of politics, friendships, mind and faith. It is set against an historically accurate background, and at a time when Rameses was due to take the throne from the dying Seti .
Returning to Thebes in his swift warship, crewed by his fearsome Talatat mind-warriors, Rameses decides to mount a surprise night-time raid on the island-based Isis temple which has prospered under the sponsoring reign of his father. Rameses suspects that the inner teachings conducted by the revered High Priestess and Priest conceal views that relate to the thoughts of the heretic Pharaoh, Akhenaten. He plans to insert himself and his warriors of the mind into the islands’s Spring rites as the high priest and priestess begin a cycle of initiation for a chosen apprentice priest who has proved himself worthy of special advancement.
The resulting clash draws everyone, including the young Pharaoh-in-Rising, into a spiralling situation where each is forced to confront their own fears as well as living out the roles which life has allocated them. River of the Sun is the story of a spiritual and political encounter from which none emerge unchanged, including the man who will shortly be Pharaoh, the mighty Rameses II, whose secret name for himself is ‘the unchosen’.
Through the eyes and minds of those surrounding the chosen priest and the ‘unchosen’ Pharaoh, the River of the Sun takes us on a tense and compelling journey to the heart of power and its eternal struggle with truth.
The chapters of the book will be serialised in this blog. The finished work is planned to be available in paperback and Kindle in the Spring of 2016.
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River of the Sun, serialised here, and its associated images, are the intellectual property of Stephen Tanham and is ©Copyright material.
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More Stuart inspiration… Clearly written after a second or third breakfast…
“Right, if we start from Midwinter…”
“You’re going to have to rename all the months.”
“…Not necessarily.”
“Why not?”
“We want to get beyond names.”
“Beyond names?”
“Before the months were named there was a metaphor of the year.”
“And the metaphor of the year was what precisely?”
“The metaphor was the year as fire, or better, as a fire.”
“How do you know?”
“Because all the autumn months are still ’embers’.”
“The year, like a fire, rises to flame after first being kindled and then dies down to ash?”
“To ash and more, because there always is. So we will have three kindling months, three flaming months, three ember months and an ash month.”
“But no names?”
“Not to start with. There might, though, be names later.”
“So how are you going to distinguish the months?”
“As First, Second and Third Kindling… etc. Are there any more questions?”
The…
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How to be alone … for lonely is a freedom
by Steve Tanham
HOW TO BE ALONEby Tanya Davis, poet, songwriter and singer. Her style is primarily spoken word set to music. She performed in this video, which was directed by Andrea Dorfman. Andrea did the animation. She is a screenwriter as well as a director.
The film was shot in Halifax, Nova Scotia. As of this writing, this poetry video has had more than 7,620,000 views, which is a league of its own when it comes to poetry videos. As ar as I know the only poet who gets those numbers – actually twice as much – is Shane Koyczan, also a Canadian and a spoken word poet.
After making the film Tanya and Andrea put together a book, How to Be Alone (Harper,2013) with the poem and illustrations. Tanya also has a published poetry collection, At First, Lonely (Acorn Books, 2011). The former, I think, makes a good gift for someone after a…
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Nine minutes to One – part one, The Bridge of Falling
Later, they told him that he had not come from the mountains.
But that was much later…
In the beginning there was a storm on a mountain top. He is falling, tumbling, blown by the gale as he falls, like a thing that no longer has a home there. There is lightning and fire and pain… The wind laughs as his garments are flayed from him… For a second two other lights blaze over his left and right shoulders, but they leave, ahead of him, and disappear into the dark distance. He knows it will be a long time before he recognises them, again.
Then there is no more sharp rock, and the falling is through air and then through the coolness of water, which is bliss, but strips from him the last of the memories of those heights.
And somewhere, there is laughter; for it has begun…
He is rolling now, turning again, but much more slowly, this time. He is struggling to see as he emerges into air again. The brightness of the origin is gone; there are only shadows here… and steps. Black step followed by white step, and then black step, again; and he has no control as he tumbles down the hard steps and shrinks and rolls, bruised and, apart from the tatters, naked, into the middle of the clock face.
She of the shadows forms from the stuff of this world and looks down at him, curled on the floor. He experiences but does not know. Knowing will come later, he knows… He thinks on the irony of that sentiment, how can he know what he does not know? Then he looks up at her tall presence and smiles. It seems like a good thing to do… It seems like the only thing to do.
In her soft arms and against her warm skin his mouth completes the forgetting. The liquid of this life fills him, becoming the blood that flows through the world within – the world that is not him but is where the ‘him’ locates itself… and the shadow becomes brighter, alone in his world, where his every small need is met.
But not the larger ones…
He knows he is where he is supposed to be, as though some agreement, some pact was made before the time of the mountain. He does not know who he is; and, in this world of shadows it is essential that he knows who he is. Without knowing who, how can he act, and know that it is himself acting? There is acting, which is power; and there is who, which is identity. This who will be a poor shadow of the forgotten, but it will be a start…
And as he falls to sleep, full of the white liquid of this life, he knows that the who will also give life to the blood that flows inside him, endowing it with far more than came in with the white liquid…
And then there is only rest and the dreams.
And the warmth of loving flesh.
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In response to Sue Vincent’s photo prompt – The Stairway
http://scvincent.com/2016/03/25/photo-prompt-the-stairway/
(In the style of Sufi poetry)
Frozen Steps
—-
Examine frozen
Find your rhythm
In the tapping of ice crystals
—
With your most foolish foot
Slide forward the sole
And feel the danger
In the deadly realm where
Blood and pain meet
—
And then
—
Disregard them all
In noble purpose
And, stripping fear back
To where no fall rules
Descend to love
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©Stephen Tanham, 2016
Sun in Gemini 
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