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A more personal talk about The Vimana Incident and "I"
10 years ago
Right, up to now, I've gone with putting up the author's thoughts and others' reviews, but I've never quite sat down and talked about how The Vimana Incident's story relates to me, especially after reading a draft and beginning to draw for it.
*puts on Angelo Badalamenti soundtrack for Mulholland Drive*
Here's a drawing I made back in 2011: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/6174309/
I'll give you some time to look at it for a bit. The accompanying commentary, too.
When I finished The Vimana Incident, this is the picture I thought about for a long time.
The drawing's title, Fanaa fil Haqq, is a Sufi Islamic term meaning "Truth through Annihilation". In layman's terms, one of the ways you can totally embrace God (in a decidedly different flavour from Western Gnosticism) is to destroy all trace of ego so that the natural truth, all-is-already-God-and-that-means-you-too, can be experienced.
The poor bird in the center, with his eyes pulled out to see through other owls' eyes, is very likely me. I say this cognizant that, perhaps, just because I thought about the lives of these owl-men I put through the motions of enlightenment, doesn't mean I'm not another one being put through similar motions.
Turtles all the way down. Turtles all the way up, too.
I started with Adam Primaeros, himself an alchemical life made from lessons learned from four other lives. Through him I access other lives of his pattern: Kadamon Theofonias, Terosa Bayutama, Not Palmer Eldritch and even the recently-born (-discovered?) Beithanne.
They are all recovering from a great loss of a significant other, driving them to various paths of gnosis, assuming they survive the fearful knife of Kadamon.
So you see how I approach the furry fandom. Not quite an obsession with cartoons, not the wonderful dress-up, but something closer to a modern shamanism.
I am a rational creature, but I have been touched by the uncanny, half by accident of company and half by tragedy. I am amongst those people who may spend the rest of their lives trying to make sense of the little shown outside the sadness and difficulty of life as it is, but what a magnificently bewildering little it is. Other spirits are suffering, and if we know something that redeems every ugly aspect of this world, there is a responsibility to bring it out, to fashion it in a way that can help others into the same state, well gosh darn, we'll keep at it.
Well, I hope you enjoy the book, and perhaps gain some nugget of new wisdom after it's given a chance to percolate in your head for a while.
*puts on Angelo Badalamenti soundtrack for Mulholland Drive*
Here's a drawing I made back in 2011: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/6174309/
I'll give you some time to look at it for a bit. The accompanying commentary, too.
When I finished The Vimana Incident, this is the picture I thought about for a long time.
The drawing's title, Fanaa fil Haqq, is a Sufi Islamic term meaning "Truth through Annihilation". In layman's terms, one of the ways you can totally embrace God (in a decidedly different flavour from Western Gnosticism) is to destroy all trace of ego so that the natural truth, all-is-already-God-and-that-means-you-too, can be experienced.
The poor bird in the center, with his eyes pulled out to see through other owls' eyes, is very likely me. I say this cognizant that, perhaps, just because I thought about the lives of these owl-men I put through the motions of enlightenment, doesn't mean I'm not another one being put through similar motions.
Turtles all the way down. Turtles all the way up, too.
I started with Adam Primaeros, himself an alchemical life made from lessons learned from four other lives. Through him I access other lives of his pattern: Kadamon Theofonias, Terosa Bayutama, Not Palmer Eldritch and even the recently-born (-discovered?) Beithanne.
They are all recovering from a great loss of a significant other, driving them to various paths of gnosis, assuming they survive the fearful knife of Kadamon.
So you see how I approach the furry fandom. Not quite an obsession with cartoons, not the wonderful dress-up, but something closer to a modern shamanism.
I am a rational creature, but I have been touched by the uncanny, half by accident of company and half by tragedy. I am amongst those people who may spend the rest of their lives trying to make sense of the little shown outside the sadness and difficulty of life as it is, but what a magnificently bewildering little it is. Other spirits are suffering, and if we know something that redeems every ugly aspect of this world, there is a responsibility to bring it out, to fashion it in a way that can help others into the same state, well gosh darn, we'll keep at it.
Well, I hope you enjoy the book, and perhaps gain some nugget of new wisdom after it's given a chance to percolate in your head for a while.
