Myths and Maths

Or

The Myth-tress and the Math-ter

Part the First

Once upon a time not so long ago but nearer than you might think there lived a woman of indeterminate age, some say she was young and some say she was old but I will leave it up to you to decide. Her name was Selene and there was nothing she liked better than to gaze at the moon whether it was full and brightening the night into day

or whether it was the finest most delicate crescent hanging in the luminous blue of the evening sky….

One night whilst she was myth-tering  (for those who have never heard of this it means gazing softly at beautiful things thus making space for stories to arise out of your imagination, not so much letting either as  they bang on your inner door until you let them out more likely!) she heard voices coming from which direction she knew not. And this is what they said:

‘How many times have we had this conversation whilst the wheels of creation spin?’

‘ Infinitely, is the answer…my dear!’

‘ But it is simply not so, for it was I who was created first and you slipped from my womb whole and entire as you are today. It was the ALPH who made us from pure breath, a sigh of loneliness and our sleeping selves were woken to enter into ALPH’S greater dream.’

‘Not at all my darling, it was I myself and me who came first and you grew from my rib for so it was said to me by the dream whisperer The ALPH OM, indeed the very most beginning and the end.’

‘And what about the middle? asked the Mythtress, for that is who she was, arguing eternally with the Mathter for this was their purpose. ‘Who came first and who was last and was the last to become first and the first last as the future had spoken all those aeons ago..’

‘You can’t mix your metaphorical time slips like that. There is no middle only the beginning lengthening to the ending or indeed the ending beginning earlier, will you never understand?’ he replied

So it continued, the Mythtress and the Mathter engaging themselves in wordplay, as to who was right, well I will leave that to you my dear reader.

On the other hand Selene struggled with understanding for sometimes she just knew stuff  in her heart but when her head started to make a sense of it all, it went fuzzy again. She had heard them mention Alf O’May, surely a well known Irish folk singer of the time, but what time and when time she couldn’t quite grasp.

‘You well know,’ said the Mathter ‘that humans again and again mistake the ALPH and OM for something entirely other’

‘Do you mean those certain lazy humans who shorten the NAME into aom. This sound, the first sound of the creation.’  she said.

Selene wondered about what they were saying and indeed if what they said was true.

‘You know that there is not only the first but the last sound for because there is only the beginning and the end spiralling infinitely round their double zero and chantedby those who think they know but cannot really remember properly.’

The Mathter looked at her patiently and replied ‘In order for spirit to explore matter, the very ability to do so requires the wearing of an earth suit which the senses need for play on Earth. This earth suit inevitably closes the extra senses down for many at least and the drinking of the water of Lethe for most a soporific to the pain of leaving home, places the final lid of their forgetting.’

‘Mmmm’ she sighed and went back to her tapestry for he sometimes made her head hurt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4e9hcqVVfY

Selene was pondering as usual happenstance by the sea at sunset when in her reverie she heard the voices again.

‘Yes ‘the Math-ter said ‘as a matter of fact you would not be able to create your stories if it wasn’t for my maths which sets up the shape and form of matter. Your stories my dear, are brought into creation because of my algorithms.

Nonsense’ she replied,’ don’t you mean my allegorythms? Maybe I will conceive, in all senses of the word, a joint venture here!

Selene began to get impressions as if she could see behind and through the twin souls. She found herself with a strange understanding as if she was herself in the mind of them both.

The Mythtress smiled sweetly for she was sweet. On the other hand never test her spine of steel melted in uncountable furnaces to become the most strong but flexible in existence, such stuff she used to weave the spiders web of life.

For the most part she usually tried to ignore his accounts as he indeed ignored her. In any case, his mathematical brain was invariably fractally lost and he only popped into awareness when she prodded him with her long and elegant finger. In any case her myths and stories often times drew her in so deep she forgot herself and so suited were they in their lost-ness that they had an understanding for each other as the twin souls that they were. Created in fact just for this…the Myth-tress and Math-ter both made use of  time, which was their joint creation, in order that their stories might come into existence and their heroes could place themselves sequentially in a piece of bounded space. It was upon this tightly stretched fabric that she wove the stories into existence. With threads coloured by her emotions, those waves of love and annoyance occasionally seasoned with fury that she felt for the Math-ter she embroidered a richer and deeper meaning to her tales of the eternal dance, the warp and weft of light and shadow offering a depth and multidimensional effect which played across the tapestry.

Selene watched entranced by the tapestry, the flowing shapes and images that flowed forward across time, unfolding moment by moment with the billowing cloak of the past emotions gently or sometimes not so gently pulling, tugging or trying to influence the choice of pathways open to the hero. What was that she saw, strange little beings sitting astride the needle as it flashed in and out of the fabric.

‘For goodness sake’ said the Mythtress ‘these thwarts can get a bit much at times.

‘What is happening now?’ he replied, ‘I warned you not to create them as helpers they can be a real nuisance in the unfoldment of the stories. And by the way they often trip over my equations knocking them about and it takes so long to gather the numbers back in the right order again.’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7GeKLE0x3s

So she called to them and they immediately leapt onto her hand

‘Dear Thwartful and Thwartless, thank you for your help. You were created by me to help put some obstacles in our stories,  to help the humans grow, learn and become who they can possibly be. You both rule your tribe from the Thwartdom where they are thworn enemies of Brightlings  but really there are times when you must come together and plan.’

She nodded hopefully at them and all at once a great ruckus was heard, a chittering and a grumbling with the Brightlings flickering around laughing at their earthy brothers.

‘That’s enough called the Mathter, more than enough. In fact one more  sound like that and back to numbers you will go.’ He held out his wand and there was an immediate silence. ’Now go about your business and help my lady Mythtress to weave the best adventures that can be.’

Selene was quite taken aback by this extraordinary carry on and wondered what it all meant.

The Mythress said,‘Time to rest dear one for a while with our family in the light, let our song join together amongst the stars and renew and refresh us for the task ahead.’.

And Selene watched as the two of them, hand in hand floated upwards and melted into the heavens with multitudes of their kind