The Playdoh Republic

Medusa & The Bees

I was seated in Aneesh's Playpen, one cave amongst many that has been imprinted with its own particular dream-reality. To see this "reality" is a matter of acceptance that it is there. The television was on and my attention shifted between that and the lit candles in the fireplace and of that I shall elucidate further at a later stage in this journey into my tail.

The candles appeared so much more real than the shifting lights emitted by the flickering screen and it was at that moment that Plato's dream became a physical reality for me. The television set occupied the modern-day equivalent of the flickering shadows in Plato's allegory of the Cave, stating and re-stating "truths" from one particular perception of reality. The irony of the situation was that Aneesh had oft quoted Plato as her favourite philosopher, and yet here she was sitting in her cave watching the shadow play. At the present she is unwilling to leave her cave, for she appears to have been enchained within it. This is a "real" situation and yet exists on the other side of my looking glass, the imagery of dreams.

At the moment of realisation, flickering shadows became uncomfortable to gaze upon. As I looked about I noted that all had become turned to stone, once again the dream shifted and T.V. was now Medusa. The shadows were her hissing snakes and behind my looking glass I was not turned, as had been the others. She could not see me behind my own mirror, for she is but a reflection herself. If I should sneak quietly would it be possible to behead that fascinating muse that can turn another's dreams to stone? Oh, what japes! But that would mean to become a hunter in the kingdom of Human-Animals, so her time will come later when my own cave, filled with fears is left behind.

My dream shifted again then and the flickering became a dancing of bees, communicating with the hive-mind dreams of sweet nectar. These caves became cells of drones, serving Queen Bee to secure her fertility. Medusa was ever jealous of others fertile dreams and having evaded her watery grave now ruled the airwaves, usurping the throne of the true Hive-Queen. And so with stolen vitality she infected our cells and made our dreams infertile, unrealised.

Let us now return to the fireplace, for it was by this means that this particular journey through the looking glass began. Its dimensions reveal much. The candles had been placed in the gateway where fires had been built in the past. Today, only candles, tomorrow any other object of attention. One image to be the focus of the journey. Yet again it merely takes awareness of other gateways to make the dream a reality for yourself but it was always there.

Around the gateway were carved images, these served to act as a guide for perceiving the nature of the fireplaces gateway. This is not necessarily required if a different path suggests itself. It was on a different, earlier occasion that I noticed the carvings. In the centre, the shape of an eye, perception was offered to those who might notice. On either side a being seated in a vehicle, the vehicle of the minds eye. One appeared to face outwards and the other faced away from me, an inner reality of dreams presented in the forms of the physical world. These two reflections from the eye, revealed that the looking glass shows both sides in much the same way that the physical eye is a perceptual form that translates through mirror images as any optician or biologist will tell you. These two reflections of the same entity existed in a watery world bordered by shorelines, displayed in the carving of wave-like forms and boundaries. Our minds flow between the physical and the inner world of dreams, yet they both exist in the sea of consciousness.

Below the watery world was carved the physical, immediately below the split entity on both sides was a head of bestial features, our connection to the hunting grounds of survival. Below that a tree carved by cunning craft into a club, a compromise between ideal dream and physical limitations. Finally an acorn, the seed of wisdom that exists in the kingdom of matter. These lower levels had only one facing, for they lacked a direct connection to the perceptual world. The seed of wisdom could only take its true form in the mind's eye, the perceiver of light that does not overlook the truth in the physical, but rather extends that truth as a reality to the beholder.

What then is this light the mind's eye doth perceive? Is it this which is the gateway to the world of ideal forms that Plato envisioned whilst dancing in the sun? And how does it reveal its existence but through the form of dreams, an internal light in the darkness of sleep. Both images in the looking glass require light. The physical has the glowing orbs of fireflies if daylight is scarce. The dream has perceptual lights from the mind's eye. Look in the mirror, what do you see?

Some are strangers to their dreams, looking glasses distorted and cracked under Medusa's gaze. With infertile dreams they seek to emulate this usurper and serve her as drones, the beautiful dead. Oh, how Medusa does cherish her prizes for her cave then dances with shadows. Her shard of reflected light hides from its own reflection and masquerade as the light itself and yet she lacks connection to the looking-glass gateway outside of her cave in the sunlight. Does she hide because she is jealous of dreams that are not hers? She holds but her own in vain pride, afraid to become the gateway, afraid of losing herself through the looking glass. She is trapped in the physical world or "reality" as some may call it and like Aesops fable of the Fox who lost his tail, similarly seeks to convince others that it's a good idea. And so some hate their reflections for they have become chained to Medusa's infertile dream. And what do I see?