The exhortation by Deoch - Aisling, do - is not just
inscrutability.
It is a command. Do. Be. Exist.
The spark separates us from the Mundanes - it represents a total and complete bifurcation of our lives. Before Deoch, and After Deoch.
It has always been my opinion that the highest expression of Deoch's spark is in the act of creative, chaotic invocation: art. Art, of course, can take many forms. Self-expression is one of these forms - our own appearances and performances on the stage of Temuair are a form of art. When we explore ourselves and our relationships to others - the divine, the world around us - when we use our Aisling senses - we create and invoke art.
That performance, if done well, may even unite us within a liminal now: a place where the boundary between the exterior world and Temuair - subject and object - dissolves. In that experiential now: we are the spark, we are the Aisling. Therefore, our experience of this personal divinity is in a sense, living through our spark completely.
Similarly, through the other temples in Temuair, we might experience closure, or compassion, or love - expressed by ourselves and others in mythic, divine terms. Wielded with artistry and care, the ministry becomes a collective summation of that divinity. Our culture, our experiences of the now, are transformed into our shared dream, our shared history.
They live on; they may, in fact, succeed us.
By an act of nearly alchemical means, we have transmuted experiential effort and participation into culture. And against all odds, this culture persists, and has persisted, for hundreds of Deochs.
This, then, is the true magic of Temuair.
The uncomfortable bit, for some people - is that this magic has always been available to anyone willing to yield it, even those we might consider profane - or in a previous age, unworthy.
Every Aisling has a comfort zone - a place where we experience the most joy, whether we use our time in Temuair as an escape or as a vector for art and exploration. But regardless, both of these expressions encode different forms of community - which is the only thing of value within Temuair itself. It is certainly the thing that has endured, along with our culture.
Like all cultures, Temuair has an invisible window - a shifting sense of what is permissible, praiseworthy, or profane. This window of acceptable self-expression - our comfort zone - is just that, a window. To say it has no input from any other source is prima facie absurd. In reality, it changes and slides over time according to the whims, character and even interests of the wider society.
As we've discussed previously, when I was (admittedly much) younger, this window did not even remotely allow for mundane expression of any kind.
The interesting thing about the mundane, however, is its pernicious and deleterious impact on conditions. As the window slid towards the mundane as a natural consequence of insane gatekeeping by elder Aislings, we all suffered as a result. Stripped of its higher art, this world becomes harder and harder for any one Aisling to rationalize. We see it for what it was allowed to become: a hollow vessel. A shell. An unresolved mess.
Interestingly, a major difference of the behavioral window shifting towards mundanity is not that Aisling behavior is prohibited - its that its absence comes to be expected. In a peculiarly fascinating way, the mundane has finally come to begrudgingly tolerate the Aisling, and by extension, novelty - because to do so combats boredom - the greatest plague of our age - and to do so also prevents our world from being totally extinguished.
The reverse, however, is almost never true at any significant scale, a fact which is illustrated (concretely and concisely) by our own history.
This is a divine paradox - that the spark, once a mark of transcendence, of total transformation - now flickers in even the most mundane acts, if the spark meets those acts with intent. We can transform that vessel with our own intent, and with our own invocation of Deoch's flame. Deoch has provided us with the tools we need to liberate ourselves from this boredom.
So: how do we shift this window?
We might wonder if we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past - of exclusion, gatekeeping, and isolation. One does not, however, follow the other. One would like to think we can learn lessons, and, at any rate - we are in a much different situation now than in my youth. We can conceptualize the realm of creative expression - from the ridiculously absurd to the sublime - as a territory. A map. These days, Aisling self-expression makes up a small part of that map. As we've talked about, this shift has had innumerable effects - boredom being the most obvious.
In order to combat this boredom - and to bring back the spark of our collective civilization - all of us have an interest in reinvigorating art. It is one of the highest expressions of our collective society. One of the most important reasons to do this, however, is because when we explore our own art, we encourage others to do so as well. We shift that window, that comfort zone, ever so slightly and imperceptibly at first - towards art. By shifting that window back towards the collective, shared dream - we claim territory at the edge of the map. When I, for instance, write seemingly insane board posts about zappy bricks or the time Deoch opened a foil pack of Kedians like a collectible item, I plant my flag at the edge of what is "sensible" and "acceptable" behavior.
I do two things by claiming that space:
I claim space for the creative vanguard, and;
I create cover for others wishing to engage in art.
Similarly as in any army, the vanguard is the foremost group at the edge of the territory. The creative vanguard means exactly what it implies: Aislings involved at the very edge of the creative territory, committed to pushing boundaries - creating chaos, inspiration, absurdity. The more people push within this vanguard, the more our collective creative window tilts back towards the collective dream, away from the rote exhaustive boredom of the mundane.
If ten people think I am foolish for my board posts but one or two people see it as cover to explore their own art, I have already achieved what I set out to do. I have shifted the window, and in this way, those two other people will begin to shift the window as well.
Each of us has choices to make as to how we spend our time here, and why. Consider joining me at the edge of the map, reclaiming our inspirative territory, and doing our part to rebuild the dream. The mundane persists; we know that for sure.
If the Aisling is allowed to fade into history, I do not genuinely know if Temuair will survive.