Life's a Paradox

Dear Seers,

As one who was once in your guild, I now resign. I withdraw from thinking that I can read signs. This is not the first time. I have struggled with the decision and as part of me resignation, will trace my steps back to explain my decision.

A sign is a standard physical appearance, word, sound or gesture, that holds a divine power. A sign transfers a concept that removes interpretations. However, human reality is a construct based on social and general psychology. Interpretations of signs can vary over the course of time or because of personal experiences.

Biblical signs, often found in Nature, guide and warn people, execute divine judgement, or deliver people from oppression. They can mark sacred time. The Song of Songs 2:12 says "The time of the singing bird is come." The nightingale is one of the most beautiful singing birds. Baha’i scriptures use the image of a nightingale as a mouthpiece of God. The Rossignol, a nightingale, holds a sign and is a tool, a skeleton key, that unlocks complex interpretations.

Since Ancient Greece and probably before, the story of Philomela recounts how she was raped and mutilated by having her tongue cut out by her sister, Pricne' s husband, Tereus. After being ignored by social and national cultural unspoken norms, Philomena and Procne resolved their individual tragedies and brutal trauma that caused melancholy and despair, through revenge. The fed Tereus his son. In return Tereus tried to kill them. The gods turned them into a bird. Procne was turned into a nightingale, a symbol of the spiritual essence of love.

Hans Christian Anderson recounts the tale of the Chinese Emperor, who traded the beautiful songs of a living nightingale, for a mechanical version of a singing bird. However, it was the real nightingale who charmed death away and saved the Emperor's life.

Keats writes about the nightingale, who flies around, and lands in a tree, forever singing it’s sad song, an immortal part of nature and death.

The 14th century poet Persian Hafiz of Shiraz wrote, “The nightingale with drops of his heart's blood, had nourished the red rose, then came a wind, and catching at the boughs in envious mood, A hundred thorns about his heart entwined. ” The rose and nightingale were beloved and lover. "Weep, O Nightingale, if you wish to be my friend For we are two helpless lovers, whose work is weeping.”

Alchemical texts of Hildegard say "One whose eyes are clouded should seize a nightingale before sunrise. He should take its bile, pour it out, and add to this one drop of dew which he finds on clean grass. Then, when he goes to bed, he should smear this on his eyelids and eyelashes, and also around his eyes.... It will wondrously take the cloudiness from his eyes, just as foam is purged and done away with by the heat of fire in the summer." Eating the flesh of a nightingale is thought to keep a person awake.

Indian myth often describe a common concentric diamond pattern, used in fabrics. It is called the “eye of the bulbul” that refers to the nightingale. The birds were depicted as being awake, asleep, or busy hunting, representing the spiritual and mental condition of the human spirit, seen in the blink of the eye.

Russian myth speaks of the nightingale, that sprang from a blood-red poppy sown by Ilya the Old Cossack, who rode the shaggy bay steed Cloudfall, through the air, swifter than a falcon in its flight. They went to the palace of the Nightingale, a Magic Bird but robber who stole the eyes of a serpent. In a tale as grim as any of the Grimm’s, the nightingale was killed and bones smashed and scattered to the winds.

The poet Percy Shelley wrote, " A Poet is a nightingale." ..." the nightingale who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds; his auditors are as men entranced by the melody of an unseen musician, who feel that they are moved and softened, yet know not whence or why".

The Northern Mockingbird, well-known for its powers of mimicry, is nicknamed the "American Nightingale." The American book entitled, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, describes a crime that happens when an innocent, has their innocence destroyed.

Words are a form of sign language. They hold special meanings, assigned with a predesigned meaning, that often have opposite interpretations. I must resign from thinking anyone designated signor, signore, signora or signorina knows the true meaning of a sign.

The following verses describe signs from various disciplines that I have witnessed. They support my decision to resign.

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I breath with the Earth.

I hug the world tree that connects to heaven.

A magenta purple cloud descends upon me.

My semi-solid body shakes.

It is melting.

I become a purple pillar.

A gate opens.

And just like that, I am nothing but vibration.

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I become a reflection in a mirror,

a two dimensional shadow of an object with three and four dimensions.

I ride the wave.

The roots take me beneath the bubbling foam.

Inside and outside merge,

emptying and filling.

History and drama are forgotten.

I find oblivion in the river Lethe.

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In a blink of an elliptical eye,

I see elliptical orbits

of electrons moving around the nucleus

and of planets moving round the sun

that wobbles on its axis.

The Earth is cradled in Orion’s arm

that spirals around the Galactic Centre

through the Milky Way Galaxy

as Sirius marks the space of each year's time

when the new rains begin.

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I see a rainbow with purple

a sign of royalty and power.

But Purple does not exist.

The brain creates an optical illusion.

Purple and Magenta are made-up colours

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Magenta is a light loop phenomenon.

A magenta flash appears after looking at green,

the colour at the centre of visible light, and the central chakra, the heart..

Magenta connects the beginning and the end of the visual spectrum.

It is where cold blue intellect and red hot passion mix together.

The red shift forms when objects move away.

The blue shift forms when objects move closer.

Magenta holds the rosy tones of warm memories

and the enchanting allure of blue hope for the future.

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Magenta is a paradox.

Epimenides, a Cretan, stated a paradox.

"All Cretans are liars."

If this statement is a lie, then all Cretans tell the truth. .

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Signs lead me along different paths and create many a paradox.

I resign. I withdraw. I can read signs, and think about them.

Fellow seers, I urge you to do the same.