The Cliffs of Insanity

The other day, I came across this article - and soon found myself in awe of the information the piece provided. It’s an image-heavy article, which means this post will also be image-heavy. I’m not copy-pasting the text, so I strongly suggest clicking this telling image to be taken to the full write-up, especially if you’ve had a breakdown, know someone who has had a breakdown, or you ever fell victim to one of my unexpected, late-night, inexplicable and incoherent ramblings via email, blog commentary, or any other method by which you and I maintain contact.

With each image that applies or have applied to my experience, I will share how it felt for me, if I suffered from the description in the picture. The first one here will show what will be behind the cut, should you decide to read further.

For me, this was not a sudden mindset, but a gradual one. In crises, I was always the one that held things together.  I could switch off parts of my brain, and do what I needed to do at that moment in time.  At the age of 12, I was the one who gave directions to the paramedics, when my great-grandmother had her massive stroke.  Granny was a non-functioning, human-shaped manifestation of panic, and Aunt Tudi was frantically trying to get things ready for when the ambulance arrived to the point where, honestly, she was being a detriment to any progress we might could have had. It was only two days later that the upheaval found me, at which time I became non-functional for a period of time, just a few days.  In times of turmoil, I realised I could take care of whatever situation I found myself, then release it all later in private.  The only times I ever lost that ability was the night before Granny died in 1993.  The doctors told us there was no hope, and she could die at any moment.  Since Granny also helped to raise me, having lived with me all my life, I fell to pieces.  But the next morning, when she died, I was cool as a cucumber.  This was Aunt Tudi's mother, to whom she had been excessively close.  This blow to her emotional well-being is something she never quite got over.  I was the one who had to make Granny's arrangements, and I did so in a disconnected manner, devoid of bothersome emotions.  Things needed to be done, and there was no one but me stepping up.  I remember a cousin remarking that I had to be some sort of Vulcan, or just callous as hell.

(From a post made on The Vampire Relics' Facebook Page with some extra added mental meandering that happened after the fact.)

One of the themes that threads throughout all three books is that of Absolution (it's important because of the capital A!). I'm not referring to just Christian absolution but the essence of the word itself, sparking the human imagination to entertain the possibility, or feel secure in their faith to believe without question, that forgiveness for anything is possible. One of the sub-hives, the Hive of Redemption, established by Thiyennen, took the idea of absolution to a whole other crazy level with many of its members, including Thiyennen, resorting to behaviour seen in the travelling Flagellants during the Black Death. This twisted version of what may achieve absolution is studied in depth in The Augury of Gideon, when Thiyennen and his allies capture and imprison Cadmus Pariah.

Of course, all of this is only my opinion, and I respect and will aggressively defend your opinions on the matter, because that would be only fair. The nature of true absolution, in my opinion, partially based on personal experiences, is one of being accepted and loved for who you are, faults and all, and being able to return to a possibly simpler (as in uncomplicated) point in your life, when you could embrace wonder with abandon, and be shed of guilt that only serves to break spirits down rather than build them up. Absolution happens when you no longer accept such programming imposed on you from almost the point of birth throughout your life.

A song by Eliza Gilkyson, entitled 'Emmanuel', is very close to what I have believed in the past regarding redemption and absolution, and it still has an effect on my beliefs (or lack thereof in recent years). Superficially, the song would appear to be Christ-centered (this is different from Christianity-centered in my world, so just bear with me), it addresses the longing we all carry, regardless of religious or spiritual persuasions, to return home, or to the past, or to some place or state of being that existed before we think fell to the lies of shame and sin that weigh much of the modern world down. Even that storyline, documenting the spiritual enslavement of humanity, shows up in 'The Blood Crown', the fault of which is clearly placed at the Apostate's door.

The first time I heard the song, at work in 1993 (I was inspecting the CD the song is on), I listened to it from a Christian perspective, although I am not Christian, based on its title alone. Assumptions are easily made, are they not? When the words sunk in, my first interpretation was of a reality where the fallen angel Sammael is welcomed home by Emmanuel after going through incarnations of humans, animals, and even things (a rock, at one point!) before he could bring himself to revisit the music he had made prior to leaving in pursuit of the glories and tragedies on Earth. This interpretation dictated the last picture in the video.

The bigger story the song tells isn't one that heaps guilt, fear, and ultimately spiritual banishment if you don't toe a particular line on the listener; rather, it gives the message that, even after you've experienced and done all you feel you need to, both the good and the bad, the door will be open when you want to walk through it to whatever you believe is there ('What Dreams May Come' is an example of what I'm trying to communicate here). From that perspective, the song does not belong to just one faith. It belongs to all faiths and all levels of spiritual sentience, including Atheism, human and non-human. It is non-judgemental, and can be enjoyed on a purely secular level, particularly from a psychological viewpoint. Liking and agreeing with Carl Jung may help here, too.

I believe that's truly the only way absolution or redemption can be achieved. It's an acceptance and a presence of old knowing that we tend to lose in the physical realms, and many may perceive such acceptance and old knowledge to be an external phenomenon, which is completely acceptable, but I think it also is present within everyone and everything. All that said, even though my history with the song predates all three books, 'Emmanuel' is definitely a strong musical presence in 'The Augury of Gideon', considering both the song and book address the concept of cyclic returning so that healing may follow.

I believe that Eliza Gilkyson achieved something greater than all of us, including herself, when she wrote this song, and I think it's one that should be shared with as many people as possible, not as a means of conversion of any sort, but as a campaign to allow us to not only forgive one another, but to forgive ourselves.

The video is one of my much earlier attempts at movie-making, so please overlook the general sorry mess it is. The song is rare and the album it's on has been out of print for ages, so there's more people than not who have never heard it. My making the video was an attempt to rectify that crime against good music. One thing I did want to draw your attention to, regarding the video, is that the pictures used, with the exception of the last one, are all tapestries or tile mosaics in the Byzantine style, or at least that's what Teh Intarwebz told me when I started collecting images for the vid. Byzantine art was a major influence on the physical appearance of the Tarmi, specifically because of the eyes of the people in the art. If one did not know, one might assume that everyone in Byzantium had gigantic alien eyes and, as a teenager when I started mapping my personal myths, I got all caught up in the what-ifs that arose in my mind from studying the art. (And why hasn't Ancient Aliens addressed such possibilities yet?) Using these images for the video helped me tie in the importance of the song to my own mythologies.

So, if you're still with me after this godawful ramble, I hope you enjoy the song, and I encourage you to share it people who may benefit from the non-demoninational and/or secular message of hope that it is never too late to embrace the absolution sitting around waiting for you to pick it up. It's inside you already, despite what you believe or don't believe. You were born with it, it's still there, and it'll be there until you die, if you're an Atheist, or continue on with you, if you believe in the existence of afterlife and the many flavours in which such beliefs come available. Even if they don't need a message like that, but do appreciate good music (and who doesn't?), I feel the song would be a gift to them, as well.

If you want to learn more about Eliza, she has a website: http://elizagilkyson.com/

I also made second crap video using another song from the same album, this one focusing on any number of pagan histories after encountering invading religions, sung from the viewpoint of a priestess who lived such a history, but the song is specially focused on the Divine Feminine, as it is represented in the song by the catch-all Goddess name, Diana. It's called 'I Become the Moon' and it also had an effect on the writing of the Relics trilogy, especially 'The Blood Crown,' which features the Tale of the Blood Moon, whose narrative focuses on the triumph of the Apostate over the remnants of Tarmian civilisation, and the subsequent tragedy of humanity losing its way in the wilderness of the conquering magus' lies.

And if any of this inspires you enough to want to read the books, here's the link to them, for your continued convenience: THE VAMPIRE RELICS ON AMAZON.

Tracy Angelina Evans was born on 10 September, 1967, in Asheville, North Carolina, into a small family that had more in common with the Addams Family than the Waltons. Her father was a slightly off-center Jack of all artistic trades (radio DJ, photographer, writer, journalist, singer/songwriter, comic, and Japanese commercial actor - go figure), so it was convenient that his nickname was Jack. Her mother is a first generation Hippie, who adores artistic/crafty endeavours, reading, watching horror movies, and anything to having to do with nature and the animal kingdom. Her grandparents were Big Band Jazz musicians and singers (maternal grandparental units), painters and storytellers (paternal grandmother unit), and CIA operatives (paternal grandfather unit) in what was then West Germany. She was raised by her eccentric aunt, Tudi, and paternal grandmother unit in Asheville and, later, in Duncan, SC. She began artistic pursuits at the age of 4, when her grandmother told her to go draw flies. Too young to get the joke, her first pictures were of flies. The spiders came later to eat the overpopulation of flies. Webs were really fun to draw. She began writing animals stories around the age of 7, but switched to human-centered sci-fi stories at 13, when she heard the Electric Light Orchestra's album, Time.

Language and mythology became an important part of Tracy's education at an early age, and she was fascinated with religion. Early on, she wanted to be a preacher, but was told only men could do that. Then she wanted to be a nun, going around with a towel held to her head with a plastic mixing bowl to signify her cornette, but was told only Catholics could do that. Her mother was Jewish and her father was a non-practicing Southern Baptist, so the natural progression from these lofty origins, along with the dashing of original spiritual aspirations because of denomination and gender, is for the offspring to embrace Pagan and Pantheist philosophies, which became intertwined with her sci-fi sensibilities, the music prevalent in her life, and what little she could grasp of actual science, particularly physics and psychology.

In her junior year of high school, she chose to do a research paper on anti-Utopian societies, or Dystopian worlds, using A Brave New World and 1984 as the frame work for her paper. This turned her into a conspiracy theorist and affected the general tone of her writing from then on. During this time, too, she began building a personal myth around an ancient alien race that came to Earth before the rise of humanity. Part of the process of this creation was the invention of a new language, based loosely on the Indo-European family of languages with a hint of Finno-Ugric. (How, really, did two countries so far apart from one another end up sharing a root language, anyway? Finland? Hungary? What say you?)

At the age of 19, Tracy's genuine love of music, combined with her knowledge of a wide variety of musical genres, gave her the opportunity to work in the music industry starting in 1987. She left Wofford College to pursue this career. For almost a decade, she literally (using the correct definition of the word) got paid to sit and listen to music, during which she was allowed to read, write, draw, or anything else that did not deter from her job in the quality assurance department of what was then BMG/RCA Music Service. Another nine years with the company saw her going into music promotions, which drove her clinically mad.

Her Tarmian mythology got a metaphysical shot in the arm when Tracy began studying ancient Pagan religions and dabbling in the then still fresh New Age philosophies in 1990 and going forward.

Also in 1990, she discovered what would become her favourite music band, Shriekback. They would end up having a profound effect on every aspect of her own artistic endeavours. Thanks to her entering the virtual world of the Internet in 1998, she got to eventually meet some members of the band, and help to promote them and their music since 2000. They were kind enough to allow her to use lyrics from their songs as chapter lead-ins for her books.

After the death of her aunt in 2011, Tracy moved to San Diego to be closer to her mother, taking with her, her non-human friends Smidgen (a giant cat with a partially erect furry penis for a tail) and Toby (an obnoxious deer Chihuahua who had been abandoned at the veterinary hospital for which she briefly worked as a Vet Assistant), her music, book, and DVD collections, a few clothes, and her computer.

She is quite active online, maintaining a 12-year-old blog on Live Journal, called The Cliffs of Insanity, and sharing amusing and/or infuriating bits of info and images on her Facebook page. Besides writing and devouring copious amounts of music, she enjoys drawing badly, and is trying to learn how to use an art tablet. She also loves to read, watch movies (any genre but romance), make videos for You Tube (some vids for Shriekback, some vids to share songs that might not otherwise be available, like the more obscure Celtic folk tunes of Dougie MacLean and Talitha MacKenzie, and some funny bits and bobs, like The Tim Roth Tutorials), going to drum circles on the weekend to work out her djembe and get a contact high, and enthusiastically waiting for the End of the World. Over the past few years, comedy has also become of great import to her mental health. There's a reason why we have the cliché "laughter is the best medicine."

Tracy has a strong affinity for non-human Earthlings (camelids, reptiles, birds, and mantids, in particular) and was involved in cat rescue for some time in Duncan, SC. At one point, she was seeking homes for about thirty cats she had tamed and nursed back to health, earning her the title of Crazy Cat Lady in her neighbourhood. (All the cats were re-homed.) She has worked to rehabilitate many species, including a hypoglycaemic hummingbird, a family of opossums to whom she gave epic Nordic names for no reason whatsoever, and a variety of lizards. She is in love with a planet she sees aching under the yoke of human oppression, and would do anything to see that change. She claims to be a professional misanthrope, which is most often channelled into Cadmus Pariah, but she likes you. To the best of her knowledge, her lineage includes Welsh, Scottish, English, Jewish, Dutch, Hungarian, African, and Cherokee genes, making her a class A mongrel.

After years of change and countless reassessments of her belief system, Tracy is now more comfortable with the concept of Jungian archetypes and how they are recurring themes throughout human history. As it stands at the time of this writing, she's working on a fourth Vampire book, she's still a diehard Star Wars/Star Trek sci-fi/fantasy nerd, an apostle of JRR Tolkien's and Robert Anton Wilson's, an opinionated grouch, and a constant victim of synchronicity, which tends to spread the wealth of weirdness with anyone in close proximity. She has a short list of heroes that include Jeff Lynne, Carl Jung, Barry Andrews, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Starhawk. She is also one of the 14 remaining people on Earth who dislikes Joss Whedon and that for which he stands, and has actually lost friends because of her opinion. If she had her druthers, Tracy would move to Avebury, Wiltshire, and groove on the ley lines' vibrations for the rest of her life.

She's absolutely certain that she is uncertain about everything, and that is most certainly a statement loaded with uncertainty.

At Buckingham Palace in 2006.