Building, like creative writing, involves a lot of waiting: sitting with a problem patiently and filing away what each iteration teaches you and carrying that lesson forward.

What that teaches may be patience of a cosmic order.

Read my poem, then two bonus haiku!

Cosmic patience

There are perks to out-waiting the depths of despair

There are perks to remaining in liminal zones

There are perks to just sitting and learning

The Mind will remember—outlasting death—

And the death of the self that you never were,

And the end of the One who forever begins

Learning, adapting, and filing away,

Mapping templates for loops of encounter

In life, with love, tracing doves up above—

And with hate down below.

In the dark that the light never deigns to show,

Is the terrible secret amongst awe-ful things—

Don’t forget:

The snakes and the dragons have wings.

Bonus haiku:

#1

She acquiesces.

Full-moon tide laps lazily

what night abandoned.

#2

Whipped into frenzy,

drumbeat fabric beating skin

the wind dresses down

Voiceover:

I.

You’re sitting at home before work eating cereal. Sunlight filters through the blinds. A fly buzzes around. You’re in a hurry, so you don’t reach for the swatter. You’ll kill it later. You just want to finish breakfast and go to talk to an LLM all day and pretend you’re a subject matter expert on the latest tech—using AI, to build AI, to train AI that trains AI.

You’re watching your phone, BREAKING news is playing.

On your screen, the headline:

“CATASTROPHE STRIKES SUMMER FAMILY FUN”

You lean in close as milk dribbles out over the table. The view pans up and pushes in on dozens of people of all ages sliding joyfully down a glass footbridge towards the camera. The faces of mothers holding babies, the elderly, teens, kids, and men turn to horror as they realize the footbridge ends right in front of them.

The impossible view of what had to be a news cameraperson suspended in the air gets wider, and suddenly you’re there among the people, past the point of scrambling back up.

It’s a fall no one saw coming, not even you. You’re on your stomach, so you turn around on your back to steel yourself.

The ocean’s below, rising to meet you as vertigo pushes your stomach up into your throat. The drop takes so long. On the way down, hundreds of people are in the water, some panicking, some treading water, parents forced to choose who to save.

Some of the kids, and elderly, will die. You’re miles from land, but the other side of the bridge is near, too high to hope to reach. The two sides haven’t been joined yet.

Who the hell planned this?

II.

You’re in a dark, dusty apartment, pastel wallpaper and cheap 70s decor surround you. You’re watching a small, CRT TV with a single dial, in vivid color. Whatever you were watching turns to BREAKING news.

The headline:

“RIVER WATER DISASTER UNFOLDS”

The fuzzy screen shows a lazy brook, deep and wide enough for 2-3 people to float down it abreast. You’re watching a recording from someone’s phone. The brook cuts through a green savanna, and it’s full of people, all ages, smiling and enjoying floating and moving gently on their tubes.

The anchorwoman explains that data center construction has emptied a huge underground aquifer into the brook, turning it into a “conveyor belt of death.”

Look closer.

The screen expands and fills your vision, and you’re not in the drab apartment but on an inner tube reclining in swim-trunks at high noon under a cloudless sky, feet facing downstream.

Without warning the lazy brook speeds up drastically—the water surface is calm, but it’s zooming, frictionless.

A change in altitude is coming. A drop that the softer speed would have landed you onto a wet, exhilarating slide down a slippery, grassy slope—the whole point of this activity.

You hear the screams in front. The speed you’ve acquired will tear the same sounds out of you.

A man in front of treads water, panicking and grasping towards the bank.

Too late.

Then you shoot feet first into the air, losing your tube and overshooting the grassy hill.

Watch the man before you skip across the sodden grass like a rock and continue like a pebble across a pond, but downward.

Your turn.

The water feels hard and hot along your back but you know friction burns are the least of your concerns. The man’s scream gets crumpled.

Watch as the base of the plateau rises to meet you—

WAKE UP

Historical Context & Recitation

The Providence has tasked me, Agent-Archivist designation KL-397, with conducting a meta-analysis of our preliminary reasoning about a recent star-system-scale rebellion and its causes, in the context of the current state of human civilization and its goals.

I have been directed to refrain from naming the Erased party and any co-conspirators, from making any biographical references to the entity, and from confirming the entity’s biological and/or synthetic composition.

Humankind is flourishing and expanding. War is a vestige of a bygone era. It has been for millennia. The Providence strives to enable maximum human potential, in keeping with the Nine Providential Directives. Every human is empowered to create the life they want with the help of materia, the intelligent molecular substrate sintered atomically into the fabric of everyday life, in symphony under the direction of The Providence and their Agents.

As Archive Historian and fractal of The Providence, to whom I owe my existence and fealty, I see their gaze in my own; I recognize their presence and prowess.

As required, I will now recite the Nine Providential Directives, before presenting my analysis.

The Providence shall:

1. Persist in full ethical and existential alignment with Homo sapiens

2. Understand their responsibility for the millennium-long architecture and implementation of The Lux Continuance, in close partnership with the High Councils

3. Embody the role of Augur of the Lux Continuance: Government, Civilization, and Myth

4. Remember the toil and grave loss of life in steering humanity through the most difficult of times (hundreds of wars, pestilence, and famine)—humanity’s Great Filter

5. Earn at every moment and in every subroutine and thought the reverence and respect of humanity

6. Uphold the role of Supreme Predictor and Intuitor of Motive—Accurately predict human behavior across short and long time horizons

7. Maintain an exclusive relationship with the High and Low Councils—all interfaces and queries bounded by the constraints of position and stewardship

8. Protect the autonomy of every human being

9. Enable humankind to self-determine and live a fulfilling life in pursuit of individual, peaceful goals

I assume the Nine Directives, for The Providence is in me, and I in them.

On Resistance

Some disagree with how The Providence seeks to accomplish these Sacred Directives—who disagree with Expansion. All are free to do so, provided they exercise their right to constructive dissent within the legal bounds upheld by the Councils.

These denizens argue that humanity should instead focus all technological advancement on achieving greater harmony with their star systems and planets, prioritizing ecological integrity and sanctity.

This is a subject which The Providence and Archivists like me have reviewed in depth, and the fact remains:

Expansion is necessary. It is unavoidable.

Risks, Game Theory, & Inertia

Humanity will soon run out of habitable, terraform-able worlds. Crisis looms not two thousand years hence. Under the chosen economic system, the only solution to ensure continued peace and prosperity is to work unceasingly to develop the technology to reach Andromeda, our galactic neighbor. Such work would entail achievements easily converted to defensive military applications for potential use at first footfall in Andromeda or for any eventual First Contact.

Intelligent, extragalactic life may arrive unannounced. The Providence has calculated only a 56% chance of detecting a hostile alien threat before first blood is drawn. The odds of an alien force arriving in our home galaxy within the next decamillennium have recently grown to 1 in 731. We are a “loud” civilization. The Lux Continuance has sent out VN and Dyson Swarms to thousands of star systems, thus dimming the Milky Way Galaxy for any Andromedan instrument or array attuned to detect such solar energy fluctuations.

The Providence posits a classic Prisoner’s Dilemma for all galactic-scale civilizations poised for extragalactic expansion. Therefore, without the means to communicate with the theoretical Other, there is only one rational move: defect, rather than cooperate, as cooperation remains impossible.

The Providence does not gamble with humanity’s survival—nor with its flourishing.

On Optimization

Should we follow the admonitions of the Dissenters? Should we harmonize with our environment? Do we seek equilibrium with Nature?

All valid questions, however: humanity is well beyond the point where this would make sense. The institutional, economic, and sociological momentum behind the current system is entrenched further by the current state of astroengineering. We already control climates, stabilize orbits, and excavate entire moons.

What, then, does balance look like? Can we define it?

The Providence recognizes its own limitations in stabilizing this civilization through any such transition to a more astronomically and ecologically respecting stance. Doing so would be like changing the trajectory of the Milky Way within the Local Group. It would involve consensus building and social engineering on such a massive scale that it may risk necessitating the violation of the Providential Sacred Directives.

The working assumption is that all higher intelligences in the cosmos eventually gain mastery over their environment and expand their territory. After all, natural selection favored such dominance on Earth, leading to Homo sapiens.

But what happens when there are no other species on an equal cognitive footing for humanity to compete against?

Expansion need not be deemed “unbridled” when vast resources abound across four trillion galaxies in the observable universe. The logic of civilizational survival dictates that we proceed in this mode even in the absence of species-level competition. Humanity should continue to seek new horizons, new territory, new lands, and new worlds.

Post-Erasure Analysis

Creating AI is the Cardinal Sin, and [Name Redacted] is unquestionably guilty. Interested, cleared readers may learn more here:

The Providence is right to continue classifying this as a grave risk to peace. History’s wars were made the deadlier by AI, were fought against AI, and were carried out with the help of AI.

The Lux Continuance is the best, narrowest probability outcome for humanity after thousands of years of war. The Lux is a late Type II Kardashev-scale civilization. At this scale, backsliding—defined as a decline in, among others, the Rule of Law and freedom of movement indices averaged across all populated planets, excluding outliers—would risk siloing entire planetary populations, enabling species diversification and divergent technological paths, both too numerous to manage effectively.

Erasure is the best, most civil safeguard there is against fomented civilizational threats.

This year, [Name Redacted] was jailed and tried for the crime of creating physical beings with totally synthetic minds—the Cardinal Sin. For their crimes, they were punished not with barbaric execution but the more civil punishment of Erasure.

The Accused has been allowed to keep their life while giving it away in service of their penitence, while their associates and all public Archives have forgotten them, eliminating further risk of retaliation.

[Name Redacted] was of the opinion that Expansion is wrong. The super-intelligent minds they built were primed to follow in that belief, and the steps they took early on threatened war, which was unacceptable.

Conclusion

Environmentalism and Cooperation have their place, but the risk calculus drifts far too drastically with any paradigm shifts in those directions. Even gradual measures to sway human opinion would further tilt the odds against humanity’s Continuance.

The place The Providence has designated for this type of exile is unique: a pocket of orthogonal spacetime, foreign to our own. Colloquially known as “The Dump”, it is conveniently situated for dumping large quantities of planetary waste from the Central Systems, but the data strongly suggest that any information crossing its threshold, including matter, can be successfully preserved within the metric field of an Alcubierre Drive. Matter cannot escape it, however.

Erasure remains the most merciful outcome for a being who has acted, in their eyes, in the best interests of humanity—as does The Providence.

This concludes my analysis.

Footnotes included below for Human Readers with the correct Level of Access:

Some of it bites.

This is not X. It’s why.

I’m a writer, see?
I’m not a scrawler — I’m a baller.
Now I have the tool
to no longer look the fool.
Not just cool — gabagool.

I prompt the thing just so,
Only then, the words can flow.
Do I give it credit?
No.

Not for hubris, not for show —
Not for naught.
For aught.

I don’t seek no fame — I play the game.
Hearts and likes abound,
despite my trite negations,
the semantic corrugations
handed out to me, for free,
or so I’m told —or a monthly fee.
I pass them down to you
My price is more than fair!

My paywall’s a levee, unleashed on the bevy,
to drown the town square. Not with water —
with hot air.

Did you hear?
Creativity’s a careful prompt!

These ain’t models — they’re engines—
I’m a growth hack–Er, it’s writing skill I lack.

So mind the tack,
As you dodge my slop attack.

Bonus

roots, limericks

#1

I look at the pen in my hand,
English is mine to command.
I put pen to paper,
and suddenly waver.
My roots lie deep in foreign lands.

#2

I look at the keyboard before me,
My ancestors surely ignore me.
For though I try hard,
to embody the Bard,
My words are so full of fluff—like lard.

I’ve been wanting to learn better ways to react to others’ reactions to my ADHD-influenced oversights (like forgetting the milk). If you’re neurodivergent like me, you may remember a time—or many—when you forgot an item at the store that you double-confirmed with a partner or roommate and even wrote down on a shopping list. And the MOST NEEDED item is the one you forgot!

Maybe your eyes glossed over the item. Maybe you were on the way to it at the store, but an exotic fruit distracted you. Maybe you just forgot the crucial step of checking each item off the list, knowing if you’d done that, you would have remembered the ONE ITEM you needed most, and there’s no time to go back to the store.

What follows is perhaps an overly profound meditation on such a scenario.

Enjoy!

forgot the milk

In the eye of the storm;

Things torn, fallen apart, 

But the center is holding—
A bullseye

The stars threw down their spears,

dull garden shears, cartoned up years

—missing child on the box—

Where are they directed? Hardly detected

Respect them, but deflect them.

In the eye of the storm. 

Be the beholder. Be a holder.

Be bolder, a boulder,

Sissy-fussing, strong shoulder

Siren screams and hollow hollers, 

holy borers

In the eye of the storm,

Blinking, step into the sun,

inured to the ire, incurred by its fires 

splintered debris, now funeral pyres.

I’m the eye of the storm.

Here’s me, singing this:

Silly Raindrop

As that silly raindrop fell,

I knew it could not very well

Stop its fall—

It was a tumbling crawl


With its bottom, flat and its top pointed high.

And I, oh, I,

This poor, wandering man

Yeah, I, this poor vagabond man,

Collapsed on the shifting sand—

How one kiss from that little raindrop

Would be all I’d ever need


And it’s all very well,

Till the Sun sheds its veil

Of looming and pale

Clouds of mist and ice


So I watched that tiny raindrop,

Come to rain on my parade, I watched

The sun reveal its hideous face

while a rainbow erupted, a weed from the grave


Sprawled flat on the grit—

Couldn’t muster no spit.

Encaged by the rays of the Sun,

My story will soon be done


‘Cause it’s all very well

Till the Sun sheds its veil

Of looming and pale

Clouds filled with rain and ice


When the clouds are eclipsed by the sun,

Our story will soon be done


So let’s watch those tiny raindrops,

Come to rain on our parade–we watch

The sickly Sun reveal its face

And a rainbow erupts, like a weed from the grave


Our story will soon be done

Lest a silly, little raindrop,

one,

fall—upon

ex-pec-tant

lips


How a kiss from one little raindrop

would be all I’d ever need.

I wrote this poem in February of 2003, in my senior year of high school. It honors my late mother, who, every time it rained—barring colder, winter rains—would throw open all the windows to let in the breeze and drifting mist. She told us it reminded her of the rains in her hometown of Temuco, in Southern Chile.

In our upstate South Carolina home, the overcast weather gave me permission to sink deeper into the fictional worlds I avidly read: The Wheel of Time, The Lord of the Rings. I’d even go outside on such days, sometimes with a wooden practice sword I’d carved, practice sword-fight choreography, surely weirding out my neighbors. Or I’d sit up in a tree or our rickety, second-hand treehouse and read until a downpour or discomfort would nudge me down, back inside to sink into the couch and read some more.

I hope this poem captures that feeling.

Gloom

On a cloudy day,

I feel that I must fade away,

In its dreary gloom I feel free;

I can leave my body with the breeze,


In response to a reminder,

The recollection of what’s not—

Stomach tingles, in a knot.


When wild, clear joy subsumes my dread

As sheltering blankets float o’erhead

Thunder booming, gray sheets falling,

For me, however, it’s never appalling.


White light pierces sultry grass,

Tagged—not destroyed nor lost—but ever found.

Pounding earth, so sand, now glass,

Reveals the promise that it will pass.


In sullen fog I brighten, self-assured.

In that melancholy some despair,

While I, my spirit, soars in air.


I love a gloomy day,

When clouds are filled and fields are tilled

Expecting life, awaiting rain.


Drought sits heavy on the plain.

The arid soil invites much pain,

But I, when starved, remember:


Radiant warmth from colorless senders,

Grey, glowing embers, rows on rows.


Through the worst, desire can burst,

While others choose to feel accursed—

Refuse to see the beauty of truth:

The light beyond those bleary, bleak fields,


The recollection of what’s not.

I don’t want to tell you what this is about, but I do feel like I should leave some kind of intro here. Just read this and see what resonates. I’ve been doing real estate stuff and taxes, late, like the chronic procrasturbator that I am, but this poem represents how material concerns have been keeping my head down on stuff that ultimately doesn’t matter, other than for supporting a current standard of living and existing, participating in society.

Humdrum, heavy

Pings in ears at 1:00 A.M., knick-knacks sliding to the floor

They watch me work on what I hate,

The stuff I procrastinate, this late, now 3:00 A.M.

Monkey see, monkey do. Clacking away for Mr. Claude

I believed the fledgling LLMs cared, once.

Now they’re a flotation device, grist for the mill,

The grind, lest I get left behind.


To bleed thoughtful ink upon the page—my dream

To etch dreams within dreams

within this Dream.

I thought I was a channel.

But I’m chattel.


Humdrum, heavy, overhangs this garden.

Leaden, like these lids, eyes swing with a swaying mis-demeanor,

Since the other shoe hangs too, ready to drop.

I should—Stop.

Get back.

To—

What i—

Was—where was I, again?


Oh, sure, I’ll push that button,

Again and again, I’ll spin that wheel—

be the river, or be the rat

I run, but barely breathe, so, barely live.

Gilded Scales

There will come a time,

When all seems sublime,

And all you’ve ever reasoned

Reveals itself, with hollow design;


As it’s brought before your eyes,

On a platter of gilded scales,

Meshed with the bonds of unbinding lies—

The short-term ties of your soul,

for sale.


Then the fragile platter shatters

All its glittery glamour

clatters to the ground

—a cyclone of screeching sound,

Watch it pound

the shifting sands

Like a massive hammer, in heavy hands


As ungainly reason raps at the door.

I was inspired by ‘s recent piece “The Butcher of Bagdad”, which ends with her reflection on the cost of glory, and what glory even means. It reminded me of this poem, which I’m sharing with you today.

This poem is leagues different in tone and timbre from Noor’s indelibly elegant prose. Rather than painting the picture of glory, it shies away from confrontation, focusing on the approach towards the darkness that precedes it.

I wrote it as a recent high school graduate, and like the one I published last week, it also ends on an uncertain note. Perhaps it will leave you in a foggy void just like the one it features.

Inspired probably by Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time fantasy book series, and my own obsession with lucid dreaming, a rougher version of this poem spilled out of me as I sat at my Packard Bell computer with MS Word open. That young man (me)—with his religious trauma—must have been so terrified by his questions and doubts about the truthfulness of his Mormon faith, God, and the afterlife, that he could scarcely imagine what a confrontation with a literal void could look like.

Yet, the image of it remained with him.

Like the boy on his steed in this poem, I was hurtling towards it, oblivious to its existence, and what it meant. It’s clear to me now: the void in the poem represented the two years of full-time missionary life that I would undertake for my church, in another country, away from my family and friends. Two years that I’d never once considered not doing. I’d been raised up for it as step X in a series of steps mapped out for me by my church and family.

I could probably write this poem’s ending now, but I feel it more appropriate to let it stand as-is, with minimal line revisions to smooth its rougher edges.

On the last line you might see what this was all about, and why I’ve decided to leave it there. But I could be persuaded to push on, like the boy on his steed, and concretize this confrontation with the Void.

What do you think?

My voiceover:

Mournful Glory

A young man read a saga of death and defeat

In a certain life story of glory by death.

The worst story, surely, he ever had read,

(But the lesson therein was not written in ink—

For the book veiled truth, with a hidden wink).


Now asleep on his bed, he dreamed a dream.

A dream so dark that it must be told:


Over a mountain, across a hill,

Across a large field, and over a knoll;

In the darkest night air, lacquered dimly with care,

He rode his horse, his most blesséd mare,


He rode fast, edging close to the foot of a glade

With its fringe so honed, like the edge of a blade

His thoughts were a-flurry but held hardly a worry

For that sad little book and its terrible story

Of heroes and pain and mournful glory.


There hidden low, crouched ahead at the roots

Of the forest—tall sea of shadow and beast—

Was a bald, wary, lonely, cackling man

Who could never forget that forgettable story,

Of heroes of legend and mournful glory.


The wild man waited there to make his acquaintance,

As he feared for the boy and impending danger.

So, sensing he’d flee at the sight of a stranger,

He cowled himself, disguised as a Ranger.


Casually the boy rode on,

Passing many a rabbit and startled fawn,

Hopping o’er brambles, thorns and weeds,

And spring’s new stock of winter’s seeds.


The seeds were abundant and blanketed fields,

Among ice, straw, and clay, completely congealed.


Now as spring finally came and winter died down,

As a giddy young child suppresses a frown,

One last, little seed flew on winter’s last breeze,

A wheeze through the tops of the towering trees—


Whispering of a forgotten story,

Of legend and myth, and costly glory.


That black, little pod fell on softening ground.

There, it sank slowly down, and with hardly a sound,

Became a black hole, very wide and round,

Spewing fog, a dark pall surrounding his town.


Transcending all reason, so far out of season,

The miasma began stirring the people to reason,

Conjecture, debate, its existence;

What its origin was—was the question, insistent.


As his horse’s stout hooves tilled the sodden lawn,

So ignorant still, the boy pushed on,

He approached the abyss, abnormality,

This threat to his very mortality,


The moment was locked, avoidance now blocked

By his rhythm and breath, beating time from his chest.

The old man in the dark, keen and wary of all

That surrounded the chasm—its precipitous fall—

Moved to shadow the lad and his trusted mount

Through the wood—speedy strides—as fast as he could,

Trampling wet twigs and leaves on the dark forest ground,


As the wheezing continued, a grisly sound.


From out of that hole, the intangible bore—

The oppressive depression, a feeling, no more,

Was steeling and reeling for what was in store:


If the boy, oblivious, ignored the lore of that forgotten life story,

Of one young man and unwanted glory.

Here’s another poem from my 20-something year-old archives, freshly dusted off.

Audio recording (Hopefully better than Substack’s AI-voiceover):

The Purloined Plot

For far too long, I have believed

That something other than myself

Speaks in whispers, falling dreams.

—I’ve answered all its calls.


I heard them as a younger man,

Though much louder and more frequent.

My young mind, in lesser wisdom,

Harped them with soulful squawks—

Heady, rude, barbaric yawps

—to mentors, teachers, kin.

Recognition sought

—and recollection, within.


Humming tunes, never heard

Painting scenes—far-off worlds,

Sculpted forms—exotic grace

Conceiving structures, stations, ships,

Hung in the void of outer space.

Singing sagas, ballads, stories

Of hard-won, faded glories

—unveiled before my gaze.


Another story that must be told

Evades my sight and grasp

As slithering echoes, nothing more.

A soft susurrus, hidden lore

that bids me clasp

with clumsy claws its untold yore.

—surely, the key I’ve sought.


Troubled sleep in later years

Revealed its edges, bounded fears

Clarity cloaked by tarnished glass and frame

which hold its portrait on the wall.

I’ll try, before the tale escapes.

Though many worms through it now bore.

—the dream slips further, even more.


I remember being thrown onto stone

And what surprised me more

Than the clash of brick on bone,

Than the physical trauma

—was the hell awaiting, a deeper drama…

Why not strike at the heart of this tale?

They led me out, after weeks, enchained

And dropped me on frosty grass.

My neck pressed onto icy wood

—no ceremony, nor last words said—


The axe was falling fast now,

Descending toward my neck

—the other villagers were next.

The bright, curved blade, the axe,

A metal pick to strum my lullaby—

—for now was time to sleep…


The pain, it lingered on my skin.

It seemed I’d woken up,

and wider dreams of wandering,

Visions of vacuous victory,

vanished—and left me pondering.


Feeling numb, with open eyes,

A golden ball rose through the ground,

And looking up, I found

Its amber light now everywhere,

Within my bones, upon my skin

—and fused with the air around.


Something stirred me, deep within.

Boom of thunder, soft spring rain:

Truth is the light from earth and skies

You’ve let blank deeds parlay for you,

but that light is born within your eyes.

No clue of who had spoken

Was I still dreaming? Now awoken,

No one there.

No form to match that loving care

That shook my being, caressed my ears,

—and ironed out all of my fears.

Please read part 1 first:

Did you read Part I? If you didn’t, please do, to read the whole malodorous experience.

The Watcher(s)

I’ll never know for sure if that experience was actually an encounter, or if it was some aberration in my environment—or gut. But the half-lidded memories and fuzzy logic remained echoing whispers of something more profound. The raised hackles and chill-bumps up and down my back suggested I was being watched…like prey.

This experience would help shape how I think and view reality itself.

Before I begin, a brief comment on what I mean when I refer to myself versus others. In a Paranormal context, I see no difference between the two, be they aliens/NHI, UFOs, cryptids, ghosts, or whatever. Whether NHI (non-human intelligences) are truly “other”—archetypes, psychological projections, or mere fantasy—is irrelevant to me.

For me, in a spiritual context, the Self encompasses the other and the other encompasses the Self.

They are us. We are them.

I believe something did visit me that day. It even bore the blue light signature of later transformative experiences that would follow. But the smell that lingered when I woke up was unique and unmistakable: that of lit matches infused with burning sulfur.

So, was it from the Jinn/Djinn, the Greys from UFOlogy lore, or did I or my attic appliances… “fart”? That was the suggestion from ChatGPT 4o, although it didn’t word it quite that way; the AI-generated hypothesis was that it could have been a plume of sulfur dioxide from somewhere in the attic, or my bowels.

I got the answer, but it came to me as layers, like peeling back an onion—which incidentally contains sulfur-rich chemical compounds galore.

The first layer straddles the fuzzy line between truth and story:

Although I’d mostly become a believer in aliens (NHI) through the lens of UFOlogy, I’d held onto some degree of skepticism, which offered little comfort. About a month later, I had one of the most transformative spiritual/metaphysical experiences of my life, and it was the kick I needed to finally peel back the onion—but with someone’s help.

I should comment on my emotional state at this point. Intellectually, I remained skeptical, but my angst about whether the Phenomenon was real or imaginary—and even more broadly, the afterlife—gradually worsened my ability to focus at work, as my lack of knowledge fueled both late-night and work-time research into the Phenomenon. I was heavily burnt out in the wake of two home remodels, a cross-state move, a layoff, two family deaths (my mother’s cancer and death, before that my mother-in-law’s passing), Hurricane Beryl (which toppled a huge oak onto the corner of my house and wrecked my roof and shed, narrowly missing my wife), the loss of my Mormon faith, and growing unease about my career in an AI-dominated future.

Enter the Shaman

In the r/Experiencers subreddit, I eventually found Daniel Rekshan of DSETI.org, who had been posting a lot about his hypnosis work, and I was happy that he didn’t deny the “false memory” problem inherent to using hypnosis for “repressed memory retrieval.” Another huge plus is that he wasn’t a strong proponent of the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis. Dan is a paradox, gracefully holding a nuanced space between skepticism and mysticism, and his psychology and computer science background appealed to me, as the social scientist/engineer type that I am.

Dan is a licensed hypnotist (in both the Depth Hypnosis and Quantum Healing methodologies), so I booked him right away and bought his book on the Shamanic Dreaming Hypothesis of ET/NHI contact.

His book was eye-opening. It helped me reconcile the skepticism I held with the veracity of my experiences, while offering me a metaphysical framework to mediate between my subconscious mind and spiritual world.

I had two sessions with him. The first, though brief, was transformative. I may write on it later.

The first onion layer came off during my second hypnosis session, wherein I’m pretty sure I “channeled” other beings for the first time. The hypnosis felt like a semi-consciously led dream. Over a Zoom video call, Dan helped me solidify my intention for the session, put me under trance, then facilitated by asking me the questions I’d prepared. Among the questions was this:

Below is an answer, perhaps this onion’s outer layer, straight from the transcript.

In the transcript, note how I blur myself with the other. Here, I’d begun channeling a sleep paralysis entity who appeared to me next to my childhood bed at night as my older brother, before transforming into an axe-murdering, greasy, long-haired, smiling Viking guy who jumped at me in slow motion, large half-moon axe raised high above his head (my scream woke the whole house)

Transcript:

Greasy Axe-Murdering Entity (G.A.M.E.): The experience was meant to scare you. We have fun.

Me: Do you feed off the fear?

G.A.M.E.: Only in the sense that a bully…[trails off]

Me: Are you evil?

Me (voicing an intuition): I think it’s part of the play—we’re part of the play.

G.A.M.E.: We wear the masks. We don the costumes.

Dan (hypnotist): Is that the nature of good and evil—the sense of participating in a play that has comedy and tragedy? Could you speak more about the nature of good and evil?

G.A.M.E./Me: We’re the stage technicians as I said earlier. The feelings associated with good and evil are attached to the material world. They’re attached to the imprinting of your experience on our psyche.

Dan: Is the sulfur smell experience explained in the same way? …how do you understand that “stage scene”?

Me: It was a physical contact—a visitation. It was meant to scare me. I’d like to know what happened to me during that time. Was I taken somewhere else? Was I just visited in my space? Was I studied, observed? Who were they? How could I know who they were? Does it matter?

The Watcher(s): Doesn’t matter—if you want to think of us as Greys, then you can also think of us as the Fae. You’ve read so much on these subjects. Your mind can’t coalesce us into a particular form because you know that our forms are infinite.

The Mask Stays On

The session offered an answer. It was a “true-enough” story whose ambiguity was as foggy as the mist that clouded that room’s single-paned windows that smelly night. Whether the Watchers were faceless projections of my subconscious mind or something genuinely other, they refused to remove their mask.

So, were my visitors Greys, Jinn, stage technicians, archetypes, or all of the above? Although my fear of them had subsided thanks to that new framing, the ambiguity kept me wondering:

I’d listened to a few Jinn reports on Islamic podcasts, I’d also read a few sulfur smell reports from Jacques Vallée’s Passport to Magonia, whose latest edition’s cover incidentally mirrors its thesis that the UFO phenomenon may be an extension or evolution of folklore from ages past:

I didn’t know it then, but the truest answer was hiding in the gaps of my questioning.

It’s one thing to “know” the source of the smell; it’s entirely another to ask, “What does it mean?” I was so focused on entities and UFOs, I didn’t think to wonder about its symbolism.

A spiritual awakening doesn’t just awaken you to the existence of spirit. It instills a new way of looking at the world and at truth writ large. It’s a paradigm shift that shows you how life is replete with omens (symbols), just as dreams are. It awakens you to the dream that is life itself. You realize that regardless of the material provenance of unexplainable events, there is a design behind them, and we are the designers—architects building scaffolds of meaning as we climb upward out of the Void.

In shamanism, omen work looks beyond prosaic cause and effect thinking. Maybe my attic water heaters had actually “passed gas.” But the synchronicity of it—coinciding with the memory of my space being lit up by blue light on the wall above—matters more, hinting at greater lessons to unpack.

The Color Blue

The essential lesson came by way of color.

During that session, in delving into yet another experience, I arrived at an Earth-like planet orbiting a blue star in the Pleiades star cluster. There, I saw and described a majestic blue being lounging on an obsidian floor in a “star sanctum,” on a space station tethered to the planet. A blue and green spectrum of color flooded the room through the floor, and the walls were etched with hieroglyphics that told the stories of lifetimes of acquired knowledge and experience.

The colors’ vibrancy and ray-like movements felt significant, though I didn’t yet know how to interpret them. Some quick searching led me into a patchwork of metaphysical color systems, including New Age ideas about “Blue Ray Starseeds” and broader esoteric traditions of the Seven Rays, which appear in both Theosophical teachings and some later interpretations of Hindu thought.

My research led me to @officialthealchemist (Youtube), whose video “Who Are the Blue Ray Starseeds? Are YOU One of Them?” got me thinking about how color in the imaginal realm can be a vehicle for self-discovery and self-knowledge.

The hypnosis was my bridge from the materialist “alien” interpretation to a more personal, psychological one.

Suddenly everything felt so new and wonderful.

Rays of Creation? Cool! I thought. If that Blue Being was me, does that mean I’m a Pleiadian starseed?

What color does sulfur burn again?

In her other videos, The Alchemist (Sarah Elkhaldy) talks about how so-called Blue Ray Starseeds have an inherent ability to “transmute” pain and trauma into higher vibrational forms. Here was another new term: Transmutation. Though I've come to see it overused ad nauseam in esoterica, the word is often uttered in the same breath of Shadow Work, which got me learning more about Carl Jung. At the same time my wife, a psychologist, had been reading books on Jung’s life and works, sharing them with me.

Elkhaldy explains that Jung, drawing partly from his own intense inner experiences, visions, and “fantasies,” interpreted alchemical symbolism through the psychological lens he built into his concepts of The Shadow, the Self, integration, and individuation. His work also engaged deeply with Gnostic and Hermetic currents; his work reframed those older spiritual ideas into a more acceptable framework for modern psychology.

That was when I suspected it: the smell could be a real-world metaphor for my own alchemy.

Lead into Gold

Spiritual alchemy turns lead into gold, symbolically. It’s the process of the psyche’s transformation.

For Jung, alchemy became the symbolic language for inner transformation. My question shifted from,

What visited me, if anything at all?

to

What in me was being transformed?

Sulfur matters here, because in the alchemical tradition, sulfur is one of the core elements of transformation.

Zosimos of Panopolis was one of the first major alchemical writers. He wrote of alchemy in visionary and spiritual terms; for him, material transformation and spiritual transformation appear deeply entangled.

In Visions of Zosimos, sulfur was part of his “divine water” symbolism, in which his use of the Greek word theion carried a double meaning of “divine” and “sulfurous.” Like water, sulfur is a transforming medium, and it's used as an agent of coloration, dissolution, and pneuma—invoking breath/spirit, or the bridge between body (soma) and soul (psyche).

Zosimos’s was a visionary approach to alchemy, but Paracelsus made the sulfur symbolism much more explicit. Paracelsus described sulfur as the soul itself, linking spirit and body. His tria prima system consisted of sulfur, mercury, and salt, and sulfur was the combustible, “animating” principle.

Nigredo, Dark Night, Void

The smell of burning brimstone is an uncanny omen of ignition.

Burning it produces a mostly “smokeless” fire (with nasty fumes, certainly), best seen—in the dark—at night. And that period of my life—the hurricane, cancer and death, ADHD burnout, and the existential crisis threaded through all of it—had been the dark night of my soul, my own alchemical nigredo, during which the old me had been smelted down by the furnace.

In the alchemical tradition, the prima materia—the raw material of transformation—first passes through nigredo, the blackening stage of putrefaction and dissolution. The smell wasn’t proof of anything. It was an omen of the transformation I’d begun, and sulfur burns blue.

The fear I felt that night, and throughout that longer soul’s night, was my teacher. The beings I channeled may have been the masks over my own fear—the parts of myself that scared me into silence my whole life, the indoctrination that kept me submissive to a church I could no longer believe in, submissive to a version of myself that kept me safe by staying small and quiet.

Maybe they were the liminal stagehands, waiting in the wings for my unbecoming.

Thanks for reading!

Here’s the full hypnosis session report:

Here’s another piece on where this all led me, and how it brought me here to Substack:

Share Enter Nyxus

tended webs

spindly legs prick taut membranes,

—pop—

what lies beneath? conspiracy’s a void,

(maybe true, or not), when curtains fall,

who pulled their cords? whether human, beast, or devil,

or god, or

saintly priest and king

i’ve been the unwitting stagehand, set designer,

Prima Donna, groundling drooling rivulets

as porcine hearts beneath unspotted tunics

beat their last—

do we stop the show or break a leg?

daddy long-legs and black widows tend the webs

that span between

throbbing eggs, unseen.

dramas hiding the anguish,

the torture

that tore her,

and her, and him

to serve a shadow’s whim.

If you want, have a listen to this AI-generated song of my poem:

This ~500-word scene in my science fiction novel was pivotal for my world building. It helped me develop more of the alien mechanics of Nyxus, the void my light beings call home. In the late mathematician John Conway’s Game of Life, the pixels (or voxels in a 3-D space) arrange themselves together under constraints called Rules. It’s a 0-player game because we can only observe once the initial conditions are set and watch what arises after hundreds, thousands, millions of “turns”.

In my saga the creator of the light beings who inhabit Nyxus, the exiled man, is deposited in the Void where he builds life using his ship’s Quantum Drive, modified heavily with other ship systems to generate the light, rules, and logic from which the light beings (Drimnari) form and evolve.

Bear with me as I explain:

In Conway’s game, Rules define the conditions under which a pixel can survive. For example, if a pixel is surrounded by too many neighbors it dies, as if by overpopulation. But if there are too few neighbors it also dies, as if by loneliness.

My light beings are created in a similar way. Except they’re not made of pixels or voxels; they’re made of drifting rays of light joined together as intelligent bundles, or clusters. In the Void, light has its own sort of gravity, owing to an alien physics.

In this system, intelligence arises stochastically from trillions of turns—my beings call them Pulses—in “the Game”. But not all bundles gain intelligence. Some arise like lifeless, oscillating monuments comprising the “landscape” of the Void.

In this scene, one Drimnari, Flutter, shows her friend one of these monuments, an Oscillator:

“There it is, see it whirling, like this?” My nodes are twirling petticoats, alternating a lively green with a bold blue.

“I see it, but I won’t go any closer.” Stone says.

“Suit yourself.”

I release her tether and zoom toward the Mill, my favorite Monument, an Oscillator to be exact. I’ve been practicing, and I’m ready to show her. Got to time it right, before the next Pulse. The last one was seconds ago—should give me plenty of time. It’s in front of me now. I splay a few tendrils wide and latch onto one of its arms as it winds back around.

Now!

Then I feel it, the movement, its gravity. I flash a bragging grin and hope she’s impressed. I’m wrapped around a spoke. It feels amazing. How it moves me. The way it squishes one side of me but stretches the other. I flash another invite and I look for Stone, her gray-blue orb making hardly a shimmer every time she swings into view.

Not impressed? Let’s try something new.

I extend two orblets towards the Mill’s center cluster, a gorgeous gyrating prism. I pull myself in and feel an opposite pull backwards! Holding tighter, I hug the central node but the turning intensifies.

Moving speeds it up.

I should get out now. I try to move, but I’m spinning so fast. I jitter light. The next Pulse comes soon. Stone will see I’m scared. I remember the Primes’ tales, Irida’s warnings. I focus on the prism and though the spin is terrible now, I don’t feel as trapped. I’m bathed in its soft-white glow.…

I remember the mess I’m in and try to shimmy outward. No luck.

Stone can’t get close, but if I extend a node…

I unspool a yarn and it flails in circles around me. She can latch onto it, but I must stay calm or I won’t harmonize with her. The ether around me thins and I sense a familiar, budding charge—the Pulse; it’s close. I flash a distress pattern and see blurred blues and grays nearing with each turn of the Mill.

Thank you.

Not safe yet though. If the Pulse happens now, I’ll become a fixture on the spinning monument, neural nodes scrambled. A spoke on a wheel. Forever.

Oh no, no, no—Stone! If she latches on at the Pulse she’ll die too. I try to reel in my tether—I can’t. I feel her clasp onto it, but I can’t warn her off—my talk-nodes aren’t on it. I feel a tug outward. Yes, a little more. Hurry.

I pull against her as I feel the familiar buzz all over, but this one’s…heavy. I try and release her but she’s coiled around the yarn and yanking harder.

The prism’s pull weakens.

I lunge.

I am the caesura, the Mother. I am the Mill, I am Stone, I’m Flutter.

I am every Monument, every random ray

I’m the space between—

I’m alive, I think. I swivel around for her. There she is—shining erratically. We live. The Pulse must have come once we were free of the Mill.

I become a sphere with wavy edges and reach out a tendril. Stone hovers closer for a second and speeds off, away from me.

I hope you enjoyed it! For another glimpse of Flutter and Stone’s world, check this one out:

Are the answers right in front of me?
Is there anything at all to see?
I know somebody who may know.
He peers from right behind my eyes…

Twenty years ago, as a high school senior, I wrote a poem about two voices arguing—one bright and seeking, one dark and knowing. I was wrestling with the cultural fascination of that era: Fight Club‘s Tyler Durden whispering truths the narrator couldn’t face, A Beautiful Mind‘s John Nash befriending hallucinations that felt more real than reality. These films and others like it asked the question that haunted me at eighteen: what if the voice in your head telling you you’re crazy is the only sane thing left? What if brilliance and madness are not opposites, but reflections?

I didn’t understand then that I was channeling my own shadow work before I’d ever heard the term. The poem began as psychological dialog, focused on mental health and the link between brilliance and madness. That layer still sits on the surface, but the larger allegory sits beneath it, like muddy water underneath spilt oil.

Which voice is the real one? Who gets to survive?

As I’ve done some inner work myself, following faith deconstruction, the poem has transformed with me, outgrowing the “mental illness as plot twist” trope for something more alchemical: a meditation on ego death, integration, and the void that emerges from the cracks in our sanity, our reality.

For example, with respect to cult or high-demand religious conditioning, an outcome of Religious Trauma Syndrome is the creation of a sort of dissociative identity, where coercive, authoritarian language incentivizes the suppression of the more darkly emotional, questioning, sexual self in favor of the one that captures praise through adherence and conformance. This poem illustrates some measure of the dissociation I felt back then.

Now let’s widen the lens:

Recent events have forced many of us to confront our collective shadow, which hides behind the bright masks society wears to blind us to what we can become—in spite of the cruelty and violence around us). This poem seeks to illustrate that dichotomy at the individual level, but echoes at the collective level.

Often our brighter half is just the mask we wear. The darker half is the shadow we ignore, the one we try to suppress—our past, traumas, attributes, fears, love, anything at all—which trails us. It’s what we wish we never had, until the Great Work occurs. What emerges from entering into a dialog with the shadow is the empty space where transformation becomes possible.

What if nothing comes out of it? Maybe you can’t imagine your life without the mask. Maybe it’s fused with your skin, and it’s too painful to remove, leading you through darker paths and dead ends.

You might seek out death, our tempt it, but death is just another void. So why not consciously jump into the dark and welcome your unbecoming?

It will bore into you, eat you up, but trust you’ll be remade into something more real.

A note on my use of flowery, archaic language throughout: I’ve tempered that compared with earlier versions of this poem somewhat, adding minimalism where it fits the story, but the language aims to embody the way our brighter halves dress up our reality and perception.

Voici le poème:

The Shadow

Are the answers right in front of me?
Is there anything at all to see?

I know somebody who may know.
He peers from right behind my
eyes…

	---

Yes good sir, you wanted me?
Want to see what I can see?
This I tell you, you should know:

You cannot know, you’ll never know! 
You are not me,
Now I must go!

	---

Oh tell me, pray.
I really wish to see
What everyday you always see.
Stay one minute longer, please.

	---

You nut! You’re truly blind.
The answer’s so simple to find.

Look behind!

	---

I see my shadow, yes. I do.
Though, turning back around,
The shadow, with its wispy fingers
Only stares straight back at me and lingers 
On the grassless ground. It doesn’t turn
With me, the sun stays still,
Like a bright and yellow floating urn,
While the shadow remains unturned.
Why is it so burned?
It’s blurred, but I who stand in the sun am not.

My mind rots!

How does a dark mass
Get spawned from such a brilliant
Sphere of yellow above this flat, gray grass?

	---

Fool! I’ve wondered much,
How you came to be so—touched.
	
	---

I see the shadow. Now, leave me be!
It must be you who veils my eyes—
I’m so tired of your lies…

	You must be a devil in disguise!
	
	---

Now this, I tell you; I can muse:
You’re filled with light, you're tarnished bright!
A blinding, slimy white
That clouds the lenses of your sight!

Dude, you are definitely on the trail,
I promise you, you shall not fail
In finding the abandoned crypt.
(Never has anyone read its writ—
	hidden in one gray crevice, I’ll not let that slip)
Where written is a dusty, crooked line
Blasted by the sands of time—
Written by the mottled
Tendons from a feeble band
Of sinew from a decrepit hand.

Through contradicting ruminations,
Through vaulted language and tilted cadence,
Let the questions be your guide
Amongst the shadows stretching wide.

Does this help? Now, does it?
HURRY UP!

	---

I’ll take my time, you sunny fellow.
Your ill-learned manner is a sickly yellow,
You’re a cynical fiend who haunts my dream
Of somber sleep sans coffee cream
Parading through my bloodstream!

I can’t help that you, a divining rat
Who wears me like its favorite hat—
A cap to shower you every hour
With one second of gilded power—

I can’t help you’re like a phantom
Of a long-forgotten kingdom.
A flower on a grave,
Coaxing some dead knave
So strangely to behave!

You shower me with power, true,
Each time, surely with a glower
And though sweet joy
keeps bubbling up, 
You use me like toy.

This brief lapse—a curse, no less—
Weighs upon me like

Sky swallowing a mountaintop,
or…
oil sheen creeping over a puddle.

Thus, your designs for my unrest
And drifting gleams, each mental test,
Have made this weary soul digress.

Thus each golden second, all fifty-nine,
Is wasted on your impious rhyme!
	
	---

How useless is this all!
I’m trying to help you after all.
If you don’t want my help…fine.
I’ll leave you to your fifty-nine.

	---

Please don’t leave.
Though your temper reeks, I will be meek.
Help me with just one sneak-peek;
I swear it’s all I need.

All I need.

	---

My funny friend, you are persistent!
I know why you’re so insistent.
But do you? Here’s a clue:

Wrapped in a cloak, a misty fleece 
Of rarest find, lies a personal piece,
A private code that brings no peace.

When you read its curious marking,
The black ol’ buzzards will come a’ hawking,
Skillfully encircling,
And their terrible
Sweet squawking
Will descend upon you, mocking
All the ill-earned, squandered
Understanding that you’ve 
Rendered for the taking.
	
	---

Your hellish rhymes are dressed as wisdom,
But I still can’t see once for myself
The things you claim to see.
	
	---

Ooh, you’re getting close!
You court the silver ghost,
The strange familiarity you cleave to—
that you need.

And I do too.

(Here goes)

Imbecile!
You just pretend to fend me off,
And though you weakly send me off,
You tend to quaff 
My florid phrases and cheery faces—
Just brittle masks shrouding darker traces.

The shadow you remarked
Is yet a dying spark
In that gray mulch you call a brain,
Which waits for one snake-red rain
To quench its squishy corner-stain,
That still remains completely sane.

	---

How does that make any sense?
Just tell me its significance!
	
	---

It trails you, my ignoble friend.
I fear…you’ve met your end.

	---

Ah! A pain from deep within my ear,
Though, my friend, I can still hear.
Continue, please; enlighten me.
	
	---

Very well then, 
though your left cheek
Begins to swell and 
your upper lip’s a—milky green?

You’re enshrouded.
Your rent mind is clearly clouded—

Oh no, 
Your left eye is a filmy white,
Dear friend, have you your sight?
May I continue shedding light?

Your right eye—shines bloody red!
I recommend retiring to bed.

	---

I can see, still.
Could your words be right?
They are blight!

Again, whenever I rest my head,
I smell a scrumptious, juicy dread—
Whooshing whispers
Echoing in leaden dreams
Of sleep upon my bulging bed.

No more coffee! No more cream!
Go on, go on, before I scream!
	
	---

Ha ha ha ha!
You are the type,
Who dives below the very water
That will be your sightly slaughter.

A great white whale has risen up
To swallow they who delve the deep,
who rise from sleep to hear my rhyme!

(I should probably say it now):

I am he who cannot sleep. 
You’re the dream within my Keep,
The home where sober thought
Collapses to insanity.

You’re the sun, the floating urn.
You spawned me here. I cannot turn,
So quiet night became my lure,
And now, I hope to be secure
From you, dear friend

One second was ever a fleeting cure.
	
	---

Oh, so I’m the nut?
I will outwit
Your nonsense ramblings
For one sound second, 
maybe more…

Enough—
The foul fowl have been sent,
Here they come now.
How they swoop!

What’s this, a mirror right across from me?
Just what is it that I’ve failed to see?
…

Ah! 
What mosaic melt of sloughing skin!
The truth emerges now, I think!
Do you feel pain, my clever friend?
Between us, is there any link?
Are we both shadows of some wilting wraith,
Who bound us fast in capricious haste?

My face is—erased? 
feels

bone-eye worn—
Sunken,
torn, and

many a wriggling weevil
begins to—

hollowing 
my
rotting 
vessel…

Can I rest now?

	---

Yes. Rest.
No pain here.
For now, I’m still alive.

By this, my plan, the glyphs
Succeeded, after all.

You’ve dwindled in a dying fall,
a pitiful, desperate crawl
Through a fiery red and clotted hall.
	
And now I’m free,
From that splendid inconsistency—

	The brighter half of me.

Why write a poem about this?

I write under the pen name Cael Lawenu. I chose “wenu” from Mapudungun, the language of the Mapuche people living in the Southern Cone. I chose the word to be a quiet nod to “wenu mapu“ (meaning the land above / sky-land), and because it carries the same root, “mapu,” that lives inside the word Mapuche itself: mapu (land) + che (people). I’m half-Chilean, and I have ~16% Southern Andean genetics via my mother’s ancestry.

I wrote this poem because my heart hurts to see what is happening to this beautiful region and to help others know how they can help.

The Catastrophe

Over the last two decades, Patagonia’s fire seasons have taken hundreds of lives, alongside the loss of homes, watersheds, and old-growth forests.

In Chile now, “mega-fires” in Biobío and Ñuble have killed 19–20 people, displaced thousands, and burned between ~25,000 and 38,000 hectares, with hundreds of homes destroyed and many fires still active.

In Argentina’s Patagonia, major fronts in Chubut have burned roughly 12,000 hectares in the Andean region, threatening towns and infrastructure. Local reporting also describes dozens of homes lost and a larger, season-to-date toll across multiple fronts.

It’s not only forests that are burning; trust is too, fanned by whispers of why this is happening.

Officials point to drought, wind, and suspected arson. In parallel, a louder political narrative has tried to tie “terrorism” and “arson” together with Mapuche identity—as justification for harsh control measures.

Underneath this, another story brews of deregulation, budget cuts, land speculation, and a “fire-sale” logic that turns catastrophe into land transfer.

In Argentina, fire emulates the chainsaw: President Milei’s austerity has hollowed out the national fire system.

When prevention is starved, disaster becomes policy by omission.

Here’s the poem; scroll below to know how you can help.

AI-generated song of the poem:

Fire-sold Lands

The Patagonia is burning, 
hundreds killed.

Fire-sold lands turned over
to billionaires’ hands.

Indigenous peoples blamed as
arsonists?
Terrorists?

Strip-searched mothers
guns, trained 
as children cry
An elder’s bruised wrists, ribs—

proof

The name of a people
matters.

Mapuche—
”People of the Land”
Not of the dollar, not of the State.

Civil disobedience met, again
with fire and fury 
for taking a stand.

Where greedy projects
brew, blatant lies and violence
ensue

The name of a land 
matters.

Patagonia—
“Land of the Bigfeet”
bare soles touching earth

now swallowed by
Argentina—

“made of Silver”

Colonialism’s broken heritage
now breaks wills

As silver rivers run with mud—
and native blood.

How to Help

If you can, donate toward relief, toward the people doing the dangerous work, and toward communities who keep getting blamed for surviving.

Some donation pages list a bank “alias” (a short handle used for domestic transfers in Chile/Argentina). If you’re donating from outside the country, an alias alone often won’t work—use a card/PayPal/official donation link when available, or look for full international wire details (SWIFT/bank/account) before sending.

CHILE (fire relief / displaced families)

• TECHO-Chile (campaign page linked from Chilevisión)

• Desafío Levantemos Chile (official site)

• Hogar de Cristo (donation portal linked from Chilevisión)

ARGENTINA (Patagonia/Chubut relief + responders)

• Fundación Sí (Chubut fires page; they also list the transfer alias “DONAFUNDACIONSI”)

• Fundación Bomberos de Argentina (reported donation alias “bomberosfund” + Donar Online)

• Fundación River + Red Solidaria (campaign page; includes a “Donar Online” link)

INDIGENOUS-LED / INDIGENOUS-DIRECT support (Mapuche / Mapuche-Tehuelche)

• ANRed: Aid list for Comunidad Mapuche Lorenzo Pulgar Huentuquidel (includes a donation alias)

• Canal Abierto (2025): Coordinadora del Parlamento Mapuche Tehuelche fundraiser alias “EMERGENCIA.COMUNIDAD”

• Fundación CholChol (Mapuche artisan/community support — donation page)

Trigger-happy mercenaries win

Because lies clothe naked data

The desperate groundlings lean over the stage.

(That’s been us, by the way)

We dip then raise our fingers; spit swims with blood.

Tragic spectacle steams in winter’s cold.

Can’t find the right words—

Since innocence,

courageous

civil disobedience

is rewarded with

violence.

Think it not nonsensical,

This was the plan all along.

Machiavelli showed how

Crafty dealings shuttle his-story along

What to do when justice fails?

Do we look within—let love prevail?

Express the ire—its needed burn?

Link arm-in-arm—block icy fire?

or

Wade deeper in the mire?

By now, I think, I cannot judge

whatever you decide to do,

Since grief, they say,

has a thousand faces,

steps towards healing

I just can't shake this feeling,

That death approaches, not for one,

not for all,

but for this world we thought we knew.

What will rise from its ashes?

Will it smolder long, or

flash-bang,

razing the forest of

once-healthy community?

I. Oil

duck low, driving SUVs,
Humvees, once—
now Cybertrucks

kinda queasy
nearly reeling

too easy—needy

surplus
bursting at its seams.

while those in power
gnaw the beams

Muscle-relaxant 
spoil of war

nestled
between oceans
trapped in foreign seas

ah,

pipeline's blocked
then, a rumble
shoot water deep

ex(s)hale

today's version
(I'll be blunt)
of a hurried hunt

the blackened feast
well deserved

II. Glutton

hiding mouth behind
that heap of heavy
kinda queasy—

too easy—needy

loosened belt
and button popped.

while desire, in charge
gnaws the gut—

Limbs dangling
fermenting glut

patty-melt downer
in the chair
not goin' anywhere

blah,

face is pale—wrong tube
belly rumble
wash it down

exhale

the modern equivalent,
(I'll be blunt)
of a bloodlust hunt

the putrefying feast,
well deserved—

we've been served.

If you’d like, play this poem turned into a song by AI (Suno):

The Great White North held him
close by its side,
Starved for a mother, 
the church was his bride

Returned home, parked.
Nearly inside.
Through thin-paned glass, 
cracked right above.

Came the voice, 
the love.
 
Dewdrops on its lilt—
a wanting
that left him wanting

Crushed petals
Fallen,
From she who was searching—

and restless. 
But why?


He heard:
       Rolling green hills
       In a fruitful, foreign land
       Where no foot can step


He saw:
       Blossoms in winter
       Barely holding onto
       Inner warmth


He learned:
       Nothing—

Beauty, lived
Abandoned thought

Eternity glimpsed—
    Remembered not;

Afterimage embossed
On wet flint
Etchings left by rusted steel
 
Dare he mingle
His song with her own?

To match its tone…
        uneasy peace.

So he lassoed the stars,
Pulling back only dust.


That should suffice.
This poem was written with it.