Downloadable WORD document March 2, 2025
Front Steps, 1972
Caithlin Ni Houlihan
Let us pause for a moment, Thomas, and help you step back into reflection and contemplation related to this traumatic event as we pick up the pieces of the shattered window and recover the typewriter.
Is there an underlying theme you wish to follow?
Thomas Fenn
Yes. Indeed, I have many questions, yet I must reiterate that these questions do not arise from empty fascination but instead the extreme tension between the bodily experience of time, the transience of dreams, the forgetfulness of it all and the unending journey through death into discovery.
How does one survive this illimitable hugeness that presses against the tininess of human experience without being swallowed?
I realize these questions are not designed for an answer. They are more like thumping heartbeats.
So I will be more specific.
What is the connection between memory, the memory- image, and time? This question concerns Dixie Brooks, whom I would never see again after 1971. Three years later, in a letter, she described losing her just-born baby after childbirth. In retrospect, I realized this would have occurred in 1972. Perhaps this is serendipity or a subjective interpretation, but somehow, I feel that the loss of her baby is related to the events about which we speak. And yet this intuition arises from my inner awareness of her magic within the depths of my unconscious, far distant in time and space from this young woman facing the death of her just-born child.
You speak of her as an initiate to the Oracular Sistren, yet I also remember her as a young woman, mysterious, enigmatic – physical therefore mortal.
I now observe very different shades of memories as though I were unwinding them and simultaneously composing them whilst being vigilant to disallow delusory thinking, that is, to over-personalize serendipity or to try to instil a memory out of time into a memory in time.
Caithlin Ni Houlihan
Your enquiries and concerns are well-expressed, Thomas. Therefore, let us take a moment to read some paragraphs inscribed in an old journal we have held in abeyance until now. We offer these paragraphs to help visualize in imagery the nature of your encounter – in this case, with Dixie Brooks.
Before we proceed, however, let us ask this:
What do you believe when you are in a dream at night? And what happens to that belief when the alarm sounds? Does that dream persist within a now submerged and independent dream memory and transform behind the clockwork of the day to return in another period? And in what form would that dream recur: a strange memory, a dateless memory or a divine being from the etheric or astral plane?
Thomas Fenn
Oh Yes! Please excuse the interruption, but I must concede that my understanding continues to change as we proceed, allowing me to refresh all that you offer. As the poet said, and it is so very true: Your presence is a ‘gift that keeps on giving.’
I asked you previously, Why do we forget our dreams? Your response redirected me to reflect on the interplay between time and duration. Continuing with this reflection, I now realize that dreams do not go away because we forget them when the sun comes out; instead, they transform into intelligent living forms within the light of day.
Caithlin Ni Houlihan
Excellent! We will speak much more about this further on. But be assured that all of these reflections or questions will carry us back to the great epic theatre. And that is why we are here.
Mssr?
Andrei Tarkovsky
I shall proceed, however let me offer an image beforehand to frame these words:
A wave arrives from the distant ocean and continues to be a wave until it crashes onto the shore and becomes dispersed into foam and spray, which is then absorbed into the sand. It seems a suitable image for a given lifetime. But what of a tsunami? Is the tsunami a wave on the surface of the ocean, or is the tsunami the ocean inside a wave? A wave is not discernable within a tsunami. It is swept into the tsunami. However, a tsunami is a wave. This metaphor illustrates the relationship between the human being and the initiate.
Please remember that this text we offer below is based on imagery. Later, we shall enrich this imagery as we delve further into our spiritual science.
That being said, the text is read as follows:
In the universal once before all and continual, there reigns the form and the formless. This interplay between the form and the formless is inscribed and codified into an incantation under the guidance of the Oracular Sistren. This incantation is sent whirling towards a radiant palace. This palace of multifarious geometries and names is the home of the most esteemed storytellers. A single incantation inscribed by the oracular sistren and sung by the immemorial storytellers is held distinct and wondrous. And so it is that every incantation must be continually enacted and praised within the unravelling narrative of the epic.
Caithlin Ni Houlihan
And so, to continue our journey together, please proceed, Thomas.
Thomas Fenn
Yes. And do allow me to regather my senses. I become so absorbed.
Caithlin Ni Houlihan
Of course.
Thomas Fenn
So, I shall begin with the following morning after our performance.
That morning was truly splendorous. I sat out on the front steps of 2462 California Street. I remember sitting on the top step and placing my feet on the step just below, so my knees were very close to my chest. I was wearing pants with a large hole in the knee, and I could feel the coolness of my hand as I massaged my knee. I watched the people going in and out of the supermarket across the street, the cars stopping at the gas station next to the supermarket, a beginning bustle. I was pure and fragile in my respiration, as though my breathing was an after-storm breeze rippling atop the grass glistening from the just-fallen rain.
I was not elated by this experience or concerned about the consequences of the previous night but simply and stunningly quiet in a sealed bubble of readiness.
George eventually came out and asked me if I was alright. I responded in the affirmative and thanked him for helping me. The two other friends came out a little later. They were not perturbed. We greeted one another and they went out. I continued sitting on the steps.
Soon thereafter, a gentleman approached me. I realized he knew what had occurred the previous evening and was there to offer his support, not out of his natural concern for my physical or psychological well-being but through his understanding of the significance of such an experience.
The gentleman’s name was Enrico. He was quite a bit older than myself. He had been a professional ballet dancer when he was younger, and he was very striking and clearly from another culture; I could not tell from where, although I would associate him with Russia despite his Italian first name.
He lived in an apartment very near the doughnut shop in California and Fillmore. I remember him entering one morning so gracefully. It was perceptible that the air he was breathing was different than our own, ever so much more rarified.
As he entered, someone asked: ‘How are you, Enrico?’ His response lacked all pretension. He said, ‘Not a care in the world.’ The way he expressed those words with such tenore had a significant impact on my soul. I remember an image coming to mind of an endless blue sky, not one puffy cloud to obscure even one drop of blue.
In this period, Enrico was painting icons and one day, he invited me to view his paintings. They were very much created in the Russian Orthodox tradition, and he had the gifted sensitivity and precision in his technique to capture the soul’s gaze in the eyes, just as we see in the icon paintings of Andrei Rublev and other Russian masters who follow.
Caithlin Ni Houlihan
Let us intervene, Thomas, at this point and return to our previous enquiries concerning the relationship between the people you met at the beginning of your journey and their role within your evolutionary path irrespective of the finite nature of these encounters.
Andrei Tarkovsky
I shall offer a metaphoric image if it pleases the company, which may assist in persevering through so many layers and shades of subtlety and paradox within our time and space.
Caithlin Ni Houlihan
Of course.
Andrei Tarkovsky
When you drop a pebble into a pond, the ripples continue independently of the pebble. If you drop a pebble into the pond specifically to create ripples, then you must be aware of the nature of the intention. It is not a question of the destination of the ripple which, in any case, must disappear into the surface of the water but rather the relationship between a ripple, and a pond from the point of view of the pebble dropper.
You will now know that Enrico is the pebble dropper. For this reason, your encounter with Enrico, irrespective of time past-future or the mortality of the physical body, was so very significant.
You had, in effect, encountered the same magician that morning whom you envisaged the previous evening. This is the key.
Thomas Fenn
Yes! Indeed!
I knew upon meeting him that I had come to rest in a safe harbour. I was simply asleep, dreaming myself to be sitting on the front steps of 2462 California Street with no interpretations. I could only know that Mr. Enrico’s presence justified everything that had occurred.
Antoine Artaud
As regards the magician, let us extrapolate and reflect upon the tarot, remembering that the magician card is the first card in the major arcana.
Thomas Fenn
I am reminded of the tarot deck I used to carry in my shoulder bag during my subsequent walks through the streets, the Marseilles tarot. Fifteen years later, I would be in Assisi, where I purchased tarot cards originating from the Italian Renaissance and those I kept for decades to follow.
Antoine Artaud
Bien, Thomas.
However, let us remember that tarot images are etheric thought forms that help us discern between temporal and eternal encounters, irrespective of their nature.
The major arcana depicts the sacrosanct roles that exist at the epic level. The face cards belonging to the minor arcana depict the initiate’s recurrent or heroic role, whose purpose is to serve the major arcana. The number cards represent the single lifetime under the law of individuated destiny, whose story is written in the three letters and the sixty-four three-letter words on a DNA particle.
All the face cards belonging to the minor arcana are archetypal roles governed by the four suits, which characterize the nature of their intention and service. For example, the sword can vanquish the dragon, whilst the cups can express the poetics within the imagery of the narrative poem; the wands may express dedication to the hermetic tradition, whilst the coins express the relationship between value and payment.
Caithlin Ni Houlihan
One of the differences between the major arcana and minor arcana face cards is the dimensionality they reflect.
The minor arcana face cards are living images projected at the level of the archetypes. They are connected to the number cards in the way the human endocrine system is tuned to the planets.
To summarize:
The endocrine system interfaces with internal circulation at the level of blood and nerves as message receptors of secreted hormones; however, each endocrine gland is tuned to a corresponding planet, the moon included at the moment of one’s first breath, which is predetermined.
For example, the adrenaline gland is tuned to mars, the lymph gland to the moon, and the thyroid gland to mercury, so the face card in the minor arcana coalesces to a specified number card under a specific suit at the time of divination. In this respect, divination is likened to the breeze that scatters the ripples irrespective of the pebble dropper. And so we must follow the eternal sylphs within the breeze behind Psyche to discover more about the great mystery of the oracle who divine the tarot and the nature of the major arcana that governs our passageway through the portal of death.
Caithlin Ni Houlihan
This discourse will seem convoluted, but I assure you it is essential to navigate through this labyrinth of different time dimensions to reconcile who, for example, Enrico is and why his relationship with you was essential and timeless. We shall assist you in rendering these channels more and more distinct and thereby ensure your clarity, which is equal to your intention.
Thomas Fenn
Yes. My heart is filled with the most prfound trust as you speak and beats slowly like the pendulum of a grandfather’s clock. I can say now as it was then that there is no itinerary and no travelling: just voices, voices, voices singing within timeless intimacy.
And so I watched Enrico disappear as he crossed over Fillmore Street, and then I looked up to the sky—fat clouds waddled by against the blue surrounding them. I smiled and looked down at the granite step with the sparkling mineral flakes reflecting the sun from thereon. Then I went inside, picked up the book that remained open at the page I had left off, and continued. I was mesmerized with certainty as I read the following words: