"The Modern Myth" – October 21, 1999

October 21, 1999

1998 – The Modern Hieroglyph

It was clear to me.  Comics were the modern hieroglyphs.  The means of transmitting the knowledge  of the subtle world through pictures and prose.

There was a collection of comics on my bookshelf then, compilations of the works of Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore and Grant Morrison in collected form, and I would visit and revisit them regularly, teasing out the threads of the energies I felt in-between the panels. During that time, a new understanding came to me regarding Moore’s idea of the Green and Delano’s idea of the Red …

“I especially loved the way they felt to my senses, the way the language of comics worked with my powers.  They were a thing between words and pictures, whose very substance opened the doors of perception. A holy scripture, wrought in the ink and paper of the modern Age.”

October 2nd, 1998 – What Dreams May Come

“The idea that our inner world was a vibrant and nightmarish landscape which was more causal than our outer conditions clarified for me even further with the release of ‘What Dreams May Come’, a film showing a man in the afterlife, experiencing the trials and treasures of personality made manifest. It was a painting of the ethers to me, a visualization of that which was already going on all the time within our selves … into the landscapes of our personal legend made real.”

“In that film, the protagonist goes into the afterlife, into what mortals call ‘Heaven'” said Calliope reflectively. “He makes a choice to rescue his wife from one mythologies idea of the afterlife for those who commit suicide, trapped in her personal ‘Hell’. How did that relate to your experience?”

Peter reflected. “You know, there are many times along the Quest I considered the earth plane a living hell, one I longed to escape from in the most spectacular of ways. More than once I thought about the idea of ending it all, to release myself from what like a repetitive carousel of trauma. Despite this or perhaps within it, I sensed that what the movie spoke of was a real thing, and that the trials we faced along the journey were reflections of our own consciousness.”

Her eyes glittered for a moment as she leaned in, smiling softly. “How so?”

He reached down then, clawing his fingers through the muddy earth beneath them, his fingers digging furrows into the substance. As he did, rainbow colors bubbled up from beneath the surface, painting themselves into clouds across the land. He gently shrugged his shoulders as he looked at her. “What makes things?” he said softly.

She said nothing, but her eyes glittered again.

“Things are made of things” he said after a time. “Out of the colors of consciousness. In the movie I saw that, or rather, I remembered it, at least for a moment.”

She took a few notes.

“How long … how long did it last?”

“Barely.” said Peter. “It was like everything was made of shifting substance, most especially myself. I was constantly changing, and with it the shape of my world.”

Peter Fae’s eyes gleamed with the spark of revelation as he spoke. “They were portals, Calliope. Glyphs of power that led to other dimensions of the self, holding space for who we were beneath the surface of our stories,” he explained, his voice rich with the weight of his discoveries. The idea of comics as more than mere entertainment, but as gateways to deeper truths, filled the air between them with a palpable sense of magic.

Calliope listened intently, her curiosity piqued. “There were…energies within the comics,” she mused, piecing together Peter’s insight with her own experiences. “Between the panels. Things that moved past the current context of things into what they were and would be again.” She paused, considering how the seemingly static images held dynamic forces, resonating with the layers of their own identities and journeys.

Peter nodded in agreement, a smile playing on his lips. “Exactly. Those energies connect us to the past, present, and future, creating a continuum beyond the linear flow of time. Each panel, each page, is a fragment of a greater whole, a reflection of the mythic tapestry we’re all a part of.” He looked at Calliope, his expression warm and encouraging. “By engaging with these portals, we tap into the deeper currents of our existence, gaining insights into who we are and who we are becoming.”

“They were portals. Glyphs of power that led to other dimensions of the self, holding space for who we were beneath the surface of our stories.”

“There were …. energies within the comics. Between the panels. Things that moved past the current context of things into what they were and would be again.”

The comics were scripture for me, a reminder of the codes of consciousness that spoke to the powers that lay within us all and their ethical use.

1999 – Promethea – Into the Immateria

It was around then that I first encountered the publishing of the comic Promethea by Alan Moore, J.H. Williams III and Mick Gray, where the medium of the comic book had taken on a new evolution, moving beyond the fistcuffs and schoolboy heroics (to quote Alan Moore’s “Watchmen”) to reveal the nature of magic itself told through the modern hieroglyph.

The Coyote Gospel

It had been published in 1988, yet I had not encountered Animal Man or the Morrison’s take on the world of narrative before that moment.

It was the idea that drew me.  The sense of Morrison being a vessel for something larger just as Moore, Gaiman, Wagner, Buziek and others were vessels for that larger thing.  I considered them the magomancers of the Age, the magicians and glyphmakers whose work I was drawn to by some as-yet-unknown quality, to the space between the panels and the recognition of ourselves as characters within some larger Author’s work.

We were the characters.  Yet who was the Author?

There was a collection of comics on my bookshelf then, compilations of the works of Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore and Grant Morrison in collected form, and I would visit and revisit them regularly, teasing out the threads of the energies I felt in-between the panels. During that time, a new understanding came to me regarding Moore’s idea of the Green and Delano’s idea of the Red …

“That was the thing though. What they were talking about wasn’t fiction, it was fact. The scent of magic was in-between the panels, pulsing with something natural and true.”

Just as Alan Moore’s presentation through the Swamp Thing had spoken to me about the elemental intelligence of the deva, Jaime Delano’s run on Animal Man and his introduction of “The Red” provided yet another look into the magomancy of the Age, further cementing my sense that there were larger forces behind the forces of our lives, pillars of the natural world that were finding their way through the inspired writing of this Age’s storytellers and glyph-makers in service to an evolving world.

This idea would go further as Grant Morrison took over the title, introducing the concept that we were made of stories themselves ….

1999 – The Matrix

In 1999 I see a movie which changes the shape of the world.

Yet the takeaway was this – all stories were Alice in Wonderland, all tales, a journey into the world beneath the world.  Such was the nature of all stories, of all heroic journeys, of all quests and questions into the horizon of our true potential.  Beyond the matrix of control into the underlying question that defines all mortal journeys – choice.

“It was the glyphs.” said Peter. “The idea that the universe itself was made from glyphs moving through the backgrounds of our lives.”

“Did you feel the world was a computer simulation like in the movie?” she asked.

“What? …. no. I don’t live in that mythology. I saw the world as made of elements and the glyphs as organic patterns within the consciousness, things that were larger than our human selves and more constant than who we imagined ourselves to be. The world was made of glyphs of sensation, of pressures and colors of sound that crashed on the shores like cymbals and violin.”

“So … a sense of organic symbols?”

“…language. The world was made of language. I just couldn’t translate it properly.”

Escaping the Cell – August 17, 2000

“This was HUGE for me.” said Peter. “It was the landscape of one’s patterns made manifest, revealing the underground of consciousness through the visual medium. To me, the cell and it’s tagline “his mind and her prison” would speak to the very nature of the bondage of consciousness and the defilement of the polarities that were the current society. It spoke to the imbalance between the masculine and the feminine …”

“The metaphor was clear to me. Like the antagonists flickering speed at the end of the film, one had to be an archer, to have the precision necessary to negotiate the patterns and pathos that lived within the mindseye …”

“Ah but I was fighting it. All the time. Drowning in traumas and patterns, shifting from one surreal landscape to another. More world was a layered thing of melting dreams, both a prison and a prism at once.”

April 2000 – Planet Fiction

November 14, 2000 – Unbreakable