"Walking Sideways" – July 5th, 1986

July 5th

“You mentioned something you called shapesculpting.” Calliope said, looking up from her pad.

“Right. For me shapesculpting was the place where the colors of sound made things real.”

“Fair enough. I felt as though the substance of the people around me was overwriting me. That it was changing the shape of who I was, rewriting my perceptions and relationship with the world. It was like the colors of sound they were made of were constantly being broadcast simply through their existence and I was susceptible to them, like clay being sculpted against it’s will.”

“And this happened all the time?”

“Constantly. It would form the basis of how I saw the nature of interactions with people, at how we learned and how we transmitted who we are to the people around us. Much later, it would inform my understanding of karmic impressions as they relate to who we thought we were.”

“What do you mean by ‘clay being sculpted against it’s will?’”

He paused for a moment, and breathed out heavily. After a time he spoke. “People don’t just happen.” he said. “Personalities are formed through the impact of the vibrational patterns that surround us. We are constantly being influenced by the vibrations.”

Calliope spoke. “But that would make simply being around people assaultive for you.”

He nodded.

Calliope’s quill paused mid-air, her heart pounding. “That sounds… unbearable. Did you ever find a way to reconcile with it?”

“It’s nature was inconstant. There were moments when it was clear, and in those moments I could see … there were many paths to talent. Many ways in which one could cultivate their magic. One could walk sideways through the worlds.”

Calliope's eyes brightened. "That's juicy. I feel like it would be helpful for others who are learning their own magic. Can you elaborate?"

He flipped through the pages of the book, it's images shimmering before them. "Well, you have to understand this was way before the current vogue of manifestation ideologies had even reared it's head beneath the waves of cultural consciousness. Like everything else, it had occurred for me in a wash of sensation, as a kind of … sculpture of possibility amongst the many other structures that were occurring in my field of awareness."