“Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth, that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning; that there is always another dawn risen on mid-noon, and under every deep a lower deep opens.” —Emerson

Dear Linus,

   You ask if I've been busy? Ridiculously so, I'm afraid. (Buster, however, remains devoted as ever to a life of sloth. Determined to mentor me in the art, he nips my cuffs each morning as I rush to the studio: come back, here is where you belong, we have bones, blankets, all that life requires! But I am a lousy student, failing him at every turn.)

     My patients have no conception of the toll. I face them, hands clasped across the table as I dial in, until the voices begin to prickle. At first a hesitant spattering of rain. But soon the gates crack and I am swept along, channeling in tongues the speech of the ghost collective, administering their diagnoses. By day's end I collapse onto the davenport, hoarse, too weary to change into bedclothes. Buster's snout on my chest, his eyes disapproving: human, you're not listening.

   The spiritualist papers and handbills here have caught wind of my growing clientele and several of the more prominent sensitives. In a weak moment I consented (no remarks about my vanity, please) and find myself burdened with a series of photo "shoots." I insisted they include Buster in every capture; it was the only way I could tolerate all their directives. A bossy lot, photographers! Image stealers, all.

    This job, it eats at me. I have lost weight; were it not for Buster and my quirky inventions I might lose myself altogether. Please, I can "see" you roll your eyes, hear your response: Eury, find yourself a helpmeet! some comely companion! Appreciated, but the notion must sit bundled on the topmost shelf for now. Another day...

   How goes the orchard? The twins, still climbing the drapes? (I noticed, when last I visited, how those two imps have sprinkled more salt than pepper about your noggin. Not to worry; it lends a distinguished air, little brother.)

    My love to darling Lizzie. I do miss her cobbler.

   yrs, Eury

ps: of late I have been visited by striking night visions and waking dreams. Evidence of need for better sleep, to be sure.

Linus,

  I am in a state.

  For a fortnight my sleep has been intruded upon by what I can only describe as a shower of transmissions, scenes of considerable distraction, the content of which I blush to relate. I am telling you but no other; I beg your confidence.

  A woman is sending them.

  They are arresting. Considerably.

  I am accustomed to conveying the ruminations of the deceased unto the living but this is different. It is as if someone on an other plane has managed to, somehow, through means and machinations similar to those I employ, yet via routes unknown to me, break into my private psychic theater and plant her seeds therein. As if I were the spirit and she the agent beckoning across the gap, provoking contact.

   In sleep, her hand all but touches mine.

  Linus, I can smell the lavender about her...!

  And now, just last night, from "the core of the celestial vault," a mental communiqué:

dear eury

  I've been eavesdropping

on your connections

you seem competent enough at your job

considering

  (we are all of us

      here in the Centre

born receivers...

  I saw you in your little newspapers

it stirred a fury in me

  is this what one of your variety

calls being smitten

an understatement perhaps

  these intimations and distractions

delivered into your sleep

they come from me

  mine are the hands that deliver

mine the neck you long to bite

do not be taken aback

i am not shy

nor should you be

  i am wanting you

  i cannot be more direct

  please locate The Entrance

it will be worth our while

  — orpha

  Linus: I am breaking out my maps!

              -- Eury

              Linus:

             It is not one door; rather, all! 

            Which, collectively, co-locate the portal. There comes a time, after which one has ventured to sundry entrances "far and wide," certain gateways begin to chain. The act of stepping over the limen, traversing any threshold--do it often enough and with one's perceptive attentions switched to the "on," in enough disparate locales, and a network of hinged vectors declare themselves. They can also be plotted.

            I retire my charts and prepare for the journey. Buster is more than up for a holiday. We venture, outward and down, armed with a sack full of soup bones and rope twists for chewing.

             orpha has, after consulting with several engineers of her kind, sent instructions on how to amend and enhance "the chariot" (their term) they've instructed me to build.  

            What will be more challenging is the route through-in. Make note: it is not a straight plummet to the core. After all my repeated inquiries re: tunnels, waterfalls, caves, and passageways leading to continental chambers, orpha cautioned, with a hint of exasperation: dearest, leave your literalities at the door. Apparently there is considerable baggage I must shed if I am to have any hope of reaching the endpoint. Beginningpoint, I should say.

            (I know you and Lizzie think I've "jumped the tracks." And in fact I have. Jumped, leaped, plunged. I have read your entreaties and cautions and know you are concerned for my faculties. Would that I could put you at ease. We have been staying up late, orpha and I. She reveals wonderments from H.E. that leave me voiceless. In turn I tell her of the bungles, misadventures and growing horrors that mark this world, our failure to grasp and make good on the unrealized possibilities of our gifts here atop the surface. (She understands; her species has studied us, not disinterestedly, from afar.) As for other of our nightly conferences, all I will say is never have I experienced such congress, corporeal or in dreamtime. She confides the same is true for her. Drugged together and all-a-tremble, the both of us.

            Linus, you and Lizzie, and the twins--after I get settled in--you must visit. I'll return to fetch!

            In, innner still, and then--into the into! 

            -- eury

           linus

  further dispatches must arrive in this manner

  apologies for tearing holes & poking into your dreams so

  my sojourn, you'd find it disagreeable

given your fear of rolling coasters

quite a lurchy ride, this

  still i do wish you were here

these sights, they turn a mind dumb

subterrestrial charts & entrancements

churling planets with their drowsy chromatics

  showers of starmilk

  i'd expected buster to be all nerves but he's quite at home

  tapping into his inner adventure dog

  is this space or is this earth

  is this mind or is it pneuma

  descent unto or an unfolding within

  or a leaving of 1 life to enter its after

  well i'm sure i don't know

  navigation's no good here

  the current owns me now

             eury

   linus

            tumbled thru an eyelet in their sky

            like a dandelion seed 

            to think a sibling sun might remit such warmth

            small hairs on the neck come electric

            you can hear all the souls who live down here

            an illimitable chorus enters the ear

            the citizens' embrace

            one is "in the company" of all

            a cell-splash pouring into the surrounds

            their thoughtsong, a lazy drizzle

             a communal washing

            lives commingling, all "in the basket" of their kind

            and Buster and I now added to the mix

            cloud kiss, harmony sea

            child and beast unabused by the other

            forests aswim with fishes

            gravity's nectar 

             and, through it all, popping like a crocus up through the congregation

           orpha's

                                   < ah       

                        you've arrived >

            crisp as a chime and reeling me in

                                   -- eury

hello linus.

      your sweet brother is safe.

     albeit occupied.

     soon.

      orpha

linus

            o boy am i sunk

                        drowned, glazed

                                                & sunk

                                    some more

did i mention how carnal time is here 

the very air effecting intimacies

                        bliss, irreducible

                        bliss upon bliss

                        into bliss anew

 well

  it's all very blissy

                         ( this heady oxygen has curdled my faculties           

            my language slips afritter

            only music gushing out now

            my crossing over's near complete, orpha says

            you'll hear me singing but I'll not hear you 

I have big news:

             company's coming

                        a third grows in orpha

                                     a baby girl

o bright pod of marvels 

o saturated love rain

  o thaumaturgy

            e

linus

I send more pictures of your niece

growing like a weed her father says

(one of your sillier surface concepts

your brother's well, sings of you often, Lizzie, the girls

he's taught madrigals to the stones & lilacs

which they happily sing before dawn

each & every bloody day

who needs roosters :/

as for Aggie, a more restless imp you never saw

i am teaching her the arts of reception, other witcheries

on the surface she'd be learning to read but down here

children learn to braid, & harmonize, the frequencies

she has uncanny sensitivities

seems to need no schooling at all

her farsightedness spools into realms new to us

a product of her hybrid parentage i suppose

she returns from her reveries talking of a ghost county

peopled with kelpies & visitants

fleshy phantasms, revenants

assorted invisible friends

asks her daddy to retell the tale

of how he came to travel here

then plays all day in his cobwebby chariot in the barn

says "when i make my journey to the inside that's inside

i'll need no machine

i'll zipper-dream my own web across"

our wild-eyed psychic spider girl

I thought I knew joy when your brother opened my door

(& I did

but this twirling sprite extends it x-fold

-- orpha

Uncle Linus,

          Just got off the "phone" with the parental units who reminded me I've owed you a call for forever and a day. Plz don't be cross, I've been a tad busy!

          (A favor tho, when you speak with moms tell her it wasn't "some boy" who lured me down here! As if she could ever criticize. Don't get me wrong, some of the pickings are gorgeous. You wouldn't think ghosts could be so unrestricted, fleshy even. {One in particular, Orin, we've become fast friends.} But it was never one fella who dragged me under. It was the lot of them, the whole crowd what pulled me in. A girlhood of whispers sneaking into your sleep each and every night, let me tell you it can get pretty persuasive.)

          So I got a job here. Apple doesn't fall far from the tree. But don't you agree the dead have as much right to talk with their departed as anybody else? They miss their folks and kids and grams too. And that's where I come in: I tune in, ferry their chatter back and forth. Guide the conversations. It comes easy to me. Daddy used to sing about how difficult he found his calling when he was up on top. I don't get that at all. When I spin a web between these dead and theirs my mind takes a little vacation. Bobbing under the sun in a little boat on a black ocean. When it's over my dreams feel as if they've been washed and massaged. Plus the truth is everybody loves me down here. They really do. My boss is this little butterball of a witch with pockets stuffed with sugar toadies.[1] Says I remind her of a daughter she once had. She lets me come in as late as I want. I'd do this job for free, you know?

          I've accrued some vacation time so I'm going home for a spell. Moms is throwing a surprise return party. (I was dreamtalking with Buster who can't hold a secret to save his life, which is how I know.) Everybody'll be there, a regular reunion. I'm rehearsing looks of shocked surprise. Bringing the ghost boyfriend too. Can't wait to see the looks on their faces.

          The twins tell me retirement agrees with you. And how much you all miss Aunt Lizzie. I wish I'd met her face to face and not just while dream hopping.

          Daddy sings about dusting off the chariot to pay you guys a visit. But we both know that thing's not going anywhere.

          Must run. I'll wire sooner next time. Mwah,

          -- Aggie.