26

‘I feel like a man astride two ages. The present is harsh, unbearable, cruel. The future is one of my highest hopes and greatest dreams. It is the dream that goads me onwards. Yet with that dream lies a danger. I am becoming acutely schizophrenic… actually exhibiting a multi-personality…. as I devote more and more of my life to that dream, to that fantasy. ‘Sometimes I find myself caught up in that magical crystal ball. I actually begin to believe sometimes that I am living in that far off age, that all is well… all problems have been solved. In reality the bulk of the work lies ahead and this fact plus the exigencies of the work goad me all the faster towards the fantasy.

‘However, I am a man firmly committed to my age, and to my mental health. For in fantasy there is no more joy than in a dream. Joy comes from creation, but creation must change and impact the external world. The dream of a future world can be one of two things. It can be my hope. It can be my escape. If it be the first, then hope is of value…as it calls forth the effort required to start building that world. Hope is a good place to start in a perplexed and caustic age. If it be the second, then drugs would have been the cheaper, more efficient escape… nay, suicide would have sped me towards the destination that road does lead.

‘I am a child of my age and the father of the next. And in the end I shall deny neither. My work is here and now and no burden shall I shirk. For the labors of the present, and only those labors, shall give birth to the future. In these labors I shall not be content to stand upon a large boulder and cry forth upon the multitudes. Such cries are rife today and most will quickly die as they reverberate through the vacuum of space.

‘Instead I must become a part of the world. I must be wed to the world. I must not be afraid of the world. For in the end, the world, society, culture with which I live… is the earth… is the soil from which my body didst spring. That world is my parent. It is my past, my Source. And I must live through that past, and shape, mold, lead, and move that past, an inch at a time towards the future. I must do this to preserve my dream, otherwise will it lose meaning and fall to dust, it will dissipate into fantasy and condemn me to isolation from life. I must do this to preserve my sanity and my species.

‘But what is the need for action? Is it not foreordained for these things to pass? When one considers man’s past and his basic nature, is not the dream, the beautifully perfect world I foresee, inevitable? If this world is inevitable, why then must I act?

‘Man is an animal bearing tools. He is an animal…creating tools…When one mentions man…with his tools…one is automatically assigning the appellation of ‘animal’ to him…Professor Leaky once proclaimed…with prescience…that man is an exotic sort of chimpanzee…who creates tools….So when one speaks concerning man’s tools…one is speaking to his animal nature.

‘Man creates tools for the work at hand. Tragically, he also bears tools for the work of yesterday. Ironically, many of the tools which once were valid…once were powerful… which in fact…did allow progress to a glorious present… now are these magnificent tools rigid…now are they prisons… which restrain. In this way…man is an historical animal… too often, too securely chained to a past of his own making.

‘Thus, it is…that man’s social tools…his institutions…need not be broken…and reassembled…These institutions are naturally declining in power…as automation moves industry away from human activity…Instead, a new tool must be formed…that can be operational in a new world of pervasive human creativity…a tool that can be valid for all climes…for all future times…replacing government bureaucracy, the corporation…and the university….or working in conjunction with remnants of what exists presently…Strangely, it appears that the institution…the pattern of organization which is valid for all times…is the primal band itself…as it seems that all existing institutions have evolved…have been developed from such bands at the beginning. Instead of going back anew…and building new institutions from scratch…utilizing such bands at the beginning…we may just skip that whole process…and just use the primitive band itself…without the added bureaucracy…to power us into the future…

‘As I say… machines soon will do most physical work…Man will be left with only work of the mind…that is, creative work…to do…and such work can not be scaled up…can not be made into billion dollar companies…In the future…small clusters of energy will do creative work…Like a primitive band…like a fraternity…they must be small…to be efficient….But there can be many of them…There can be a galaxy…of them… spread across a universe…of a world….Such a Cosmos on earth…will be powerful…increasing research thousands of times…creating…a world culture…a magnificence…that a species can be proud of….

‘So why are we in this present quandary? Why are obsolete, confining tools allowed to persist? Why cannot we move now confidently…towards a future that is obviously going to exist? The reasons are these: avarice, fear, complacency. The greedy man may keep the past if it feeds him surfeited… even if the good of society, which previously sanctioned the works, no longer is served. Fear of the new paralyzes many who might act. Complacency and sloth bind the rest. The worm which does not crawl forward flounders in its own excrement. The shark… master of the sea… which does not swim forward… drowns in it tracks.

‘The logic of tools points thus and so. But logic is a tool of man. And man must act, by means of other tools to implement that logic. And it will not be those with beads and flowers who build this new world. The man of the future must be at home with tools, he must embrace them. He may live apart from them eventually, but he will always be of them….for ideas are the first tools…before the more physical ones are made in an idea’s image… and the human world will become more and more idea oriented…Thomas Edison created a thousand inventions…they were physical things…The inventions of tomorrow will be mostly idea…until the last step…From now on….one will not just pick up physical things and create something new…in the future one will have to study and study before an idea which seems to have no relationship to anything practical will actually be found to help propel man and woman to the future.

‘So here’s to creativity…here is to the creation of tools…This is the fight I urge. Half of this…is an individual fight. It is each person learning all, developing all… creating as much as he or she is able. Yet, the other half is…we are now not alone…we possess the Will…to conquer…to progress…However, we also possess the Love…the Connection…a Circle of friends and family…all of which from now on…guarantees that we shall never be alone…We are one of a multitude…who are striving every day… together… creating…driving innovations to the future…

‘This is the ultimate fight. It is the greatest fight. Only by means of such effort will man and woman continue to progress. Only by means of such effort will he and she… as a species… endure.’

It was the second Sunday in May the following year. The tribe rose. It had been rehearsing the song for several weeks. It was being recorded on Cerebrum. Finally, in beautiful harmony, they sang as Osiris conducted. It was one of the many songs which Osiris had written for the community. In all that he did for them, it was through his music that he felt that he contributed most to the communion of Love and heavenly joy which existed in the bands. He wrote with a 12-tone theory that was highly developed now,…his key of C, like all of his keys, possessed literally one million chords now. He could really write what he was feeling now. He felt that his music was a Cosmic gift, one which could contribute to tribal communion, but it also would provide a vehicle with which he could commemorate his grandest concepts, his Cosmic ideas. Through his music, Love and Will were united. The community stood on the meadow and sang as one body the song of Mind and Will, the song of the Magi:

Oh, deep mysteries of the earth and sky,

Truths which tell the reasons why

The earth is built this way,

How to build a bright new day.

And we learn the secrets of Thy Mind,

So on earth Thy treasures find

And so our Lives will be

Pure, bold, and free.

Oh Magi, may thy Truth Light our path.

We’ll escape the fire’s wrath.

All cares will cease.

In Love we’ll share all our days,

Together find new ways

And Live in peace.

And trust the Laws of the universe,

Which fight the Darkness curse

And steer us on our course

Emboldened by Thy Force,

By Thy Force.

Osiris luxuriated in the warmth of the united community. How fortunate we are, he thought. We are united physically by the primal band. Then too, we are united intellectually by a biological conception of man and woman. We are united Cosmically by an international integration of institutions and systems, and, in the most Cosmic sense, by the knowledge that the whole universe is derived from one substance, one spark of energy … one immense I… from which all I”s were created… in one profound magnificent gesture…expansion… of Love… As the universe is filled with I‘s forever Connected by Law which governs their interaction…the Cosmos becomes one profound gesture of Will…The universe is filled with the tools… the artifacts… created by one great mind…With this gesture…was creative potential rendered unto all matter… Consciousness, Will, Love, Light… was spread forth unto great expanses of darkness…imbued within each speck of energy… from which all forces and all matter are derived,… Thus, has One tremendous explosion filled the night with Light. In antiquity, Life and knowledge were in great syntheses. Great civilizations were One, each under one powerful ruler. Knowledge, Life systems and religions were organized in great systems of thought, which incorporated the inductive synthesis ability of the right hemisphere of the brain to the highest degree and the delineation and understanding of concepts to the highest degree imparted by the left side of the brain.

After the fall of Rome, society and knowledge in Europe fell apart. The unity that society had was shattered. People sought the protection of powerful rulers over small areas who had armies and castles. The people worked like slaves on great manors. Life was this way until the cities began to grow and an entirely new middle business class emerged. At last, great metropolises like molds began to capture most of the developing countries’ populations, yet peoples Lives were still not whole. People were still enslaved … this time by their machines… fragmented into individual households, communicating by telephone and car with everything and everyone else… Living in an organism of glass, steel, and plaster….actually as parasites in an organism by, for, within mechanisms…human health no longer…foremost in importance….in twenty-four hour service to mechanical monsters….who began to rule…the earth.

Then came the Change…finally, society was united in primitive bands and higher communities. In the band the great ancient concerns of Love and Will were united. All humanity was now one family in the band’s embrace. These bands were not merely communes, wherein humans sought shelter from the machines…grew their own…in nakedness Lived with their own…Instead this was a new world…fueled only…by human creativity….

Osiris marveled how the intellectual world had become unified only recently….although such unification of disciplines had existed in the far past… In the ancient world, the universe of the intellect was whole. There was a Cosmos of the mind…which reflected, spoke to, described, and worked with the Cosmos without…. All phenomena in the universe were seen on a continuum… all Life, including man and woman, manifestations of the same basic substances, the same inert matter.

Then was that Cosmos shattered. During the Middle Ages, scientific disciplines, similar to humanity at that time, were fragmented into tiny, segregated fiefs, each ruled by suzerains whose distinction and Power was increasing, related not to the efficacy of their tools in the conduct of intellectual thought, but more and more related to the manners and felicities of the court, to superciliousness and provincialism themselves, which from the first were palpable enemies of the thought and creativity which scholarship was charge to protect and nurture.

The disciplines related to man and woman suffered most. First, the social sciences disappeared in the face of the tyranny and doctrine of the medieval Church. In fact, it had been only recently that the last of the medieval chains upon scholarship had been broken. When the social sciences finally appeared, they each had a methodology different from the other social sciences and completely different from the way scholarship and research were conducted by the biological and physical sciences. In the twentieth century, in spite of the proud technological achievements which supposedly earned for man the appellation of ‘modern,’ yet did the science of man and woman still languish in the misconceptions and constrictions of the past. Only recently were the pieces gathered and reunited upon the entirely new, mind boggling Truths of matter, of Life, discovered during the last half of the twentieth century pertaining to DNA and nuclear physics.

Now all was One. One science. One methodology. One science that includes everything. Similarly, consideration of art, theology, and even the natural sciences themselves, the five dimensions, relativity, all aspects of man and woman’s world had been enlightened and integrated by acceptance of the obvious… that man and woman are animals. Religion had gone from the unity in a shamanic past…to separate astounding, amazing differences under civilizations during antiquity… to unity in Europe under the medieval Church. The medieval Church was the One unifying Force that existed in Europe during the Middle Ages…as civilization was almost lost for a millennium… With the Renaissance, man and woman in the West were suddenly emPowered by their past… a past they had forgotten… So Powerful was this reaquaintance with classical times…its science, philosophy, scholarship… that in only two hundred years… there would be a Newton… and a scientific age. With the Enlightenment came questioning of the suzerainty of the Church and new denominations began to appear in Europe. The theology of the medieval Church possessed Truths… however, religion is like clothes and food that various countries may have, they possess good aspects but no one has enough Truth to be embraced by all as the way of doing things. Consequently, after the Change, each band was allowed to choose its own way to dress and eat and what religion it would follow.

Osiris smiled. Indeed was he fortunate to be endowed with such a legacy. What admiration he had for those whose ardent striving in the face of adversity and superstition had made this legacy possible. It was his job to add to this work, work in which he and Aurea had already been able to add much.

Yes, now mankind was moving from an intellectual phase…that now appeared to be more and more like a late Middle Ages…Now it was time for Cosmic work…it was time to build a more perfect world. There were only a few clouds in that blue sky that portended trouble. Man and woman still had work to do. Thirty percent of the population now was without work. Research was now being done at thousands of times the rate of the last century. More research meant more breakthroughs making Life easier, more and more aspects of their Lives were being automated, fewer and fewer people were needed to do non-cerebral work. More and more people who were unable to attend the Universities were left without work to do. There were more and more entertainment and games on Cerebrum to occupy their time. However, the future was a question mark. In twenty years, it was projected that sixty percent of the population would be unemployed. The ideas that Osiris had played with in a musical a few years before now were close to becoming a reality, a nightmare, severely testing the optimism that he had possessed before.

Osiris still had to believe that man and woman would continue. It was the Nature of man and woman to build tools and progress. To do otherwise was to be non-man, non-woman, was to be the end of a lineage, a species,…was to die. All of man and woman’s ingenuity would be called upon to endure in a world wherein less and less was required.

There might come a time for another Change to occur. What would it be? What would the next world look like? There was reason to hope… so many breakthroughs were being made. Too many breakthroughs were the problem…there were now fewer and fewer problems to be solved…yet perhaps breakthroughs would be made that would solve the problem of breakthroughs.

Wolfgang and his wife, Clarissa were in Love Song Band with their daughter Lucinda. For seven years, Osiris and Wolfgang had worked together in a world creative group communicating with experts from around the world by means of Cerebrum. This group had begun to develop new ways of providing drinking water from ocean water by direct manipulation of molecules by means of minute factories… tiny, almost invisible organisms and nano-mechanisms working on the atomic level…Food could be produced in the way that Life was first created…utilizing streams of hydrogen ions building sugars, with the application of energy…yielding immense oceans of edible substances efficiently and inexpensively…..

The world had been at peace for over a decade now. Creativity was now shared world-wide, one of Omicron’s musicals had traveled from creative center to creative center around the world. The human race was becoming one family, One organism working together for the royal jelly of Life… Joy and Happiness… which made Life worth while. The Meadowlarks had a new son, Matthias, now… who did not replace Anthony, but who was a special person in his own right. Rex Meadowlark was a leader in the nation now. Dorothea had composed music for many musicals. She was active in the band’s research. The work the band had done for the President had resulted in a seat on the President’s Cabinet for her…that was concerned with institutions… the examination, the improvement and eventually the replacement of these Cosmic tools of society. Dorothea also was on several committees in the world government. She had ideas about world societies. She was concerned that customs and traditions of some communities were being lost in the rush to live in developed areas of the world…which possessed more resources. She felt more effort should be made to bring some industrialization to older areas…mechanized Cities might be built there… to preserve some of the past even if this eventually cost more.

Beta Firestar had married a doctor, was now a nurse and they both worked in the Creative Center. They lived in one of service bands near the Center.

Osiris marveled at the path he himself had trod, from Will, Knowledge and Action up towards supreme Power, towards Eternally Active and Absolute Wisdom. He had not reached the end… by any means… just the last guide post. Just as he was helping Aura progress through the first steps of the Arcana…she was on step four now…so Omicron had started over…his a Force aimed straight up to the heavens…hers a more Circular movement bringing the Love and care of the community with her…Together the Forces of the theologies in their Lives inscribed a double helix of Will and Love…a vector of energy bolting towards the Light…yet bringing the Loving circle of family and community with it… which was an example for all….From now on they must grow and progress on their own…doubly entwined… without help of parents or ancients. Yet was not the entire band rising in a spiral together? Yes, of course…yet beyond that… also the Lives of the tribe, nation, country….even the world….were rocketing upwards…towards a new even more Cosmic world…. So it was that Osiris realized that one was no longer alone…all Lives in the species were exalted…together. In ancient times, religions were systems of thought that integrated other elements like the planets, numbers, the alphabet, astronomy, astrology and all the sciences Nowadays, much of that was seen as being arbitrary or just plain wrong.

The religions that Golden Sun Tribe possessed seemed to have great strengths which all people respected.

First, there was the theology of the Will which all males and females were inculcated in to some degree…spiraling upwards, upwards in an eternal progression … Osiris reviewed in his mind the steps he had taken, which supposedly had been integrated by the ancients into one Cosmic synthesis of upward progression:

1 2

The Will, equipped with a mind with which to acquire Knowledge and

3 discern what is right and wrong, and equipped with a body with which to Act

4

is able to have an impact upon the external world and Realize the intent of

the Will. In impacting the world, the Will must operate in accordance with

5 Universal Law, which is the product of occult Inspiration, and must choose

between doing good or evil. The passions of the body are so intense

compared to the intentions of the mind, that the choice between doing Good

6

or evil proves to be an Ordeal , which must be won if the Will is to be

7

Victorious. When the Will is victorious over the passions, is able to operate

8 9

in the world in an Equilibrium with Nature, and is guided by Prudence gained

from the wisdom of experience, it is able to dominate the fluctuations of

10 11

Fortune. Human Strength, first physical then moral, tempered by sacrifice,

12 13

by Catastrophe… is at last Transformed into a Cosmic strength. A Cosmic

14

Will gains the ability and the Initiative to act in a universe in which a

15

deterministic Fate prevails. The Will continually encounters reversals of

16 17

fortune and the Ruin of plans; however, an inner Light of Hope sustains the

Will in its progress if it remains master of the instincts and is wary of

18

Deceptive treachery of enemies. In time the Will progresses to a state of

19

Earthly Happiness. This happiness may end at any time, because of the Law

20 φ

of continual change and Renewal and the Law of Expiation which metes out

punishments for every error. At last, all human weakness is overcome and

21

the Crowned Magus acquires a Cosmic power over the external world which

is limited only by his intelligence and wisdom.

Then one is back at square one …and begins again…except at a higher and more difficult level.

Then there was the theology of Love…for the feminine side of tribal life.

Second, there was the theology of Love…The mystical heart of all the world’s religions..that is, the shamanic beginnings that reverberated throughout the world some 30,000 years ago asserted what scientists believe today…that the Cosmos is infused with consciousness… there are I‘s in every particle of matter..in every quantum of energy…Similarly, the beliefs of the shaman led to the profoundly feminine understanding of ‘panentheism’…that is, all the particles of the universe are infused with the substance of the Divine…that God both interpenetrates the universe and is greater than all that is…there is a piece of God, an I, in each of us… but also somehow the Cosmos is able to think and interact at various times…with our Lives…that is, women pray to a God…a piece of whom…is actually inside each woman’s mind.

The High Priestess…now speaks…

‘The nations now believe…that the feminine theology challenges women to reclaim one’s wild creativity. ..that ability to learn so much and formulate a whole world of ideas and tools that every child displays during the first three years of life…. With a bit of aging…one becomes cautious…it can be dangerous when one allows herself to become a conduit for primordial Cosmic energy…when one stops learning by rote and instead absorbs all, yet simultaneously builds her own world…the ability to create the new enters like Light and everything becomes illuminated….

‘There is a vital connection between creativity and mysticism. By mysticism the proud powerful priestess means to learn to engage the inherent powers of the I...when an atom is stripped of electrons…It is a point of creativity…it is a potent spark of Will…that can fabricate ideas….make tools…

these powers come directly from the Cosmos and are not part of the plant/animal instinctual package that most Life possesses…to engage with the creative impulse is to agree to take a voyage into the heart of the Mystery…to that point of Will embedded within the base of a brain…. In this way…creativity bypasses the discursive mind and delivers us to the Source of our Being. When we allow ourselves to be a conduit for creative energy, we experience direct apprehension of that energy. We become a channel for Grace…that is, women rise above the vagaries of plant/animal pettiness and self interest and become One with the pulses of the Cosmos with eternal perspective.

‘To make art is to make Love with the Sacred. It is a naked encounter, authentic and risky, vulnerable and erotically charged…art reflects the dance of energy within us…it is able to impart Truth instantly I to I...Like a tree in winter whose roots are doing important work deep inside the earth, the creative process needs fallow time. We have to incubate inspiration. We need empty spaces for musing and preparing. We need empty spaces for musing and preparing, experimenting and reflecting. The society of the twentieth century did not value its artists, partly because of the apparent lack of productivity that comes with the creative life. This societal emphasis on goods and services was an artifact of the male drive to erect and protect, to engineer and execute, to produce and control…

‘Art begins with receptivity…with direct communion with the pulses of energy in the universe. Every artist, in a way, is feminine, just as every artist is a mystic…and works continually with the I…. Making art can be a subversive act, an act of resistance against the deadening lure of consumption, an act of unbridled peacemaking disguised as a poem or a song or an abstract rendering of an aspen leaf swirling in a stream. True science and art can be next-door neighbors…as long as the search for Truth is unsullied by profit or self-serving attraction of favor from others…Science must and should be creative…and the creative process feels the same whether its Power is directed toward science or art…Art should possess ideas and science should be always seeking the new which is the child of creativity…The most intelligent people on earth…have their day jobs..yet somehow they can also be artists and musicians. Their finely tuned minds are always grappling with some creative conundrum, trying to find ways to translate the music they hear in the concert hall of their heads into some intelligible form that others can grasp and appreciate. An artist is an I on fire…inflamed by an unquenchable urge to create. Each of the creative arts is a different language with which to praise the Divine or communicate important truths to society… and all are interConnected.

‘If one spends a Life in reading…and thinking…one quickly sees the creativity is not really a matter of logic or the utility of ideas….One is drawn to Cosmic Beauty in a creative process that the Cosmos itself expresses itself…occupies itself…somewhere…somehow…every moment…It is as if one is participating in a sacred act…When an insight one has reaped from years of hard work comes…it is astonishing how this advancement in ideas flows from one’s heart with passion and literary power…one’s whole body becomes one with the delivery of what should be inert, objective findings…One receives joy from performing the highest of callings!’

The Cosmic priestess, Mirabaie Starr..recounts in her works…that her mother when moved by a coyote drinking from her garden fountain or jolted by news of a vast network of Mayan city-states discovered in Guatemala…her mother’s response was to compose poetry, short stories, lyrical essays…Yes, creativity begets more creativity…joy overflows…the creative Heart. Her parents belonged to the cult of Dostoevsky, who proclaimed that Beauty would save the world.

She says…’Forgiveness. The Act of Mercy. Sympathy for the stance in the world..of others…Constantly, saying to one’s self….I am not angry…I am not angry…for example…Saying to others…I’m sorry I interpreted your rejection as rejection, rather than as a cry for Love that it really was.

‘As for the twentieth century…I forgive you for putting profits ahead of people, technology ahead of clean air and water, head ahead of Heart.

‘Forgiving you was the best thing I ever did. Forgiving you set the bird of my heart winding through the universe. One must possess sympathy…one must extinguish anger..one must be filled with Mercy..before creativity is able to flow…’

Aurea knew that one must repeat over and over…all will be well and all will be well and every kind of thing will be well….the Nature of the Divine is Loving-kindness, and the Divine wants us to absorb this into every fiber of our Being. This is a phrase that females should repeat over and over…like Hail Marys with a rosary…just as males should repeat Emile Cou’s phrase… ‘Every day in every respect, I am getting better and better’…although this will help females too….it’s like you form tapes in your head that keep playing and playing if you refresh them by saying them every day.

What is sin…well, it is something that causes a negative impact upon society…it does not really affect the Cosmic world…although you may alienate people and not end up in the Light….and it does cause pain on earth.

In the end…the theology of Love is simply the following…

‘We honor the Hindu teaching of namaste...“The Light in me honors the Light in you.” Like Martin Buber…the I in me recognizes and honors the I in you. ..that is…the Thou…in you… The scientist in each of us has to accept the fact that there exists this reciprocity between I and I…we only have empirical proof of our own I. The priestess jumps immediately to belief in the I in another…as she recognizes immediately…in the person in front of her…the existence…the presence of… Love.

‘With the female Cosmic perspective…a deathbed feels like a birthbed…Like the universe is taking a big inhale, recalibrating, and exhaling a new reality…a new adventure…

As has been said…’With a Cosmic perspective…you can feel your grip loosening on your ambitions, orgasms are no longer the main goal of Lovemaking…or a major reason for Living…It is easier to sit beside a pond and do nothing but follow the trajectory of a dragonfly’s journey with your eyes.

As has been said…again and again…

` ‘There are women mystics from all branches of the I family…Hinduism, Buddhiism, Taoism, Judiasm, Christiianity, Islam, and in every indigenous way…the priestess is constantly contemplating union with the great I and a better Life for people. The great Heart and wisdom of the divine feminine is that…one’s Life is filled with poetry, prose, practices, prayer…Spiritual/ Inner-Being…you feel the beating wings of mercy and the flowering Heart of forgiveness…the Heart’s story of divine Love…You hear the cries of the world…feminine ferocity…Powerful and compassionate…fearless and commanding…you accept the decisive challenge of existence…you are in the lap of the Great Mother…you drink deeply from the well of wholeness and hope…the priestess gathers the flowers of various mystical traditions from all around the world into a bouquet of Beauty…of Connection with all aspects of ourselves, and of the interConnectedness of all beings.’

Steve and Osiris strode through the hills in the crisp spring morning. At the top of the rise, they found Constantine posed as a statue looking eastward out over the Bay, his long blazing hair blowing in the wind. The golden mountain began to emerge to the west through the gloom. Nature serenaded the land with its raucous symphony. The air was clear, as the sky was slowly transformed from deathly black, to Life-giving blue. Then did the three join arms in one strong, communal, joyful blood chain and gaze intently and confidently into the brilliant Light… of the rising sun.

Omicron Blue. Omicron Blue. Omicron Blue.

Omicron Blue. Omicron Blue. Omicron Blue.

A man of the future,

Rising high above the past.

With body and mind

His star is rising fast.

Omicron Blue. Omicron Blue. Omicron Blue.

Omicron Blue. Omicron Blue. Omicron Blue.

His body clean,

His mind is strong,

Ready to move and act.

He knows Right from wrong.

To Victory. Matter is below him.

The Victory. The heavens do bestow upon him.

Master of the Forces, the wisest you will find.

Ruler of Fortune. Strong of body and mind.

Omicron Blue. Omicron Blue. Omicron Blue.

Omicron Blue. Omicron Blue. Omicron Blue.

Turned to the Light,

Master of all Fate,

Filled with the Light

Beyond an earthly state.

To Victory. Matter is below him.

The Victory. The heavens do bestow on him.

Master of the Forces. The wisest you will find.

Ruler of Fortune. Strong of body and mind.

Omicron Blue. Omicron Blue. Omicron Blue.

Omicron Blue. Omicron Blue. Omicron Blue.

Exalted beyond all spheres.

Enemy can’t tear him down.

He lives in happiness and joy.

He wears the golden crown.

Omicron Blue.

Omicron.

O.

Ω

‘They were philosophers, gurus. They smoked their weed, settled back with drinks and talked of the world. There was a philosophy. There was a faith. Actually, the pot powwows were antecedents, of sorts… precursors of a world they hoped would exist some day. Woodstock was a national manifestation of this philosophy. There was hope for real Love between brother and sister. Affinal groups sprang forth. Children ran naked under the watch of their “uncles” and “aunts”. They talked their talk… sometimes with the help of great books,…usually not. Somehow there was the faith that if one talked enough, even babbled enough, wrote enough… Truth somehow would emerge. This was inherited from the Beats.

‘But it all dissipated in a cloud of smoke. Now in the 1990’s there are no hippies left…except for me. And I never felt a part of all that. Ironically I, the non-participant, absorbed everything and continued the work… developing 12-tone scale music, working on intellectual answers, real answers to the problems their dazed minds thought they were considering in depth. Like Annie Lennox, naked, in tears, crouched on a bare, hard-wood floor, singing a ‘Whiter Shade of Pale’… I look around and ask, “Where is everyone?’ Even the songs from that age: “He is my Brother,” Thunderclap Newman… are never played. I am alone, sad, yet hopeful. Somehow the past will spark and begin the conflagration promised by those times. There was no revolution… instead everyone put on a suit and tie. Then all that crumbled. Now everyone works at McDonalds. Yes, perhaps in a way evolution has replaced revolution…away from highly paid do-little jobs, everything is now falling from the top, downward…hopefully, by means of some miracle…somehow…falling from the city…towards a land…of….new Power…and Love.’

It was June, 2092. The young lad was now ten years old. Constantine’s father had worked very hard to inculcate the principles of the Theology of the Mind. He was straight and strong. He ran the hills in the morning and studied long and hard in his group of fellow I-types, in his collaboration with A-types, and in his independent creativity at night in Love Song Band. Upwards he grew, as it seemed his stature, crowned with his mother’s golden hair, was striving for the Light.

Omicron had written many musicals, three of which had been presented nationwide. He and Aura were finally collaborating on one now, which had taken several years as their research in the Science of Everything had had higher priority. She had developed an interest and ability in art and had presented several shows of paintings and sculpture at the Creative Center. She had also developed fashion designs that were utilized at the Center. However, the major change which had occurred was that both of them were now conducting research together. Aura had shifted her attention from insects to man and woman, for she had fully accepted the fact now that they are animals and every bit as worthy as insects of application of a new Scientific Method that they were developing…for the examination of humans in terms of their physical as well as their behavioral traits. Omicron had worked with her on many topics concerning the social activity of man and woman…and they had been nominated for a Nobel prize for a series of books they had written together. That work benefited from their collaboration as I-type and A-type, of course, but also from their special knowledge concerning the Will and Love of man and woman. Working together… they were able to address topics such as… the role that DNA has played in the emergence of human society… as well as the importance the I possesses in the Lives of human beings…which surprisingly parallels activities initiated by cognition within their cells.

In their work they had been able to apply their knowledge of the five dimensions of the universe to help develop dynamic determinantal equations for the actions of man like F = ma which had previously existed only in the physical sciences. They saw man and woman as an organism dispersed upon the earth like other animal Life, but whose minds had created a second supporting world of tools and machines which had finally been made complementary to them…no longer conflicting with their physiology as it had during the twentieth century…when humans were trapped in mold-like metropolitan areas…embedded in their tools… Omicron and Aura were now at the height of their intellectual creativity and in some aspects of their Lives they could move on to work on the Cosmic level. Climaxing this decade of productive work together, Omicron and Aura crowned their efforts by publishing the final edition of Man and the Cosmos, the Science of Everything. The first draft of this opus had been written by Omicron’s great great grandfather… it had provided the theoretical underpinnings for the Science of Everything. They started with their progenitor’s ideas, then collected all the ideas concerning the new science that had emerged since his time… and added ideas of their own. Earlier drafts of this work had been used extensively by workers in this field.

Man and the Cosmos. The book begins as a dualistic philosophy like Descartes developed… where a person looks out at the world around him or her…mind versus the external world…and tries to build tools for the phenomena he or she sees closest to him or her and work slowly outwards until one is able to build tools that will impact the entire Cosmos. Descartes believed that mind and matter were two different things… however, by the time Omicron and Aura worked to the outer reaches of the Cosmos, they had shown that everything is matter from the mind on out and that is why all the disciplines should have the same methodology… they are all part of the same all-embracing science. The kicker though…was that matter itself possesses consciousness…every atom seems to have an I... that is capable of ‘looking out’…If electrons are removed…then the I…is ‘revealed’…and is able to impact the world about it.

They started with the mind…and worked out step by step from it…The major breakthrough…if there be one…is the importance in the book…of man an woman’s tools…In the past, social scientists looked at different aspects of modern man and woman…kinship, linguistics, institutions…However, now in this book…the concept of ‘tool’ possessed a new meaning…After all..man and woman were now seen as an exotic sort of chimpanzee…and biologically they were now categorized…as a tool-creating ape…Thus tools were now their name…and tools were now their trade…Philosophy and psychology were now studies of how the human mind creates tools…first in importance of their work is how the brain creates ideas…..investigating the activities of the left and right hemispheres of human brain from the outside…and from the inside out! Thus the first discipline to be studied was philosophy, wherewith they were able to show that the ideas of the great philosophers were not actually contesting ideas in a battle of abstract ideas…from which only one bloodied victor could emerge…but instead these ideas can be placed in a sequence that can describe how intellectual thought…is indeed accomplished. Every philosophical stance makes sense in this sequence…wherein step by step ideas are formed on the basis of similarity and induction and then separation and analysis…Hence, readings in philosophy were no longer primarily just an entertaining pastime, they were now biology… Psychology is not just looking at rats in a maze and finding associations with how the brains of human beings work. It is accepting the fact that philosophy is actually describing the functioning of the human brain from the inside out…and thus becomes the right arm of psychological research as it can give hypotheses about brain functioning that psychologists can test and verify. In addition, psychiatrists now had laid aside the ideas that mental illness was primarily related to trauma people had experienced…when they were very young…There was some Truth to this…however, now mental illness was considered mainly a physiological, genetic disease…and exploration of and treatment of maladies of the brain were of the utmost priority now.

Anthropology was now the study of how humans are connected physically, biologically, genetically with all of Life…as the result of evolution. It is also the study of man and woman and their tools. It is tools that allow man and woman to leave the province of their minds and venture out and impact the world. The first tools were physical parts of the body with which they hit, killed, and shaped objects in the external world. However, soon they were picking up stones and tree limbs…and utilizing them to hit, kill, and shape things…But there were ideas before these…about how stones and tree limbs could be utilized to hit, kill or shape things …In this way it is to be understood that ideas are tools and exist in the mind and preexist any physical tools that are made by humans and utilized to impact the world about them. Among the tools created by man and woman…very important are institutions which are major tools of society… and they must be recreated regularly or progress in the rest of tool creation can become strangled and constrained. In this way…the study of institutions and human patterns of collaboration moved one on into the discipline of sociology, which in the previous century used to amount to esoteric discussions of kinship, friendship and urban behavior. Now sociology recognized that man and woman are animals, thus, the discipline now was conducted as investigations of the behavior of any other animals are conducted… except there was now great emphasis upon man and woman working with their social tools…and upon the fact that things like metropolitan areas and creative clusters of people…are actually biological entities….and are to be examined as any other animal collaborations and organizations are studied….

One of the greatest areas for examining the interaction of man, woman, and their tools is economics. Omicron and Aura show how economics started with barter, that is, only with goods. Then humans began to use media of exchange, that is, goods like gold or shells…When these goods are exchanged…they do not complete a transaction but facilitate the overall exchange of goods. This occurs because someone may want what you have, but does not have what you want. So an exchange is made and you take what he gives you and exchange it for what you want. The transaction involving three people or more is not over until all are satisfied. Eventually, media of exchange were replaced by coins and paper, that is, with money. That is, people no longer carried goods around that they did not want. They carried paper that promised delivery of goods that were needed. Therefore, money is not a good, it stands for goods; it actually is a cost free loan. One person in an exchange does not get what he wants, he will have to wait a period of time before he gets it… however, he does not charge interest for this delay in consumption, he is grateful for the convenience of completing half a transaction… he can find a person who has what he wants later. Eventually two worlds evolved… one of goods and one of money. That is, in almost every exchange money goes one way and a good or goods go the other way. One can measure either world to get an idea of the magnitude and composition of the economic activity that is taking place. In the twentieth century, economists looked at money flows, which they thought to give a more exact idea of what is happening. Now economists know that money analysis is inherently static…you have to stop the economy and count up and then compare monetary totals with other periods. Monetary is also partial…When money is exchanged for goods…transactions are not completed…Creation of goods flows from resources to manufacturing to wholesale to retail to the customer….this dynamic interchange of goods over a period ot time is lost in monetary analysis…Because of the static and partial nature of monetary analysis…dynamic interactions are lost…biological interdependence of human beings that can depicted spatially on maps…and seen in the lights of metropolses at night…all of that is lost…in columns of people-less and useless numbers….. Thus, one must take a biological approach when analyzing economic behavior…which is an ‘alien’ approach…that is, one takes the point of view as if a person has come from another planet and attempted to describe human economic interaction. As was said…it would be like a biologist describing a colony of termites, not merely compiling columns of numbers. It is realizing that humans during the twentieth century were distributed on only four percent of the total area of the United States… in metropolitan areas that spread and acted like molds… a configuration based on the efficiencies of the tools humans utilized… not on the psychological and emotional needs of the people caught up within it. It was realizing that money was on one side of the equation and goods and the movement of goods on the other. This is like E = mc^2. In all determinantal equations like this…like F = ma…the = sign is really a transformation sign…the left side is not a subset of the right side…Energy…is transformed… into goods and movement of goods….Money represents this energy…energy that has been expended creating goods….money is like energy credits…which are used to claim goods that have been earned…goods that energy expended by other people…has created….In this way…money really stands for the energy that is expended at every step that goods are produced or moved… from raw materials to the consumer…As was said…when one looks at the earth at night…from outer space…one sees Light expended by humans on earth…and these Lights display, in general, places where energy is expended daily in the creation and movement of goods.

Thus, all the social human sciences were now on a biological base…they were powerful disciplines now…looking at real people in the real world…not just addressing them with piles of words and numbers…each with a different, strange methodology. The social sciences now can talk to each other…all now possess one language… one methodology…And most powerful of all…the social sciences now can talk to and work with…the biological and physical sciences … For example…one can realize now…that physicists once had their own idea of what dimensions were…what Time and Space were. And that philosophy had already come to the correct conclusions regarding them…a long Time before that.

The opus was written over ten years and the two toiled ardently on it. At last it was published on Cerebrum and the response was immediate and world-wide. Steve was a commanding general now and was a leader of Jupiter Nation. Omicron had duties to perform in the conduct of tribal affairs. The year before, Steve had been honored during ceremonies celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the Struggle. Films were shown of the battles, and Steve, Omicron and the other heroes were feted at tribal dinners throughout the nation. To cap things off…Omicron and Aura traveled to Stockholm and were each presented the Nobel prize.

As Omicron and Aura stood before the array of prestigious honorees, Omicron saw a garland of golden roses which represented the supreme Cosmic step 21… the Reward… of the Theology of the Mind. This garland surrounded a ‘star and placed in a circle around which are set at equal distances the heads of a man, a bull, a lion, and an eagle. This was the sign with which the Magus decorates himself when he has reached the highest degree of initiation and has thus acquired a power limited only by his own intelligence and wisdom.’

A choir sang processional music written by Omicron for the occasion. This was followed immediately by his hymn of joy. His father’s voice sounded loudly in his mind…’Remember, son of Earth, that the empire of the World belongs to the empire of Light, which is the throne reserved by God for sanctified Will. Happiness for the Magus is the fruit of the knowledge of Good and evil, but God only allows it to be plucked by the man sufficiently master of himself to approach it without covetness.’

They were given the golden prizes. Omicron had now attained the highest level of the Theology of the Will. Before the ceremony, Steve had drawn him aside for a half hour of final admonition and instruction. In addition..there was a surprise…Omicron was told when he was very young that much would be expected of him. He had been given a letter of the Greek alphabet for a name. The meaning of this letter would be revealed to him only at a time when it was evident to Steve that he had progressed far along the Cosmic path… into the sanctified region of the Cosmic reward. Steve now told him that ‘Omicron,’ which was a Roman letter…had stood for the name of the Egyptian god, Osiris. The tribe would now confer this name upon him to be used daily. It was at once a crown and a challenge. It was the conferring upon him of the trappings of Cosmic greatness. However, it was also a stringent admonition that his every action would be expected to be worthy of him whose appellation he now held. He must ever continue to strive upwards towards the unattainable goal of the Light… until the day that his body was at last laid to rest.

Omicron and Aura looked into each other’s eyes as they stood before the other Nobel recipients. Aura had simultaneously attained a high level in accordance with the Theology of Love. She had broken her flesh in childbirth, brought sweat to her limbs in arduous service as a mother. She had sacrificed many of her most unshakeable chimpanzee convictions to come to an understanding of how her husband viewed man in the universe. She had worked hard to be a collaborator with him, although she still had large areas of creativity to herself. Omicron had learned from her the importance of compromise, constantly struggling to live in a Loving, growing relationship with another human being. He had learned to be the head of a family governed by Love. He had learned to risk losing progress in the Will when the Love of one or more of the Circle of people within his band was at stake. He had learned to be a leader in the communities at every level, in which one gives without expecting receipt in the service of his and her brothers and sisters.

Aura had done her work well. As a tribute to her immense progress in both the Theologies of Love and the Will, the tribe had transformed her name from Aura, which spoke to the beauty of her countenance… to Aurea…the golden one…a name which commemorated her radiant beauty…yet also the presence of a woman in tune with the all consuming, all powerful energies of the Cosmos…now looking forward to one day earning the stature of tribal High Priestess.

The audience hushed as one blood red lips… again commemorated a union destined for eternal progression and creation.

‘Oh that I were a soothsayer and able to envision the future. What phantoms, dreams, nightmares I might have of that far off tomorrow. How can this world, this troubled world, catapulting towards disaster, survive? I anticipate the worst, yet there is a small part within me that tells me: “Man has survived the past, man will continue into the future.” My curiosity cries out for one small glimpse of society as it will be a generation or two from now. I wonder if Einstein’s theory of relativity could actually propel me towards that which is to be. Supposedly if one moves fast enough, he can be projected into the future. By symmetry, one would expect that some sort of opposite motion might thrust him into the past. Theory says it is possible. Common sense pronounces such a concept to be a fraud.’

Sylvia smirked and pressed her lips together in bemused sympathy for a breath of dust, long gone from this sky blue planet. Einstein’s theory of relativity since that time had not been so much proven wrong as it was now more properly understood. It was not long ago that physicists believed that each object in the world external to the mind possesses its own coordinate system of time and space, which gives accurate information concerning the physical location and extension of the object. Therefore, when an object moved fast and its coordinate system appeared to shrink, then the object must have shrunk also. The reason a block appears to shrink as it approaches the speed of light is that light bouncing off the leading and lagging edges of the block take different times to reach the eye and the illusion is one of a shrinking block. If this is an illusionm then obviously adjustments must be made by the observer. However, physicists believed that a block and its coordinate system are one, such that a perception of distortion of the block actually means a real distortion of the block.

Philosophers, on the other hand, know that coordinate systems are not immutable relationships that exist in the external world…a separate field upon which the world of matter may be overlain. A coordinate system is a tool which the mind uses to understand and measure objects and movements among objects in the external world. Distortions of the coordinate systems in men’s minds are caused by the relative and inadequate Nature of man’s perception, and the false information given to the brain by Light reflecting off of objects moving at great speeds. Therefore, when a moving object appears to grow shorter as it moves quickly away from a person, it is the coordinate system utilized by a man or woman’s mind and not the moving object which is distorted, and the coordinate system, man or woman’s tool, must be adjusted in order that accurate measurements and understanding may be obtained.

Einstein’s equations can be used in this adjustment process and because of the usefulness of his equations, the importance of his work is not lost. However, the thought of a man moving so fast that he would reach another time zone or even become shorter or fatter not only defies common sense, but is also completely wrong.

For you see, thought Sylvia, there is only the present…the rest exists only in man and woman’s brains… or in any speck of dust…that might have a memory. If there were no extension of matter…there would be no Space…not in the sense of Space…as a dimension…If nothing changed…that is, if nothing moved… there would be no Time. Without a past captured by memory…with trends that can be extrapolated by a brain,…there is no future. We would have to be content in our present state as most animals are…and as particles are…if they are not ‘revealed’…or not supplemented with instinct or some other mechanism guiding future actions… which might not be a bad thing…Instinct replaces memory…with artifact… That is, consciousness takes a Truth learned from experience…and embeds it into our DNA…Without memory… or its artifact., that is, instinct…there is no past…thus there can be…no expression…of Will…The primary expression of Life…is Will…the ability to impact the world…around it…always within the context of community…from the context of that first pulsating flow…of ions…. Thus, memory must be at hand…for consciousness to utilize…no matter how tiny…it might be.

Then again, man and woman are always improving…More generally, together, they are always creating… and this is a rich source of joy and happiness. So even though we cannot move to a past or future Time, we can move towards happiness… and this is the ultimate destination we all seek… for ourselves, our families, our communities and our world.

Sylvia thrust her hands into the pockets of her tunic and walked towards the blinding Light of a rising sun. The writer whose work was spread upon her work table… could have traveled forward in Time… if he had employed the appropriate technique. He should have employed the method of neither the physicist nor the philosopher. He should have instead… employed the method… of the historian. An historian examines an age, notices trends and developments and records how such unfolding of events is issued forth unto a succeeding period. For history…is society’s collective memory….And as one reads more and more of the past, one first inductively chains together cause an effect..then searches backwards for first causes… In this way, an historian is more than a collector of facts…more than a chronicler of events…His or her main job…is to establish theses…as to why, how certain events happened… With this power…with these insights…it eventually becomes possible for the historian… to predict what could happen in the future. In the modern age, historians are now used in the endeavor of predicting and projecting the future. The inscriber of the precious lines… which Sylvia poured over again and again before her… could have used the historian’s technique and perhaps envisioned this new wonderful way of Life… He could have been the shamanic foreseer…who might have called forth a vision….of a people of a possible future…that is, of her people, of her band…which might have provided amusing fiction…More importantly…it might have goaded a past generation…to take those steps…that could have made the emergence of the future occur in a manner more expeditiously… with much less pain and crying forth….might have helped propel this blue swirling glob of once molten dust…into this present heaven….might have helped midwife the birth of this era of humanity more easily….this era of relative global Peace…and golden joy and happiness….

Sylvia walked with not a little pride in reflection upon her profession. She relished the fact that it was history, not physics, which had so far promised to be the most important vehicle for conveyance… from one time-space-energy continuum to another…not employing speeds close to that of Light…but utilizing solely the inherent Power… of an exotic, peregrinating chimpanzee…possessing an astonishing, magnificent mind…which possessed the capability singlehandedly…of Powering man and woman…to the future….

It was now the next summer. Omicron and Aura had completed one year at the University. In the last months of the school year, Aura had done more and more of her work in the vicinity of their cluster… as she grew larger. On the level of the nation…there now was unfinished business to be dispensed with. Scar Liege was led forward on the screen. He was naked before the world. A narrator read the full list of crimes and misdemeanors. Then, the President took a laser gun and blasted him away. The rest of the culprits were disposed with in the same way. The hunks of meat and ashes which remained were dumped into a vat of acid. The nation had taken its revenge.

After the Victory, nagging in Omicron’s mind was that Dizzy Desmense, the other leaders of CASTLE and leaders more powerful than they… the billionaries who instigated everything that this splotch of evil had done… they were still at large. Surely they could not do much by themselves. Nevertheless, they were still aLive, somewhere. An ever-present reminder that evil is always present, Omicron was thinking… no matter how determined one is to exterminate it. In the end, no person is inherently Good or evil. Only actions are Good or evil. Good actions are consistent with universal Law and contribute to the exaltation of mind and man. Bad actions are destructive to self, to society, and to progress. ..Bad actions can cause society to lose ground…send all accomplishment…back to zero.

During the summer there were new challenges for Steve. Omicron’s surmises were correct. Some of the billionaires, Dizzy Demense and the mob continued to exist. Many of these now had decided to take bold action now that conditions in the United States were becoming intolerable for them. Some of these people now moved out of the U.S. and became associated with international groups of gangsters and terrorists. Most countries now were highly developed. Little hope for full-scale development existed in the remaining countries…which possessed few resources… so people moved from undeveloped to developed, leaving large stretches of wasteland…deserts and jungle… for undesirables to use. These undesirables began to form armies to attack the mechanized cities in the developed countries. Steve was called to participate as an American general with the World army, now comprised of millions of soldiers, which manned and womanned the borders around the developed countries. These borders kept undesirables out. All missiles in the world were now maintained and could be utilized only by the world government. These missiles were non-nuclear now and could decimate large armies with no effects beyond their targets. They could not be used in developed areas… however, they could be used in undeveloped areas if they were used carefully, with the aid of drones for surveillance…for some peaceful people still Lived there.

In general, people had moved from deserts, jungles, and other areas with few resources. War in the Middle East and other areas of the world had been eliminated, and people with conflicting ancestry or religions were cordoned off into separate countries within developed areas and allowed to Live at high levels of income as long as peace existed. Terrorists once had a moral point of view that had to be respected even it their tactics were not tolerated. Before, during the twentieth century….one third of humanity was highly developed, two thirds was not. Terrorists said that they had legitimacy…They stood for the two-thirds of the world that lived in nomadic, stone-age organizations such as villages and tribes that were impoverished while the rest of the world feasted. These differences no longer remained. Developed areas had now de-evolved into primitive organizations extrapolated out unto band, tribe, nation , and country… In addition, all people who were willing…had moved to areas where Cities existed …so now all people were well off. The terrorists and other undesirables now seemed to be in their last days and desperate measures were required for them to have an impact… At this particular moment…armies of undesirables were being marshaled for an attack on the border of some god-forsaken place… with the objective of dashing into the developed world and demolishing or capturing as many Cities as possible. Surveillance satellites and drones had identified areas where armies were gathering and where leaders of the armies were probably hidden, which would be used to direct the counter-assaults.

Steve with generals from all over the world worked with the World army to prepare missiles for launching and to help direct world troops if they would be required. During a twenty-four hour period, one thousand missiles had been launched. Enemy armies were annihilated. Suspected leader hide-outs were demolished. Then weeks of surveillance by satellites established that the undesirables were either back in hiding or were at the borders turning themselves in. The world government had to be ever vigilant as an attack such as this could happen at any time….and much of the progress of man- and womankind…could be lost.

Steve came back decorated with even more medals. He was asked again…if he would be a leader at the world level, but he declined again…stating that he preferred to work at the nation level where he would soon be a leader. Such it was that reversals when they did happen seldom amounted to much at all in this new world. It was becoming easier and easier to deal with undesirables as they moved further and further from developed areas. It was easier to Live happier Lives in general with the new Science of Everything,.,new medicines and new institutions.

Constantine Blue was born in June. Aura had done exercises to prepare her body for the delivery and to keep the baby out of her pelvis during pregnancy…counteracting the impact of gravity upon the baby within the erect stance of Homo sapiens. Omicron had helped with every step of the birth. A paramedical aide was present who was in charge…in case of emergency with a ‘hot line’ to the ten tribal doctors. These doctors were generalists. Specialists lived in service bands located near the Creative Center where they worked in hospitals or saw patients in their offices. Mags were so fast now that patients could be moved to centralized hospitals quickly or specialists could be conveyed to the bands in the event of emergencies.

Anesthesia was not used and Aura had handled the pain easily, she was up and about after the required one hour observation period after the birth. As the infant grew and began to experience the world, Omicron thought how such learning followed man and woman the rest of their Lives. The infant learns from his errors, and thus reversals are expected. However, there are two types of errors… those which come from encountering a phenomenon for the first time and those which come from forgetting basic Laws and principles which have already been learned either by rote or from past mistakes. The first type are required for the accumulation of experience. The second type of mistake is to be avoided for they are very costly in terms of wasted energy and time. In a world where Life is short and the environment hostile, such mistakes are deadly in the course of a Lifetime. For modern man and woman, such mistakes were not as important, unless they involved the Cosmic principles of the Theology of the Mind. In the Theology of the Mind a mistake at the wrong time and place might do more than cause a person to slip back momentarily. If one fails for one reason or the other to keep his eye on the True and Just, habits can be formed… to ways of Life that can be bad and that will eventually lead to great waste and decreased creative output, and decreased joy and happiness. Sometimes, when the way is lost, it can never be found again or can be regained only after years of exertion and suffering…Progress will be lost…All may fall back…too nothing.

For Good and bad are not abstract entities totally unrelated to the world, the product of angels above or tradition below. Good and bad are part of a morality based on empirical realities. In most things, Good and bad are related to accepted ways of doing things based on millennia of experimentation and development which has led to optimum patterns of performing certain acts. For a few things, a deeper understanding of the workings of humans as an animal is necessary for the empirical basis of the Laws to become apparent. For example, the concepts of Liberty, Equality, and Justice are related to the physiology of man and woman. The desire for such ideals is embedded deeply in the primal brain. The I-particle in each human’s brain carries Truth from the Cosmic sphere from which it has come. This Truth supplements the Truth derived from instinct and ideas, that is tools, that have been developed by the human brain as a result of experience in the plant/animal world. For example…in the Cosmos…all particles are Equal. Within the band, all members were equal in some respects. Food was shared. Each member had a responsibility to care for the others. In the struggle for survival, no one member was more important than the other within the embrace of the band. Within the band, Love and Connection were Cosmic Truths…which became nurturing and care…in the plant/animal sphere..where women were primarily responsible. Justice is a Cosmic concept that was implemented in the primal band. That is…in the Cosmos…all particles are subject to the same Laws. In the primitive band…members were Equal, thus, they had to be protected from wrong doing by others in the band. Leaders that emerged to help the band protect itself from threats without or obtain food also were looked to provide Justice, establish wrong doing among band members and hand out punishments. Justice was also implemented at the higher levels between bands, tribes and nations. Thus, Love, Justice and Equality were Cosmic concepts which were important for survival in the plant/animal sphere, which were embedded in the primal part of the brain at birth.

Will is a Cosmic force. In the plant/animal sphere, the primal band was a human organization which stood alone against a hostile world. Members of the band had to venture out into this environment to obtain food and fight off enemies. In the process of this assault on the environment outside of the band in which men primarily participated, individual and societal Will had to emerge. In the Cosmos…Will was hidden most of the time along with Love and Connection…until they were ‘revealed’ by the release of electrons from an atom…In the plant/animal world, the emotions of hate and fear had to be developed for survival. Implements of war, that is… tools… had to be fashioned for the assault of man and woman upon an external environment that was either hostile or indifferent to them. In this Struggle some were found to be more able than others, so for the purpose of survival, hierarchies of leadership were formed and inequalities in status appeared. Identified initially with the development of the Will and tools was the principle of Liberty, that is, the privilege of controlling one’s own body and community and destiny with little interference from hunger or enemies. Thus, principles which seem to be abstract and contradictory can now be seen to be actually a part of man and woman’s Cosmic physiology and the I…or a part of the heritage of the plant/animal world in which they Live, thus are part of the evolution of the primal band. The two spheres…the plant/animal and the Cosmic…were different because the latter was eternal…and the former was not…thus the former had by necessity be most concerned with replication and thus, survival on earth…the latter just had to be…be Good….to remain …in the Light…Humans thus had to keep their eye on both spheres at once…thus the theologies they possessed had to be Powerful….yet all inclusive…Golden Sun Tribe seemed to have the best of the best…when it came to Cosmic theologies…

However, in the end…it all comes back to particles…the most important ideas of Truth, Beauty, Equality, Justice, Goodness, Will, Love…These are the ‘ideals’…of the ‘idealist’ philsosopher…they are the ‘forms’ that Plato talked about…They were the salient characteristics of the I...carried to earth…from the Cosmos…So ,.yes… they are in the primal brain…and they are important tools always at hand somehow for all Life to bathe in and survive with… These eternal verities might be overpowered by immediate exigencies that must be overcome for survival in the plant/animal sphere…However, the fact is…these verities are always at hand and have always been at hand…From the first emergence of Life…these verities have been transmitted to all that evolution might have created…by the I particles that initiated the first pulses of that Life…These verities saturate the Cosmos…and are made manifest in Life…by the fact…that a piece of the Cosmos…is always…in control… in every…Living thing…..

Thus, when man and woman violate basic principles such as these, they fight against the basic Nature which is theirs. No…it is worse than this…the reality is…they are also in danger of…violating Cosmic Laws… they must avoid fighting against the forces of the universe,…a fight in which they are doomed to failure…Mistakes in this sphere…mean that all effort is doomed…to fall…to nothing…..

Omicron watched his son wiggling on the floor of the warm living area. Aura and he shared this moment, filled with joy and happiness.

Omicron saw before him “a blind man carrying a full beggar’s wallet about to collide with a broken obelisk, on which a crocodile is waiting with open jaws.’ This image signified Cosmic step φ… or zero… Expiation… to which one can quickly fall…perhaps from a great height… if he or she is not vigilant in his or her pursuit of the True and Just. ‘This blind man is the symbol of he who makes himself the slave of material things. His wallet is packed with his errors and his faults. The broken obelisk represents the ruin of his works; the crocodile is the emblem of fate and the inevitable Expiation.’

There were fewer and fewer things that could go wrong in this new wonderful age. However, one must always be vigilant…For example, Steve had to leave suddenly to fight evil on a new front …new challenges could arise at any moment. Omicron knew that he would fight with every fiber in his body to resist violating Cosmic Laws. For such violation could still present one with danger… the danger…of falling back..falling back….to nothing…losing all Power and ability…thus jeopardizing the supreme happiness which was his this day.

‘Once a year, we head for the land. We drive for weeks til the last traces of smoke and noise are far behind. We leave the car in the dust, then walk for days through brush, trees, and meadow. There we live on the land for many days, lost in lush grass under blue sky. My love and I stand naked beneath the blazing sun, whose warmth is absorbed within and all dampness and chill of metallic cages forced out. Then we plunge into sparkling crystal pool, and float serenely by reeds and grasses drenched in light until the hills hide the light and we enfold ourselves in the embrace of night, with the pulse of nature all about us.

‘We are home, yet we are not. The umbilical cord to the metallic womb is still in place. It is not yet time. But how shall a new day be obtained? Come the dawn, I stand on jutting rock overlooking green fields flooded with light, white ships floating supremely on high across the blue, and vow… I,…we,…shall return…for good!’

It was autumn…The fields were full of the fruits… the product of months of intensive care. Nowadays agriculture was highly automated. Plants were seeded and nurtured in environments almost solely of water. Then they are harvested.

The Great Valley was once one of the major agricultural producers in the world. Now with food being able to be produced in all parts of the world… in water environments… there was plenty for all… any time, anywhere.

In addition, a new sort of agriculture had been brewed….although it was still in its infant stages….It had always been known that the easiest way to grow food would be in a molecular manner…to harvest the diatoms and algaes of the sea… yet piling these invisible bits together formed masses of food that were less than delectable…However, there is now a science…which allows man and woman to form Life from scratch…so of course common sense now would ask…Why not just use the same steps to form food easily and twist it into configurations that are more tasty…Just take streams of hydrogen ions plus carbon dioxide plus water…plus infrared energy …plus some skill learned from manipulating processes…and pow!….sugars…and perhaps ultimately even proteins …that can be coaxed from broad expanses of captured sea water….harvested by fine meshed nets, released into mountains of final product which then can be used by genius culinary chefs to integrate into sumptuous meals….In this way, we can produce herds of organic molecules which are fat free, delicious, and cheaply rendered….Well, the magic… is just beginning!…

It was now the second week in September. Omicron and Aura moved to a student cluster in the University tribe. The blushing face of the happy bride was now flushed in the first days of pregnancy, although only her relatives and closest friends would know until the spring. Steve and Sylvia assisted in every way, but only when asked. The parents were filled with the sweetness of Life as the cycle of birth, Life, and earth tumbled head over heels… on and on… and another phase of physical creativity was completed. Physical creation was its second decade of change. Couples were limited to one child. Many had to forgo having children completely as was determined by the tribes in order to achieve zero population growth. And now due to genetic engineering… it was not unusual for individuals to Live as long as one hundred and fifty years. Because couples now were Living longer and having one child soon after marriage… the physical, creation stage occupied a smaller and smaller part of the total Life cycle. A person could be a grandparent, great grandparent, great great grandparent. People’s Lives, more and more, were now being devoted to intellectual creativity and to the social creativity and Cosmic communion of the primal band. One’s child would always be dear and so too, the grandchildren,… less so the great grandchildren, until one’s lineage, as far as one’s feelings were concerned, were related almost in name only as the children of children of children melted in one’s mind into the joyful, Cosmic Heartbeat of the band, tribe, and nation… until in old age people were surrounded by the children… all their children… That is…all of the children in the band…became theirs….From the first attempts at constructing artificial communities…leaders were desperately searching for ways that people who were strangers… could actually bond together and become One…usually with less than glowing results. Of course in the evolution of human beings….bands were mostly of one blood…that is, pools of genes were among those of blood relationships…and these pools competed with the other for success in a certain environment….so as bands in the new epoch became more and more genetically related there was asserted effort to make certain that communities would not become too inbred which could lead to fetal deformities …occasionally females were induced to leave their blood band for another…which helped diversity…Yet as they became more and more of one blood…the clusters of humanity became more like their paleontological past….pools of related genes…and bonding came more and more naturally and securely.

Omicron and Aura were very happy. However, they were alert to all which could threaten that happiness. They were going to the University and Living and working in a student cluster. Their schedule was basically the same as it had been in the bands….as the course and group creative work at the University was conducted during the day consistent with the biorhythms of the “larks” and “owls”… and individual learning and creative work was undertaken at night. Each worked at his or her highest level of activity. They were doing research on their own, viewing lectures and procedures on Cerebrum, outputting conclusions and concepts into computer memory, which served as input for the next group. Cerebrum was able to do rudimentary A-type and I-type thinking, combining ideas in accordance with obvious associations to form concepts on the basis of similarity and then utilizing the logic of mathematics to sort out, separate, differentiate and delineate implications inherent in the concepts. Cerebrum, as well as all cybernetic devices, now sported consciousness to various degrees…hydrogen ions had now been integrated onto chips which increased Power and capability magnitudes of times….these ions could perceive, think, and act on their own…eliminating the need for expanses of circuitry…

As has been said, the couple received salaries from these activities, in addition from the fact that they were married, and later they would receive additional energy credits for the music Omicron wrote for the Academy. There would be more salary when they had a child. All of this income would more than meet their needs. All people in the nations had as much as they desired. Empirical research had conclusively proven that pleasure and the absence of pain did not produce joy and happiness. Hard work, devoted to physical, intellectual, and Cosmic creativity, were necessary to obtain that end. However, progression of the Will along a creative path means nothing without the Connection, the Love of community. Both together yield the greatest in joy and happiness…for an individual…for a group of people…striving to survive in the plant/animal sphere. There was no way out of it….man and woman’s lot in Life was hard even if they continually took the ‘easy’ way and diverged from the Cosmic path. Only the fruits of creativity produced by communal hard work made Life worth while. As a consequence, people accepted their lot in Life as other animals do, working to survive in the world, and benefited greatly because of it.

Omicron and Aura were busily fixing up their cluster. There was a myriad of furnishings, biologically generated, that was available. The design of the cluster had been created by the couple. It had been ordered and created for them weeks before. The cluster was globular with a large Circular Living and lounge area, with smaller Circular ‘globs’ attached for a kitchen-dining area combination, two bedrooms, two research rooms, an art room, where Aura could design clothing…and a music room. There was a large bathroom area, which opened out to a pool ….around which several other clusters were arranged in a Circle.

Individuals went to college as long as they desired. There were no grades, but they received a salary for the research they did. The important thing was to be accepted by a learning and research group and to demonstrate one’s usefulness to them. These groups were like the research bands they would work in afterwards. Thus, college students were in the first of three stages… instruction, work, and golden years,…similar to the stages all the people in the country went through. In the work stage in the research groups, one participated and progressed according to his or her abilities. All persons from the lowest para-researchers to the highest Cosmic theorists took part in the creative process and were given credit for their efforts physically, that is, with energy credits; intellectually, by copyright and citation; and Cosmically, by the patent of products and the bestowal of economic and political leadership, at the community level, for the nation, and world-wide. As individuals grew older, they could drop to lower levels of ‘golden’ intensity in their creativity, concentrate upon philosophical matters, and visit for extended periods the seashore bands and resorts on mountain peaks. They could relay their conclusions and thought into group creativity from these remote places by means of Cerebrum. Their declining years were the golden climax of the Cosmic period and for Life in general. This was the period when one’s works bore fruit. During this final period, they could devote more and more time to community service, working with children, caring for the community grounds an facilities, singing in the choirs, sitting in the tribal councils of sages. In every stage of Life, the product of their work and efforts was absorbed by community, country, and world and would remain a Force throughout succeeding generations… an influence never ceasing.

Most people now were in research bands or in bands helping research bands. However, as has been said…other people were in construction, or in the service bands in the Creative Center, comprised of doctors, lawyers, chefs, and fashion models and many other profession bands. All went through the basic three periods of work Life.

Aura looked around their new residence.

‘Our place is almost ready for us…for all of us. Everything is so nice and spacious,’ she said.

‘Well, I was thinking of bringing a chorus in to practice my new musical every night. I think we could set up here in the Livingroom, I’ll direct from the kitchen. An artist must have complete control over his medium, you know,’ he bantered.

‘Why don’t we just grow our baby in a bottle and save a lot of trouble?’ said Omicron. ‘Technologically we could do it, you know.’

‘Because there is a time and place when man, or woman, and machine must part ways,’ Aura replied, with a pervasive seriousness that pregnant women often display.

“Creating babies is the work of our bodies. Physical creativity gives men and women joy and happiness.

‘To have a child. An animal bearing its young. A romantic notion. No, it’s a primal notion, which is related to structures deep within our brains. And it is related to feelings and passions which cannot be denied, no matter how great your darn machines are getting.’

‘Now, now, there is no need to get upset, you know,’ Omicron teased. ‘It’s probably because you are pregnant.’

‘Now it’s because I’m pregnant. Before it was because it was that time of the month again. These spells of fury are related to processes and wondrous happenings which are some of the most important occurrences in our Lives. When I’m nice, when I’m bitchy, when I am sassy, or in a fury, I am a queen. I am a part of Life, full of the matter, full of the energy of the universe.’

Omicron took her into his arms and kissed her.

‘You are my queen, and we are going forth in full fury through this pregnancy… propelled constantly at full blast…right on through every stage of our Lives.’

Omicron was writing a musical about the future. For he felt the greatest challenge to man and woman lay ahead. It seemed as if they had reached a state of Heaven. Man and woman’s tools seemed to do all that they could wish for.

But what would happen if human creativity were no longer required in a world full of machines that could produce everything? How could there be joy and happiness, if creativity were no longer required? Omicron did take into account catastrophes of all types which could happen at any time. On the other hand, the world of humanity had solved so many problems routinely since the turn of the century. Could man and woman become too successful, and thereby become extinct? Must man and woman continue to strive… and struggle for survival …to Live… to feel the need to Live? What was there for him and her when he and she reached the top? Might humans jump to their deaths, rather than suffer the torture of success, of tedium and boredom?

The rewards of Life were tied to creativity and community. However, community creativity was tied to striving, to innovation, to progress. What happens when humans reach the Light? Omicron had begun the musical as a philosophical diversion, a question to be pondered, and perhaps to be partly answered in the process of attempting to visualize the future in the five dimensions of the stage. What would happen to these people now reconfigured into primal clusters, such as existed back at the dawning of mankind…but a primal people, who now were not harassed by wind, cold, or predators… Yes, they would still be gathered together, bathed in the Light of Heaven, singing together and dancing with the full motion and sweat of their bodies. Yet…..

Would this be enough? Could the Love of the band be enough to perpetuate joy and happiness when all else was given to them, when the need for creativity of any type and for the Will was gone…when they would become irrelevant to the survival of human Life? The flash of teeth. The clap of hands. The swirl of the skirt. The muscle on the drum… as his great great grandfather had written….Would these be enough?

The survival of human Life…that was the rub. In the past creativity could always be utilized for diversion… raising children and then grandchildren…that is, physical creativity could fill a Life…then intellectual and Cosmic creativity took over…but if all three are no longer needed or in the case of children…not even allowed…what will people do?…Just fifty years before, people had consumed vast parts of their Lives playing video games… watching news that was more fun…than important. Perhaps war was devised to present challenges… challenges for creative minds to solve. Throughout history there was a positive relationship in some cases between war and economic development. Of course, too much war and no progress is possible. And of course…war is just plain bad.

So could man and woman survive success? The ultimate answer was a surprising, ‘Yes!’ For no matter how he conceived the future, Omicron could not deny the fact that man and woman were the most adaptable of animals. That if they needed to create diversions to entertain themselves, they would do so. If they needed meaningful things to create, they would create challenges …filled with meaning!

In the end, though… the Laws of evolution would hold. First, the process of evolution for humans will be drawn out if there is little reproduction and everyone lives to be 300 years of age. Second, what evolution there is… will probably emphasize women. The world may not need men. Reproductive inventions might be created that could leave men out altogether. If Will and creativity are not needed for survival, Love, the Cosmic priestess… the wild mercy of women will have to show the way!…perhaps become the future by itself!…leaving a world consumed by Love…an all female planet. Maybe we’ll become like bees or ants and become mostly female with a few lucky males copulating themselves to death.

For purposes of a musical, we mustn’t go that far, Omicron thought, or the reason for Love songs will cease to exist. And as far as scientists now could discern… the reason I’s are willing to come to earth and endure years of oxidation, that is, ‘burning up’ …and difficulties… is that Connections with other I’s can be made… that will insure that they will be in the Light… forever… and not consigned to darkness… As was said…male-female coupling is one of the surest methods for eternal connection… that exists. One does suppose, however… that a world of female-female coupling…is possible.

Whatever the answers are, Omicron thought… his bet was on the human species to endure or evolve into a higher species where a Loving world is possible. Humans would change. Humans will go through the final transformation beyond the physical, intellectual and the Cosmic, on to a world of laughter and Light… which will last until the sun is extinguished, perhaps beyond.

For man and woman have seen no equal. With their tools, they have climbed higher than all else. And all matter and Life is pleased thereby. For Homo is matter and their success is also that of matter. And that of the Cosmos. Man and woman… the Crown of the universe.

One final thought went through Omicron’s mind… all of this is hubris unless one considers that something cannot come from nothing. I’s have always existed… In the beginning…there was a sea of energy…all one gigantic I...Within milliseconds after the Big Bang..vortexes arose in the primordial energy…particles were formed…individual countless I’s emerged….each with a different personality…strewn across all space and time….Conscious thought of the caliber that man and woman possess…may have existed before Life on earth…or right now…somewhere else. Great suns may be composed of countless I’s that can perceive and act…perhaps think. When so many I’s are aggregated, the swirling molten plasma of ions may actually be able to think like a God. If this is True, then only man and woman, that we know of, has approached the intelligence of a God. A pale reflection probably, it is True. And embarrassing for us…the less thinking species on earth are often the most successful ones.

Still human beings are something special. The sun may rain its Light down upon us,…the reality is…there is Light in each speck of Life… shining right back.

Oh, all is well… thought Omicron, as he turned from his piano to watch the setting sun. Then he saw a picture of ‘a Spirit blowing a trumpet over a half-open tomb.’ This was symbolic of Cosmic step twenty… Renewal… and represented ‘the passage from Life on earth to the Life of the future. A man, a woman, and a child, a collective symbol of the human trinity,of physical, intellectual, and Cosmic man, are shown rising from this tomb. It is a sign of the change which is the end of all things, of Good as well as of evil.

‘Remember, son of Earth, that fortune is variable, even when it appears most unshakable. The ascent of the soul is the fruit of its successive ordeals. Have hope in times of suffering, but beware of prosperity. Do not fall asleep in laziness or forgetfulness. At a moment unknown to you the wheel of fortune will turn; you will be raised or cast down by the Sphinx.’

Man and woman will probably reach for the sky and fall back on their behinds, Omicron thought. So much for grand dreams. The odds are…that the world will change and humans will have to adapt or die. Business as usual…. But man and woman won’t die. The gods are with them… at least dei ex machina…. at least their powerful tools are always with them.

Aura opened the membrane door and tiptoed up to him.

‘That certainly is pretty music you are playing.’

‘Look up at that mountain and tell me what you see. Do you see three puffs of spirit ascending upwards to the heavens?’

‘My man is handsome,’ quipped Aura. ‘But he often mutters on, incoherently.

‘I see three small clouds floating above our mountain. Now what is this about puffs of spirit?’

‘Well, now that we are married and settled,…I have a few thousand things to tell you.’

And Aura sat on the floor at his knee and he stroked the flowing, glowing river as he said…

‘Cosmic step one is represented by the Magus, the type of the perfect man, in full possession of his physical and moral faculties. He is represented

…’

‘Once a year, we head for the land. We drive for weeks til the last traces of smoke and noise are far behind. We leave the car in the dust, then walk for days through brush, trees, and meadow. There we live on the land for many days, lost in lush grass under blue sky. My love and I stand naked beneath the blazing sun, whose warmth is absorbed within and all dampness and chill of metallic cages forced out. Then we plunge into sparkling crystal pool, and float serenely by reeds and grasses drenched in light until the hills hide the light and we enfold ourselves in the embrace of night, with the pulse of nature all about us.

‘We are home, yet we are not. The umbilical cord to the metallic womb is still in place. It is not yet time. But how shall a new day be obtained? Come the dawn, I stand on jutting rock overlooking green fields flooded with light, white ships floating supremely on high across the blue, and vow… I,…we,…shall return…for good!’

It was autumn…The fields were full of the fruits… the product of months of intensive care. Nowadays agriculture was highly automated. Plants were seeded and nurtured in environments almost solely of water. Then they are harvested.

The Great Valley was once one of the major agricultural producers in the world. Now with food being able to be produced in all parts of the world… in water environments… there was plenty for all… any time, anywhere.

In addition, a new sort of agriculture had been brewed….although it was still in its infant stages….It had always been known that the easiest way to grow food would be in a molecular manner…to harvest the diatoms and algaes of the sea… yet piling these invisible bits together formed masses of food that were less than delectable…However, there is now a science…which allows man and woman to form Life from scratch…so of course common sense now would ask…Why not just use the same steps to form food easily and twist it into configurations that are more tasty…Just take streams of hydrogen ions plus carbon dioxide plus water…plus infrared energy …plus some skill learned from manipulating processes…and pow!….sugars…and perhaps ultimately even proteins …that can be coaxed from broad expanses of captured sea water….harvested by fine meshed nets, released into mountains of final product which then can be used by genius culinary chefs to integrate into sumptuous meals….In this way, we can produce herds of organic molecules which are fat free, delicious, and cheaply rendered….Well, the magic… is just beginning!…

It was now the second week in September. Omicron and Aura moved to a student cluster in the University tribe. The blushing face of the happy bride was now flushed in the first days of pregnancy, although only her relatives and closest friends would know until the spring. Steve and Sylvia assisted in every way, but only when asked. The parents were filled with the sweetness of Life as the cycle of birth, Life, and earth tumbled head over heels… on and on… and another phase of physical creativity was completed. Physical creation was its second decade of change. Couples were limited to one child. Many had to forgo having children completely as was determined by the tribes in order to achieve zero population growth. And now due to genetic engineering… it was not unusual for individuals to Live as long as one hundred and fifty years. Because couples now were Living longer and having one child soon after marriage… the physical, creation stage occupied a smaller and smaller part of the total Life cycle. A person could be a grandparent, great grandparent, great great grandparent. People’s Lives, more and more, were now being devoted to intellectual creativity and to the social creativity and Cosmic communion of the primal band. One’s child would always be dear and so too, the grandchildren,… less so the great grandchildren, until one’s lineage, as far as one’s feelings were concerned, were related almost in name only as the children of children of children melted in one’s mind into the joyful, Cosmic Heartbeat of the band, tribe, and nation… until in old age people were surrounded by the children… all their children… That is…all of the children in the band…became theirs….From the first attempts at constructing artificial communities…leaders were desperately searching for ways that people who were strangers… could actually bond together and become One…usually with less than glowing results. Of course in the evolution of human beings….bands were mostly of one blood…that is, pools of genes were among those of blood relationships…and these pools competed with the other for success in a certain environment….so as bands in the new epoch became more and more genetically related there was asserted effort to make certain that communities would not become too inbred which could lead to fetal deformities …occasionally females were induced to leave their blood band for another…which helped diversity…Yet as they became more and more of one blood…the clusters of humanity became more like their paleontological past….pools of related genes…and bonding came more and more naturally and securely.

Omicron and Aura were very happy. However, they were alert to all which could threaten that happiness. They were going to the University and Living and working in a student cluster. Their schedule was basically the same as it had been in the bands….as the course and group creative work at the University was conducted during the day consistent with the biorhythms of the “larks” and “owls”… and individual learning and creative work was undertaken at night. Each worked at his or her highest level of activity. They were doing research on their own, viewing lectures and procedures on Cerebrum, outputting conclusions and concepts into computer memory, which served as input for the next group. Cerebrum was able to do rudimentary A-type and I-type thinking, combining ideas in accordance with obvious associations to form concepts on the basis of similarity and then utilizing the logic of mathematics to sort out, separate, differentiate and delineate implications inherent in the concepts. Cerebrum, as well as all cybernetic devices, now sported consciousness to various degrees…hydrogen ions had now been integrated onto chips which increased Power and capability magnitudes of times….these ions could perceive, think, and act on their own…eliminating the need for expanses of circuitry…

As has been said, the couple received salaries from these activities, in addition from the fact that they were married, and later they would receive additional energy credits for the music Omicron wrote for the Academy. There would be more salary when they had a child. All of this income would more than meet their needs. All people in the nations had as much as they desired. Empirical research had conclusively proven that pleasure and the absence of pain did not produce joy and happiness. Hard work, devoted to physical, intellectual, and Cosmic creativity, were necessary to obtain that end. However, progression of the Will along a creative path means nothing without the Connection, the Love of community. Both together yield the greatest in joy and happiness…for an individual…for a group of people…striving to survive in the plant/animal sphere. There was no way out of it….man and woman’s lot in Life was hard even if they continually took the ‘easy’ way and diverged from the Cosmic path. Only the fruits of creativity produced by communal hard work made Life worth while. As a consequence, people accepted their lot in Life as other animals do, working to survive in the world, and benefited greatly because of it.

Omicron and Aura were busily fixing up their cluster. There was a myriad of furnishings, biologically generated, that was available. The design of the cluster had been created by the couple. It had been ordered and created for them weeks before. The cluster was globular with a large Circular Living and lounge area, with smaller Circular ‘globs’ attached for a kitchen-dining area combination, two bedrooms, two research rooms, an art room, where Aura could design clothing…and a music room. There was a large bathroom area, which opened out to a pool ….around which several other clusters were arranged in a Circle.

Individuals went to college as long as they desired. There were no grades, but they received a salary for the research they did. The important thing was to be accepted by a learning and research group and to demonstrate one’s usefulness to them. These groups were like the research bands they would work in afterwards. Thus, college students were in the first of three stages… instruction, work, and golden years,…similar to the stages all the people in the country went through. In the work stage in the research groups, one participated and progressed according to his or her abilities. All persons from the lowest para-researchers to the highest Cosmic theorists took part in the creative process and were given credit for their efforts physically, that is, with energy credits; intellectually, by copyright and citation; and Cosmically, by the patent of products and the bestowal of economic and political leadership, at the community level, for the nation, and world-wide. As individuals grew older, they could drop to lower levels of ‘golden’ intensity in their creativity, concentrate upon philosophical matters, and visit for extended periods the seashore bands and resorts on mountain peaks. They could relay their conclusions and thought into group creativity from these remote places by means of Cerebrum. Their declining years were the golden climax of the Cosmic period and for Life in general. This was the period when one’s works bore fruit. During this final period, they could devote more and more time to community service, working with children, caring for the community grounds an facilities, singing in the choirs, sitting in the tribal councils of sages. In every stage of Life, the product of their work and efforts was absorbed by community, country, and world and would remain a Force throughout succeeding generations… an influence never ceasing.

Most people now were in research bands or in bands helping research bands. However, as has been said…other people were in construction, or in the service bands in the Creative Center, comprised of doctors, lawyers, chefs, and fashion models and many other profession bands. All went through the basic three periods of work Life.

Aura looked around their new residence.

‘Our place is almost ready for us…for all of us. Everything is so nice and spacious,’ she said.

‘Well, I was thinking of bringing a chorus in to practice my new musical every night. I think we could set up here in the Livingroom, I’ll direct from the kitchen. An artist must have complete control over his medium, you know,’ he bantered.

‘Why don’t we just grow our baby in a bottle and save a lot of trouble?’ said Omicron. ‘Technologically we could do it, you know.’

‘Because there is a time and place when man, or woman, and machine must part ways,’ Aura replied, with a pervasive seriousness that pregnant women often display.

“Creating babies is the work of our bodies. Physical creativity gives men and women joy and happiness.

‘To have a child. An animal bearing its young. A romantic notion. No, it’s a primal notion, which is related to structures deep within our brains. And it is related to feelings and passions which cannot be denied, no matter how great your darn machines are getting.’

‘Now, now, there is no need to get upset, you know,’ Omicron teased. ‘It’s probably because you are pregnant.’

‘Now it’s because I’m pregnant. Before it was because it was that time of the month again. These spells of fury are related to processes and wondrous happenings which are some of the most important occurrences in our Lives. When I’m nice, when I’m bitchy, when I am sassy, or in a fury, I am a queen. I am a part of Life, full of the matter, full of the energy of the universe.’

Omicron took her into his arms and kissed her.

‘You are my queen, and we are going forth in full fury through this pregnancy… propelled constantly at full blast…right on through every stage of our Lives.’

Omicron was writing a musical about the future. For he felt the greatest challenge to man and woman lay ahead. It seemed as if they had reached a state of Heaven. Man and woman’s tools seemed to do all that they could wish for.

But what would happen if human creativity were no longer required in a world full of machines that could produce everything? How could there be joy and happiness, if creativity were no longer required? Omicron did take into account catastrophes of all types which could happen at any time. On the other hand, the world of humanity had solved so many problems routinely since the turn of the century. Could man and woman become too successful, and thereby become extinct? Must man and woman continue to strive… and struggle for survival …to Live… to feel the need to Live? What was there for him and her when he and she reached the top? Might humans jump to their deaths, rather than suffer the torture of success, of tedium and boredom?

The rewards of Life were tied to creativity and community. However, community creativity was tied to striving, to innovation, to progress. What happens when humans reach the Light? Omicron had begun the musical as a philosophical diversion, a question to be pondered, and perhaps to be partly answered in the process of attempting to visualize the future in the five dimensions of the stage. What would happen to these people now reconfigured into primal clusters, such as existed back at the dawning of mankind…but a primal people, who now were not harassed by wind, cold, or predators… Yes, they would still be gathered together, bathed in the Light of Heaven, singing together and dancing with the full motion and sweat of their bodies. Yet…..

Would this be enough? Could the Love of the band be enough to perpetuate joy and happiness when all else was given to them, when the need for creativity of any type and for the Will was gone…when they would become irrelevant to the survival of human Life? The flash of teeth. The clap of hands. The swirl of the skirt. The muscle on the drum… as his great great grandfather had written….Would these be enough?

The survival of human Life…that was the rub. In the past creativity could always be utilized for diversion… raising children and then grandchildren…that is, physical creativity could fill a Life…then intellectual and Cosmic creativity took over…but if all three are no longer needed or in the case of children…not even allowed…what will people do?…Just fifty years before, people had consumed vast parts of their Lives playing video games… watching news that was more fun…than important. Perhaps war was devised to present challenges… challenges for creative minds to solve. Throughout history there was a positive relationship in some cases between war and economic development. Of course, too much war and no progress is possible. And of course…war is just plain bad.

So could man and woman survive success? The ultimate answer was a surprising, ‘Yes!’ For no matter how he conceived the future, Omicron could not deny the fact that man and woman were the most adaptable of animals. That if they needed to create diversions to entertain themselves, they would do so. If they needed meaningful things to create, they would create challenges …filled with meaning!

In the end, though… the Laws of evolution would hold. First, the process of evolution for humans will be drawn out if there is little reproduction and everyone lives to be 300 years of age. Second, what evolution there is… will probably emphasize women. The world may not need men. Reproductive inventions might be created that could leave men out altogether. If Will and creativity are not needed for survival, Love, the Cosmic priestess… the wild mercy of women will have to show the way!…perhaps become the future by itself!…leaving a world consumed by Love…an all female planet. Maybe we’ll become like bees or ants and become mostly female with a few lucky males copulating themselves to death.

For purposes of a musical, we mustn’t go that far, Omicron thought, or the reason for Love songs will cease to exist. And as far as scientists now could discern… the reason I’s are willing to come to earth and endure years of oxidation, that is, ‘burning up’ …and difficulties… is that Connections with other I’s can be made… that will insure that they will be in the Light… forever… and not consigned to darkness… As was said…male-female coupling is one of the surest methods for eternal connection… that exists. One does suppose, however… that a world of female-female coupling…is possible.

Whatever the answers are, Omicron thought… his bet was on the human species to endure or evolve into a higher species where a Loving world is possible. Humans would change. Humans will go through the final transformation beyond the physical, intellectual and the Cosmic, on to a world of laughter and Light… which will last until the sun is extinguished, perhaps beyond.

For man and woman have seen no equal. With their tools, they have climbed higher than all else. And all matter and Life is pleased thereby. For Homo is matter and their success is also that of matter. And that of the Cosmos. Man and woman… the Crown of the universe.

One final thought went through Omicron’s mind… all of this is hubris unless one considers that something cannot come from nothing. I’s have always existed… In the beginning…there was a sea of energy…all one gigantic I...Within milliseconds after the Big Bang..vortexes arose in the primordial energy…particles were formed…individual countless I’s emerged….each with a different personality…strewn across all space and time….Conscious thought of the caliber that man and woman possess…may have existed before Life on earth…or right now…somewhere else. Great suns may be composed of countless I’s that can perceive and act…perhaps think. When so many I’s are aggregated, the swirling molten plasma of ions may actually be able to think like a God. If this is True, then only man and woman, that we know of, has approached the intelligence of a God. A pale reflection probably, it is True. And embarrassing for us…the less thinking species on earth are often the most successful ones.

Still human beings are something special. The sun may rain its Light down upon us,…the reality is…there is Light in each speck of Life… shining right back.

Oh, all is well… thought Omicron, as he turned from his piano to watch the setting sun. Then he saw a picture of ‘a Spirit blowing a trumpet over a half-open tomb.’ This was symbolic of Cosmic step twenty… Renewal… and represented ‘the passage from Life on earth to the Life of the future. A man, a woman, and a child, a collective symbol of the human trinity,of physical, intellectual, and Cosmic man, are shown rising from this tomb. It is a sign of the change which is the end of all things, of Good as well as of evil.

‘Remember, son of Earth, that fortune is variable, even when it appears most unshakable. The ascent of the soul is the fruit of its successive ordeals. Have hope in times of suffering, but beware of prosperity. Do not fall asleep in laziness or forgetfulness. At a moment unknown to you the wheel of fortune will turn; you will be raised or cast down by the Sphinx.’

Man and woman will probably reach for the sky and fall back on their behinds, Omicron thought. So much for grand dreams. The odds are…that the world will change and humans will have to adapt or die. Business as usual…. But man and woman won’t die. The gods are with them… at least dei ex machina…. at least their powerful tools are always with them.

Aura opened the membrane door and tiptoed up to him.

‘That certainly is pretty music you are playing.’

‘Look up at that mountain and tell me what you see. Do you see three puffs of spirit ascending upwards to the heavens?’

‘My man is handsome,’ quipped Aura. ‘But he often mutters on, incoherently.

‘I see three small clouds floating above our mountain. Now what is this about puffs of spirit?’

‘Well, now that we are married and settled,…I have a few thousand things to tell you.’

And Aura sat on the floor at his knee and he stroked the flowing, glowing river as he said…

‘Cosmic step one is represented by the Magus, the type of the perfect man, in full possession of his physical and moral faculties. He is represented

…’

‘Society is a mechanism and it requires a mechanic and a manager just as any machine or factory does. Mechanisms do not change themselves to meet nuances in markets, tastes, or technology. Man changes mechanisms, and this is as true of our social mechanisms, our institutions, as it is for any other machine. The thing is, the manager of a factory is very much aware of the need to retool and make his mechanical capability consistent with the needs of the time. However, our society has no managers making the same type of modifications in our social machines. Consequently, most of our institutions are mechanisms which were first created during the Middle Ages, which have been altered only slightly if at all to meet changes in needs over time. And now the times are rapidly on the move. Technological improvements, changes in man’s physical tools have progressed so rapidly over three centuries that man’s social machines are now hopelessly inadequate.

‘During the 60’s, students in the street, without being explicitly conscious of it, were crying in anguish against the archaic institution of the University as much as any other malady. It is time that we train social engineers to devise new institutions. Such a Change would be on a larger scale than we might imagine. The conduct of our lives has changed so dramatically during recent years that institutions, forms, have to be changed dramatically and discontinuously in order that they might be consistent with the fabric of society.

‘Such a Change will not be easy, but any inconvenience, or slight discomfort which such a Change might produce would certainly be worth the agony which would be displaced. The existing institutions are a corset which straps our every movement and promises to burst forth any moment if remedies are not soon found.’

It was the first Sunday in September. It was six o’clock in the morning on their wedding day. Omicron and Aura were ready for their ascent up the mountain. Two tribes would be involved… however, the customs of Golden Sun Tribe would be followed as the couple had chosen to Live with them after they graduated from the University.

There had been a reception in the Jasmines’ band the night before. Ten in the morning they magged to Love Song Band, from whence their journey would commence. Both were beaming and jubilant in their anticipation. All preparations had been made. They would climb to the full height of the peak, then return for the blessings, ceremony, and celebration to be presided over by leaders from both tribes and bands… and finally for the warmth and work of the wedding bed.

The sky was ablaze with Light. The clouds were gone. Trees were in bloom. Hills were banks of flowers. The air was aLive with the songs of birds, the meadows with the rustle of Life. It was Indian summer. The warm months of vegetable production would continue on into September before signs of autumn, declension and winter would begin to appear.

Omicron and Aura were very happy. Omicron had just received an offer to write music for the government while he was attending Jupiter University. It was only part-time pay, but this was consistent with his sense of responsibility to other areas of research and intellectual creativity and to the communities and Cosmic creativity. They kissed and hugged Omicron’s parents and friends, swung on their packs, and stretched their legs out in front of them, their limbs anxious and strong, eager to climb the path to the sky. They would climb straight up the hills this time… and not travel part way on the broken highway. Their spirits were very high and they almost flew up the first hills. Soon they were at Sage Brush Meadows, which today surprisingly was the beginning of a journey, instead, as it was in the past, the destination of a joyful weekend trip. Then they started up the second set of hills and the climb became more arduous. They strained against their day packs, using dried tree limbs as walking sticks, and worked their way like old men up a winding path. They strode for the sun… up and up for three hours straight. Then they stopped to drink and immerse their heads in a gushing spring. The hillsides were gradually warming in the sun. They recommenced their climb, the panorama opened up behind them as they rose… first, the tribal area… then the northern part of the Bay… then glimpses of land on the far side of the blue.. upwards, upwards, they climbed.

After they reached the top of the second level of hills, they went into a cool shaded glen where they ate a snack and laughed amidst the concert of Nature around them. A most serious climb up the third tier of hills was now before them. They had risen from sage brush and Live oak to chaparral. The pines and firs could be seen on the sides of the great mountain,… which rose above them…dead ahead… Onward they strove.

It was approximately 10:30 when they reached the trees in the fourth level of hills, which were actually parts of the magnificent mountain soaring to the heavens before them. Omicron’s ears popped. They did not look back, but continued their drive to the top. The coolness of the forests quickened their pace,…They stopped briefly for another drink of water.

Then finally, they started up the last barren ascent to the top. There was no path now. The progress was slow… but joyfully together, it was not difficult. The heat of the sun bore down upon them. The perspiration flowed forth on their reddening skin. They began to breathe heavily, choking with dust as their legs plodded on. The first rise was sighted, then won. Then the second was challenged and surmounted. Together they almost ran to the top of the final jutting peak.

At the top… the wind pushed past their faces… in a strangely magical peace… There was a spring here… with pure, crystal water. They had known the spring would be there and they were prepared. The spring ran into a small pool, watering a lush green oasis at the crown of the mountain. Here Omicron and Aura saw the whole world which they knew… open before them like an immense three-dimensional topographical map. They could see all the way to the great mountains to the east… on the other side of the Great Valley. They could see the two rivers in the Great Valley that joined into one strait of water which flowed westerly into the Bay, the large red Fire mountain which stood prominently on the other side of the Bay, and the new City to the south.

Yes, here they were higher and more powerful than the City, which now appeared to be a puny, feeble work of man compared to the majesty of the mountain and of Nature’s work spread before them.

They took off their packs and walked to the pool. Omicron pulled Aura’s robe over her head and she took off his tunic. He unfastened her brassiere and let it drop with her panties. And she exposed the entire taunt strong torso of the man she Loved. They entered the water together, naked … into the glistening ice cold pool. They bathed each other with the soap they had brought. They were cleaned and purified in the cold spring waters and then emerged dripping into the heat of the noonday sun. They poured oil over their bodies. Then they took clean silk wedding garments out of their packs and slipped them over each other’s head. They stood at the summit in the Light of the heavens and now looked westward out over the hills which sloped down and down to the ocean below.

‘There it is, my Love,’ said Omicron. ‘There is the peace of the other side. We must work hard for many years, then when our labors bear fruit, we shall be able to Live in the peace of the ocean lands. We can stay there for weeks at a time if we wish… in the ocean clusters… although the clusters by the Bay will always be our home.

‘We have ascended the peak. We must never forget what we have done …when we go back below. Our work, however tedious and mundane, must always be motivated by the mountain and the Light of the heavens.’

Aura responded,

‘Just as our minds must ascend in order to obtain the Powers of the universe, so must our Love grow to embrace all that is Life. Here at the summit, our minds, our bodies are One. Soon we must return to earth, where the final step is taken and we are made One with the primal bands that bore us… the family of commingled blood, with only One name. It is in the embrace of the bands that we were born, we shall Live and grow together, bear new Life and new thought, perform Cosmic deeds, and one day will die. It is in the embrace of the bands that the mind and body are combined into a universal Force… a Light which shall never dim.’

On the peak did they then embrace, kiss, and hold each other til the sun inclined from the top and they began their easy and Loving way home.

Steve and Sylvia looked upward proudly. The band had not yet been formed when they had made a similar climb. Steve had searched the earth for traditions that could be used in the band and he had been instrumental in formulating them and making them a part of their daily Lives. In accordance with these traditions, not many were allowed to make the climb on their wedding day. Both Omicron and Aura had passed oral tests given by the leaders of the tribe.

‘Our boy is a man,’ said Steve. ‘I can tell by talking with him that he has progressed very, very far along his path.’

‘And Aura is a woman,’ responded Sylvia. ‘She is filled with the Truths of Love to the point that I feel our band could sit before her and hear all that her mother has labored over for the past twenty years…Her mother is a high priestess in the feminine beliefs…she has brought wisdom from the ages…to this modern sparkling world.

‘Of course, we are all One. The nations are One family. We all feel this. But the Love of some is more than others. And the masses rely upon the few… in Love… as they rely upon the few… for mind, leadership, and Will. Each in this couple will be a great person. And I am proud that they are mine.’

They returned in the early evening. There was still Light, even as the days were shortening. They were covered by the community with strands of flowers and were led to the center of the meadow where surrounded by members of the communities… the ceremony would take place.

It was then that Samuel Wolf, the leader of the tribe, placed their hands together and said:

‘We are here to celebrate the progress of two persons. Hitherto, each has had his and her own path… lately these paths have come very close together. With the seal of Love and Will bestowed upon you this day by this primal band… you will thenceforth walk on one path together.

‘Marriage is not taken lightly by our primal bands. Marriage is sealed with primal blood. If either of you should forsake the other, or for less than the most serious of causes abandon the other, then ostracism from this tribe and perhaps from many other tribes could be the result.

‘Marriage in our tribe is not allowed until two people pledge eternal faithfulness. If this pledge is not obtained… then marriage is forbidden. Marriage is never encouraged as a matter of form, where intentions are less than this. For marriage is an eternal pledge to each other and it is a solemn promise made to the tribe that you will be an eternally productive couple in its midst.

‘Thus, marriage is not encouraged, or forced upon anyone… for the penalties for unfaithfulness and divorce are severe. However, marriage in fact is embraced by almost all persons in our tribes today, for only marriage gives a person the ability to participate in physical creativity and have children. In addition, marriage produces a vital Force, a coupling of two animals, whose brains are allowed by the fulfillment of Love and the body to participate fully in intellectual creativity…and become one vector…of Will and Power. Once together… man and woman may attain any height… and ultimately gain the Cosmic rewards that Life has to offer.

‘Therefore, this ceremony represents an animal act, participated in by human animals. No man or woman here pretends to be more. But it is our animalness which makes all worthwhile. It is our animalness which makes us concrete brothers and sisters. Our animalness is equipped with a brain, which is more powerful in its Will…than that possessed by any other animal. That brain is anchored in a body, a body of passion and Love. And it is in the blood of the animal that this band is washed. We shall now all shed and mix blood as a symbol of our Oneness in flesh and Love as animals, our Oneness in mind as animals seeking common goals and exaltation of the Will, and our Oneness as brothers and sisters in the Cosmic embrace of the primal band… striving for the Light!

‘The blood will now be spilt and shared. Each person will cut a finger and allow his and her blood to drop onto the sore of the next.’

Omicron and Aura participated in the rite as part of the immense circle. The leader then took blood on his fingers and spread it on the Lovers’ lips. He bade them kiss and the blood of the band was sealed upon the marriage. The primal band then consecrated the marriage… by singing a Cosmic hymn…

The Power of the Universe

Pours down on us tonight.

The Power of the Universe

Makes our World a splendid sight.

If we can but chant the phrase

And hold our Love ones tight,

The Power of the Universe

Falls down on us tonight.

The Power of the Universe

Extends Her Loving Hand.

The Power of the Universe

Sings forth throughout the land.

If we be, all we can be,

All that Passion and Will command,

The Power of the Universe

Extends Her Loving Hand.

The Power of the Universe

Resides within us all.

The Power of the Universe

Removes every wall.

If we be One in Blood,

One with Nature, large and small,

Then…

The Power of the Universe

Resides within us all.

Omicron and Aura were then led to the consummation suite, which was a part of the tribal recreation center…the latter was located in the center of the Circle of band clusters…next to the food preparation pod. It was a Lovely cottage with one-way membranes, which allowed Light to pour in. There were flowers in pots all around inside… and planted profusely in banks of color…outside around the cluster. There was a rose garden and the day’s harvest of roses was placed carefully in vases throughout the cottage.

Omicron and Aura, surrounded by and covered with flowers, stood hand in hand, looking out the large one-way panoramic window at the sun which was still above the mountain….which could be seen in the distance.

‘Cosmic step nineteen… Earthly Happiness… is represented by a radiant sun shining on two small children, images of innocence, who hold each other’s hands in the midst of a circle of flowers. It is the symbol of happiness promised by the simple Life and by moderation in all one’s desires.

‘Remember, son of Earth, that the Light of the mysteries flows dangerous in the service of the Will. It illuminates those who know how to use it; it strikes down those who are ignorant of its Power or who abuse it.’

The couple sat hand in hand until the sun had sunk behind the mountain. In the past, the night had been their prime time for intellectual creativity. Now it would be the time for physical creativity. This was a night to savor, for in this day and age the creation of children was tightly controlled. If they conceived on their wedding night, it probably would be their last supreme physical creative act. From then on, physical creativity would be supportive, not initiatory, in Nature… as they supplied the physical, intellectual, and Cosmic needs of their child. However, even though this could be their last supreme physical act… it would be enough to last a Lifetime.

Aura emerged from the bathroom in a negligee resembling white blossoms of springtime… through which the white of her skin, her breasts, and bottom were visible. Omicron quickly disrobed, picked Aura deftly from the floor and carried her in his arms to the bed.

Aura paused… and said…

‘The Theology of Love has moved past initial experiments of Living as chimpanzees and Loving our neighbors… the World Government now is deciding which religion it will accept…as a Cosmic theology… Before we create a baby… let us think about what scientists think about all this….

‘Yes there is all this new talk about I’s and such… There is talk about how I’s may benefit from transforming plant into animal… No…let us go back to the very beginning…the very beginning of Life…We know now…that the first Life was strange…it was one flowing stream of hydrogen ions…wherein hydrogen atoms flashed back and forth…from being ‘concealed’…to being ‘revealed’…Life in its essence is replication…At the beginning…as strange as it sounds…this flow of atoms went from ‘concealed’ to ‘revealed’ and back and forth again…the same atoms…When they were ‘concealed’…they were in a Cosmic realm…atoms with electrons in tow…wherein there existed the calm peaceful eternal world of Cosmic bliss…then the electrons were removed and the flow became Life!…consciousness able to impact the world about it!….and then back again….initiating, creating sugar molecules from water and carbon dioxide that could be permanent fixtures in an area that could be utilized time and again to facilitate the conveyance back and forth of hydrogen from atoms to ions and back again…. Replication is the essence of Life…and it would seem that the first replication occurred…when a flow of hydrogen ions…kept replicating itself!…The insistence of this flow of ions upon replicating this pattern must mean that Life must offer Cosmic entities something it cannot have in a Cosmic state….It would seem that even though existence in the Cosmos can be peaceful and perfect… there still must be a need within a nucleus to impact…move the world outside of itself!…and outside of a molecule it may be a part of!….Thus at the beginning of Life…there was an inclination for hydrogen atoms to uncouple and begin to flow…which produced a magnetic field which became an instrument for conveying information…and releasing the Power of consciousness….allowing consciousness to impact all around it!… Most nuclei….99 percent… in the Cosmos are hydrogen or helium…and most of these are ions…they do not possess electrons…they are located inside stars and nebulae…thus these Cosmic entities are great explosive masses of consciousness…However, this consciousness seem to possess only the Power to blow up…not construct anything….Only on earth can these bits of consciousness actually do something!…and the temptation to do something…seems to have been too great to pass by!…Each bit of consciousness in the Cosmos has its own personality…these bits of personality were mixed thoroughly at the start…somehow comprising One gigantic personality…at the time of the Big Bang….At one moment…they are communicating with each other as single entities in stars and nebulae…then in the next moment…they somehow become One entity…One I...many I’s….back and forth…It is only on earth that true Connection with another I...can be made…a Connection that can withstand the vagaries of time…and enable these bits of I…to remain together … forever…in the Light and not ever be allowed to slip…into a vast lonely darkness…..

‘But listen to this… Mom was telling me all about something…this something is so very unchimpanzee like… She said that this something…was composed of ideas which are Beautiful… they are so romantic… that she wanted to tell me about it…

‘You see it seems that particles desire to be Connected with other particles… and thus they shall avoid being solitary, in darkness, forever…

so when the first hydrogen ions became I’s in plankton… it was not considered by these first I’s to be a burden… because it would give these tiny specks of matter ‘looking out’ at other matter the chance to make Connection… real Connection…that might become eternal Connection… with another particle…

‘You see scientists now believe that the I that is in our brain… processes all perceptions, all thought, all action displayed by that brain…The I is buried way inside there somewhere… doing all these things… so when we talk… for instance… if we are face to face, we kiss, we have sex… the brain is in the way of our I-particles…keeping them from truly communication…I to I...I and Thou…as Martin Buber would have it… The brain is an obstacle…preventing two I‘s from having the closest relationship possible…

‘How you might ask… can our I’s be as close as they can be…. I mean, right now we are close… even though we have ‘found’ each other… in what seems only a few days ago… but how can this closeness….be more… how can this closeness…become one thousands times closer… then one million times closer?…

‘Well, the Big Boys in the world of ideas…think they have an answer… although scientists are in bed with their wives right now… trying things out….

‘It turns out that sex itself is really quite selfish… especially for the male… every one knows that… But let’s go back to the fact… that we are two things… plant… and Cosmic I…. Our ‘I’s desire to be One… What plant activity is most consistent with this desire for Connection?… Well, sex, of course….it is the female organ that is important here… yes, that organ is the center of intimacy for all animals… not the male organ… well, sorry, that organ just seems to be really irrelevant to all of this romantic stuff… sorry…

‘It is the female organ that the male desires, worships… she thinks it is ugly, nasty, basically bathroom… he thinks of it… and he thinks of it every two minutes… he thinks of it as a small mound of diamonds… if you could ever believe… conceive…of such a thing!…

‘So plant-wise… there is one way two humans can bond tighter than by means of the sex act itself… and that is for her to always have the organ nearby… under a housedress, a secret no one else knows about…for him to see… for her to give…not for sex necessarily…it is just there…always… nearby… the intimacy … the Love…always there…nearby…He desires… she supplies… it is that simple..

‘It seems that our I’s are almost wired together just through the desiring and the giving… short circuiting all kinds of cerebral pathways… by means of the Vagus nerve…that runs directly from her sex organ to both of their I’s…without the sex act itself…

‘Well, of course, men need sex… at least two times a week… or they will die of prostate cancer… sperm is toxic… females don’t really need sex at all… or at least we would like you to think that… but certainly sex is not co.mpelling… for us… more than once a month…

‘So here… big boy… here it is… it is now…all yours….We are close… Let’s see how much closer our I’s can get… during the next twenty-four hours….’

Their full passion was finally permitted to be expressed in crushing kisses and long embraces. Then Omicron lifted the blossoms from his Lover’s limbs and she was completely receptive for his gift in order to conceive. A million Lights of the heavens flickered in both of their eyes, which became dead to all else. There was not a thought in their brains as primal man and woman luxuriated in the glory of primal Love. All Omicron was conscious of was Love, Love for Aura, Then Omicron took his woman into the honey-warmth of his arms… their bodies and minds still swimming in the quintessential joy of creation and the ultimate communion of two beasts in Nature….a Connection allied with…. eternal progression…

“Existentialism. A relatively large word. A distinguished word. An impressive word if it is dropped into conversation at the proper moment. But what does this word mean, when it is deflated of its pomposity? Supposedly existentialism is opposed to essentialism. That is, while essentialism is devoted to the essence or essential form of an object in the external world, existentialism is concerned with its existence, that is, with its content. Well, I suppose one could stand back and state the obvious… that existence and essence are clearly related to the two hemispheres in the brain, the left which is endowed with an analytical ability and the talent to delineate forms, while the right is conceptual and develops content. But then our age is not very interested in matters which are of little use.

‘Another way to reflect upon existentialism is to consider the turmoil in which it was born. Existentialism was born in Europe at a time when industrial revolution was sweeping the Continent. Machines were profoundly changing the economic landscape of European society, demolishing the Habsburg old… creating the British new. Among that which was new was a conviction, an emotion which had been in decline for centuries before… that conviction, that emotion… was hope. For the first time in centuries man and woman again began to feel themselves to be the masters of events and no longer insignificant, impotent pawns. In this rush of hope and new capability, man and woman…felt that the old now could be completely discarded … God, knights, romantic love, chastity, castles,…all could be cast aside in one sweep. As events proved, however, such optimism was premature, for too much of the old yet remains with us, even though our lives have changed so much… that we now bespeak of ourselves as modern man and woman. The truth is… that while a small part of our lives has changed tremendously, the rest of the spectrum of our society remains doggedly the same. Thus, has it been that the exuberant age of existentialism quickly bloomed, then died and disintegrated into our present age of gloom and despair.’

It was the fourth Sunday in August. White clouds had sailed above throughout the summer. Now dark clouds began to gather and light rain fell for over a week as the first signs of autumn began to appear. Omicron and Aura hiked up the hills around and behind the University…to the top where there was a lake. The rain was coming down gently but steadily.

Despite the weather, Omicron was still in high spirits after his musical triumph. There were so many things he wanted to do now. There was so much to think about. Aura had been reluctant to travel very far in the inclement weather, but Omicron’s spirits and banter persuaded her to go. As they approached the protected area where the lake lay, the Light diffused through the clouds and reflected in such a way that the lake seemed to be as clear as crystal.

‘Well, now that I have your undivided attention for a few minutes, after all your past glories and such,’ said Aura. ‘I would wish to consult you concerning the wedding which is to be. And soon to be, I might add.

‘Now this wedding is scheduled for a week from now, you know. The food is all ordered. It was no big thing, Mom just pushed some buttons. Dad will realize the import of the occasion when he has to pay for it out of his energy surpluses, but then that is one of the privileges of having a beautiful daughter like me.

‘Now I am shopping for clothes for the wedding and for times immediately thereafter. So you need to order yourself a tuxedo, and then we must select rings. I have searched the catalogs until I am blue in the face. We need to go to the Creative Center and see these things in person.’

‘I guess I haven’t been much help…’ Omicron said, ‘with the musical and all. But as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter. None of it. We could get married in the all-together for all I care.’

‘Omicron, such madness. This marriage is not for us. It is for our families and for our larger families, our bands, our tribes, the nation.

‘We are One now. But a wedding is the only way our tribes can really express their Love and caring for us and also sanction the marriage. In your tribe, the community must sanction the marriage before we are allowed to bring children into the world. In my tribe, we must be functioning like good chimpanzees before blessings will be bestowed. Our tribes must sanction the marriage… for it is only by virtue of the sustaining help and Love of our communities that we shall be able to prosper and Live productive Lives. It is only by virtue of our tribal communities… that we may progress from physical, to intellectual, to the Cosmic levels of Life, to use the terminology of your tribe…well, of all of our tribes… Communities at higher and higher levels… tribe, nation, country, world… become more and more essential as progress is made. So we have to put our bow ties and our bloomers on and sing our May Song together.’

‘Come on, Aura, Love,’ said Omicron. ‘It is August, not May, we have already sung our songs. Let’s toss our clothes and go swimming.’

‘Not on your life, my mad lover. You’ll freeze jumping into that ice. Then you’ll die of hypothermia when you crawl out.’

However, Omicron was full of happiness and Love and in his shorts dove into the sparkling water. The moment he crashed through the crystal surface he knew he had made a mistake. The water was shallower than he had thought and filled with weeds. He had to struggle to the top to keep from becoming entangled on the bottom. The water was so cold that his body was in shock. He could not climb out of the water in the rocky areas from which he had dived. He frantically struck with arms and legs as he tried to batter his way to shore. When he reached the shore, his legs became tangled in weeds and his feet were cut on sharp stones on the floor. Aura ran out as far as she could and helped him back onto the ground.

‘Well that should show you, Omicron. You nearly killed yourself. Now get back into your clothes before you turn blue.’

‘That water was sure inviting,’ Omicron replied, his teeth chattering, ‘but when I got inside, it nearly swallowed me up.’

They stumbled away from the water together, Omicron gaining warmth in Aura’s arms. They moved about a hundred yards…to a recess in the side of a hill…where they huddled together…Omicron started a fire with his laser lighter, utilizing dead pieces of scrub oak they hastily gathered nearby. When he was dry and warm, they turned downward through the hills, Omicron holding Aura close to him around the waist.

When they approached the Jasmines’ cluster, Candace ran out shouting that a message had just been received for Omicron on Cerebrum from Washington D.C. They hurried inside and Omicron punched his code into the console and pushed the print button. The message was displayed and printed simultaneously:

Mr. Omicron Blue,

The musical written by the Dionysus group of the Golden Sun Tribe has been reviewed by representatives of our office and has been approved for full production. A time for negotiation of terms and signing of contracts will be set during the coming week.

The United States Music Academy

Omicron jumped for joy, grabbed and kissed Aura, and danced through the cluster. He hugged Aura’s mother, and shook hands with Philemon.

‘Well, this is it, Aura,’ he said half humorously. ‘Now I’m going to the top. There will be lots of money. But best of all I’ll be a name and I can write for the Academy in the future for a salary and won’t have to supplement my artistic salary with scientific work on the side. There will be the nationwide tours, of course. We’ll go to all the Creative Centers and see the premiers and be presented to the audiences. We’ll have the best talent and equipment to work with… that the country has to offer. We’ll be rich and famous!’

He raced over to the terminal and pushed several buttons. In seconds, a bottle of champagne appeared and toasts were drunk by all.

That evening Omicron walked alone by the Bay. The moon cut through the clouds to illuminate land and water in a mosaic of dim Light and shadows. Omicron was depressed. Yes, he had triumphed. He had been given what he always had dreamed of. However, suddenly his Life seemed dark and gloomy. There would be money, perhaps fame and a guaranteed Livelihood. He could write music all day and night if he desired. However, he knew it was wrong. The good news was superficial glitter and appearance. In reality, he knew that he belonged with Aura at the University and not in New York. Also he belonged in the world and not off in an ivory castle writing music. He strode quickly up the nearest hill. He surveyed a panorama illuminated with a ghastly Light.

‘I must keep my gaze upon the True and Just,’ he yelled to the Bay below him. ‘I must do what is Right no matter what temptations appear to entice me.’

Before him he saw ‘a field that a half-clouded moon illuminated with a vague twiLight.’ It was the symbol of Cosmic step 18… Deceptions. ‘A tower stood on each side of a path that disappears into a barren landscape. In front of one of these two towers a dog is crouching: in front of the other, a dog is baying at the moon: between them is a crab. These towers symbolize the false security which does not foresee hidden perils.

‘On the physical level, this step represents deceptions and hidden enemies. On the intellectual level, it signifies the darkness that cloaks the Spirit when it submits itself to the power of the instincts. On the Cosmic level, it expresses the abysses of the Infinite.

‘Remember, son of Earth, that whosoever dares to confront the unknown faces death. The hostile spirits, symbolized by one dog, wait in ambush… the servile spirits, symbolized by the other, conceal their treacheries with base flattery… and the idle spirits, symbolized by the crab, will pass by without the slightest concern for disaster. Observe, listen… and learn to keep your own counsel.’

The answer is easy, he thought, as he composed a letter to the Academy in his mind. My future is here with my Love, what e’re betide us. Aura and I will be going to school here. One must keep his eyes on True principles… or he is easily and quickly lost.

He then strode down the hill, which was covered with flowers. A few birds joined the chorus of Nature… as Omicron with lighter step hurried home to his Love.

‘They marched down Telegraph Avenue that day. They were saying that someone was taking their park… of all the damn things. I am convinced that it was not so much that someone was trying to take their park. Instead, it was the fact that someone was trying to take their lives. All I know is that it began as a march, then came the usual demonstration and yelling. It was different this time though, as the national guard was now a continual presence. There were the speeches, and the curses… a scuffle, a burst of shots, then he was dead. I remember this as if it were a moment ago. A patch of agony scratched into my brain.

‘How is one to account for a decade as deviant as the 1960’s? Before this time were not the children of this great land content in their prosperity, proud of their heritage? I mean this was the richest century in the history of the world…in the richest country in the world…What happened? There was the war, of course. Boys were being corralled and slaughtered, a practice not uncommon in history, to be sure. But these times were different. The real income of individuals would have doubled over the 1950 figure by 1970. All of this the product of cheap oil. Gasoline was 25 cents a gallon…as metropolitan areas spread outwards like molds. As I say…people were now in mass richer than any peoples in history. They were able to give their children lives befitting nobility in the past. They were able to give their children the gifts of knowledge and educations befitting kings of old. They lived on small rural estates with lawns and separate residences with mechanical servants of every type. The first reaction would be…People now were beginning to have too much. More disturbing… They were beginning to know too much. They could not be fed the baloney that the United States must protect the world from Communism. They knew that the job now for all nations was to protect billions from hunger in the world, to get the economies moving. To give other persons a life as they themselves now possessed. Materially, many no longer felt the need for more. Now it was time to share. A world of material things left these young people in wastelands of alienated separate families in surrogate communities. But their parents could in no way understand the generosity, the new wisdom, the frustration of their children… and interpreted it as ungratefulness, obstreperousness, ultimately defiance. And so there was death, for by no means the first time in the story of man, on the school yard as well as on the battleground.

‘ Now as I look back ten years later, after a decade of supposed calm, although the New York Times continues to log its routine thousands of demonstrations a year, I can see that the 1960’s were not an aberration, but a harbinger…no, a promise… of changes to come.’

It was the third week in March and Omicron and Aura worked with the men and women, respectively, in the band that had been struck by calamity…by disease… helping to erect temporary shelters for the community. It would take only a week or two for new clusters to be created biologically. In the meantime, the contorted remains were conveyed by military vehicles to digesters located in the abandoned urban areas of the past. Here biological tissues which were malignant were broken down into amino acids for reassemblage. Organisms now were used to produce Living materials that replaced plastics of the previous age, which had been made from crude oil. Crude oil now was too scarce and too expensive for any practical use or source of energy now…This sudden loss of a cheap source of energy actually helped ameliorate the global warming that threatened the earth during the early 21^st century.

Some of the members of the damaged community went to Live in other bands until clusters could be replaced and services reestablished.

On Friday, Aura was visiting Omicron as usual in the Blue’s cluster, watching the Cerebrum screen that occupied a wall. The trial was beginning. Scar Liege who was mutilated by the exploding shrapnel and nineteen other enemies of the State were on display before the country. All the data concerning the men, their backgrounds, and all evidence was fed into Cerebrum’s infinitely powerful brain. All previous decisions and all existing Laws were already in the data bank. In seconds came the verdict. Each man was guilty of ten to thousands of counts of murder, damage to federal and community property, and many other offenses which they had accumulated over the previous three years as well as from their contribution to the enemy effort during the Struggle. Found guilty, they were required to repay all costs of the actions to the country. Each Life taken had worth in terms of the loss of return on human capital. Since human beings now were very creative and lived many years, each life was worth millions of dollars. The guilty men were also responsible for all production lost during the war, which amounted to billions of dollars. Liege and several others would be executed and pay the ultimate penalty for infamy and evilness. Hundreds of other mobsters who had been hunted down and captured would be tried later. Most of the convicts would be required to remain in debtor’s prison until they repaid their debts to the country. There was little hope that they would be able to repay the money, so they would stay in the jails in the wilderness until they died. They would have to perform physical slave labor twelve hours a day every day to earn their daily food and shelter. They would not be allowed to do intellectually creative work which would give them joy and happiness. Such is the fate of those who do not keep their eyes upon the True and Just, thought Omicron.

Aura had been accepted with honors at the University. Omicron would be attending also with a late application which was honored by Presidential command by virtue of his extraordinary achievements during the Struggle. They would not start classes until September. In the meantime, Omicron wanted to begin on a new musical…one with his own ideas and with the new music he had begun to compose. He would work with a new group composed of artists from several bands in Golden Sun Tribe. He hoped with hard work that it could be completed and presented before University classes started in the fall. Omicron and Aura could be married at the end of the summer and Live together at the University as man and wife.

Omicron immediately plunged into his work on the musical production. Aura was going to help. Omicron wanted to present a story based on a biography of a couple which had struggled and met the challenges of the first half of the twenty-first century. This time was one of transition from a mass consumption-type society to one which would be more creative as machines began to proliferate at a tremendous rate and made it possible for people to move from urban areas out on to the land. It would mark the transition from an intellectually predominate period filled with machines and products of men and women’s minds to a period which would embrace all of the best which had preceded, plus it would envelop all within the Cosmic possibilities offered by the communities. Just as the Life of each man and woman progressed through the phases of the physical, intellectual, to the Cosmic, so too the ages of man and woman had progressed through these great periods. Men and women could not progress higher than their age allowed. It was only with the advent of the Cosmic age that men and women could progress together to the summit which was afforded by Will…that is, of creative attainment… and Love…that is, the total embrace of communities spread forth upon the land.

In the first part of the story… the hero was tempted to remain in a stable government job and invest his money in the consolidation of machines into gigantic cities that had less and less need for human input. However, his real interest lay with intellectual creativity… research, music, and poetry. His Lover, that is, his wife, was in fashion design and was an artist. So it was that when he had a little extra money, he began to invest in creativity and human resources, not in machines and physical resources. His was a constant Struggle to maintain a creative spirit in the throes of an expanding and profitable enterprise. In time, he was able to earn enough money to sell the business and move to the edge of the metropolis where he set up a prototype for the communities which would exist after the Change. The building of tools of the mind and of the factory, which was the essence of the Intellectual age and characterized at the end by massive transformations in technology and artificial intelligence, was driven inexorably, and quickly through to the next Cosmic stage during this transitional period, and the hero was caught up in this evolution of man and woman’s tools and spirit. In this new age creative work would explode and humanity would begin to bask in a world of joy and happiness.

Omicron was working arduously to write a beautiful symphonic type of climax at the ending when the protagonist would sing “A Song of Love,” backed by a glorious chorus. The musical had to be completed quickly. It was decided that an abbreviated sample version should be done first without costumes or scenery, although basic designs for these would be available for the national judges to examine. It was necessary to move quickly if the group was to be considered for a contract for the next production year, which started in January. The group worked, aided by the powers of Cerebrum. Omicron and two other I-types wrote a rough script based on the biographies available. The A-types then worked long hours shaping the dialog into an authentically pleasing, humorous, as well as moving presentation. Omicron contributed seven songs among which were “Oh Moon Up Above,” and “A Song of Love.” The actors would read their parts and a choir very hurriedly would learn to the best of their ability their parts to be sung.

One afternoon near the end of July, Omicron and Aura walked quietly up a stream which flowed through the hills near the University. There was no mountain to climb in this part of the Bay Area, but the walk was pleasant and they were able to rapidly separate themselves from the activities of the communities below. They walked hand in hand along a brook, shaded by black oaks which dotted hills covered with grass. White pillows of clouds were in the sky daily now… the long storm that had burst forth during the Struggle and briefly after…now were distant memories.

‘College is right round the corner,’ Omicron said.

Aura responded with a smile. ‘College will be just like the schools in the communities, with creative groups and all. Up to now, it’s been fun and games, and sell something if you can. But from here on in, it’s sell, sell, sell!’ ‘You sound like some crazy woman from the twentieth century. Sell, sell, sell. That’s why people left the cities. We are admonished now to create, create, create! But this we want to do anyway to have a happy, joyful Life. You’ve got a brain. All you have to do is relax and let the brilliance pour out of you.’

This remark was met with a handful of grass in the face, and Aura took off running up the side of a gently sloping hill. He caught up with her and both went flying into a rolling hug through the knee-high grass. They kissed, and Omicron’s hands gently massaged Aura’s neck and back. Gently he lifted her dress over her head and off. He laid her face-down in the matted trampled grass, which filled his nose with its sweet fragrance. He rubbed and massaged her neck and shoulders as he had been taught in school. The massage began as a therapeutic one as he moved the blood from her torso to her extremities and loosened and flushed the impurities from her taunt muscles.

Then, he stopped. He stood up and walked to a clump of golden poppies in the rolling fields of grass. He entwined the flowers together, bottom of the stem of one flower to just below the blossom of another, forming a chain which he closed into a circle. This chain he brought back to Aura who beheld him with admiration, without the least sense of puzzlement. She knew that he had been trained to operate according to eternal and universal principles and Laws. She, on the other hand, had been trained to act, eat and think..to kanoodle… like a chimpanzee.

He raised Aura to full erect standing posture from her sitting posture, then caused her to kneel. He placed the ring of chained flowers over her head. The flowers contrasted beautifully against her beautiful skin and offered a complement to her hair, which glowed in the sunlight.

‘This chain is symbolic of the ordeal of passion which the ancients had to successfully endure. With these hands, I now break the chain and will clothe you until that happy bright day which will soon be here.’

When they were again clothed, he said.

‘The fact that I was able to control myself at this time of complete Love, devotion, and passion for you gives me hope that we shall progress, shall climb, and shall obtain our dreams. I have felt all along that we would be able to make it to the top. Now I have a tangible sign, a sign of hope, that all will soon be well.’

Then it was the second Sunday in August. The play was put on in Golden Sun Tribe because most of the members of the Dionysis group that created it were from that tribe. The presentation of the play went well and the dialog was moving and believable despite its rapid creation. However, the highlights of the musical were Omicron’s songs. The finale brought down the house when he himself sang “Song of Love” for Aura and the audience for the first time:

Oh joy of my Life

In a world of storm and strife

You make me sing

Our hearts take wing

And our Love will Light the day.

With me forever please Love stay.

Golden is Love’s Light

That shines forth through the night.

Heaven’s sun’s rays

Will brighten all our days.

With you beside me fear is gone.

Your sweet smile is morning’s dawn.

Some will say such Love can’t be.

Man and woman must be free.

But Love is not a tinker’s toy.

Abiding Love brings peace and joy.

Oh sparkling Love, my Life’s delight

Who takes me to the mountain’s height.

Let the diamond gleam

Of this Love dream

Send forth its Light

Under shining brilliant sun

Our hearts and Lives

Forever One.

The response to the play was overwhelming. The community detained him for almost an hour after the meeting, congratulating him and encouraging him to write songs for the community to sing. There were several critics from New York, who greeted him warmly after the production. The praise he cherished most, however, were the Light and tears in Aura’s eyes when he rushed to hug her right after the curtain had gone down. She knew the music had been written for her and she melted into his arms.

After the reception, he and Aura left the dancing and parties which always followed the meetings, and together they walked up a sloping hillside in the darkness. Omicron was filled with happiness. Not only because of the work he had been able to do, but most of all, because of the maturity he had gained as a person and because of the growth of his relationship with Aura, both of which were the real reasons for his success. Before the presentation, he had felt himself to be a man changed by war but left without direction or purpose, except for the guiding Light of his Love and the certainty of a creative-filled Life together with Aura in the future. Now he felt that whatever happened, all would be Right. His dreams would somehow become a reality. For the first time he was filled with Hope. His faith that all would be well grew and flooded his body with a certainty that all was possible. He and Aura reached a bluff and their eyes were drawn up to the heavens. The clouds had parted to reveal a large patch of black. The moon was an iridescent large glow behind a cloud. But straight ahead toward where they both gazed was a star, shining most brightly among the myriad in the sky. ‘Cosmic step seventeen… Hope… is represented by a blazing star with eight rays surrounded by seven other stars hovering over a naked girl who pours over the barren earth the waters of universal life that flows from two goblets… one gold… the other silver. Beside her, a butterfly is alighting on a rose.’

The words boomed through Omicron’s brain with the heightened pulse of his blood. ‘This girl is the emblem of Hope which scatters its dew upon our saddest days. She is naked, in order to signify that Hope remains with us when we have been bereft of everything. Above this figure the blazing, eight-pointed star symbolizes the apocalypse of Destinies enclosed by seven seals which are the seven planets, represented by the seven other stars. The butterfly is the sign of eternal rebirth and perpetuation of energies expended unleashed by creative endeavor.

‘On the physical level, step seventeen signifies Hope. On the intellectual level, it symbolizes the Inner Light that illuminates the Spirit. On the Cosmic level, it expresses Immortality.

‘Remember, son of Earth, that Hope is the sister of Faith. Abandon your passions and your errors… and study the mysteries of True knowledge, and their key shall be given unto you. Then shall a ray of the divine Light shine from the occult Sanctuary to dispel the darkness of the future and show you the path to happiness. Whatever happens in your Life, never break the flowers of Hope, and you will gather the fruits of faith.’

Omicron embraced Aura, kissed her gently again and again and then talked to her in a soft voice. However, Aura could only hear the song he had sung… as it moved relentlessly over and over again through her brain.

‘Time and Space. These words are perhaps two of the most important in the universe. Yet what are these? I have an intuitive notion of each. Time is that which unites the past with the present and allows me to anticipate the future. A clock measures Time. But Time appears to be an abstract concept, which is separate from the external world about me; thus it is difficult to comprehend. Space at first seems to be easy to understand. Space is the vacant area around me or around an object. An object, thus, may be measured by a consideration of how much of this Space the object consumes. But the Space around the object is infinite and it is the opposite of matter in that it is the absence of matter; therefore, Space is nothing. Thus, Space seems to differ from other objects external to me in its infiniteness and its nothingness. Space and Time are not objects in the external world, thus they cannot be perceived directly by man. If Space and Time are not objects, then do they in actuality exist?’

Sylvia smiled fondly and sympathetically as she might have beheld the idiosyncrasies and false beliefs of an old and beloved friend. She was very much acquainted with the false notions which were held by the writer of the papers now tattered and charred with age before her. Yet her response embodied no element of ridicule as Sylvia held the greatest respect for this man, nay, for his age, which was saturated with superstition from the past, yet was caught up in the wonder of the future.

The beliefs the man held were convictions of his age, yet this man was, as more and more men of his age were, no longer able to act confidently and forthrightly with such fallacious knowledge. There were anomalies, there were contradictions, there were questions. And these questions, this man would not ignore. For this integrity Sylvia held the highest regard. And through the tenuous medium of the fading scrawl she felt an empathy, a fondness, a Oneness with this anxious, inquiring soul.

The concepts of Time and Space are now more clearly understood. It is now understood that Time and Space are not ethereal, abstract entities, which exist, yet do not exist, in outer space. It is now seen, as that frustrated soul in the past was beginning to see, that Space and Time are not objects which exist in the external world. Instead it is now comprehended that Space and Time are in fact tools of the mind and exist only therein.

Space and Time comprise the four dimensions. Space accounts for length, width, and breadth; and Time is a dimension by itself. Space and Time are tools. They are comparisons our minds make between things we know and things we don’t know. An unknown extension of matter is compared with the extension of a ruler. Time measures movement. One compares a movement of matter we don’t know with a movement like the rotation of the earth or the speed of light which we do know.

And it is now known that Energy is the fifth dimension. Space and Time measure and describe matter and movement. Energy measures what is left,…which is the Light. All five dimensions are found in the fundamental equations of physics, such as F = ma and E = mc^2. The first trick is to understand that these equal signs are actually transformation signs…The second trick now is to find corresponding equations for biology and the science of man and woman.

It was evident to Steve and Sylvia and the Jasmines… that Omicron and Aura were in Love. With little to occupy their time… as the next scholastic phases of their lives had yet to commence…Omicron and Aura were together…as most people are who are crazy in love….well,they were seen as being together…a little too much….On Wednesday, Candace Jasmine suggested that the two might like to go to the Creative Center for a day or two to be away from family concerns and concentrate on their relationship.

And so plans were made…and they were off! On Friday, Omicron and Aura were up at 8 o’clock. They sat together at the Blue’s family breakfast table and then they were on the mag to the Creative Center, which was high in the hills overlooking the University…on the other side of the Bay. Omicron, of coruse, had always savored his visits to the Center…with its museums, musical productions, restaurants, and spectacular sights,…its stimulating activities of every type… However, this weekend, the visit would be an experience consumed from a totally different perspective…It would be one bright period of happiness and Love…shared with his woman.

The mag pulled into the Creative Center at 10:00 a.m. Omicron and Aura were moved in a smaller mag module that uncoupled and was drawn by magnetism automatically through its own tube which took them to the gigantic hotel overlooking the Bay waters…a vista falling, falling down the rolling hills for twenty miles below. They occupied two separate, spacious rooms with panoramic views. They had brought clothes for swimming, horseback riding, and countless other activities. Then they magged to lunch at a French restaurant. Vegetables, fruits, whole grains and fish were presented as gourmet art pieces….cooked in intelligent, imaginative ways…coloring the palette as an Impressionist painter would dab a landscape…. In its imaginative manner, this cuisine still remained firmly observant to the diet that most bands followed… that was partly responsible for people’s long Lives. Also there were no cigarettes, little alcohol. To cap things off…each person at birth had a gene inserted into his or her genome which filled his or her body with hormones that kept people young…as it slowed the aging process to a crawl.

All facilities at the Center were highly automated. However, a high value was still placed upon personal service and Live performances, so employees and entertainers in the center lived in service bands nearby, which were very cosmopolitan and less research-oriented compared to the regular communities. At the restaurant, they found an amazingly rich assortment of entrees on the menu, which would be cooked to perfection, the bulk of the work done by machines, then embellished by Living, artistic hands. The atmosphere was romantic, dark, in candlelight… each couple nestled in an insulated, one-way vision space of their own….stars ever seen through the transparent, organic, living canopy above them… the Bay an iridescent glow in the night…ever seen through the curving side panels of every building they were inside…as it was here… with a waiter ever close by.

Then they were at the Theatre housed in a magnificent array and display of architecture. The architecture of the buildings was designed by the finest of artists and were made of materials and units which could be reassembled periodically into entirely new configurations to fit the mood of a societal period of time. Art and music were everywhere. Art pieces were conceptual, not merely abstract., left hemispheric dominant expressions of geometry … Pieces of art were always at the service of ideas now, and were within architecture and environments that enhanced the total experience… assaulting, challenging, provoking all of the senses… Music was 12-tone scale united with words filled with powerful philosophical concepts…And if romance were ablossom… then ideas and ideals from male and feminine theologies from the tribes were united into sweeping flows of sometimes Powerful expressions of Will…sometimes sensual and luscious harmonic and melodic panoramas of Love in sound… by means of choral and multi-key board arrangements… with play lists selected individually…floating through their inconspicuous ear pieces simultaneously… constantly and continually… as they feasted on the activities one by one before them…the music selected from an astonishing array of archival offerings available at the Center…..

However, in certain places, when more substantial and conceptual art was desired…performance art by Live participants, which required much concentration and time, were available in magnificent showrooms and concert halls…pieces developed at the highest forms of culture providing vehicles of communication… expressing ideas which could not be adequately presented in any other manner.

The culmination of all art, all music, all artistic creativity was the theater. Here ideas could be expressed utilizing all the arts at the highest energy levels which the human brain had at its command. Theater is the Queen of the arts…as it incorporates all of the arts…and thus wears the crown over all….Great theater is based upon great philosophy. Only the most illuminating and profound thought is reserved for the theater. These concepts are analyzed…conceptualized and crystalized into Powerful and Connecting expressions…presented in dramatic elocution, dance, and song, exquisitely… the music with its melodies and chords…was perfectly aligned in terms of vectors of dynamics and movement,..and sets and Lighting were consistent in material structure and forms… with the levels of energy inherent in the ideas expressed in words and lyrics. Then these energies, movements, and forms are combined into a plot consistent in all ways with historical and biographical considerations, and finally, stage design, Lighting, costumes, music, and words are combined to present a story worthy of Tolstoy…each embodying Powerful concepts…each bearing a philosophy which could move and help build the epoch of time before them…

Each creative center was a speck on the globe…a speck of throbbing, vital, energized, international effusion… a cry for Peace…a blinding Light of trans-world combination and display of Unity… of astonishing cerebral contribution and innovation…emulating a Paris of Light…that no longer was a realm of the flâneur…the idle stroller and anonymous spectator on the crowded boulevard…but now was a Heartbeat, gushing pulsing center…of creativity…. collected from the best, given to all…by a galaxy of feverishly enterprising and exhaustingly active bands, clusters of humanity…covering the globe… with their energy…and with their Light…that is sent from organic pools of a species known… as Homo sapiens…sent out through transparent fibers of organic materials..out into a black, unforgiving, infinite… sea of night…

The effect of great ideas expressed on a stage…is astonishing and all inspiring. After a performance, Omicron always felt joyous that he was a human being, able to participate in such weighty questions of thought, and one day perhaps be able himself to participate in creativity of such high level.

After the theater, the two danced until midnight, during Omicron’s period of high mental activity. Then they magged through the Center from shop to shop where goods were not sold but where examples of the latest commodities were shown and demonstrated. These commodities could be ordered in an instant via Cerebrum and sent to their bands.

What Aura loved most at the Center…and what she almost secretly desired to devote part of her time to… was fashion design. She loved to sit for hours at the perpetual fashion shows where models, Live and virtual, continuously showed the latest styles and happily showed any particular item upon demand. During the past four years, she had created several designs which had been used by the industry. However, biological investigations during the past year had absorbed most of her creative energy.

Then it was back to the hotel. The grounds were spacious and every part was illuminated at all times. There were crystal pools and other recreation areas of all sorts. There was a gigantic patio enclosed in a transparent organic membrane overlooking the Bay where foods of all types were served and people were always present, reading, writing, talking in quiet conversations or resting. They changed and swam in graceful arcs of arms and body the length of an Olympic-sized pool…In a nearby pool, synchronized swimming was always on display. Then they put on wraps and in each other’s arms sat in the patio and looked at a sky…which was beginning to accumulate dark, angry masses of an oncoming storm. They kissed discreetly, then probed verbally to depths … feelings and secrets…which given the early stage of their relationship…they had begun to explore and share.

‘Omicron, I feel myself being propelled by Forces greater than I. I feel myself caught up in the sweep of history, the sweep of events larger than myself over which I have no control. Two weeks ago my Life was organized, my plans set, my dreams in tact. Then came the Struggle. The communities were shattered. So many friends now are gone. And suddenly there is a ‘we’. Life is wheeling wildly about me. So much has happened so fast.’

She had said some words, but her real concerns were yet to be expressed. Omicron kissed her on the forehead as she continued:

‘You know, I study insects. You know, I consider the little creatures and in so many ways they are like us. They have heads, legs, torsos,…not identical to ours, but then not that different either. A priori the probabilities are astronomical against all these bugs, these animals, and man having the same basic physiology and structure, unless there is a Connection, unless they are related. I could go on and on about how the basic building blocks of the cell, the DNA, the RNA, are present in all species. We are able to thrive on a diet of fruit, vegetables, and whole grains because we are made from the same chemicals as they are. Well, the fact is, the only proper conclusion is that man and all animals and plants are all related. We know this is True because of DNA. Our way of Life is built upon this premise.

‘Science has come so far…so fast….I was searching the Nation’s Archives, which house trillions of books that our hand readers are unable to access…mostly really old, outdated things that we can benefit from anyway…as part of our rich literary heritage….One poor author…he wrote in the 1970s…only about 100 years ago…he was so depressed…and in just a handful of years most of his concerns have been wiped away… That doesn’t mean that there isn’t more to be done…On the contrary, if so much has been done in a short time…just think what you and I can do…in the next thirty, forty years…

‘Well, this author was looking at insects…just as I do…These insects…. you can grind them up and you are left with chemicals, and nothing else. You look at the smallest insects with an electronic microscope and you see basic molecules attached to each other and moving about. The cell has DNA which is merely a collection of molecules. All of this is chemistry. These bugs are elements, dust in motion. But these insects are aLive…whatever that means! ALive! If an insect is composed of the same chemicals as a rock, is it really any more aLive?

‘Oh, the author knew that an insect moves and a rock does not. A bug has a dot of chemicals called a brain which moves other chemicals called legs and antennae. But chemicals are chemicals. In the case of an insect, we just squash it and say… Whee, a bug’s a bug. Of course an insect amounts to only so many chemicals, it is such a lowly, inconsequential thing. The author knew that scientists can take chemicals and add energy and make Life. So bugs are the accidental result of a fortunate mixture of water and carbon dioxide and Light…just as Life itself was at the beginning…an emergence of Life that is dramatically recounted and reproduced every second in the photosynthesis of the plant leaf. Just chemicals and electro-magnetic energy…Light…What is life?…The molecules just wiggle a lot, that’s all.

“But the author couldn’t stop there. You see,…we’re chemicals, too! Insects are chemicals and we’re related to the darn things. We may squash them, disparage them, torture them, ignore them, but they are our cousins, and the stuff of which they are made, we are made of also.

‘“What does all this mean?” he asked… “How can there be Right and wrong, or why do we continue to Live at all if we are merely chemicals?” The author understood that he was Living in the most prosperous century that mankind had ever experienced…He was a happy man, generally… Nevertheless, he would go to work and become so depressed. He was afraid of this basic unending confusion….He was constantly feeling so alone in a vast, dead universe….He said that man had not discovered the moon when he landed on it…No, no…No!…It was when he turned to view that blue ball dangling in black space… that the real discovery had been made!….That was the moment…that man really …really…discovered earth!…and that moment…was so, so terrifying….We are so, so alone….alone….He could see right then and there…that we humans…must be family here on earth…There is no one else!…We must be family to survive on this brave, frail planet!…..

‘Of course, now…we know that each particle of dust in the Cosmos is filled with consciousness…and Life on earth…is merely a part of this…There is Hope in a universe imbued this way…We are just scraping the top surface of the Truth of things…and you and I are going to make great contributions to all of this.’

‘Steve has always said…that great men and women have always had the tools at hand to overcome any deficiencies in science,’ Omicron said. ‘Just look at the Arcana…Yes, things may have looked hopeless and meaningless to this man whose words you were reading…yes, to every man and woman…in ancient times, then also…even a hundred years ago…Still if he had had these magnificent, Cosmic, Powerful ideas at hand…he would have been able to arise each morning…roust out… and fight the Indians… those great shamanic ancestors of ours…that we have so proudly massacred and humiliated!

‘I guess I might as well begin giving you his lectures, now….now that you are my little girl at my knee..’

Aura gave him a gentle kick to the knee in response and continued her little speech..

‘As I have said…the short of it is… that man and woman are composed of the same matter which exists outside of them. The feeling, the conviction they have… that there is a spirit or an unique creature called an I inside of their bodies is related to an I-particle “looking out”. This particle is probably a hydrogen ion. This seems incredible… what it means is that every atom has an I… something “looking out.” The I first shows up in plankton…there is a vegetable plankton that floats and is pushed along by water currents. Then suddenly, without a change in species or DNA…that one can detect…there suddenly appears an animal plankton that moves on its own and seeks, avoids, navigates its way as if it can perceive and act on its own, perhaps even think a little bit. It is almost as if one thing has been added that has these new characteristics itself. There are experiments that can be made that will definitely prove this one way or the other. The problem has been…that the tools scientists utilize to examine the world about them…cannot measure and otherwise describe… things that are too small…or move too fast….

‘If this particle hypothesis is correct,…and utilizing a new Scientific Method we are now 95 percent certain that it is indeed…True… then the following may be also….True. Just as all forces and matter were at one time consolidated in the blinding flash from which all has come, similarly, all I‘s, that is, I-particles may have been One. This consolidated I then was One immeasurable consciousness like a god. As the Cosmos expanded and cooled this One I became a countless many. Perhaps stars are consolidated I‘s that become great pools of hydrogen and helium ions…united Is with One consciousness. A star may be One eye in the sky that perceives and contains volition, that is, the Will to change, to act, to impact the Cosmos about it. No, more!…The Cosmos is are the artifacts of the workings of a great consciousness….perhaps there is a black hole left where the original explosion took place…still working…still filling the universe somehow…with its thoughts and Power…

‘All of this would be marvelous, if it is… True. As I say…scientists are now ninety-nine percent certain that this is in fact…True. However, as I say… no instruments have been devised to confirm it…Cyclotrons merely smash things to pieces…all Truth regarding the behavior of particles within atomic nuclei is lost…Much Truth nowadays is obtained circumstantially by utilizing information from many disciplines at once…utilizing a Science of Everything… wherein the social sciences are placed on a biological base and are enlisted along with the physical and biological sciences to form a Truth that is nearly complete… utilizing a new Scientific Method…which works Powerfully…yet with circumstantial evidence… which piles high the probability that something is… True. by addressing phenomena about us…from every angle…from the perspective of eight, nine, ten different disciplines…all with the same methodologies… same language …that now can effectively and efficiently…all talk together…work together…. without the satisfaction of empirical verification…

‘However, if all of this about consciousness is… True… there are other Truths we must still face.

‘If man is matter, if he is an animal, then is not Life merely an animal struggle of passion and sweat? Then are not all values, moralities, eternal Laws hogwash?

‘Well, as we know, the values, moralities, and eternal Laws people possessed during the Dark Ages after the fall of Rome were mostly nonsense. But the fact of the matter is that they were nonsense because they were not based upon the realities of the universe. There are in fact values which transcend the individual. These values, Truths, must be observed, for the perpetuation of the species. These Truths are seen every day in the gardens of plants and trees that Nature now forms about us every day in our new Life…Yes, plants are closer to the Truths of the universe..because flows of hydrogen ions tap energy from the Light of the heavens…and the Truth embedded in these particles give them a Truth that animals seem to only dimly see…Beauty is Everywhere…Everything is Connected…a Garden is not an Object, but a Process…We are… Nature …Plant/animal is… Momentary… Everything Dies…All Plants are Equal…..

Our society…in spite of the experiments that Chimp Savvy Band is involved in… discourages promiscuous sex because it leads to debilitation of the individual, decrease in happiness and joy in the medium run, and with misuse of the pill, it leads to a decrease in marriages and a degeneration of the species in the long run. Surprisingly, pornography is all right…because the needs of men and women are significantly different…only forty years ago, prostate cancer was the number one cause of adult male death…this is because men and women would couple and men would defer to their partners’ preference to have sex during one period of the month…whereas men need it at least twice a week…if the sexual needs of men are not met, sperm accumulates and is toxic…Men must be relieved in a way that does not involve Live females..if women are unwilling to help them out….Ergo, pornography works….

‘Other values we have in our society today are similarly related to the biological needs of the individual and of the species. The plant/animal sphere is based on survival of the fitness…Life is based on death…All animals kill to survive and the plants that don’t kill will also soon die…So replication is the essence…the preoccupation…the sole reason it would seem…for Plant/Animal Life….Replication is the one great striving of Life….Yet we can see…that there are eternal Laws,…Cosmic Laws that Life too observes…These Laws are related to the Cosmic relationships of matter and energy in the universe. The reality that all matter tends to assume structures and patterns which minimize the expenditure and dissipation of energy is an eternal Law because it is True of matter everywhere, even in the organic shaping of the metropolitan areas of old.

‘However, one thing becomes quickly apparent…Just because we believe now that the Cosmos is permeated with consciousness…this assurance does not fully address the meaning of Life….Why do we continue to live if we are just matter and therefore, Life is meaningless…. Well, as I say…that’s a good question and not one to just slide over, or make up and believe in a bunch of fantasy just to avoid asking this one important question. Tolstoy was constantly pointing out how people are not self-aware…of the hideous pretensions and useless pedantry they display…when of course they are secretly obsessed with the terror of death…and with the meaningless ‘rope dancing’…that is, the acrobatics… of Life….People should not take Life for granted as being a naturally “Good’” thing.

‘We should not worry about what will be after death, just as we should not concern ourselves too much about the concept of God, of the Source. Energy is the Source of all Life. Energy is the Source of all things. But whither does energy come? How are electrons able to whirl about a nucleus for an eternity without obvious inputs of energy? And if energy is somehow acquired from the dark space around the atom…why are we not able to access that same source of Power? What remains when energy is dissipated and gone? The answer to these enigmas…is… We do not know… and for the moment…we must obey an ancient admonition that we should not concern ourselves with them. Instead we should concentrate upon that before us and upon the Laws and knowledge which we are able to know. We must roll up our sleeves and commence the work before us. No one promised us that the great Life and best Life would not be painful …But from what I hear… if Life is Lived properly and creatively… it is far more than worth the Struggle.’

At this point, Omicron who was itching to say something…chimed in…

‘As far as meaning is concerned, a human brain understands things. Thus his brain is able to give meaning to things. Large stars may be filled with I’s… thus, the stars may possess cognition which like our brains… may impart meaning to things. One cannot impart meaning where none exists. Because we are able to construe meaning in a million different things…then it is quite possible..for entities far more Powerful than we…to possess a conception of things…that makes sense of everything..somehow… Somehow, all of it …I conjecture…all of Life…Everything….has meaning. The universe was born in a flash; it broke into countless bits of fire and spread outward for billions of years. If the universe keeps expanding or even if it starts contracting to return to its original mass that can explode again … what meaning does that have? I suspect that if meaning exists in our Lives and our Lives are as insignificant as those of ants as far as the universe is concerned, then I bet there is meaning to all this that we will be able to understand someday. Someday when we finally discover where ninety-seven percent of the universe is, what it is really made of and what it really is up to. Until then I don’t think scientists can ascertain if the Cosmos possesses meaning or not. The Cosmos may in fact be one big brain. In the meantime, I just believe that there is meaning to our Lives and we must try to Live the best Lives we can. I think a chimpanzee can relate to that…Isn’t that right, Aura.’

Another soft kick to the shin and the two were on there way cavorting and frolicking about the immense Center again…

Later that evening, Aura looked at her man…

‘The words we have been saying about the meaning of Life…are in a way… very reassuring… although if I line them up and see what we are really saying I think we should be as depressed as ever. Instead, I see a glint of hope, a faint feeling of Cosmic Oneness with the universe from which we one day may receive great strength and possibility.’

“Oh, Aura, I want to make Love to you,’ Omicron said.

‘I know you do. And I want to Love you, too. But this is not the time.” And thence followed Omicron’s first instruction in the Theology of Love, carefully omitting most of what the theology of the Chimp band would have to say…Otherwise they would have been pregnant already…

‘For all animals, sex is a creative act of reproduction,’ Aura said. ‘Animals do not participate in it until they are mature and capable of taking care of children. In the previous century, it took man and woman many years beyond their physical maturation before they were financially capable of raising a family. Today, educational institutions have been improved to the extent that man and woman are culturally prepared for employment and supporting children at the same time they become physically capable of producing them. In your band, sex is limited to a mate with which one is committed to, and with whom one would like to have children. This is consistent with your Law of the Body, of physical creativity, which imparts to man and woman joy and happiness. You and I are committed to each other and we shall be having the child allotted to us by the government. Even in my band, sex usually in practice….must wait until marriage….which is really against our chimpanzee proclivities…. If we have sex now, Love will be no more than a play thing, it will be denigrated and sullied….which is another way of saying…Chimpanzees have all the fun! No!… we must wait until the moment we are ready to conceive. Oh, how beautiful that moment of creation will be! After the conception, our brief space of physical creativity, to use your theology, at least physiologically will be over. During the next decade or so, we shall still be in a physically creative stage as we raise our

child and prepare him or her for the time when he or she will be able to go out on his or her own. After conception, the sex act will be in commemoration and in consecration of our Love which will have grown and been exalted by growth as we progress together into… again to use the words of your faith… the intellectual and then Cosmic phases of our Lives. As we progress, the sex act will be part of an active, creative, and exalted relationship. If we do these things, we shall reap Lives filled with happiness, peace, and joy. In the words of the Chimp theology, the bliss of coupling will reach the higher boughs of our tree…causing leaves and branches…to fall on lethargic, uncreative idiots below.’

The last phrase was emphasized with a elbow softly to his side…

‘I don’t know about all this chimpanzee stuff,” Omicron teased his girl in return.

‘Well I don’t have time to teach you everything right now. Let me just say that an important concept is that daily bathing is not as important as some people seem to think it is,” she bantered back.

Omicron sniffed her arm… picked her up and threw her with legs kicking into the pool. They swam for thirty minutes. Then they embraced, and sat for two hours longer in the illuminated bubble…its Light and Life…radiating out into the black… into an exterior that was now gently raining…clouds slowly churning…into an enveloping…increasingly ominous night.

Omicron and Aura were discussing what to do for the remainder of their stay at the Center when their honey-filled victory tryst was abruptly interrupted by a flashing red light on the hotel’s entertainment-communication screens. In one second Samuel Wolf’s face appeared and one look told them that there was trouble. In short forceful words he told how a contagion, unleashed somehow during the fury of the Struggle and the movement of people across long distances… was threatening to run rampant through the cellular membranes of the communities near the mountain. Like a fire during the previous centuries, this genetic contagion was threatening to spread from a few infected clusters to engulf entire communities including Love Song Band. Omicron was needed back immediately to help contain quickly this potentially blister-paced wave of deathly pestilence. Omicron and Aura packed immediately and were on their way in twenty minutes.

When they arrived at the community that had been stricken… a meadow nearby was filled with waves of people Struggling in the night…in rain that was steadily increasing…somehow passing buckets of antibiotics in rapid fashion down long lines of brigades. This is ridiculous, thought Omicron…an enlightened age and we are passing buckets like in a Dark Age….but in a mag-speeded age, there were few helicopters or bombers nearby to help quell wild fire-like disasters….Also it was just one band that was in trouble… there were few people nearby to act quickly to move medicine to the stricken organisms….Many of the village people were on holiday that weekend, and the contagion, though limited in area…was furious in its intensity….The spores were aerial and after one group of cells was distorted into black-bluish bulbs twisted, oozing, collapsing growths, large clouds of spores were ejected to infect other groups of cells and other clusters. Now that ‘bio-forms’ were used in many areas of the communities’ Lives, new, exotic diseases had appeared to plague residential structures, food producing units, and cloth fabricating aggregates, just as in past centuries domestic pets had been ravaged by their peculiar maladies. Both men and women were quickly utilizing techniques of genetic engineering…to quickly construct fibrous tents to place over infected structures to help stop the spreading of the disease. However, the malady for the moment ravaged on… engulfing one cluster after another…threatening to move relentlessly in every direction from this one point to every band residing in the northern peninsula.

As they were fighting, the rain slowly increased in strength…until it was falling in torrents… which at first represented a Force that frustrated the battle against pestilence…yet quickly and unexpectedly …became an ally to the fighters…as it began to reduce the ability of the spores to spread …and finally allowed the men and women to contain the infestation… but not before thirty clusters were in contorted, pulp-like, useless, masses of dying protoplasm. A half hour later Omicron and Aura stood hand in hand in the pouring rain, soaked to the bone, looking at the shriveled dark forms of what once had been a thriving, Living community.

Before Omicron rose the image of “a tower struck by lightning” of Cosmic step sixteen… Ruin. ‘A crowned and an uncrowned man are thrown down from its heights with the ruins of the battlements. It was the symbol of material forces that can crush great and small alike. It is also the emblem of rivalries which only end in ruin for all concerned, of frustrated plans, of hopes that fade away, of abortive enterprises, ruined ambitions and catastrophic deaths.

‘On the physical level, it represents the reversals of fortune. On the intellectual level, it symbolizes the downfall of the Spirit that attempts to discover the mystery of God. On the Cosmic level, it expresses the punishment of pride.

‘Remember, son of Earth, that the ordeals of misfortune, accepted with resignation to the supreme Will of the All-Powerful, are the steps in a predestined progress for which you will be eternally rewarded. Suffering is working in order to free yourself from the bonds of material things, it is the putting on of robes of Immortality.’

Omicron knew that it is the frustrations and reversals of Life which render a man wise and able to gaze intently on the True and Just, regardless of what tragedies occur around him. The old must be destroyed before the new can be won. It is the task of all Living organisms to create. Creation is the assemblage of the new from the old. Therefore, creativity necessarily implies death and destruction. Since humans must by Nature be creative, their progress can be ascertained and measured by the ruins, the artifacts… they leave behind. To state this in another way…Consciousness creates tools…which become artifacts which archaeologists may discover later as remnants of a given creative period. In this manner, the Cosmos may be seen as artifacts… tools created by a once whole, Unified dot of immeasurable Consciousness exploded into a universe of space-filling creativity….In fact, when one is looking for consciousness working in small areas such as human cells…one can trace the source, the impetus for activity by identifying streams of tools that are the remains of a speck of consciousness at work.

Aura looked up at her man and said,

‘I know that this catastrophe should begin to shake us to the core. This was a close call…This could have been a biological CASTLE threatening everything we have built these past decades… These communities are my Life, my home, and my childhood. However, when I am beside you, I have little care for what the fortunes of the world might wreak upon me,…for I know we shall survive, and we shall continue to grow in our Love, and prosper and have a Life full of joy and happiness….Our theologies promise that somehow, someway…that if we are able to remain supremely Connected as a couple…and this has occurred rapidly, I swear…Well, given the closeness that we possess…we shall be inseparable…for an eternity….Well, only this is of importance to me…the rest is diverting…and will no doubt make Life more interesting and challenging….However, nothing shall turn our attention from the most important things in Life…We are here…to find another…to fasten on to…a Connection which shall ensure that we…with others shall always… remain in the Light.’

‘And I,’ said Omicron, ‘know that when I am near you, I have all. I have Love. I have Life. I have family and community in your embrace. And for this Love I give you this,” he said as he groped in his pocket in the pouring rain and pulled out a sparkling diamond which he placed on her finger.

‘I was going to give this to you tonight in the Center before we returned, but here in these circumstances, the eternal Light of the diamond is a brilliant reminder of the Love which we share which will always burn with sparkling Light…and continue to grow to fill the world…then the eternities… until ultimately it may be able to help fill the Cosmos…with its works and its embrace. It stands for an eternal Light that may, if we are worthy…if we are vigilant …be a Light which may thenceforth shine brilliantly from our couple. … which shall be able to prevail throughout times of adversity … in the face of all chains of causation which threaten us. For with this ring, two become One…a unity which I hope shall be consecrated in the Circle of the community in one week’s time…This diamond…is a symbol; of why we are here…reminding us that there is indeed…meaning for our Lives…For there is one thing…that we are certain of…Only by means of Life and Love…can two…become One…forever…and ever…Halleluja!…and thereby remain…eternally…. in the Light! This is all the meaning we require…to climb up the steep, and challenging mountain of Life… hulking majestically high…before us.’

They embraced and kissed,…totally oblivious of the waters from heaven … streaming down upon them.

‘From darkness into the Light. How trite these words seem, yet nevertheless, they are true in an historical context. And more and more are they true today as my whole being is constantly and completely infused with this fact by the contradictions of an age… the schizophrenia… that is, the multipersonalities of a species… which cloak one with frustration, yet is no doubt also the regalia, the harbinger, the psychodrama of an age in transition and evolution.

‘Darkness, light. From the dank cave-like refuge of the monk’s cell to the expanse and splendor of Gothic arch and tracery. From the bat-like wings of priestly office and candle-dripped manuscripts of forgotten libraries beneath the earth to the erudite illumination of universities. From the skulking, furtive transactions of the Jew… in the shadow of the wall of prince, sword, and early death… to the engines of steel and glass straining forth with the energy of the millennia towards the expanse of the heavens, towards the sky-brilliant Light.

‘So blinded by light in fact are we that we all too often forget that we are still children of darkness. So frantically have we sought to place our whole selves into that tiniest of pin-dots of light afforded by man’s technological wonders, which by our estimation should immediately translate us unto a paradise of exquisite joy… that we have nearly torn the body societas asunder… as foot, leg, trunk, arm are still firmly anchored… in relentless medieval night.’

On Sunday, Omicron was up early. He was all energy and he sought ways to expend it. He wanted to carry his woman off into the jungle, mate, and begin his Life. The time for this had not yet arrived. Omicron’s mind was repeatedly lured to the thought of how during the Struggle, the victory of one moment had so suddenly collapsed into the ruin and destruction of the next. One never knows, he concluded. One must always be ready for the unexpected. But this… he promptly checked himself …, is not the proper conclusion. There is more to this than the mere vulnerability of man and woman to the whims of fate. Man and woman can fight and win. However, fate, reversal, disaster… and man and woman’s successful response to these things is the True essence of victory. Therefore, such disaster is a part of the journey man and woman must traverse towards the Light, and thus, is part of the ultimate victory. It is not so much that the world or the Cosmos is against anyone. It is more that they are indifferent to man and woman and their Lives. Consequently, most things that happen are not consistent with one’s goals. One must assess the realities about him or her and make adjustments. If one is working on a play and for some reason he or she loses a draft of a screenplay and has to start over, he or she should not say that Cosmos is against him or her and give up. Instead he or she should say, ‘O.K., I really can make it better anyway.’ This will turn a negative Force of fate into a positive Force of action. Consciousness is known by the tools it creates…If certain tools are lost or don’t work…we can always create new ones….On the other hand, when one looks back on his or her Life…it often seems that if one works diligently on the proper course…things seem in retrospect to have been fostered, facilitated by events that have occurred…Yes…in spite of all that has been said…when the last speaking is done…it may actually be the case…that the Cosmos may be watching!

At noon when the Blues were eating lunch… with Aura a continual presence now…the news came. Steve was taking a brief rest in the Blue’s cluster. It was then that a message appeared on the Cerebrum screen…

‘Concerning the application of Omicron Blue to the United States Music Academy: Admission denied.’

Two weeks before, Omicron would have been crushed and would have been frantic that his father was not nearby for advice and consolation. The faces around the table zeroed in on him for his inevitable reaction. Omicron pressed his lips together in a small smile, stood… then saluted smartly with his hand… half sarcastically, half reconciled to the destinies of the universe… and excused himself to go for a walk.

For an hour he walked. He might as well have flown… for all his mind knew or cared. At first he was bitter and began to blame the school for making a bad decision… and the Struggle…both had disrupted his dream of creating music for a drama which could be accepted for nationwide showing.

However, very quickly, he acknowledged the Truth. First, his music up to this point had not been very good. Maybe, as Aura had said, he had not been sufficiently inspired. More likely he had had nothing of worth to say. For in the end, music is nothing more than a vehicle for communication. And communication in spite of its elegance of form or color and variety of its presentation can never by more than its content.

One does not write music to win acceptance to a school. One writes music because one must. That is, one is compelled to use music to express a certain idea… because in a particular case it is the only medium capable of expressing the thought most completely and successfully. Up to now, he had accepted the plot and dialog of a musical as a given, as a showcase in which context his music could be presented. However, the music had been contaminated by this process. He was writing words he could not relate to… beliefs he did not hold. Now he could see that to be entirely successful he would have to start at the very beginning…He must develop the ideas, the concepts, the philosophy that is to be expressed. If the Beatles…had only read something!

But then this was not entirely correct…It wasn’t that he did not have ideas… He did have ideas…he just hadn’t used them in musical productions… Yes, indeed…he had ideas that he would like to express…These were concepts he had developed and were his alone. The ideas must now be allowed to blossom forth, naturally… with melodies consistent with them and supportive of them in energy and content. The dialog, costumes, sets, and Lighting would also have to be used to support these ideas…into the highest forms of dramatic and conceptual art. These other aspects of the theater were not his forte… but he could rely upon A-types for contributions in these spheres.

Yes, he could do it. And he would do it, right away…. However… Then a second part of the truth hit him. The whole scheme of going to the academy in New York had been merely an escape. It had been a dream he had had… to prolong his formative education, to isolate himself from the world… to pleasure himself in his previous dilatory way. He knew now that he must remain in the world. Music would be one means, but not the only way, he would impact the world. There was his research, which was most important. Composing music can generate joy and happiness. But one must not concentrate upon that to the detriment of the many other ways one can obtain such joy and happiness. The major way to receive the Cosmic rewards, that is, the way most people on earth had receive them in the past, is through physical creativity… And Omicron now was committed to staying in the Bay area with his woman and starting his family. This now had to have the highest priority. Intellectual creativity also produces joy and happiness. But he knew that the creation of intellectual tools, that is, ideas… produced the desired ends only if the tools were of use, if they were capable of having a great impact upon the world….Tools are of use only if they have the potential to make man and woman’s Lives easier and more meaningful. But such tools can be created only if one is fully immersed in Life, is acquainted with Life’s problems, and therefore is in a prime position to help solve problems.

Lastly, there was Cosmic creativity, which was a third source of joy and happiness. His ideas…his tools…which are filled with potential…must become Cosmic!…One must follow through..and take the first steps towards enabling his ideas to impact the world. This meant that his place was here… in the communities … to reap the experience of working in the world…His ideas must be Powerful enough…to be used in developing products, social tools, that is, institutions, creating new patterns of social interaction on the national and world levels and rendering to all mankind a better Life. He would accept the responsibilities of being a leader in his community, being active in political life, receiving joy and happiness from service in Love…to the tribe and nation, writing songs and working with his wife in their Circle of Love and community… celebrating cooperation, progress, and perpetuation of the species on the highest levels. His place was here…not in New York…His place was in the Bay area… and community creativity on all three levels would be furthered by this decision.

As Omicron walked the hills in contemplation, Omicron noticed that spring had blossomed forth overnight. It was the second week of March. When he returned to the community an hour later, Aura was walking towards him with an armload of flowers. Seeing her, he almost laughed. Here was the crux of it all! He realized that it was impossible for him to be any happier. His dream had been a false one, and a new course had to be taken.

Aura approached cautiously, surveying his face carefully to make sure that Omicron would not snap her head off.

‘Well, there you are. You just walked off like that. Didn’t even wait to share the tragedy of the moment together.’

Then seeing that in spite of the news he was in fairly good spirits, she teased, ‘Well, if they don’t want you, I do.’ These words reinforced the thoughts that Omicron had just had…Hearing these words, Omicron realized that here indeed was… the Heart of the matter. If he went to New York, he would be giving up their Life together. He would return, but so many precious joyful hours together would be lost. He really was not sure now what he would have done if the production had been accepted. He suspected that with circumstances the way they were now, he probably would not have gone east anyway.

If things are so bad, why do I feel so happy, and so certain that glorious times are ahead? he wondered. Before him, Omicron saw a picture of Typhon, the symbol of Cosmic step 15… Fate… ‘the spirit of catastrophes, who rises out of a flaming abyss and brandishes a torch above the heads of two men chained at his feet. It is the image of fatality which bursts into certain lives like the eruption of a volcano, and overwhelms great as well as small, strong and weak, the cleverest and the least perceptive, in its equal disaster. On the physical level, the step expresses the Unforeseen, and Fatality. On the intellectual level, it signifies mystery. On the Cosmic level, it means predestination.

‘Whoever you may be , son of Earth, contemplate the ancient oaks that defy the Lightning, but which the Lightning strikes after having avoided them for more than a century. Cease to believe in your wisdom and your strength, if God has not granted that you may receive the key to the mysteries that make a prisoner of Fate.’ The key to survival and progression in a world embraced by fate is to keep the initiative of the Will bright by riveting one’s eyes upon the True and Just. Then in spite of a world falling about one, he or she may strike forward with the knowledge that if he or she proceeds in accordance with the Laws of the universe, he or she will ultimately prevail. “Well, it looks as if you have to stay and be with me,” Aura interrupted his reverie. With his grasp he brought her next to himself and kissed her. Those old plans of escape and lethargy seemed irrelevant and pathetic… considered now… with the woman of his dreams… in his arms .

The city. One pictures bright lights, hustle bustle, excitement, opportunity. But there is the reverse side. Man’s mind has built to the sky… but his body has been left in a hovel beside. There are friends to be found here… if one lives in a place long enough, risks enough, is hurt enough. There is community if one is willing to arduously search out the almost invisible…Yes, iron strong ties can and do exist somewhere beneath the superficial appearances of the city… but too often these are dictated by the interest of mind and power… and not of community and love. Then if disaster strikes and an arm is stretched forth for help… in most cases, that smiling klatch of friends either willingly or helplessly… because of the supremacy of self-interest… watches in disinterest as their former associate sinks to the depths.

‘The city. The cold metal crashes as certain as a jail. There is possibility in the city. Possibility of money, of progress, of success. But there is little hope. There can be no hope where there lacks compassion.’

At twelve o’clock, the command was given by radio to move… Each group of troopers…hidden in the metal…began making its way via its own circuitous route to the top. The blue-white ceiling above became visible clearly to them… for the first time. It was one continuous panel, illuminated like the sun. The men quickly moved hand over hand …in and around machinery…towards the Light. As Omicron’s group neared the top… they could see the illuminated forms of the eight other groups. Their next conquest would be swift and violent. They would take the headquarters, smash the Heart of the operation, destroy all enemy command networks and demoralize the enemy. Then they would signal the 800 troopers waiting for orders…at the first mag station…to return quickly to the City, move as One Force into the Central Complex and secure it against the 900 enemy celebrating in buildings on the grounds.

The feeling of energy coursed back into Omicron’s veins…when he realized that he was not alone…Now that he realized that there were one hundred troopers hidden in the electronic equipment…his body became a vector. Every atom and molecule within him was charged and directed by universal Law toward the goal. Before him he saw the Spirit of the sun which represented an eternal Initiative… Force, and energy… it was the symbol of Cosmic step 14. This solar spirit ‘was holding two urns and pouring from one into the other the vital sap of Life. It is the symbol of the combinations which are ceaselessly produced in all parts of Nature.

‘On the physical level, it represents the combination of the forces of Nature. On the intellectual level, it stands for the combinations of the ideas which create morality. On the Cosmic level, it symbolizes the perpetual movement of Life.’

‘Son of earth, take stock of your strength, not in order to retreat before the works of your hand, but in order to wear away obstacles, as water falling drop by drop wears away the hardest stone.’ At the top they burst one at a time through an opening which led to the headquarters. As they burst through the opening, they were immediately in hand to hand combat with the guards. Omicron shot through the opening, his gun blazing. Suddenly, Steve appeared leading several clusters of men. With Steve right beside him, Omicron led the others as they blasted their way through the first line of enemy. Before Omicron in his mind, the sun became a Light with an intensity of a Lightning bolt which did not flash and die but which remained before him as a constant Source of energy, force, and Light. The men surged towards the headquarters killing three enemy for every man lost. Then they were at the door of the headquarters. Omicron reached for the bombs on his belt. The door flew open showcasing a face which in stunned response to the view before it could only say, “Uh, wha! Hey, boss!” before it was blasted to ashes. Omicron grabbed from his belt….and activated… the three positive ion bombs and the shrapnel bomb…. one after another… and tossed them into the headquarters room. The blast which followed shattered much of the glass which gave management a three hundred and sixty degree command over the City below. After the required time, the troopers stormed into the room littered with unconscious and Lifeless forms. Scar Liege was aLive… and able to struggle to recover from the effects of the positive ion bombs. He was desperately attempting to reach something when five troopers surrounded and immobilized him. His hand was still straining, writhing toward a button it would never reach, the button which would have liquidated completely…as far as the City headquarters Complex was concerned…both man and machine.

The enemy was defeated.

‘That was close,’ said Steve, measuring in his mind the distance between resplendent success and black annihilation. ‘It is our good fortune that this crud is aLive to face the scorn of the country.’

Steve took Liege by the collar and shoved him through the door into the hands troopers waiting at the door. Twenty minutes later the top level was secured. The enemy were just hoodlums…Most were forced to fight because of past actions which had indebted them to head mobsters…There were no ideals or communities to fight for…Therefore, in spite of their sizeable numbers… with a loss of leadership… the enemy was broken. When the enemy soldiers on the grounds heard that the headquarters had been taken, they left the City quickly before they could be killed or captured. They would return separately or in groups to the places in the Northwest from which they had come.

Suddenly, the enemy headquarters in the complex… was quiet.

At this proud moment, Steve placed his hand upon his son’s shoulder and said…

‘Well done. You have progressed far these past days. In the coming days. you will be a hero and shall receive medals and honors. However, you must realize that the greatest rewards …you have already won… These medals…awards…now reside within your mind and within your body. By virtue of the Struggle…you have been shaped into a new person….You are no longer a boy…Welcome, my son…you are now…a man!

‘Yet your journey is only partly traveled. The greatest steps are still to be taken and greatest glory still to be won. It is an upwards journey… without end.’

The country was ecstatic. The instant the word was out… parades of people filled the walkways of the Creativity Centers throughout the country in celebration. A national holiday would last one week. The sky and communities…were filled with rockets, banners, and flags. Every night the sky was aLight with fireworks as the nation celebrated its victory and its preservation. Victory was sweet. The natural inclination of the country toward adoration of its heroes and expressing its relief and victory through feasting and dancing was irresistible.

Omicron was exhilarated beyond belief. Yet he knew that the real victory had been won within himself and there was more yet to be done. And in spite of all the rewards… physical, intellectual, and Cosmic… which he had gained… he knew the best was yet to come…within a community of Love. He knew that in the future the rewards would become greater and greater. The rewards he received in the future might not be as tangible as the decorations and fanfare he was now receiving. But what he would receive then would surpass all that mortal man could give. Now he was in communion with a country. From now on… he would be in communion… somehow… with the Cosmos.

The celebrations would last a week. However, Omicron’s attention was very quickly on something… someone, else. Steve had taken him personally directly after the victory…to a surgeon in the hospital located near the Creative Center…It had taken one hundred stitches to repair the wound. The doctors marveled that he had been able to stand, let alone climb and conquer the enemy. The first day he was in the hospital…Aura arrived to visit one of her nation’s heroes… The roller coaster of emotions that she had experienced had brought home to her…made her absolutely certain…how much she cared for him. She could now explicitly acknowledge feelings she had had for him, almost subconsciously, for some time,…as she now possessed a respect for him that had been lacking previously. Aura said that Gemstone had been wounded in the shoulder, which had occurred almost immediately after Omicron had seen him, withdrawn into the metal.

One might have remarked that Gemstone’s irritatingly good fortune had continued, as he had been wounded and been evacuated immediately prior to the catastrophic day when hundreds of the troopers who were assaulting the third level had been laid out…in a sea of blood… However, Omicron knew that good fortune for Gemstone in this instance was superficial and that in reality Gemstone had failed to climb upwards, to glory or death, because of a cessation of growth within. His progress had been stopped for the moment, perhaps forever, as he had confronted a challenge that he had been unable, unwilling to face. In the end, it was likely that the cost of this ‘good luck’ would be far greater than he could now imagine.

It was Sunday now. Only two weeks before, Omicron had gone to the Creative Center with Uncle Jonathan and only a week before, he had gone off to fight. It seemed like a millennium ago. Aura stayed at the hospital as long as she was allowed. that first day. They still knew so little about each other. He would be kept at the hospital for two weeks before he was released…. Aura said there would be a Victory party at Chimp Savvy Band sometime in the days to come.

Omicron was no longer the same person. He knew this was True as Aura began to interact with him completely differently. Omicron was aware of the road that had been traveled…since the last time they had talked, when their hands had touched and feelings had been shared in the miracle of a sacred, portentous moment. With her at his bedside, he was quick to reclaim ground previously won…he clasped her hand as they talked quietly the remainder of the time she was there.

‘You are safe,’ she said simply. It would have been easy to have been embarrassed by an intimacy that had outstripped the growth and change in a relationship allowed by a rational mind…, given the passage of a short amount of time. However, modern man and woman were aware that the largest parts of their brains were primal, irrational in nature, and that the primal brains of two individuals could relate in a profound manner with the rational brain being scarcely aware of it. Thus, Omicron and Aura moved immediately to the reality of the primal relationship… their rational minds respecting the depths of feeling which obviously were shared.

‘So many have died.’ she continued. There was now little need for the preliminary talk, characteristic of courtship in a previous age. There was little need for personal history or biography. Omicron and Aura had been together from time to time these past years… however, their talk had never moved past superficialities…except for that one moment… Still, the communities were family…they shared biography…It was possible for serious relationships to quickly take root.

‘As I viewed the list of casualties roll across the screen, I felt as if it were my blood spilt… flowing across and away.’

‘I made it,’ said Omicron. ‘I can’t tell you how I was convinced that I would be killed. A miracle,…. Still,….’

The last utterance was in recognition of the two Forces which had made victory possible in his case…the Arcana…and that female…standing before his bedside.

‘The massacre, that night. Oh, how I cried! I thought I had lost everything, everyone,!…. I thought I had lost…you!’

Their eyes met as they now seriously confronted the feelings they both possessed. Still, they were strangers to all nuances of personality, the ideas, the idiosyncrasies each possessed…. In almost every way they were strangers… yet two animals had made their selection. Now all attention was directed toward dissipating the doubts, the uncertainties of the higher brain.

‘I fought for you, Aura. So many times I ran into the fire with your face before me. You are so beautiful!’

‘I thought you were dead. It was then that… that I really knew…that I really knew how much I care for you!’

‘This is crazy, but right in the middle of the war, I thought of you and wrote a song. A wonderful song. Right there in the middle of machinery, soldiers, guns, and fear. It was really strange.’

‘The communities are closer now than ever,’ Aura said. ‘We share in the loss. We share in the victory. But it is the experiences that we have shared that did it. The challenge, the fear, the anguish, the Love, the hate, the triumph. We all moved as One through this series of apprehension, sorrow… and now victory…We moved as One…together. And we are now One …more than ever.’

‘I like being near you,’ Omicron said. ‘ I feel good just thinking about you. I get excited when I anticipate seeing you!’

‘I have always thought you were handsome. You have always done well in school. ..as well as can be expected for an I-type, of course,’ she jested. Then seriously again, ‘We have always been in awe of your father, the entire country has been. I guess we expected too much, too soon from you. Now, you are changed. Now, you are more like him!’

‘It was more than the war that I confronted out there. What I really confronted was myself. Someday you shall understand. Two weeks ago seems a thousand years. I was a child. But I was properly prepared. The war was a tragedy. But still it allowed rapid growth to take place. I have always worshiped you as a goddess,…a dream I could never have. I still worship you, but given what I have been able to do, I now have the hope, as reckless and presumptuous as it might be… that you may now be mine.’ Omicron drew her to himself and they kissed,…experimentally, cautiously, at first, then in a passionate series of mouth devouring gifts, simultaneously given and received. They experienced the adrenaline rush, the ecstasy of finding one’s Love, and the delirium of finding the reflection of that same ecstasy in the beLoved’s eyes.

Too soon the nurse would come to say that visiting hours were over. After two weeks…, Omicron went back to the Blue cluster in Love Song Band…Aura practically moved in during the day time….and they began their courtship together….

Almost immediately the process of rebuilding a nation had begun. There was the somber task of commemorating the dead. In this highly technological age, in this age of advanced theological thinking…the dead were cremated…in order that their I-particles could be released to combined with other ions and remain in the Light…and the greatest hope was…that each bit of consciousness…would remain somehow available to be united ultimately… with that one special I-particle…perhaps with more… with which it had become close to…during its time on earth…

There were tears at the funerals. However, there were also orations. These men had died in the pursuit of the True and Just. They were heroes, but more than that they were Victors. No higher tribute than the ones they received could be given. No greater satisfaction could be received regardless of what one could accomplish during his Life… than that, which one would receive if he or she were to die in such a noble quest. A martyrdom such as this… might in itself be worthy of an eternity in the Light! A plaque was erected in each community, celebrating the victory that was theirs, with the names of all those in the community who had given their Lives for the cause…signed by the highest officials in the communities, country, and world. Although the bodies of these men were now ash… disintegrated and perhaps one day forgotten… their works would Live on. One result of their work was the preservation of their way of Life which guaranteed to all a Life full of happiness and joy. This result of their work would always be appreciated in song and in national honors. Their example would remain for millennia as examples of men who gave their all for the correct causes. Special tributes were sung and said, and representatives from the country’s and world’s governments were present at countless ceremonies .

After the dead were attended to… the celebrations began. There was the celebration promised in Chimpanzee Savvy Band…when Omicron and Arua…to the extent that he was able… danced the night away.

A week later, Omicron was able to move about a bit…he began to mag over to Aura’s band near the University…They walked over to the lake nearby, with the University looming on the hillsides above them. They waded calf deep as the sun sank behind the hills. The clouds hanging dark and sinister above them suddenly exploded with color, first fire red, then bright yellow, and finally, light violet. Knee-deep in water Omicron and Aura embraced and kissed as the sky slowly slipped into darkness. The remainder of the week, Omicron striding along with the leaders of the Nation…surveyed the damage incurred by the City during the battle… Steve made Omicron a leader of Love Song Band. Caterpillar tracks and ruts had been torn into the meadows when the troopers were preparing for battle. However, considering all that had happened, the communities had been spared the exigencies of warfare. The focus of the enemies ferocity had been upon the City.

Every day Omicron was walking with Aura through the hills, savoring the sensations of being animals, one with Nature. The long blustery winter storm had broken at last. The clouds now were white and frivolous, and for the first time in several days had become a secondary feature in the sky. Most prominent now was the Light and its warmth from the heavens which energized Omicron as he stood with Aura and looked out over blue waters… surveying their earthly realm.

Two weeks after the victory…leaders of the nations convened in Washington D.C. The ceremonies that occurred then were broadcast instantaneously around the world. The leaders of the world government continued to remain in the Bay area… as they now had the greatest honors to bestow. The armies of the country marched in formation, fired military salutes, and covered their heroes with medals. Steve Blue was made general. Omicron was made captain. The group which stormed to the top were bedecked with gold, silver, bronze medals, ribbons and clusters. All men who had participated in the Struggle were decorated. The President shook Steve’s hand and the entire country watched as Steve told the world how his son, now standing tall and beaming beside him, had thrown the final bombs.

Aura waited patiently as her man was feted, decorated and hailed. It was too soon for them to be seen publicly together. Sylvia had accompanied Steve and Omicron to Washington. All three were eager to get back to their home and regain the momentum they had had in their Lives… before the Struggle… in their community by the Bay.