If...

If there were another world what do you think is the most likely way you could get there?
Would it be through an enchanted wardrobe, a subtle knife made of "dark materials," a rabbit hole, a mirror, a drug induced dream, a nightmare turned real, a book that swallows you, a door you never noticed before, a tunnel you unearth while gardening, a tunnel you unearth after decifering some obscure riddles, an angel coming down, a devil coming up, traveling to the edge of the world and dropping off into the abyss? A House that enlarges, a space ship to mars, a cinema screen collapsing on the front row, death, a cave in a forest? All of the above? These questions can keep you up at night.

What if one day you looked in the mirror, and looked down and looked up and there was something you didn't see before, a tiny black patch. You're curiousity gets the best of you and you go the mirror and touch the patch thinking...is this a reflection or is it on the mirror. You turn around and see that there is now a black square patch in your room as well, but the wall isn't a wall, the wall is now a mirror, reflecting yourself, and the black patch is over your eyes..but no matter how hard you try to shake it it follows your eyes. You touch your face and wonder, perhaps the blackness is on my face (but that is curious...how did it get there). You touch your face and realize there is nothing there..or at least your hand has gone through where your head should be. Not through your head you realize, but into the black space. you know this now because now the blackness is fading and you see your reflection, but its you and its not you. Your double is there but he's much more real. He looks at you and you feel naked, a smudge on the landscape. And he takes your hand and says, you have made it. Come quick, there isn't time, you...or I should say we..are the last. And with that he runs with you and into the dark. but now it isn't dark anymore, not overwhelmingly so, there is glimmers of light of objects. You wonder is this the darkness of my fantasia? Or I am the darkness of this Fantasia? You realize its the latter.

You are in the first of three worlds. There can't be more than three worlds, anyone else who tells you that there are is lying. Some people think there are as many worlds as there are decisions made. but that would mean, in millions of worlds you would not even exist. I don't believe it. But, if there are other worlds, there can only be 3. 3 is the perfect number. In the one you live your everyday life. In the next you are a god in so long as you have made something in your image or the image of other men. In the last you aren't the Creator, but the created. Well you are always the created, but here you are nothing more...and nothing less I guess.

Each world is unreachable from each other no matter how far you travel. Each has its own time and its own space, but while they are their own, they are all linked. and there are certain places (but they are hard to find) and certain times (which are much harder to find) when you can breach these borders.

So, if there were other worlds, how would you get there? What would they be like? Who would come and get you? Why would they get you? How does the possibility of "an end" change the dynamic of the world?

Now some may see this as an urge to escape, but its not. It's the exact opposite. We dream of other worlds only because we know of a world, the one we live in. Other worlds do not degrade this world (or shouldn't) but give us a renewed vision of them. Who after reading Alice can look at a rabbit hole the same? Who after reading Narnia prayed the same? After those experiences the creation and its Creator were made real. And in our increasingly secularized world we need such works to keep us awake.

We can't make a new shape or create a new colour, but we use the shapes and colours we have to make something original. Not original in the Romantic sense that our art is idiosyncratic and derived from our unique "selves"; but original in the sense of going back to the origin. To reiterate my other blogs...we create because we are created. All our journeys out, if they are towards some truth, can only be journeys home: the source and end of all our searching...but when we get there, we might only being seeing it again for the first time.

update

Well, as those who may or may not check this blog will know by now, I am either very lazy at blogging or busy with school. I think it is both. I just finished my first paper (one of three) this morning, which is a cause to celebrate since it is one day ahead of schedule. Woo. But the celebration is short-lived because I am now researching another paper. Both of these papers interest me, so it actually is more of a pleasure to do this than anything. The first paper was unique (at least I hope so). I compared Tolkien's short story Leaf by Niggle with Joyce's novel "A Portrait of the Artist" using Dante's Divine Comedy as a common reference since both previous works use Dante intertextually. Fun stuff! My next Paper is looking at the Monstrous body in John of Salisbury's Policraticus. I just want to explore a paradox I found in the work where John is calling men to apply their learning to the public realm of politics (which is what he is) and he describes the ideal prince as one who is a sort of Platonic Philosopher King; however, he concludes that anyone who tries to be both learned and politicaly active is in danger of becoming a monster - a thing opposed to nature, since, like a hydra, they will have two heads that lead them in different directions. This is also a fun paper to write because the Medieval Studies I have been looking at are filled with cool tales of monsters and the afterlife that are just bizarre. Actually, one tale about journeying to the edge of the world was really illuminating of my reading of Lewis' Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Anyways, tomorrow my students hand in their final papers. So with marking, reading, writing...and sleeping/eating, I probably won't get another post in till May.