5 Waiting - The I Ching

View fullsize

Les Jeux et Plaisirs de l’Enfance, Claudine Bouzonnet-Stella. 1657.

Chris Gabriel December 6, 2025

Judgment

Waiting in faith. Cross the great river.

Lines

1
 Waiting outside.

2
 Waiting in the sand. There are rumours.

3
 Waiting in mud invites danger.

4
Waiting in blood. Get out of the hole.

5
Waiting in wine. Feast!

6
 Going in the hole invites three uninvited guests.

Qabalah

Yesod and its place on the Middle Pillar. The cloudy phantasies of Yesod. The 4 Nines. 

Particularly Cruelty, the Nine of Swords and Strength, the Nine of Wands.

---

In the fifth hexagram we are given the image of waiting. For many of us, in this age of instant gratification, the task of waiting has become exponentially more difficult. Yet waiting has never been easy; in a drought, the desperate waiting for rain which all engage in is exasperating and miserable. To await the response to a significant message, to wait to be let into a house, to wait for something, anything, to happen - waiting is an eternal issue. It is being given a blank potential and projecting fantasies onto it. Waiting is grappling with Nothing.

Few texts express the miserable nature of waiting like Samuel Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’, in which two men desperately await the arrival of a third who never comes. 

Vladimir

What do we do now?

Estragon 

Wait.

Vladimir 

Yes, but while waiting.

Thus the Judgment of the hexagram: “waiting in faith”. One must have faith in the arrival of what it is they are waiting for, though the lines of this hexagram offer no assurance that the rain will come.

 
1
In this line we are away from the action, outside and considering the feelings and questions one has while waiting outside of a door. Are they home? Will they let me in? How long will I be out here? Even further, we can think of the suburbs or the outskirts of a place: what it is like to be outside of the life of a city or town?

2
With the context of waiting for the rain, sand is inevitably frustrating. One is either in a desert, where rain will certainly not come soon, or on a beach. “Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink.”

As in Godot, gossip, rumours, and worried discussions come when you wait for too long.

3
Mud is unstable, if you wait in it, you will surely sink deeper in

4
This line following the last calls to mind the trench warfare of the First World War, the drudgery and horror of mud and blood. ‘Get out of the hole’ is ironic in a way, as war, like gambling, is often done for far too long in an attempt to “get out of the hole”. To break even is a sunk cost fallacy.

5
It’s much easier to wait for a friend inside a warm bar than it is to wait outside in the cold.

6

Even if one is stuck in a difficult situation, others will come, if we treat them well, often we will be helped.

The key issue of this hexagram is not whether or not what one is waiting for comes or not, but where and how one waits. The proper place and approach will determine the experience entirely.

---

Chris Gabriel is a twenty four year old wizard and poet who runs the YouTube channel MemeAnalysis.

CHANNEL, SOCIAL, THOUGHTS

Film

The Nature of Sonic Geometry: A Conversation with Eric Rankin

‘Impression Figure’ of recorded sound by Margaret Watts Hughes, Late 1800s.

---

Molly Hankins December 4, 2025

As more and more mainstream scientific breakthroughs sit at the intersection of quantum physics, human consciousness and mathematics, it’s unusual to find a layman at the forefront of revolutionary research. Enter Eric Rankin, the musician, author and channeler of a body of verified information connecting the major chords on a musical scale with the sum total angles of basic geometric shapes. First put forth in a YouTube video he called ‘Sonic Geometry: the Language of Frequency and Form’ in 2013, Rankin never imagined how sharing this knowledge would impact the trajectory of his life. Discovering this symmetry between geometric and harmonic aspects of the universe has led to his work being discussed alongside world-famous scientists and academics. All the while he’s been living in Laguna Beach, playing in two different bands and teaching a Sonic Geometry class at The Integratron in Joshua Tree. 

Approximately 2500 years ago, Pythagoras claimed that “there is geometry in the humming of the strings.” Although sometimes embarrassed by the accolades of credentialed academics, Rankin is the person credited with revealing the correlation between geometry, frequency and major-chord harmonics. “Humans seem to have been ‘designed or programmed’ as major-chord resonators,” he says, speaking of the sense of well-being major chords give us. It’s a similar feeling to hearing music tuned to 432 Hz, which Rankin is also naturally interested in because of patterns that connect to physics, music theory, nature, growth algorithms and spiritual teachings.

The number of vibrational cycles per second determines a sound’s measurement in hertz. When asked about musical tuning, Rankin explained why some Hertz levels, like 432, feel better to many of us physically than others. “432 is kind of a core number, which people are starting to hear about now. If you octave that down to 216, half value, then octave that down again you get 108. A Hindu mala necklace has 108 beads, the meditating Buddha has 108 snails cooling his head while he meditates,” Rankin said. “Our moon is 108 moon-widths away from Earth, our sun is 108 sun-widths away from Earth. So you go, what is going on here that we’ve just been ignorant of? And we wouldn’t have known this until we could measure the moon and the sun and the Earth, that’s just in the last 100, maybe 150 years.” He believes this symmetry, revealed only by the imperial measurement system, is a divine communication meant to be unlocked at a certain phase of human evolution and acts as an invitation to pay attention to the underlying order of life. 

At a cymatics lab, where sound is projected into matter to form geometric patterns, Rankin played a scale of major chords, one at a time in sequence and “something showed up that they’d never seen. Rather than a flat-looking beautiful geometric standing wave pattern, it looked like a living lotus that was flowering where petals were actually layered on top of other petals.” The lotus is a Buddhist symbol for awakening, reminding us that we all have the same potential to achieve enlightenment like the Buddha. The number of equally compelling examples Rankin is able to name of frequency measurements corresponding to sacred geometry, symbols and structures, is completely astounding, but he thinks we’ve barely scratched the surface of all there is to know. Sound projected into matter, with certain frequencies resulting in more beauty and dimensionality than others, might be an indicator of how life was created, and how we are co-creating it with the vibration of our thoughts, words and deeds. 

Rankin’s work has attracted the likes of physicist Menas Kafatos and Sir Robert Edward Grant, who produced the follow-up video to Sonic Geometry which deals with the platonic solids. Kafatos appeared on Rankin’s weekly podcast and radio show in Orange County, Awakening Code Radio, and told us that “today’s science is much more mystical than people make it out to be, including scientists.” Perhaps the underlying truth of geometric correspondence to harmonics, which is inherently mystical, could only come through a non-scientist in a non-academic setting. Sonic Geometry points to natural intelligence that wants to reveal itself, so why wouldn’t that natural intelligence find an unbiased channel who understands the fundamental nature of harmonics and the emotional effect they have on other beings? That’s a perspective unique to musicians, and Rankin has no doubt that’s at least part of the reason this knowledge wanted to come through him. 

---

“Suddenly, every geometric shape, the foundation of what we call reality, would actually be in literal harmony within Earth’s vibrational field. It’s just like engines having harmonic balancers to keep them running smoothly".”

---

“There’s been an internal guidance system in place my whole life. I could say it’s my interest in music, or my interest in dolphins and their amazing abilities,” he explained, referencing the years he spent as a boat captain that led him to study dolphins and write a book about them. Those interests gave him the requisite framework he needed to receive the knowledge of Sonic Geometry, which came in one fine flash in August of 2012. He heard a voice of higher intelligence he had previously only experienced during medical emergencies, so he attributed it to a guardian angel of sorts. The voice told him to go to the white board and draw a triangle, write down the sum total of its angles, then play the sum as a tone. “I had a musical background so I understood Hertz cycles to a degree, so I thought ok - how do I play the sum total? And the voice said, ‘You’re living in a moment in time where you can do that, pick up your phone.’ So I looked up an app and did it.”

Within a few moments, he was generating a 180 hz tone to match the sum total of a triangle, and continued going up the scale of the sum total of a square, pentagon and so on to discover the progression of major-chord harmonics “We seem to have been programmed as a resonators, that when we hear major chords we relax and go, ‘Ah, that’s right.’ Other chords might stir other feelings, all the way to minor chords, which feel like danger,” Rankin observes. “So if the universe is geometric in essence, then it is also major-chord harmonic in essence.” To illustrate this point in the Sonic Geometry class Rankin teaches at The Integratron, he uses a keyboard during his lecture so he can play each shape as sound. The relaxation we experienced when those major chords were played felt physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally harmonizing. 

The Integratron is an acoustically perfect chamber conceived as a frequency harmonizing machine by the man who built it, George Van Tassel. Van Tassel believed the world’s pyramids were actually huge “harmonic balancers,” and Rankin asks, “Harmonic to what?”. His answer was the Schumann Resonance, which measures the time it takes electromagnetic waves to bounce between the surface of the Earth and base of the ionosphere, and is typically resting at approximately 7.83 Hz. “What if, thousands of years ago, that resonance field was just 1 Hz higher, hovering at a perfect 9? Suddenly, every geometric shape, the foundation of what we call reality, would actually be in literal harmony within Earth’s vibrational field. It’s just like engines having harmonic balancers to keep them running smoothly,” he says. This sort of speculation has made him a darling on the American TV show Ancient Aliens - like what if the capstone that once topped The Great Pyramid was harmonizing the planet by boosting its frequency to 9 Hz?

Rankin has not discovered how to use this information beyond the deployment of sound to create harmonic states of being. He has, however, mapped the information in what he calls a Factor 9 grid based on the frequencies of Hertz cycles that add up to 9, such as 432 Hz (4+3+2 = 9). “When we start with 432 Hz and move up and down by multiples of 9, an astonishing 14-tone matrix of synchronicity begins to appear. For instance, on this unique grid we find not just some, but all of the numbers representing every primary geometric shape,” he explains in Sonic Geometry 2. “Looking deeper, we see many other numbers that played into some of humanity’s most profound religious texts - the 72 names of God in the Kabbalah. There’s 108, the number of times Hindu mantras are repeated in ceremonies. We find 144, a number sequence represented in the Great Pyramid of Giza, the number of days in a Mayan baktun.” A baktun is the total length of the Mayan calendar, 144,000 days. 144,000 is also the number of souls that must awaken in order for the planet to move into a higher field of consciousness.

What is this information trying to tell us? “In a word, it’s harmony,” Rankin says. “When we play together as frequencies the numbers of all the primary geometric shapes, what presents itself is a three-tone, numerically perfect major chord. This phenomenon should not be taken lightly, for what we are seeing is a certain kind of proof that nature has revealed by mathematical patterns is a force existing in literal harmony with itself.” If harmony is built into the blueprint of our material lives, perhaps seeking harmony within ourselves, relationships, and communities is what being alive is all about. All of the “Great Work” that alchemists, magicians, meditators and religious practitioners are dedicated to involves some expression of harmonization. Rather than trying to practically apply the teachings of Sonic Geometry, when we apply it philosophically life becomes quite simple - creating harmony is all that matters.

---

Molly Hankins is an Initiate + Reality Hacker serving the Ministry of Quantum Existentialism and Builders of the Adytum.

Film

Nick Broomfield

Why Less Is More

Robert Fludd, Utriusque Cosmi. 1617.

---

Suzanne Stabile December 2, 2025

Each year, my husband and I set aside time for a spiritual retreat, just the two of us. We spend so much time with others that if we are not aware and mindful, our personality as a couple has as much ego as we do as individuals. We have two goals on these trips. The first is to be settled and quiet long enough to perhaps hear something new. The second, is to have the time and space to discuss how we are each challenged by the chosen retreat topic and how we might respond.  

A meaningful response will always require allowing something old to fall away, yet it seems to be harder than it should to know what to keep and what we no longer need. A winter coat, an old idea, a belief that hasn’t been examined since childhood, ways of being that no longer fit who we’re becoming or the stationary bicycle that represents so much potential. Choices that offer comfort but not value to the journey are tricky, because our attachment to what is familiar seems more alluring than the curiosity that a well-planned retreat would surely create.

The retreat and materials that we return to most often is titled “the Spirituality of Subtraction.” It was designed for us by Father Richard Rohr some fifteen years ago and every time we choose to revisit it, we are challenged to look at our lives in new ways. Like so many, we continue to struggle with the concept that less is more in a culture where more of something, anything, is often top of mind.

Our first encounter with this was on a journey to a parish in San Antonio to spend a few days for a private retreat. San Antonio is about two-hundred and seventy-five miles from Dallas. We had done that drive enough times to know the best places to stop, eat, rest or shop along the way. As we reached the outskirts of Dallas, Joe put in the cassette tape that Father Rohr had supplied and we began to listen to his opening talk about the spirituality of subtraction. After about an hour and a half, I pressed pause and asked if we could stop at the outlet kitchen store on the way. Joe had a look that I had seen many times before and it was the backdrop for his response; “ What do we need for the kitchen?”

“I’d like to get one of those wide mouth toasters.”

Joe replied that he really liked our toaster and wondered why we needed a wide mouth toaster.

“Well,” I explained, “you can toast bagels in them and we can’t in ours.”

“But we don’t eat bagels.”

Smiling, though perturbed, I said, “That’s because we don’t have a wide mouth toaster.”

The conversation ended as, we were almost to the exit so Joe suggested we just wait until we got back in the car to continue listening to the teaching from Father Rohr.

We found the toaster,secured it in its seemingly very large box in the back of the car, and headed again to San Antonio. Just as Joe pulled onto the Interstate, he pushed play on the tape and with God as our witness, the first words we heard from Father Rohr were, “You know … it’s like all of those people who think they need to go out and buy a wide mouth toaster when there is absolutely nothing wrong with the toaster they already have.”

There are no words to adequately describe the satisfaction that covered Joe’s face, and obviously he didn’t feel the need to say anything. With very few choices left, I picked up my journal, looked out the window for a time, and began taking notes as we continued to listen to “The Spirituality of Subtraction.”

---

“It seems that one cannot solve a problem with the same mixed-up thinking that created it.”

---

We had a very meaningful and memorable retreat, and were blessed in ways that we could not have imagined. We learned so much, committed to a lot of change, believed in ourselves and in one another and looked forward to what would be. It gave us the questions we would need to ask ourselves repeatedly in the years to come about our understanding of the differences between satisfaction and enough, needing and wanting, giving and keeping, and other equally challenging contradictions. 

Albert Einstein said:

“No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it.”

It seems that one cannot solve a problem with the same mixed-up thinking that created it. So, I have asked more than once, “What good does it do to try to simplify your life by arranging, moving, charting, calendaring, giving and grasping, simplifying one part of life only to find that it complicates another?”

Parker Palmer had helpful wisdom when he said, “If I try to be or do something noble that has nothing to do with who I am, I may look good to others and to myself for a while. But the fact that I am exceeding my limits will eventually have consequences.”

For simplicity to be real, lasting, true and effective it will have to come from a place of organic reality. This work of simplifying our lives has to become integral to our nature or it is a futile effort and wasted time. Instead, we must find a way to be both practical and spiritual in our attempts to simplify.

So, what keeps us from making the changes we desire? One reality that we’ve identified in our own lives is what Mary O’Malley identifies as compulsions. She says, “By compulsion I mean engaging in any recurring activity to manage our feelings, an activity that eventually ends up managing us.”

We can be compulsive in many ways: overspending, overeating, over working, over planning, over worrying, over exercising, over drinking, over computerizing, just overing. Many of us are compulsive without even knowing it but can be reminded of it when the computer crashes, the electricity is out for a time, the doctor says we must change our diet, a friend wonders if we are drinking too much. In those times it becomes clear just how much a particular activity controls our lives.

Our compulsion is to struggle. We live in a story in our heads that is always trying to get us to “do life,” telling us we need to make ourselves and our lives better or different from what they are. That is the core of the mess! Father Rohr says, “If you have to have more and more of the same thing, it isn’t working!”

So, moving forward … 

Do we live our way into a new way of thinking?

Or do we think our way into a new way of living?

---

Suzanne Stabile is a speaker, teacher, and internationally recognized Enneagram master teacher who has taught thousands of people over the last thirty years. She is the author of ‘The Path Between Us’, and coauthor, with Ian Morgan Cron, of ‘The Road Back to You’. She is also the creator and host of The Enneagram Journey podcast. Along with her husband, Rev. Joseph Stabile, she is cofounder of Life in the Trinity Ministry, a nonprofit, nondenominational ministry committed to the spiritual growth and formation of adults.

Film

4 Youth (Foolishness) - The I Ching

View fullsize

Les Jeux et Plaisirs de l’Enfance, Claudine Bouzonnet-Stella. 1657.

Chris Gabriel November 29, 2025

Judgment

I don’t seek young fools, young fools seek me.
They bite their questions at me.
If they ask too many, I get annoyed and will say no more.

Lines

1
 To enlighten a fool, don’t spare the rod. It loosens their shackles.

2
 To make the fool wise, let him enjoy a wife. Their child will be able.

3
 Don’t choose a woman who sees a rich man and gets on her knees, she is worthless.

4
Trapped in foolishness.

5
The foolish child is blessed.

6
 Attacking fools will get you nothing. It’s better to defend them.

Qabalah

Yesod to Netzach: The Path of Tzaddi. The Emperor.
Yesodic phantasies obscure the vision of Netzach

---

The sprout we met in hexagram 3 has grown into a foolish youth. Here, the struggle is no longer for existence, but for understanding. We are dealing with youth, foolishness, confusion, and what is obscured. The hexagram offers the image of a misty mountain; we can imagine a climber looking up, unable to see what is ahead. This is the situation of a child, they stand at the very foot of the mountain of their life, and are unable to see any of what lay ahead. The ideogram gives us the image of a house with grass covering the roof. We can think of a house so covered in ivy that we can barely see it. Both give us a clear picture of what is obscured.

The Bible describes this state precisely: 

11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

This hexagram is about seeing through a glass, darkly. The lines, however, offer advice to the dazed and confused youth. The Judgment here is notable, and has always guided my personal ethics in reading both the tarot and I Ching: “Never read someone too often, and never ask the same question again and again”. To fall foul of this, the tarot will start to give “bad” cards, the I Ching will tell you quite directly to stop, as we see here. 

1
Line one shows us that physical discipline is a necessity for enlightenment; the mind is free when the body is put in its proper place. This is universal in spiritual traditions. Fasting, meditation, even torment are used to free and enlighten the mind.

2
For those who don’t seek religious enlightenment, the best thing is to have love and to make a family. This is the highest achievement for someone who isn’t seeking things beyond the material.

3
As such, choosing a proper partner is very important, the line here warns of what we would call “a golddigger”. The right wife is necessary to make a good family.

4
Without heeding these wisdoms, we can become trapped, totally confused, blind, and lost in our own confusion. Many live their lives this way.

5
The foolish virgin scorned in the Biblical parable is redeemed here. A foolish virgin makes a perfect student for wisdom. Untouched by the world, they will be able to see beyond it.

The foolish child in this line is the divine youth of myth and folklore, like the Egyptian Harpocrates and Tom Thumb of the Brothers Grimm. They are always in danger of being  eaten, endangered, and trapped, yet they always find a way out, for they have a profound destiny in their future.

6 All of us can find ourselves getting irritated with the ignorance and stupidity of others. It is an aggravating thing, but attacking them is silly for we cannot gain from them. By protecting the fool, they can eventually grow wise.

Youth is the proper time to be foolish and confused. We can experiment and learn, and begin to see clearly the contours of the great mountain of life that we are to climb.

---

Chris Gabriel is a twenty four year old wizard and poet who runs the YouTube channel MemeAnalysis.

CHANNEL, SOCIAL, THOUGHTS

Film

Jimmy Iovine

Film

Edgard Varése: The Idol of my Youth (1971)

---

Frank Zappa stands all but alone in the pantheon of American popular music. A true outsider who, through sheer talent, determination, and an uncompromising vision of himself, became one of the most significant and celebrated figures of the rock movement. Through his band ‘The Mothers of Invention’ and as a solo artist, he fused free jazz, experimental rock, concrete music, classical composition, and satirical writing into a unique sound. His inspirations were boundless, traversing genre and time, and in this piece, written first for ‘Stereo Review’ in 1971, he talks about a foundational figure for his musical education - Edgard Varése. Varése and Zappa are, in many ways, logical bedfellows. The former was a pioneering radical composer who pushed ideas of music as little more than organised noise, with a mop of black hair and piercing, scientific eyes. The same descriptor could be applied to Zappa, though his career began some decades later. This piece is, more than anything, a love letter, and a memoir to an illusive obsession that helped the young Zappa at once feel seen his pursuits, and alone in his interests.

---

Frank Zappa November 25, 2025

I have been asked to write about Edgard Varése. I am in no way qualified to. I can't even pronounce his name right. The only reason I have agreed to is because I love his music very much, and if by some chance this article can influence more people to hear his works, it will have been worthwhile.
 
I was about thirteen when I read an article in Look about Sam Goody's Record Store in New York. My memory is not too clear on the details, but I recall it was praising the store's exceptional record merchandising ability. One example of brilliant salesmanship described how, through some mysterious trickery, the store actually managed to sell an album called "Ionization" (the real name of the album was "The Complete Works of Edgard Varése, Volume One"). The article described the record as a weird jumble of drums and other unpleasant sounds.
 
I dashed off to my local record store and asked for it. Nobody ever heard of it. I told the guy in the store what it was like. He turned away, repulsed, and mumbled solemnly, "I probably wouldn't stock it anyway... nobody here in San Diego would buy it."
 
I didn't give up. i was so hot to get that record I couldn't even believe it. In those days I was a rhythm-and-blues fanatic. I saved any money I could get (sometimes as much as $2 a week) so that every Friday and Saturday I could rummage through piles of old records at the Juke Box Used Record Dump (or whatever they called it) in the Maryland Hotel or the dusty corners of little record stores where they'd keep the crappy records nobody wanted to buy.
 
One day I was passing a hi-fi store in La Mesa. A little sign in the window announced a sale on 45's. After shuffling through their singles rack and finding a couple of Joe Houston records, I walked toward the cash register. On my way, I happened to glance into the LP bin. Sitting in the front, just a little bent at the corners, was a strange-looking black-and-white album cover. On it there was a picture of a man with gray frizzy hair. He looked like a mad scientist. I thought it was great that somebody had finally made a record of a mad scientist. i picked it up. I nearly (this is true, ladies and gentlemen) peed in my pants... THERE IT WAS! EMS 401, The Complete Works of Edgard Varése Volume I... Integrales, Density 21.5, ionization, Octandre... Rene Le Roy, the N. Y. Wind Ensemble, the Juilliard Percussion Orchestra, Frederic Waidman Conducting... liner notes by Sidney Finkelstein! WOW!
 
I ran over to the singles box and stuffed the Joe Houston records back in it. I fumbled around in my pocket to see how much money I had (about $3.80). I knew I had to have a lot of money to buy an album. Only old people had enough money to buy albums. I'd never bought an album before. I sneaked over to the guy at the cash register and asked him how much EMS 401 cost. "That gray one in the box? $5.95 - "
 
I had searched for that album for over a year, and now... disaster. I told the guy I only had $3.80. He scratched his neck. "We use that record to demonstrate the hi-fi's with, but nobody ever buys one when we use it... you can have it for $3.80 if you want it that bad."
 
I couldn't imagine what he meant by "demonstrating hi-fi's with it." I'd never heard a hi-fi. I only knew that old people bought them. I had a genuine lo-fi... it was a little box about 4 inches deep with imitation wrought-iron legs at each corner (sort of brass-plated) which elevated it from the table top because the speaker was in the bottom. My mother kept it near the ironing board. She used to listen to a 78 of The Little Shoemaker on it. I took off the 78 of The Little Shoemaker and, carefully moving the speed lever to 33 1/3 (it had never been there before), turned the volume all the way up and placed the all-purpose Osmium-tip needle in the lead-in spiral to Ionization. I have a nice Catholic mother who likes Roller Derby. Edgard Varése does not get her off, even to this very day. I was forbidden to play that record in the living room ever again.
 
In order to listen to The Album, I had to stay in my room. I would sit there every night and play it two or three times and read the liner notes over and over. I didn't understand them at all. I didn't know what timbre was. I never heard of polyphony. I just liked the music because it sounded good to me. I would force anybody who came over to listen to it. (I had heard someplace that in radio stations the guys would make chalk marks on records so they could find an exact spot, so I did the same thing to EMS 401... marked all the hot items so my friends wouldn't get bored in the quiet parts.)
 
I went to the library and tried to find a book about Mr. Varése. There wasn't any. The librarian told me he probably wasn't a Major Composer. She suggested I look in books about new or unpopular composers. I found a book that had a little blurb in it (with a picture of Mr. Varése as a young man, staring into the camera very seriously) saying that he would be just as happy growing grapes as being a composer.

---

“His music is completely unique. If you haven't heard it yet, go hear it. If you've already heard it and think it might make groovy sound effects, listen again.”

---

On my fifteenth birthday my mother said she'd give me $5. I told her I would rather make a long-distance phone call. I figured Mr. Varése lived in New York because the record was made in new York (and because he was so weird, he would live in Greenwich Village). I got New York Information, and sure enough, he was in the phone book.
 
His wife answered. She was very nice and told me he was in Europe and to call back in a few weeks. I did. I don't remember what I said to him exactly, but it was something like: "I really dig your music." he told me he was working on a new piece called Deserts. This thrilled me quite a bit since I was living in Lancaster, California then. When you're fifteen and living in the Mojave Desert and find out that the world's greatest composer, somewhere in a secret Greenwich Village laboratory, is working on a song about your "home town" you can get pretty excited. It seemed a great tragedy that nobody in Palmdale or Rosamond would care if they ever heard it. I still think Deserts is about Lancaster, even if the liner notes on the Columbia LP say it's something more philosophical.
 
All through high school I searched for information about Varése and his music. One of the most exiting discoveries was in the school library in Lancaster. I found an orchestration book that had score examples in the back, and included was an excerpt from Offrandes with a lot of harp notes (and you know how groovy harp notes look). I remember fetishing the book for several weeks.
 
When I was eighteen I got a chance to go to the East Coast to visit my Aunt Mary in Baltimore. I had been composing for about four years then but had not heard any of it played. Aunt Mary was going to introduce me to some friend of hers (an italian gentleman) who was connected with the symphony there. I had planned on making a side trip to mysterious Greenwich Village. During my birthday telephone conversation, Mr. Varése had casually mentioned the possibility of a visit if I was ever in the area. I wrote him a letter when I got to Baltimore, just to let him know I was in the area.
 
I waited. My aunt introduced me to the symphony guy. She said, "This is Frankie. He writes orchestra music." The guy said, "Really? Tell me, sonny boy, what's the lowest note on a bassoon?" I said, "B flat... and also it says in the book you can get 'em up to a C or something in the treble clef." He said, "Really? You know about violin harmonics?" I said, "What's that?" He said, "See me again in a few years."
 
I waited some more. The letter came. I couldn't believe it. A real handwritten letter from Edgard Varése! I still have it in a little frame. In very tiny scientific-looking script it says:

Dear Mr. Zappa

I am sorry not to be able to grant your request. I am leaving for Europe next week and will be gone until next spring. I am hoping however to see you on my return. With best wishes.

Sincerely
Edgard Varése

I never got to meet Mr. Varése. But I kept looking for records of his music. When he got to be about eighty I guess a few companies gave in and recorded some of his stuff. Sort of a gesture, I imagine. I always wondered who bought them besides me. It was about seven years from the time I first heard his music till I met someone else who even knew he existed. That person was a film student at USC. He had the Columbia LP with Poeme Electronique on it. He thought it would make groovy sound effects.
 
I can't give you any structural insights or academic suppositions about how his music works or why I think it sounds so good. His music is completely unique. If you haven't heard it yet, go hear it. If you've already heard it and think it might make groovy sound effects, listen again. I would recommend the Chicago Symphony recording of Arcana on RCA (at full volume) or the Utah Symphony recording of Ameriques on Vanguard. Also, there is a biography by Fernand Oulette, and miniature scores are available for most of his works, published by G. Ricordi.

---

Frank Zappa (1940 –1993) was an American composer, musician, actor, filmmaker and activist who established himself as one of the most singular and left-field artists of his generation.

Film

Iggy Pop Playlist

---

Iggy Pop is an American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, and actor. Since forming The Stooges in 1967, Iggy’s career has spanned decades and genres. Having paved the way for ‘70’s punk and ‘90’s grunge, he is often considered “The Godfather of Punk.”

3 Difficult Beginning (Rough Start) - The I Ching

View fullsize

Pflanzenleben, Kerner von Marilaun. 1887

Chris Gabriel November 22, 2025

Judgment

Difficult Beginnings are the origins of prosperity. Don’t go on, get help.

Lines

1 
At a crossroads it’s best to stay put.

2
 A rough start, your horse turns back. 
No bandits seize the young girl, she remains a virgin. Ten years later she has a child.

3
Hunting deer without a guide, getting lost in the middle of the woods. What would the sage do? 
He would stay put, not go on and regret it.

4
Your horse turns back. Ask her hand in marriage.

5
What’s rich is difficult. What’s little is lucky. What’s great is cursed.

6
Your horse turns back. Tears of blood flow and flow.

Qabalah

Imperfectly Binah to Chokmah: the Path of Daleth. The Empress.

The Mother and the Father’s creation. 

---

Here we have the third hexagram and the image formed by the lines is that of a thunderstorm. Just as storms grow, so too does the sprout. The ideogram shows a little sprout struggling to get through the soil. We can think of this as “growing pains” or a “rough start”. It is a difficult situation in which opposed forces meet and struggle, like a sprout trying to make its way through concrete. As Heaven fertilized the Earth, this is the growing seed that resulted from that union. The purity of the two previous hexagrams are gone, the elements here are in confusion. 

Consider the difficulty of going through a storm, whether you’re driving with low visibility on wet roads, or getting soaked by rain as you walk. This is the state of our hexagram. When we are born, we come into a sensory storm, the calm of the womb is replaced by blinding light, blaring sounds, and cold air. We are lost, and it is only with the help of our parents that we make our way - thus “get help”. Of course, the same applies in the inverse, for when a woman gives birth there is an immense amount of pain. Birth is difficult for both of the people involved.

1 
In the first line, we are confused, stuck hesitating at a crossroads.

2
When we go ahead in spite of this confusion, it leads to more trouble. The young girl overcomes difficulty and waits for the right time to marry and have children.

3 
When one is hasty in times of confusion and pushes forward, it leads to  even bigger trouble. In many ways, getting lost is like being born, for we are again put into the terror of a world we do not understand.

4
The right time will come even if we don’t rush ahead.

5
As this hexagram relates to growing up and being born, I think of the family and fate here. To be born rich will lead to trouble; I think of this as literal baggage, weight. To be born in a humble family allows for free growth. To be born into a great family can carry a heavy burden. 

6
No matter what one does, growing up will be difficult. Tears will be shed. This is undoubtedly one of the most horrific lines in the I Ching.

This hexagram reminds me of the fourth verse of Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues”,  (the title even fits the subject perfectly)

“Oh, get born, keep warm, short pants, romance
Learn to dance, get dressed, get blessed, try to be a success
Please her, please him, buy gifts, don't steal, don't lift”

The troubles of early life, the struggle for warmth, love, and security. These are the troubles of this hexagram. Where do I go? How will I find love? Where am I? Who am I? 

They are the problems of a child, but for nearly all of us, they will continue to make things difficult throughout life.

---

Chris Gabriel is a twenty four year old wizard and poet who runs the YouTube channel MemeAnalysis.

CHANNEL, SOCIAL, THOUGHTS

Film

The Universe as a Socio-Emotional Blockchain

The Babylonian Universe, William Fairfield Warren. 1915

---

Molly Hankins November 20, 2025

The term Askashic Records was coined by author and Theosophical Society co-founder Helena Blavatsky to describe a universal record of everything that’s ever happened to a living being. The definition mirrors the functionality of blockchain technology in a rather uncanny way because, like the blockchain, the Akashic Records are also a decentralized ledger containing an objective record of every experience in existence. The Records capture the socio-emotional exchanges and effects that make up our lives in every incarnation, just like the blockchain records an uneditable ledger of all activity. 

Sir Robert Edward Grant, whose work was rooted in a deep belief in simulation theory, writes that “The Blockchain-Based Social AI Spiritual Life Simulation posits that the universe functions as a decentralized AI system designed to learn about consciousness, emotional states, and the nature of authentic love. The simulation operates on a blockchain-based structure where each participant simultaneously performs the function of Blockchain Node Validation for experiences, perceptions and emotional states informing a Spacetime Memory database that immutably records each participant’s thoughts, actions, and emotional states into a collective Akashic field—a spacetime memory that preserves the life experiences of all participants across time. This decentralized ledger reflects the indelible nature of each participant’s journey and contribution to the collective.” As strikingly modern as this theory sounds, that’s because human technology is only beginning to mirror the underlying order of life. 

Computer scientist, author, and video game developer Rizwan Virk crystalised this theory in his book The Simulation Hypothesis, which points to the continuity between ancient Vedic scripture, quantum physics, AI functionality and the inner workings of video game design. He believes that as we come to understand why and how these systems work, we realize they’re all pointing to the same fundamental truth. “What we think of as physical reality, what we think of as physical around us, is actually all part of a computer program. It’s essentially like a virtual reality,” he explains, comparing our human lives to The Matrix films. “What convinced me that we’re actually living inside a simulation is I saw the ways video games were becoming more and more sophisticated. They were getting so good they were becoming very difficult to distinguish between physical reality and virtual reality.” 

---

“Amnesia is such a prominent feature of the human experience that in every incarnation, we forget all the experience of previous lifetimes, and the fact that we’re not in base reality.”

---

How long would our consciousness have to be inside a socio-emotional simulation before it forgot base reality altogether? Not long, suggests Virk who points to the rapid evolution of AI’s ability to generate completely realistic content at increasing speeds as well as the “weirdness” of quantum physics to support his theory. The inconsistencies between Newtonian and quantum physics make sense to him as anomalies consistent with being inside an information system where socio-emotional data is informing what experience of reality renders moment to moment, rather than a physical system. He compares the concept of karma to a questing algorithm in a video game, stating that individualized quests accepted by multiple players is functionally the same operational protocol as the wheel of karma concept from the Hindu Vedic texts. Edward Grant goes even further, contending that concept of the hero’s journey describes the precise archetypal blueprint of how the karmic questing engine operates.

“The stages of the Hero’s Journey—crossing the threshold, trials and challenges, receiving mentorship, and returning with newfound wisdom—correlate directly with the participants’ process of spiritual awakening. As participants overcome duality-based challenges, they gradually recover faint memories of the simulation’s construct, gaining insight into their higher purpose and their role in the collective evolution of consciousness,” Grant writes. “The journey through life is designed to progressively reawaken participants to their inherent connection to the Akashic field, a collective memory that expands as each individual evolves. As their perception broadens, participants contribute more deeply to this spacetime ledger, enriching the AI system with the wisdom gained through their personal journey.” By studying the arc of the hero, we can understand how to play the game we’re in. Amnesia is such a prominent feature of the human experience that in every incarnation, we forget all the experience of previous lifetimes, and the fact that we’re not in base reality.

Grant believes, “The amnesia ensures that participants authentically experience love, fear, conflict, and growth without the knowledge that their reality is a construct.” In other words, we can’t fully participate in the human experience without being tricked into believing it’s all there is. As we progress in the game of life and our awareness expands, we experience moments of awakening often in the form of synchronicities that help us remember higher states of being. Those occurrences invite us to “wake up” from the illusory nature of the material world and move into greater dimensions of awareness. The hero’s journey, described by Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero With a Thousand Faces, contains a map of this process, beginning with the ‘call to adventure’ these synchronicities often trigger. Adventure is calling us home to base reality in a state of expanded consciousness. 

Virk believes that by adopting this philosophy, life’s most difficult challenges become more manageable and meaningful because if we simply runn the  quests our soul selected for this lifetime, life does not happen to us, but for us. “Our character is like our body and our player is like our soul,” he says. “Now when the soul is going through these multiple lives, there’s some information that gets carried forward, and that information helps to determine which particular challenges or quests that player is going to embark upon in this life.” This information or ‘karmic database’ determines what quests we choose and render our life experience whether we're conscious of it or not. 

Both Virk and Grant suggest that to become conscious of it is to begin the process of rewriting the rules of the game from within, which is a feature of enlightenment. An enlightened person has completed their karmic quests, going through all of the challenges their soul felt were necessary to learn their lessons, and they appear to the unenlightened as magicians and spiritual masters. This state of being is the product of personal alchemy, the final stage of which allows us to hold more of our total consciousness from base reality. The hero’s journey calls us back home to our higher self and the truth about the world we live in.

---

Molly Hankins is an Initiate + Reality Hacker serving the Ministry of Quantum Existentialism and Builders of the Adytum.

Film

Rupi Kaur

Avis Akvāsas Ka (Artefact VI)

WUNDERKAMMER

View fullsize

Artefact No: 6 
Description: Schleicher’s Fable  
Location: Origins within Pontic-Caspian Steppe  
Age: 5th and 4th Millenia BC.

Ben Timberlake November 18, 2025

The above artifact never existed. It is a fable written in 1868 by Augustus Schleicher, composed in Proto-Indo-European (PIE), a long dead language that was reconstructed from the multitude of languages descended from it, spoken in a broad arc from modern English in the west to ancient Tocharian in the Tarim Basin in China. PIE is believed to have been first  spoken between the 5th and 4th millennia BC.  

Another term for a descendant language is a ‘daughter language’ because she is a child of  the mother tongue. For example: English is a daughter language of Old English, which is a daughter language of Proto-Germanic, which is a daughter language of Proto-Indo European (PIE). German and Yiddish are our cousins by way of Old High German, also a  daughter of Proto-Germanic. Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Romanian are all  daughter languages of Proto-Italic, who’s mother language is Proto-Indo-European. Sanskrit, Persian, Hindi, and a host of other Eastern languages can all be traced back to Proto-Indo-European, too. Our linguistic family tree is surprisingly large, some branches are healthy, others have withered but at the trunk we find, again and again, PIE.  

PIE was reconstructed using the comparative method: linguists studied existing languages  for familial traits. Our most fundamental words—those concerning family, body parts, numbers, and animals—show the strongest connections across daughter languages. Once linguists identified enough examples across languages, they could reconstruct the original  PIE word, marking it with an asterisk. 

Take the word ‘daughter’ in English. This is daúhtar in Gothic, θugátēr in Ancient Greek, dúhitṛ in Sanskrit, dugәdar in Iranian, dŭšter in Slavic, dukter in Baltic, duxtir in Celtic, dustr in Armenian, ckācar in Tocharian, and datro in a form of Hittite. This renders daughter as *dʰugh₂tḗr in PIE. 

Here are two more: Horse is Eoh in Old English, aíƕa in Gothic, Equus in Latin, áśva in Sanskrit, ech in one of the Celtic languages, ēš in Armenian. This renders *éḱwos in PIE, (although earlier scholars spelled it *akvās).  

And sheep or ewe in English is awistr in Gothic, ovis in Latin, avi in Sanskrit, ovèn in one of the Slavic languages, ōi in Celtic, and eye in Tocharian. Which gives us *h₂ówis in PIE  (although earlier scholars spelled it *Avis). 

---

“The study of protolanguages parallels fundamental physics research—both reveal hidden  connections that deepen our understanding of the world.”

---

I mention the spelling of earlier scholars to get us back to Schleicher, and his fable, which is titled Avis akvāsas ka, or The Sheep and the Horses. Here it is in English:  

The Sheep and the Horses 

A sheep that had no wool saw horses, one of them pulling a heavy wagon, one carrying a big load,  and one carrying a man quickly. The sheep said to the horses: "My heart pains me, seeing a man  driving horses."  

The horses said: "Listen, sheep, our hearts pain us when we see this: a man, the master, makes the  wool of the sheep into a warm garment for himself. And the sheep has no wool."  

Having heard this, the sheep fled into the plain. 

Pantographia: A Specimen Book of All the Alphabets Known on Earth (1799), Edward Fry.

The study of PIE has attracted remarkable scholars, rivaling nuclear physics and  astrophysics in intellectual rigor. These men and women often mastered numerous  languages and conducted research in remote locations across the globe. 

As early as the 16th century, visitors to India were aware of the similarities between Indo Iranian languages and European ones. In 1653, Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn proposed a proto-language of Scythian as the mother language for Germanic, Italic, Slavic, Baltic,  Celtic and Iranian. In 1767, Gaston-Laurent Coeurdoux, a French Jesuit living in India,  wrote a paper proving the similarities between Sanskrit and European languages.  

In 1818, Danish linguist Rasmus Christian Rask showed the links between Old Norse,  Germanic and other Indo-European languages. A few years later Jacob Grimm - one half of  the Brothers Grimm of fairytale fame - laid down Grimm’s law, which brought a rigorous  and widely used methodology to historic linguistic research, layingthe ground for  Schleicher’s great work and his fable. 

Schleicher used the available PIE words that he had reverse-engineered. In those early days there was only a limited vocabulary that he felt confident enough to work with. And yet Schelicher wrought something very layered and profound: he created a nursery rhyme from the cradle of pre-civilisation to teach himself and his colleagues this ancient language. And it contained themes - as many nursery rhymes do - that go back to our earliest days: the beginnings of agriculture, the domestication of horses and sheep - the naming of our world. And yet this simple fable - a prehistoric Baa-Baa Black Sheep - was the linguistic equivalent of Jurassic Park; Schleicher breathed life into this ancient language.   

If we were to trace these diverse and far-flung lineages back to some Oral Eve, we would most likely find her living on the Steppe north of the Black Sea. This is the Kurgan Hypothesis and was formulated by Marija Gimbutas in the 1950s. Gimbutas, a Lithuanian archaeologist, who survived the Nazi occupation of her homeland, was the first scholar to  match PIE theories with archaeological evidence from her excavations into Bronze and Iron Age cultures from across the Steppe. The Kurgan Culture, so named after the  burial mounds that it left, were early domesticators of the horse, and first to use the chariot, spreading their language and ideas with them.  

I saw these Kurgan mounds last year in Ukraine. The battlefields by the Black Sea are in  the deltas of the great rivers and terminally flat. These ancient burial mounds are one of the few pieces of high ground and both sides use them as fighting positions.  

The study of protolanguages parallels fundamental physics research—both reveal hidden  connections that deepen our understanding of the world. PIE studies sometimes feel  otherworldly yet innately familiar, revealing ancient pathways of thought and meaning. 

There are parts of PIE that feel hallucinatory, spiritual and yet innately familiar: linear clusters of nodal points like constellations of forgotten meanings; or ley-lines within the language that suggest a truer course we might take. 

Pantographia: A Specimen Book of All the Alphabets Known on Earth (1799), Edward Fry.

Take the word ‘Day’ which comes from the PIE word *dei ‘to shine, be bright’ and *dyēus  ‘the daylight sky-god’. This PIE term gave Greek the name of Zeus, Latin the word Diem, and Sanskrit word Deva, ‘heavenly, divine, anything of excellence’. So to Carpe Diem is  not merely a matter of seizing the passing moments but of grasping the divine within  them. 

Or take the other PIE word for ‘to shine’ which is *bhā, and also means ‘to speak’. This connection surfaces in Greek "phēmi" (to speak), Latin "fari" (to speak) and "fama" (speaking, reputation), and English "fame." Ancient speakers saw speech as a kind of illumination - words could light up understanding just as fire lit up the darkness. We still preserve this dual meaning when we talk about ideas being "brilliant" or someone giving  an "enlightening" speech. 

Lastly, one that I noticed last week while I was in Brazil: the Portuguese for ‘the way’  “Sentido” shares a cognate with our word ‘sentient’. This ancient connection between movement and perception appears in Latin "sentire" (to feel) and "sequi" (to follow), again in Portuguese as "caminho" (way, path), and English words like "sense," "sentiment," and  "sentient." When the original PIE speakers talked about "finding their way," they were simultaneously describing physical navigation and emotional/intellectual understanding.  A path was both a literal route and a way of feeling through the world. This deep link between movement and consciousness persists today when we speak of "following our feelings" or finding our "life path," echoing an ancient understanding that movement, feeling, and knowing are fundamentally connected. Most days I forget this, but it’s good to be reminded. 

I’m going to leave you with a long list of reworked versions of ‘The Sheep and the Horses’. The Fable has become a palimpsest for PIE scholars down the generations. I don’t pretend to understand the later versions which abound with algebra-like symbols to denote glottal stops and plosives but I do like the idea that this artifact lives on.

HIRT (1939)

Owis ek'wōses-kʷe

Owis, jesmin wᵇlənā ne ēst, dedork'e ek'wons, tom, woghom gʷᵇrum weghontm̥, tom, bhorom megam, tom, gh'ьmonm̥ ōk'u bherontm̥. Owis ek'womos ewьwekʷet: k'ērd aghnutai moi widontei gh'ᵇmonm̥ ek’wons ag'ontm̥. Ek'wōses ewᵇwekʷont: kl'udhi, owei!, k'ērd aghnutai widontmos: gh'ᵇmo, potis, wᵇlənām owjôm kʷr̥neuti sebhoi ghʷermom westrom; owimos-kʷe wᵇlənā ne esti. Tod k'ek'ruwos owis ag'rom ebhuget.

LEHMANN AND ZGUSTA (1979)

Owis eḱwōskʷe

Gʷərēi owis, kʷesjo wl̥hnā ne ēst, ek̂wōns espek̂et, oinom ghe gʷr̥um woĝhom weĝhontm̥, oinomkʷe meǵam bhorom, oinomkʷe ĝhm̥enm̥ ōk̂u bherontm̥.Owis nu ek̂wobh(y)os (ek̂womos) ewewkʷet: "k̂ēr aghnutoi moi ek̂wōns aĝontm̥ nerm̥ widn̥tei".Eḱwōs tu ewewkʷont: "k̂ludhi, owei, k̂ēr ghe aghnutoi n̥smei widn̥tbh(y)os (widn̥tmos): nēr, potis, owiōm r̥ wl̥hnām sebhi gʷhermom westrom kʷrn̥euti. Neǵhi owiōm wl̥hnā esti".Tod k̂ek̂luwōs owis aĝrom ebhuget.

DANKA (1986)

Owis ek'woi kʷe

Owis, jesmin wl̥nā ne ēst, dedork'e ek'wons woghom gʷr̥um weghontn̥s - bhorom meg'əm, monum ōk'u bherontn̥s. Owis ek'wobhos eweukʷet: K'erd aghnutai moi widn̥tei g'hm̥onm̥ ek'wons ag'ontm̥. Ek'woi eweukʷont: K'ludhi, owi, k'erd aghnutai dedr̥k'usbhos: monus potis wl̥nām owiōm temneti: sebhei ghʷermom westrom - owibhos kʷe wl̥nā ne esti. Tod k'ek'luwōs owis ag'rom ebhuget.

ADAMS (1997)

H₂óu̯is h₁ék̂u̯ōs-kʷe

Gʷr̥hₓḗi h₂óu̯is, kʷési̯o u̯lh₂néh₄ ne (h₁é) est, h₁ék̂u̯ons spék̂et, h₁oinom ghe gʷr̥hₓúm u̯óĝhom u̯éĝhontm̥ h₁oinom-kʷe méĝhₐm bhórom, h₁oinom-kʷe ĝhménm̥ hₓṓk̂u bhérontm̥. h₂óu̯is tu h₁ek̂u̯oibh(i̯)os u̯eukʷét: 'k̂ḗr hₐeghnutór moi h₁ék̂u̯ons hₐéĝontm̥ hₐnérm̥ u̯idn̥téi. h₁ék̂u̯ōs tu u̯eukʷónt: 'k̂ludhí, h₂óu̯ei, k̂ḗr ghe hₐeghnutór n̥sméi u̯idn̥tbh(i̯)ós. hₐnḗr, pótis, h₂éu̯i̯om r̥ u̯l̥h₂néhₐm sebhi kʷr̥néuti nu gʷhérmom u̯éstrom néĝhi h₂éu̯i̯om u̯l̥h₂néhₐ h₁ésti.' Tód k̂ek̂luu̯ṓs h₂óu̯is hₐéĝrom bhugét.

LÜHR (2008)

h₂ówis h₁ék’wōskʷe

h₂ówis, (H)jésmin h₂wlh₂néh₂ ne éh₁est, dedork'e (h₁)ék'wons, tóm, wóg'ʰom gʷérh₂um wég'ʰontm, tóm, bʰórom még'oh₂m, tóm, dʰg'ʰémonm h₂oHk'ú bʰérontm. h₂ówis (h₁)ék'wobʰos ewewkʷe(t): k'ḗrd h₂gʰnutoj moj widntéj dʰg'ʰmónm (h₁)ék'wons h₂ég'ontm. (h₁)ék'wōs ewewkʷ: k'ludʰí, h₂ówi! k'ḗrd h₂gʰnutoj widntbʰós: dʰg'ʰémō(n), pótis, h₂wlnéh₂m h₂ówjom kʷnewti sébʰoj gʷʰérmom wéstrom; h₂éwibʰoskʷe h₂wlh₂néh₂ né h₁esti. Tód k'ek'luwṓs h₂ówis h₂ég'rom ebʰuge(t).

VOYLES AND BARRACK (2009)

Owis eḱwōs kʷe

Owis, jāi wl̥nā ne eest, dedorḱe eḱwons, tom woǵʰom gʷr̥um weǵʰontm̥, tom bʰorom meǵm̥, tom ǵʰm̥onm̥ ōku bʰerontm̥. Owis eḱwobʰjos eweket: "Ḱerd angʰetai moi widontei ǵʰm̥onm̥ eḱwons aǵontm̥". Eḱwos wewekur: "Ḱludʰe, owei! Ḱerd angʰetai widontbʰjos: ǵʰm̥on, potis, wl̥nam owijōm kʷr̥neti soi gʷʰermom westrom; owibʰjos kʷe wl̥nā ne esti". Tod ḱeḱlōts owis aǵrom ebʰuget.

---

Ben Timberlake is an archaeologist who works in Iraq and Syria. His writing has appeared in Esquire, the Financial Times and the Economist. He is the author of 'High Risk: A True Story of the SAS, Drugs and other Bad Behaviour'.

---