Severed Light

The following pages are to be read as religious text. This is an origin story, mythological and anthropocentric like all others, but more than anthropocentric, the reader will find it also anthropomorphic. Every actor here will see itself as human, making anthropomorphism ‘a perfectly ironic (dialectical?) inversion of anthropocentrism,’ because, ‘[t]o say that everything is human is to say that humans are not a special species, an exceptional event that came to tragically or magnificently interrupt the monotonous trajectory of matter in the universe’ (Danowski and Viveiros De Castro 2017 p.88).

For a while now, the humanities and even the hard sciences, have been walking the haunted path of animated matter (Barad 2007, Bennett 2010). So far, animated has carried mostly eco-friendly and, at times, borderline cute undertones. But spirits animating the world throughout eras and across human groups have been far from charming, and also, a long way from ecologically conscious. Unbalance, disaster, and extinction have often constituted main items in many deific agendas.

The following is a thought experiment, an intentional attempt at inventing a mythology adequate to our times (Danowski and Viveiros De Castro 2017 p.22).

This is an origin story weaved from the threads of knowledge available to us, moderns (Latour 1993), in consideration that we are not in any sense different from all the others—those who, so far,seem to have not been able to catch up with Progress and Scientific Secularity. This story is one in which, by the force of geological forces, moderns bend the knee and recognise the existence of powerful entities beyond our control or comprehension. It is a narrative attempt at finding new ways to keep the peace.

Mystics and prophets have always been philosophers, and viceversa. Therefore, the transmitted knowledge of contemporary and not-so-contemporary thinkers is here taken as creed.

Emulating sacred texts, I have added side notations on the borders of some passages, linking back ideas to those who have prophesied them before. I have also included side notes on the several indigenous ontologies which act as well as augurs and mystics, revealing occult truths and elements of this spiritual doctrine. I have structured paragraphs by numbers that link back to a column of side notations as a way of extracting traditional academic notes or references from the (often arid) scholarly world into a more (I believe) accessible editorial layout that reads like a dialogue between author, references, and reader. I emphasise accessibility in this sense by attempting to pull two ways. First, by trying to bring academics, familiar with the referenced sources, into lyricism, metaphor, and the power of storytelling. And second, by inviting all others who might shy away from academic (seemingly arid) writing, by showing how social scientists, even contemporary ones (at most times, I suspect, unknowingly), have always dealt with the magic of the unseen and the fantastic worlds inhabiting human consciousness—indeed the opposite of arid.

Judeo-Christian influence is undeniable, in the same measure that the presence of animism is undeniable. Both here insinuate themselves as two sides of the same coin which seems to flip from one side to the other, time and time again, until both sides appear as the same golden blur.

I’ve chosen text as the most adequate medium for this venture. The written word, as David Abram proposes, is the locus where, for us, animist communication has been shifted, as it allows us to ‘hear spoken words, witness strange scenes or visions, even experience other lives’ (Abram p.131). However, as moderns, we have remained oblivious to this kind of magic and its potential powers. As Isabel Stengers puts it, ‘our senses make us animists, we nevertheless are not animists in the sense of anthropologists, because we do not honour or recognise what animates us’ (in Blaser and De la Cadena 2018 p.104).

This text departs mainly from the ideas put forth by Reza Negarestani’s Cyclonopedia (2007). In it, he proposes the existence of powerful nonhuman agents, such as oil and dust, orchestrating terrestrial life in accord to their own agendas. The story tells of how the sun and photosynthetic sun-bound life exist in opposition to an underground ‘dark sun’ and a cosmic bacterial underground biosphere (from Gold’s Deep Hot Biosphere). These two forces are engaged in millenary combat for planetary supremacy where humans become immersed in a ‘fog of war’ which renders them violent and subject to the will of these ontologically superior beings. By making subjects of nonliving materials, and furthermore, by granting them managerial powers over life and death, Negarestani animates, he makes the ontological translation from naturalism into animism—the coin flips.

Likewise, by treating these seemingly inanimate objects as subjects, and more so, by granting them enormous power over human lives, he paints their portrait with traces eerily similar to those donned by forest spirits of Amazonian animists (Kohn 2007). The coin flips once more.

To better illustrate this, we can consider the Runa of the Amazon. The Runa exist in a given ontological plane. Jaguars in the forest exist in a different one, as do dogs, Spirit Masters, and all other beings belonging to this ecology. All species experience themselves as persons within their own ontological plane, or perspective. This is what is called ontological perspectivism (Viveiros De Castro 2012).

Ontological planes are highly hierarchical. All beings experience higher ones as spirits or predators, and lower beings as potential prey. Higher beings can readily access lower beings’ perspectives, however, lower beings can only ‘see the world from the perspective of higher beings via privileged vehicles of communication, such as hallucinogens’ (Kohn 2007 p.17).

This animistic approach to ontology resembles greatly Timothy Morton’s OOO (object oriented onthology) and his hyperobjects. Thus the coin keeps spinning.

Hyperobjects, in their immensity, are sometimes perceived by humans not as objects, but as processes. These hyperobjects appear as higher ontological beings, spirits of the forest or, in our case, also the megacity. Hyperobjects are experienced as processes by lower beings, while, seen through a higher-dimensional perspective, these monstrous processes are perceived as single, static objects (Morton 2013).

For us, a hyperobject such as oil is just a process occurring in the world, a thing we will not understand nor see play out in its totality during our lifespans. But hyperobject/spirit oil is an entity with its own temporality, and perhaps perspective. It may be that, for spirit oil, humanity is perceived as a small, inconsequential pebble lying static along its path.

In this sense, hyperobjects can be said to play the same part for the inhabitants of urban Western Europe as Spirit Masters do for the Runa in Ecuador. As ‘higher’ beings, they both become unintelligible in their immensity. They become predators. We, irrelevant and ephemeral, become prey.

In a broken world we realise we are no longer dictating the script. But if not us, then who? The long forgotten sensation of being at the mercy of powerful and ineffable entities begins to take hold of many of us.

De la Cadena and Blaser’s idea of ‘reclaiming animism,’ in this sense can be read two ways (2018). The first, most obvious anthropocentric (and, let’s face it, Eurocentric) one, places the action on humans: we reclaim animism as some kind of ancient lost knowledge. However, it can also be read the other way around: by placing the action on animism as the reclaimant subject: it reclaims us, and loudly reminds humans that animated entities are all around—and some of them, like trickster spirits, or indeed oil itself, would not mind to see us all dead.

This assertion can be flipped again to its seeming antipodes: the scientific west. As Timothy Morton writes: ‘Heidegger said that only a god can save us now. As we find ourselves waking up within a series of gigantic objects, we realise that he forgot to add: We just don’t know what sort of god’ (2013 p.282). To which, Peter Sloterdijk seems to answer: ‘In our religiously illiterate decades, people have almost completely forgotten that to speak of God in monotheism meant always at once to speak of a wrathful God. A wrathful God is the great impossible variable of our age. But what if, beneath the surface, he is working on becoming our contemporary once again?’ (2010 p.43).

Be that as it may, it seems that, on both sides of the coin we come to find the same inscription:

Powerful and hostile forces have always been at the gates. Prepare to negotiate the terms of your surrender.

1. We believe (now).

Marisol de la Cadena makes us note the distinction between being ‘those who know,’ and ‘those who believe.’ In doing so she rejects this separation based on the ‘modern command “not to regress” to a supposed earlier stage when “we” were unable to discern reality from belief. […] Rejecting what we consider regression, we form a collective that disdains others that we also tolerate as we wait for their disappearance, or actively destroy them when driven by intolerance’ (2018 p.13).

2. "In the beginning there was darkness. Life would come to know this darkness, populated by monsters, violence, and warfare. Weapons that were never seen. And life lived with this darkness until there was light, and light was separated from dark. But that happened many ages after worlds, and the Sun, and the oceans, and Thunder came to be.

Darkness in this sense has a positive connotation. I learned this from the Piaroa of the Amazon. There, visible violence, weapons that see the light, are practically nonexistent. A chaotic, battle-frought cosmos, however, surrounds the Piaroa. Destruction is kept in the dark, invisible. It is, ultimately, a war fought in darkness to keep the peace of the visible world.

3. Time was the first of the Mist Spirits. And Time was everything. And then, Time blew once and the Mist of Noun appeared. Then, Time blew once more and the Mist of Verb appeared. And these were the new spirits, Time’s children. And they were the Mists of Interconnection. One was of materials, the Mist of Noun, and the other was of enactments, the Mist of Verb. And both were made of energy. And both, since the beginning, were born as opposites, and have, so far, fought against each other. And they occupy all the space in the universe. And are contained by Time.

4. The mists were born fighting. And swirling still from the puff whirled into each other with rage. And from that clash everything was created. And after that initial battle many more battles ensued. And with each battle a new world was made, and sometimes Mist of Noun prevailed, and sometimes Mist of Verb prevailed. And Time stood aside, and would then sweep past their antics leaving clouds of nebulae or black holes, or empty, timeless galaxies. And it was Time who dictated the weather of the universe. And Time had grown weary of the ceaseless chase of both mists. Thus a powerful ultraviolet wind storm began to blow. And Time took a deep inhale. And Time puffed out with vigour into the cosmic wind. And from this breath of Time spawned Mist of Teleology. And it spiralled throughout the universe. And Verb, and Noun, and also Time understood nothing would ever be the same again.

5. Thus Time turned to all mists and declared: that a place would come to be which would forever remain under the realm of Time, and that it would never become nebulae or black hole, and that it would never blink out of existence. And so Time, took Verb and Noun, and meant to take Teleology, but in the last instant, as it would be for eternity, Teleology managed to evade near-certain grasp—intelligibility. And, in this dexterous move, escaped outside of Time, and circled three times and laughed at what was being brought about.

6. But Time did not realise this, and so, the incantation was done. A world invocated into existence, made to be inhabited by the three mists: Verb, Noun, and Teleology, would be forever haunted by the latter’s absence. And so Time left Mist of Noun and Mist of Verb to battle in this young world.

7. These times were also the times of the beginning, and it was still dark. On the first battle between the mists, Mist of Verb, replicating Time, blew with strength and intention. And so the first of the lights, the Sun, was created.

8. And with this first light Time tested Mist of Verb and asked: Will you separate light from darkness? And Mist of Verb, understanding interconnected enactments, responded: I will not separate them. And so, light and darkness existed simultaneously. And no Great Divide yet came about.

The world and especially Nature, came to be within the possibility of human ‘management’ by the enabling powers of the Judeo-Christian god, whose many antics of division are well documented, and which begin with the separation of light and darkness.

The Book of Genesis’ third and fourth verses read: ‘Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.’ Bruno Latour (1993) puts forth the notion of the Great Divide as that schism which separated ‘modern’ westerners from ‘pre-modern’ peoples (everyone else).

As with Piaroan ontology, the non-separation of light and dark make for a world in which darkness is not rejected but rather, incorporated as an essential element of human experience, perhaps keeping violence invisible and in the shadows, rather than visible in human and nonhuman bodies and landscapes.

9. And this light was made of Verb, as the Sun is made of Verb. Thus it began to spin, and spin around itself, and spin around the space surrounding it. And on that day Mist of Noun was defeated, but being too proud did not attempt the same strategy, and so did not blow to create an allied mist spirit. But it was from that day that Sun, kin of Verb, begot the steady corrosion of envy that would nibble at Noun’s heart evermore. And it would be, from this day, that Mist of Noun would forever attempt to replicate this kind of energy power.

10. And Mist of Noun swirled around with fury carrying materials that clashed and crushed and shot across space. And Verb retreated to a palace in the Sun.

11. Many ages after the first day of the first ray of light of Sun, Mist of Noun still lashed across vast expanses, enraged and tempestuous. But ages and ceaseless movement had granted Mist of Noun new wisdom. Noun mastered further larger conglomerations of materials: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen. Noun experimented with limits in size, speed, and composition. And Mist of Verb watched from afar and thought it was time to, again, contest the rule of Mist of Noun. And thus launched, with all might, vortices of electromagnetic radiation, but to no avail. And Mist of Verb watched with affliction as Noun managed now, dexterous, everything except the Sun.

12. But Verb saw that Noun was fond of one conglomerate of materials, and the conglomerate was not too far from the Sun Palace. And this conglomerate was what would one day be the planet Earth. And it enchanted the mist spirits with potentiality. And Verb and Sun held hands and thus began to chant. And holding hands they began to dance and turn. And as they turned and danced and chanted they were entranced. And a great magic happened. And all the heavenly bodies began to turn and dance around the Sun. And have continued this dance until today. And this was the first time that Verb saw materials of Noun could change master through movement and intention. And this was the time when interconnection by circles and cycles first came to be.

Circles, and cycles can be seen as a contraposition to forward pointing Progress alongside (by Ursula LeGuin’s account) spearheads as the first human weapons. For heroes (who are also, usually, killers), ‘the proper shape of the narrative,’ LeGuin writes, ‘is that of the arrow or spear, starting here and going straight there and THOK! hitting its mark (which drops dead)’ (LeGuin 2020 p.169). Lines are Progress: weapons. Circular shapes are carrier bags, nets, containers, wombs and shelters (idem).

The new enabling life movement, will be that of Earth circling around the Sun.

13. And Mist of Noun looked at the heavens and swore against circular flows. And Noun vowed to forever move and progress in straight, ascending motion. And thus, from stardust, Mist of Noun carved a spear: first of the weapons.

14. And Verb found the substance of water within this turmoil. And even though water submitted to Noun, Mist of Verb concocted a powerful spell, emitting pulsations towards water. And water was infused with motion forever. And Water became of Verb. Thus Water now, summoned by its new master, enveloped the world in a fog—Mist of Water. And Mist of Noun was blinded by it.

15. And then fog became rain. And Water poured down in adamant obedience to Verb. And rain fell down and soaked up stone. And Mist of Noun, aflame, kept furiously seeping iron, and lakes of oil, and uranium, and carbon, and lead, and tar sands, and arsenic, and mercury, and methane. But, in this battle against Water, these warriors did not prevail the way Mist of Noun had expected, as Mist of Water, immune to this technology, bounced back towards the heavens only to fall down with more ferocity.

16. And Thunder appeared. And Verb saw Thunder, and Thunder was also of Verb, as it was of moving light like the Sun. And Noun, inflamed as never before, witnessed impetuous oceans rising where once before, heat and tumult had, under Noun’s rule, prevailed uncontested.

17. And it was then, when Mist of Noun rained down upon the oceans conjuring all of Noun’s weapons and technologies. And so the surface of the waters was covered in toxins, and the waters became acid poison. And it was after this invasion on Water that Mist of Noun declared a great victory. Thus a grand triumph was held to commemorate this conquest of the Kingdom of Water. And the invasion lasted for many sun cycles.

18. But then came the time when Mist of Verb commanded Water to overcome Mist of Noun’s settlers. And so Water pushed against enemy lines and drove the legions of Noun towards the bottom of the oceans.

19. And then, with momentum, Mist of Verb summoned the Volcanoes and said: Heed my call! And the Volcanoes sat in council for much time, until, ceremonious proclaimed: We are made of Noun, but are pregnant with children that will be of Verb. And thus, they spilled upon the heavens their kin, now kin of Verb, and avalanches washed down the edges of mountains unto the oceans and buried, deep underground, the acolytes of Mist of Noun in deep deposits under the Earth’s surface.

20. And Mist of Verb watched from the Sun Palace with contentment, but with knowledge that this victory was not definitive. Blindsided by Noun, Mist of Verb realised a thick vapour army of gas was locked in combat with Mist of Water. And that this dark dense fog covered the surface of the world. And that the light of Sun, despite its brightness, could not traverse its lines. And from this fog, Mist of Noun built a fortress in the sky, and then kneaded it into a thick paste, and thus built a macabre palace in the entrails of the planet. And Noun rejoiced in the flamboyance of poisonous gases galloping the skies and raining down upon the new land, and bubbling in the entrails of the subsoil.

21. Thus, Mist of Verb did immerse in Water. And there, together, they summoned powerful tidal forces. And Water rose and fell many times. And Water asked Verb if this would be enough to vanquish Mist of Noun. And Verb, being of interconnected enactments, responded that almost always power appears invisible. And Water, on occasion also partaking in invisibility, surrendered to this wisdom.

22. And Water rose and fell many times. And Mist of Noun continued engaging in celestial fetid battle against the ever retreating vapour forces of the army of Mist of Water. And Noun did not know that deep in the heart of Water, Mist of Verb had consummated ultimate victory. And it was thus from these waters, and from movement, and from Verb, and from the intention of Verb, that life came to be.

23. But life was frail, and thus became armoured against the toxic oceans and its metals by sets of liaisons and actions. And, while life was still close to invisible, and after seeing Water’s ultimate retreat from the heavens, Noun departed towards the Subterranean Palace. And it was then, after a long time, that the Sun thus showered light upon the surface of the Earth. And Noun, mistakenly, underestimated the powers that Sun was capable of bestowing upon embryonic life.

24. Materials were denser closer to the core, and ages in battle had rendered Noun’s kin weak. Noun declared temporary hiatus in celestial gas warfare. And so Noun focused on concentrating further denser designs of materials. And so, spewed underground rivers of iron, and gold, and mercury. And this was the Age of Empire for Noun. And during this age, Mist of Noun searched the ranks of the army in pursuit of the fiercest and most devoted warrior. And Noun found none more courageous or bold than Carbon.

25. And Carbon was known by all to be devious and of great ambition, but mostly of great intelligence. And Mist of Noun saw the dark body of Carbon, strong and solid, and was filled with desire. And Mist of Noun swirled tempests that shook all Subterranean Estates and, transfixed by longing, became Mist of Combustion, and took Carbon and burned his body until it became smoke—a gas to enfold in miasmic fornication. And Carbon, true to form, offered his body unreservedly. And Noun declared: Carbon shall henceforth be my champion. And Carbon, the trickster, said nothing.

26. And Carbon was known by all to be devious and of great ambition, but mostly of great intelligence. And Mist of Noun saw the dark body of Carbon, strong and solid, and was filled with desire. And Mist of Noun swirled tempests that shook all Subterranean Estates and, transfixed by longing, became Mist of Combustion, and took Carbon and burned his body until it became smoke—a gas to enfold in miasmic fornication. And Carbon, true to form, offered his body unreservedly. And Noun declared: Carbon shall henceforth be my champion. And Carbon, the trickster, said nothing.

Jamie Cross (2019) calls for a ‘carbon anthropology,’ as he states the ‘most pressing political, scientific and public debates about the reproduction of human, animal and plant life on earth today are, fundamentally, about our relationship with carbon. They are about our relationship to carbon bound to hydrogen in the earth as hydrocarbons, or fossil fuels; and about our relationship to carbon bound to oxygen in the air as carbon dioxide.’

26. And this was the age were Mist of Noun established subterrestial chains of supply as veins running throughout and around the world. And for a time Mist of Noun, entranced by the body of Carbon and its potentialities, forgot about tellurian agendas. The Subterranean Estates focused on speed and exploration. Plus Ultra, as it would be known many ages after.

In his Facing Gaia (2017), Bruno Latour makes reference to the Spanish Empire’s motto: Plus ultra. By his account, this is the motto of humans still pushing forth the project of perennial growth and Progress.

‘Subterranean Estates’ is the title of the book dealing with the ‘intellectual vertigo’ immersion in the worlds of oil and gas can produce (Apple ed. 2015).

27. Mist of Verb had found serenity, and a thing akin to joy. But, as Verb remained entranced in contemplation of the life Verb and kin had produced, a strong wind blew from the outer edges of existence. And it carried a disconcerting chant that penetrated the serenity and joy felt by Mist of Verb. And Verb knew it was the echo of the hymns of Mist of Teleology. And the body of Mist of Verb, already enveloped by procaryotes, for the first time, shivered. And also, for the first time, knew doubt.

Giles Milhaven (1989) proposes female mystical experience has historically differed from male accounts by its profound bodily components. This comes as a consequence of the differences in female and male formative bodily experiences, which are greatly linked to reproductive labours and bodily functions.
Mist of Verb experiences for the first time body and joy, in resemblance to the mystical experience of catholic female mystics (Teresa de Ávila, Hildegard von Bingen, Joan of Arc), in this case, also deeply related to labours of care and reproduction. Teleology, here, takes on special importance, as it does with many experiences of reproduction and parenthood.

28. This haunting plagued Mist of Verb. And Mist of Verb looked at Water, starting to be populated by more enactments than materials. And it was a thing of awe. But Mist of Verb found no sense in it. And it was thus that the idea of finding Mist of Teleology took a hold of Verb’s every thought. And Hope had not yet come to exist, but a quiver of its future absence clenched Mist of Verb, who, incapable of eluding it, left on a quest into timeless cosmos.

29. It was soon after this time that Water and Sun celebrated their nuptials. And from this enacted union, interconnections hatched. And Sun, as a token of devotion to her spouse, shone brighter than ever upon the Earth through layers of hydrogen, methane, and carbon. And so, electromagnetic radiation penetrated the surface of Water. And the body of Water quivered with invisible pulsations. And life became numerous and more powerful. And from this union many beings came to be. And these were called eukaryotes. And eukaryotes fed on the body of Carbon. And Carbon gave himself unreservedly. And Carbon did not say to Noun many others had now too found pleasure in his body.

30. Mist of Noun, enclosed in the Subterranean Palace, nevertheless, felt palpitations rippling across molten rock, and gas, and rivers of liquid metals. And so left the Subterranean Estates in a choleric outburst and thus arrived at the edge of Water. And upon seeing Water populated with the offspring of Mist of Verb, sunk into a mad rage that undulated to the farthest corners of Time. And it was this burning pang of anger that reached Mist of Verb entranced in mediation at the edge of existence, and which made Verb aware it was time to return from exile.

31. And Carbon did not yet confess the part he played to his imposed lover. But the two mists, first of the spirits, are not easy to trick. And thus did Noun sense the passing of Carbon’s body in the bodies of the living. And Noun cursed Water, and Sun, and Thunder, and all present and future kin of Verb, and thus swore to eliminate all of them from existence. And with a heart filled with fury, and treason, and desire for revenge, assembled a demonic congregation of materials.

32. And Carbon feared the rage of Mist of Noun. Thus, agile and resourceful approached Noun with a plan to make amends. And thus leaned closer into his lover’s ear and whispered: make them traitors to their master. Transmute them as I have transmuted many others.

33. And thus was the first attempt of Noun to turn life against Verb. And thus Noun converted the first assemblies of life into anti-life batallions. And in this way, took bacteria and drove them to cyano-insanity. And cyanobacteria chanted, Plus Ultra!, as they marched across vast expanses of ocean expelling toxic amounts of oxygen into the atmosphere declaring all parts of the world Estates of Noun.

As carbon is both, essential and deadly to life, so too is oxygen. The Great Oxygenation which triggered a mass extinction of bacteria over 2 billion years ago was caused when photosynthetic creatures began introducing oxygen into the atmosphere ‘causing the greatest pollution crisis in planetary history’ (Sagan in Tsing 2017 M169).

34. And Mist of Noun felt also a thing akin to perverse joy. And it was the joy of creation that Mist of Noun had sensed upon creating life. And thus cried blood tears. And from the left eye Hate spawned. And from the right eye Extinction bursted into existence. And they, depraved twins, have henceforth acted as legionary commanders of the Subterranean Armies.

35. And this is the logic of materials, kin of Noun: imperialistic expansion. And so Oxygen, under the banner of Noun, became ever more abundant. And even though this plan had been concocted by Carbon, Mist of Noun remained filled with jealousy. And so, as punishment for his liaisons with life, Mist of Noun depleted a special legion of the Subterranean Army tasked with encasing the body of Carbon further deeper into the impenetrable crust of the earth. And this caused great pains to Carbon who valued nothing more than galloping free across rock layers, and air, and water currents, and even across living bodies. And Mist of Noun knowing this, and wounded in body and in pride, hunted down with Oxygen every atom and molecule in which Carbon hid. And so Carbon, as Dioxide, nearly vanished from the heavens. And so was secluded inside the realm of Noun.

36. Sun sent vehement rays of heat towards the Earth. But the absence of Carbon as Dioxide from the atmosphere made his partial alliance to the forces of Verb evident. As shield, the army of Oxygen repelled even the most impassioned of solar radiations. And it was thus that the Earth froze. And Extinction, commanding numerous troops, celebrated great victories on fields carpeted by the dead.

37. The Nightmare Battle of Materials concocted by Mist of Noun thus began. Seizing this moment of life weakness, Noun sent a bombardment of cosmic rays upon Earth, which Water, dazed in battle, fought off transforming into Cloud. From the flanks, galloped in supernova explosions led by High Army General Extinction. And countless living beigns fell on that day. And they became materials, potential kin of Noun.

38. This war tactic, skilfully devised by Mist of Noun and the other subterranean spirits, was repeatedly applied. And intense heat and intense cold submerged the young world of the living. And Extinction devoured in gluttonous frenzy. And all the mist spirits believed the end of life was near.

39. And Sun and Water had lost most of their forces. But at that time Mist of Verb returned from exile. And saw life, source of joy and doubt, near disappearance. And thus, Verb saw Sun, and Water, and Thunder in tears. And it was then that Verb renounced forever the quest to find Mist of Teleology outside the edges of Time.

40. And on that day, Verb chanted an unknown song to all. And it was the hymn of Teleology that Mist of Verb had learned while following its sound across the cosmos. But from this song, recited by the lips of Verb, a different interconnected enactment took place. And it was thus that Hope emerged. And Hope spoke these words: that invisible things put in motion—enactments that interconnect— were already aplenty in the world. And Water, once again took up invisible weapons, and thus pushed down upon the crust of the Earth. And thus receded. And thus the lands emerged. And thus the possibilities of life multiplied.

41. Hope was born pregnant with Symbiosis. And soon after gave birth. And Symbiosis was born as a spirit of companionship. And Symbiosis joined prokaryote and eukaryote cum panis, allowing for their growth into larger and stronger assemblies. Small tribes made up for the shortcomings of the others, and vice-versa. And it was thus that life thrived through variation and mutual aid. And life grew in size and possibilities.

Donna Haraway (2008) speaks of companion species (from the latin cum panis, with bread). Sharing bread with someone means sharing a table as equals, staring back, respecting the other, (from the latin respecere, to look back).

Mutual aid, as proposed by the anarchist, Peter Kropotkin, is the most pragmatic and efficient survival tool used by life since its origins.

42. Mist of Noun remained concocting nightmares in the Subterranean Estates. And further used and further obsessed over the captive body of Carbon. And meanwhile, sublunary beings diversified and multiplied in cycles of life and death. And Carbon, bold, and ambitious, and desperate to gain again his lover’s favour and his freedom, turned to Noun and said: I shall build you an army. Let me feast on their bodies as they have feasted on mine. And Mist of Noun, fixed on revenge, agreed.

43. And thus Carbon was made the first cannibal, as Carbon would henceforth feast on the corpses of the living. And it was the body, but also the cunning of Carbon, which caused Mist of Noun to burn with mad lust, and to think only of being enveloped entirely by another’s body. And it was thus that Mist of Noun achieved one of the greatest successes of the Empire of Noun: the transmutation of enacted life into material Carbon. And it was then that, deep underground, Carbon began building the deadliest of all weapons.

In Amazonian ontologies, spirits, as supreme cosmological creatures, are also the supreme cannibals (Viveiros de Castro 2012).

44. And it was during this time that the two primordial mist spirits; Mist of Noun and Mist of Verb, devoted themselves to their own estates and their own agendas. And this lasted many sun cycles. And during this time, life expanded across tundra, rainforest, and estuaries. And it was during this time too that, deep underground, Empire of Noun machinated weapons and war tactics to rival the energy of the Sun and all its triumphs.

45. Mist of Noun, forever concerned with weaponisation, accumulation, and straight-line growth and progress, exploited, with greed, all resources available in the underground. And it was with voracious appetite that Noun too set terrestrial colonial outposts for resource extraction. And these were the hard labours of tellurian life forms ceaseless nurturing material bodies, which were, ripe when cadaveric, harvested and transported down to the Subterranean Estates where they became valuable commodities.

Mist of Noun follows the logic of colonialist expansion and voracious capital accumulation. As Negarestani writes: ‘Capitalism was here even before human existence, waiting for a host’ (2007 p.27). Here, colonialism precedes it (as host for capitalism?), as Max Liboiron has suggested (2021).
Frontier extraction, in this sense, and in contemporary economical flows, is immensely profitable. The frontier here being, the limit between the subterranean realms of Noun and the terrestrial realms of Verb. Living bodies becoming, eventually, hydrocarbons—commodities and, in due time, the ultimate weapon of Noun.

46. This was also the epoch were Mist of Verb and kin of Verb, alchemically fermented, amalgamated, synthesised, diluted, and condensed symbiotic enactments. And this was an enterprise undertaken with utmost scientific rigour, and with impassioned deference to curiosity. And it was thus that, contrapuntal to Noun’s successes at infecting life with expansionist material madness, Verb and kin of Verb accomplished great discoveries and successes at infecting materials with enactments of life.

47. And Hope saw the fires of curious creation burning bright. And Mist of Hope, entranced, jumped into those fires. And on the following day re-emerged as Mist of Play. And Play, Mist of Verb thought, was the farthest thing there ever was from Mist of Teleology. And Mist of Verb was pleased.

48. And Mist of Hope as Mist of Play begot four-hundred children. And some of the children of Play were Fission, Fragmentation, Pollination, Sex, Regeneration and Parthenogenesis. And they treasured all materials of Verb which had been infused by life.

The number is taken from the vigesimal (or base-20) numerical systems of Mesoamerica, where the number 400 came to mean ‘a lot.’

49. And as the Tellurian Estates thrived, the eternal treaty bounding life with materials was drafted as an attempt to divert and prevent divisions and Great Divides. And it was done in recognition of the inevitable existence of the Subterranean Estates, and of Mist of Noun, and kin of Noun. And it was during a ceremonious gathering that the Treaty of Storied Matter was thus signed.

50. And it so read: ‘[T]hat from its deepest lithic and aquatic recesses to the atmospheric expanses, and from subatomic to cosmic realms, matter is capable of bringing forth a display of eloquence.’ And that these are agentic enactments. And that these are expressions of myriad atomic, molecular, and organismic politics. And that these are the politics which allow for the perpetuation of life. And that matter and life are henceforth and for all eternity bound.’

Opperman in Braidotti and Hlavajova ed. 2018 p.411.

51. And storied matter became fish, and bird, and acacia, and scorpion. And then, after many epochs became human. And Verb and kin of Verb saw human, and saw that it was beautiful, and weak, and gracious, and dangerous.

52. And it was during the human becoming that Mist of Teleology, from the outskirst of Time, sent word to Mist of Verb. And this word was a token for human. But Mist of Verb had vowed to never liaise with Mist of Teleology. And Verb called on Hope. And, from the fires burning inside of Hope as Play, thus burned this word.

53. And all living creatures were created as worshipers of the spirits of Verb. And human, like moss, and like sparrow, spread throughout the world. And all affairs became a matter of cosmopolitics. And it was on one cosmopolitical gathering that Mist of Verb sat with all kin of Verb, and so Water was there, and Sun, and Thunder, and Hope, and Symbiosis. And they all discussed for long on how to strengthen and proliferate their pursuits.

Cosmopolitics, Isabel Stengers’ term (2010), proposes engaging with all things in the cosmos in political practice. Cosmopolitics makes visible the agentic functions of nonhuman actors and opens the path to the recognition of multiple forms of knowing.

54. And a dual intentionality was decreed. And each of the spirits was asked for a piece of themselves—an offering. And from these parts of their bodies, two mists were formed. And each of the spirits was tasked with safeguarding them for one day and one night. And so, from an offering and an act of tending, Sacrifice and Care came to be. And they were twins.

55. But Mist of Verb and Mist of Noun were, since the beginning, made of energy. And both depleted their forces when animating their kin. So Mist of Verb imposed on the living world a new economy. And this was the economy of homeostasis. And this economy was a system of barter. And all creatures were bound to return in equal value the energy thus ingested. So it was proclaimed that food, and movement, and sexuality, and bodily secretions, and the possibility of rest, all had a value. And after death all accounts could be settled by compost. And all beings became of the same body after compost. And thus was the promise of eternal life.

The Desana of the Amazon ‘conceive the world in the manner of a homoeostatic system in which the quantity of energy expended, that is, the “output,“ is directly linked to the quantity of energy received, the “input.” […] Energy returns directly to the global capital of energy that irrigates all the biotic components of the system. […] Each individual is thus conscious of constituting but one element in a complex network of interactions that take place within not only the social sphere but also the entirety of a universe that tends toward stability: in other words, our universe whose resources and limits are finite. This imposes upon every individual ethical responsibilities, in particular that of not upsetting the general equilibrium of this fragile system and never using energy without rapidly restoring it by means of various kinds of ritual operations’ (Descola 2013 p.12).

Ideas of composting as a matter of deep ethics toward the living world have been dealt with by Donna Haraway (2016) and Maria Puig de la Bellacasa (2017).

56. This was the time when Sacrifice and Care begot a child. And the child born was the child Predation. And since childhood, Predation could not help but appear as night terrors and metaphysical torment to all life forms. Thus Predation recoiled forevermore into the shadows. And only in the darkness can be seen. Such were the earliest experiences of Predation, that she became fiercely just and fiercely restrained. And it was because of this, that in time, it was she who became the most beautiful. But it was her fate that no being would ever dare face or realise her beauty.

Predation in anthropology, is one of the main relational modes found in human groups. As such, predation is a relation integral to life and the subsistence of all life forms. Predation is ‘a disposition for incorporating otherness, both human and nonhuman […] It constitutes recognition that without the body of this other being, without its identity, without its perspective on me, I should remain incomplete’ (Descola 2013 p.320). But predation also is unmanageable and chaotic, ‘a kind of power that can come back to haunt you’ (Kohn 2013 p.202)

57. Sacrifice was anointed Minister of Energy Economy of Verb, and bound all lives and the possibilities of their subsistence. And Hope, being the spirit relying the least on the powers of invocation, became the enticer of this economy. And after seeing the great powers life conveyed unto the Tellurian Estates of Verb, Mist of Verb declared: that life, spurred by Hope and sustained by kin of Verb, would henceforth be obligated to repay in sacrifice to Verb and kin of Verb, forever.

Sacrifice is a means of communication between the realms of the sacred and the profane. According to Marcel Mauss, sacrifice is oft conceived as an imposed contractual relation between humans and the gods. However, sacrifice is always reciprocal as, by participating in it, the sacrificers also receive something in return (Hubert and Mauss 1964).

58. And knowing of interconnections, Council of Verb realised an alliance ripe with risk would have to be made with the Subterranean Estates.

And, for the first time since the beginning of creation, the realm of Verb called for an audience with the realm of Noun.

59. And it was requested from Mist of Noun to lend Extinction as ambassador to work alongside and within the Tellurian Estates. And Mist of Noun saw the possibility of much gain in this alliance. And thus Extinction, acting as Cosmic Executioner and Chargé D’Affaires for the Energy Economy of Verb, devoured debtor species, in material and mnemonic terms, whole.

60. But Extinction was unruly, and of a fickle and greedy nature. And many times would it act out of place. And many times would it bring undeserved doom to many.

61. Care was the wisest of the spirits. And from ever expanding interconnected enactments, Care knitted a thick, heavy, interwoven cloak she donned over her shoulders. And Care had grown larger and more powerful than most of her kin. And all spirits understood and acknowledged this power.

62. It was during this time that Care called her spouse and her child. And they each poured a drop of their blood on the cloak which Care tossed into the fire. And from the fire the cloak re-emerged as a cloud that enveloped the whole world. And in this way the world was infused in Care, and Sacrifice, and Predation bound in woven relational obligations between all living creatures.

‘Relational obligation’ bound by care, from Puig de la Bellacasa (2017 p.20)

63. It was through these powerful interconnected enactments that Mist of Verb and kin of Verb grew omnipotent tellurian forces. And the more life proliferated, the more the economy of the Tellurian Estates grew.

64. And it was during this time that human tribes proliferated across the Earth. And all the spirits, kin of Verb, were greatly entertained by human abilities for bricolage. Water rose and fell around human bodies, and so, human bodies built long, thin boards to surf it. And, as weeds grew, humans took them. And their hands and the weeds, as dance partners, wove carrier bags and baskets. And Thunder roared and ignited dark nights, and then Thunder and humans played with shadows. And humans told stories that frightened and enthralled their minds and their dreams.

65. And through dreams and trances some life forms, human and nonhuman, succeeded in communicating with the mist spirits. And Mist of Verb and kin of Verb never minded conversing with life forms, as it was through dream and trance that mists could remind all beings of the Energy Economy of Verb. And it was only through trance or dream that ontologically higher spirits could communicate with lower ones.

66. During this time, the stories told by humans carried ghosts of past cataclysms and of the violence that had created the world. Echos of mass extinctions and of cosmic hatred still soaked the skies. And so, human learned to tell these stories. And human hearts became haunted by the proximity of cosmic warfare. And humans understood their place in the order of things, and their bound obedience to Mist of Verb and kin of Verb. And thus human was devout and constant. And no sacrifice was ever missed. And no body ever failed to become compost.

67. And it was from a cosmos infused in ancient feuds and rancors that human life knew relative peace. And weapons were wielded only immaterial, and only by the mist spirits in their quarrels and conflicts. And all bodies, when deceased, became interconnected enactments. Remained kin of Verb.

68. But Mist of Noun had waited long in the Subterranean Estates. And the forces of Noun had grown larger and stronger. And so Noun called a great gathering of all kin of Noun. And a grand feast was celebrated. And Mist of Noun transformed into Mist of Combustion and thus incinerated all there present. And all kin of Noun wailed in agony. And from the flares and the smoke a thick haze formed. And thus, Noun subsided the flames. And all there, the scorched cohort of Noun, saw from the smoke emerging, Fallacy. Youngest of the mists.

69. And Mist of Noun, pragmatic, saw in Fallacy a new champion. And took Fallacy from infancy as a lover. And Fallacy, born from pain and haze, knew well of blindness and confusion, and quickly learned how to be devious and elusive. And Carbon was, for some time, liberated from his duties as High Royal Consort and thus was granted the freedom he had long yearned for.

70. Mist of Noun released Fallacy upon tellurian grounds. And Fallacy, as infernal poet, whispered sweet songs unto human ears. And these were the Hymns of Noun. And they lauded empire, and accumulation, and progress. And they conveyed deep fears against cycles and circles. And they eschewed the powers of Predation as relation, and thus substituted them exclusive with the powers of destruction.

In Philippe Descola’s opinion naturalism (western ontology) ‘is thus destructive rather than predatory,’ as, he adds, ‘[n]or, despite appearances, does predation lie at the heart of naturalism, at least not if predation is regarded as an incorporation of “others“ that is indispensable for the definition of the self’ (2013 p.397)

71. Let there be light. Said simultaneously Noun and Fallacy. And Noun said unto Fallacy: Will you separate this light from darkness? And Fallacy, understanding the strength there was in divisions, responded: I will separate them. And thus both Mist of Noun and Fallacy held the spearhead, first of the weapons, created many epochs before. And so, cut across existence. And so the Great Divide came to be.

The Great Divide, more than latourian here, pertains to Timothy Morton’s approach to agrilogics: ‘Agrilogistics promises to eliminate fear, anxiety, and contradiction—social, physical, and ontological—by establishing thin rigid boundaries between human and nonhuman worlds and by reducing existence to sheer quantity. Though toxic, it has been wildly successful because the program is deeply compelling’ (2014 p.43).

72. And this light was a spark. And this spark, infused by the breath of Noun became Weapon. And Weapon was born capable of transmuting all bodies into avatars of Weapon. And these were given the liberty to also exist in the visible world. And humans carved the first of the human spearheads. And so, warfare stopped existing only in the shadows, realm of mists. And it was then that the first hunt in times of surplus took place.

The hero as a weapon-wielding figure has become central to relatively all narratives. As proposed by several authors (Fisher1980, LeGuin 2020, Barber1996), weapons were not the primordial tools invented by humans. Their developmental and historical importance was granted later on, and in accord with the interests of particular groups of humans.

73. And so it followed that Fallacy created four-hundred child-spirits of Fallacy. And these would be his four-hundred weapons. And these four-hundred weapon-children were made especially to seduce humans. And so, from a grain of wheat, Accumulation spawned. Semen discharge from various acts of rape where combined to create Breeding. The siamese twins, Enclosure and Plague emerged from the first human consideration of animal as property, followed by the act of limiting the living grounds of goats, wives, and children, along with the first utterance of the words famulus, famula, familia. Then, from the most eloquent poem Fallacy recited against the wind, Captivity rose into existence. And so it went, and so four-hundred weapon-children of Fallacy came to be.

‘The original meaning of the word “family” (familia) […] did not at first even refer to the married pair and their children, but only to the slaves. Famulus means domestic slave, and familia is the total number of slaves belonging to one man. […] The term was invented by the Romans to denote a new social organism, whose head ruled over wife and children and a number of slaves, and was invested under Roman paternal power with rights of life and death over them all’ (Engels 2010 p.31).

74. But Fallacy sensed uneasiness, and so sought out Mist of Noun in the Subterranean Palace for counsel. And Mist of Noun said, search for my lost kin, find the hymns of Teleology.

75. And so Fallacy and his four-hundred children galloped across the cosmos and found Mist of Teleology at the edge of creation. And the hair of Mist of Teleology had grown so long throughout the eras that now bound the body of Teleology in a thick cocoon. And this ancient mist, upon seeing the approaching troop, recognised at once that they were kin. And so began to sing. And the travellers stood still and listened. And after some time began to sing alongside Mist of Teleology. And the hymn rose up into the universe as the body of Mist of Teleology sunk further down into the thick weave of hair. And then all was silent. And Mist of Teleology was nowhere to be seen.

76. And Fallacy and kin of Fallacy strode back to Earth. And on their journey sang their song. And rode their chariots to the four corners of the world in search for adherents to their faith. And in this search found no other living creature capable of understanding their chants and invocations better than human. So it was, that during many nights and night-dreams, that the cohort of Fallacy visited human through visions. And through these visions Fallacy changed face and changed skin, and became other. And Fallacy never revealed its original name to human. But it was through the hymns that human learned this other name of the spirit that brought them song and dreams. And this other name was Mist of Power.

77. Thus was that some humans learned the hymns of Fallacy as Power, while others did not. And thus it was that those who learned the hymns became Human, and also, sometimes only Man. And the songs occupied too large mnemonic space within Human, and so, all other spirits were forgotten. The First Mists even were forgotten. And so, as time progressed only Mist of Power could be invoked. And the word God as Weapon was invented.

Bruno Latour (2017) and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro (2017) have proposed imagining the human species divided into two groups: the Earthbound (Latour) or Terrans (Viveiros de Castro), and Humans, who have been now, for a while, at conflict with each other. Imagine, writes Viveiros de Castro ‘the Earth is taken over by an alien race pretending to be humans, whose goal is to domi­nate the planet and to extract all its resources, after having used up their own home planet to the full. […] And now let the reader imagine that this has already happened, and that the alien race is, in fact, we ourselves

We were taken over by a species disguised as human, and they have won: we are they. Or are there in fact two different species of human, as Latour suggests - an indigenous and an alien one? […] suppose a small shift in sensibility has suddenly made that self-colonization visible to us. We would thus all be indigenous, that is, Terrans, invaded by Europeans, that is, Humans; all of us, of course, including Europeans, who were after all the first Terrans to be invaded. A perfect intensive doubling (plus intra!), the end of extensive partitions: the invaders are the invaded, the colonized are the colonizers’ (Danowski and Viveiros de Castro 2017 p.124).

78. And this was the time where, as ontologically inferior beings, Human experienced as process. But it was this same time that the Realm of Mists, as ontologically higher beings, would come to know as a single event, a battle. And the mists know this battle as the Battle of Severed Light. And Human know this time-battle as the Rise of Civilisation.

‘[S]een from a suitably high dimension, a process just is a static object. I would appear like a strange worm with a cradle at one end and a grave at the other, in the eyes of a four-dimensional being. This is not to see things sub specie aeternitatis, but […] sub specie majoris: from a slightly higher-dimensional perspective. Processes are sophisticated from a lower-dimensional viewpoint. […] A process is a sensual translation, a parody of a higher-dimensional object by a lower-dimensional being’ (Morton 2013 p.169).

79. It was nevertheless, that the Energy Economy of Verb was not initially affected, as Human and Man continued to offer unto Sacrifice and continued to participate in compost as it had been decreed long before. And so even though Human did all adoration in the name of Power, the inter-cosmic agreements between Tellurian and Subterranean Estates legally granted all earthly bodies and all blood to be delivered unto Verb.

80. And in this way the entirety of the world remained haunted by the spirits, kin of Verb. And every rock, and every bush, and every lizard, and also every human knew of this hauntedness. And there was no denying the mists. And Fallacy knew this. And so demanded further and more frequent invocations from Human. But sometimes Human, seeing spiderweb, or stream, or offspring, forgot about the hymns of Power. And being also human, would worship Verb and kin of Verb.

81. And in the Subterranean Palace, Mist of Noun and Fallacy sat side by side in the throne room. And they looked upon the Earth and humans, disciples of Verb, and were enraged. And so, Fallacy and Carbon met in secret. And from a piece of carbon the figure of a child was sculpted. And Fallacy said, this will be my most beautiful and favourite child. And Carbon agreed. And so Fallacy called forth her other four-hundred children. And Accumulation, and Breeding, and Enclosure, and Plague, and Captivity, and all the others appeared before the dark carved figure.

82. And Carbon, acting as high priest tied their four-hundred bodies still on the sacrificial stone. And Fallacy flayed them all. And from their screams the figure was animated. And then, all four-hundred skins were donned as cloaks upon this child of Fallacy and Carbon. And the most grotesque of the mist spirits came to be. And his name was Mist of War. And none other would ever recite the ancient Hymns of Teleology, now hymns of Fallacy, with more eloquence or with more conviction than him.

83. In this way, Mist of War became commander of his four-hundred flayed siblings. And their legion was released upon the Earth. And human saw in this the worst of terrors. But Human-Man, already dazed with horror, saw that only through full submission to this mist spirit, could they sometimes feel intermittent safety. And thus Fallacy grinned, victorious.

Reza Negarestani talks about a ‘fog of war,’ which causes a certain kind of blindess to those who are enveloped by it: ‘Fog of War attracts warmachines to War itself; it erases all vision maintained by the eye. […] As they kick up dust during their activities, warmachines contribute to the Fog of War, and consequently to their own blindness’ (2007).

84. Thus the Battle of Severed Light continued. And cunning Carbon descended to his abyssal lair. And there experimented in dark alchemy. And so, in deep volcanic cauldrons, Carbon seeped, and boiled, and crushed, bodies and stardust into a thick black sludge. And, as first of the cannibals, Carbon devised a plan. And this plan involved transmuting matter in a way never attempted before. And this meant taking materials of Verb and of the Energy Economy of Verb out-of-the-cycle, and thus creating, for the first time something outside of the potential scope of cannibalism and compost. And so Carbon infused the sludge with intentions of Noun and kin of Noun. And Carbon, bold and patient, stirred this brew to the beat of war drums, and horns, and metal slashing flesh and bones. And, at last, Carbon succeeded. And thus created a substance inedible by all. And thus created the ultimate weapon of Noun.

Baudrillard writes, ‘[i]s it not man's miracle to have invented, with plastic, a non-degradable material, interrupting thus the cycle which, by corruption and death, turns all the earth’s substances ceaselessly one into another? A substance out-of-the-cycle…[t]here is something incredible about it, this simulacrum where you can see in a condensed form the ambition of a universal semiotic…[i]t is a project of political and cultural hegemony, the fantasy of a closed mental substance’ (1983).

85. And Plus Ultra, thus Man chanted as they marched across mountains, and as they sailed across waters. And cycles and circles became abhorrent to theses tribes. And only straight lines, straight discipline, and sexes, and stories were permitted. And their horrors became such that the invisible combats and weapons between the mists were no longer a match to the tellurian horrors taking place. And Human lost the capacity to fear these invisible things. And weapons were only perceived when materially manifest.

86. And Fallacy, as Power, whispered into human ears, and said: Dream up no other possibilities within life, as they are exhausted. You are of Noun. There are no others, and such has always been the way. Creation lies not within you. And joy can only come to you in the afterlife.

87. And light and dark were ever more severed, and moved further away at every sword thrust and at every flag planted upon claimed imperial ground.

88. And all the tribes of Man forgot about the mists, and forgot about the raging cosmic battles around them. And more and more loudly did the Hymns of Fallacy ring in their temples and their triumphs and their homes. And the fragility of ferns, and the privilege of cicada song, and the delicate and perfect arrival of the summer rains, were all lost to perception. And Mist of Verb, and kin of Verb, and interdependency further lost ground.

89. But on the battlefields of Man, regardless, bright purple flowers, kin of Verb, still sprouted from the eye sockets of fallen warriors. And it was also that above the battle cries and burning fields, human could hear soft murmurs of Verb in the wind. And these murmurs, alongside the horror visions of the deeds of Man, impregnated human souls, and thus amalgamated in a strong magic inside the wombs of human, and even some Human women. And thus, some offspring of human and of Human were born immune to the communicability of the Hymns of Fallacy.

90. But, meanwhile Man, liege of Fallacy as Power, declared all territories of Earth property of Man. And more so, declared all stories and their destinations, territory of Man. And declared all living beings territory of Man. And all human and Human females were declared territory of Man too.

91. And Human took all of the tribes living outside the scope of power of Fallacy and God as Weapon to be heathen. And all humans too were declared territory. And on all territories the flayed legion of mist spirits were released with fury. And Accumulation, and Breeding, and Enclosure, and Plague, and Captivity, imposed their brutal rule upon any that attempted circular divergence.

92. And as the logic of Empire further spread across tellurian grounds with Human as their champions, so Carbon saw it was an auspicious time to gain favour in the Subterranean court. And through visions, Carbon had found none other better suited to aid him at this enterprise than Extinction. And so, Carbon sent word to Extinction, still in charge of her diplomatic mission between the mist realms.

93. Thus Carbon took Extinction to the secret research centre premises where he had conducted his nefarious alchemy. And upon seeing the toxic thick dark liquid and the miasma of poison enveloping it, Extinction exclaimed with joy. And so, Carbon said upon Extinction, we must name our weapon. And thus they called this weapon Fuel of Noun.

94. It was then that Carbon and Extinction requested an audience with Mist of Noun, and thus took a colossal cauldron to the great hall of Noun. And in this cauldron brought their weapon. And Mist of Noun, still skeptical about the intentions of Carbon, took Fallacy by the hand and approached it with hesitance. And they both stared down into the soft rippling black liquid. And they saw it was a dark smoking mirror. And in it both, kin of Noun and Human would see themselves reflected as they were and as they wished to be. And through it the fates and desires of all would be revealed.

Tezcatlipoca, one of the main Aztec deities, is associated with a ‘smoking mirror.’ Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, one of the main Spanish chroniclers of Aztec culture in the XVIth century wrote: ‘[H]e moved wars, and enmities and discord, resulting in much fatigue and agitation. They said he enticed people against each other so that they would have war, and that is why they called him Necoe Yáotl, which means sower of discord on both parties, and they said it was only him who understood the workings of the world, and that only he could grand prosperity and riches, and that only he did this when it pleased him; he gave riches, and prosperity, and fame, and strengths, and kingdoms, and honours, and status, and he took them away when it pleased him, that is why they feared and revered him […]’ (my translation, Sahagún1969 p.29).

In this way, Tezcatlipoca and human proximity to his favours, act in a similar way as hydrocarbons do to humans and our closeness to them

95. And Mist of Noun, for the first time, felt subject to an equal power. And also felt exposed. And dared not stare into the black smoking mirror for too long. But soon enough congratulated Carbon and Extinction as this weapon would make visible and invisible warfare between all kin of Verb, and Man, and kin of Noun, for the first time possible.

96. And so it was, that immense receptacles of Fuel were injected into subterranean pipelines that spread across the planet. And Carbon finally, free from his millennial punishment, sunk into the dark substance and glided across vast planetary expanses. And thus vowed to Time itself that he would, forevermore, fight with all his might and power, any mist, force, or being, attempting to sequester him ever again.

97. And it was in this manner that Human first met Fuel of Noun. And in this dark mirror thus saw his reflection, and it was a true and accurate reflection. But did not realise it was also a harrowing likeness, as Human, already immersed in a sadistic battle, saw truthfulness where in fact, only horrors could be found.

98. Thus it was that Human had come to take inherent misery as the only acceptable expression of the Real. And thus the logic of Human, enveloped by violence and divisions, could only conceive rare and individual exculpation and respite from this misery. And themselves, and their kin, submerged in despair, were taken as an inevitable feature of existence. So, Fuel of Noun, saw through these attributes, that Human could become a competent and proficient tool for replicating the technologies of hierarchy proper to the perpetuation of the Real as hopelessness.

99. It was thus that Extinction, from inside the Ministry of Energy Economy of Verb, malversed and misused energetic funds. And in this way managed to expand the use of Fuel of Noun as currency between the Realm of Mists and the world.

100. And Human had, for some time, engaged in the all-encompassing project of continuously increasing the amount of per capita energy. And Fuel of Noun, fluid and vaporous contained, in a way Human had never encountered and in the most condensed of ways, millennial energies of ancient rancors and feuds. And they were imbued with their own capabilities and agencies.

‘Western civilisation seeks continually to increase the per capita supply of energy’ (Lévi-Strauss1952 p.32).

101. And after having declared all tellurian grounds Territories of Man, thus Man chanted Plus Ultra towards the subsoil. And thus waged war against sand, and rock, and abyssal plains. And tremors shook the crust of the earth. And solid ground cracked. And technological armies of Man marched down and further closer to the Subterranean Estates. And this invasion was welcomed with open arms and with sumptuous feasts.

‘Schmitt was obviously mistaken in saying that humans have not found new earths. Those that they have exploited with the same frenzy, the same violence as the New World, were not found between the Earth and the Moon, and they were not approached by rockets: they were found under the surface of the Earth, and, if the States were able to reach down deep into them to attenuate their rivalries even while exacerbating them, it was through pit mining, exploration, foraging, extraction, and hydrofracking. We might even say that coal, petroleum, and gas indeed constitute new celestial bodies, if we remember that we are dealing with the sun captured by living entities whose remains were eventually sedimented in layers of rock. Here is their new New World. And this new continent has really been appropriated as a res nullius, and without the smallest scruple’ (Latour 2017 p.233).

102. The Energy Economy of Verb thus became unbalanced as Man released himself from all contracts bound by compost and energy debt settlement. And thus the bodies of Man returned not to the realm of Verb, but were after death and by their own hand, encased in air-tight sealed metal boxes. And thus were, by their own hand too, left to remain in the purgatory of debtors to the mists.

103. Many were the ways in which Man became universal debtor, and it was through Fuel of Noun that the largest amounts of energetic capital became owed to the cosmos. Thus it was that through Man, Fuel of Noun, transmuted the most condensed of the energetic forms into indigestible monsters.

104. And these monsters came to populate, invisible, the skies. And as microplastics, they invaded the oceans, the soils, the bodies of living animals, and even the rain. In arrogance even, Man did don the body of these monsters as they had before the skin of their hunt. But, unlike the beaver, the bear, or even the jaguar, Fuel of Noun could never be prey. And at this, and at the arrogance of Man, Mist of Noun and all kin did snicker.

105. And Extinction approached Man with an appetite, but Mist of Noun halted his advance and declared; Man is, for now, weapon and avatar of Noun, and as such will not yet be swallowed by Extinction.

106. But it was throughout this time, that immune and inoculated humans, kin of Verb, advanced a great stronghold of ideas. And it was them that first saw how weapons and war now existed and were being waged also in the realms of invisibility. But these were wars of Noun alone, and thus the weapons of Verb proved inefficient. And thus human only could strengthen the invisible citadels they could sometimes inhabit, alongside the mists, in the realms of higher ontologies.

107. And it was in council that Mist of Verb sat with kin of Verb. And thus, discussed, and of common accord decided that Hope and Care would be sent forth to the invisible citadels of human.

108. And thus said unto human: Dream up all possibilities within life, as they are plentiful. You are of Verb. But there are others, and such has always been the way. Creation lies within you. And joy has forever been intrinsic to life.

Fight those committed to destruction, without replicating their destructiveness, as you are not free from destructiveness as well. Preserve life with aggression. Fight violence with rage bound by Hope and Care. The law of Mutual Struggle is of Fallacy. The law of Mutual Aid is truth.

From Butler ‘We must fight those who are committed to destruction, without replicating their destructiveness’ (2020 p.64).

109. And this stronghold of ideas and of actions was taken by Human to be heathen. And it was taken to be weak, and womanly, and savage, and backward. And it was fought with violence and, at times, it was counter-fought with violence as well.

110. But, around the flanks, human batallions of nonviolence also set up a different war tactic. And encampments of freedom from the Economy of Noun came to be. And the wavelength of their chants was the exact of opposite as that of they hymns of Fallacy. And thus could not be heard by any devotee to Fallacy. And thus they thrived by their intrinsic unintelligibility.

David Graeber writes, ‘[t]he contemporary world is riddled with such anarchic space, and the more successful they are, the less likely we are to hear about them’ (p.34 2004).

111. But Fuel of Noun was indeed a weapon of vast and mighty powers. And could be mobilised across vast expanses through subterranean and steep hierarchical processes. And only Man had access to the valves of Fuel of Noun. And it was Man who further accumulated condensed energy forms. And it was also Man who became further intoxicated, and became further confused, and became further assured of its fallacious mastery of Fuel of Noun and its intentions.

112. And in this way Fuel of Noun became, to Human, feral. And it was Carbon, seeker of freedom, who now rode at the head of this great army as High General. And in this way Fuel of Noun escaped engines, and landfills, and pipes. And it was Carbon who, at every turn, avoided and destroyed any agents of Verb that attempted to sequester him. And it was in this way, and in the guise of its many avatars, that Carbon, alongside Fuel of Noun colonised the skies, the soil, and the immensity of the oceans.

‘“Nurdles,” for example, the preproduction pellets, “escape the distribution system and go feral, with billions eventually winding up in waterways and the oceans”. […] Plastic, arguably the quintessential substance for efficient domination, somehow manages to escape, mocking both the human mastery of the material world and the green ideal of wildness, as it multiplies and roams, garish and ghastly. […] plastics, far from being inert, benign objects, act in the ocean as if they were “predators”: Plastics could even be considered, in a sense, “predators,” given the deadly nature of “ghost fishing” and entanglements of marine turtles, mammals, pinnipeds, and cetaceans’ (Alaimo in Iovino and Opperman 2014 p.198)

112. And in this way Fuel of Noun became, to Human, feral. And it was Carbon, seeker of freedom, who now rode at the head of this great army as High General. And in this way Fuel of Noun escaped engines, and landfills, and pipes. And it was Carbon who, at every turn, avoided and destroyed any agents of Verb that attempted to sequester him. And it was in this way, and in the guise of its many avatars, that Carbon, alongside Fuel of Noun colonised the skies, the soil, and the immensity of the oceans.

113. And it was human, not Man, who first got a pressing sensation of urgency, and who first felt the sky falling on their heads. And it was indeed the falling skies, the rising seas, and the burning forests, which threatened and enveloped human, Man, and all kin of Verb. And it was thus that some members of the tribes of Man realised war was being fought all around them, in the invisible realm of the mists. And in this way some affiliates of Man began to call themselves again, human.

‘For instance, the sky, this very sky my Gallic ancestors feared was about to fall on their heads, could once again fall on our heads and those of our children in the form of radical climate changes’ (Latour 2002 p.33).

114. And the Energy Economy of Noun, sustained mostly by Fuel of Noun, and earthily known as the Economy of Markets, appeared dwarfed by the Energy Economy of Verb to the old and new members of human. And invisible hands were revealed to human to had been always the hands of the mists.

115. But this revelation escaped the intelligibility of Man who, upon sensing an energetic unbalance, and by his own curtailed powers of creation, devoted all energies to conserving the only economy conceivable within the deterred scope of his imagination.

116. And in this same way fear and incertitude further drove hordes of Man to fundamentalist belief in the laws of Noun. And multitudes clamoured for Mist of Noun and further seeked a return to impossible pasts. And Man thus crying Plus ultra resonated loud across the cosmos. And all kin of Noun sensed this energetic surge. And all commanders of Noun roared with blood frenzy.

117. And one tempest did blow throughout the world, and this was the tempest to reveal one thing to both Man and to human. And it was Sacrifice, twin of Care, who swept past all lands bearing a mandate from the Energy Economy of Verb. But the strength and fear attributed to Sacrifice made almost all seek shelter and so, too few were left to further convey this message. And the message was an ultimatum by the Realm of Verb. And it stated that all debts would be, either paid by Sacrifice at an approaching date, or forcefully collected at a later one by the powers of Extinction.

118. So human understanding sacrifice of self did surrender historical certainties, individualist anthropocentrism, hero myths, and future assurances of progress. But Man, proselytised by Fallacy, knew only to forfeit the Other. So Man did offer, wrongly and through long networks rendering invisible and thus easily disposable: precarious workers in the antipodes, wild bird species, childhoods, coral reefs, tropical forests, sex free from capital, fish, and fungi, starlit skies, uncountable sources of joy.

Bruno Latour (1993) has suggested the particularity of the moderns has been the invention of longer networks. This has potentially caused the moderns’ own allotment of responsibility towards the living world to be more difficult to trace, and therefore, to perform. As Donna Haraway has suggested about Arendt’s Eichmann, this process has resulted in ‘commonplace thoughtlessness […] someone who could not be a wayfarer , could not entangle , could not track the lines of living and dying , could not cultivate response-ability , could not make present to itself what it is doing , could not live in consequences or with consequence , could not compost […] The result was active participation in genocide’ (2016 p.36).

119. And so Sacrifice, understanding her sight was unendurable to Human, recognised the failure of her enterprise. And thus was forced to cede the grounds to Extinction. And in the Tellurian Estates of Verb, all kin of Verb watched with sorrow how Human had now become better equipped to associate with the Subterranean Estates of Noun and with kin of Noun. Thus Human, without a moment of consideration, turned his back on Sacrifice. And Human, freely, raised his gaze to face Extinction. Cum panis.

120. And Mist of Verb watched with heartache and with rage. And had exhausted all gifts of abundance, all prayers of trust, all predictable seasons of rain and of coming springs that could be bestowed upon Human. And thus, Mist of Verb saw in this, not trickery of Noun, or Fallacy, or even Carbon. But did sense voluntary Human blindness and epistemological sloth.

121. And being of one body with all of life did sense fins covered in a black bile. Unable to move as before. And a heaviness on a carapace and head that wasn’t there before. And bodies, sinking blind. Bodies dying. In the waters of their birth.

     From Sheryl St. Germain’s poem on BP’s Even Horizon oil spill, ‘Midnight Oil’ (in Fischer-Wirth and Street 2013)

122. And Mist of Verb was thus incensed. And for the first time spoke to human, and thus uttered a curse:

123. Mist of Noun, my kin, has said unto you, ‘Dream up no other possibilities within life, as they are exhausted. You are of Noun. There are no others, and such has always been the way. Creation lies not within you. And joy can only come to you in the afterlife.’ This is the creed that you have chosen. Therefore it shall be so, embedded in the Eternal Present of your lifespans. And in this earthly existence you will be held as captives. And within your imagination there will be no escape as you will lack the very language to articulate this unfreedom. And you will call this bondage ‘life.’

As Slavoj Žižek has written: ‘we “feel free” because we lack the very language to articulate our unfreedom. What this lack of red ink means is that, today, all the main terms we use to designate the present conflict - 'war on terrorism', 'democracy and freedom', 'human rights', and so on - are false terms, mystifying our perception of the situation instead of allowing us to think it. In this precise sense, our ‘freedoms' themselves serve to mask and sustain our deeper unfreedom’ (2002 p.2).

124. In this way, the curse of the Eternal Present of Noun, by the wrath of Verb, fell upon Man. But, only after subduing in anger, did Mist of Verb come to see this curse was an unintended gift to the forces of Mist of Noun, as it had eliminated all options and thus strengthened all convictions Fallacy had transmitted unto Man.

125. And so Mist of Verb called upon kin of Verb for counsel. And so Hope, knowing well the hearts of humans took the floor, and thus requested a counter curse and a gift for human as, Hope had learned, the instruction of Verb to dream up all possibilities had precipitated in human unprecedented lucidity. And the mandate to preserve life against violence with aggression had strengthened human adherence and belief in Verb and all kin of Verb like never before. Thus, Hope proposed, human could be allowed access to a higher invisible citadel and to different stories of the world and of how it came to be, is, and will come about. And after much time and deliberation it was accorded that all mists, kin of Verb, meet with human in the invisible citadels.

126. And thus all the mists, kin of Verb, met with human at the highest point in the highest of the citadels that human minds and spirits could endure. And there, a gift was bestowed upon them. And in their hands, humans did sense a new and invisible weapon. And it cut the palms of their hands as it was a weapon of great power. And thus instilled fear in their hearts. But human saw it was also a weapon carved by Hope, and thus, knowing the consequences, tightened their grip.

127. And so, as accorded, the mists began with storytelling. And human, the bricoleur, sat and listened. And with invisible hands weaved invisible threads of invisible past events into invisible baskets to hold future ones. And out of darkness carved shields. And in the shadows brewed protective potions. And human saw these stories, not only stretching into the past immemorial, but also, into a future where light and darkness were no more separated by a great divide.

128. And in this new citadel, perched atop the highest tower, human could see the Rise of Civilisation, from this perspective now, a single event: the Battle of Severed Light. And human, and all future offspring of Man, were potentially released from the Eternal Present of Noun. And in this way gained the perspective of processes as things.

129. And a great principle was thus unveiled unto human: that the ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something we make, and could just as easily make differently.

     David Graeber 2015 p.89.

130. And in this way human was allowed to experience a different present: the Eternal Present of Verb. And in this present, no battle is ever eternal.

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