But now, curiously, his own inner thoughts slowed down too, and there was nothing he could do about it. His consciousness sank to some deeper level where thoughts-as-sounds grew out of him like trees from the earth, slowly yet automatically, with great sureness and strength.

A strange triumph seized him, an acquiescent exultation, the feeling of being himself a source; though he didn’t understand exactly what this meant. He had sunken as far down as he could. Into what? The heavy long sounds? The resonance? Had he … congealed? And his thoughts sprang up slowly out of him, from him, with slow majesty, forming structures that sounded when the words were finished. They were like buildings of sound finally completed, or worlds of matter and form rising from sounds within sounds.

Within him was a slow, sure peace. He wasn’t frightened anymore.

He felt his massive endurance,

The strength of creativity, sure of
itself, unending.

He rested, while his thoughts kept
growing out of him,

Around him,

Above and below him.

The sounds of his thoughts formed
into shapes and images.

In a slow-motion dance, the
vowels and syllables

Congregated, thickened, congealed,

Until they turned into

Flowers and trees all around him,

With him in the center,

Assured, at peace, creating.

A bird came to life

When a vowel joined another,

Meeting, clicking together

In seamless commotion.

And from this came the worlds

In which his personalities had

Their living,

And Seven knew

He’d fallen

Into the

Ground of his being.

“The chord was struck out of which you emerge,” Cyprus said, from another dimension.

The first vowel started out. It would be centuries before the next one reached him, and Cyprus smiled; knowing, wise, aroused and yet unaroused, from the ground of her being; from which Seven emerged and was still emerging.

From which Tweety was emerging, in a new Now of being, rising into self-consciousness, yet claiming a consciousness that had always been hers; that now rushed into her knowing.

Tweety opened her eyes and looked about the room.

Chapter Twenty-Five

On the Brink with Will and Jeffy-boy

Lydia sat invisibly, legs crossed, watching Tweety navigate in the snow. Tweety and the cat were playing together. The cat, Welheim, daintily ran along the thin-crusted snow until it hit a soft spot and fell in, straight down; then it would begin meowing, scrambling frantically, scaring itself, only to pop up again to start the entire process all over. Tweety watched, squalling delightedly each time the cat disappeared, and each time it re-emerged.