CHAPTER 43 THE DREAMS THAT CAME I grew aware of existence, aware also of the profound, the infinite cold. I was intensely blessed, more blessed, I know, than my heart, imagining, can now recall. I could not think of warmth with the least suggestion of pleasure. I knew that I had enjoyed it, but could not remember how. The cold had soothed every care, dissolved every pain, comforted every sorrow. Comforted? Nay, sorrow was swallowed up in the life-drawing nigh to restore every good and lovely thing a hundredfold. I lay at peace, full of the quietest expectation, breathing the damp odours of earth's bountiful bosom, aware of the souls of primroses, daisies and snowdrops, patiently waiting in it for the spring. How conveyed the delight of that frozen yet conscious sleep! I had no more to stand up, had only to lie stretched out and still. How cold I was, words cannot tell, yet I grew colder and colder and welcomed the cold yet more and more. I grew continuously less conscious of myself, continuously more conscious of bliss, unimaginable yet felt. I had neither made it nor prayed for it, it was mine in virtue of existence, and existence was mine in virtue of a will that dwelt in mine. Then the dreams began to arrive, and came crowding. I lay naked on a snowy peak. The white mist heaved below me like a billowy sea. The cold moon was in the air with me, and above the moon and me the colder sky, in which the moon and I dwelt. I was Adam, waiting for God to breathe into my nostrils the breath of life. I was not Adam but a child in the bosom of a mother, white with a radiant whiteness. I was a youth on a white horse, leaping from cloud to cloud of a blue heaven, hasting calmly to some blessed goal. For centuries I dreamed, or was it chiliads, or only one long night. But why ask, for time had nothing to do with me, I was in the land of thought, farther in, higher up than the seven dimensions, the ten senses. I think I was where I am, in the heart of God. I dreamed away dim cycles in the center of a melting glacier, the spectral moon drawing nearer and nearer, the wind and the welter of a torrent growing in my ears. I lay and heard them, the wind and the water and the moon sang a peaceful waiting for a redemption drawing nigh. I dreamed cycles, I say, but, for ought I knew or can tell, they were the solemn Aeonian march of a second, pregnant with eternity. Then of a sudden, but not once troubling my conscious bliss, all the wrongs I had ever done from far beyond my earthly memory down to the present moment were with me. Fully in every wrong lived the conscious I, confessing, abjuring, lamenting the dead, making atonement with each person I had injured, hurt, or offended. Every human soul to which I had caused a troubled thought was now grown unspeakably dear to me, and I humbled myself before it, agonizing to cast from between us the clinging offence. I wept at the feet of the mother whose commands I had slighted. With bitter shame I confessed to my father that I had told him two lies and long forgotten them. Now, for long had remembered them and kept them in memory to crush at last at his feet. I was the eager slave of all whom I had thus or anyhow wronged. Countless services I devised to render them. For this one I would build such a house as had never grown from the ground. For that one I would train such horses as had never yet been seen in any world. For a third I would make such a garden as had never bloomed, haunted with still pools and alive with running water. I would write songs to make their hearts swell and tales to make them glow. I would turn the forces of the world into such channels of invention as to make them laugh with the joy of wonder. Love possessed me. Love was my life. Love was to me as to him that made me all in all. Suddenly I found myself in a solid blackness upon which the ghost of light that dwells in the caverns of the eyes could not cast one fancied glimmer. But my heart, which feared nothing and hoped infinitely, was full of peace. I lay imagining what the light would be when it came and what new creation it would bring with it, when suddenly, without conscious volition, I sat up and stared about me. The moon was looking in at the lowest horizontal crypt-like windows of the death chamber, her long light slanting I thought across the fallen, but still ripening sheaves of the harvest of the great husbandman. But no, that harvest was gone. Put in or swept away by chaotic storm. Not a sacred sheaf was there. My dead were gone. I was alone. In desolation dread lay depths yet deeper than I had hitherto known. Had there never been any ripening dead, had I but dreamed them and their loveliness? Why then these walls? Why the empty couches? No. They were all up. They were all abroad in the new eternal day and had forgotten me. They had left me behind and alone. Tenfold more terrible was the tomb its inhabitants away. The quiet ones had made me quiet with their presence, had pervaded my mind with their blissful peace. Now I had no friend, and my lovers were far from me. A moment I sat and stared horror-stricken. I had been alone with the moon on a mountaintop in the sky. Now I was alone with her in a huge cenotaph.  I sprang to my feedant, staggered from the fearful place. The cottage was empty. I ran out into the night. No moon was there, even as I left the chamber a cloudy rampart had risen and covered her. But a broad shimmer came from far over the heath, mingled with a ghostly murmuring music as if the moon were raining a light that plashed as it fell. I ran stumbling across the moor and found a lovely lake, margined with reeds and rushes. The moon behind the cloud was gazing upon the monster's den, full of clearest, brightest water and very still. But the musical murmur went on, filling the quiet air and drawing me after it. I walked around the border of the little mirror and climbed the range of hills.  The whole expanse where, with hot, aching feet I had crossed and recrossed, the deep-scored channels and ravines of the dry riverbed was alive with streams, with torrents, with still pools, a river deep and wide. How the moon flashed on the water! How the water answered the moon with flashes of its own, white flashes breaking everywhere from its rock-encountered flow! The great jubilant song arose from its bosom, the song of new-born liberty. I stood a moment gazing, and my heart also began to exult. My life was not all a failure. I had helped to set this river free. My dead were not lost. I had but to go after and find them. I would follow and follow until I came wither they had gone. Our meeting might be thousands of years away, but at last, at last I should hold them. Wherefore else did the floods clap their hands? I hurried down the hill. My pilgrimage was begun. In what direction to turn my steps I knew not, but I must go and go till I found my living dead. A torrent ran swift and wide at the foot of the range. I rushed in. It laid no hold upon me. I waited through it. The next I sprang across. The third I swam. The next I waited again. I stopped to gaze on the wondrous loveliness of the ceaseless flash and flow, and to hearken to the multitudinous broken music. Every now and then some incipient air would seem about to draw itself clear of the dulcet confusion, only to merge again in the consorted roar. At moments the world of waters would invade as if to overwhelm me, not with the force of its seaward rush or the shouting of its liberated throng, but with the greatness of the silence wandering into sound. As I stood lost in delight, a hand was laid on my shoulder. I turned, and saw a man in the prime of strength, beautiful as if fresh from the heart of the glad creator, young like him who cannot grow old. I looked. It was Adam. He stood large and grand, clothed in a white robe, with the moon in his hair. Father! I cried. Where is she? Where are the dead? Is the great resurrection come and gone? The terror of my loneliness was upon me. I could not sleep without my dead. I ran from the desolate chamber. Wither shall I go to find them? You mistake, my son! He answered, in a voice whose very breath was consolation.  Alas! When I but dream, how am I to know it? The dream best dreamed is the likeest to the waking truth. When you are quite dead, you will dream no false dream. The soul that is true can generate nothing that is not true. Neither can the false enter it. But sir, I faltered, how am I to distinguish betwixt the true and the false where both alike seem real? Do you not understand, he returned, with a smile that might have slain all the sorrows of all his children? You cannot perfectly distinguish between the true and the false while you are not yet quite dead. Neither indeed will you, when you are quite dead. That is quite alive, for then the false will never present itself. At this moment, believe me, you are on your bed, in the house of death. I am trying hard to believe you, Father, I do indeed believe you, although I can neither see nor feel the truth of what you say.  Put forth your left hand open, and close it gently.  I put forth my hand. It closed on the hand of Lona, firm and soft and deathless. But, Father, I cried, she is warm. Your hand is as warm to hers. Cold is a thing unknown in our country. Neither she nor you are yet in the fields of home, but each to each is alive and warm and healthful. Then my heart was glad, but immediately supervened a sharp stinging doubt. Father, I said, forgive me, but how am I to know surely that this also is not a part of the lovely dream in which I am now walking with thyself? Thou, doubtest, because thou lovest the truth. Some would willingly believe life but a phantasm, if only it might forever afford them a world of pleasant dreams. Thou art not of such. Be content for a while, not to know surely. The hour will come, and that ere long, when, being true, thou shalt behold the very truth, and doubt will be forever dead. Scarce, then, wilt thou be able to recall the features of the phantom. Thou wilt then know that which thou canst not now dream. Thou hast not yet looked the truth in the face, hast as yet at best but seen him through a cloud. That which thou seest not, and never didst see, save in a glass darkly, that which indeed never can be known, save by its innate splendor shining straight into pure eyes. That thou canst not but doubt, and art blameless in doubting until thou seest it face to face, when thou wilt no longer be able to doubt it. But to him who has once seen even a shadow only of the truth, and even but hoping he has seen it when it is present no longer, tries to obey it, to him the real vision, the truth himself will come, and depart no more, but abide with him forever. I think I see, Father, I said, I think I understand. Then remember and recall, trials yet await thee, heavy of a nature thou knowest not now. Remember the things thou hast seen, truly thou knowest not those things, but thou knowest what they have seemed, and what they have meant to thee. Remember also the things thou shalt yet see. Truth is all in all, and the truth of things lies, at once hid and revealed, in their seeming. How can that be, Father, I said, and raised my eyes with the question, for I had been listening with downbent head, aware of nothing but the voice of Adam. He was gone. In my ears was not but the sounding silence of the swift-flowing waters. I stretched forth my hands to find him, but no answering touch met their seeking. I was alone, alone in the land of dreams. To myself I seemed wide awake, but I believed I was in a dream, because he had told me so. Even in a dream, however, the dreamer must do something. He cannot sit down and refuse to stir until the dream grow weary of him and depart. I took to my wandering and went on. Many channels I crossed and came to a wider space of rock. There dreaming I was weary, I laid myself down, and longed to be asleep.  It was deep and dark. I could see no bottom. Now in the dreams of my childhood I had found that a fall invariably woke me, and would therefore, when desiring to discontinue a dream, seek some eminence whence to cast myself down that I might wake. With one glance at the peaceful heavens, and one at the rushing waters, I rolled myself over the edge of the pit. For a moment consciousness left me. When it returned, I stood in the garret of my own house in the little wooden chamber of the cowl and the mirror. Unspeakable despair, hopelessness, black and dreary invaded me with the knowledge. Between me and my lona lay an abyss impassable. Stretched a distance no chain could measure, space and time and mode of being, as with walls of adamant unscalable, impenetrable, shut me in from that gulf. True it might yet be in my power to pass again through the door of light, and journey back to the chamber of the dead. And if so, I was parted from that chamber only by a wide heath, and by the pale starry night betwixt me and the sun which alone could open for me the mirror door, and was now far away on the other side of the world, but an immeasurably wider gulf sank between us in this, that she was asleep, and I was awake. That I was no longer worthy to share with her that sleep and could no longer hope to awake from it with her. For truly I was much to blame. I had fled from my dream. The dream was not of my making any more than was my life. I ought to have seen it to the end, and in fleeing from it I had left the holy sleep itself behind me. I would go back to Adam, tell him the truth, and bow to his decree. I crept to my chamber, threw myself on my bed, and passed a dreamless night. I rose and listlessly sought the library. On the way I met no one, the house seemed dead. I sat down with a book to await the noontide. Not a sentence could I understand the mutilated manuscript offered itself from the masked door. The sight of it sickened me. What to me was the princess with her devilry? I rose and looked out of a window. It was a brilliant morning, with a great rush the fountain shot high, and fell roaring back. The sun sat in its feathery top. Not a bird sang, not a creature was to be seen. Raven nor Librarian came near me. The world was dead about me. I took another book, sat down again, and went on waiting. Noon was near.  I closed behind me the door into the wooden chamber, and turned to open the door out of a dreary world. I left the chamber with a heart of stone. Do what I might, all was fruitless. I pulled the chains, adjusted and readjusted the hood, arranged and rearranged the mirrors. No result followed. I waited and waited to give the vision time it would not come. The mirror stood blank. Nothing lay in its dim old depths but the mirror opposite, and my haggard face. I went back to the library. There the books were hateful to me, for I had once loved them. That night I lay awake from downlying to uprising, and the next day renewed my endeavors with the mystic door. But all was yet in vain. How the hours went I cannot think. No one came nigh me, not a sound from the house below entered my ears. Not once did I feel weary. Only desolate, drearily desolate. I passed a second sleepless night. In the morning I went for the last time to the chamber in the roof, and for the last time sought an open door. There was none. My heart died within me. I had lost my Lona. Was she anywhere? Had she ever been, save in the mouldering cells of my brain? I must die one day, I thought, and then, straight from my deathbed, I will set out to find her. If she is not, I will go to the Father and say, Even thou canst not help me. Let me cease, I pray thee. CHAPTER 44 OF LILITH This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. CHAPTER 44 THE WAKING The fourth night I seemed to fall asleep, and that night woke indeed. I opened my eyes and knew, although all was dark around me, that I lay in the house of death, and that every moment since there I fell asleep I had been dreaming, and now first was awake. At last I said to my heart, and it leaped for joy, I turned to my eyes. Lona stood by my couch, waiting for me. I had never lost her, only for a little time lost the sight of her. Truly I needed not have lamented her so sorely. It was dark as I say, but I saw her. She was not dark, her eyes shone with the radiance of the mothers, and the same light issued from her face, nor from her face only for her death-dress, filled with the light of her body now tenfold awake in the power of its resurrection, was white as snow and glistering. She fell asleep a girl. She awoke a woman, ripe with the loveliness of the life essential. I folded her in my arms, and knew that I lived indeed. I woke first, she said with a wondering smile. You did my love, and woke me. I only looked at you and waited, she answered. The candle came floating toward us through the dark, and in a few moments Adam and Eve and Mara were with us. They greeted us with a quiet good morning, and a smile. They were used to such waking. I hope you have had a pleasant darkness, said the mother. Not very, I answered, but the waking from it is heavenly. It is but begun, she rejoined. You are hardly yet awake. He is at least clothed upon with death which is the radiant garment of life, said Adam. He embraced Lona his child, put an arm around me, looked a moment or two inquiringly at the princess, and padded the head of the Lepidus. I think we shall meet you two again before long, he said, looking first at Lona, then at me. Have we to die again, I asked. No, he answered with a smile like the mother's.  You have only to keep dead. Once dying as we die here, all the dying is over. Now you have only to live, and that you must, with all your blessed might. The more you live, the stronger you become to live. But shall I not grow weary with living so strong, I said, what if I cease to live with all my might? It needs but the will, and the strength is there, said the mother. Pure life has no weakness to grow weary with all. The life keeps generating ours.  Here all is upwardness, and love, and gladness. She ceased with a smile, and a look that seemed to say, we are mother and son, we understand each other. Between us no farewell is possible. Mara kissed me on the forehead, and said gaily, I told you, brother, all would be well. When next you would comfort, say, what will be well is even now well. She gave a little sigh, and I thought it meant, but they will not believe you. You know me now, she ended with a smile like her mother's. I know you, I answered. You are the voice that cried in the wilderness before ever the Baptist came. You are the shepherd whose wolves hunt the wandering sheep home, ere the shadow rise and the night grow dark. My work will one day be over, she said, and then I shall be glad with the gladness of the great shepherd who sent me. All the night long, the morning is at hand, said Adam. What is that flapping of wings, I hear, I asked. The shadow is hovering, replied Adam. There is one here whom he counts his own. But hours once, never more can she be his. I turned to look on the faces of my father and mother, and kissed them ere we went. Their couches were empty, save of the little ones who had with love's boldness appropriated their hospitality. For an instant that awful dream of desolation overshadowed me, and I turned aside. What is it, my heart? said Lona. Their empty places frightened me, I answered. They are up and away long ago, said Adam.  And I neither to feel nor hear them, I murmured. How could you, far away in your dreary old house? You thought the dreadful place had you once more. Now go and find them. Your parents, my child, he added, turning to Lona, must come and find you. The hour of our departure was at hand. Lona went to the couch of the mother who had slain her, and kissed her tenderly, then laid herself in her father's arms.  My father, answered Adam, is her father also. She turned and laid her hand in mine. I kneeled and humbly thanked the three for helping me to die. Lona knelt beside me, and they all breathed upon us. Hark! I hear the sun, said Adam. I listened. He was coming with the rush as of a thousand times ten thousand far-off wings, with the roar of a molten and flaming world millions upon millions of miles away. His approach was a crescendo chord of a hundred harmonies. The three looked at each other and smiled, and that smile went floating heavenward, a three-pedaled flower, the family's morning thanksgiving. From their mouths and their faces it spread over their bodies and shone through their garments. Air I could say, low they change, Adam and Eve stood before me the angels of the resurrection, and Mara was the Magdalene with them at the sepulcher. The countenance of Adam was like lightning, and Eve held a napkin that flung flakes of splendor about the place. A wind began to moan in pulsing gusts. You hear his wings now, said Adam, and I knew he did not mean the wings of the morning. It is the great shadow stirring to depart, he went on. Wretched creature he has himself within him, and cannot rest. But is there not in him something deeper yet, I asked? Not a substance, he answered, a shadow cannot be, yea or without a light behind the substance. He listened for a moment, then called out with a glad smile. Hark to the golden cock, silent and motionless for millions of years has he stood on the clock of the universe. Now at last he is flapping his wings. Now will he begin to crow, and at intervals will men hear him until the dawn of the day eternal. I listened. Far away as in the heart of an Aeonian silence I heard the clear jubilant outcry of the golden throat. It hurled defiance at death and the dark, sang infinite hope, and coming calm. It was the expectation of the creature, finding at last a voice, the cry of a chaos that would be a kingdom. Then I heard a great flapping. The black bat is flown, said Mara. Amen, golden cock, bird of God, cried Adam, and the words rang through the house of silence, and went up into the airy regions. At his amen, like doves arising on wings of silver from among the potsards, up sprang the little ones to their knees on their beds, calling aloud, Crow, crow again, golden cock, as if they had both seen and heard him in their dreams. Then each turned and looked at the sleeping bedfellow, gazed a moment with loving eyes, kissed the silent companion of the night, and sprang from the couch. The little ones who had lain down beside my father and mother, gazed blank and sad for a moment at their empty places, then slid slowly to the floor. They fell each into the other's arms, as if then first, each by the other's eyes, assured they were alive and awake. Suddenly spying lona, they came running, radiant with bliss to embrace her. Odu, catching sight of the lepertus on the feet of the princess, bounded to her next, and throwing an arm over the great sleeping head, fondled and kissed it. Wake up, wake up, darling, he cried, it is time to wake. The lepertus did not move. She has slept herself cold, he said to Mara, with an upcast look of appealing consternation. She is waiting for the princess to wake, my child, said Mara. Odu looked at the princess and saw beside her still asleep two of his companions. He flew at them. Wake up, wake up, he cried, and pushed and pulled. Now this one, now that, but soon he began to look troubled and turned to me with misty eyes, they will not wake, he said, and why are they so cold? They too are waiting for the princess, I answered. He stretched across and laid his hand on her face. She is cold, too. What is it, he cried, and looked around in wondering dismay. Adam went to him. Her wake is not ripe yet, he said. She is busy forgetting. When she has forgotten enough to remember enough, then she will soon be ripe and wake. And remember? Yes, but not too much at once, though. But the golden crock has crone, argued the child and fell again upon his companions. Peter, Peter, crispy, he cried, wake up, Peter, wake up. Crispy, we are all awake, but you, too.  The sun is awake and coming. Oh, why won't you wake? But Peter would not wake, neither would Crispy and Odoo wept outright at last. Let them sleep, darling, said Adam. You would not like the princess to wake and find nobody. They are quite happy. So is the Leopardess. He was comforted and wiped his eyes as if he had been all his life used to weeping and wiping, though now first he had tears wherewith to weep, soon to be wiped altogether away. We followed Eve to the cottage. There she offered us neither bread nor wine, but stood radiantly desiring our departure. So with never a word of farewell, we went out. The horse and the elephants were at the door waiting for us. We were too happy to mount them, and they followed us. CHAPTER 45 THE JOURNEY HOME It had ceased to be dark. We walked in a dim twilight, breathing through the dimness the breath of the spring. A wondrous change had passed upon the world, or was it not rather that a change more marvelous had taken place in us? Without light enough in the sky or the air to reveal anything, every heather-bush, every small shrub, every blade of grass was perfectly visible, either by light that went out from it, as fire from the bush Moses saw in the desert, or by light that went out of our eyes. Nothing cast a shadow. All things interchanged a little light. Every growing thing showed me, by its shape and color, its indwelling idea, the informing thought, that is, which was its being, and sent it out. My bare feet seemed to love every plant they trot upon. The world and my being, its life and mine, were one. The microcosm and macrocosm were at length atoned, at length in harmony. I lived in everything, everything entered and lived in me. To be aware of a thing was to know its life at once and mine, to know whence we came, and where we were at home, was to know that we are all what we are because another is what he is. Sense after sense hitherto asleep awoke in me, sense after sense indescribable because no correspondent words, no likenesses or imaginations exist wherewithal to describe them. Full indeed, yet ever expanding ever making room to receive, was the conscious being where things kept entering by so many open doors. When a little breeze brushing a bush of heather said its purple bells a-ringing, I was myself in the joy of the bells, myself in the joy of the breeze to which responded their sweet tin-tining, myself in the joy of the sense, and of the soul that received all the joys together. To everything glad I lent the hall of my being wherein to revel. I was a peaceful ocean upon which the ground swell of a living joy was continually lifting new waves, yet was the joy ever the same joy, the eternal joy, with tens of thousands of changing forms. Life was a cosmic holiday. Now I knew that life and truth were one, that life mere and pure is in itself bliss. That where being is not bliss it is not life, but life in death. Every inspiration of the dark wind that blew where it listed went out a sigh of thanksgiving. At last I was, I lived, and nothing could touch my life. My darling walked beside me, and we were on our way home to the father. So much was ours ere ever the first sun rose upon our freedom, but must not the eternal day bring with it. We came to the fearful hollow where once had wallowed the monsters of the earth. It was indeed, as I had beheld in my dream, a lovely lake. I gazed into its pollucid depths. A whirlpool had swept out the soil in which the abortions burrowed, and at the bottom lay visible the whole horrid brood. A dim greenish light pervaded the crystalline water, and revealed every hideous form beneath it. Filled in spires, folded in layers knotted on themselves, or extended long and large, they weltered in motionless heaps. Shapes more fantastic in ghoulish, blasting dismay than ever whine sodden brain of exhausted poet fevered into misbeing. He who dived in the swirling maelstrom saw none to compare with them in horror. Tentacular convolutions, tumid bulges, glaring orbs of sepian deformity, would have looked to him innocence beside such incarnations of hatefulness. Every head the wicked flower that bursting from an abominable stock perfected its evil significance. Not one of them moved as we passed, but they were not dead, so long as exist men and women of unwholesome mind that lake will still be peopled with loathesomeness. But hark the herald of the sun! The auroral wind softly trumpeting his approach. The master minister of the human tabernacle is at hand. Heeping before his prow a huge ripple-fretted wave of crimson and gold, he rushes aloft, as if new launched from the urging hand of his maker into the upper sea, pauses and looks down on the world. White raving storm of molten metals he is but a coal from the altar of the father's never-ending sacrifice to his children. See every little flower straighten its stock, lift up its neck, and with outstretched head stand expectant. Something more than the sun, something greater than the light, is coming, is coming, none the less surely coming that it is long upon the road. What matters today or tomorrow or ten thousand years to life himself, to love himself? He is coming, is coming and the necks of all humanity are stretched out to see him come. Every morning will they thus outstretch themselves, every evening will they droop and wait until he comes. Is this but an air-drawn vision? When he comes will he indeed find them watching thus? It was a glorious resurrection morning. The night had been spent in preparing it. The children went gambling before and the beasts came after us. Daring butterflies, darting dragonflies hovered or shot hither and thither about our heads, a cloud of colors and flashes now descending upon us like a snowstorm of rainbow flakes, now rising into the humid air like a rolling vapor of embodied odors. It was a summer day more like itself, that is, more ideal than ever man that had not died found summer day in any world. I walked on the new earth, under the new heaven, and found them the same as the old, save that now they opened their minds to me and I saw into them. Now the soul of everything I met came out to greet me and make friends with me, telling me we came from the same and meant the same. I was going to him, they said, with whom they always were and whom they always meant. They were, they said, lightnings that took shape as they flashed from him to his. The dark rocks drank like sponges, the rays that showered upon them. The great world soaked up the light and sent out the living. Two joy fires were Lona and I. Earth breathed heavenward, her sweet-savoured smoke. We breathed homeward our longing desires. For thanksgiving our very consciousness was that. We came to the channels, once so dry and wearyful. They ran and flashed and foamed with living water that shouted in its gladness. Far as the eye could see, all was a rushing, roaring, dashing river of water made vocal by its rocks. We did not cross it, but walked in glory and in joy upon its right bank until we reached the great cataract at the foot of the sandy desert, where, roaring and swirling and dropping sheer, the river divided into its two branches. There we climbed the height and found no desert. Through grassy plains between grassy banks flowed the deep, wide, silent river full to the brim. Then first to the little ones was revealed the glory of God in the limpid flow of water. Instinctively they plunged and swam, and the beasts followed them. The desert rejoiced and blossomed as the rose. Wide forests had sprung up, their whole undergrowth flowering shrubs peopled with songbirds. Every thicket gave birth to a rivulet and every rivulet to its water song. The place of the buried hand gave no sign. Beyond and still beyond the river came in full volume from afar. Up and up we went, now along grassy margin and now through forest of gracious trees. The grass grew sweeter and its flowers more lovely and various as we went. The trees grew larger and the wind fuller of messages. We came at length to a forest whose trees were greater, grander and more beautiful than any we had yet seen. Their live pillars up heaved a thick, imbued roof, betwixt whose leaves and blossoms hardly a sunbeam filtered. Into the rafters of this aerial vault the children climbed and through them went scrambling and leaping in a land of bloom, shouting to the unseen elephants below and hearing them trumpet their replies. The conversations between them Lona understood while I but guessed at them blunderingly. The little ones chased the squirrels and the squirrels frolicking drew them on, always at length allowing themselves to be caught and petted. Often would some bird, lovely in plumage and form, light upon one of them, sing a song of what was coming and fly away. Not one monkey of any sort could they see. Lilith by George MacDonald CHAPTER 46 THE CITY Lona and I, who walked below, heard at last a great shout overhead, and in a moment or two the little ones began to come dropping down from the foliage with the news that, climbing to the top of a tree yet taller than the rest, they had described, far across the plain, a curious something on the side of a solitary mountain. Which mountain they said rose and rose until the sky gathered thick to keep it down, and knocked its top off. It may be a city, they said, but it is not at all like Bulica. I went up to look and saw a great city, ascending into blue clouds where I could not distinguish mountain from sky and cloud, or rocks from dwellings. Cloud and mountain and sky, palace and precipice, mingled in a seeming chaos of broken shadow and shine. I descended, the little ones came with me and together we sped on faster. They grew yet merrier as they went, leading the way and never looking behind them. The river grew lovelier and lovelier, until I knew that never before had I seen real water. Nothing in this world is more than like it. By and by we could from the plain see the city among the blue clouds. But other clouds were gathering around a lofty tower, or was it a rock that stood above the city, nearer the crest of the mountain. Gray and dark gray and purple they writhed in confused contrariant motions, and tossed up a vaporous foam, while spots in them gyrated like whirlpools.  Blinding darkness followed, but through it we heard their voices low with delight. Did you see it? I saw. What did you see? The beautifulest man. I heard him speak. I didn't. What did he say? Here answered the smallest and most childish of the voices, that of Louva. He said, Usmine, Ikelwans, come along. I had seen the lightning, but heard no words, Lona saw and heard with the children. A second flash came, and my eyes, though not my ears, were opened. The great quivering light was compact of angel faces. They lamped themselves visible and vanished. A third flash came, its substance and radiance were human. I see my mother, I cried. I see lots of mothers, said Louva. Once more the cloud flashed, all kinds of creatures, horses and elephants, lions and dogs, oh, such beasts and such birds, great birds whose wings gleamed singly every color gathered in sunset or rainbow, little birds whose feathers sparkled as with all the precious stones of the hoarding earth, silvery cranes, red flamingos, opal pigeons, peacocks gorgeous in gold and green and blue, jewellery hummingbirds, great-winged butterflies, volumed creeping things, all in one heavenly flash. I see that serpents grow birds here as caterpillars used to grow butterflies, remarked Lona. I saw my white pony, that died when I was a child, I needn't have been so sorry, I should just have waited, I said. Thunder, clap or roll, there had been none, and now came a sweet rain, filling the atmosphere with a caressing coolness. We breathed deep and stepped out with stronger strides. The falling drops flashed the colors of all the waked-up gems of the earth, and a mighty rainbow spanned the city. The blue clouds gathered thicker, the rain fell in torrents, the children exalted and ran. It was all we could do to keep them in sight. With silent, radiant roll the river swept onward, filling to the margin its smooth, soft, yielding channel. For instead of rock or shingle or sand it flowed over grass, in which grew primroses and daisies, crocuses and narcissi, pimpernel and anemones, a starry multitude large and bright through the brilliant water. The river had gathered no turbid cloudiness from the rain, not even a tinge of yellow or brown, the delicate mass shown with the pale barrel and gleam that ascended from its deep, dainty bed. Drawing nearer to the mountain, we saw that the river came from its very peak, and rushed in full volume through the main street of the city. It descended to the gate by a stair of deep and wide steps, mingled of porphyry and serpentine, which continued to the foot of the mountain. There arriving we found shallower steps on both banks, leading up to the gate and along the ascending street. Without the briefest halt the little ones ran straight up the stair to the gate, which stood open. Outside on the landing sat the fortress, a woman angel of dark visage, leaning her shadowed brow on her idle hand. The children rushed upon her, covering her with caresses, and there she understood they had taken heaven by surprise, and were already in the city, still mounting the stair by the side of the descending torrent. A great angel, attended by a company of shining ones, came down to meet and receive them, but, merrily evading them all, up still they ran. In merry dance, however, a group of woman angels descended upon them, and in a moment they were fettered in heavenly arms. The radiance carried them away, and I saw them no more. Ah! said the mighty angel, continuing his descent to meet us, who were now almost at the gate and within hearing of his words, this is well. These are soldiers to take heaven itself by storm. I hear of a horde of black bats on the frontiers. These will make short work of such. Seeing the horse and the elephants clambering up behind us. Take those animals to the royal stable, he added. There tend them, then turn them into the king's forest. Come home, he said to us, bending low with the sweetest smile. Immediately he turned and led the way higher. The scales of his armor flashed like flakes of lightning. Thought cannot form itself to tell what I felt, thus received by the officers of heaven. All I wanted and knew not must be on its way to me. We stood for a moment at the gate whence issued roaring the radiant river. I know not whence came the stones that fashioned it, but among them I saw the prototypes of all the gems I had loved on earth. Far more beautiful than they, for these were living stones. Such in which I saw not the intent alone, but the intender, too. Not the idea alone, but the embodier present. The operant out-sender. Nothing in this kingdom was dead. Nothing was mere, nothing only a thing. We went up through the city and passed out. There was no wall on the upper side but a huge pile of broken rocks, upsloping like the moraine of an eternal glacier, and through the openings between the rocks the river came billowing out. On their top I could dimly discern what seemed three or four great steps of a stair, disappearing in a cloud white as snow, and above the steps I saw, but with my mind's eye only, as it were a grand old chair, the throne of the ancient of days. Over and under and between those steps issued, plentiously, unceasingly newborn, the river of the water of life. The great angel could guide us no farther. Those rocks we must ascend alone. My heart beating with hope and desire, I held faster the hand of Milona, and we began to climb. But soon we let each other go to use hands as well as feet in the toilsome ascent of the huge stones. At length we drew near the cloud, which hung down the steps like the borders of a garment, passed through the fringe, and entered the deep folds. A hand, warm and strong, laid hold of mine and drew me to a little door with a golden lock. The door opened. The hand let mine go, and pushed me gently through. I turned quickly, and saw the board of a large book in the act of closing behind me. I stood alone, in my library. CHAPTER 47 THE ENDLESS ENDING As yet I have not found Lona, but Mara is much with me. She has taught me many things, and is teaching me more. Can it be that that last waking also was in the dream that I am still in the chamber of the dead, asleep and dreaming, not yet ripe enough to wake? Or can it be that I did not go to sleep outright and heartily, and so have come awake too soon? If that waking was itself but a dream, surely it was a dream of a better waking yet to come, and I have not been the sport of a false vision. Such a dream must have yet lovelier truth at the heart of its dreaming. In moments of doubt I cry, Could God himself create such lovely things as I dreamed? Whence then came thy dream, answers hope. Out of my dark self, into the light of my consciousness? But whence first into thy dark self rejoins hope? My brain was its mother, and the fever in my blood its father. Say rather, suggests hope, Thy brain was the violin whence it issued, and the fever in thy blood the bow that drew it forth. But who made the violin, and who guided the bow across its strings? Say rather again, who set the songbirds each on its bow in the tree of life, and startled each in its order from its perch? Whence came the Fantasia, and whence the life that danced thereto? Didst thou say in the dark of thy own unconscious self, let beauty be, let truth seem, and straightway beauty was, and truth but seemed? Man dreams and desires, God broods and wills and quickens. When a man dreams his own dream he is the sport of his dream, when another gives it him, that other is able to fulfill it. I have never again sought the mirror. The hand sent me back, I will not go out again by that door. All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change come. Now and then, when I look round on my books, they seem to waver as if a wind rippled their solid mass, and another world were about to break through. Sometimes when I am abroad a like thing takes place, the heavens and the earth, the trees and the grass appear for a moment to shake as if about to pass away, then low they have settled again into the old familiar face. At times I seem to hear whisperings around me, as if some that loved me were talking of me. But when I would distinguish the words they cease, and all is very still. I know not whether these things rise in my brain or enter it from without. I do not seek them, they come, and I let them go. Strange dim memories which will not abide identification, often through misty windows of the past, look out upon me in the broad daylight. But I never dream now. It may be not withstanding that when most awake I am only dreaming the more. But when I wake at last into that life which, as a mother her child carries this life in its bosom, I shall know that I wake, and shall doubt no more. I wait, asleep or awake, I wait. Novelis says, Our life is no dream, but it should and will perhaps become one. End of Lilith by George MacDonald.


Hello, and welcome to this screencast on section 11.7, triple integrals. In our previous work, we saw that we could determine the mass of a thin object called a lamina using double integrals. This worked because the object is so thin, we assumed the object was contained in two dimensions, and the density was given by the x and y coordinates alone, which is why a double integral applied. If we'd like to determine the mass of a three-dimensional object with varying density, we will also need to consider how the density changes as the z value varies. This suggests that we'll also need to extend our work from using a double integral to a triple integral to account for all three variables, x, y, and z. We proceed by defining both a triple Riemann sum and the corresponding triple integral. Consider a function f of three variables defined on a box, capital B. To construct the triple Riemann sum, we use a very familiar procedure. We subdivide the x interval into m equal size pieces. We also subdivide the y interval into n subintervals. We subdivide the z interval into l subintervals. These subintervals partition the box, capital B, into subboxes, each with volume delta v. We choose a point from each subbox to plug into f and sum up the product of these values with delta v, which gives us the triple Riemann sum for f on b. The triple integral of f over capital B is then defined as the limit of this triple Riemann sum. Now that we've defined the triple integral, let's quickly review some interpretations of the triple integral that extend from our work with double integrals. First, if f is the density function for a three-dimensional solid b, then the triple integral of f gives us the mass of b. The triple integral of the constant one over a solid s gives us the volume of s. The average value of a function f over the solid s is given by the following expression involving a triple integral. And if delta is a density function, the x, y, and z coordinates of the center of mass can be found using the following expressions. One last item to note concerns evaluating triple integrals. In Cartesian coordinates, the volume element dv is dzdy dx. Therefore, the triple integral of a function f over a box can be evaluated as an iterated integral, just like we had for double integrals. If we want to evaluate a triple integral over a solid that is not a box, then we'll need to describe the solid in terms of variable limits. Thank you.


actually recognizing and cut the ribbon on a building 100 and 100,000 square feet building that we were able to purchase from the school board for $10. And of course the city's appropriation for community field and dormitories in a neighborhood that certainly could use some upgrading and we were able to make it better for the students here at Edward Waters College and community field for the community to use for walking track, park water football, other activities along with it being the home team field for Edward Waters College Tigers. So this is a big win. It's going to give us a place that we can call home and it's going to put our football staff and coach Ruffin in the same playing field as every other team in this conference and to give our students a place that they can come.


So, I'm here today on the UVM campus to visit with the students who are working in solidarity to raise awareness of the UVM staff contract negotiations with the UVM administration. I've stood with the staff for years, both in their organizing efforts to form a union as well as now supporting them in their efforts to get a fair contract and get some raises because they haven't had raises many of them in years. We're all experiencing increased costs, whether it's gasoline, food, other basic needs as we see inflation, but even before this inflation hit, they hadn't had seen raises in a long time and many people are struggling to live in Chittenden County on the kinds of wages that they're paid. Well, a lot of times when you see rallies, sometimes they're called protests, they could be called either. It's to show that there's public support, that, you know, someone like me, I used to be in elected office in the legislature and then as lieutenant governor of Vermont and I often encourage people to come out and show their support, whether it's for policy in Montpelier or whether it's for workers in negotiation for their pay and benefits and rights. And oftentimes, when negotiations like this happen and nobody shows up, nobody really knows what's going on and the folks at the top tend to have more of the power. When the public or supporters come out, it helps bring into focus and into visibility for people who are just sort of getting through their day that there's something going on and whether it's around workers' rights and pay or benefits, whether it's around environmental issues, climate issues, water quality, whether it's about criminal justice reform as a formerly elected official. I can tell you that when the public gets more involved and shows what they generally think then and where they support, then that makes most elected people consider that perspective more. Because you know when people are paying attention, they're also going to remember what's going on when it comes election time. And that's not necessarily taken as a threat in any way, at least never was by me. To me, what it was about saying, great, now I have a better sense of what people are interested in and when you're a public servant and you're supposed to represent people, it helps to have an idea not just from who you see at your coffee shop or at the grocery store that you frequent but also people that you don't always see because you're supposed to represent everybody. I don't really. I just showed up about 20 minutes ago to visit with the folks that are camping out. I hear there was an update but some of it is being kept, I guess, close to the vest. That's kind of what I'm hearing right now. I've heard mostly that the negotiations have maybe not moved very far, which is unfortunate. So there's a couple of things that unions offer. Most everyday people are just trying to do their job. And once in a while, in a smaller workplace, I've sometimes negotiated with a boss for a little bit of pay here or there or they talk to their boss every year but usually in larger workplaces, they almost never see the top dog. And in negotiations where you've got something like this situation with the university, with lawyers and people that have dealt with sort of every situation under the stars, and then you've got the everyday worker who's just showing up to work, trying to do their job every day, go home and juggle all the things they've got to juggle at home, they're at an incredible disadvantage. And so what unions do is they can help with some of those knowledge sets for negotiations. They can help with knowledge sets of how to get people supportive and how to change the dialogue that's happening inside by what's happening outside, whether it's this or the rally last week and the rally the week before and the rally next week. So unions have roles both as an advisor and as a strategic set of thinking individuals as well as helping the negotiators because typically the negotiators are not actually the union staff, the negotiators are the stewards of the union, the workers who have risen to the top as leaders and so they can help advise them as well. Well I have often come out to stand with working people who are struggling for modest increases to make ends meet. I've stood with teachers when they've been organizing and occasionally going on strike. I've stood with electric line workers and folks with the communication workers of America with Fairpoint a number of years ago and here it's the same thing. The people that are doing a lot of the behind scenes work, the staff who in some cases do a lot of the paperwork of processing student forms and getting students enrolled or entering data. They're usually less visible and less well compensated than professors or administrators and there's also a professorial union here as well and it's often about negotiations between what's the pay scale difference from the very top to the bottom. And I've heard about this through social media, I pay attention to what's going on, a lot of good union organizing and environmental activism and civil rights and criminal justice reform are doing a lot of organizing online and I pay attention so I can come out and stand in solidarity.  We feel as though the student experience is diminished when staff don't have what they need to survive and thrive on a regular basis and that what a UVM administration is currently doing to staff in terms of not paying them a livable wage and not giving them the cost of life increases that they need in order to continue living in Burlington is insane and inhumane at the richest university in the state of Vermont. And so there's no reason why 30% of UVM staff should be using food pantries on a regular basis, there's no reason why staff members should be having their electricity shut off, there's no reason why staff should be kicked out of their home, we're losing a lot of really great staff members every year because they keep leaving because UVM is not paying them a competitive wage and they can no longer afford to stay in a Burlington real estate market that continues to get more outrageously overpriced for everybody with the working class people who support this university feel that pain the most and so you know we are out here to express our solidarity with those staff to let the administration know that you know we stand with them and that they can't divide us and that you know you know the student body is like with the staff in their fight and that it can't just go away easily the way the administration wants it to yeah so there's like I have been personally with like a lot of my comrades you know involved in several of the struggles for working people at UVM over the years you know I was deeply involved in the anti-cast cuts campaign and so you know solidarity is crucial and you know they really can't be compared to each other because each you know group each union has its own fight its own struggle you know but you know it hurts the same you know when like any piece of our community is missing when any piece of our community is left out you know we're left with an incomplete puzzle you know and so it feels the same way I feel the same sort of sense of urgency about you know majors being cut professors being laid off you know I like I got to talk very in depth with several of the professors who got laid off in the last round of cast cuts and you know the grief that they feel is the same grief that staff members feel here having to leave their jobs not because they're fired but because if they don't they won't be able to feed their families anymore and you know that's the same sense of human suffering of greed of administrative corruption anywhere yeah so thank you Sophie yeah so the benefits are like a couple things you know so first of all UVM is having a really hard time staffing all of the positions that it needs to and so the workers that are left over here are forced to work more and more and take on more responsibilities for the same level of pay and so when you have a workforce that's well-paid that's doing the job that only it's supposed to be doing that increases the quality of work that they're able to put in and you know from a student perspective we can easily see you know the quality of the services that we have been receiving over the last several years decline across the board and that's because you know there aren't enough staff to do these jobs and people aren't coming to work here because it's not an attractive place to work you know and we're having a really hard time recruiting and maintaining qualified candidates for these positions people who you know really want to dedicate their lives to you know helping students and so you know if we were to get a fair contract if staff were able to get a fair shake not only would it be able to take an immense burden off the staff that we have but allow us to continue to recruit continue to diversify you know there's a really big problem with staff of color leaving UVM because they're not feeling supported enough and that in turn affects the way that students of color on campus are able to experience their day-to-day lives and so you know a win for staff in this a greater you know focus on working-class people on campus you know we'll just have all around benefits that you could feel from every corner from students from staff from faculty everything works better when people are being treated with the respect that they deserve you know UVM staff united is a new union you know I think I came around about a year ago you know and winning that vote was really tough because for decades for years you know UVM staff have been trying to form a union you know there was large protests back in 2007 back in 2012 and so this is a long time coming and you know it's the culmination of decades of work by you know numerous activists some of whom have been fired for their role in union organizing and so you know the union has been such an incredible force on campus you know the community support and the level of sort of engagement that the staff union has given to you know student concerns and to you know build bridges with us is phenomenal you know and I feel that like the staff union has done a really good job of you know building cross-community connections and strengthening the UVM community as a whole and obviously they're leading the fight in the bargaining negotiations and you know even the right to collectively bargain for a contract you know which is what they're doing right now is you know fraud and earned by the people who form that union and so you know we're really thankful to them and you know hopefully we can get that second wind because you know forming the unions only the first piece of the puzzle and then when in that fair contract is the second piece and so you know we just got to get those two together yeah I mean there's a long history at UVM of campus activism and campus activism in favor of working class people on campus and a long history of you know constructing tent cities or shanty towns and so you know we're really drawing back to like a long history at UVM that's really cultivated by people you know like the apartheid divestment protests the minority protests of the early 90s and you know we want to thank those forerunners for you know building that culture giving us that history to learn and work off of and to tell you know UVM administration that you know we're not going to take it anymore you know this is a make or break moment you know if you fail if UVM administration fails to you know deliver staff a good contract then you know we're going to see a mass exodus of talent from the university and we're going to see significant problems in running the university next fall as we're facing significant problems now but they're only going to multiply and so you know I beg you VM I beg you you know I don't I don't say you know I say this very very like strongly you know like I beg UVM to you know deliver on these benefits and to you know bargain in good faith because if they don't you know there will be strong repercussions across the community and I love you VM you know I've spent years of my life here you know fighting trying to make this a good equitable place for everybody and you know it just needs to happen you know like there needs to be a change like it just we can't keep going on like this you know I'm here because just how they treat the staff is fucking awful they are paying them basically pennies just so Suresh can take home a fat paycheck and his other ghouls in the adamant and just higher ups in general while the staff has to work multiple jobs I was just in so I was in a lot of the groups who had people who were planning it and they're just reminding us about it and I was super excited to like be out and doing something like have have something meaningful to do instead of just talking about making a change actually like doing something that might be fighting for it personally I want the staff to be afraid I want them to know I don't know if I'm staying at this school a lot of the reasons is because of the school admins shitty policies that are not friendly towards students not friendly towards staff not friendly towards people in my major people in other majors so I hope they know that there's the there's more on the line than they think there's a lot of people who don't want to stay here because of what they've been doing have they've actively been ruining the experience for us so I hope they're afraid as for like everybody else's I think it's just also to show solidarity show that people are here to support the staff that it's not this issue that people have been making it where it's like the staff against the students because of the staff get a livable wage and the students will have to pay more like no there's a million places we can get that money from they are they keep saying we're poor they keep saying that we're going over budget that we don't have the money we have the money they're fucking liars well really they could gain a staff who's able to put their full energy into the work they do here they can gain people who are really passionate about this really energized to come here to be able to you know work with students do their job because they don't have to worry about taking up a second job filling up their time with that like having all their energy sapped from them by the fact they're having to do 80 hour work weeks that like just human rights in general are a gain no matter who it is human rights are always at the top of that and that includes people being able to just have the necessities necessities for survival food water shelter and schools not in the schools not paying enough for a lot of people to afford that I think the role of the Union is to make sure there's an organized force that is willing to stand up against us can't stand up against the school against the higher ups that are willing to say that we're here as a collective bargaining unit we're here to make sure that nobody in the nobody in the staff is getting left out that we're all that essentially all the workers here are here to fight for each other okay to UVM Suresh your rat fucker I hope you resign you piece of shit I and just pay your employees you fucking bastard I'm just hanging out here sleeping overnight waking up in the morning I mean I think the staff deserve to be paid a livable wage I'm friends with a lot of staff and you know here to support my friends in the community on campus yeah I'd like the administration to feel some pressure on them because I mean staff are definitely feeling the pressure of you know I'm sure you've heard the statistics in the past few interviews but like a third of staff food insecure 500 staff being paid below a livable wage and that's a livable wage is only accounts for if you don't have kids so you need above a livable wage if you want to support your children with that job and also rent crisis in Burlington at large been going up steadily so it's practically impossible to live here I know a lot of plenty of faculty and staff have to live outside of Burlington and its ridiculous commute gas prices are going up and I'm gonna say right now that's not cuz of Ukraine is cuz the oil companies know they can milk us out of as much cast as possible so generally things are getting harder and harder to live and people already weren't able to live off the you know salaries that they were being paid before also staff are working overtime without pay and the pandemics made things a lot harder there's a bunch of different like maintenance has about 20 open positions right now housekeeping has 26 open positions because no one wants to take those jobs because it's ridiculous hours for terrible pay you know so anything the thing I like to get out of this protest is all the staff get a little wage and to see some real change on campus think about it okay I need the union are the ones negotiating if I'm correct what do you mean the role I'm kind of confused by that question I think the role of the union is to represent the interests of all the staff and make sure that every single member that staff leaves with a fair fucking contract and you know if there's no union it's pretty much like the university was trying to take advantage of staff because they knew they didn't have a union that I think they got the union last year and the university was putting a lot of shit in place while they didn't have a union because they knew that without a union there was no way for them to fight for benefits as a group so I know some specific people were going and like fighting their own individual fights but can't fight a collective fight without uniting you know you finished thinking about your question that you have before okay well I've been here a couple days but what brought me to the to this encampment oh I mean just hearing stories from the staff I mean the staff been doing a push for this for a minute now not for this encampment but to get fair contracts and I've been hearing about it all semester and you know hearing their stories and realizing that you know as students we have the capability to make change everyone always says you know the youth are the ones who have the most power because people listen to what we have to say because once you're an adult you're just another voter I'm technically just another voter right now but you know I think as youth and as students we make up probably the majority of the population of this campus and our voices should hold more weight on campus and I wanted to show my solidarity with staff so I'm out here you got I'm what's your question Avery to UVM the administration um am I looking to the camera so pay the staff a fair contract you have the money to do so you're corrupt you run this campus like a business um you lie consistently we know that you lie um you're going to be held accountable whether you like it or not and don't forget that your people just like us and it goes both way you come out here try to humanize yourselves to us but it doesn't seem like you're acting to humans acting like humans to the majority of the people you employ so you know shape up or you know prepare to face consequences


Hello everybody. Welcome back to the show. This is going to be a little bit of a different setup than how I normally do my deep dives and how I normally do Monday mystery. Normally, I would come to you guys with a full full research, a storyboard, everything, but I wanted, I wanted to run this in a little bit more of a conversation even though you guys aren't here to have the conversation with me, but I cannot wait to see your reaction to this in the comment section below. I literally just became aware of this yesterday. I am pre-recording this video. So yesterday was Halloween. The irony is not lost on me that that's when I became aware of this little situation, this global situation, possibly global situation, but more or less a situation for us in Canada and America. And I am shooketh. I don't know how I went this many years living at the foot of Appalachia and not knowing about this. Obviously, I know a lot about Bigfoot sightings in Appalachia. I know a lot about cryptoid creatures like the dog man. I have covered the werewolf of Georgia, which I will place down in the description box. I have also covered the lost prophecy of the blue people with my friend Angie. I will put this in the description box below as well because of course if you guys remember the blue people, they're in Appalachia too. Now, they were up in like Kentucky, Virginia area and we're gonna be focused more with this story closer to me, which is part of Appalachia that runs the border of Tennessee and North Carolina. Now with that being said, this phenomenon, if you can call it that, there are sightings and stories of this all over the North American continent. So it's not just my area of the world. Anywhere where you're living in a crazy conditions like Appalachia, you're probably gonna have stories of this phenomenon. What am I talking about? I'm talking about feral people. I'm gonna make this very clear.   There are two groups of feral people. We're only gonna focus on the main group. One group of feral people is people who go and hide out in Appalachia or the Rocky Mountains or whatever because they're wanted for like murder, like the unibomber or something and they become a little bit feral just for being in such harsh environments without civilization being around them and perhaps they've run into Appalachia, run into the mountains to hide without preparation. So like people who just go off the grid, like people who want to go off the grid, they have prepared for it and these people who choose to live off the grid and the people who run into Appalachia to hide have something in common that feral people don't have, the main group of feral people don't have with these people. The people who choose to live off the grid and the people who run into Appalachia to hide and become feral, they, both those groups, come from civilization.   If you got to argue with everyone, I know that that saying civilization can cause a debate in the comic sections. I'm not here. The point of this story is not to have a debate on what a civilization actually is. So lack of a better word between something that's feral and something that's civilized, we're going to use our life, you watching me right now. We come from civilization and we're going to use that word for a sake of no other word to use to compare and contrast against who we are as human beings and who the feral people are as human beings.  And I mean, we know that there are cases where children have been found in the wild who got lost to become kind of feral. We know about this. I'm not talking about that. So that's what I thought was the only type of feral human that existed before I ran across this information. I thought the only type of feral, a wild human that existed was the people or the kids that got found after a few years.  Okay, so again, let's go back to this.  Again, they, their foundation where they come from is civilization.  The feral people I'm referring to, the ones that are the problems are not Malméa. They're a little bit of a problem for us, and we're going to get into why that is. Don't have never lived in civilization ever, ever. I'm like shaking talking about this because it's just so, it's so creepy. It's so creepy. So, I often believe on this channel, I think I've said this that as I do my, my deep dive, my research, I'm kind of guided to certain topics and yesterday being Halloween, I was just researching something, another story I'm working on. It was another story I'm working on and I stumbled upon this and I was so terrified and but so intrigued at the same time. And this also terrified me too because I'm up and up in the mountains. Like Atlanta is right on the edge of Appalachia, like so we can drive two hours north and we're like in the middle of the woods and we do that a lot.  Now I know for sure we're never going off trail again. So let me talk about this. Especially if you come from like a country where maybe it's a smaller country so you don't see a lot of like unused land. We know right now that they're trying to sell us this story that were overpopulated.  Because Appalachia, the Appalachian mountains are so dense in certain areas and so dangerous in certain areas just by the ruggedness of the mountain that there is no way for humans to be there or so we thought. One can get very lost in Appalachia. Come to find out. If you do get Appalachia, if you do get lost in Appalachia, you might be you might be screwed. You might be someone's dinner. So these clans of pharaoh people, there was one story. I'm going to I'm going to share one story that I heard told repeatedly as I was like hyperventilating and looking information up about this and I can't remember what year this. I'm paraphrasing this story. It might have been the mid-2000s like 2005-2006. A man was seen very sick kind of leaning up against the telephone pole. He had made his way close to to civilization in the North Carolina area of Appalachia. And so the EMTs were called in to pick this man up. Apparently this man was covered in ticks. Looked like he had never been inside of a building before. He was very hairy, very dirty, had crazy looking eyes, which that's one thing about these clans of pharaoh people that is the most common is that their eyes freak people out and when they were doing testing on him, two things became very apparent. That this man was severely inbred and was also suffering from a disease called Kuru. Now many of you watching right now know what Kuru is, but for those who don't know what that is, that is a disease, a fatal disease that is only present in cannibals. And not just cannibals, but people specifically who eat the brains of other humans. We first kind of learned about Kuru from Papua New Guinea. There were massive outbreaks of Kuru and Papua New Guinea due to the fact that in their funeral, their funeral ceremonies for their culture, it was customary to eat the body, body parts of deceased relatives. So as part of their religious ceremony, it wasn't like I don't believe that the people of Papua New Guinea were like hunting people. It was part of their religious ceremonies after the person died. Kuru kind of eats away. You're eating, basically it's the ingestion of prions in the brain. And if you ingest over time a lot of prions from another human's brain, it's going to basically from what I understand, and I'm not a scientist, but it's basically going to start to disintegrate your own brain. And this obviously can, without a brain, you can't live, right? So it's going to start over time. You're going to start to see the side effects of Kuru being tremors. People start to shake almost like they're having seizures to the point where they can't stand up by themselves. They need someone to hold them up. I think towards the end when they start to get close to death, they get what's called the laughing sickness where they can't stop laughing. And I think part of that is the fact that the brain is disintegrating and so it's shooting off weird, you know, weird commands to the body. It is fatal. There is no cure for it from what I understand. And we do know from a lot of accounts that the feral people, they travel in clans that they are cannibals. They hunt us from time to time. We know from stories that the people who have run-ins with these feral people that in a lot of ways they are animalistic, which they would have to be, right? If we look at this from a common sense in order to survive. I mean, Appalachia is gorgeous. It's beautiful, but it is harsh. This is a harsh environment to survive in. And I want to make something else clear before we, I'm not talking about hillbillies, y'all. Like hillbillies are part of our civilization. Hillbillies are not feral people. These feral people can run faster than dogs from many accounts. They're able to climb up trees faster than a monkey or a squirrel. They don't have any type of civilized hygiene like we do. So what do I mean by this? They don't. They're very hairy. And I've kind of thought a lot about this. Like some people and the stories I looked at and articles I read are like, oh are these people the missing link? No, I don't think so. Well, first of all, I don't believe in the fact that we evolved from a monkey or not a fact, the theory. I don't believe in that theory anymore. I used to, but I don't after all of my personal research. It is I've come to the conclusion that no, we don't come from monkeys. But I do believe in the evolution of our own species by what the, by the Darwinian theory of survival of the fittest. I think that is obviously a very true theory. I mean, it's kind of common sense, right? So like the survival of the fittest, it is what it says it is. The body, the being, that's the most malleable that can adapt to its environments, the quickest and therefore become the strongest. Those are the ones who survive. And so when we're looking at these people, these feral people that live in these clans, even though as many people have said if you see one, it will not initially look like another human being to you because where we look so different, they're oftentimes very, what we perceive to be very deformed. But again, this could be their, the evolution of their own bodies acclimating to Appalachia. They're very hairy. And again, I don't know specifically what race these people would be, but I know for me as like a white woman of mostly northern European descent. Even though I have a lot of hair on my head, I don't have a lot of hair on my body. Obviously, I shave my legs, I shave under my arms. My arm hairs though are very blonde. It's not very thick. But who's to say if I were to go and decide to live a feral life in the Appalachia, if my body would start to produce more of that in order to survive? You know, I believe the same thing with the sun. I believe that if you are from northern Europe or somewhere where you don't get a lot of sun, you have very fair skin, I do believe that over time, if you were to move to an island in this near the equator, you would probably go through a lot of sunburns. But over time, I think your body would start. That's just my belief. Your body would naturally start to adapt to its surroundings. And so when I hear these descriptions of feral people, we know from the ones that people have examined, that they've seen like the guy with the ticks and the coo-roo, that they are the same species, that they are human beings. They are human. However, at first glance, we might not recognize them as such because of the demands of their living. If you look at someone like me, obviously, I live in civilization, right? The demands of me living in Atlanta produce someone that looks like me or you, right? That it's clean. We wash our hair. We take showers. We don't have to climb trees every day for survival. Our exercise is done for health purposes, not to hunt or to survive. We know that these people don't take shelter like we do. We know that these people don't set up camps with like tents or any type of TP, if we're looking at like Native American stuff, they literally survive in the wild, in a clan. We know that they do not speak English or any language recognized today as a language. A lot of people who have run across these clans claim that they don't speak any language. Instead, they just growl or whistle or maybe even speak more telepathically or energetically and I do think that would happen. I do think, you know, in fairness, if we all of a sudden had to run up into Appalachian, live, I think our senses with each other probably would heighten, especially without cell phones or technology. I mean, please, these people don't even know how to read or write. They've never seen a computer. They've never seen a cell phone. Some people say they do have like a clicking language like like that. You see in Africa a lot. They hear them clicking with each other. Obviously, and breeding is a problem. So, you know, that's questionable.   They survive. I mean Appalachian Mountains, even though I live in Atlanta where it doesn't get that cold, it doesn't get that, you know, the Appalachia up in the mountains, they get snow, they get heat, they get tornadoes, so that they're surviving in very incremental weather that I don't think we could.  And these people have learned how to survive. So, I'm not saying they're dumb. I'm just saying I don't think that they have understood biology or how, because they, they inbreed. They're obviously very inbred. And it might be because these clans, I listened to one guy when I was yesterday, I was like, what the hell is this? One guy was saying that in order to have the growth of a society where there isn't any inbreeding, you have to have about 500 people. But most of these clans of feral people are less than 50. So obviously, we're looking at heavy inbreeding. It's wild to me to think of the women having babies out in Appalachia without any type of like doctor there. I mean, Jesus, like I just, it's just, when I really think about what this implies, like it just blows my mind. Again, their eyes are said to be a very like clear blue color and are very wild. Like they don't, they look like human eyes in the sense that they have the same brightness pupils. So all that kind of stuff is us, but there is just something energetically different about them. And they're very clear blue is what, what has been, been said. Many people state that if you are hiking in Appalachia, they could potentially be sitting at the tops of trees and you would never know. It's kind of like when I was in Africa, they, they told me if you see a lion, it's the last thing you see, like there's many times you could be walking near a lion and you would never know because the lion won't let you know it's there.  How creepy is this you guys? How creepy? How creepy? Anyway, it is stated that if you aren't are on Appalachia trail, it is advised that you not leave the trail, the trail that's been developed. If you're camping, that you make sure you stay at the designated campsites. This is to keep you safe. It has also been advised by many people who are aware that these people exist, that if you do dare to go into Appalachia for a long hike and now listen guys, I'm not talking about the towns.  Like if you're in a town, like if you're in Clayton or Asheville or a town, the, the, the, the feral people aren't gonna come near that. So if you're at a retreat center up in Delanaga, you're safe. Like no feral person's gonna come in there, right? I'm talking about if you decide to go off on your own deep into the Appalachia, this is where you're going to have the propensity to run into these people. If you stay on the trail, you're probably not gonna run into them. If you go off trail, which a lot of people do, that's when you're gambling. So it is advised that if you decide to do that, that you need to have a on you. Why is this? Because this is the one thing that will save you from them. They don't have these from what I understand and all the research I have, but they do have spears and they do know how to fight and to kill with their hands. It seems that they will not though bother you unless they feel threatened by you, by your presence or they're hungry because they eat people, they eat us. There's no indication from any of the research that I've seen that they actually eat each other. So with that being said, if that is true, then at least they have some understanding that their clan is their own kind. But it appears that they don't understand that we are also their own kind. Another kind of creepy fact about these people is that they never have shoes. So their clothing is very people say they dress in pellets from animals, like they create their own clothes and they don't wear shoes. So their feet have to be extremely tough. Again, off-trail Appalachia is dense. There's sticker bushes everywhere.  In fact, there's a video I stumbled across of two guys who are in the area and they went up there and decided to go a little bit off-trail to see what they could find and it was a hot summer's day. So they had shorts on and they were like five minutes into the off-the-trail. They both were saying, man, we should have worn pants because they were so scratched up and bloody from the sticker bushes and the leaves and the branches and everything hitting them. You know, so if we look at that with it from our own experience of being very thin-skinned and you know living in a civilization where we're protected, these sparrow people can run faster, faster than a dog through this dense forest. They can climb up trees faster than a squirrel. Their feet have to be just tough and their hands have to be tough. So listen, no offense to you watching right now, but if I were a gambling woman and it was you against a feral person, my money's on the feral person. So again, the one thing that's going to protect you is this. That's it and you're going to have to act fast because when they're hungry, they're hunting you. They will hunt you. They will hunt children, babies. Again, I don't think they realize that we are them. Now, what's also interesting in this whole thing is that they believe that some of these missing people cases like National Forest aren't probably aren't UFO related.  American horror stories, not story, but stories, the many, like the short stories they do, season one episode six called Feral kind of goes into this. Now, they created their feral people to look a little bit more monstrous, which I think they, I mean, they took artistic license, right? Like to make them look a little bit more gory. And from what I understand, even though they are not, they don't look like us, I don't think they're as gory as that. And it is proposed in this series on this episode, which we got to remember, this might be a little bit of truth in this because that's what they do. They tell us, right? That National Parks were established to contain the feral people. Now, I don't know. Now, of course with American horror stories, they're saying, yeah, and every once in a while they have to make a sweep and like kill some of the feral people just to keep the population low, to keep us, other humans safe. I don't know if that's why, but that makes sense that the American government would be aware that these are cannibalistic tribes that live in our backyard, basically. And I don't know if they're keeping them enclosed in a National Park to keep us away from them, or if they're maybe harvesting them to release them on us at some point. I don't know. I definitely don't think it's to keep us safe. That is for sure. Now, many people wonder where do these feral people come from? And again, I want to reiterate, I'm actually shocked that at 40 years old, this is how I'm learning about this because apparently as it happens, everyone from this area knows about feral people but me. And my boyfriend didn't either and, you know, he spent his life traveling around the world with the military, but it's so commonly known in North Carolina in that area that they call them cavemen. And it's just kind of known, you don't bother them, they don't bother us. Just leave them be. Don't get too close to their encampment. Don't get too close to them. They don't come to our towns in our villages. They don't come and hunt from our streets, so we don't go out there with them. I say they're towns or villages. It sounds like they're pretty nomad, that their clans kind of move around. It doesn't, no indication that they actually have like a home base. So who, where do these people come from? Like I even said to my boyfriend, I was like, it would be really interesting if we knew what race they were, or if they're a bunch of races. I don't know. I don't even think people really register that when they see them because they're so dirty and covered in hair that it's hard to tell their physical attributes beyond the shock of seeing somebody that appears to be deformed. I mean, could you imagine seeing a human being just covered in tics? Disgusting. Barefoot never had put shoes on. So there is a legend that some people believe that these clans of pharaoh people generated from the civil war. I don't believe this. I don't believe this because the civil war was not that long ago historically. I mean, it was a long time ago, I mean, it's all relative, right? But historically speaking, so what they believe is that when the civil war happened because Appalachia is on the eastern eastern board of the United States. So for those who are not familiar, if you're not from the United States, we believe the story that the controllers have told us about the settlement of this country. The colonists came in on the eastern border, right? So the 13 original colonies, Georgia was one of them all the way up to Maine, yeah? So when you get to, when the boats came in, you go a few hundred miles in, all of a sudden you're in Appalachia. Now the Appalachian mountains are also the oldest mountain chain in the world, the world, my friends. So they believe that when the civil war started, of course, it was happening all up and down the eastern seaboard because that was the United States at that time a little bit more western at that time. But this was like the heart of where it was. That people who lived up and down Appalachia from, because it goes all the way up to Canada, is Appalachian mountains. So just decided the people that didn't want anything to do with the war, it's almost like when the draft Dodgers ran to Canada from the United States during Vietnam, these people were Dodgers who just ran deep into Appalachia mountains. And that's when it's kind of like M. Night Shyamalan's The Village. However, because they were in a national park, too, right? However, this is where I start to go now. I don't think that's right because the way that these people act is so far gone from the way us in Civilization Act that I really don't see how this is possible. So if you've got Bobby and Mary and Janie and Sue and Tommy and Phillip and they all decide we're not gonna have anything to do with this, we're just gonna go deep into Appalachia, don't you think they would have set up a homestead somewhere? Like don't you think people who were used to like living in a house, sleeping in a bed, having shelter, brushing their hair, bathing, however often they bathed back then would want to create something deep in the woods in their own little haven that would resemble something of what they know. It's not just the creature comforts. It's what you know. You know, we know we need shelter. We know we need X, Y, and Z. We know we need hygiene. We know all these things. So even though you might be aware that your life is gonna be a little bit different hiding, you would at least try to do something that mirrored how you know to live. And I think that would be passed down in the generations. Now the Civil War only lasted like five years. So over time, I think you would peep out, look and see, okay, it's overcome back out. But if not, I think you would still pass down language. I think you would still be speaking to each other and English and your children being born would hear you speaking or the language too. I think you would continue certain things like writing, how to write. You know, I think you would know that brothers and sisters shouldn't be boinking each other if you went and hid in the mid-1800s by that point. You might not know it about cousins at that point, but you know, brothers and sisters shouldn't. So that kind of exnays that for me. And with that, when having said to, like I said, this is not most of the concentrated stories we see are in Appalachia. That's where they mostly happen. But we do have stories from Canada, Western Canada. They're possibly into Europe where there's it's very mountainous. So this is not just a phenomenon that's happening here. I think these people have been around for a long, a lot longer than we have. And I don't believe that they are actually aliens. I mean, we all we're all kind of aliens at the end of the day, but you guys know what I mean. I think they are from this earth just like we are. And I think they were here first. I know that they are not Native Americans because, oh, that's another thing that exnays the whole Civil War theory is because apparently the Native Americans in this area also had stories about the feral humans. Because even though Native Americans, their their structure of society was very different for than us, who are descendants of Europe, they still had structured societies. They still had a civilization, even if they were nomadic, they had structure. They had tepees. They had mud huts, whatever, wherever they were, they had that. You know, they had that sense of a town or a village where they had interpersonal relationships with each other, where they had some sort of law enforcement with each other. These feral people, even though they might have their own specific laws and cultures and all that kind of stuff that we don't understand, they're wild. They're like wild animals compared to us and compared to the Native Americans. And so even the Native, again, the Native Americans would warn their people about getting too far deep into the mountains because of the feral people. So as I say, my friends, I think these people have been around for a very, very long time. One last thing of note before we end this story for today is that many people do believe that these feral people are associated, again, with Bigfoot and the dog man and the werewolves. I believe I mentioned this briefly earlier. I don't believe that this is possible. I just want to make that clear.  And I do believe that they are very much aware of Bigfoot and the wolf man and all these cryptoid creatures. But I don't think that they are with them. I think like us, they inhabit this dimension and they possibly see things like we do, although they're probably a little bit more used to it than we are since they are in the wild. All right, you guys, I'm super, super excited. I can't wait to hear your thoughts and your opinions down in the comment section below. Do you believe this is why that we have another reason why we have national parks is to help house these humans? Do you know any stories of these feral, these wild men, these feral humans? Are you from Appalachia as well? Have you seen anything? Does this make sense to you? Do you believe that the controllers know about these feral people and are using them to their advantage? I can't wait to hear all of your thoughts and your opinions down in the comment section below. I will be on Aquarius Rising Africa at 9am this morning, not 10, but 9 because we had our time change in South Africa. It does not change time, so now it's going to be 9am for the summer and then we change times again and it'll go back to 10am. We will not be discussing this on Aquarius Rising Africa this morning. We are doing a series on speaking of cannibals, on missing body parts and missing bodies of the dead. We've covered so far Madahari and her missing head, Alexander the Great and his missing body. Today we are covering King Henry IV of France. I will put, I covered this story a long time ago on my channel. I will put that story link from my channel down in the description box as well as well as Madahari and Alexander the Great. If you would like to watch it first before you join us live at 9, if not make sure you join us live at 9 where we will be discussing this again. And trying to figure out where all these bodies are going. Anyway you guys, I am going to be bringing a folklorist from Georgia on this channel very soon. And so hopefully she can cover feral people as well. We can have a more of a deeper discussion about the folklor of feral people in this area. But anyway guys I hope you have a fantastic start to your week and I will talk to you all soon. Bye everybody.