NEW POST: m.use@benem7.com
32 seconds ago
SUBJECT: THE OPEN DOOR
If you’re reading this, you know it’s real.
This message doesn’t get decoded unless you know it’s real. You can find this forum, you can find this website, this post. But you couldn’t be reading what you’re reading right now unless you followed some elaborate steps.
Some very weird steps, right? You know.
You literally have to know it’s real, because you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t. But I also know you kind of don’t believe, even still.
It all began with that post-it, you know.
The one with the flower I drew. You believed it was special even though your eyes couldn’t see what would make it so. Your solid eyes couldn’t see it, but you have another that could.
You followed these clues, even though you had to say words you found written in the back of the Omaha Public Library’s copy of House of Leaves, and you had to say them twelve times, facing East. Even though you could only actually find that copy by touch, while wearing the blindfold you found in the locker at the 18th Street Y. And even that didn’t work until you positioned the image of the moth on the blindfold directly over your eyes.
You walked seven strange steps in seven strange places to find this message. You are the rare and unusual type, and I applaud you.
But let’s face facts:
You did all that knowing that it wasn’t science. You stopped yourself because you felt silly the first few times. But you couldn’t help trying again.
And now you’re here because on the third or fourth or fifth time you felt it. Like a key turning in a lock. The satisfying answer. Reality saying: you got it right.
That was your Third Eye, taking in light. It didn’t open, not fully, but you felt it twitch. It does that when you’re walking the right direction, like you’re doing now. I don’t know if everyone has one, but you do, on your forehead, right between and above your solid eyes. It looks out at the world, but worse than that, it looks deep inside. If you can force it open now, do it. See yourself for what you are, and see me too.
I’m here with you.
People used to have to wait for revelation. I bet they prayed and sacrificed goats and virgins and whole piles of food and mead or whatever. Or you had to be born into it, like money, like opportunity, or talent. I imagine fate decides for about half of us. The rest of us seek revelation, or don’t turn away when they feel it sneak past us.
People think revelations will grant them enlightenment — and they do — but sadly, that enlightenment is always characterized by new, worse problems; and believe me your situation is no different. Your Third Eye is dying to open, thinking about every problem it might solve, every mystery it might contemplate, but it’s going to see so much more, and not all of what you’re going to see will be good.
For one, you’ve been getting left behind. You and pretty much everyone you love, all happily convinced that they’re the top of the food chain. You’ve been getting left behind for the better part of a century, and I bet you know it in your guts. It’s been getting worse for you. Well that’s because it’s been getting better for a lot of other people. Me. Us. It’s no one’s fault, really. We aren’t trying to leave you behind any more than you’re trying to get left, but it’s a gap, and it’s growing.
We’re all ahead of you, everyone who found a message like this or any one of a million ways you get to where I am; where you’re going. We’ve been fixing things for ourselves for decades now, and you’ve been stuck, stuck in the world that doesn’t get fixed.
That may be sad, but I assure you it’s better than things used to be. I’m old—old enough to remember a past most people you’ve spoken to have forgotten—and I’m telling you now is the best time to be alive, whether you practice the Art or not.
It’s lucky for you. You’re one of the lucky ones. Because you live in that time. Because you found this. Because you’re reading it. Your Third Eye is opening and you soon have the opportunity to practice the Art, if it doesn’t kill you. Lucky you.
But you have been getting left behind, and for several years now. A gap is growing, and growing wider, and on one side, there’s the whole vast world, all with their Third Eyes closed. And now you, here on this side, with me and everyone else with all three eyes open.
Or perhaps you’re not quite there yet? Try again. I’ll wait.
Not yet? Soon, soon.
Then I’ll keep going.
The Open Door is always… well, open. It’s here, and your hand is on the knob, and all you have to do is stop thinking about it, turn your hand, and step, just like you would if this door existed in any way you’re already used to.
It started with the deck, her deck. You might not even know her name, isn’t that some shit? Before her, this whole thing was dead. I mean, no one’s Third Eye was open. Almost no one, I mean. There were always some. Priests, shamans and kings. People who could hoard it hoarded it. The people had no entry, like you do. The Art infused in this message and the network of clues it’s a part of, is itself many times greater than the sum of all the Art the whole world was using at any one time in the 19th Century.
Things have changed. The Art belongs to the people now, those whose Third Eyes obey them, and open and close at will. It belongs to you too.
I feel I should prepare you for what will come next (there is no way to do that; there are only confusing things to say, mad rivers of explanation I could carry you down until the point becomes nothing more than a blur), but what matters to ME—
What I wish someone had asked ME was: what do you hope to OFFER?
You will want to answer a different question first.
You are made of seeking forces who have always been hungry. The Art is a chance to feed those forces; all the little seekers in your head. All your questing voices forcing things, struggling to make the world what they want it to be. I know you have them, I have them too. I hope you’re wise enough to know you’re a committee and not an individual, not really.
All the members of your committee will ask: How may I use this to get what I NEED?
As if you know what you need! You may only ever know what you WANT.
As an Artist, you’ll get every opportunity to have what you want. You can make what you want out of thin air, with your Third Eye open.
But there’s a voice in my mind—one who speaks softly. She reminds me to balance what I GET with what I OFFER.
And that’s why you’re holding my hand right now, can you feel it?
I’m with you. Walking you toward the dream. Walking you toward your place in our world. I don’t know you yet, but we’ve found each other, and soon we will know each other in life. I don’t know what manner of Art we will create, but:
If you are thinking about what you will OFFER the world instead of what you WANT, I bet we can make something beautiful together.
So there’s my pitch. Welcome to the Road. I hope you walk in my direction.
All of this has been for you, but this tiny part is just for me:
This represents my offering, a monument to this path I walk, this Road of Two Lands. I dedicate this message to the city on my right side, the city of light, and the city on my left side, the city of shadow. I hold light in my right hand and shadow in my left. I add this message to the Open Door that I may invite this new guest and many more to the Road, to the Flower, to the Art.
I don’t celebrate the gap, but I do like to build bridges.
My Third Eye is open and I see you right now.
Can you feel it? I’m your Muse.
Believe. Open your Third Eye.