CHAPTER 15
Friar Otto walked around the University grounds until, from bird’s-eye, he became part of the landscape, like a horse which had free reign to amble about eating whatever it liked. At first, so had his brain been sated by bookish hours—up and down, in and out of the shelves and the manuscript rooms, then sitting, stuck as if bound to his chair until he could eat no more—silently shouted: no more words, even beautifully illustrated words. Especially artfully illustrated words! So had he felt, not thought—as if just one more beautiful word of illuminated Scripture would cause a disabling mental indigestion...no more!
Words and vellum pages, the scribe’s well of ink, the odor of leather bindings—all his research completed, assessing himself prepared for meeting him, the friar takes to walking, slowly pacing, meditating, around and about the quadrangle. He roams, he roves, he slows down but does not sit down, all day until meandering about under moonlight, forcing himself not to sleep. Sleep! The Devil’s trap! All this intensity and rigor the discipline necessary, for he knows that he is coming—so had Mother Dolor told him through her haunting death!
Mother Dolor! Cousin. A kin. She whispering just that, “He is coming.” A gentle whisper, not a warning, just a statement of fact. As if saying, “After me, so does he come.” Her tone unsettled the Friar at the time since it was so familial, he sensing that she spoke to him as she would to a flesh and blood sibling—intimate and solicitous. Only after he had discerned her actual lineal connection did all this makes sense. Upon first hearing, he thought that she was just being demonically seductive—assuming an air of warm personal conversation with him. One to weaken him, soften his resolve. But upon discovering their ancestral bond, the friar knew that “he” was also one of the family. She whispering “he” as if saying, “My father” or “My elder brother” is coming to...? It was unclear back then. Did she mean to avenge? Or to offer more insight about her life and so the meaning of her death?
Humbled by this sweet offering of hers—for it was sweet in that she was, again on hindsight, speaking to him as if his sister—humbled, the Friar was ever ready to receive this foretold “he.” But in the year since her death, no other of his kin had attempted to reach him. This lack of contact burdened him as it made him question whether anything he had learned from Mother Dolor was in fact true.
As Friar Otto waited and pondered, he was acutely aware of how vicious controversy has stalked his every step, ever since he began preaching about Luther’s idolatry. Ah, the corruption of the Papacy! Not just as Luther and his protesting gang judged, that it was a corruption of materiality, of buying indulgences. No, if only that. How easy to rectify such abuses! What no one seemed to have discerned was Luther’s offense as being idolatry and not theological heresy. Except for a handful of his brother Inquisitors, no one else seemed open to this truth. But who else but his brethren of the Hammer? For only they were privy to the insights, even revelations, of the tortured truths that rolled off the lipless mouths of their Satanic penitents! So be it! the Friar says to himself. He accepts that God’s revelation comes only through prophets and those willing to die for Him. Most certainly, he, himself, has always been willing to die for Him. Verily, such courage grounds his easy acceptance of assisting others to die for Him...be saved through torture, as Jesus Himself was tortured on the cross—Redeemed through the agony of crucifixion. Via crucis! Via crucis!
For the Friar, the singular, most precious truth that he took from torturing Mother was the insight it opened into Luther’s idolatry and its correlate, the absolute depravity of the female body. Whether lusty like Katherina, upon whose succulent flesh Luther daily offered a Black Mass, or whether the ghastly beauty of Mother’s tortured but ethereally revealing flesh, all such woman flesh was lurid.
Why?—this question was Friar Otto’s “thorn in the flesh”—why does the Church, his fellow theologians, even the dissenters not quail and moan when he unveils the evilness of this idolatry? Why do they counter saying that Luther’s sin is theological and not the mortally sinful violation of the First Commandment?
Oh, Friar Otto has preached and he has lectured. He has sat in withering debate with princes and paupers about the revelation unveiled through torturing Mother Dolor. What else is to be done? Father, into thy hands, I commend my spirit!
It was when in such a state of despondency, when so perplexed and so anguished, that the notice came. As was fitting, the Friar received this notice ethereally before the actual letter arrived. He knew it upon waking from a dream; without a doubt, for certain—he was coming, soon.
Mother Dolor: “She never denied!” The boldness of the matter. The utter peculiarity of the matter. The...the...it had to be faced...the innocence of the matter!
So it was, as it had to be.
He, with a serenity of voice, states, “A sweeter Innocent there never has trod upon this Earth.”
He could have said it as indictment. He could have thrown it down as a lid holding back a great anger. He could have shouted, damning the friar.
A sweeter Innocent there never has trod upon this Earth.
Friar Otto could have handled anger.
Hatred.
Cursing.
Threat.
What he couldn’t handle is what he got—the truth. Simple truth.
“What is it you monks are so fond of saying, Simplicitas?”
The Friar is chastened. Has the Lord allowed him to read my mind? Taste my fears?
Inwardly, silently, Friar Otto prays, “Lamb of God...Who Taketh Away the Sins of the World, Have Mercy on Me!”
He has not yet determined an answer: Does the friar know about the family’s privilege?
As Friar Otto anticipated, he has come as the Devil’s Own. As an agent of forces that seek to undo his Inquisitorial work. How else to launch the final, most insidious attack against him but to make it all a family matter? Like Cain and Abel in sibling battle, To thrust and twist the sword dagger back into my own heart? Although the Friar had never met him, he knew enough about his own family’s long and colorful history to fear meeting one of his own, especially one such as this. Verily, the Friar had prepared to meet and look upon Gerald Joseph von Frakken and confront a kindred spirit, one however who was a powerful secular and not a monastic figure. Why, then, him? Not a family Abbott? But although rigorously prepared, the Friar still couldn’t control his heartfelt anxiety. For meeting with someone of his feted stature, one with such a renown worldly and supreme intellectual reputation— Lord!, I am not worthy, say but the word ...!
The friar must know?
Gerald, for near three decades now, has been aware of the growing controversy that rages around his Inquisitor cousin. Extraordinary mystic! to some. Heretic! to others Lord Almighty, the plight of these crazed and fanatically self-righteous Inquisitors! There were more than a few in the family’s line—present and historical—who took to excess, but few like this alleged mystic friar. Once called by the family elders and informed that this kin friar would be one of his special concerns, he had reasonably expected to sight some details of physical resemblance—the familial deep blue-eyes with the dot of red, or the slight stuttering so many had, or even the smooth roundness of the earlobes. He had expected to find Friar Otto, baptized as Frantz and born a von Frakken, to bear a fair resemblance. But—Lord Almighty, have mercy!—he wasn’t prepared to look upon his cousin and espy a twin face, as if looking into a mirror! Of course, as expected the friar was younger, expected, but unnerving was the fact that he is clearly Gerald’s doppelganger! There is an immediate, ethereal, definitely mystical and numinous connection that they share—possibly twin souls? Their minds and hearts speak even when their lips are at rest. Is the friar aware of this as I am? This astonishing shared identity catches Gerald not only by surprise but sends a shiver down his spine. This, to the one who was accustomed to be the shiver-sender, not receiver.
“Otto—if you can indulge me, I’d prefer our simple names.”<
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How could the Friar object? He had not attacked him, beat him or killed him—what was this minor irreverence in proportion to the whole matter? Anxious.
The Friar nods, accepting.
Gerald stands and strides the two steps that were count to the fireplace.
Gerald warms his hands, pauses momentarily to toss over his shoulder, “What do you think about our Pope?” This was not a serious matter, so Otto knows, just the chit-chat of clerics. His cousin’s ease with this clerical chatter adds to his tension—He’s ever as smart as rumored! Otto saw through his wiles, but he did not hesitate a moment to engage him—Let him think his worm has hooked the fish! As such, he lets himself be led through twenty minutes or so of bantering back and forth of opinions, gossip, and half-truths, giving Gerald what he wanted, a sense that Otto was relaxing, letting down his guard.
The Pope—a corrupt scion of the Medicis—was always an easy target as no one seemed ever pleased about anything the papacy did or proclaimed. The Pope and a bit of laughter about the oddities of other Orders or Societies or a tale of monastic misadventure was ever acceptable fare. As the Friar also expected, Gerald exposed a worldly mind as he spoke about globe-circling adventures on the wide ocean that girdled the world. He was obviously a skillful leader among the bold explorers and inventors who were numerous in both the history and current ventures of the extended von Frakken family. The Friar had even heard it argued, quite heatedly with beer steins clashing, that a von Frakken had been to the “new world” that Columbus claimed to have discovered. This, Gerald also makes a telling point, that “The family, with our Norse connections, was trading there—our grand-grand-grandfathers. It took a stupid Mediterranean to puff up and proudly claim that he “discovered India” where India was not!” Gerald laughs heartily. The friar waits patiently. When will he begin?
“Magellan has sailed around the world. The Pope—Alexander, that stupid man—May he rest in peace!—impossible man—divided the world in two! Between those whimpering sucklings—Spain and Portugal. Blessed Mother, what is to be done? Does not God sail on ships? My ships?”
Somehow this was Gerald’s conclusion as to matters trivial, for then he asks, with a quite inquisitive, prying tone, “Otto, what did you expect to discern through torturing her?” A short pause, and “What do you know about women?”
The Friar had quickly gotten lost amidst the trivial ramblings of this, his distant, cousin. But it was their common heritage, their shared blood-name of von Frakken, that made him pay attention since he knew that nothing spoken about today would remain trivial. Of note, it was the question of second offering which, as was intended, struck more than a bit of anxious terror into his heart. What do you know about women?
The Friar is not forthcoming, and, as if this was also anticipated, Gerald kept moving towards his objectives.
“As it is, let me return. Do you know our heritage. Our shared family privilege?”
The Friar’s soundlessness was full answer, as was his noiseless fingering of several decades of Rosary beads.
Gerald bites his lower lip. Hmm, such timidity...or is it artful caginess?
“Women. The von Frakkens are all about women. That is why you are an Inquisitor, true?” Gerald pauses. The Friar’s blank-eyed stare sends an unnerving quiver of doubt up and down, throughout his body. Without words, he thunders, Don’t mock me! Oddly, the friar remains mute, his bodily posture also not sending out reactive or responsive messages. It is Gerald’s turn to stare blank-eyed, You don’t hear me, do you?
He attempts another approach. “What did torturing my niece achieve?”
“God’s glory,” as if rote catechetical answer; snapped and sharply spoken.
“True. But God aside. Can you put God aside?” The Friar’s empty stare was ever-steady. “Hmm,” and a tug on his whitening beard.
Attack! Straight to the matter!
“When you looked upon her body—you didn’t touch her, did you?” Here touch is freighted with all the nuances of sexuality and intercourse. Gerald was not so much curious as he wanted assurance that the Friar was as mystically blind and dumb as he appeared to be.
Never! Soundless with fingertips pressed against his priestly eyes.
Once mentally uttered, the Friar places his hands upon his face; a gesture of...? Gerald hears his internal anguish. A lie? Can an Inquisitor lie? Is protecting the power of the Black Mass upon her body, a lie? How else to conjure Satan but to possess her body as the Evil One does Himself? Only we, culled from the flock and sanctioned by the papal Bull, only we hold and can protect this ritual! Bah, what is this “shared family privilege”? What could it be but another work of Lucifer?
It is shockingly clear to Gerald that the Friar is not aware of their mutual potential and his ability to read each other’s mind? Or, Is he being even more artful? Is his mention of the Black Mass a tact of misdirection? Hmmm.
“I never touched her.” Hands on his lap. Face blanched and tense, teeth slightly clenched.
Great lie! Lord on High, he did touch her! Deo gratias, there is some hope, after all.
The night came to separate them. Not that the Friar wanted to sleep, but that Gerald lighted a candle, yawned deeply and sonorously, and simply left the room.
On his knees, from whence the Friar would soon near-faint upon his straw mattress as the demons of dreaming tugged at him, he beseeches his God. If he had asked, I would have told him. She was not a witch. I would have said that, dear God, Father Almighty—this I confess. This I beg forgiveness for.
He blesses himself multiple times.
“She did not deny.” I confess this. To him. To you O Almighty Father! Crush me, worm of a man, the weakest of your priestly sons, I am not worthy, not worthy.…
Likewise on his knees, in a cell half-way across the monastic enclosure, Gerald ethereally hears the friar’s plaints. He is pleased to now know the prized character of his cousin’s soul. That he has touched her, lain with her, ritually coupled in the sacred intercourse of the Black Mass—this, proof that he is a von Frakken, proof that it is right for both of them to be here. Gerald offers a prayer of intercession—not imploring the Lord nor the Mother of God but—to Mother Dolor, “Come!”
Despite all the Friar’s fanatically disciplined Inquisitorial efforts to prevent and protect himself from serpentine dreaming, she comes. Slipping through the smallest of tiniest of infinitesimal cracks in his dreamy tiredness. He still kneels, body leaden, defying gravity...but she enters...kneels next to him...the wispiest odor of sanctity.
“I love you, My Sweet Torturer. God has not granted me to know your name, but I do know your soul. I do know your heart. For with such fervor did you torture me. With such strength of heart did you plunge into every aspect of me. It is you who know me, have explored and possessed my every part. My every fold of flesh. My every breath of desire. My every aspect, myself all foul, myself all beautiful. For it was you who made me wholly beautiful, and it is my holy Redeemed Beauty I now offer to you. Make me whole within thyself!”
With a slowly cascading crash to the floor no pain is felt, though his nose slightly bleeds and the numbness erupting from his left hand floods and denies him the sense of having half of his body.
In his mind’s eye he is not fallen. He is not dreaming. He is lashing himself with an iron-pellet tipped whip. Flailing and slashing and gouging...which pain deadens him to the Devil’s Torment— Friar Otto sleeps.
“What do you know about women?”
The unnerving question again. This time outside, while strolling through the cruciform garden behind the University’s chapel, tracing the “Twelve Stations of the Cross.” As if a Sabbath visitor, at the thirteenth station where Jesus is taken down from the Cross and limply rests in the arms of his Mother, they both pray out loud, “Stabat Mater Dolorosa....” Dolorosa chills the friar as never felt before at this Station.
As they pause, having completed their vener
ation of His Passion, Friar Otto looks directly into Gerald’s intense blue-eyes, not pausing to consider the oddity of the fleck of redness that pulsates at his left eye’s edge, and states, “Women are the root of evil. What else is there to know?” Doctrinal confidence. Dogmatic certitude.
“Splendid.” Gerald picks up the pace of their indulgent stroll.
Both von Frakkens enjoy the late morning’s repast prepared for Gerald, being replete with a variety of fruits and vegetables reserved only for dignitaries. The Friar eats sparingly.
Despite their several conversations, he yet remains uncertain about his cousin’s ultimate purpose. He, initially, had expected a quick condemnation and some type of punishment. Over the years, just a few times, he has been praised by a bishop or a theologian. But the clerical and theological attacks—Withering!—upon him have so greatly increased of late that he was beyond certain that this intercession by a family elder only foreboded trouble. But, now, all he really senses is a bit of confusion.
From both tiredness and a need to stand on solid ground, to assuage his anxiety, the Friar bluntly asks, “Why are you here? What do you want of me?”
As forthright, Gerald says, calmly, “I am here to discern whether you have taken advantage of the family’s privilege. And if not, why not?” Pause, to reload, “Tell me, in Jesus’ name, do you know about our privilege?”
No. “No!”
The Friar is momentarily taken aback by how taken aback Gerald is. His bodily recoil and furrowing of brow and tensed eyes...now noticing the glint of red that pulsates out from the lower left corner of his left eyelid, for it is quite rapidly flickering...these perplex the Friar.
Then, with eyes shut and lips moving in silent prayer, Gerald slowly blesses himself. He settles serenely into the moment, opens his eyes and speaks with a professorial tone. “As it is, then, dear cousin, listen to me.”
The incredible story that unfolds as Gerald speaks truly amazes Friar Otto. While part of him engages Gerald as a student would his teacher, the Inquisitor-within is tracking the clever and deceptive storyline. If he were to believe his cousin, then most of what he has been taught about God’s plan for humankind, the one laid out from Genesis in the Old Testament to Revelation in the New Testament was, “Not to be discarded. Our challenge is to interpret it properly.”
The Friar wanted to ask, “What is proper?” but before he could speak, his cousin was onto his next point.
Frak! Gerald recounts the worldwide travels of prior generations of von Frakkens. “The most ancient story goes back to a venerable ancestor simply called Frak. It is related that he was the first to meet the Nephi, the lost tribe of Israel. Why there is a lot that has probably been lost through oral tradition...and the scrolls bear the errors of human hand both in translation and transcription...the main point is key.”
Despite himself, the Friar is fascinated.
“Here,” and Gerald places two stones: each, a man’s foot tall and squat like a farmer’s muscled arm, places these one on each side of the friar, whom Gerald asks to sit on the ground in a meditative posture. “Here are the most ancient of stones. It is said that Moses hewed the commandment tablets from the same quarry. These, which are called Um and Thum—we’re not sure if there are just these two or more, but just these as our family’s heritage. Interpreting with these stones is our privilege.”
Privilege?
Friar Otto is quietly but fervently, almost feverishly, silently and repetitively chanting Lord have mercy on me! This, while listening with his rational mind as his cousin sets forth a most fabulous tale, certainly one demonic at its core. The Friar holds firm to the biblical truth that one tribe of Israel was “lost” and never found—to claim such, What foolishness! What devilry!
In this manner, as the earnest and well-intentioned words of Gerald flow like warm honey, to the Friar’s ears all his phrases and sentences slowly drift off into a droning sound, like the buzzing of a hive under attack. While immersed in this sonorous humming, Friar Otto simultaneously feels....how to phrase it?...a puff of air or like someone is panting behind him, breathing on his neck, or as the buzzing gets more intense, a vibration like the deep basso that Friar Magnus unleashes during Passion Week as Jesus expires upon the cross. This is a primal, guttural groan that impacts the Friar’s body, whipping his robes into small gusts, sending goosebumps riotously up and down his arms, across his chest, in time, forcing his mind to shut down thoughts, and .....
Gerald can readily see that the Um and Thum have Friar Otto solidly within their hold. He also is confident that the friar is now being inculcated with knowledge and wisdom beyond anything he has ever previously learned. The question remains—only to be answered by his actions—whether the Friar will allow the revelations of Um and Thum into his conscious mind—only the Friar, himself, can do that. Will he believe what he has experienced? Will his Christian beliefs continue to blind him?
Gerald’s answers come quickly. Upon asking, “How do you feel?” Friar Otto says, “You asked me to sit here, so I’m sitting here. Waiting.”
Can it be? Were the elders wrong? Can he not be one of the chosen?
In another moment—but this time one of his own disruptive insight—Gerald realizes that he has not been listening to the friar’s mind. That somehow their ethereal connection has been broken! How?
“What is this all about?” Friar Otto asks, not indignantly but with a bit of snap in his tone. He points to the stones. “Are these demon stones? Are you here to tempt me, dear cousin?”
Gerald is more perplexed than annoyed. He had anticipated, especially when their minds ethereally linked—At least mine did?!—that matters would move quickly. He had never witnessed the failure of Um and Thum. Or is it that I have failed? Failed to grasp what these precious treasures are revealing through this most curious friar?
“I stated before that we von Frakkens are all about women. And I asked whether it was true that that is why you became an Inquisitor. What is your answer, at this time?”
Suddenly emboldened, with words easily issuing forth to convey his mind and heart, “I am about ridding the Earth of women so that Paradise might be restored. Is this the privilege you speak of?”
Gerald wants to be incensed, wants to spit scorching words to melt the friar’s flesh, but such is denied to him as he is reeling inside, trying to put his ethereal self on steady ground. He knows! It comes to him. Oh, Lord have mercy! He knows and he is controlling me. Using the Um and Thum to blank my mind!
Lord have mercy! Yet somehow—it is bewilderingly evident—the Friar does not appear to be conscious of what he himself is doing. Gerald struggles mightily...quickly grabs the numinous stones and sets himself down between them. He lets their familiar vibrations deliver him from the confines of time and space. Ah! He settles down, senses his mind and heart opening on a cosmic dimension. He looks at Otto and continues his professorial lecturing.
“Women. As I said, this is what I’ve come to discuss with you. To understand. As from the most ancient of times our women have given to us males, children. For this, we care for them. Without children our dreaming could not continue. Do you understand, here, why Adam could dream?”
The Friar offers no answer.
“It’s because She was already there. Before Eve came. Giving birth to Eve as She and He coupled as Adam dreamed.”
“Cousin. I hear your heart and mind but, verily, your thoughts roll strange to me.”
Gerald does not pause to ask about strange. Artfully, he simply lofts a winking smile, and continues.
“From Hannover we dream the world. We do so because we are one with our women, who empower us to dream new beginnings, new births. Our ships fly under many flags, but it is the singularity of our dream, the strength of our dream which is creating this New World as the Old enters its own End Time. What drives our exploration, what is the itch we must scratch, is the yearning of the mother within us that seeks to be pregnant...pregnant with new dreams, of new lan
ds, of new people, of new ideas—marvelous inventions. It is our women whose bodies are our maps. Have you not seen the maps?”
In an almost sensate flash, a memory awakens in the Friar’s mind. Gratefully, Gerald shares in the remembering. Years before. Seeming ages, now. As a youth, before they committed him to the Order, back then, taken aside, woken late in the night, shaken from his slumber, wordlessly led to the room, a room of unforgettable light, not day bright, not moon-lit, not torched, rather a seething brightness, where his family—not doubting that they were all his family—had shown the map. Not explained, not described, just shown...its details meant nothing to him, symbols and imagery which raised no correspondences in his mind. Oh, I was so young! But he would forever remember—as odd to the dress of the times all were robed in white and the map glowed. Men and women brightly haloed. He also still sees the map in his mind, yet all of that night ever remaining but mystery, even confusion. This confounding night adventure was a parting gift as shortly thereafter he left home to become a Dominican postulant.
This dream was Satan’s Own, the Friar now has no doubt. For it came only one more time since....only once before this present moment, back during his torture of Mother Dolor!
Aha! Truly! Verily! Gerald, as doppelganger in mind and soul, shares the friar’s mystical memories and ponderings. It is quite evident, and he thrust the words at Friar Otto, “Fie! You do know.”
Awake! It is like the lost key once found that finally opens the impenetrable door to the treasure room. Just this affirming phrase “You do know” unlocks the Friar’s mind and heart on the ethereal plane and all at once all that has transpired today and over the last several days, like stormy, tree uprooting winds, a feeling, a vibration of basso profundity rocks his brain—the Friar strongly clasps his head....then it is evident—from out of the left bottom side of his left eye flickers a glint of red!
“You know all?”
“I know as you know. All that we know.”
We knowing that he penetrated her in the Black Mass ritual, that he lied believing he was lying to Satan which was not a sin so not a lie, and that he knew that Mother Dolor was not a witch.
“You knew.”
“We knew.”
How is Friar Otto to balance all of this? To be mystically coupled with his dear cousin and still walk the Earth? Can I sustain all that I now know? Lord have mercy!
Mercy comes on reassuring words. “My dear cousin, God, our Father and Mother, has sent me to test you like Job. In that way, I am a son of Satan as you so feared.” Gerald smirks and loosens a short guffaw. “Know that Mother Dolor was, in truth, protected by the family privilege. You could not kill her. She was here to give you new birth.” Gerald raises a hand to halt the friar’s response. “You are Lazarus. Your faith is to be tested with a second chance, with a new life.”
The innocence of Mother Dolor, which was so tangible to Friar Otto as he had gazed upon her savaged cadaver, had haunted him back then—it returns now. Was I too prideful? Did I commit Adam’s sin and deny Eve’s naked revelation, that she is Mother?
“You know now this as answer and not question.”
“Why did I not recognize myself in her, my kin? Before I....?
Salvation and forgiveness, neither is bought cheaply, this the Friar knows, but he is beyond desperation, trusting not even his own self. He blurts out to his cousin, “I buried her in sacred ground.”
“A daring gesture!” We honored you then, as we do now, dear brother.
“Blasphemous, if the others had known. Ha. You would have been handed over to the Inquisition! Ha.”
“True. Verily, the Lord be praised. Thank you Father for your mercy. I had asked myself Why? But I had no answer. I just knew that she was Innocent. That she was the Christ Child slaughtered by my Herodian hand! It was I who was the Devil’s Minion! I who was not priest but crucifier!”
Gerald, “We were there as you planted the rosebush at her graveside. It was then that I was called to tend to you.”
Later, after an early evening’s repast, Gerald informs the friar that he leaves on the morrow. “Open yourself, my dear brother—for we are twin brothers now, not cousins—to what I have to say and what she will bring to you tonight as you dream.”
Twin brother—he could not hear Gerald as Friar Otto, for his monkish ears were blocked by all the wrongheadedness of his Inquisitorial past, so he listened as twin brother—unnamed.
Curious, but true!
“There is a New World, my dear brother. Learn, there are only New Worlds! That is what we von Frakkens are about. We are the dreamers. We are the map-makers. Do you know whose maps that blockhead Genoese read? Ha! We had to draw the course for him. And Magellan—who else? Where have all the marvels and inventions of this Age of Discovery come from? The Teutonic mind, our soul! Gutenberg. Behaim. Durer. Bosch. Waldseemuller. Even Luther. Can you hear the charming song of all these martins?” Gerald is relishing his charming pun, off-setting his brother with a bellowing beer-hall outburst...a roar, teary-eyed guffawing; a snorting sniffle.
The Friar catches the laughter, but only mildly succumbs to its humor.
“We are dreamers who must be off to dream! Forsooth! Good eve and fare thee well, my brother, as our paths shall never cross again.” Gerald gets up to leave, halts after one stride, turns back, reaches out and embraces his brother. “We will always be twin brothers as we dream!” With that, both men retire to their cells.
My body is for you. My body is you. As you have denied, so have I opened. My breasts are goddess breasts, nurturing the world. I am the Earth. You are the Earth. My thighs are fiery hills. Mounds which light up the hunger of humankind. The lustful hunger and wandering. All seek my cave. To enter into my mysteries. It is you, Sweet of Heart, who has entered my cave. Penetrated me and transformed me. Sacrificed me. Offered me up—held me like the elevated Host. For this, know that I am you. You are me.
Am I awake to the day? “Am I awake to the day?” The thought is thought and the words are sounded, testing if all that has transpired between him and cousin Gerald was real or a dream...but which is what? Stymied, but only momentarily, as it becomes readily apparent that it takes more than some simple adjustment to adapt to the fading of the boundary between sleeping and waking. Am I awake in my dreaming? Or dreaming myself awake?
Waking...whether in dream or sunshine, does it really matter? “Sleeping” also means “awakening”, a rising up to a new way of seeing the world about him, the world of dream and the world of day time. It is being this awake that he flees towards—for She is there, always and everywhere, in his wakefulness.
Awake! It is with Her eyes that he now sees. Her feet with which he now walks. Her desire with which he is now all afire.
For he knows, definitely, what Gerald’s Um and Thum revealed—that her body was the map of the old world, of the Old Way—forsooth, she was a powerful Witch! That is why she did not deny. It was her glory! And her damnation—which was her salvation! Lord...MOTHER, have mercy!
As drawn by the fires within himself, so is he drawn to the fire within Her. Fire unto fire to purge and purify, to melt down and raise to casting heat, so is he come to Her. Within Her numinous womb, the once named Friar Otto...Otto...Frantz...all von Frakken...merge, integrate, are mystically One.
Dreaming. Now he laying upon the rack where she had lain. He now tied as she was chained. He now being purged of all that was her within him. Her, here, being that of women, of the feminine that accepted being the Virgin Mother of God—not a goddess, not a Mother Goddess, only less, being a handmaiden, the human mother of a god. She now to root that out and through their copulation turn what he thought a Black Mass into a sacramental act of sacred intercourse, of the birthing of a new soul...of a male who has within him a fully divine female. Mother Dolor chose her name mystically aware of the terrible victories Satan was indeed having within Christianity, most importantly, within her own family line. That by denying the fu
ll goddess motherhood of Jesus, so was His divinity denied! Willingly, she had come as so many of her sisters—accompanied by a few mystically empowered males—they, as bewitching, enchanting, and dream altering daughters of the Mother, sisters of Jesus...to awaken their Fallen brothers and sisters to the presence of the Mother within them. This Mother Dolor transmitted to her torturing cousin as they embraced in deeply erotic, numinous penetration as she died to give him birth! Behold, the Pieta!
“It has been passed down. Our women know it without being told. That is why Dagmar entered the convent. To find you. To serve you. To be your Mother. To Mother your sorrows upon her flesh and reveal to you the Mother within. Mother Dolor. Mater dolorosa.”
As Gerald walks away from the University’s grounds, he calls upon the love of all mothers, earthly and celestial, to be with this still youthful soul as he knows what is yet set before his awakening cousin. “May the Mother nurse you with Her bountifulness. May you be reborn to do Her Will.”
Awake! “ Friar Otto must die!”