the spectrum heart cathedral system

The RED realms seem to have this inherently apocalyptic vibe, post-massacre. It stuck hard. But this image gives hope. Although still red with bloody glow, existentially disturbing in its unnatural hue, the sky above is shot through with stars… and grids. Those grids somehow complement the “end of the world” aesthetic while adding an unexpected feeling of consolation, of hope. The grids are the bone structure of reality, the framework of the world. They are the beginning, and the stripped-down revelation of the end, when all else burns and collapses. In the end of it all it never really ends. And maybe that’s the secret heart of RED– the truth of blood itself, of life and death intertwined. There is something greater, and we are the closest to it in birth and the grave. When we feel we are about to die, we can reach out and touch it. Isn’t it strange, so terrifying and yet beautiful? I love it dearly.

It’s always been my heart-color. I don’t understand it. It is a frightening color. But I will love it, inevitably, until I die too.

 

 

june 24th entry.

we took huge measures to prevent all future hacks yesterday, and then today some fcker went and used one of the ANCIENT hack methods, one of the "60 seconds and you're dead" ones.
someone utterly pissed off came out, don’t know who, but they were full of nothing but hatred of the mother. early 20s I guess, female pronouns but not a female (typical). jay temporarily semi-fronted to tell them that they can't be feeding hatred, even if it's legitimate, we can't just say "okay it exists let's just let it continue." we had to heal it somehow, without burying it. jay said this fronter was "feeding into the hatred you feel the mother manifests," i.e. in their eyes, the mother was nothing but a walking mirror of rage and hatred and spite and manipulation, therefore when in her presence they "looped" that right back? feedback loop. jay said we had to stop that somehow.
algorith came out to atone. called sugar in to help. only those two.
shockingly solid overlay for algorith, zir 'accent' came through too, which is rare (ze has a voice that can't be imitated or forced but algorith previously hasn't come through strongly enough for it to settle in well).

at some point laurie came in, I remember algorith was crying over the bathtub drain, her hair/visor crystal clear in the memory data. she was saying something about numb states? said that "this really fcking hurts" but the physical pain was so distant, the real pain was this inexplicable crushing sadness that the physical pain was dragging out? the same sort of awful choking sobs that ashen usually is associated with.
algorith was also upset because "there's no comprehension tied to the language," i.e. saying things like "we were hacked," "someone abused us," "we were damaged against our will," etc. DOESN'T REGISTER ANYMORE??? like the words mean nothing. I've noticed we've been getting this with reading in general lately. unless words are tied to visuals and/or sensations, they are empty. so we will have to work with that from now on.
algorith also said that in such cases, then sheer honor and duty are important. even if we don't feel anything, atonement needs to happen, because THAT at least has a real response-- it elicits this sorrowful agony, and it DOES help prevent hacks when weaker people are out because many of them are well aware that there WILL be retribution if they are careless or apathetic.
sugar's overlay didn't quite register well; she has been conflicted over her color lately, she's not sure if she's truly pink or cerise. so that's her struggle right now, we're keeping tabs on it.
knife showed up afterwards, said he couldn't bear dealing with this again. he's so fragile, but he snaps. not long ago he flat-out went old school on whoever got hacked, took out the knife and was brutal. but he came to his senses later and just crumpled into sobs. its heartbreaking but, again, emotions are almost totally absent in these states? why????
we've been wondering if there is outside influence. maybe it sounds psychotic but really. mind control, chemicals, bad vibes, etc. who knows. either way we NEED to be vigilant and tough here.
also just remember, and that is notable, the "empty apathy" ONLY HAPPENS IN HACK SITUATIONS!!!! in other situations, with other fronters, THAT DOESN'T HAPPEN. we CAN still feel, very strongly, but the instant these hacker shitheads show up then nope, we're bleached out like plaster. it's not good.

sugar got a little overboard, which was also heartbreaking-- some "voice" or data log upstairs was trying to get her to "feel emotions" because she wasn't processing anything either, and did so by saying "someone innocent was hurt. aren't you a protector of innocents? you weren't there to protect them. they got hurt because you weren't there." and THAT tore at her like a knife, the grief was massive, she immediately grit her teeth against the pain and just started cutting. algorith was telling her "that's enough," so was mr sandman??? (he seems to hang around; we are kind of paranoid because we're not always sure if it's him or a copier) but she wouldn't stop, she was in tears, saying "it's not enough, it'll never be enough," felt like the old cannon days where there was so much contrition that no amount of blood would ever atone for it. it's a horrible feeling. but she stopped, algorith stepped in to clean up, that's when she got hit by the sadness and said what was written earlier.
the word "catharsis" stands out. once again pain is proven sacred, the RIGHT SORT OF PAIN.
I can't help but wonder if this is why hacks are happening? subconsciously. like we are fighting them constantly, desperately, with everything we have, but we're wondering. there are two windows that we can't seem to close, that hackers are sneaking in. the first is FORGETFULNESS. it's due to dissociation and splitting. people DON'T REALIZE WHAT HACKS ARE and then get tricked by false promises and then we have the original situation all over again, except not, because the apathy or hatred kicks in, and we don't know where all the actual hurt and scared people are. the second window is PAIN. always, always, when you get people out who know what hacks are, they justify it with "the pain is worth it." NO IT'S NOT!!!!!!!!! THE PAIN IS NOT WORTH IT!!!!!! YOU WANT PAIN, WE'LL GIVE YOU PAIN, THERE ARE A LOT OF KNIVES IN THIS FCKING HOUSE, WE SHOULD CARRY ONE AROUND AT THIS POINT
sorry. that's a good idea though. pocket knives. we should get one. xacto knives. razor had one, somewhere.
but yeah. pain has always been an issue because it's tied to "how much can I endure?" and endurance of more and more pain is viewed as strength, is viewed as something honorable and desirable. WHY? where did that start??? childhood??? it's this obsession with pushing oneself to the limit until they crumple in agony, then the instant they recover, throwing MORE pain at them. the goal is to push and push and push more and more pain until something snaps or breaks, and then we CAN'T endure any more. it's literally a death drive of some sort, it has to be. it will literally force endurance UNTIL SOMETHING ELSE STOPS IT. it will NOT stop of its own accord. and THAT is the problem with hacks.
THAT IS THE PROBLEM WITH HACKS
because they typically don’t EVER stop until someone is in excruciating pain and the retributors come out. you can fight them off for hours, days, weeks. they wont stop because "they've already started, and now we have to finish it."
god damn it I DON’T WANT TO FINISH THIS I DON’T WANT THIS AT ALL
its horrible, it's that horrible ladder mindset, "step 1 means step 100 is inevitable," in other words don't even think of touching the tar, because one drop will turn into a coffin. its inescapable. its horrible.

we forgot that, way way way back when, the tar used to hack the younger girls by TURNING INTO PEOPLE. dream hacks did that too. we forgot about those. we still get them sometimes but we've forgotten about them. isnt that sick, that's how bad the depersonalization has gotten
but. yeah. it's still a thing. people keep FORGETTING that the tar and plague EXIST, "the devil's finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist," etc. its these damn hyperhappy people, these superspiritual ones, that are so willing to see good in EVERYTHING that they forget that THERE IS STILL "BAD" STUFF OUT THERE, evil DOES exist damn it, STOP JUSTIFYING EVERYTHING, IT DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY
this forgetting and hand-waving "its okay" bullshit will be the death of us if we don’t shape up soon.
there is a fine line, there IS A LINE, MORALITY EXISTS, STOP STEPPING ALL OVER IT
the whole "sacred or profane" thing doesn't fcking apply when you refuse to acknowledge that profanity is STILL an option, you jackasses. and when you're fcking up people's lives trying to "make everything sacred," then all you're doing is sending EVERYTHING straight to hell.



other things, good things.
went for a job interview today. if we get it, we'll never have to worry about money again, haha. here's hoping. it might be tough but we're willing to give it our all.
picked cherries today. the tree in the backyard actually had fruit this year and the bugs and birds DIDN'T EAT IT. which is rare, haha. so we were up in a tree this morning, in the clear sunny weather. it was nice, if not for the literal clouds of bugs following us around.
eating is starting to hurt less. however, it's surprising, because the foods that used to hurt horrendously used to be addiction foods, possibly due to texture or self-abuse. but! now, even though we're trying to re-introduce them, we're finding that even if they DON'T hurt as bad anymore, we DON'T want them anymore. which is terrifically freeing and a huge relief. really they're still nauseating, but at least now we don't feel "obligated" to eat them, and at least now we do have that reassurance that if we have no other option, they won't cause us excruciating pain. there is still a huge amount of fear tied to eating anything that's not a vegetable, which we want to heal without hitting the opposite extreme again (forcing ourselves to eat the very foods that cause us pain "to fix the fear," it only adds to it). but we are healing. it's an odd process; the healing itself seems to happen effortlessly and without warning, like dead leaves falling by themselves. which is nice.
emmett and aimee were out momentarily today, on that note. it's good whenever they're around.
we think FIG was out???? we've been trying to pinpoint the other eating alters, one of the big ones is not human but we cannot figure out their overlay. eaters are always inhuman, often monstrous and typically vicious, because we view eating as monstrous, animalistic, vulgar, etc. so in order to eat, in order to consume and destroy, one must be an animal, a monster. you get the idea. humanoids cannot eat because it is humiliating and filthy and very very jarring. we've realized that. so yes, someone was out eating and they unsurprisingly had a lot of teeth or something, this is not a new person though, just haven't had this sort of "actual eating" situation in weeks. so fig might not be dead. i just don’t want to repeat this sort of situation, fig doesn't eat green food, emmett does, and that's what we typically stick with. but today was trying those danger foods again and someone else was out. we'll see, I guess.

we've spent most of today otherwise queuing stuff on our alternate tumblrs. we have this file full of "to queue" posts that we just stockpile, and then we just take a day or two to fill them up. we don’t really like tumblr but it is still a way to inspire people, so we keep it going because hey, one person can still make a difference. us sharing something might reach someone who really needed it, and might not have otherwise seen it. you never know. so we do that effort.
of course the system people have their blogs too, at least the people who like that sort of thing do. leon has one but he's not into blogging so he's never used it, haha. infinitii is the polar opposite, I swear ze has like 2000 things to queue, I have no idea if that’s because ze resonates with what a lot of people post? could be, that sort of alien/ angel/ shadow/ star/ etc. vibe seems to be quite prevalent on tumblr lately. but in any case, apparently jay follows a lot of blogs that post the kind of stuff infi likes, so.
jay said he likes looking at infi's blog because it's very reassuring? not sure if word matches entirely. but it fills him with a lot of deep appreciation and hope, seeing infi's vibe represented in an abstract way there, by hir own construction.


on father's day, jay had the xbox all to himself and he actually played nier for an hour.
that, plus other events lately, is making us realize that whoever was out in 2011 is STILL ALIVE. it's whatever host originally took the name "eros" but then got corrupted and faded out. well our current eros is NOT that guy, we all know that, he just has the name as it fit. but what do we call this kid then? we're saying "cupid" for now but the name does not fit at all. either way he CAN still front and he is STUCK in late 2011? every previous host is.
in any case, this is all very existential. jay is learning where his boundaries of self are, where he cannot exist, where other people move in to take his place, etc. it's important because no other host has ever done this before, but we have to now, now that we're aware that we have d.i.d. and switching is a thing.
laurie is taking it hard, even if she won't show it. her very existence is tied to the hosts/cores, and this sudden revelation that there's NOT just one, that she might deal with four or more different "hosts" per day and she might not know who they are, is very existentially shaking to her too.
she always sees jay iridos (does that name still fit him??? our current "inner core") at night, but that's the only constant now. there is at least one other white-haired host, could be up to three, we're checking past timelines, there were SO many breaks and resets since the Jay(ce) bloodline began but, just like the Jewels, they were ALL USING THE SAME NAME. so now we have to go back and differentiate these people.
xenophon's not sure how to deal with all this yet. we feel sorry for her. we all love her, but this whole parental confusion situation has got to be really upsetting for a child, no matter how much that child has been through.
jay has told her that no matter what, he'll be there for her. she still calls him dad, even if he isnt. I think that says a lot too.

boats are everywhere lately.
remember last year we were getting tons of animal symbolism? mainly deer and yellow swallowtails. all in the winter, they were everywhere.
now it's boats. EVERYWHERE. this has been slowly building up for a few months I will admit. but its all piling up. doesn't feel like it will "stick around," just like right now its message is needed and important, and once we get it, it'll sail away. (carry on, for the record)

our therapist said something interesting too, on monday. she was talking about how lord of the rings has been a huge influence in her life, literally for decades, but then after she rewatched the movies several times that urgency just faded out. like I said about the leaves earlier, same thing but positive. it played its role and now it was a free thing, no longer insistent. and she said sometimes that happens, sometimes a movie or book or song will just jump back into our awareness, and we will feel that need to revisit it, because it has a message for us again. maybe it's a new one, maybe it's an old one we didn't fully integrate or understand at first.
as she was talking I thought of "island" by aldous huxley, how genesis and I would always stop and re-read the last chapter whenever we were in the bookstore, how that same chapter is now perpetually tied to laurie thanks to the karuna event (hence the title). we have a copy of the book on our computer, but no physical copy (we really should buy one). anyway yeah I told her that when we first read it in early 2012 (the spring, a MISSING TIME PERIOD, which is actually hugely relevant so maybe we SHOULD reread it ASAP), and that Xenophon actually had to practically force us to continue through that one chapter as it was so absolutely life-altering and terrifying that we couldn't handle it. that's actually one of the only things we remember about early 2012, is sitting on that couch in the middle of the college lounge, quickly shutting down and dissociating, but she was standing on our legs and shaking us awake, calling us "dad," telling us we had to keep reading, it was important.
geez. that whole spring is a shattered mess of dissociated, uncomfortable vibes. like whoever was around at the time (probably multiple people) had a toxic-positive vibe far too often? looking back then feels TOO optimistic, like someone trying too damn hard to be "totally good" and ending up on the opposite side. which, if I'm not mistaken, is what happened in early 2012.
…maybe that's something we should re-read and discuss in therapy. the very thought is making me literally panic and want to vomit. there is FEAR tied to early 2012, the same kind of fear we used to get before a brutal thunderstorm, when the wind was whipping the trees sideways and our grandmother was cackling that a tornado was coming to tear our house down. same kind of utter pinprick dread.
and it's yellow. josephina I'm so sorry. it's a sort of washed-out yellow gray, the color of a tornado sky. which makes sense. I'm well aware that early 2012 WAS rather horrifying at times, it was a hell of a mess, it was rife with confusion and pride and overcompensating and trying too damn hard. we have forgotten virtually ALL of it, and the therapist has reminded us that is a PROTECTIVE instinct, but… we need to remember. we need to remember, especially with how much has been revisited lately, it's a frightening though but we need to remember.

oh, she also mentioned the whole "hero's journey" concept, by joseph campbell, and I remembered that we literally have an incredible book of symbolism by him right on our shelf in our room. I told her that, she laughed and took an audio copy of it off her bookshelf. well there you go! she said maybe we should reread it. considering how we literally went on a symbolism binge two weeks ago, and I've been mulling that over since then, I think we should. that book was "dropped in our lap" really; we randomly stopped at a library by our community college one afternoon, they were having a book sale, we just happened to see that book on the shelf, had some cash on hand, bought it. magic! we did read it once and I remember it was EXTREMELY informative. there was a whole section on religion and marriage which I keep thinking about, gonna have to reread that, with all the research we've been doing on purity culture and how that played into our trauma history (STILL not done with those entries, they're hard to write, I admittedly keep procrastinating as a result). so that's a thing to do.
she said the whole "hero's journey" thing really applied to trauma patients, how they are uprooted and tossed into a sort of personal psychological quest of healing. she said for us that was a good thing to keep in mind; healing and "going back home" at the end does NOT invalidate or "delete" the journey. going back home sometimes means to a different home. we said all that and she said it was true.
but yeah that's a thought about the boats too, the symbolism bit. I know they're about navigation and travel (ties into the journey thing? i know boats are also associated with death/rebirth) and also WATER, water symbolism is huge in general but especially in our System, but there's so much. we have some data we need to read through already, about boats as symbols, so we will, and then get back to you. I just wanted to mention that therapy did assist towards that topic.


last thing. the important things (truest things) are always last. that's another bad habit from childhood. "you must suffer/ endure bad things/ etc. before you deserve a good thing." and then by the time you've "suffered enough," you no longer have TIME for the good thing, or you're in too much pain to appreciate it, or something else where you ultimately lose it. we push it to the end, we end up pushing it off a cliff, it never gets written or experienced. we end up feeling empty and unfulfilled and miserable and we keep forgetting we don’t have to do this. we can have these good things, if only we'd stop "saving them for last." it's really really unhealthy. it's bullshit, laurie says.
she's tied to most of the truest things, so.
but. last night, no idea what led up to it,
lately jay has been "out of it" upon awaking and falling asleep? which isnt good. usually going to sleep is the only solid chance we get during a day to reconnect with headspace, for jay to be "out" at all, as he's an inner-anchored person. and its very important, spiritually and emotionally, for us to tune back in inside after the rush and rabble of the day outside. but, not sure if its nightmares or stress or the environment downstairs, jay hasn't been sleeping well? chaos hasn't been taking it well.
quick addition, chaos is still a mess with names, lots of conflict. he's really uncomfortable with his original name unless it contains the "zero" at the end. but he has at least four different names that he uses currently. we keep going back to "chaos" because of the profound significance that name has picked up over the years (with cosmogony myths & things), and because we really do need to stop rejecting our "darker sides" because of forced absolute positivity. yes the "sea of serenity" title still fits, yes all the dream world titles still fit, yes it all fits. but up here it's always either chaos or cz, always either the cosmic void or a naturally flawless gemstone. seriously this guy is just full of significance, it's really amazing.
but he adores jay. and jay adores him. and lately jay has been really foggy when he wakes up, he doesn't forget people or blank out, he's just really out of it. disconnected. and that sort of bleary unintended ignorance hurts a lot, because how do you get through that? it's not a wall, it's a misalignment. you reach in one direction and it doesn't match up right.
but it doesn’t stay. thank god, it doesn’t stay. that’s one thing we're all thankful for, is that jay has not lost himself. there have been a LOT of threats of a host reset lately, all of which laurie has responded to with no small amount of anguish, but it seems like jay is vitally important just as he is, even if his role seems "small." its hugely important, no matter how niche it is, so to speak.
jay's been asking lynne if she can get closer to the rest of us, kind of like how josephina is trying to put hir unexpected walls down. lynne's an oldbie so it is rather shocking that she isn't that close to anyone besides spine, laurie, and julie-- and even then, spine is the only one she talks to in quiet, with that much honesty. but she's aware of this, and it bothers her. she's orange, she's one of the "lower" spectrum colors (if you think of the rainbow as vertical), and they all have edges. again, tying her in with josephina with events lately. so we're trying to talk to her more upstairs, more openly. I mean it's kind of inevitable now. lynne's always been the stable one, the peacekeeper, the mischievous yet hospitable smile keeping everyone together. the violinist, the jokester, the idea girl, the autumn warmth. but she has an edge. and she's deeper than even she admits, too. after that attempted reset barely a month ago… there was data stored, jay saw some of it, fragments but enough. he says he feels things more than sees them. and he felt the punch to the heart as she cried, as lynne sobbed, learning that laurie was the first to go. she told laurie this on her own later, I think laurie is still fully processing that, that one of her closest friends cares about her that much. but it's good. to have this communication now, this honesty.
as for the other lower color person. the "lowest" color on the spectrum, making it the anchor between headspace and the physical, the color that was previously so important and sacred that only cores held it. red. javier's color.
so jay hasn't been sleeping so well, but he's trying. and he is genuinely trying to promote sincerity within the system, with the more he reads, and relearns, and the more we experience. he is succeeding.
we're all growing. the color realms are being built. it's surging with hope.
but last night, again, no idea what led to it, but jay ended up wondering how javier was doing. how's the red, is there a realm for it yet, we haven't spoken to him in a while, how is he? so he goes looking, but he forgets its late at night so everything is being tinged by dream now, everything is unhinging and floating into blackspace, for the night. so when he steps into the theoretical red realm he ends up seeing something like this. the way the city looked in december of 2013, when everything hung on the edge of death, and javier was brought back to life in the face of it, against all odds, against all opposition.
what jay really didn’t expect was to find javier there anyway, in tears, before throwing his arms around jay and sobbing that he loved him.
jay says he really wasn't surprised. he and javier have always felt close, from even before javier manifested. it's probably an inherent connection between the red and the white.
jay asked didn't javier love jeremiah already, javier said absolutely, but that was a different sort. softer, quieter, very affectionate. very pink. this, for jay, was something built on empathy, something sharper. something genuine in the way laurie's love is genuine, a quality that cannot occur without having shared blood, fear, honesty, secrets, trust.
so there it was. jay said then in that case he was allowed up in the core-room from then on, no exceptions. not that night, it was too volatile already, too late. but if he wanted to build on this then he had to join the club, so to speak.
so that's the state of that. javier is already rather close to laurie, surprisingly, but they don't really 'know' each other as people well enough yet. not enough mutual experiences. nevertheless javier has a great heart and laurie has already expressed how profoundly grateful and happy she is to finally be reconnecting with a Red, how she misses working with people of that color. so it's nice.
we're not worried about genesis, he immediately befriends anyone nice. chaos has such an open heart he'd never think of denying anyone an honest chance, and he always looks for the best in people anyway. and infinitii loves everything by default, so.
all in all this turns the pentagram into a potential hexagon, and if we include the two stragglers who've been hanging around for a literal decade by now, we have an octagram, how cool is that.

it's almost 2am and we really should not be going to sleep this late, that's probably whats making us so sick. sleeping during the day is ALWAYS dangerous, 95% of the time we get nightmares and/or hacks and that is not good at all. so this needs to change, which means we need to stop working late.

good night everyone. life is brighter lately, we're working hard to keep it that way.