Seven Sayings of Sedenya

1.“Rashorana, to live is to suffer, but to suffer is not to live.”

It was by these words that the Red Goddess illuminated Herself. What do they mean? In their simplest form, it is a straightforward statement. Life, within the unhealed world, is full of suffering. No one can pass through it and go unscarred, unwounded, unhurt. But we fall victim to occlusion. We conclude that because suffering is inevitable that it is in fact an ineffable truth. And so we are told this- to live is to suffer, but to suffer is not to live. Life extends beyond suffering. Isn’t it about time you opened your eyes all the way and found out what it is? But in a more rarefied form, you must understand that this is how the Red Goddess first showed the Lunar Way to Irippi Ontor, the logician. Within the secret laws of logic, there is a notion called an equality. If two things are equal, then they are in some sense the same and can be transformed into one another with ease. The opposite of the equality is the inequality. If two things are unequal they are not the same, and additional operations must be performed to equate them. The Red Goddess thus provides a partial syllogism. Life = Suffer, Suffer != Life. An equality and an inequality. A paradoxical statement, which Lunar sorcerers describe as the One Way Function. When one completes the syllogism, which cannot be done on the principles of pure reason alone, then one has been illuminated. Can you complete it? And so we see that reason alone cannot understand the Moon or the Red Goddess. There are always what the logicians call the priors or the axioms, but which we might call “the blinders” or the “smoked glasses”, in that they narrow our vision and partially occlude us. And yet occlusion is essential. For as we all know, as Rashorana the Red Goddess spread Her light with no filter, and so many of those who encountered it withered away, unable to understand and thus unable to withstand. We know that the glory of Her light is such that it shines through even into the legends of the goddess’s enemies, for do not the people of the Gusting Wheeze claim indeed that their “Unholy Trio” murdered “Rashoran”? Clearly, these beings of raw evil could not withstand Her light for even one second and were driven to berserk fury. But now let us come to the secret. This mantra was first spoken to Gerra by Rashorana, and yet it is addressed to Rashorana, and it is Rashorana who walks away. We all know that it is proper to introduce yourself according to the moments of your life, most notably your Sevening, and that you must say who Sevened you. But the answer you give is merely a glamour. Who Sevened you? Who illuminated you? You did. You illuminated yourself, you Sevened yourself, you kindled your light yourself, for Sedenya works within you and through you and you are Her. And within and through all of us, though most strongly through we who have cultivated our lunar light. We are all Us.

2. “The Victory shall be ours.”

A comment made by the Red Goddess to Yelmgatha, after an evening game of ouranekki, this was taken by poor Yelmgatha as a simple commentary on the likelihood of military victory against the Carmanians. The Red Goddess merely laughed and told him to go to sleep. Confused, he wondered what he had gotten wrong, and at last vented his frustration with his inability to understand. It fell to Deneskerva to explain things, as usual. She said this: “You have been told that death and life are equal for the Goddess, O Five-Sixths. What then is the purpose of slaying an enemy? You have done nothing but merely repositioned them. To kill is sometimes necessary, as it is sometimes necessary to sacrifice one’s pieces on the board. But it is never a goal, any more than the goal in wrestling is merely to shove your opponent back one step.” “So what is victory, then? How does my mother triumph? When She fought at the Battle of Seven Horses, She unveiled the littlest ray of her light to the Char-un people, and they were awakened to Her. They joined us. We had achieved a true victory, for the light shined now upon a people who had simply been blinded by their wild prairie sun.” “My mother’s seven great masks each contend against Her foes, Her champions against their champions. Verithurusa fighting with purity, Lesilla with love, Gerra with sorrow, Rashorana with truth, Ulurda with sensuality, Natha with balance, and Zaytenera with peace. Only when all seven have faced their champions, only when purity, love, sorrow, truth, sensuality, balance, and peace have been shared, only when They have become Us, shall we achieve Victory.” “And the Victory shall be Ours, my mother says, and I do believe She is right.” Yelmgatha bowed his head and pulled off his sandals. “Even though I only grasp your words like the hare grasped the walls of Alkoth, nevertheless I believe She is right too.” Deneskerva sighed and handed Yelmgatha his sandals back. “That is something,” she said. Be aware that Victory does not come from force alone, or violence alone. Victory comes only when you have completed the circle, when your enemy has recognized that they are a friend too. You cannot achieve Victory with but a single phase of the Red Moon. Be also aware that even if you do not understand the teachings of the Goddess on any more than the slightest level, nevertheless that you have grasped them at all is a sign that your eyes are beginning to open. But it is upon you to keep to the Way.

3. “I am not Myself.”

This cry came forth from the Goddess in the deepest depths beyond all Hells, when Yanafal Tarnils found Her, crucified, impaled, devoured, broken, a husk. What is the self? What is it that distinguishes “I” from “You”? You know that your soul has six parts, and a seventh. And yet one may share these parts with other people. So perhaps it is simply the particular assembly of parts which makes the unique soul, the self. And yet we know that Moonson has returned with five of his parts different every time he changes Masks, and indeed we know that all of Sedenya’s Masks have looked different, been different, been distinguishable. So we know that the self cannot simply be a matter of a combination of the parts of the soul into a unique thing. As the Goddess was being tormented by Blaskarth, She saw through the pain this clear thing- the self is a glamour. It is not an illusion. It is not a truth. One can be a many-souled being, one can be a many-bodied soul, souls can fuse and warp and meld and merge, and yet the self persists. And indeed, if you examine your self finely, you shall see that it is made up of many little parts. You may have your Virtue from Entekos, you might have your temper from Lodril, you might have a yawning hunger from Kazkurtum or the digijelm. They are all You, they are all I, and yet they are not You, they are not I. This is the self. You are always Yourself, you are never Yourself. You are a being, a kindled candle which illuminates, and yet you are never alone. You are constantly surrounded and drawing upon and merging with a whole panoply of beings. Even those things that you have rejected you have used to shape yourself, and so they are a part of you too. Know, then, that glamours are meant to conceal and misdirect. Your soul is a glamour. What does it conceal, what does it misdirect? I will tell you now, though you will not understand it, for I do not either. I simply touch hand to pen and the ink spills forth. She guides my words as firmly as she guides the universe. Your soul is a glamour that conceals you. It is a glamour which misdirects you. It hides away your Great Self, the being that you were, can, and will be. It convinces you that your Great Self is some being apart from yourself, that you are part of the Many and not part of the One. But you are One, and I am One, and we are all One too. The One is Many. We are all Us.

4. “I am not helpless. You are not helpless!”

Spoken by the Goddess many times, but you will have most likely heard or read it from the Lives of Sedenya. This was the cry that the Goddess made when She exhorted the people of First Blessed to rise up against the Carmanian Empire. This was the cry that She sent forth to the people of Old Dara Happa, from Elz Ast down to Darjiin. This was the message She delivered to the people of Carmania, who had thought that their whole lives would be a struggle against a lie and for the truth, for the light and against the dark. This missive She has delivered to all corners and sides of the world, it has resounded up and down, from Dayzatar’s Eye to the Last Knowable Hell. Time will only tell how long it takes people to understand this message and hear it and act upon it. What does this message mean? It is quite simple. The Goddess is not helpless, and so we are not helpless. When we are faced with the weight of oppression, we can fight back. Look at the Seven Mothers. A disgraced scholar for a tawdry scribal god, a failed warrior, a bandit and a pillager, a madwoman, a queen without a mantle, a street orphan, a servant. Would any one of you think, “Here, these people, they shall shake the world, they shall set the cosmos on to healing, they shall pierce all veils and burst all barriers!” Do not lie. You who reads this, you who hears this read to you, you who walk the streets of the world, your eyes are closed! You think that the Seven Mothers, that they were secretly heroes of old, that they were like Urvairinius or Avivorus come again. They were not. They were like you. They were like me. But perhaps you might think, “Oh, they were made special, made great, by the Goddess Herself.” That She stretched forth Her hand and blasted them with moonlight and, behold, Yanafal Tarnils became a master of the sword, Deezola gained power over life and death, Jakaleel became a great witch. And yet I tell you, the goddess does not create, She reveals. That which the Seven Mothers became, is what they always were and yet did not see. That which you will become, is what you are now and yet do not see. And all the things which you do not become, but which you might have been, those are also what you are now and what you were and what you will be too. We are all Us. If the Goddess is infinite, then we are infinite too. So She has said and so it is.

5. “I was akindled when Homura, the Gem, my first baby, was born.”

This is a familiar quotation. She used it whenever she introduced Herself. What is kindling? What is it that you are akindled? Sorcerers will say something about Runes. That is unimportant. When the Red Goddess was Lesilla, She was not yet illuminated. She did not yet see. She could not see the web. Homura, the Gem. The material things of wealth and power. These sought to tie the Goddess down, bind Her within the world and keep Her from ever establishing Her own place in the Otherworld. And yet when she looked upon the material world, upon her Homura, an inferno lit within the Goddess. She was kindled. Her light began to shine forth. For she still saw her Gem for what it was and yet loved it all the same. And that is your kindling. It is the moment when your compassion, your love for that which is imperfect, your beautiful light, begins to shine from you. So let us love. Let us act with compassion. Let's not let seeing things as they are stiffen our brow and render us stern and hard. We are illuminated beings and we also shine with our own light. And let us not forget that we, too, are imperfect beings. Indeed, even the Goddess is imperfect. Only Taraltara is truly perfect, but she is also absolutely imperfect. Perfection, true perfection, does not exist within an unhealed world. Lesser perfections do exist, or else I might be termed an utter hypocrite. Indeed, when I had a fellow philosopher as a lover, once they teased me by saying that as perfection was a characteristic of Oneness, I couldn’t honestly say that all my lovers had been perfect. I offered three rejoinders. Firstly, I said that their perfections were the Manyness reflection of Oneness perfection, secondly, I said that my words were indeed a mystery, even to myself sometimes, and thirdly, I took them by the hand and gently kissed it. Thus, I too am for sure a flawed being, for I have taken the great act of loving and muddied it with the pedantries of the sophists. Forgive yourselves your imperfections, and let us not let them weigh us down. Let us remember that when Homura grew she joined with Madoka, the great magician of the Poralistor, and so did the material world rejoin with the transcendent. The Goddess saw the web and kissed the weaver.

6. "Vibe Check!"

The Goddess declared this many times. It was a frequent exclamation of Hers. Whenever She was introduced to someone new, after greetings She would often say this, usually gently tapping them on the forehead. Normally She would follow this up with some small words of praise. But She also screamed it forth just before Her scythe swung down on the Shah of Carmania. And after that, She was heard to say, "Terrible, just terrible." And this mystery confused many. One day when the Goddess was instructing Etyries on the proper uses of hazia, Etyries at last ventured to ask Her just what that meant. The Goddess giggled uncontrollably, fell over on Her side, and finally said, "I'm hungry, let's find something to eat." As they ate, the Goddess said, "This is what I look for when I say that. This is the fullness of goodness that I sought." And She kissed Etyries in delight. And Etyries finally understood, but she never told anyone else what the Goddess had meant. This is because not everything can be told through words. Some things can only be experienced, and some things can only be felt, and some things are true mysteries beyond any of these. And so when the Goddess spoke, She was truly instructing us in the limits of our existence, and yet in turn how to transcend them. For you have already transcended- within your dreams, within your flashes of insight, within your moments when you can’t believe how you’re acting. Your transcendence, your light within, shines through in those moments, and prepares you for when you finally become illuminated in the Goddess’s light.

7. "We are all Us."

Shall I tell you a secret? You are probably sure that you know what this saying means. You have heard it often enough, no matter who you are that reads this, barbarian or Heartlander, citizen or subject. But you have not yet understood it, unless you are enlightened. 

You have probably seen the outer face of the Goddess and of Her message. You have gathered that it is a message of universal love and compassion, that there is no Them, there is only Us, there is only We. That we can all be We, that we can all be one. That is true and glorious and great. It is lovely indeed. But it is only the surface. 

What lies underneath the surface? If we were to take a shovel, so to speak, and dig, what would we turn up? 

This is not a matter that can be understood, I will say. I do not understand it fully myself. I may not even understand it at all. All that I, humble as I am, can do is merely transmit the message that has been passed on to me. 

Let us think back to the Lives of Sedenya. In that moment at the edge of the universe, where She had pulled off the mask of Taraltara and seen Her own face underneath, She said four words. "We are all Us," she said, and so too did a corpse at her feet say them, and a little girl standing before her, and a man with his head hung low before her two, and a scholar holding a dagger in one hand and a shield in the other, bleeding, and a queen with a sword and two spears stabbing her, and an old woman whose spirits had just been eaten away by the hungry mouth of sorcery, and a whisper on the wind. All in one moment, they spoke together. And death and life were, for a moment, one. And the dead returned to the land of the living, and the dying returned to life, and they knew for a moment that they were all Her. That they, Teelo Estara, Yanafal Tarnils, Teelo Norri, Danfive Xaron, Irippi Ontor, Deezola, Jakaleel, and She-Who-Waits, they were all Great Sedenya.

And they were all, for a moment, Taraltara too. They were all us.

And we are all Us. We are all Great Sedenya. We are all Taraltara the Unknowable. We are all part of Her. This is the truth that Sevening brings to you, that you glimpse when you become illuminated. It is not something that can be said with words or felt with hands or known with the mind, and yet I have tried in my own limited way to do so here, so that you might well see a signpost for the road ahead, even though the road itself remains hidden to you. 

Go forth and know that when we have all recognized Usness within ourselves and everyone else, that the Moon Cosmos shall be here. We shall neither live nor die, move nor stand still, be in order or disarray, know the objective or the subjective. Go forth and let others know of the blessings which await them on the way. Illuminated beings, let your lights shine.

Little books like this were popular when I was a kid. They've never really gone out of style, but back when I was young they were everywhere. You could barely move for a blizzard of little tracts for your edification. It's a wonder we weren't illuminated from the time we were twelve years old, or Sevened by the age of twenty. 

This one I do enjoy for its own sake, and not just as something to collect and codify.