SHALL THE RITUAL BEGIN

2024.07.06 - 2024.08.03

Artist: Lilyjon

Quote: The Mysterious Poet

[20?? Year?? Month??Day]
That day I was planning to pass the time in a cafe flipping through a nameless book of poems.

"Sir..."

A man hurriedly rushed to me and waved.

"Mister! Hello."

We were only a step away, but I was never able to get a good look at him, so here I can only portray him to you as best I can. He was about 30 years old, thin and tall (sometimes I think he shouldn't be that thin or tall), slightly hunched over when he stood, and dressed casually (but not shabbily or sloppily). He looked indifferent (at least for the moment), and there seemed to be an overpowering affliction or melancholy hanging over his face, but he didn't seem to take it personally, and I almost thought he was a practitioner of Stoicism, but he was by no means a monk as such. When I gazed into his eyes I saw that the wear and tear that life, or whatever else, had brought upon him he wasn't indifferent to. He was angry.

"Sir, excuse me! May I sit here?"

A strange man. That's what I thought. He didn't care if he disturbed me, he did it deliberately, with a clear purpose.

"Have I seen you before? I mean do we know each other?"

He shook his head, pointing to the book of poems in my hand and asking me how were the poems.

"Today I read almost two pages in a book by a mystical poet"

At that he laughed like someone who'd cried a lot.

[20?? Year?? Month??Day]
Since then I have often come across this strange man in the neighborhood. I would nod at him out of courtesy and began to wonder who he was, because he always seemed to be doing nothing. Sometimes I saw a bit of paint on his trousers, and I thought he was probably an artist, a depressed one. Once I went to a cafe to pass the time with that nameless book of poems again, he came up to me and told me that he was in fact the author of the book of poems, and that his name was 离离众. I was amazed at his talent and praised him for the mystery and timelessness of the words he wrote, but he was even more humble, and I felt anger in his humility?

“Does my verse make sense if the universe doesn't make sense?

In geometry does a part exceed the whole?

In biology does the function of the organs

Have more life than the body?”

After getting acquainted with 离离众. I was invited to his studio. I had never been in a poet's place before. Apart from what I expected to be a table piled high with books and papers, there was also an easel at the other corner of the room near the balcony, paints and brushes on the floor and some messy little installations? (Probably all in progress)

"You can paint! But you never told me you were also an artist." Although I had already guessed, I was still curious as to why 离离众 had said nothing about it.

"Sir, you've misunderstood! 离离众 is a Heteronyms who exists as a [Writer] and [Poet], Lilyjon is the Heteronyms who is an [Artist].”

However, where is Lilyjon? I didn't see Lilyjon that day, and I haven't seen Lilyjon since then, and then, 离离众 disappeared as well.

During the days when 离离众 was still present as usual, out of curiosity I asked him many times about Lilyjon's story. Sometimes he would say that Lilyjon was dead(He even told me in no uncertain terms that Lilyjon died on the last day of April at the age of 31), but then he would whisper to me that Lilyjon might not be dead. He explained to me, Lilyjon is neither here nor there. Lilyjon is in a kind of intermediate state [from death to life], fixed in the isolation between transformations. Or perhaps Lilyjon is just a young girl tired of playing and resting in the grass. And of all this, no one knows.

[20?? Year?? Month??Day]
A few days ago 离离众 took the initiative to tell me that he was in fact a Heteronyms created by Lilyjon, and that he and more Heteronyms were now going to work together to complete a [Ritual]. 离离众 and all the other Heteronyms are both the conditions of the [Ritual], and at the same time constitute the complete the [Ritual]. 离离众 was also revealed to me that one of these Heteronyms was known as the "Priest of Atsae" (perhaps that was how it was spelt).

"I am as indispensable as the element [Salt] in alchemy ...... Hopefully Lilyjon will eventually find the [Sage's Stone].”

离离众 approached me with a clear purpose. He needed someone - a presence as a [The Audience] to record the [Ritual] and spread the [Ritual]. I was amazed that one person could have such a rich, deep world of souls. I still don't know who Lilyjon is - and yet I was willing to record and tell everything truthfully for a Heteronyms who may never have really existed. I think the departed congregation is truly a mysterious [Poet] who guides me.

“Mystical poets are sick philosophers

And philosophers are crazy.”

Perhaps it is in character, I deeply love this alienated, revelatory philosophical [Mysticism]. From [The Sacred] to [The Sacred as Transgression], shall the [Ritual] begin.

Chapter I: SHALL THE RITUAL BEGIN

[20?? Year?? Month??Day]

Master of The Ritual: Lilyjon and ███

Participants of The Ritual: Lilyjon and ███

Recorder of The Ritual: [The Audience]

Location of The Ritual: ██████

[The Audience]: The first time is always overwhelming. I don't know where this is (stomps foot), is it a patch of grass? Well, at least it seems to be. The whole space is hidden in darkness and silence, but I can see for a few meters around me. What was that? Oh dear, let me see how I can describe it to you - yes, there are large coloured pins? Stuck in the ground, but without any metallic sheen.

[The Audience]: I think I see the [Altar] (I'm not sure I can call it that), two small round tables covered with lake-blue tablecloths...they both have just one thin inverted triangular black round-headed leg...suspended in the grass. (In front of me) Three eyeballs are scattered on the table at the left hand side? , and a red coral fork placed on the round table at the right hand side...shhh, here they come... The [Ritual] is about to begin.

[The Audience]: █████████，███Inverted Triangle████████。████，████，██████Vein Lines██████████████. █Eyeballs███████████████.███Antidotes███████Sadness██████！██████Disappear██████

[The Audience]: (scene changes at this moment)██？██████████Knife.█Eating███████████Inverted Triangle█████，█████████。███████████instinct████████。████████████Inverted Triangle█████，███████████Eating██Unbelievable!

P.S. For some reason, most of the text documenting the [Ritual] scene is no longer legible. Fortunately, there are still some paintings and installations at the site. Perhaps they were left behind by Lilyjon! I forwarded the artwork, along with the text, to an [occult] expert who describes himself as an [Ancient Scholar] who claims to be a professor at [Miskatonic University]. (I'm sceptical about that, he's 30 years old at the most, and I think he's just a lecturer or assistant professor, but if someone can help me with Lilyjon's [Ritual], I mean, why not?) [Ancient Scholar] went to America with all the information and we agreed to keep in correspondence.

Chapter II: Taste of Dark Clouds (One of the Psalms)

[20?? Year?? Month??Day]

A few months later, I received a letter from the [Ancient Scholar]. (He had my email address, but he insisted on writing and sending it to me. An old-fashioned, traditionalist.) Here is the text of the letter, and since it is handwritten, I will do my best to identify and translate it.

?? Day ?? Month 20?? Year

Mr [The Audience],

See the letter as it is.

There are no direct flights from the mainland to Essex County, which simply sucks, and I'll need several connections + a bus ride to get back to school. Hell, the school had to reimburse me for my travel expenses. Luckily all of Lilyjon's work is in good condition. Well, I must admit that maybe a few pills or an eyeball were lost ...... At least I made it through the plane security with no problem, just a few little tricks like ███████.

Back to the main topic. First of all, you have to know something about the characteristics of [The Sacred].

"[The Sacred] is related as a common property, solid or ephemeral, to certain objects (the instruments of the cult), to certain beings (kings, priests), to certain places (temple, church, mountain peak), to certain times (Sunday, Easter, Christmas, etc.)."

This implies that the trait [The Sacred] is a quality that things do not possess in themselves, and so needs to been added to/taken away of through a mystical [Ritual]. Lilyjon's view is similar but bolder, in that the divine, the human, and the non-human are one and the same in her eyes.

"Reveal light by darkness, holiness by sin, love by loneliness.”

Based on all the materials left at the site, I judge that this is a [Ritual] that has lasted for several years and is still going on, and Lilyjon named it [Taste of Dark Clouds]. I interpreted the paintings and installations left at the site, and [The Taste of Dark Clouds] can be understood as a form of Lilyjon's concern for the issues of "body" and "seeing" within art, as well as the issue of "humanity". In terms of subject matter, it also begins to put people in a "desperate situation", deifying and humanising them. The repeated use of the inverted triangle structure, while presenting the rhyming state of the poem, also generates a certain unstable sense of coercion and mystery. While following the "material build-up" of classical painting, the "body" replaces the "flesh", and the "gaze" replaces the "peep", I think it maybe reflect a questioning and aversion to the classical tradition of women being viewed and displayed. The precise correspondence of the diptychs, the control of structure, proportion and rhythm, the strict selection and repetition of various elements, Lilyjon's endeavour to establish some sort of strict proportions and forms similar to those of Thangkas or Ancient Egyptian frescoes, and to establish some sort of [Altar] and [Ritual]. Given that you're a rookie in the occult, I'll start by listing to you the symbolism of some common things for reference.

Mirrors – Watching and Being Watched

Candle – Time, Memories, Shared Emotions

Striped clothes - Sick clothes, Nightgown, Sleepwalking

Medicine, cutlery - Eating, Instinct

Machinery/bodies/objects - Coercion and Being Coerced

████——████

And I think "chair" is perhaps the most important imagery in [Taste of Dark Clouds]. At least on the surface, it is not a device for resting, but an artificially designed environment and position for supporting/fixing the body and defining identity. The "chair", together with the "body", forms a mystery to be solved - in this case, the "chair" is the "body"!

In [Taste of Dark Clouds], Lilyjon attempts to reveal and approach a Transcendentalism through the accumulation of a large number of concrete senses and rationality. Through perverse inverted triangular compositions, compressed static space-time, Lilyjon places the characters in a kind of sanctified "extinction", a kind of peeping castle chamber, a kind of maze of no-entry, no-exit - just as any god in the world has to pass through death and rise from death (qualities of [The Sacred], to been added to/taken away), then what is shown here is in fact a kind of "intermediate state" of resurrection from death, framed in the isolation between the "transformation". It can be understood as an [Ouroboros] - like cycle/eternity. In a predestined cycle, the Heteronyms Lilyjon, who exists as an [Artist], begins to think about where he and his work will end up, and better yet, "what kind of time" they will enter.

██████, He has great plans. I can't reveal anything to you, but I guarantee you don't want to know his real name.

Lilyjon is constantly going back to history and his creations. In other words, he keeps pushing the "present" into the "past", so that memory becomes the "memory of the memory", which is the way of the [Ritual] travelling. The process of retrospection is again a misreading, misinterpretation, and elevation of history, which in turn reconstructs a new picture of the world, while at the same time telling an old story. The "future" is like a meteorite coming in at high speed, its impact constantly pushing the "present" into the "past", and Lilyjon has thus created a unique "time model” - "tracing the aura of the past, exchanging obsolete techniques". All along, the real work and creation of art is that it maintains a [Ritual] independent of physical time and space. Where the true [Artist] is known as a relic of an ancient time. There, an old story is told over and over again by the [Artist], an old story is listened to over and over again by the [World], and an old story is recalled over and over again by the [Listener]. In the end, limited to the shortness of the lives of the [Teller] and the [Listener], the [Artist] and his work do not matter (he is disappearing and being reborn), and it does not matter what the old story is telling (there is no longer anyone who can understand it, and there is no need for anyone to listen to it). This old [Ritual] operates in the "time of art" constructed by Lilyjon, who is simultaneously to been added to/taken away [The Sacred], that is his real work.

It is from this that the [Artist]’s destiny stems.

Mr [The Audience], I'm sure the [Ritual] continues. As an [Ancient Scholar], I am very confident in my divination skills. The cards guided me to the Southeast (in this case, the southeastern region of the United States) before Christmas. I can smell the sea and perhaps there will be more revelations or leftovers related to [Ritual] there. We keep in touch.

MAY GOD BLESS US!

[Ancient Scholar]

P.S. To be continued ......