dictionary sex and a stand-in for the unpronouncable

i have been using the Kabbalah Oracle as a book place-holder and reminder. a good way to learn, albeit slow... "Tsadi" was my letter for the last few weeks, happily holding place in A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. "Tsadi" is the charitable letter, the one in the middle of mitsvah, part of God's tsim-tsum, "making oneself small so that others can grow." anyways, so i got home from dinner with mom and decided it was time to pull a new letter. i smoked a couple of bowls of crappy buds (i swear it smells more like charred cookies than anything else) and felt "the draw." the card i selected: "the MISSING LETTER", the 23rd. the legend goes that all the letters were on the original tablets that Moses carried down from the Mount. after wrecking the tablets and cursing the golden-calf-idol-worshippers, the 22 letters eventually returned - but one did not. the one MISSING LETTER is a deep mystery... what does it look like? what does it sound like? it is said that the dawn of the Messianic Age will reveal the last letter, an unpronouncable consonant that will combine with the other letters to make new words, and hence new worlds beyond our current understanding. the tefillin (the thingy tied to your arm and forehead) is shaped like a box, on one side the letter Shin (the Father Letter, representing Abraham, Isaac, and Moses), on the other side is an imaginary letter, a stand-in for the MISSING letter. it looks like Shin but has an extra thingy on it, perhaps representative of an enigmatic Mother Letter. the "return" of the missing letter is then a union between the masculine and feminine. a familiar story, no? letters are cool. reminds me lots of yoga, and Stranger in a Strange Land, and stuff.

a few days ago, i got home from work after night shift. jason was up and on the pooter (as he always is in the morning), so i snatched my pipe and hid downstairs for a puff. when i came back up stairs, i went to brush me teeths and my eye fell on the back on this dictionary we keep in there, beside the toilet. the back cover page was ripped off once upon a time, and on the final page is a diagram of the Zodiac. i thought it was odd that i've looked at that back page a million times, but have never read it. the final 'Z' words are strange, barely english. stuff like "zulu", others. looking at the defintion of Zygote, the fertilized/completed sex cell before it forms the embryo, i noticed the etymological tag: "zygon", greek for "union." WHOA WHAT?!? trippin! so, like, the same linguistic fork that describes the biological union of male and female gametes also describes the cosmic union of tantra. i wonder if YOGA and ZYGON share a common indo-european root. doesn't look like it, but what the hell gives? i then invented a whole form of greek yoga called Zygon, where at the beginning of the class the teacher would read fragments of Heraclitus, or Plato's dialogues, or expounding on the lost secrets of Pythagoreans. sun salutations, alpha series. poses named after letters, like Iota, or Omega. could compete with Lord of the Rings yoga. open up a little studio on the Danforth, we'd be set!

and speaking of yoga stuffs: haven't been to the studio almost all summer. too far, too much schedule stuff, and well, maybe you're not there. otherwise i practice at home with Bee. i've been slacking but we dragged our mats over to the schoolyard and instantly felt a lot better about life, the universe, and everything. "so long and thanks for all the fish" i wanted to say before launching into space from my headstand... at the park were those armoured knights with the swords and shields that we keep seeing. we got to chatting and turns out they're from the Society of Creative Anachronism. the knightly fellow with the helmet and shield told us that they like to recreate pre-17th century Europe, "with embroidery, mead contests, dancing, swordplay. not the plague. we only do the fun stuff." they practice up at Casa Loma, and we're welcome to come play any sunday afternoon after they return from a big battle state-side. YAY SWORD PEOPLE WANT TO PLAY WEEEEHEEE!