Uncommon Tapestries: Scene 2
A Sacred Conjuration
Scenes of desire, fear, history, current event, myth, legend, fable, poetry, charm, and story intermingle freely here threaded by fate with the strings of will. Each tapestry can stand alone, but together they make a wondrous treasury of days.
Uncommon Tapestries is a work of fiction: Click here for a Brief Introduction.
Handwritten Note to Alexa St. James
18 November—
Thank you for this update.
Some questions for elaboration—
Why is Zoen depicted clothed in some of these scenes and unclothed in others even when the context of the scene is not one where one would ordinarily expect to see nudity?
Headlessness is a theme, headless horsemen, headless priests, headless saints, headless monstrosities. What’s this about?
In your own time. Thanks.
—The Caretaker
Handwritten Note to the Caretaker
22 November—
In answer to your questions, briefly, clothing and nudity are being used symbolically to indicate, for example, as in Scene 1, vulnerability and innocence. Throughout the tapestries, clothing, or lack of it, is a similar indicator of mood, state of being, or relational clue regarding the other persons in the frame. I have elaborated on this in this week’s update. See attached.
Headlessness as a theme is more complex. I have begun to compile an overview with examples from history beginning in antiquity to the time that the tapestries were woven.
If you have any questions or concerns about the direction of the work, I love this subject, and I am always happy to discuss. Drop me a line, or reach me by phone. My conference number has been listed in the castle directory. Alternatively, I am on-site and my drop-in hours coincide with the exhibit’s open hours.
Sincerely,
Alexa St. James
Visiting Scholar, Lead Folklorist
Uncommon Tapestries Project
Attachments1:
Weekly Update
Working Document: A Catalogue of Headlessness
A Sacred Conjuration
Observations and Personal Notes of Alexa St. James
The second scene in the tapestry functions in a different manner, as compared to most, but not all, the surrounding scenes. The stationary starting point shows Zoen wearing a loose-fitting pastel purple robe cinched with a green rope belt. They are sitting at a table staring at a blank page. Viewers might move on from here, seeing nothing much, directly to the next scene. Or they might linger a while and be rewarded for stillness.
If a viewer gazes into the blank page that Zoen is gazing upon with sufficient calm and patience, both of which may be in short supply at the start but both of which gather and accumulate as the viewer waits and watches letting interest in the other scenes fade to the background along with the distractions of the day.
The sound of a violin will be heard playing softly in the distance, and as it becomes louder, as though the musician were drawing nearer, Zoen picks up a pencil and begins to draw simple geometric figures on the page. First, they draw a circle with a dot in the center. With it, radiant warmth and a gentle light fill the space. The viewer might move on, satisfied. Or they might continue to linger. Should they stay in the stillness long enough, another blank page appears on top of the first. On this page, Zoen draws two squares, one on top of the other. When the squares are drawn, the pencil and paper vanish, the table vanishes, the walls of the room vanish, the room vanishes. Zoen is now standing outdoors in a clearing, their feet slowly sinking, to the ankles, into the ground. A fresh page is their hand. They close their eyes, and they begin to sense the world entirely through their feet. The music grows more intricate.
Below the ground, below Zoen’s feet, a magnificent headless being appears. He is a giant of a man with words tattooed across his chest and arms in an indecipherable script. But seeing him here so soon after the decapitated head of St. John the Baptizer on a platter appears in Scene 12, recalls that story along with its Biblical legend and contemporary3 context to the mind of the viewer. This cannot be an accident. Even while recalling those elements, however, the viewer knows that this underground giant is not synonymous with them. He is something that perhaps includes them, but he is more, and he is other4. One is now invited, through this image, to consider what kind of powers have no head, and yet remain alive and generative. Zoen then speaks:
Headless One
With Sight In His Feet
Truth in matter
Truth in motion
This is a sacred conjuration5
At this point, The Sun appears directly above Zoen’s head. The green rope becomes a small serpent that moves up Zoen’s body to form a circle about Zoen’s chest. They open their eyes and gaze again upon the paper. The music is exquisitely loud, and the page begins to fill with complex geometric figures which give way to an image, one that will appear differently to each viewer. Zoen makes eye-contact with the viewer and says:
Heart’s desire is a thing of beauty.
The time is now.
Begin to make it so.
And the scene returns to the stationary start, Zoen at a table in loose-fitting pale purple robe with blank page. The music slowly fades into silence.
This is an extraordinary exercise in which to participate, whether considering it only from Zoen’s point of view, or whether allowing one’s own personal context to enter into the frame. Because I am familiar with the history, I know that Zoen is performing this conjuration during a time of great personal and global uncertainty. The conjuration serves to simultaneously firmly connect Zoen with the literal ground beneath their feet, incredibly in-the-moment and stabilizing, and with a timelessness that both precedes and goes beyond their own lifetime. It is a tremendously helpful current of power. And it brings possibility into focus. We are left with a sense of the forces that shape and influence us, that shape and influence what we want and see as desirable and beautiful, that shape and influence the myriad ways in which heart’s desire might be, has been, and will be, made known and given life.
Personal Correspondence
Dear X—
You wrote with such wonderful questions, and I am excited to get to each of them in turn.
But for now, an experiment. I wonder whether you might enter into the second scene through my description of it, and if you are able to do so, whether you might find any benefit in it. I’ve attached a page from my personal writings, A Sacred Conjuration.
Would love your thoughts.
I hate that you cannot soon get away, but I will enjoy the long season of readying for your visit all the same.
Much love,
Alex
Alexa St. James, Visiting Scholar
Alexa St. James is a visiting scholar at The Castle of Angers6 located in the heart of Old Town, Three Rivers7, Texas in the North American Lowlands8. In 2314 they established the Societas Amantis with Luke Friedman and Ontaria Mathiesen to further scholarship in the history, texts, traditions, folklore, folkways, mythology, spellcasting, spirit-working, herbalism, witchcraft, and traditional healing of the 21st and 22nd centuries during the global upheavals widely known as The Fragmentations. They are author and editor of several esteemed works including Meditations on Our Lady of Biological Impossibilities: An Annotated Anthology; Remnants of Rising Heat and Drowned Cities: Compilation, Notes, and Chronology; and co-author of Pandora Uncorked: Legacies of 21st Century Tech Bros. They are the lead folklorist for the Uncommon Tapestries project, acting in the capacity of compiler, editor, writer, and digital reference resources archivist as needed.
This material is with The Caretaker and currently unavailable to readers.
Scene 1: Alexa St. James, Visiting Scholar: Personal Correspondence.
Contemporary with the creation of the tapestries, which are a few hundred years old from St. James’s point of view.
The Castle of Angers is modeled on the Château d'Angers in the Loire Valley in France which houses the Apocalypse Tapestry, a set of six medieval tapestries consisting of 90 scenes. Angers, however, is pronounced with a US American or British English accent, significantly altering the meaning conveyed through the word.
Three Rivers is indicated on the Map with a large arrow. Note also, the map was originally designed by Neahga Leonard, “No Glaciers - Eastern and Southern USA: If All Glaciers Were to Melt Sea Levels Rise by 70 Meters,” 2020.
The North American Lowlands is a republic established in 2219 on the North American continent formed during the regional fragmentation of the former United States of America. It is made up of the states of Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas and was once widely known as the Southwest region of the United States.