Soapstone Statue

Amorella in historic Ouro Preto, Brazil. For a work of art time stops once the work is completed. In here, it is the same for a human being once complete. The art remains as the heartansoulanmind remains, the art of one’s character as it was molded in life.

This wonderfully carved soapstone work is attributed to Aleijadinho [The Little Cripple] who probably developed leprosy and supposedly, even in disease, carved this and other Biblical characters with his hands that no longer had fingers. Tools were strapped to what was left of his hands and helpers assisted in putting Aleijadinho in position to work at the local church Igreja de Sao Francisco de Assis in Ouro Preto. That’s the story. The only proof are the soapstone works themselves.

But as in the story of Pinocchio, each dead, wooden and stiff human being returns to consciousness as a work of art and remains in the Place where the Dead for self-education and further discovery about who sheorhe is as a part of the greater species. One learns about ‘self’ through interacting with others in my fictions. This is similar to one learning about ‘self’ through a pet. One gives a pet comfort and sheorhe who gives the comfort is also comforted. Simple existence, simple rules. Metaphysics as I see it, follows the same course of simple rules.

This appears to fit in context with the books just as there is no argument on Mother Nature’s rules. No one has to accept any of this as anything more than a laboratory of spiritual human reasoning and emotion stuck within an existential circumstance. What is the view of time from this metaphysical perspective?

For human beings time for the Dead (in the Merlyn books) is as a generational reference from when they arrived, with whatever generation the individual felt most comfortable.

What if you felt comfortable in one generation, say for me, the early sixties, but my partner felt more comfortable in the eighties?

Compromise, say with the seventies. Overlaps would exist because that is the circumstance in life. Human beings would have comfortable places to start. Mingling with others of the species would occur in a human-oriented time set but that does not mean the actual sense of time would be that.

Do you have an example that comes to mind?

What do you imagine the Dead do with their ‘time’? What would you do when pressed with others of the species in a similar existential circumstance?

I think story-telling would occur.

Fiction grating on fiction. Sounds human enough to me.

I’m thinking Dante’s The Divine Comedy and Sartre’s No Exit as most excellent examples.

As you have read those, why would I be writing this?

I have no idea where you are going here, Amorella.

In here, no one has any idea where sheorhe is going. However, the basic human conditions are still attached to the consciousness of the Dead as it is the Living. If Sartre’s hell is other people, the heaven can be other people also. In life it is a mix. In here, same for death, a mix. This is the reason the Place of the Dead is also called HeavenOrHellBothorNeither. You are free to remain alone or free to be with others of your own and their own choosing. Why not?