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Tag: Weinberger

  • The Hidden Span, by Eliot Weinberger

    The Taoist universe is an infinity of nested cycles of time, each revolving at a different pace, and those who are not mere mortals pertain to different cycles. Certain teachings take four hundred years to transmit from sage to student; others, four thousand; others, forty thousand. It is said that Lao Tzu, the author of the Tao Te Ching, spent eighty-one years in the womb. 

    Taoist ritual begins with the construction of an altar that is a calendar and a map of this universe. At its perimeter, twenty-four pickets, the Twenty-Four Energy Nodes, each representing fifteen days, form a year of 360 days. Within, a proliferation of markers for the Two Principles (yin and yang), the Three Energies, the Three Irrational Powers, the Five Elements, the Five Tones, the Six Rectors, the Eight Trigrams, and Sixty-Four Hexagrams of the I Ching, the Nine Palaces and the Nine Halls, the Ten Stems of the Twelve Branches…Each is a supernatural being, a gate, a direction, a part of the body, a measurement of time, a philosophical concept, an alchemical substance. As Lao Tzu said, “The Tao created one, one gave birth to two, two to three, and three to the ten thousand things.”

    Typically of Taoism, this system has an inherent flaw: a hole in time called the Irrational Opening. If, at a certain moment, which is always changing, one walks backward through the various gates in a certain order, one can escape time and enter the Hidden Span. In this other time beyond all the other times, one finds oneself in the holy mountains; there one can gather healing herbs, magic mushrooms, and elixirs that bring immortality. 

    The technique was first taught to the Yellow Emperor by the six calendrical Jade Maidens, who in turn learned it from the Mysterious Woman of the Nine Heavens, also known as the Lady of the Ultimate Yin. Its most famous practitioner was a very real military strategist, Chu-ko Liang (181-234). To repel an invading army, he placed hidden markers on an enormous plain to secretly replicate a Taoist altar, and then tricked the enemy troops into entering through a certain symbolic gate. Although the landscape appeared unremarkable, the army found itself trapped in a labyrinth of an alternate time from which it could not escape.

    Weinberger, Eliot. An Elemental Thing, New Directions Books, New York, 2007: 56-57. 

  • Aztec 52, by Eliot Weinberger

    In the Aztec empire, every fifty-two years, once in an average lifetime, the world was on the verge of coming to an end. The sun would no longer move, night would be eternal, and man-eating demons would descend to rule the earth. 

    On that day all fires were extinguished and floors were swept clean. Old clothes, the images of gods kept in the house, the hearthstones on which cooking pots were kept, mats, pestles, and grindstones were all cast into lakes and rivers. Pregnant women were given maguey masks and locked in granaries; if the world ended, they would turn into monsters. 

    That night, everyone dressed in new clothes, climbed onto terraces and rooftops; no one touched the ground. Children were poked and threatened to keep them awake; those who slept would wake up as mice. In Tenochtitlan, the capital, eyes were fixed on the temple atop the Hill of the Star. There, at midnight, the priests were watching the stars called Tianquitzli, the Marketplace, our Pleiades, to see if they would cross the meridian and ensure another fifty-two years of life. 

    In the temple, a prisoner without physical blemishes, with a name meaning turquoise, year, fire, grass, or comet—words that denote precious time—was stretched across a flat stone with a piece of wood on his chest. As the Tianquitzli constellation crossed the line, a priest began furiously spinning his fire drill into the wood. A little smoke, a few sparks, and then, as the wood took flame, the prisoner’s chest was slit open with an obsidian knife, his heart pulled out and set in the fire. Four bundles of tied wood, each with thirteen logs, were piled around him so that his whole body was consumed by flames. 

    As the bonfire became visible, the people slashed their ears and the ears of their children, scattering blood toward the flames. Messengers carried torches from the Hill of the Star to the principal temples, and from there to the palaces, and from the palaces, street by street, house by house, until the whole city was lit again. All night, relay runners carried the new fire throughout the empire. People threw themselves at the fire to be blessed with blisters. 

    Children born in the night were given the name New Time. In the morning new mats were spread out, new hearthstones placed, incense lit, and honey-dipped amaranth seed cakes eaten by all. Quails were decapitated.

     Weinberger, Eliot. An Elemental Thing, New Directions, New York, 2007: ix. 

  • The Great Wall, by Eliot Weinberger

    Richard Nixon, visiting the Great Wall of China in 1972, said: “I think you would have to conclude that this is a great wall.”

    Ronald Reagan, visiting the Wall in 1984, said: “What can you say, except it’s awe-inspiring? It is one of the great wonders of the world.” Asked if he would like to build his own Great Wall, Reagan drew a circle in the air and replied: “Around the White House.”

    Bill Clinton, visiting the Wall in 1998, said: “So if we had a couple of hours, we could walk ten kilometers, and we’d hit the steepest incline, and we’d all be in very good shape when we finished. Or we’d be finished. It was a great workout. It was great.”

    George W. Bush, visiting the Wall in 2002, signed the guest book and said: “Let’s go home.” He made no other comments. 

    Barack Obama, visiting the Wall in 2009, said: “It’s majestic. It’s magical. It reminds you of the sweep of history, and that our time here on Earth is not that long, so we better make the best of it.” During his visit, the Starbucks and KFC at the base of the Wall were closed.

    Weinberger, Eliot. The Ghosts of Birds, New Directions Books, New York, 2016: 91.