Arachnid Archives Chapter 1
Photo by J. Yeo, unsplash.com
Welcome to the Arachnid Archives, a collection of poetry and lore that has been retrieved from the cobwebs of galactic spiders and scorpions as they weave their wisdom of perception across space and time. These archives are found in the Mnemosyne Library, an animate body of knowledge that breathes and whispers through its many anchor points throughout the universe. Each wing of the library is tended by its respective guardian librarians who are trained in various modalities to further delight and develop the glow of awareness. The Arachnid Archives is looked after by Jed Ki, a multi-linguist jazz musician and lantern bearer in service to the precision and specificity of dendritic life forms. This is Jed’s re-telling of a thread that they gathered while harvesting cobweb designs on their first saunter through the forest of records.
In a neighborhood of many orbiting bodies, galaxies in their dispersing across the Milky Way,
in one of many spiraling arms
We zoom in to chemical concoctions of molecules collaborating
It's only obvious that in all this dust there are abyss lovers, admirers of vastness
Let us magnify in on one particular crew of space travelers.
They've designed a multi-elemental craft that sails through matter.
It's larger inside than it appears outside, as it is built with portal powers that bend space with time to allow for matter to stretch, transmorph, and be cloaked.
Propelled through signals being sent to cones and copper wiring.
It is a shape changer, an animate vessel that breathes.
The craft, known as Telaraña, Tela for short, sails at the hands of five DJs for it is fueled by music. Its travel from destination to destination is a dance, a response to the rhythms that each DJ presents at its helm.
Riding on the paces of sound waves, instructed by beats per minute, soaring to symphonies of interplanetary truths bumping, subs woofing, and high hats hitting.
At times, you can even hear brass hollering as these MCs design their path through deep space by actively adjusting the mechanisms of Tela’s travel with the study of sound.
Camellia is their elder on deck who represents the spirit of tea and its asiatique roots. She moves with the mindfulness of a person with an impeccable patina of experience, and colorfully passionate. Alongside Camellia, we have Cervus, Atmos, Artemisia, and Kleio. Cervus is brewed coffee brown eyed, with dark curling hair framing a warm face. He is the magnet tender within Tela so all their skeleton based bodies don’t disintegrate in the absence of gravity. He leads daily movement exercises for the crew so that they are able to conduct their bodies sustainably while traveling long distances.
photo by Ameer Basheer, unsplash.com
Atmos is the in-house communications coordinator. He tends to the technology on board and assesses the electrical wiring of all equipment to maintain speedy and efficient dialogue between all mechanisms. His long wiry figure, color-changing tinted glasses, and delicately agile hands give him an airy swiftness in speech and demeanor.
Artemisia and Kleio are siblings. Artemisia is the architect of the crew, she co-designs their projects by listening to the crew’s dreams upon waking. She does this to include all perspectives into possibilities for the team. She tends to the aesthetics of Tela, making sure all supplies are organized and easy to find with appropriately labeled locations.
Kleio is the youngest, a spirited child chosen to apprentice the crew while investigating which modalities they find most resonant to mimic while they unravel. Kleio’s dreams are the most vivid, often felt and seen as the crew’s pathfinder.
This crew is caravaning toward the outskirts of a solar-hood where transmissions were received regarding the prolific spread of fruiting bodies. Residues of spores were delivered there over two major galactic rotations ago. A small, yet mighty orbiting body known as Pluto, where thick ice seals the underwater terrains below. From the surface, only glaciers are seen. They act as a ward against scavengers and unwanted observers. These glaciers are composed of mineral-rich waters born from rushing liquids from time immemorial. Tela is one of many delivery, admiration, and protection ensembles focusing on the continuation of mycelial life forms. They collect, guard, and encourage the pollination of spores to orbiting bodies that could potentially generate habitats for fungal intelligence. They aim to mimic mycelial patterns in their collective philosophy, creativity, and overall structures of congregation.
The crew swivels into view on the horizon of Pluto's curving body. They approach the entrance arch that has been intricately sculpted by the artfulness of stormy winds that compose the glacial lands of this sphere. With Camellia at the helm, she hovers momentarily with a long, deep tone that reverberates with subterranean presence to take it all in. Tela’s windows see a majestic arch that resembles a deoxyribonucleic acid double helix of many elegant yet fortified threads of spun ice.
Each thread is tinted with botanical dyes that the Plutonians harvest from their marine forests. Crushed coral crimson, deep indigo purples, and cooling lichen greens weave and whirl to design symbols and patterns that seem familiar in a dream whisper kind of way. A bioluminescent sheen glitters from an internal source as the moisture-filled atmosphere collects dew drops that refract colors reminding Kleio of hummingbird feathers and star kitchens where suns are born.
Artemisia is double checking the list of supplies the crew will need upon arrival to the docks and their mission ahead here on Pluto. She has a deep, turning anticipation building in her belly and is grateful for the task at hand to give her steadiness. She counts aloud, “One, two, three, four, five oxygen tanks.” She spreads out the jet packs, swimming gear, and heat creating patches on the commons table that they use for dinner and meetings. Both Atmos and Cervus give her space to make her piles of supplies in peace, knowing her preferences of organization are important to her balancing practice.
Across the way, Atmos carefully and diligently transcribes tasks from the recording he’s listening to on ear buds. It was sent by head gardener, Onyx, working the resilience ecology studies here on Pluto to relay to the crew as they prepare for landing. Cervus helps Kleio pick the vials of spores they are going to gift to Onyx upon arrival. Camellia begins the track “Oh Star…” by Dimlite to conduct Tela into a shifting toward submarine shape. Tela picks up the cue with a graceful flourish. Similar to a light show given from raver to raver, the craft’s machinery moves with the precision of finger-tutting.
Panels re-assemble, added layers of glass cover all windows to protect against the building pressure, propellers emerge, and amber bulbs hang by strings of carbon fiber to guide their path in the dark underworlds below the glaciers. As Tela settles into transformed vessel, a platform slides open on the space below the arch where Camellia guides the craft into an ice cave dripping with stalactites, adorned with stalagmites that serve as an interim between the thick layers of ice and the yawning presence of water below.
photo by Jakub Micuch, unsplash.com
With the platform shutting above them, Tela is enveloped in an ambient darkness that reminds everyone of a cocoon’s embrace. Before taking the ramp and beginning their submergence the crew members all meet in Tela’s main common area that doubles as their kitchen quarters and co-working space. Kleio bounces in place with an excitement that reminds Camellia of bubbles sparkling in the sunlight. Atmos begins the check in with a ringing of a brass bell inscribed with a tendrel knot.
Following the tone with his charismatic voice, “Gather ‘round fellow captains, the journey here has been smooth sailin’ and I’ve been lighting candles so the mage winds continue to fill our sails as we traverse the enigmatic waters of this gorgeous sphere.”
All crew members bring their index and middle fingers together to softly double tap the table in acknowledgment of their shared captain-hood, and in appreciation for the offerings made to the wind spirits.
Atmos continues the information he gathered from Onyx’s recordings, “We are here for five Pluto rotations which translates to about thirty-two and a half Earth days. We have plenty of tasks to fill our cups with, and I’ve even coordinated pockets of time to swoon for those of us who are tending intimacy teams here.” Both Cervus and Artemisia make eye contact with Atmos in shared joy for the reunions ahead.
Kleio makes a hooting sound as a motion toward a readiness to speak. “Go ahead captain, what’s up,” grins Atmos as he gestures to the center of the circle with excitement to hear what the little one has to say. Kleio slowly shuts their eyes to speak, which means they are speaking from a recent dream, “We have been summoned by the soothsayer, Unda, of the coral reef caves to receive insights regarding our ensemble and its trajectories. Unda delivered a scroll that I read in my dreaming recently, and we must remember our team’s cohesiveness, for their sayings are often an elaborate labyrinth beyond reason. The dream’s residues left an imprint of being in awe at what will be revealed, auspicious unfoldings indeed. It’s an honor to receive this call.” All crew members bring their index and middle fingers together to softly double tap on the table in acknowledgment of this new thread they must tend while visiting. A layer of curiosity colors the room as everyone lets that settle in.
…
Join us on May 27th for the next installment of Arachnid Archives to meet Onyx the perceptive head gardener, Unda the soothsayer, and the thunder of hatchlings that inhabit the swirling, dark waters of Pluto.
This story is an ode to all the world builders that have given Saturn wings to fly from an early age. They are inspired by many speculative authors including but not limited to the Binti Trilogy by Nnedi Okorafor, the Ink Heart series by Cornelia Funke, and the Inheritance Cycle series by Christopher Paolini.
They hope to weave the power of poetry into a storytelling practice. Saturn often wields dense metaphors into their poems leaving listeners whirling with whimsy, wonder, and a deep sense that magyk is real. They look to Aja Monet, Saul Williams, & Rory Allen Phillip Ferreira as models for writing that encounter the freedom that has always existed in our imagination. Big ups.
Joining the speculative genre is an opportunity to create ripples in the field so indigenous, queer, and polyamorous creatives, like Saturn, can see themselves reflected in the stories they are reading.
Thank you art.
Thank you music.
“As we readied our reasons for writing
We armed ourselves with her poems
A strategy for organizing the heart
Prophetic prayers
A smile made of spirituals and birth pains
These days,it hurts to write
Every sentence is a false promise
Is we, or is we not
Trying to get free
And when the poems do what they do
They get it done”
-Aja Monet, poem and song “For Sonia”
” I respond that we can not achieve a new world order without new words and ways of articulating the world we’d like to experience. The youth of today are using poetry slams and open mics as a means of calling our new world into order. Hip-hop has aided our generation tremendously in helping us formulate the ability to articulate our desires and dreams over beats and in our daily lives.Word up. It is only a matter of time before we realize the importance of these times. And in the words of Victor Hugo, ‘There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.’ ” -Saul Williams, “The Dead Emcee Scrolls, The Lost Teachings of Hip-Hop”