Ah yes, the red sauce too, how could I not pick up on that as well? Those tiny little muscles, and how they contract, and tense up… do you know how thrilling it is to sink my teeth into taut, quivering muscles? Mm, no, I guess you wouldn't, but I can tell you it is most enjoyable. I do love knowing that many of you feel the way you do for me, yes, some I think feel these things more sincerely and more intimately than others, don't you agree? You doubt that I or any of us in the Immortal Family have similar thoughts about you or any of the mortals here, or that if we do, those thoughts cannot include furtive kisses in darkened corners? I can assure you that while my thoughts may not run as obsessively as mortals do toward me, but there are again, those who cross my mind from time to time and pique my interests in such a way. Furtive kisses? I don't know. I prefer long, extended, breath-stealing lip locks replete with the slow, sensual dance of one tongue on another. I prefer the touch of a hand, warm and traveling along the coolness of my flesh. I prefer to leave such thoughts to linger… linger… in the night.

Well I was only in attendance at the event for a short period of time, in which I experienced a guest by the name of Lilith being rather rude with me, which led me to attempting to do something outside of the channel, so therefore I missed what was going on in the room. A few other incidents, though minor, occurred and finally in addition to the other matter, motivated my departure. I'm sure everyone else had a nice time though, and it was a great thing for Genia to suggest. If there are more to come in the future, which there probably will be, I hope you and I will both be able to attend and have a night of enjoyment.

Television? Agh, it's a horrible thing, I think. I could be very comfortable without it in a second. In fact, I don't really remember what it was, but one night I took three televisions in a townhouse of mine right out to the curb in some momentary fit of annoyance. Of course I'm susceptible like anyone else. There are times, especially if I'm home here alone, that I'll have it on just for "white noise" as they say. Once in a while, a passing program or commercial will catch my eye and ear, though often I'm far more amused with what methods they employ over what they're selling, and I'll wonder if the mass public is aware of the manipulation. Television has in my time, served my own ego and purposes with the music video and news channels, so how could I really object to those? In fact, if I do have the television on, it's more than likely a music channel, though we have satellite, so I can just have the music playing as though the set is a radio, which with my A/V layout, I have to say, sounds better than good.

Nice too, that you thought of me with the sunset. Isn't it a miraculous sight sometimes? Exactly as you describe I have seen it, like a fire that has burned long and slow with rocky embers, falling into the purple-blackness of the coming night. I am more than pleased that now in my existence, more often than not, I do have the ability to take in such wonderment. Many nights, I steal up to the rooftops and stand, watching it disappear into the sweet realm that has held me for so long now.

You say:
For me, I almost think of immortality as an escape. You have the option of leaving everything behind you and completely starting anew. Even if it is just for a lifetime, that's your lifetime and no one else's. Does that seem too selfish? It most likely does because it seems so to me. But all of my life I have tried to please everyone around me, even when it's contradicting.

Immortality as an escape, you say? That is a common, if naieve mortal interpretation. I suppose, it is in the beginning, though even then I don't know that "escape" is the word I would use. It's thrilling, certainly, it's addictive and fast and slow motion at the same time, and it's fascination and disbelief. Newness to this life is nothing that really can be explained, but I can tell you this much in relation to your words: If you think Immortality is ever, or has ever been at least for me, an "escape" from trying to please everyone, then darling, you need to read my writings again! -laughs- Oh my, do you ever! Oh, I know I do my fair share, hell, more than my share of doing just exactly what I please for myself because I want to do it, and damn anyone else, let the chips fall where they may. Sure I do - but then, that… is a freedom that comes from immortality to a degree, but it is also very much a character trait I had even while I was a mortal. It's funny really, because so many see me and thing that is the side of me is the ever-present side, but really, if you know more, read more, understand more, you'll see that it isn't, and actually the half of me that seeks goodness and to please is more prevalent than might first be apparent. You need to refresh yourself also on my thoughts like yours of "what if there is no hope, what if it all has no meaning?" -sigh- You know whenever that thought crosses my mind, which is rarely anymore, I can see that night so clearly it makes me yearn for it, like a lover gone away. At the risk of sounding totally conceited here, like it would matter, I'll suggest re-reading my biography to pick up on these traits and incidents, and if you do, come and tell me what you think then. In the meantime yes, the world moves on around us all, and we live and love as we are able.

Miles Davis, yes. I like him and Billie Holiday. I wonder, do you know how absolutely perfect those two souls are, even now, spinning from the shiny smoothness of a compact disc like they'd never dreamed of, when the rain is coming down, and the streets are steaming in the fetid heat of New Orleans August? I have to say, it is enough to make me step back and smile, simply for the perfection. It was truly a different time then, and in moments like that, it can all come back. You speak of a time you miss when people regardless of their station in life could create purity and communicate on a wholesome level, with their hearts and without prejudice. What's odd is, though there certainly were times and places where it was less obvious than it is today, I have to argue that there always has and will be judgments, just or not. I think sadly, that much of it has to do with the mortal concept of God, and seeing themselves not as his children, as they're brought to understand, but I think many see themselves as … Hm.. losing the thought here… they think of themselves as "one with God", and as such, attempt to sit in vain judgment, while claiming of course that they don't do such things at all. Then of course there is the simple psychological statement or theory that what mortals hate in another, is really a characteristic they hate within themselves, or as I believe in conjunction with that, they fear to be in and of themselves.

Whew. Ok. Let's hear it for Doctor de Lioncourt. That will be $400. Oh wait, I guess we're not finished. This apparition you speak of, how interesting. You'll have to expound some more on the matter. You aren't necessarily wrong in saying that the person I am is wanting something. I've always wanted, dear Ava. I've hardly ever been one to settle or satisfy easily. What purpose is there in life, whether immortal or mortal, if there isn't always some present degree of yearning? You haven't sounded condescending, no… only perhaps a bit amusing to me is your attempt to scrutinize that within me which has defied analysis for years, even my own. Just enjoy it Cherie. I do.

I'm wonderful, and how are you? Any plans to have another gathering soon? I must say that I thought attendance was significant, didn't you?

On to what you're presently feeling. I'm not going to sit here and tell you to cheer up, or that it's wrong or wasteful to feel depressed or lonely or disenfranchised. While I cannot of course advise you for or against medication, I can say that personally, I never would have accepted it, because in the end, I'd want the emotions I had to be my own, alive and vivid in whatever form they came. I think the best thing I can say to you is that just as much as I said earlier in this set of replies that life must always contain a desire for more, a lust for the unseen and a passion above all else. I think also there is nothing wrong with having an understanding that with that must come some balance. I believe really, balance is very important. That's not to say go climb a mountain one day, and then loaf around in your robe and slippers the next, but more what I mean is emotionally? There isn't a damn thing wrong with slowing down and watching, letting life wash past you while you wonder about your place in the stream. I wouldn't advise staying there for long, but you know, instead of asking why you are there, or lamenting that you are, just -be- there, and know that it will pass, and come around again to a place where it is not you who's there, but someone else, and that's how it should be. Circular logic.

The new beginning? At times I feel humanity is headed for something that could be termed a new beginning, a new consciousness perhaps, who knows. That is what I was speaking of, but the feeling within me comes and goes, and I allow it that freedom, for that is what will teach me. Maybe that is a thought that can or will apply to you as well, if you let it.

Maybe... we are just dreamers, aware yet unappreciative of rude awakenings. The beauty saves us, and that is perhaps where the selectiveness begins. We seek the beautiful to preserve ourselves, and ask for the memory to leave phantom impression upon our soul. As the many faces converge, we are but one lost in a sea of smiles.

Jennifer said that was beautiful, and I couldn't agree more. There is nothing more I could add to the succinct expression you've stated.

Congratulations on your poetry making it so far in a competition. Words, if put down well and with consideration and weight, can be more than words, and make a lasting impact.

But of course you can't be mad at me for thunderstorms or lightning. If I did push you out into one, no, you couldn't cling to me, because that's not the experience. I'd make it impossible to cling, yes I would. There you would be, and hopefully you'd see the raw and impressive beauty I always have seen in storms. I just love them.

To your later post, no, I didn't assume you were mad at anyone. Why would you have been? I think you put too emphasis on what others will think, though the consideration is appreciated I'm sure. Just as you had no reason to say you didn't hate me for storms, you really have no reason to suspect anyone would have thought you were mad. The circumstances didn't justify the statement, and it's all over now anyhow. All better, non?

Yes, and I'll leave out the obvious replies I could make to your allusions of unwrapping pleasure.

I'm pleased to be here among most of you, and in these replies again, I've found some meaning even as I try to pass it along to anyone else. There is little I could say here that I haven't already said elsewhere, so I won't.

You say:

I've been feeling really frustrated lately, i thought when i first arrived here that i'd finally found somewhere i could be accepted for being myself, I thought i'd finally found somewhere that felt like home but.... I don't know what it is, everyone seems to have these little close relationships and i don't know but i just feel rejected at times (the story of my life). maybe it's just because i'm still quite new and it'll get better with time.

I would have to agree with that. Minuo as you may or may not know, was actually formed through many different turns and circumstances. Many people here know one another from other places and times, and how wonderful it is to think of all of you getting acquainted here and now, as a new family. Give it time, and I'm sure you'll see. Be yourself, write not for what others will say or think, but for what and why and how you believe and feel, and I can promise you, that will be its own reward.

All I can do is smile for lack of a better defense, my lady Gabrielle. You of all people should know how I love creating a stir.

First let me say, before I forget the thought, that when you say, "I wish to come to know myself through others, and to come to know others through love." I think what I would reply to that is that no, I think it is better said that you will come to know yourself through love, and to know others then through knowing yourself. Hm… and by now I already showed that particular comment to you in the chat room, didn't I, so onward with the other -coughs- two posts you left for me here, though those, in addition to your e-mail would really require I think a whole and separate thread. I'm not saying I mind, rather I have to say that as I told someone this evening, you -are- "getting it", - what I've been trying to say, and at least on some level what I've been feeling, and that pleases me immensely. After all, what is the use of talking at all if no one after a while understands you?

I sense your urgency as I read your words, and I totally sympathize with it. I well know how it is when you want to run up to someone and say hey, don't you See how it Is?? But there is so much of an undercurrent of frustration, isn't there, because 96% of those you come across are too busy, or too ignorant, or too depressed, or too….

I think what's important to understand, even in that urgency is that you slow down, breathe, and take time to listen even while the words want to pour from your lips and fingertips. We cannot hear and absorb if we are always shouting and extracting.

You've left me so much here to read and consider my dear, that I hardly know where to begin. Think how you and I must baffle the others with this irrepressible philosophy we have going on! I will answer your letter, and until then leave with the simple advisement that any Shakespeare you can see is better than never seeing it at all. Even as this conversation and thread has merit, I do hope you get to go to the play and enjoy it, as a step away from all of this.

Ah, your silences weren't passed over without notice. You sting me my friend to think you haven't crossed my mind. Though lovely ladies and fragile gentlemen and silken seraphim also grace my thoughts like lingering heated breezes, you were there. Should I have called for you aloud, here in words, when really I knew all the time you would come again sooner or later as your own heart and emotions allowed?

It would make one wonder, just what would have happened to make a soul devoted such as Bruno, turn away from his vocation and seek something that to so many in that time was exactly as you say, heresy, and worse, even if there was really no word for what that worse stage was, except perhaps demonic. Now, I don't mean just, did he lose his faith, or did his friend die, or some pallid, topical flaw that caused his departure from the ranks. I mean it would be thrilling somehow to know the intimacy of what his mind held at that time, don't you think? To taste the elixir of his heart.

I agree with you on the point you offer:

For today people may not be sent to the stake anymore,but if you try to tear the veil of ignorance that still blinds us,you will be condemned by those who detain the so called power,and,eventually you will be forced to silence or possibly to the worst humiliation ever: Abjuration.

Even though as everyone knows, for the most part I have very well-stated and prevalent opinions which from time to time may vary in degrees, I don't know that I could forcibly give up or renounce them for anyone. I think, to an extent, I proved that with Akasha. How wise Bruno was to state, in his own finality: "Maybe you who condemn me are in greater fear than I who am condemned." - Yet I wonder, even now, if those who truly need to understand that, would?

Welcome back, Antinoo.

The last word I had from Quinn was about a month ago, at least on paper. He's traveling through the far parts of Europe and then onward "to parts and places unknown," according to his letter. I hear and feel whispers of him in my mind from time to time, and I'm hopeful that he may choose again to join us here if he settles down, but it just wasn't the right time yet. I do know however, that he appreciates all of the genuine interest in his life and thoughts from the people here at Minuo, as I will pass along that you've asked about him as others have when next I write to him at whatever address that bears his beautiful name.