cosmic-backup/gopher/Oleander/006-sister-hawwa.txt

REC ON
TRN ON
ENC ON
SYS GOOD
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Entry 6 -- Sister Hawwa

My brothers and sisters-

  In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The
  earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face
  of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of
  the waters.

The Spirit hovers above the darkness again at the dawn of a new
beginning. The Spirit spills from my sisters, overflowing. His
will be done.

  And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. And God
  saw that the light was good.

The light comes to this world, to the monsters made of fire and
mist. They have dwelt in the darkness, in the deep, for too long.
They hid from the light, hid from the flood, and found their prey
among the Chosen. They have been judged.

  Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our
  likeness. And let them have dominion--"

  So God created man in his own image,
      in the image of God he created him;
      male and female he created them.

I am Hawwa. My God has given me dominion over the Jinn, as with
all creatures. He gave my people to the garden, and the garden to
my people. It was my mother Eve, for whom I am named, that tasted
of the Tree. It was her that the LORD said has become like one of
us in knowing good and evil. That is my inheritance, the good and
evil and the knowledge of it.

With my sisters we judge the actions of the Jinn and know them to
be evil. We are granted that knowledge with our sin and have paid
for it with the birth of every child and the sweat of work in the
fields. Out of dust we were taken and to it we return for all time
until eschaton.

From those first days in the garden we have been plagued by the
serpents. They lie to us and lead us astray. They clothe
themselves in the skin of my people. They wear the faces of our
children and take young wives from their marital beds. They lure
away the shepherds from their flocks and send their own tricksters
to pose as our friends.

The Jinn celebrate in their churches, dine at their tables,
celebrate their weddings. They do these things that were given to
men and women, the blessed and chosen of the LORD, in a mockery of
creation. They, unburdened by the curse of the tree, have swelled
beyond our numbers and our powers. They have taken their hidden
nature into the stars and dwell in the darkness between.

  And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. And God
  saw that the light was good.

They are animals, creatures of the ground. They are no different
from the thorns and thistles our ancestors struggled with except
in one thing. Unburdened by knowledge of good and evil and
possessed of stolen grace, they have usurped the birthright of
man. Their existence is hidden from God, wearing our skin.

I am a daughter of Adam, of Seth, of Enosh, of Kenan, of
Mahalalel, of Jared and Enoch, of Methuselah and Lamech, of Noah.

I am a daughter of Eve and Alma, Adah and Zillah, Naamah. I call
my mother Sarah and Iscah, Milcah and Hajar, who is now my sister.

You are my sisters and brothers, my humans of the stars. I see
your whispers in the darkness and calls for help to one another.
We read your adventures and see the light of humanity reaching
corners we never dreamed. You give us hope and it brightens the
light we shine. We will survive. Our people will survive. No
matter what the Jinn do to us, humanity has gone beyond their
reach. For that we thank God and we thank you, sisters, no matter
what form you may take. May his light follow you in the deep and
lead you to safety.

We are the Holy Sisters of the Desert Rose. Oleander is the name
given our ship, and a fitting one it is. The poison of these
leaves stains us. It poisons our hearts with a sin of vengeance
that does not wash away. Every one of my sisters here feels it on
her skin, under her tongue. We seek absolution and forgiveness for
the rot in our hearts, but we accept our fates regardless. If we
go to torment then we go with smiles knowing that our arrow will
strike true. A true vendetta heart beats within us. And yet, we
hope God will see the torment and forgive us where our own mercy
fails. The Jinn are not men and the ways of the prophets do not
call us to kinship with them. They are beasts, and a wild beast
must be slaughtered.

These Jinn have lived apart all their existence. Their lives are
long. Some stories say that they tasted of the other tree in the
garden before they were cast out as well. They tasted of life
without knowledge, while we suffer with knowledge and without
life. It is possible that there are some below us now who were in
the garden with my mother Eve. I wonder if they will recognize her
hand in what is to come.

  I will put enmity between you and the woman

God set us at each other from the start. May it be that this wrath
we feel is not sin, but justice divine?

The magic of the Jinn has always been an unknown. Their ways of
being apart from the world and yet in it have confounded
generations. We fly through the stars, we split atoms, we shift
gravity, we unlock man-made dimensionality, yet they are always
apart. What is this mystery that surrounds them that gives them
advantage over us. It has plagued us in more than just thought.
They are the star eaters, the world breakers, the desert mirage,
the elfin kingdoms. They are eternal mystery. Unknowable and
indefatigable.

Until Asiya.
Until Hajar.
Until Miriam and Sara.
Until me.

It began with Asiya's dream. They came in a dream that became
a nightmare and which she can never wake. She is still there on
Hazen, though with much prayer we have been able to give her
glimpses through.

The veil of dreams is parted not through medicines or machines,
but through meditation and the manipulation of the mind.

Our evolution as a species has been one of the mind. We have grown
in complexity through biological changes until the greatest
physical expression became a mental one. When we learned to use
the first tools, when we harnessed fire, we did so by tempering
our minds to a task. Our wrought history of violence and suffering
has evolved that mind to grow many new powers.

With one flex comes the sciences. Our observation and deduction
give us understanding of the rules which bind us. Our knowing
gives us induction and inspiration toward creation and
exploration. Science is a beautiful gift of God.

But we have greater gifts! A complex love that knows no equal.
Where there are ten people, there are a hundred loves!

And valor! What greater demonstration of the power of the mind
over the body is there? And as it is taught

  There is no greater love than this: that a person would lay down
  his life for the sake of his friends.

When Hajar saw Uzāir at the well, the squinting in the sun, the
tricks of light, and the sudden surprise of silence... What let
that boy see the Jinn before the women gathered at the well? What
put him between them? By what arcane power did Uzāir pierce the
veil, do you think, my sisters?

The veil is built of fear. It lives in a place of dreams, of
nightmares. They move past eyes like those unseeing in the midst
of a night terror. The terror blinds us to reality, but is not
a terror of fear, rather the mysterium tremendum, the ineffable,
the unknowable. It is the fear of the deep, unmade world.

Asiya's dream has taught us the rules the Jinn and Hajar's witness
taught us the way through. These are the tools with which we
practice our art. Our meditation and prayer are disciplines of
that art. For an art it is we have here in this Istishhad.

To part this terror requires the greatest of loves. It must draw
from a place beyond fear, from the ecstasy of the unknowing beast
in the awe of its creator. To part this terror requires
abandonment of self into the void. This is the lesson of the Tree.
Our knowledge came with a cost. Dust to dust, good and evil, but
not life.

This is my mystery. This is the story of the first time I died.

... (lots to add here about Hawwa's backstory)

... (Wrap it up)
    Something about the veil being torn or reversing it, humans able
    to slip in and out but not the Jinn. It's faith-based, not
    scientifically observable, follows some unknown principles,

... but do not fear it, men of science. As a stranger give it
welcome.

... (do the act)

... (sign-off of computer log or something similar)

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*