A
city of one, sometimes two, three, four or five, even six on rare
occasions. Two, three, four, five and six will leave after a
duration, and the city will return to its post-visitor size, or
almost. And happy to no longer have to play host, maybe, but unhappy,
maybe, at the changes playing host brought. Like the gate that
swelled with their stay; like the damage done to the precious gate
on their departure.
A
female city of one.
We
need a language like French to tell a female from a male city. They
are the same; there are differences. Differences in how they might
swell or fall to ruin; differences in the width and height of gates
and how they're used, although they number the same. Always nine; a
city of nine.
However,
sometimes a new gate might be made, by force or design, or by
accident, and then it won't be a city of nine.
And
sometimes a gate might be blocked, again by force or design, or by
accident, and then, too, it won't be a city of nine but a city of
fewer gates, perhaps eight or seven.
Some
boast of a castle, with eleven gates, within their walls.
Some
lament their ruinous state: they are nothing but broken gates and
toppled walls.
Some
say gates made or blocked, by force or design, or by accident
shouldn't be spoken of, shouldn't be counted or discounted.
They
say: Those with new gates want to be more than a nine; whereas those
with obstructed gates should still have them acknowledged.
They
say: No city should have more or less.
And
that new gates, within the city, aren't true gates, they're holes.
Gaping spaces. Unnatural hollows. The city, according to them, is,
then, in a permanent state of openness. Vulnerable. To the outer
world. For it cannot flee from it when it wants peace. Peace is
harder to attain.
That
is their argument.
Though
they don't say the same if a gate is closed, permanently. Peace,
then, supposedly easier, to obtain and to keep. Since an unused or a
newly obstructed gate makes the city inward rather than
outward-looking.
Whereas
others say: eleven is permissible, if one or two gates are
impermanent; if one or other of them at some point closes, never to
open again or to only open every now and then.
That
is their argument.
What
is the Truth?
The
Truth is: All are gated cities, with rulers; the ruler of nine
controlled by nine gates. But over a tenth or eleventh gate, the
ruler has control. The ruler sits in his castle, cross-legged, and
has forgotten his desires.
Those
that are of nine, and only nine, gates have the following:
Four
gates that lie side by side, functioning together and independently.
Another two, level with these four, that sit across from each other,
unseen by the other yet invisibly linked; a secret passage, a tunnel
running between them. One, below all of them, operates like a
drawbridge: open, shut; open, shut; yawns wide, wide, wide, then bars
the way, with teeth clamps shut. All day in permanent action (and
non-action): admit and deny, admit and deny. Whereas at the far end
of the city, one gate acts as the front and one as the back, through
which there is creation, through which there is release.
Openings
and exits. That's all the city is; that's all these cities are. In
very basic terms. For there are many, and yet none like each other.
The same gate in another acts differently though visibly it may look
similar i.e. recognisable by position what its function is, but its
efficiency in its duty undetermined. This can only be felt, by the
city itself, or by any admitted within.
Loosely taken from the Bhagavad
Gita and
the Upanishads.
Picture credit: Simultaneous Visions, 1912, Umberto Boccoioni (source: WikiArt)
