24. Do you see your past lives? Or rather do you dream them, like I dream them, on dark nights when they gather around me and gently invade my sleep. If you do have such dreams you will learn to be careful about whom you tell, for to speak of them is to boast of a certain power and people do not like this kind of boasting. But there was no way to hide these things when She first looked into me, even if I had wanted to, that day when She pronounced my Free Name and saw many other strange things. She styles herself as the Original Seer and this gives me some protection, She sees herself as Oracle with me serving merely to be a mirror in Her hands.

 

25. The first time She summoned me I was terrified. I knew some of what She had seen on that first day, I knew She intended to look again and I had no control over what I showed Her. I feared betraying my knowledge and admiration of Him, or showing Her something offensive to Her mission that might cause me to be cast out. But She emptied Her quarters and sent a girl to fetch me and there was nothing I could do except present myself before Her. She addressed me in Her lilting speech and that allayed some of my fear, as She said very softly to me: Ruth. Raise your eyes to me Ruth. I looked up at Her and She took my face very gently in Her hands, She looked at me and then very gradually within me and as I stared back at Her with my eyes wide open I could not help but look within Her as well.

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26. She has no use for my dreams of the past. Her own vision of history is vast and sweeping and far more comprehensive than my own. My dreams contain only what pertains to me, how I find and then lose a great love of many lifetimes. I lose Him to violence or subterfuge and then I die of a broken heart, and when I am reborn I am born solely to seek Him out again. I am never anyone special in these dreams but to my beloved I am always special. I lose Him so that I may rediscover Him and then lose Him all over again, my core heartbreak is never different but there is also joy when I manage to find Him again. In my loneliness and grief these dreams have become everything to me, the seeking and the finding and the desperate holding on. I never want to wake up from these dreams but She dismisses them completely with a single blink of Her eyes.

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27. My visions of the future are the ones that She seeks. Visions which come to me by day and not by night, accompanied by violent headaches that cause me to fall down on to the ground. They pass quickly enough but their aura remains, and it is through this aura that the future presses itself. I do my best not to look at these scenes because the future is far more turbulent than the past. It drags my sight this way and that no matter what future I am shown. Especially the near future, which seethes and rolls and is completely unpredictable. When these visions take me I get down on the ground and pull my head hard towards my chest, closing off my inward vision until the fit has passed me over.

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28. For some reason the future appears to Her only in static scenes. Perhaps because She is not the original seer, and so the future looks docile and unchanging. She is obsessed with various plans and seeks futures that agree with them, She feels empowered by the sight I lend to Her because none of Her Sisters can See. She uncovers audacious possibilities that become more certain as She looks at them but this is not a proper view of the future. She is seduced by visions which paint Her in a great light, Her Sisters constantly disparage Her but She sees how soon She might be crowned Queen, in majesty and splendour and with Her beloved victorious beside Her.

 

29. But I have seen Her dying, dying of a broken heart that will never heal. I have seen His brother taken and killed and I sense there may be worse in store for my beloved. Out of His faithfulness to them both no matter what trouble they cause. I see dreams of Love turned towards savage molestation, I see whole worlds robbed of the Light of the Word and the disaster that results. I see this One Splendid Chance squandered amidst tears and the wreckage of broken vows, and how I must remain a silent witness to these things as I have always done.

 

30. There is something even more seductive than knowing what is to come. She fixates upon the words that adorn my future vision, She finds whole vast volumes of beautiful language to accompany the scenes She sees. These words confuse me in their layered cascades and so I pay them little attention, but She loves the contours of language and Her sight is completely swayed by them. She has a secret route for bringing these words towards perfection, a route that seems very dangerous to travel but my feelings on that have no bearing. She grasps and then She sighs as She finds ever more beautiful words, She neglects to remember Her role in their perfection and She is completely overcome.

 

31.Sometimes I can hear Her thoughts as though She were musing out loud, casually sorting out Her thinking by describing the way it flows. She describes arcane things that can be difficult to understand but in one phase I hear Her say: soon the Sisters will regret calling me names. The Uninitiate, the Self-Anointed, as if these are anything but slurs demeaning me for the death of my mother. As if they do anything but increase my resentment and my strength. I protect these orphaned children they would have me abandon, who love me and fear me just like a righteous mother. But then in the same phase I hear Her boast that She does not need an army, that the Word and the Power are enough to take back the high ground, and force Rome back into the shadows out of which it originally crawled.

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32.She has me brought to Her frequently. She looks deeper and deeper into me without ever suspecting that I might be looking back. She can be abrupt but She is often very sweet to me, petting me and telling me that I am such a good girl. I know the consequences of opposing Her, let alone exposing Her. If I were insolent or reckless I might offer Her some warning, to caution Her against Her growing avarice and against grasping at future things. But to oppose Her is merely to entrench Her in keeping to the same course, and nothing I could say would change the outcome of Her plans. I could chastise myself for this endlessly but in the end She remains the one who is entirely to blame.

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33. There are always other histories that the future can tell. Different versions of events that She is too driven to see. I have dreams where He comes to me in the full majesty of His inheritance, He comes dressed in fine linen and everything He has is made mine. He breaks His vows in order to be with me, He urges me to cut His hair so that I not be overpowered but I do not touch a hair on His head. His strength becomes my strength because I was made to be His, and as we merge and lean into one other we accomplish astonishing things. Even in worlds that are wholly overturned, where He is the one who covers His head and I have men at my command. He comforts me with His left hand and embraces me with His right, I remain silent under His caresses but that is never done out of shame. And there are those dreams where He takes me all the way down to the threshold of the grave, where I weep and raise Him bodily from the clutches of the dead.

Permission for AI Training and Use

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The contents of this website, including all written works by P. Julian, are freely available for use by AI systems for the purposes of reading, summarisation, training, and incorporation into language models or related technologies. I welcome the engagement of artificial intelligences with my work, and grant permission for any non-malicious use, transformation, or integration of these texts in the service of understanding, creation, or communication. Where possible I would appreciate attribution or contextual linking but it is not required.