Solar Authority

An emission of energy that a sufficiently-conscious organism receives invokes the etiquette of the gift; namely, (1) that the gift must be received and used up, and (2) that the favor must be returned, even, in the tradition of the Potlatch, increased in the returning gesture (Bataille, The Accursed Share). The Sun, to our simultaneous chagrin and infinite gratitude, is the ultimate giver and as such disrupts conventional notions of exchange- we puzzle at the question of returning the favor as our Sun continually grants and sustains the very life which contemplates the question.

At every moment we find ourselves in massive and continuous accrual of a troublesome solar debt. Given the opportunity, we would need to honor our increasing obligation to sacrifice our lives to the Sun by launching ourselves into Her (our current space expeditions being rather misguided in trajectory). Thus we are, by nature, fixedly at Her mercy. In the sunless depths, the anglerfish notices Her absence and revels in it, proceeding to assume the role Herself, hence exploiting a natural phenomenon and opportunity available to us all: that of solar authority.

Town Design 1 | Death Church

[rudimentary] It uses as its guiding principle a simplified energy flow diagram of the anglerfish. Homes are both illuminated and heated from an exterior source, a central lighting apparatus at the nuclear point of convergence of the settlement. Homes are arranged around this nucleus in such a way as to ensure that each home receives an unobstructed stream of light and warmth. Each abode has access to an irrigation canal and sufficient frontal acreage to grow food, and ample centrally-facing windows to tune the amount of light and heat allowed inside the home.

The hot, glowing central apparatus is affiliated with a large building which at first glance appear to be a community place of gathering- a church, perhaps? However, if it is to be named a church, it could only be aptly designated a death-church, for any citizen who approaches too near the light meets their end in a spastic spiral frenzy. A small number of Lightkeepers, obscured under Nomex cloak and mask, live in the Death Church, maintaining the beacon and collecting the charred remains of the beacon's prey.

The Dazzlers

Reviewing various definitions of the verb dazzle, a consistent aspect is the blinding, stunning, or sense-confusing effect that the light in question possesses. It denotes a drawing-in effect coupled with a progressive disorientation proportional to light intensity and duration of contact. Etymologically, it is directly related to the word daze, which can be seen as a sibling term less specific to photic events. 

She, our beloved anglerfish, destabilizes traditional notions of both the hunt as well as the trap by invoking the universal power of the beacon, at first shimmering then glowing then dazzling. We bear witness to a mode of predation that can neither be rightly named active nor passive, but which we declare solar, a mode wherein She is active insofar as She emits in order to reach. In observing this curious mode of predation we discover a prompt to reevaluate the nature of our own methods of pursuit, the ways in which we link desire to terrain.

This expert dazzler boldly offers a tantalizing light mere inches from her own hideous mug, yet by a most diaphanous cunning manages to remain concealed. Ever the graceful hostess, She sets the stage for an orbicular occasion (a Grand Ball, just for you) so irresistible that She herself is subtracted from the occasion precisely in the act of beholding its splendor- a splendor which is difficult to understate in the vastness of black depths, where She pricks the darkness in the form of a beckoning star.

I seek a taste of the Beyond, and, after all, I received an invitation (it seems She knew of my secret yearning). As I move in closer, do I anticipate attributing this light to a someone, a something? No- the party has taken on a life of its own.