SECTION III Essay

A. Language enculturation

Celestials of the Source do not experience a biological childhood or development. The Source created them with a functional knowledge of Creation and Creation Words our language. Celestials do not learn to communicate in other languages, but are capable of communicating with any being with Will in Creation Words, and understand the Will of others in the form of Creation Words. This phenomena is called Aletheia. Mortal thoughts are heard as Creation Words to Celestials, and mortals understand Creations Words regardless of their native tongue. There is no direct correlation of Celestials to children however Celestials in the Neophyte stage technically have access to the full and near infinite lexicon of Creation Words they use different grammatical structures than Actualized Celestials. This suggests that there is a fundamental change in the way a Neophyte and Actualized Celestial understand and communicate about Creation, Will, and the Source. The ability to write and read Creation Words is an innate ability of Celestials at their creation by The Source. Neophytes are known to use a simplistic grammar, and as they move into the Wandering stage they begin to play with new ways a thinking a purpose and creation. Finally, they develop a consistent and unique grammatical style. These unique styles do not hamper communication between Celestials.

B. History of language

The lexicon of Creation Words has known to grow and shrink despite the fact that it is instilled in Celestials. Most dramatic changes to the language was the development of Fundamental Law of Creation maintained by the Seraphs. The next drastically altering of the language was the advent of other Willed beings in Creation. As Creation filled with life and thoughts of those beings new Creation Words became available through syncretism of the original Creation Words. Paradoxically every Celestial (excluding Falllen) just knew how these syncretic words functioned and were in absolute agreement on their purpose. The Purge event seemed to remove an unknown number of True Names of Celestials from our lexicon, and Celestials pushed into the Void are similarly have their True Names lost or forgotten to Celestials. Some have suggested that Seraphs or at least one Seraph remembers all Creation Word including True Names as its purpose. It is also speculated the Seraphs or singular Seraph know Creation Words to come into the future. It is incredibly rare for Seraphs to act outside their torpor and they usually dictate the purpose of communication when they do so no one is asking.

C. Nonverbal Communication

While most Celestials exist in humanoid form many forgo the muddled expression of facial features finding it inadequate means of expressing oneself or understanding others. On the rare occasions that Celestials interact with mortals they find their body language difficult to understand and must rely on Creation Words to evoke an understanding of emotions. Mortals have describe Celestials as cold and emotionless beings, but this is not the truth. We must ask how someone feels and if they choose to express themselves we can a profoundly genuine understanding of their thoughts and feelings. Guardials that deal with Mortals regularly have been known to adopt several Mortals gestures when communicating with them. For example a slight tilt of the head to a side to show interest, or opening up to show confidence or insight fear. A common indicator that a Celestial is becoming or is Fallen is the over use of body language outside the normal Celestial neutral demeanor. Celestials are capable of communicating over the vastness of Creation, but can form intimate bonds called Assembly. In the Assembly a Celestials Will is manifested and merged with another. This requires a physical or astral physical proximity not required for most of Celestial communication. Astral physical proximity is determined by state of mind or Will. So in order to Assembly Celestials must be in similar mental space while in the Astral Plane. If similar states of mind cannot be achieved on Astral Plane the participants can move to physical proximity on Material Plane. An accused Fallen is often interrogated by a Triumvirate Assembly on Material Plane for this reason. Binding their Will often strands the Fallen to either Material or Astral plane.

D. Popular culture

As mention previously the Creations Words were expanded drastically to explain and label the mortal condition. Traditional the term ‘to wander’ was used to describe Celestials seeking a more profound purpose, but when applied to mortals is ‘to wander in darkness’ which means ‘lost’ in English. In Creation Words not knowing your full purpose means you seek it out, and there are answers available to you. Celestials believe mortals wander in darkness in that there is no light or beacon to guide them. They are fundamentally separated from The Source, and often completely unaware of it. Similarly Fallen are said ‘to wander the void’. Darkness is a part of Creation, and the division of light and dark are maintained by Seraph with that purpose. We pity Mortals’ ignorance in Creation, but despair at the idea of a Celestial knowing the light and the dark, and seeking their absence.

Since Celestials are capable of communicating over vast distances they ping each other before initiating conversation. A mortal analogy would be someone standing up and shouting ‘I wish to speak to Bob.’ If Bob were a Celestial he could then decide wither or not to answer this call for his attention. At which point he will privately communicate his desire to speak with ‘I welcome you to speak.’ This allows for Celestials to ignore unwanted communication. There is a dual private and public aspect to this mode of conversation invitation. All Celestials are aware that one Celestial seeks another’s audience, but they are unaware of the outcome of that request. If a Celestial knows another Celestial’s True Name they may single them out and communicate directly without pinging. This is only done in a matter of great urgency or importance. The greeting changes to ‘I speak to [insert True Name] concerning… ‘. It is possible to ping someone without utter their true name because there are a number of identifiers which could be used to describe a Celestial in detail enough to be unique. In such a case a title usually identifies an individual like ‘Keeper of Mysteries and Silence’ or ‘Seeker of Horizons and Harmony’. These titles sometimes appear translated into Mortal languages as True Names exist beyond direct translation, but within the realm of mortal understanding. 

Leisure activates vary greatly among Celestials and differs slightly from how mortals view leisure. Celestials’ work consists of perusing their purpose. However they never seek to withdraw from purpose, but rather try to find new ways to peruse purpose. An example of this is called ‘witnessing’. Witnessing is the act of experiencing Creation often done in the Material Plane since is differs drastically from the Astral Plane which the Celestials are native too. Forms of witnessing include watching stars being born or collapsing, mortal activities, or traversing great clouds of dust and vacuous space. Celestials do have a great deal of ingrained intelligence and understanding, but they are far for omniscient and often feel they should attempt to observe the vastness of creation. 

One of the semantic domains of Creation Words is Will. Objects and actions are described as willed or unwilled. Many words discuss how much Will a being possess such as first, second, third, fourth, and fifth orders. Will is strongly associated with the gift, agency, The Source, Celestials, and Mortals. Will is also expressed through emotion, thought, ideas, actions, and mind. Will is considered a gift of the Source and sets Willed being apart from inanimate objects. The more Will something has the greater it’s value in the Celestials’ opinion since the Source has favored it more. The idea of greater existence is at some odds with the idea that the Source is perfect, and thus all creation is perfect. Celestials meditate these ideas that it is the Celestials role to provide structure for lesser being as intended.  

The Seraph semantic domain consists of fundamental, law, order, silence, maintaining, torpor, first, Purge, wisdom, dawn of creation, and keepers. Seraph are the oldest creations of the Source and are respected for their primordial role in governing and maintaining the laws of creation set forth by The Source. The Seraph provide a kind of role model or idealized Celestial. They are stoic and they do not question the purpose of their existence. If they were to question their function what then would happen to fabric of reality? Celestials try to mimic the dutiful demeanor in their actions and thoughts.

In the semantic domain of Fallen, Celestials that go against their purpose it is commonly associated with the Void, corruption, mortal influence, Triumvirate, danger, purposeless, despair, loneliness, alienated, and fear. The Fallen contradict the purpose provide by the Source. Part of the reasons Fallen are so fear is the retribution of the Seraph and the fact they may actually have some truth to their actions. Maybe the Source has a plan greater than what the Celestials can currently conceive and Fallen act upon this, or even more disturbing to Celestials sense of purpose is that The Source has no plan at all and the aspects of Creation that Celestials hold so dear are actually merely the creations of Seraphs.

The Astral semantic domain has Æthric clouds, Leviathans, thought, stone, mind, psychic wind, light, ambience, energy, metaphysical, souls, native, home, and celestials. The Astral Plane is vaster than the Material Plane that Mortals inhabit and the place most Celestials spend their time. It is a place where the abstract becomes concrete, and the concrete become abstract from a Material perspective. Celestials would seem to value abstracts like ideas more than concrete actions or objects. Interestingly Celestials seem to maintain their form no matter if they reside on Astral or Material and seem to exist outside the duality of Material-Astral forms. 

The major deviation within Celestial society are the classification of Seraphs, Watchers, and Guardials. The most notable is the little communication Seraph do with other Celestials. When they do communicate with the rest of Celestial society they typically dictate and rarely discourse. Seraphs would dictate ‘Do not interfere with Mortals’ or ‘Purpose is all’. There is no room for discussion about these statements they are simplistic and absolute. Watchers might explain the rationale behind the rules for governing Celestial society ‘One should not interfere with mortals because their path is not our path as designed by the Creator.’ Gurardials tend to talk less in restrictions and more in positives ‘One can intercede on behalf of a Mortal soul to protect it from a leviathan or fallen these things are acceptable.’ Technically the edict of Seraphs (and presumably The Source) are broken when Guardials protect mortal souls on Astral plane. Through each stratification the rules becomes relaxed and interpretive. The Seraph seek no justification for their position other than they say it is so, and Guardials are attempting to justify why it is not.

E. How does your language reflect your culture?

The language provides a structure to express purpose provided by The Source to all Celestials. The language differentiates between willed objects and actions, and unwilled objects and actions. This expresses the importance by Celestials to actively do or be rather than the passivity of unwilled existence like waves hitting the beach. ‘Hit’ would use a different words and kinds of speech in Creation Words depending on if the action was a result of a willed being or unwilled object. True names are an elevation of Celestials above all, but the Source. The Source is singular in that it encompasses all and is separate much like how it has its own part of speech reserved for its use. Similarly the Void or absence of Source is giving its own part of speech to isolate it from the rest of Creation Words used to describe everything created by the Source.

Food is consumed by mortals they maintain their metabolic functions from Creation. Celestials’ substance is the energy from the Source and the words in their language are not interchangeable. This is another way Celestial different themselves from other willed beings believing themselves to be closer to The Source. It also defines that they can’t be as independent from the Source as mortals that are ignorant of the Source and their purpose. They view the substance of the Source’s energy as absorption making the Source apart of themselves in the process. The Source is all, but only the Source’s purest forms can substance its purest entities.  

Three metaphors ‘celestials wander the light’, ‘mortals wander the darkness’, and ‘fallen wander the void’ demonstrate the Celestial’s pity, arrogance, and their view mortals ignorance. The Celestials are also placing value on light over darkness, and darkness over the Void. Here the light represents the closeness to the Source and sense of purpose. Darkness at least still exists within Creation, but the Void is outside of Creation and thus beyond the Source. The less purpose something has the value it possess as well. It also shows that having an inkling of your purpose and abandoning it is worse than not knowing your purpose at all. There may be a connotation that Mortals situation can be changed for darkness to light in the future, but nothing that joins the Void is redeemable because the Void is not. ‘Purpose is all’ defines the relationship between a Celestial’s purpose and the Source. The Source is view as all things, other than the Void. If purpose is defined as all things too that equate purpose to the Source. To abandon your purpose is to abandon the Source and subsequently join the Void which is the worst thing that can happen to a Celestial. The metaphor ‘You have asked the wrong questions, but have gotten the right answers’ defines a problem in ones thinking and not their concussions. Neophytes often have an unquestioned since of purpose it not until they go through their Wandering period do they ask they right questions and still get the right answers. This show that Celestials have layers of understanding of purpose and rules that govern them. Simply acting out your purpose is not enough. A Celestial must understand their purpose and act upon it to be consider Actualized. 

F. Reflective Essay

I found it fascinating on how the framework once established allowed for a great development of ideas and societal construction. In away the crafting of the culture-language is like a fractal. The formula is present to allow a base to grow and maintain a pattern. When the core concepts of such as norms and values are constructed they allow you to continue to build smaller, but patterned pieces. Since all culture is changing that means there is a constant change in the fractal like pattern of language. If the motivating forces in our own language are technology and globalization are big enough the entire structure of a language must shift. What is important to understand about fractals is that the pattern is repeated so you can’t change the smaller piece and expect the whole to remain the same. All change is replicated though out the entire structure and effects the core formula. You can’t really say that cultural change happens in one direction from bottom up or top down. The formula of language is modified at both the micro level of individual and macro levels such a media. There is a negotiation between smaller components and perhaps would could be defined hegemony to construct the whole. One could consider that jargon, slang, or regional dialects as the smallest components of the structure. The internet and telecom networks functions because there are individuals in society fluent in information technology jargon which allows teenagers to communicate in slang about the hamburger their posting pictures of on Instagram, where the beef for that hamburger came from a farmer that has a southern drawl. As the world stands all cultures are influencing one another and being influenced through thought and ideas expressed in language. 

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