THE ASSEMBLING TERRANIA CYCLE
The fantasist, whether he uses the ancient archetype of myth and legend or the younger ones of science and technology, may be talking as seriously as any sociologist—and a great deal more directly—about human life as it is lived, and as it might be lived, and as it ought to be lived.
– Ursula K. Le Guin
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…Stories can be so healing; art is so healing; and I think that when you have a story that shows a picture of a utopian future…I think that having a vision of it can help you actualize it.
– Sonequa Martin-Green
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The Premise:
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The Assembling Terrania Cycle is a series of fantasy / science fiction / magical realism tales that start with the creation of the cosmos and run through the 23rd century. The Cycle is not yet finished. In them, folkloric beings from cultures around the world make an appearance. My hope is that one day the Cycle will include fabulous beings of folktale, legend, and myth from every society.
The philosophy behind the Cycle is that humans, one of many promising species, are engaged in a grand adventure in consciousness. The goal, waiting ahead in the future, is Terrania: a just, wise, delightful, and Earth-honoring planetary civilization locally rooted and democratically organized. How to get there?
I hope those who read these tales will consider adding creatively to them, whether by writing more of them or using other media. Let’s play our way to Terrania. And when you get a chance, check out some quick sketches I drew of the archetypal Powers (in human form) along with key characters of the Tales.
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The Cycle:
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​Soulmapper
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Heartlander
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Lamplighter
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Tales of Terrania Rising
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(in progress) Voices on the Road to Terrania
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The Lamplighter Trilogy:
Take Your Pick
Both of these story collections are free downloads as PDF files.
Assembling Terrania: Dreaming Up
a Sane and Delightful Civilization
Craig Chalquist, PHD
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In all the wild imaginings of mythology, a fanciful spirit is playing on
the border-line between jest and earnest.
— Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens
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The important thing is not to offer any specific hope of betterment but, by offering an imagined but persuasive alternative reality, to dislodge my mind, and so the reader’s mind, from the lazy, timorous habit of thinking that the way we live now is the only way people can live.
— Ursula K. Le Guin, “A War Without End”
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The fictional and fanciful Assembling Terrania Cycle begins with the Big Bang and reaches forward into a time when human beings live in a just, diverse, nature-honoring, peaceful, equitable, and delightful world civilization grown from the ground up rather than imposed from the top down.
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Some would call this utopian, but I don’t. If “utopia” refers to perfect harmony, it can never be for at least two reasons: 1. We’re human, and 2. The trickster quality of the universe is built in. There will always be discord. Covering it up makes it unmanageable.
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Terrania is a society of managed discord, and of constant vigilance because of the weaknesses of human nature. As one of the vigilant, Alethia Jabari, puts it, “There are no impregnable utopias.” But we can do better than a melting, polluted planet dominated by super-wealthy elites. We can do better than redlining, cronyism, and white supremacy. We can grow up; some of us already have.
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The philosophy behind the Cycle is that humans, one of many promising species, are engaged in a grand adventure in consciousness. How do we become fully ourselves? How do we assemble a society that affirms us instead of mutilates us? How do we come of age?
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The Cosmos is called the Tetraverse because it contains four realms or levels: Spirit (“Source”), Potentiality (“Infrarealm”), Possibility (“Dreamvale”), and Actuality (“Coaguum”). Source gave birth to the archetypal Infrarealm of the Powers: sentient forces of nature that act like gods and who desire to be fully appreciated by mortals but no longer worshiped by them. The Dreamvale is a realm of imagination populated by semi-autonomous characters and entities. The Coaguum is our realm, the realm where the fruits of the imagination can ripen fully.
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Although these realms interpenetrate, each has its own integrity. Splits between realms can cause damage across and within them.
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One of the ways Humans undergo initiation into fuller humanness and maturity is by facing planetary crises. As the Power Radantia explains it, “Each global-historical upheaval will be a Nexus Crisis involving blocs of Powers in conflict, the living presences of particular places involved, the flavor of the moment, and historically key people facing a pivotal event. How they get through it will depend in part on how they recognize and reconcile the Powers behind it.”
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Although the Powers cannot contravene natural law, humans have assistance from among themselves. One source of aid is a Transdaimonic League of visionaries always found among the living. Some tales deal with Leaguers in particular historical settings. Another help is groups of Guardians of Renewal: historically key individuals who gather like Arthur’s knights to usher in some new vision of how to unite for lasting change.
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It has been fun to imagine more mundane details of the Terraniana: the images, dramas, and colors of this long journey toward the mythos of a lovingly inhabited Earth. A few examples:
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Image of Terrania: Earth, with Africa, home of our species, in the center.
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Motto of Terrania: “Many Voices, One Earth.”
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A Terrania Charter to be expanded and signed within the Terrania Accords establishing worldwide governance.
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The Ten Lamps of basic observations about cosmos, Earth, and our place.
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Ethics: Fivefold Caring (of personhood, people, place, planet, possibility); also, an ethic of self-respecting do-no-harm as exemplified in the tale “Knight of Peace.”
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4Rs of adaptation: resiliency, reenchantment, repair, renewal. We can’t reach the future without these.
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Enchantivism as one form of story-based activism.
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The Assembling Terrania Cycle, compiled into the free offering Tales of Terrania Rising.
I think of this kind of visioning as worldconjuring: dreaming up Terrania, an activity begun individually, with me, but better done collectively.
In fact, part of my motive for writing all these fables and archetales (storytelling that is not myth but aspires to a mythic punch) is to invite others to participate in dreaming into being the kind of ecocentric world culture that supports the maturation and enjoyment of all species, including human. What kind of world do you want to live in? Can you tell stories that seek to strengthen the human spirit on Earth’s behalf through inspiration, imagination, celebration, and hope?
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The Assembling Terrania Cycle is a template of tales, places, times, and characters for creative play in this direction.
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Here are a few suggestions for using the template:
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Add to the Cycle with tales, art, video, performance, music, poetry, or whatever media inspire you.
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Create games from the Cycle.
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Put together a calendar of rites, initiations, and festivals for Terranians. Help them celebrate. (I offered a start on this: April 22nd is not only Earth Day, but Terrania Day because that is the day on which the Accords were signed.)
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For those who like divination, what about a Terrania-based Tarot and other such devices? I’ve put together a Prime Mover Oracle and hope to publish it soon. (If I were creating a Tarot deck, I’d have to make the trickster Kluni its Devil.)
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What do Terranians wear? Pins, rings, earrings, patches, garments?
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To get to Terrania, humans have to endure the Resource Wars: a kind of slow-burning WW III in which the wealthy nations scramble for what fuels and minerals and metals remain. What kinds of resilience tools would you offer to help us get through such a tunnel?
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We need to develop Reenchant.com and, with it, a Reenchantment Guild of worldconjurers and enchantivists sharing practices of collective dreaming and doing, including enchantivist projects.
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Wouldn’t it be great to meet in VR, a realm perfect for worldconjuring and play? And how about a phone app?
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In my archetales, readers come across many figures from the world’s mythologies. Various collections of characters, scenes, monsters, etc. of myth live on the Internet and elsewhere, but if we take the Finnish Kalevala for inspiration, what might a Kalevala for the planet be like: a Terranian epic or series of archetales that come to include all these mythic entities in one grand set of stories?
Wherever the Cycle rolls, my hope is that it grow into a kind of ministry of inspiration for finding magic in the disaster here, where we all live. Stories can help us connect in our depths with the sacred depths of the world.
Glossary
Allmerge: commercially available, fully immersive mixed reality.
A 1-8: a Coastal States intelligence agency that operates in both domestic and foreign arenas.
Autocafé: a mobile outdoor café with walls and décor holographically projected.
Autotemp garments: clothing that automatically adjusts its temperature to keep the wearer comfortable. Developed to deal with temperature fluctuations caused by climate chaos.
Battelite: an armed satellite like those deployed during Space War I.
Bunker dusters: criminals who extort the super-wealthy by threatening to destroy their underground bunkers.
Castle Xanadu: the Dreamvale end of an inter-realm portal connecting Dreamvalers with coagulants so they can converse more consciously. The end in our world is the Dreamvale Exchange.
Cetacean Revolt: An Earth Day boycott and blockage of the world’s ports by dolphins, orcas, and whales fed up with being hunted, strangled in nets, and choked by polluted waters.
Chairmobile: the mobile tech that replaced wheelchairs. The disabled user can sit in it, ride it around, or order it to reshape as an exoskeleton to permit walking.
Chava Intifada: “Eve’s Revolt,” in which Palestinian and Israeli women staged a campaign of total non-cooperation with men to force them into a “one land, two government” (Aitilaf) solution. It was led by Mariam Najjar’s grandmother.
Chevrons: dangerous sand-bearing winds charged by escalating climate chaos.
Coaguum: the realm of material being. It is where humans and other mortals (coagulants) live.
Coastal States: the coalition government of the East and West Coasts.
Colorful Riots: a nickname that caught on for The Colors of Liberty, an ongoing series of worldwide celebrations opposed to any form of systemic oppression. The so-called riots were largely peaceful.
Conocos: sudden flash floods driven by climate chaos.
Counterfight: a self-defense method evolved in the streets to fight off rauders.
Darker Ages: a time of anti-intellectual intolerance and authoritarianism that began in the United States in 2016 and engulfed much of the so-called First World for decades.
Days of Consumption: a period of frenetic buying and spending that preceded the Resource Wars. Roughly from WW II to 2030.
Delphinese: an umbrella term for the dolphin language family.
DelphiNet: the transoceanic dolphin internet.
Dreamvale: the realm of imagination. Words for it in human esoteric systems include Interworld, Mt. Qaf, the Western Isles, Alam al-Mithal, and Mundus Imaginalis.
Dreamvale Exchange: a human institution devoted to putting people in direct and conscious touch with the Dreamvale and its inhabitants.
Dronebrella: a compact drone that sprouts arms to shade the people below it. Dronebrellas can also spray cooling water and extract more of it from the air.
Dreamilation: a sleep-inducing device that allows coagulant conferences in the Dreamvale.
Enhancement: the use of technology to improve human abilities and longevity far beyond what is normal.
Erinyes: an eco-terrorist organization based in North America.
Eschatons: yet another end-of-the-world religious movement. It was started by billionaire Reverend Schulgram.
Exxons: heat waves that make it dangerous to be outside.
Faith Holders: an ecumenical alliance of faith-based practitioners who avow tolerance but often lean toward fundamentalism.
Flightcycle: a bicycle capable of powered flight.
Fogjectors: roaming nanodust projector/cameras.
Gleanome: the android equivalent of a genome. It is capable of random mutations and epigenetics.
Godstractors: technicians who extract Powers from possessed humans.
Gradivus: a martial art developed on Mars.
Great Conversation: the ongoing patterns of interactions among humans and non-humans. Some interactions involve humans; many don’t.
Great Renewal: a worldwide attempt to help Earth regenerate from vast ecological damage inflicted during the Age of Consumption and the Resource Wars.
Heartlands: the midsection of the old United States.
Heartland Security Agency (HSA): the Heartland Government intelligence agency.
Holos: holograms have largely replaced monitor screens, although the walls of most buildings are customizable.
Hominet: a brain-computer interface that draws on collective experience, symbolically translated impressions from DNA and epigenetics, and the user’s unconscious to create Telestra output. A kind of digital collective unconscious made conscious.
Homo Excelsior: a Watchkeeper project for creating an enhanced human being while fostering the highest capabilities of the individual.
Housecall: a medical diagnostic and treatment unit found in households that can afford them.
Infrarealm: the realm of abstract archetypal forms; the home of the Powers.
Inshriner: a device that records memories.
Intervale: a subrealm within the Dreamvale in which Dreamvalers can mingle across Vales. A mortal consciousness must be present to open Intervale.
Komuay: the Powers.
Lamplight: a post-patriarchal and post-literal religion of imagination, reenchantment, care, service, and play dreamed up by Mariam Najjar and founded by her, Susan Appelbaum, and Joan Adesina.
Lampwrights: creatives who elaborate our playcred stories, rituals, and guiding fictions of Lamplight.
Long Adventure: the human journey toward self-awareness and full specieshood as part of an experiment by the Powers to foster consciousness across the universe.
Lunies: self-bestowed nickname for humans who live on the Moon.
Magic Theater Project: a Boston-based attempt to synthesize all knowledge and creative experience to see what might emerge.
Memwipe: a technique and technology for selectively erasing memories.
Mimung Initiative: the Heartland Security Agency’s attempt to create highly intelligent military master strategists through brain enhancement.
M2M: technology that permits a near-total merging of the consciousness of two or more people. Also known as electrotelepathics.
Multiphone: a combination phone, personal AI, wallet, ID, and interface with the Net. Can also be worn as a brooch, pendant, bracelet, etc.
Neuruptor: a firearm that disrupts the human nervous system.
Nexus Crisis: a cross-realm crisis in which some Powers take one side and others oppose. Nexus Crises in the Coaguum are often reflected in the Dreamvale as well.
Ninja squad: a Watchkeeper covert operations paramilitary team.
OREA: the Obligatory Revision Engagement Agency founded by Lucy Zhou to slow down potentially dangerous inventions to vet them before public release and to give the public time to adapt to them.
Orbitveil: a company specializing in satellite protection from orbital attack.
Outliers: people who choose to live on the fringe of Terrania.
Petro hunters: people who track down former fossil fuel executives as well as their associates.
Playcred: Mariam Najjar’s coinage of a word blending “playful” and “sacred.”
Powers: cosmic archetypes like Wisdom, Order, Life, Death, Strife, Attraction, Craft, Healing, Justice, Expansion, Contraction, and Peace that thematically hold the cosmos together. They are sentient and often go around wearing the faces of gods. They originate in the Infrarealm and are the thirty offspring of Radantia, or Source.
Powersat: a satellite that collects solar energy and transmits it for use on Earth, the Moon, Mars, or in the asteroid belt.
Primordials: spirit-like offspring of Powers. Primordials help maintain the Tetraverse. Example: angels.
Quantputer: a quantum computer.
Rauders: roving bands of out-of-work tech specialists and others displaced by mailfist capitalism and climate chaos. Short for “marauders.” Large corporations hire them secretly to hunt down rare precious metals.
Reanimation/Dreamvale Resurrection: the Dreamvale reappearance of someone after death. Although the person usually must be well enough known for legends to gather around them, Six Roots practices can increase the odds of a Dreamvale afterlife.
Renacimiento Libertad: the final overthrow of politically corrupt government in Mexico.
Renewification: the rejoining of the Coastal States and the Heartland under one government.
Resource Wars: fighting between nations for what natural resources remain. Some of them were uncovered by melting ice; others were made scarce through overuse.
Saudicanes: hurricanes strengthened by climate change. Also known as petrocanes.
Seasteads: artificially built floating communities in the world’s oceans.
Shellnadoes: tornados strengthened by climate change.
Silver Tree (Argentum Arbot): an underground tradition of gnosis that constitutes the original source of human religion.
Six Roots: a discipline developed by Mariam Najjar, Simeon Mackenzie, and others for strengthening the imagination.
SMOKE: Suppressive Materialism and Obtrusive Knowability Enforcement: a continental agency for suppressing forbidden imaginings and cultural flowerings of creativity.
Source: Radantia, mother of the gods and the Tetraverse.
Space War I: a short orbital war in which armed satellites destroyed one another, causing massive damage to global communications and commerce.
Splitters: amnesiac moles operated on by Heartland Intelligence to harbor a secret personality, thereby avoiding detection while penetrating security precautions.
Stratokite: large flying structures that help cool the Earth.
Ten Lamps: operating principles that align humans with the forces of nature, place, planet, and cosmos. First written down by Simeon Mackenzie.
Telestra: a technology that engulfs the user in visionary experience involving all the senses. It depends on a network of brains as a bank of knowledge, processing power, and symbolism. Linked to the Hominet, the Telestra is overseen by an intelligent AI.
Terrad: the blockchained unit of currency that replaced the dollar and other national currencies. One terrad is roughly equal to an amount between one dollar and one euro.
Terrania: the just, harmonious, and equitable world civilization of abundance managed by psychologically mature humans in partnership with non-humans.
Terrania Accords: documents signed by world representatives to bring Terrania into being officially.
Terrania Charter: the constitution of Terrania.
Tetraverse: the cosmos described in terms of its four realms: Source, Infrarealm, Dreamvale, and Coaguum.
Tram: a small electric cart holding one or a few travelers. In cities still inhabited, trams, scooters, and bicycles have mostly but not entirely replaced cars.
Transdaimonic League: a perennial group of creative visionaries stretching back to Mitochondrial Eve in Africa. Although many are deceased, they all meet periodically in the Dreamvale. Their living counterparts maintain a worldwide network.
Uncivil War: the political separation of the United States into Coastal States and the Heartlands until Renewification.
Vales: thematic subrealms in the Dreamvale (e.g., 24th Century, 221B Baker Street, Earthsea) separated by purlieu barriers that preserve the integrity of each Vale.
Vestibule: a Dreamvale space magically created by Firiel to help newly awakened Dreamvalers realize who and where they are.
Watchkeepers: the unofficial name of A 1-8.
Real, Unreal, Neither, Both?
Some of the tales (and fables) unfold in magical settings. These tellings are understood to occur in the Dreamvale, where everything "fictional" is real and anything can happen.
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Of course, the Dreamvale has an odd way of intruding into daily reality time and again...