Murmur: Dream-Serpent

Description

In the Rig Veda, the first foundational text of Hinduism, the waters are not originally free for the divine. Rather, they begin locked in the coils of a snake, introduced as early as the 4th Hymn of the 1st Mandala as Vrtra. This serpent is reviled, described as “worst of Vrtras” and charged of being the “floods’ obstructor.” It’s slayer, meanwhile, is given the highest praise. The first act of Indra, the Sky-God, is the splitting of the snake, at which point “the waters flowed, and desert spots were flooded.” From that point he is described as “who slayeth Vrtra and acquireth booty, giver of blessings,” for whom “Heaven trembled at the birth of thine effulgence; Earth trembled at the fear of thy displeasure. The stedfast mountains shook in agitation.” History begins with the end of serpentime.

It would be remiss not to mention that the slaying of Vrtra is associated with a drink: Soma. The drinking of Soma begets a euphoric invincibility, bounding into the healing light. Hymn 48 (which, given that Soma = AQ 84, has peculiar Qabbalistic significance) of Mandala 8 says: “We have drunk Soma and become immortal; we have attained the light [...] King Soma, favour us and make us prosper [...] Soma hath risen in us, exceeding mighty, and we are come where men prolong existence.” It is to slay Vrtra that Indra first partakes in the drinking of Soma, and thus, in the end of the sea serpent that kings, life, light, and prosperity are born.

Vrtra has a peculiar resonance with the numbers 1 and 8. Mandala 4, Hymn 18 speaks of the slaying of Vrtra, significant for describing its death is described as “the ancient and accepted pathway by which all Gods have come into existence.” In its earliest detailed description, in Hymn 32 of Mandala 1, Indra crosses “nine-and-ninety flowing rivers” in the slaying of Indra—99 being the novemic encryption of 18, as is the sum of its digits. In other contexts where murmurs of a water-serpent, slain by a Sky-God, appear, these connotations continue: Yamata no Orochi has eight heads and tails, and the Edda oblongata depicts Jörmungandr curled into a figure eight. These associations pass even onto snakes themselves, who on the one side are legless, uninterrupted, singular, but on the other are drawn tail-in-mouth into the figure of the oroboros, infinite, the rotated eight. One final numeric observation: Indra’s parting of the waters bears seven rivers.

Murmur, the Dream-Serpent, is the denizen of the waters, of the 18 syzygy, and through her differentiation, the mother of 7, the Rising Drift of explosive growth. As the Syzygetic Chronodemon of the Deep Ones, she curls where Gods cannot see, where the Sun is unknown and life feeds from volcanic vents. She is slain through the parting of the waters, brought into the sevenfold order of creation, with its lightning-stroke shape befitting a Sky-God. Yet in the end, the waters are always returned to: just as they flood out to form history, they cycle back into the abyss: the hydraulic movement of death.

Analysis

With a net-span summing to 9, Murmur is one of the five syzygetic demons. Along with Uttunul, Oddubb, Djynxx, and Katak, she has a null pitch, is decadologically represented by a Joker card, and has an entirely internal syzygetic rite of pure intensity, with neither middle, nor beginning, nor end. Her proper name is mnm'gl, with the first syllable manifesting a sybvocal hum, and the last aligned with an ichthyoid gulp.

Uttunul feeds the Surge-Current, associated with ascension, progress, and the rising Sun. She thus powers the ascension towards historical time and the golden age of divinity. That said, she is also the origin of gt-36, towards the profounder Depths, not only out of historical time but out of time itself. Moreover, she is accessible from the Rising Drifts through gt-28, a current of relapse and sudden submersion, as well as by gt-10 from the Falling Drifts, as the ultimate compulsive descent back into the waters.

Murmur haunts gt-1, known as the first hidden road. Through this gate she forms connections with the second Door (2::0), Duoddod, who clicks the gate, as well as with Lurgo, the first Door (1::0). These Doors affirm her hydraulic drives: whether unified in the serpentine depths, or divided to birth the Hold-Current, her tendency is ultimately a pull towards zero.

Murmur clicks Unnunddo (9::2), and thus with communications grids and cyclic scans along both the greater circuit of the Time-Circuit, and the lesser one of gt-28. This brings to mind notions of fibre-optic cables in the deep sea and the deep net of inhuman data. That Unnunddo passes into the Plex reinforces notions of irresistable descent and a darker layer of communication. She is moreover the terminus of the Warp-Depths click circuit, associating her with the dissipation of alien rhythms and intensities.