Eris Blog Post 2 - "The 23 Enigma", or "Eris is Killing My Dad"

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Eris Blog Post 2

"The 23 Enigma", or "Eris is Killing My Dad" 





I didn't ask to write this blog. Eris made me. 

In the book Cosmic Trigger Robert Anton Wilson (one of the key figures in Discordianism, an anti-religious religion whose members “worshiped” Eris) dedicated a chapter to what he calls “the 23 enigma”; a concept he says he was introduced to by William Burroughs. In the chapter Wilson briefly mentions Hexagram 23 of the i ching, which is translated as “Disintegration, Splitting Apart, The symbol of Falling or Flaying, Peeling Off, Decay, Flaying, Stripping Away, Deterioration, Collapse, Fracturing, Tearing, Disintegration, Ruin, Unravelling…”. 

Over the years since the planet eventually called Eris (it was Xena for a while, we'll get to that at some point) was discovered, a general consensus has been reached amongst the astrological community that the archetype of Eris correlates with Hexagram 23 (and the Tower card in the Major Arcana).

This blog started being written on March 20th, the day of the Spring Equinox. At that point I had tested negative for covid for 2 or 3 days, but got home from my Alan Bennett weekend in isolation to find that my mum had caught it anyway. Then, yesterday, my dad got it. 

Today I went to see Bibi, and I met a writer whose work I have loved for years. I hadn’t slept, because I’d been up all night listening to my dad (who only has one lung, and a burst ventricle in his heart, which he’s done fuck all about since he was taken into hospital over Christmas) coughing up bile and blood. When I said goodbye to him this morning he had his eyes closed, and I felt glad, because he wouldn’t see death creeping up behind him. 

I got home an hour ago, to find my dad has been taken into hospital (where he should’ve taken himself months ago). He was a maths teacher for over 30 years (even though he wasn't great at maths), and loved palindromic numbers.

Tomorrow will be 23/3/22.

I really did not ask to write this blog. 
This is one synchronicity I could do without, cheers Eris. #focl

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