A new begining

Mark glared balefully about the congregation, daring any and all to dispute his ascendancy. For too long now he had played the phantom, gliding from moment to moment believing himself described in all that he apprehended. But in this time, in this moment, he came willingly to the inner cacophony which was in concert with his heart and with this act the Outside was reduced to little more than an idea, merely a part of the puzzle that owned his awareness. They were gathered, he and his thoughts about their usual fire bringing with it's heat the flux of life and animating them into a kind of reality, one that afforded him the impression of being the canvas on which they were painted. In their silence he saw permission although they as yet knew not what they were approving him to do. While he felt other than they he would remain safe as they faltered and collapsed under his scrutiny and he would see if anything could be salvaged from the wreckage he had made of his mind. Mark had recently become disillusioned with the results of his actions and had begun to despair he might never be proof against ignorance and foolishness. That he might always keep himself stuck in the mire of desire and temporary pleasuring of insatiable need . He had for as long as he could remember sought to understand what gave worth to life, his need for an answer had now become unbearable. Mark felt as though if he did not find a vessel that would contain his faith he might forever be detached from the worlds subtler beauty. More and more over years his thoughts had begun to face inward, to gaze into the fire until it was always here he found himself. So Mark decided if it was here he would be then he would be here, and he would know where he was, fully aware that to know where would be as kin to knowing what and who. He brought forth his staff alerting some of his thoughts and passions with it's presence that he foresaw the likelihood of contention, perhaps from any number of the multitude lurking in the periphery of the fires light. Mark knew he manufactured an illusion in the staff, the very act of doing so was his purpose, in exercising his ability to bring about such artifice with a thought he would stay abreast of both potential and limitation. The
staff would act unnecessarily as an extension and holding of his emanation, unnecessary he thought, for the blending of Scorpio and Ox which was his birthright already carried him too far into pragmatism without the use of such a device.
Mark focussed his attention on the staff ignoring the swirling whispers which sought to distract,
pouring his energy flavoured with furious anger into it, building upon it a heat and light unlike that of the life fire, Although the staff tapped that fire and used it also to build on the rage it was becoming. The manifestation of fury Mark continued to send into the wood turned it to white light which brought with it a humming building in intensity at a pace with the growing brilliance of the light. At its crescendo it became a rumbling bass felt more than heard and when the wood would take no more into itself and Marks emotion began to spill wetting his brow, he paused for a moment wondering if this desperate act would yield any benefit at all. He could not see them but he could hear them and feel them and he would have their attention, so he
slammed the heel of the staff into the earth between his splayed feet. The light emptied from the staff into the ground and spread in all directions as lightening and all sound was sucked away with it as though into a jet stream. Under all the darkened thoughts and out into the beyond that is beyond the life fires light the raging incandescence spread. And there it illuminated a legion of demonic forms which dwarfed in numbers the convocation of thoughts and memories and impressions which symbolised conscious life. And all thought about the life fire shrank and brayed in fear even as the demons did the same in reaction to themselves fore never before had they been seen, even by themselves.