i interlude I : the complex & amazingly rare Courtship Dance of the Mirror octopus deep within the oceans most forlorn to the light of the Sun ( the Mariana Trench, the Mindanao Deep, and a small region south of Easter Island ) there existed, in the late Ordovician Period, an octopus so completely transparent that it passed most of its existence utterly invisible to predator and prey alike yet in the complex and amazingly Rare Courtship Dance of a female Mirror Octopus with a male, their skin transformed into the most magical mirrorlike Obsidian a blackness which shone and reflected everything in its immediate vicinity to a few meters and thus they were able to see their Mate and Themselves in the reflection . . . Indeed, it is the author's humble opinion that in all the breadth of observable Nature reaching to the uttermost Ends of the Universe, there is not a Transformation so poetically Miraculous as this octopus, having been seen thru its entire Life now becoming Visible to the World by virtue of encountering its other Self, and that it is only in this Reflection emanating from his or her Lover that the True Self is finally Seen for the very First Time . . . And this was not even the most visually stunning portion of the Courtship Dance of the Mirror Octopus, for the Female, upon Touching the ends of her Tentacles with the ends of the Male, began to develop two small concentric Rings encircling her Mouth which emerged from the blackness of her Skin into two undulating Rainbows which contained the entire Spectrum of colour, even a Double Rainbow all across the Sky of her pre Dawn Body which, as the Courtship Dance continued, melted away the obsidian Hues until Her Entire Body was One Amazingly Vibrant Glowing Rainbow which descended gradually from the Tips of her Tentacles and into the Tentacles of the Male ( for the Male generally courted upside - down ) until the Male was now full of colour with the Rainbow passing completely out of the Female ( as if only one Rainbow could be shared between them ) and then gathering into Two concentric Rings around the Mouth of the Male, the colour melted into Night and the two Mirror Octopus Lovers were Obsidian once more, and still conjoined would descend slowly thru the Darkness amidst a constellation of Euripidian sea butterflies ( which would spiral around the lovers in tight arcs vaguely resembling the combination of a swarm of phosphorescent orocerulean macaws merged with an elongated double helix ) and after a time the phosphorescent Lights could be seen from Afar to pulse in delicate rhythms as an underwater Heartbeat exploding and frozen in the plasmas of Time moving to the hypnotic sounds of Silence at the bottom of the Sea . . . |