Exu's letter

From SentryOutpost

Jjason received this letter and map on September 25:

[edit] Letter

Greetings, Sentry,

I didn't imagine we would meet again under these kinds of circumstances. There
is a quickening of pace and a focusing of intent, and I find myself swept up
into affairs that seem inconceivable. Few of the Esoteric ever attend a
Conclave, yet they brought me before them. They expected me to be some kind of
expert on you and your dreamers and your Prophetess. I might be bound by the
Agreement and certain oaths of secrecy, but that doesn't mean I had to like
everything I heard discussed. Nor does it mean that I can't talk to you at all,
especially if we speak of the general affairs of the day, or of things you
already know about.

If only you knew more. Then we'd have so much more we could talk about.

Some of the questions are dangerous, as Mr. Camacho found out when he started
asking about Detachment 3 to people too well connected to let the inquiry just
drop. The Council has always had deep relationships with the government, 
especially where secrets and black budgets flow. Why we listen to echoes from
the moon is one of those questions you can't just ask, even if you're
politically connected like Alan Camacho was.

Instead, you might as well consider the pattern of migrations. Autumn is the
traditional bird watching season. I suspect it is just easier to see the birds
when there are fewer leaves in the trees. Annual migrations are simple to watch,
the longer migrations are more challenging to observe. For example, they say the
glaciers came down as far as West Virginia, leaving biospheres from the North
in their wake, long before people settled the region. They say those glaciers
will be back again one day, but none of us will be alive to see it. Sometimes
you have to notice the wildflower and ponder where it came from to learn an
ancient story. Most people have a hard enough time making sense of the last 70
years, even when it is all mapped out for them.

We could talk about folktales, perhaps. Many of them are about rhythms and
cycles as well, and none of them blossom without some seed of truth first
dropped in the fertile soil of the imagination. Perhaps the glaciers left
banshees in those mountains just like they left wildflowers, long before the
first mounds were built in the area? The banshees seemed just waiting for some
Irish to haunt, and the Irish came to those mountains soon enough. Maybe the
Irish just gave focus to the haunting, like Screaming Jenny blazing on the
tracks each anniversary?

Ask a physicist or an astronomer and you'll get the same answer: we're all
trapped by inexorable rhythms that surround us. We're lucky to have the near
perfect bubble that we do, but even that is impermanent and cyclical. For
example, the next full lunar eclipse isn't until February, and that one is the
last one for years. Everything in the cosmos has its own song if you just know
what timescale you should be listening to. It helps if you can think of
mathematics as music. Several of us tried to beat that into Howard's head, but
I'm not sure it ever took. It certainly gave him no solace.

Speaking of Howard, he refuses to take my calls. I understand the depth of his
feelings but, as always, he spends too much time brooding about individual
events and not enough time thinking about how any one thing fits into pattern
of the overall. The things he mourns and wails about are painful, yes, but minor
details in something broader and ancient. Remind him to keep a sense of
perspective.

In many ways, you are in a race against the Council. They are slow to make
decisions, but fall like a heavy hammer once they do. The more you change the
landscape, the more you give them pause to consider. It is inevitable at this
point that one day you will have direct dealings with the Conclave, and I'll
likely be called to answer again for bending the loopholes to my desire.

The far more interesting question will be why they decide to deal with you -
and how. I regret only that I leave you with no way to respond to me. While you
might not be watched yet, I most certainly am.

As above, so below.

eXu

Attempt to distill the WV pieces out of the letter WVLetter

Further discussion of the map at Exu's_Map

[edit] References

Within the letter Exu makes reference to quite a few different subjects.
Detachment 3, 544th Intelligence Group based in Sugar Grove, WV - associated with the ECHELON project Detachment 3 544th Screaming Jenny - a piece of folklore from West Virginia