Enough time has been spent mulling the seven-five dilemma. I will resolve it by pure experiment! Ha ha.

This is not to say that I'm questioning anyone's wisdom, least of all that of a Major Goddess. Just that the only way to learn anything is to sit still and open your eyes as wide as you can until they dry up like little chickpeas.

I also think that the discovery of a leaning towards the seven side of the seven-five dilemma would need marking by some rite or reverence. So I have begun a seven-day rite of comptemplation, just as I said I ought, considering even of seven watery traits on each of seven days.

Sunday is the day of beginning, ruled, of course, by the Sun, the ultimate source, the prior illuminator; and my source and my illumination are my power of perception. My vision and sense of smell are far superior to that of any mortal, and I of course am attuned to all manner of interpersonal subtleties, so that I might achieve my undinical ends. At the Goop Factory I am always preparing documents, diagrams and inscriptions in excruciatingly fine, almost illegible, detail.

And so I spent my Sunday attending to my sensations and my perceptions. I suppose the distinction between perception and sensation could bear some elaboration. Sensation is merely the accumulation of the raw sensory data, while perception is the first layer of interpretation that floats lightly above it. Sensation says that one part of the visual field is light while another is dark, that the pressure against the skin is cool and perfectly even; perception says that what is seen is a straight line, a shadow, a shading, or that the skin is wet. Perception is the process of applying the rubric of prior experience and the toolbox of innate tendencies to what the world presents. Perception is the first risky assertion of one's self upon the world, consciousness's ineluctable claims about reality, the original opportunity to be mistaken.

I am rarely mistaken, however, thanks to the first of my gifts. I can still see the turbid sky of the evening of my birth under the Seven-fold Tree; recall the feel of every rainy day's raindrops. I spent my day watching the sunlight filtering through leaves, the sharp crookedness of tree trunks. I deigned to eat today, food of the sea, and allowed my tongue to press the cold firmness of fresh fish and the playful buttery squirt of roe. I felt the warmth of skin and the cruelty of wind. I saw easy cascades of divine tresses. The world is delectable and I've been taught how to taste it.