At the cliff’s edge, on the mountain pass, beneath the bronze sky, and over the wine dark sea was Empedocles. He stood over his students like some grand idea of a god as he spoke with his stentorian voice over the wind. The four roots, he would say, are in everything. And differing degrees of each made up the variety in the universe, even the colors: light, dark, red, and yellow.
Empedocles’ voice echoed through the pass, past the soldiers leading the merchants, and to the piqued ears of the dye-master’s apprentice who was learning the secrets of the universe through the secrets of color. The apprentice slowed his cart to listen to Empedocles purvey his truth to the masses, but as he did so, he noticed the alchemy of Empedocles’ words narrowing his perception. And for a second, there was no hue, but only shade — only values between red and yellow.
He has the philosopher’s disease, the master said. And with that, the apprentice remembered his master’s riddle and said it as a focus to remember: you cannot perceive what does not have a name, but if it does not have a name, how do you come perceive it? And he looked at the soldiers and saw their bronze armor and compared it to the sky, and they were different. And he looked at the glaziers behind him with their clear bottles of wine and compared them to the ocean until liberation. Still though, the apprentice wondered how such a stout view could have such an affect
And he raked the cloth in the dye-vat, the brown liquid penetrating between the warp and weft, his movements automatic as he kneaded the fabric — turn and fold, turn and fold. The apprentice sunk in meditation with the repetition. He fell further in the emptiness of thought where things and no-things do not exist in the unconditioned mind — his own view falling away. And turn and fold, and careless as his arm knocked against the lye and the powder fell into the swirling brown liquid.
The apprentice startled himself out of his meditation and he looked down at the dye still swirling. He squinted. And veins of a color appeared that he had never seen before. At first it seemed light and yellow, but that wasn’t it. It almost had the hue of the grass, but darker. And it was rich in color with a depth of wine. And then he saw it for what it was and exclaimed with excitement: Master! Master!
And the apprentice put his hands in the dye, and they tingled from the burn, but he didn’t care as he marveled. He sloshed the water like a child in discovery. But it was fading, just slightly. He reached his arm in to stir the pure color, but that hastened the color’s muteness. And he stuck his arm in deep and stirred violently, but the more the water splashed, the faster it died until it returned to the color of that loamy brown.
I am me 