The Magic Square

Mary was alone in the living room late at night, her favorite series on tv had just finished. She saw all the seasons of it and she felt lonesome without those characters now. Mary was thinking of a new series, but not now. It was like saying goodbye to a friend and making new friends instantly. No, she must feel the loss of these characters, she must get accustomed to their absence before getting to know others. Some characters live with her forever, like the ones from Madmen, some of Game of Thrones, Spiral, Bloodline, and others. Some were not so likable for her, as the ones from This is Us, too complicated, she thought.

But, for now, Mary was just staring at the wall opposite the sofa thinking about her next painting and the new work process she just invented. It was a simple one, that she wanted to apply not just in visual art, i. e. , drawing and painting, but in general to all her creations. It consisted of laying down a one or two colors background, then drawing with chalk or a fusain over it, then painting another layer of color over it, letting the drawing apart from this layer, just with the first background, detaching itself from it. After that, she would paint over the chalk or fusain lines, keeping the graphic feature of the work.

Very simple, indeed, but it had been hard to accept this simplicity. Why complicate things when you have found your style? Well, Mary did it when she stopped insisting on a painting that said nothing to her, that was a copy or another version of several painters. Of course, she studied most of them, she had her preferred ones, never denying their benefits to her, their important influences in her art, but nevertheless, she created a style of her own with characters made of few lines. That's it. She did not have to explain everything. Just outline the essential.

Well, Mary was thinking of this and she was grateful for her recent accomplishments in that current painting when she saw on the wall a series of squares. They were four. They seemed to blink at her. It has been just a glimpse. They soon disappeared. She felt puzzled and a bit afraid. What was it? Someone from the invisible world sending her a message? Who? What message?

Immediately Mary researched squares on the internet. She found out Magic Squares. This reminded her of some researches she had made when she was interested in alchemy. Was it related to "solve et coagula"? Perhaps it had to do with this new simplicity recently found. Yes, perhaps this whole process was an alchemical one, the blank page, after so much fight.

Getting back to the magic squares Mary discovered that they existed for maybe four thousand years, and the words written in them were both mysterious and ambiguous. Let's see, Sator, Arepo, Tenet, Opera, Rotas. These words are written in every direction and can be read onward and backward, a Latin palindrome. What does it mean? Some say they are an invocation of angels living on certain planets. Some say they are an amulet against sadness. Albrecht Durer painted in 1514 a magic square on the work called Melancholia. In this case, the square bore numbers whose sum was always the same for each line or the numbers had certain healing proprieties.

The word's meaning is also a mystery. Just Tenet appears to be "the Principle". In many squares it appears in the center of the other words, forming a cross. But perhaps it is related to the verb to have. Mary found out that the Sator square as it has become known was found in Pompeii, perhaps made by Jews that lived there, and that the words carried hidden meanings among the letters, related to a prophecy by Ezekiel. The most literal interpretation is that "The farmer-gardener (SATOR), AREPO has (TENET) and works (OPERA) the wheel or plow(ROTAS)", according to what she found out in Wikipedia.

Simplifying things, as she is now doing, she related this with a tarot message, "be ready to put all your soul in whatever you do in order to accomplish a great work".

She stretched her arms, opened the front window, felt the freshness of the night air, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes. She would sleep with the angels and dream about magic squares floating in the sky. She closed the window and got upstairs to her bedroom. Everything was quiet in the neighborhood.

That night she slept heavily but she had a strange dream. She entered a temple up in a mountain all decorated in gold and blue. There, she met a great friend of hers known to be a Kabala expert. He had died months ago from covid 19 and they had not had the chance to say goodbye to each other. She had been desolated ever since because he was a dear and close friend to her. He kept saying to her to study the Kabala, for this precious study contained the explanation of many mysteries we do not understand. He told her to read the Thorah as the main reading of her life, to begin with. This book would guide her in all her searchings. Even if she did not have the ability to understand its messages as she read them, the words would echo in her head and someday they would make sense, and she would see things clearly. He told her about the sefirot, so mysterious. He told her once that their friendship was so strong that they would be close to each other even after one of them was gone. As a matter of fact, he promised never to leave her.

So, she entered the temple up the hill and there he stood, smiling at her, with his arms opened, all dressed in simple clothes in cotton, a kind of tunic, and large trousers. He invited her to come nearer, and so she did, and he whispered in her ear that he kept his promise. He would never leave her. She wanted to know everything. How did he pass away, how was his new life, what was this place? But he put his finger over his mouth and told her he could tell nothing of this to her. "Hush, baby, hush!" He only told her the passage had been soft and he was doing good. This place was where they used to come every night, even if she did not remember, and he always brought her home every morning.

Tonight, as she kept awake alone in the living room, things got a little out of control. That's why she saw the magic squares on the wall. They were meant to be explained by him with the discoveries based on his studies. But as she simplified things, he agreed with her conclusions. They kissed and said goodbye as the sun appeared on the horizon.