The visions are white, blue, white, pale red. In the end they mingle and are all pale, the color of the flame of a white candle; you will see sparks, you will feel gooseflesh all over your body. This announces the beginning of the attraction exerted on the one who fulfills the mission.

– Papus, Martines de Pasqually, Paris, Chamuel, 1895 

  (quoted in Foucualt’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco)

A pattern is formed through the simple act of repetition. In following the pattern, a chain of meaning develops. In searching for a pattern, I seek epiphany. I will solve a mystery, I will unlock the secrets of the universe, I will decorate my home.

I lie here…and follow that pattern about by the hour. It is as good as gymnastics, I assure you. I start, we’ll say, at the bottom, down in the corner over there where it has not been touched, and I determine for the thousandth time that I will follow that pointless pattern to some sort of a conclusion.”

 – Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper

 A pattern reveals the structure of a design. A pattern creates a web that is difficult to escape. Because a pattern exists, does this necessarily entail that meaning exists alongside it? Enter the algorithm. Replace epiphany with apophenia. I can’t stop looking. I’m watching you watch me.

Phenomenal nature shadows him wherever he goes…Everything is a cipher and of everything he is the theme. He must always be on guard and devote every minute and module of his life to the decoding of the undulation of things.

 – Vladimir Nabakov, Signs and Symbols

I am here, I am open, I am waiting. I am The Receiver.