Fly Tying and the Mind of God

This essay may seem more appropriate for my fly fishing blog, but after writing it, I felt it captured something "in between" angling and the spiritual journey. More and more, it seems that everything I do is related to a singular purpose.  Anyway, I think you'll understand why I posted it:

I have flyfished now for 56 years, beginning on a small artesian pond in the Texas brush country. I started tying flies in my teens, and have always found flytying to satisfy my creative impulses. When I started fly fishing the Blue Ridge, I tied my own patterns, hoping that they would succeed. And they did, with the tiny brook trout that populated the streams in the upper elevations of Shenandoah National Park. They had survived over the millennia by being willing to seize the moment. But when I had the opportunity to flyfish Henry's Fork of the Snake River, I struck out entirely with my motley collection of homespun flies. The fish wouldn't touch them. For the first time in my life, I did what most flyfishers do as a matter of course when fishing new waters: I visited a fly shop and purchased a dozen flies, most of which were variations on a single bluewing olive hatch. That day, I learned that no matter how inventive you are, you must still muster the humility to look at what's going on around you.

When I began to flyfish my home waters of the Lower Laguna in my early 20s, I was able to unleash my creativity, mainly because the fish didn't care. I created poppers from deer hair, discovered that they would sink after a few casts, and began experimenting with various ways to keep them afloat. I ended up discovering closed cell foam, and married foam with spun deer hair to create the earliest iterations of the VIP popper, the subject of the second article I wrote for Fly Tyer. It's been one of my top three flies ever since, mainly because the fish don't care much about how the fly looks, as long as it doesn't misbehave. Many anglers, who have tied the VIP, agree. 

In fisheries such as the LLM, a fly is successful mainly because of how it performs; that is, its castability in wind, how it lands on the water, its sink rate, how it performs in seagrass-filled water, and its hookup rate. But in a cold water fishery populated with wild, spawning populations of trout, these variables don't matter as much. Instead, the fly is usually effective if it imitates a naturally occurring insect that the fish are keying on at that particular moment. Tying flies to match the hatch takes considerable discipline and "imitativeness," as opposed to inventiveness. Of course, there are non-imitative flies that are successful, too, such as the Wulff patterns, and Western attractors such as the Stimulator. Attractor patterns are, by definition, invented by anglers who are willing to think outside the box of imitative fly tying, and conceive of a synthesis of qualities that may not occur in Nature. In a sense, the inventive tyer taps into an archetype that has no literal physical expression, at least as yet, but somehow appeals to the fish's sense of propriety, or provokes its indignation. We really don't know what a fish thinks when it sees what is clearly divorced from all recognizable life forms.

Inventiveness comes at the beginning and the end of an angler's learning curve. When I fished the Jackson River in western Virginia, I learned that attractor patterns were, by and large, ineffective on that tailwater fishery. I learned one day from fly fishing guru Harry Steeves, who happened to be fly fishing below Gathright Dam one morning, that I had to know precisely the size and shape of a particular midge pupae in order to hook the largest trout I'd every enticed the following day. But while fishing in the same spot one day not long after this humbling lesson, it suddenly occurred to me--don't ask why--that a particular synthesis of two popular dry fly patterns would prove successful, even though the pattern did not match any natural insect on that difficult fishery. I went to my hotel and tied the pattern that night, and it became the "Jackson River Special." My buddy Bill May and I caught a lot of trout the next day on that pattern, and it continued to be my most effective fly for that fishery.

The difference between the novice fly tier and the seasoned one had to do with several things, including: the countless days of immersion on my Virginia home waters, the humility to learn from masters such as Harry Steeves, and the willingness to listen to what Nature was whispering to me. When you embrace all of those ingredients, then you become eligible on the far end of the learning curve to innovate effectively. Houston Smith, who wrote Forgotten Truth, and was known for his books on comparative religions, came up with a concept that resolved the conflict over Darwinian evolution and Creationism. Pointing to events in nature that cannot be reduced to the forces of natural selection--such as nonadaptive coloration among birds--he coined the term, "the descent of the archetype" to explain the playful creativity of the divine expressing itself in the world.

I believe that inventiveness at the fly tying vise can be, at the pinnacle of one's learning process, a moment of an archetype's descent into expression. It can be the fly tying equivalent of a Coppery Tailed Trogan or a Painted Bunting, both of which make no sense in a world governed in large part by survival of the fittest. It can mirror a pattern in the mind of God, which exists only as a creative expression capable of arousing an answering response in the mind of fish. Flies such as Bud Rowland's Numero Uno, and perhaps my own VIP Popper, look strange and idiosyncratic, but are endowed with something beyond the rational, imitative mind. When the VIP made the cover of Guide Flies several years ago, I was admittedly embarrassed to have the VIP pictured beside Harry Murray's Mr. Rapidan, a fly that has become immortalized as a Blue Ridge classic. I have always realized how odd the humble fly looks, but how effective it can be. In one sense, it wasn't my creation as much as a gift of momentary inspiration informed by years of failure and yearning. It was the utterance of another realm finding a fertile place in my imagination.

The other day, Ryan said, "I want to invent a new fly." As a relatively old man, I thought, as all fathers do, "Learn more first." But then I remembered the endless winter nights of inventiveness at the tying vise as a young man. So I said nothing, knowing that Ryan's creativity would, in time, merge with prodigious on-the-water experience to spawn original creations, the broad shape of which had been known for all eternity in one mind alone.

Paper Just Published in IJODR

I have authored a paper that might interest you was just published in the International Journal of Dream Research, 12, 1, (April, 2019), titled "Fading Light and Sluggish Flight: A Two-Dimensional Model of Consciousness in Lucid Dreams." You can download the paper from the IJODR site, at https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/IJoDR/issue/view/4397. Enjoy!

When You Are Ready

When I was about 22, I dreamt that I awoke to see a bright white light descending into our side yard, 20 feet outside the window. I was frightened, so I got up and ran from my room, but not before a dark form flew toward me. As it touched the ground, it became a beautiful blond woman dressed in a blue jumpsuit of the kind you might see in a science fiction movie. I asked her what she wanted. She said, “We have come for your brother. You are not ready yet.” Glad that they had not come for me, I went to inform my brother of their arrival. I found him kneeling tearfully in prayer. His head was shaved, and he wore a saffron-colored robe. He accompanied me to where the woman was waiting outside our bedroom window. She and her travel companions laid my brother down and slid his body through an opening in the luminous craft. Before they left, the woman told me that they had put something inside my wrist that would serve as a beacon to them. She said, “We will return when you are ready.”

Between that moment and this juncture in time I have been the recipient of countless experiences of spiritual ecstasy and religious encounter. I have written a book on lucid dreaming, a book on face-to-face encounters with Jesus, a book on visions of the Holy Mother, and a memoir on fly fishing as a spiritual journey that was inspired by luminous dreams. But throughout these important developmental stages, I have never forgotten the woman’s promise to return “when you are ready.”

One sign that I was nearing readiness for her return was an experience I had a decade ago aboard my fishing skiff, while spending the night alone on the Lower Laguna Madre, my home waters from childhood where I have flyfished since my 20s, and guided flyfishers for the past 18 years. I’d already spent several nights on the bay during the full moon, and I decided to do it one night while a tropical storm brewed over the open Gulf to the south of where I anchored.

  I lay there for a while, savoring the view of a clear, starry sky above me, and golden thunder heads to the south lit up with lightning, until I began to drift off to sleep. Passing into the realm between waking and sleeping, I heard something that I had not experienced in months. It was a familiar interior sound — like ocean waves or a rushing wind — and it had often preceded the coming of the Light or the onset of an out-of-body experience. A well-known Tibetan treatise refers to this phenomenon as the “gift waves,” and says that it indicates the presence of a spiritual master who is assisting in the development of the recipient. 

Regardless of its source, I have always considered it an auspicious event, so I surrendered to it without resistance or fear. A few minutes later, I lost consciousness briefly, but not before I felt myself rocking back and forth on the verge of leaving my body.

The next thing I remembered, I was sitting with a group of men in a wide, open work boat that was about 25 feet long. It was a very bright, cloudless day. I was fully conscious and acutely aware that I had somehow been transported from the Shoal Cat to another place. I wasn’t sure that the men could see me, so I remained still and just watched what was going on around me. Where was I? I wondered. I gathered somehow that the men were waiting to go to work inside a building that towered above us in the middle of an ocean. They all wore similar blue-and-white work clothes. I also observed several strange, otherworldly-looking boats passing by, each of which appeared to be exquisitely crafted and personally tailored to its owner’s tastes. 

Then I realized with a start where I was: I was on another planet, and the sun above me was another star! Reeling from this insight, I was suddenly back on lying on the deck of my boat, looking up at the stars again and listening to the retreating sound of the gift waves. 

It was another 15 years before the "portal" between this world and the stars opened up more completely. I have visited so many  planets in faraway star systems, and have said goodbye to countless loving souls whom I will probably never see until I am no longer tethered to this world. There have been so many experiences that I only write down the most memorable ones, some of which are included in this blog. Someday soon, I hope to write about them in a book-long treatment on the subject. But suffice to say, I know that we're not alone in the universe, and that there are countless worlds and souls who will welcome you as a long-lost friend ... "when you are ready."

The Guru's Invitation

I had meditated at 4:30 am, and left my body after lying back down around 5:15. After being out for 30 minutes or so, and encountering numerous beings, ostensibly from another star system (a regular experience), I left them, and walked along alone. I looked up at the sky and prayed that I might receive some help in my writing and be guided or taken someplace where I would receive that help. Suddenly the clouds parted and a huge mandala began to form in the sky. It was beautiful and very ornate. Perhaps it was an ancient Indian mandala or yantra, because there did not seem to be any Buddhas in the mandala.  I was drawn up into it and as I got closer to it, I could see that it was textured rather than two-dimensional, kind of like a quilt. 

Some of the panels was actually mirror-like or metallic and others were more like silk or lustrous material, but it was exquisitely beautiful. Then it seemed that the mandala was draped over a large table or platform and I knew that it had been created by a woman. I was on the platform, on the mandala and then lowered myself onto the floor around this platform. I found myself in what appeared to be on ashram store or a place where spiritual items were sold that were associated with some spiritual tradition. There were vendors all around the periphery of a square room and I walked around greeting each of them and seeing what they had to offer. Each of the vendors was a woman, and they seemed to be overjoyed to see me. They greeted me with great compassion and joy, and it just made me feel happy, on the edge of ecstasy myself. Then someone mentioned that the Guru was coming and I turned, and he came. He stood beaming only a couple of feet away.  He was fairly young and radiant and happy and clearly pleased to see me as if I was a long lost friend or someone he expected.  He had black hair, with white hair or light on the edges of his hair. He then embraced me. 

Then he had his followers bring me an abundance of gifts of various types and they inundated me with bags and boxes full of things. He was so happy, and he would lean over to tend to the gifts. At one moment, he said, "this is for your bath," and he took something out of one of the containers and brought it to my attention and smiled and as if he was taking great care and making sure that I understood how all of the gifts could be used. Finally I asked him, “Who are you?" And he said that his name was like two names starting with s and he used the acronym s a m as if somehow Sam was a short name that described his longer names. But as usual, it’s hard to hear words distinctly in the OOBE.

Then it seemed I was coming out of that particular episode and looking around for him and didn't see him anymore and I asked somebody if a man that I was standing next to was the Guru and the man I asked said, "no, no, he's down the hallway sitting in his chair." So I walked down the hallway and there was a woman kneeling in front of him with her head bowed to the floor. Meanwhile, he sat in the chair and in a very stately, meditative pose. The woman got up and then I took my position in front of him and he said something like, “Do whatever feels comfortable for you," as if to say "you don't have to go by our traditions." Nonetheless, I bowed down and put my head to the floor and it felt very right to do that. When I stood up, I aked him, “How can I find you? Can I visit with you again?" He said, "certainly you are always welcome." And then he said, “ Come to Montreal." And then I began to come back to my body.

Dream: The God Within the Garden

I awoke at 5 o’clock, and took 4 mg of galantamine before returning to bed without meditating. My goal was modest, that is, to just remember a dream. But I had a dream in which I became lucid and began flying. I considered going up and heading for the stars, but for some reason I stayed in the world, feeling that my out-of-body condition was fragile.  Then, I was with many people who were involved in ARE. We were in a rural setting, which had been endowed by some donor at the tune of $10 million or more, which was facilitated by Charles Thomas Cayce before his death. We were exploring the area. At some point, we became aware that the plant life of the earth  had been struck by some kind of force or disease that caused it to wither. Somehow we were aware that there was an ancient being who was underground, and we hoped to find that being so it could assist us in addressing the problem that the world faced. We used what looked to be a metal detector that we swept over the ground seeking for some signal of the being’s presence. After we had swept a garden area, a lettuce plant begin to vibrate, as if to signify that something was beneath it. I took a shovel and began to dig gently into the soil, eventually exposing a red light, which we knew to be an eye or sensor for the being. The being emerged from the ground in a non-humanoid form, looking like a plant made of flesh or non-woody material. It came close to me, and touched me. I knew that it recognized me. It then transformed into a little male child who was on my back with his arms around me. It seemed to be morning, and we were all eating outside. I fed the child buttered toast while we visited with the people around us. Then I addressed him more formally, asking him if he could do something for us to save the world from the dire situation it faced. He seem to rise up into the air and address the problem globally and taking a while to do so. Then, upon his return, he and I were face-to-face, and I was feeling deep, almost unbearable love. I told him I loved him and he told me the same. I asked him, "Where have we known each other?" He replied, “Everywhere.” And then I gradually awoke in my bed.

The First Cause of Dreaming

A recent realization of mine has been percolating for some time, and has matured in the context of doing online dream groups for the past two years. The question is, "What gives rise to a dream?"

Neuroscientists have their own answers, but I'm a phenomenologist, and therapist, so I'm looking at the initial moments in a dream to provide hints pertaining to the background reason for its emergence.

I believe that the first cause is the experience of dissonance between the status quo dream ego awareness, and some discordant or emergent feeling that collides with it.

In the Gospel of Thomas, it says, "When the one becomes two, what will you do?" In essence, consciousness depends on dissonance; for otherwise, there would be no other, no awareness of difference, only a kind of immersive, formless awareness.

If you study the first sentence or two of any dream narrative, you will usually find some sense of edge or uneasiness that lays the groundwork for everything that follows. It doesn't have to be unpleasant, only sufficiently "different" to evoke awareness upon which the imagery then populates the dream interface as an expression of the evolving sense of difference or dissonance. I know this sounds abstract, but it provides very practice ways to structure effective co-creative dream work.

Take for instance the opening words of a dream that a dream group member once shared. "I heard the howl of a wolf, and realized that my chickens were vulnerable to attack. I grabbed a hoe and ran out the back door in order to protect them." One ways to structure the dream work is to reflect on the fact that even before the dreamer heard the fox howl, she was aware of a sense of uneasiness and threat, and the wolf's howl and everything that transpired thereafter provided an experience of confronting and resolving (if possible) the sense of threat.

I will be writing further about this, but consider a couple of dreams of your own, and see you can come up with an initial sense of dissonance, and describe it. Then proceed to work on your dream using the FiveStar Method, and see if this preliminary step aids you in conducting more effective dream work.

Grace in a Flower

Grace in a Flower 

by G. Scott Sparrow

     It was almost dark as we made our way out of the piney woods and into the fresh-cut corn fields on the way back to my uncle's house. I rode old Smokey bareback, and my two cousins rode the full-size horses on ahead of me.  We were

tired, and so were the horses. As usual, we had all gotten up early and ridden until midday. Then, we'd gone back out again in the cool of the evening.  And now, we dropped the reins and let the horses' hunger carry us back across the fields toward the farm house. 

     It was like heaven to be in Alabama with my cousins, and I visited there as often as my parents would let me.  My grandparents and aunts and uncles treated me so kindly, that I looked upon each of them as near-perfect.  In my child-like bliss, I could not see the real-life struggles that would eventually bring them to their knees. 

     A popping sound interrupted my half-sleep, and I looked down to see what the horses were stepping on.  But it was too dark to see the small green fruit that grew on the vines that lined the edges of the fields. 

     "What's that sound?" I shouted. 

     "Maypops," Dub yelled back.  "They're all over." 

     That told me nothing, but a few days later, I walked over the same ground and noticed the bright green vines that ran along the edges of the fields.  Small green fruit were everywhere, and to my child's mind, they had to be good for something. But for what, I did not know.  Then, I discovered something far more intriguing than the fruit. Lifting the leaves, I exposed a delicate, violet flower with a tiny white cross in the middle.  I was transfixed by its beauty, and I took one back with me to my uncle’s house.  But the hair-like petals were fragile, and they quickly drooped. 

     Later, after returning to Texas, my mother helped me look it up in a plant book.  I discovered that it was a passion flower, and that its Latin name was  passiflora incarnata. Obviously,  the delicately framed cross had suggested  to someone years before the passion of Christ. I learned that it was was a medicinal herb, too, but that part I forgot until later. 

     It wasn't long before things went downhill for my uncle's family.  At the height of his social rise, he was a prominent businessman and an officer in the largest town bank.  But when his corn fields along the Tombigbee River fell prey to an overpopulation of deer, he took the law into his own hands, and began to kill the starving deer to protect his crops. The game wardens came to arrest him one evening as he sat upon his tractor, armed with the old .35 Remington with a barrel that always looked like a cannon to me.  For a while, it was not clear that he would surrender to them. He was defending his livelihood, after all; but his resistance to the law on that day precipitated his fall from grace in that community. 

Adding to the family's losses, my uncle's younger son was killed a few years later while driving his tractor trailer home one night.  He left the highway to protect another motorist, and was fatally injured when his rig flipped over.  

     Along with other rude awakenings, my short-lived childhood fantasy of perfection and bliss collapsed under the reality of human frailty. 

     Even though I embarked on an intense spiritual search at the age of 19, and have continued ever since, a sense of sadness and despair has dogged me since my childhood years. So it is perhaps not surprising that my anxieties about life came to a head one night in my young adulthood when I was visiting my childhood home in south Texas, just before I was supposed to be married.  

I am not sure why it happened, but I awoke in the middle of the night in sheer, indescribable terror.  It was my first panic attack.  Although I had a Master's degree in psychology at the time, I had no real first-hand experience with such things.  Like most people when they have their first panic attack, my sense of confidence was shattered in an instant. I was convinced in that moment that I was on the verge of madness or death, or both.  Anyone who has ever had a full-blown panic attack will know that I am not exaggerating. 

     Up to that time, my spiritual life had been unfolding at a pace that was difficult for me or my friends to comprehend. I felt blessed by God, but for what I did not know. 

     And so, the night time terror seemed to come from out of nowhere, and left me deeply shaken.  For over two years, the panic attacks recurred, further diminishing my belief that somehow I could avoid the tragedies that befell others. Around that time, I would awaken in the middle of the night, paralyzed with terror. I would grab my Bible, and  read the promises of Jesus in  the book of John, clinging desperately to the shred of hope that Jesus' words instilled in me. 

     While reading the Edgar Cayce readings one day around that time, I discovered that  the passion flower vine -- that intriguing southern flower from my childhood -- had curative properties.  Specifically, he recommended it for epileptic seizures and, sometimes, for anxiety.  Looking for relief in natural ways, I promptly ordered some passion flower from an herbal supplier. Since I had to order it in bulk, I received a three-pound shipment in the mail one day -- an amount that lasted me for years. The bag of pulverized herb went with me wherever I went, and it was my own poor-man's remedy for despair. For the months that followed,  I would drink a cup of passion flower tea before going to bed each night.  I imagined that it calmed me and protected me from the raw panic that could rise up in an instant. A cup of passion flower tea and my Bible were my unfailing companions on those sleepless nights when the panic overcame me. 

     The panic went away for a while shortly after a dream that I had one night after reading from my Bible at 2:00 a.m. 

     I dreamed that I was in Palestine at the time of Christ.  I was living in a one-room house with my parents.  I knew that I'd never seen Jesus, only heard about him. I went to sleep on the dirt floor of the house, and had a dream. In it, Jesus called me to come and follow him. When I awoke, I was filled with yearning to find the one who had summoned me to his side. I bade my parents farewell, and went in search of him. 

     That dream was a turning point, and for a season, the nighttime panic subsided. 

      It returned at a time that it became clear to me that my years in Virginia Beach were coming to a close, and that it was time to return to south Texas. It was not easy to close up a counseling practice of 16 years, say goodbye to most of my friends, and -- most grievously -- leave my 10-year-old son, who lived with my ex-wife. Indeed, it was difficult to absorb all of that loss and change, however necessary.

     Not surprisingly, the nighttime terror returned as I was preparing to leave. Actually it had started up some time before, but it intensified during that time of stress. It was more than a bad feeling this time: It was compounded by an absence of breath. I would awaken on the edge of blacking out, having not breathed for some time, and completely out of breath. I would run gasping down the hall -- and often out the door into the night before waking up all the way. When I shared my symptoms with a psychologist friend, who had researched various forms of apnea -- the sleep disorder that causes breathing to be interrupted. Most snorers suffer from "obstructive apnea," in which a closed air passage temporarily suspends breathing. But I didn't snore, nor am I overweight, so my researcher friend said that my form of apnea sounded like "central" apnea, a rare and more ominous form of the sleep disorder in which the brain -- for some reason -- tells the body to stop breathing. But then she quickly ruled that out, saying -- not very reassuringly -- "If you had central apnea, Scott, you'd probably be dead." 

      I knew that I was on the edge of life, and that I needed something to pull me back.

     One evening before we left for Texas, I was leaning against the deck rail behind the house. Looking down into the yard, I spotted a tiny green plant rising above the thick St. Augustine grass. Nearby I could see another, and another. Five young plants were spread over a 10-by-10 area, revealing the deep green, trilobed leaves of passiflora incarnata.  Needless to say, I was stunned. Even though I knew that the plant grew in the south, I had never seen a single plant inside the city limits of Virginia Beach, much less five plants. 

     It was, I am convinced, one of those little miracles. In the weeks that followed, I harvested the leaves and fruit from those plants, and drank the tea each night before going to bed. When we left for our new home in Texas, I carefully wrapped up three of the maypops and took them with us.

     Stories that end with closure appeal to our hopes, but rarely capture the truth of the never-ending journey. However, about the time we left for Texas, I had a dream in which the blossom of the passion flower took on new meaning. 

     The first part of the dream concerns my discovery of a great tragedy -- the murder of a native American man by a group of white hunters who considered the Indian as little more than an animal. (In analyzing this later, I realized that my impulse to return to south Texas was driven by the realization that an essential, natural part of me had to be restored.) I am so deeply saddened and outraged as I discover this crime that I know I have to report it to the authorities. As I call to report this tragedy, I look up and see a red plane overhead. A young pilot is saluting my efforts. He swoops down again and again, and does magnificent barrel rolls and loops as he pulls out of his dives. His maneuvers are so amazing that I finally realize that the experience has to be a dream. 

     I walk slowly across a grassy area, carefully observing the beauty of everything around me in the dream. A large hibiscus towers over me, and it's dew-covered red blossoms droop down over my head. 

     From past lucid dreams, I know that the holy light has to be near. So I raise my eyes to look for it, and see instantly that a white light fills the sky. I know that the light is Christ's light. There is a pattern that radiates outward from it, like white lace, or delicate latticework.  

     Then I notice an elderly woman approaching me. I feel great love from her, so I put my arm around her and kiss her on the forehead. I know somehow that she is Mary, the mother of Jesus. 

     We turn to look again at the Light, and see that there is a second light to the left and slightly below the white light of Christ. The second light resembles a passion flower blossom, with bluish and lavender hair-like petals radiating outward from a central light. 

     I turn to her and ask, "Is that your light?" 

     She nods. 

     I look back and see that there is now a third light -- to the right and again, slightly below the light of Christ. It radiates from a window on the top of a tower that has spiral steps leading upward. 

     I ask Mary, "Whose light is that?" 

     She says, "Mary Magdalene’s." 

     "Do you want to go there?" I ask her. 

     She nods again. 

     So we begin climbing the steps of the tower. Then I awaken. 

    The passion flower resurfaces from time to time in my life, as a symbol and as an herbal remedy alike. When I contemplate its delicate beauty, I am reminded that the word “passion” -- that is often used to describe Christ’s suffering -- has nothing to do with what we usually think of that word. It has to do with his submission to the forces that were at work to bring his life to fruition, however tragically. The word as it is used has more to do with “passive” than with “zeal,” and has a disturbingly out-of-control ring to it. But there are no guarantees that we will survive in responding to spirit's call. Indeed, we may be crushed, as he was, in our attempts to serve the good. But then again, what better choice do we have? 
   Whether we see ourselves as one who consents to our calling, as Mary did, knowing frightfully little about what the future holds -- or as one who suffered to love deeply as Mary Magdalene probably did -- we, too, will surely flower if we can bring ourselves to follow our soul’s calling without regard to the consequences.