what we do is the work of the goddesses, but of most, we have an ongoing responsibility to abrade the searing, rough hours into cool, peaceful, and tranquil moments. this is the sweeping the paths of the sediment that accrues: using our powers of observation to observe, earnestly, how the secondhand ticks and the moon and the stars bite at the sky.

the process goes something like this: one. the choirmistress notes the appropriate hour of the day. that is to say: lauds, prime, terce, sext, none, vespers, compline; plus rarely, vigil and matins. as st. symeon of thessalonica writes: we aim for /seven/† as it equals the number of gifts of the spirit. two. the choirmistress finds our hymn from the great psalter (perhaps through divination, description of affect, or some other mystical means). three. the choirmistress turns to the great book and find a passage that ties to the hymn. four. the choirmistress records it in the register, sing out to the world, and wait for the next hour to arrive.

despite it having a presence in the public world, we undertake this ritual practice for ourselves, first, to lead the surroundings antiphonically. a response is neither guaranteed nor expected. nonetheless, an echo or a refrain in response occasionally finds its way back to the choirmistress, who records it in the register and moves on. but as we will soon see, this is merely a catalog, not the content.

the details in the register are intentionally scant. the specifics of memory do not much matter to the goddesses, because it is theirs to hold, and not ours. however, it does provides us with a guide and catalog to document our observances and devotions and to make new memories by turning tot the matter of the old. in this way, it is a memorial without memory, one whose stones and tablets exist to be resurfaced, polished, reshaped. the trace underneath will always remain even though we can only see glyphs and not words.

† seven is a loose goal. we are always already observing-observant, and even if not actively being written in, the register inscribes itself through our observations.