Prologue
Chaos and Coalescence
We came when nothing counted itself more.
How can one ask how this life came to be -
Miraculously, out of nothingness,
Before what gods and men call “time” began -
If we don’t wonder “what is nothingness?”
What can nothingness be but everything?
If, before time, all existed at once:
Every potent reality by chance
Had been discovered in the universe;
So nothing, anywhere, of any kind
Was left to dream, create, or think anew -
And every opportunity for what could be
Within the rules that bound the universe
Had been fulfilled - with nothing left -
What was there left to be but nothingness?
What was there left to do for time itself
But pick a random place to start again?
Truly, if you believe evolution
Is the supreme law of the universe;
Must it not follow, then, that there would be
Some perfect end or height to head towards?
Some conscious state supreme to all things dreamed
That we could only call godly power:
To be all-powerful, and fear nothing;
To fear not death, nor time itself ending -
For the true height of all evolution
Is a being that can transcend the void
Where all our sentience is born to learn,
And form a whole new universe their own
By the design and whim of their power:
And live there happily, in peace at last -
Immortal life and infinite power
Enjoyed as the god of their creation.
Beings like these are not so hard to see:
Just close your eyes, and enjoy what you dream.
And, if subjective consciousness purveyed
The void between where mass comes to an end
And forms again with its rules re-written;
Would this consciousness not be dubbed godly?
And what would beings from past dimensions
Do to drive the new universe towards
The place in time where they once felt most home?
Look, then, at all the things miraculous in life
That seem too strange to be coincidence,
Or deterministic evolution:
Look at all that hints of intelligence
Behind the ironic designs of life
And ask yourself these questions once again.
To really find any fitting answers
To questions such as these, or what myths mean,
We must trace back to well beyond our time:
Beyond the times of several dimensions,
Before length or width or height existed,
When all the future was left to begin –
A time we call the start, and dwell upon,
As though there was an end – yet there we start,
For from the destiny of the first minds
Our lives and lot on earth would come to be,
And what we call our start is theirs as well.
What then is the true start of everything
That now exists when we open our eyes?
We strive to understand what we observe,
And every night we close our eyes to sleep,
Wherein, submerged in dim-lit imagery,
Truth seems closer than while we’re wide awake.
But being sure is so much harder than
To have an idea of what is right.
We must trace back the lineage of all
The constructs of our universe, to see
Where they began – not just our dimension
Enclosed within four walls: length, width, and height
Attuned to the density of matter -
We must seek out the archetypes of life:
For where did light or size or time come from?
And, too, the ideas that guide our lives:
What first divided good and bad?
Or who, so long ago, started it all?
What standard was first set for strength and pride?
So many wonders, each ironical
Exist impossibly - but all we take
For granted as life’s moments pass on by.
Each thought we ever come across in life
Is a tiny gem of beautiful worth,
Like each grain of sand on a sunny beach:
Eternal depth beneath the microscope,
And ancient well beyond our wildest hopes;
Intangible to the observing eye -
But they all bask in the sun’s warmth and light,
And hold truth, just to shine for me and you;
When, passing by, for a moment, we meet,
And truth and hope is glimpsed like sparkling dunes.
So free your mind now, follow mine outwards;
To the emptiness of a white canvas
Awaiting for a world to be painted:
And you, alone, are holding a paint brush -
The only one to know what colour is;
The only one who knows of anything -
And you must paint a stage for life to play.
Allow your thoughts to trace your memories
For all the lost beginnings that we chase;
And think of how a universe should work
If you knew that it had to be observed,
And judged, and lived within; experienced
As thoroughly as we know life can be.
What would you paint? Or do you hesitate?
How quickly to your mind do thoughts approach,
Of what is fair, or neat things that could be;
And how long would it take you to decide?
Surely not hastily: for compassion
For the living beings existing there,
You would not wish them to be unhappy
Any more than an artist wishes ill
For fans approaching with admiration.
The worth of a world is its people’s good.
Instead, you would think long on what to do:
And I think the most acceptable choice
Is to paint an inspirational world,
So every life can create worlds themselves,
And nothing, in the grand scheme, would be missed.
This painting, then, for me, is one of words.
In this beginning, after not, and void:
All that is not - and infinite nothing:
After the omniverse fulfils itself,
Where time comes to an end and forms again:
From nothingness, and randomness, new stars
Arise from the darkness of aeons past;
And at this time the first mind holds all sway,
The new realm still malleable and frail
To the whims of godly beings’ power –
So those who held infinite life in the
Realm before us and raced to transcend it,
The first to cross the void would rule supreme –
Their mind being the first to create laws,
By which all energies must work within.
Thus Chaos came, howling rue in the dark;
With all the past behind at his command
Creating possibilities in time –
For all was none as none is all and one,
And in this state the entire universe
Left itself vulnerable to Chaos:
This vex, purposed, sustained Chaos’s mind;
Cascaded to a focal point, it lit
A light conceiving dreams and painting stars
Within a canvas black like waking fog -
And all was as the Chaos King painted:
Conceived of how the future might evolve;
In everything to come the first Chaos
Perspective would be found, and through his eyes;
The drops of time, the fountain of all things,
And anything our dreams may make us wish
Would manifest by will, if strong enough
To conquer what opposes us, when found.
And so it was: time found its random place
To start again being rediscovered
In whatever way Chaos should deem fit.
We must count ourselves lucky, then, you see;
That Chaos was the first to write our laws:
For Chaos is both good and bad at heart,
And the universe, being his body,
Being his energy and his power,
Allows both good and bad to be – and thus,
All we conceive in life can be either.
When Chaos, seeking happiness and good,
Conformed his power to a holy light
To sail the void with every memory,
Creating an existence of them all,
So life and hope and love and joy could be;
He knew, as well, came every evil too:
For when from Chaos, good and bad were born,
Almighty Light’s cast shadows split the void;
The Darkness chasing Light to remain bright,
Leaving Chaos to watch from his kingdom.
So these, our laws, our painters in our minds,
Came to be in the image of one mind,
As the Light, Dark, and Neutral fields were born:
The primal energies in which we play.
The Light, intelligent and creative,
Manifested positive energy,
And Chaos crowned it “One” - forever dubbed,
To connect all pathways, its own product:
The common link for all destined movements.
We might call it goodness, but without us:
Just goodness experiencing itself –
And all that basked within its light was pure.
All sentience assisted each other;
All experiences were well enjoyed;
All directions lead to one common height,
And everything that existed was good.
Wherever spread the Light, goodness would stay;
But once it’d rest it’d never move again,
So nothing could ever be without it,
And only good creations came to be:
Fleeting feelings of hope, and joy, and love
That shimmered through illuminated voids
As the first intentions of creation.
And yet, Chaos inevitably would
Get bored with a static world unchanging,
So when all things were still, the painter said:
“It’s lonely in this place where all is mine:
Another mind I’ll make to pass the time.
Goodness may be tranquil by its nature,
But it means nothing without company:
I’ll have to pay the price of division
Tearing up this goodness, lest misery
Should become the second master of life;
Summoned by me welcoming loneliness.”
So one became the two, and two were one,
The painter giving birth to one who learned,
Indulged in shady planes of chaos; played,
And challenged all the writer once had set.
So thus it was, darkness personified -
Its single task to judge each drop of light:
To scold each one for merely standing still,
For being just themselves, and nothing more;
For not allowing to give up their ways,
Which is the only way for goodness to
Transcend itself and become something more:
A goodness that appreciates itself,
Knowing the trial by fire that sanctioned it.
So thus, discrepancy within Chaos
Created “chance,” and randomness again:
Instead of only joy, there was now joy
As well as greater joy found from cured pains;
And proper paths, a few rising from all,
Seen, as some differ regularity
And create possibilities of what could be:
No longer just predictable, nor still.
This first movement set all else in motion:
Created everything still yet to come,
And forever determined it this way.
It was always a game, you see, to them:
To find out what was right and what was wrong,
Where each moment in all of time was meant
To ultimately come to rest, in hopes
That reason could be given to it all,
And perhaps all forms of light and shadow
Could find a place to forever settle.
These two debated long on what should be:
They changed their minds again repeatedly,
For every fibre Chaos was made of -
All thoughts and paths to be were silhouette
Within their minds, Light and Dark destinies;
That in the wake of these colliding paths,
Their changing fates inevitably change
Their shapes as well, adding some depth
To the pieces played by two fighting gods;
That no longer could they stand to be played:
Their static energy built up by change
Exceeding what they were capable of,
And inevitably, these two choices
Became not enough to hold together;
That for their games they longed for more like them,
To dream as well and live in paradise.
So thus it was, King Chaos, from his throne,
Forged pieces of himself with sentience,
To extend his will beyond his power,
So to offer to every moment
Safe passage through his kingdom by free will.
And Chaos crowned this creature “Three” to be
A friend, and mate, and thoughtfulness trustee:
So there was three, the three that lived in peace,
One, Two, and Three - indulged in paradise,
Each crowned in the name of the energies.
Their dreams before them, lights to please their minds,
A world their own, and joy to feel inside;
They swam within a radiant crimson sea,
Their hands together, triad spiralling;
Together, they, in great debate, began
Another age: their dreams were coalesced,
And twisted, bred new-found ideas of
A place of gods at war for all the world:
A land of their dreams’ champions, compelled
In every urge to be the ultimate.
Thus Three in argument created more;
The ‘Archetypes’ of all which was to come;
And they in blind dimensions reared to life,
Borne of necessity for more to live;
Creating laws that formed in space and time:
Here, shapes were made, and beings formed;
Lives were here lived, and deaths were met;
Even these things themselves, both Life and Death,
Became but products of the ageless wars
Of singularities, once infinite;
Unable to sustain war forever
Without their stores of strength dissipating,
And falling to defeat, until rested.
So strength itself, and all forms of standards
In this way came to be, by comparing
Infinite things to each other, within
Whatever frame of mind they perceived from:
Each Infinite was judged by the Great Three,
And set upon each other like play-things.
So, of their creations, they long regard
In contemplation, argument and more:
Of what was right to be and justice fair;
For aeons long without agreeing minds,
Through deadly war when each was beaten out,
Their scars imprinted on the heaven’s sky;
Each shining pupil a chrysalid law -
Their sway forever to be remembered.
This world destroys itself in dire strife,
As, wreathed in rage, one conquers all;
The ruler of all else and dominant law,
The serpent: archetype of everything,
And all that was to be within the scope
Of sacred destinies the Three had dreamed.
So to the steps of Heaven, ascended
To its creators, the serpent arose
To face final judgement, and learn the truth
Of meaning behind its foul existence.
The serpent roared against the Three, when seen,
For forcing it through agony for peace,
And fought for conquest over the great Three.
Try as it might, bidding torrents of wrath,
It could not win, being formed of their thoughts:
A spectre in a nightmare changed to dreams.
The great Three bent the serpent’s will again
To slumber restlessly, but provide space
In which to create subjective beings:
Strewn out throughout the void, time forged inside,
Along with countless worlds within this corpse,
The defeated archetypes, left resting,
Arose and rushed into the new realm formed,
So all that Chaos willed would be fulfilled;
Even in the vacuum of the serpent.
There into being manifest the forms,
Within the third dimension life would see;
Conceived by combinations of power
Derived from praising different archetypes.
Their arguments congealed their sacred dreams,
And into darkness minds, alive, would fall
For aeons, lost, without agreeing thoughts;
Solidifying that which was to be,
Their world becoming what was meant to be:
With time, disgrace, distaste and dust -
A world of chance, where all, though different,
Awake within dimensions triple-drawn;
Endured, that all new thoughts might be welcomed.
And so, behind a wall the Three would sleep,
An age of peace sustained across their plane;
No longer needing to govern mortals:
Knowing that in each mortal mind there lies
A door that if once knocked upon, unlocks,
And leads them back to great father Chaos -
Through the neutral kingdom where all paths start.
And this is where our epic tale begins;
To lead, you see, to where our fourth realm starts...
