Once, a long time ago, my
Father told me a story. Told within my
heart. Told with light and magic. I attempt to retell parts of it now with
words. A faint echo of his message to
me, but still useful I hope. Before
earth and star and man, he said, "If I allow a seed, in perpetuity, to be
held by earth, then I allow the star that drives its growth. If I allow these
things alone, beloved one, I allow all things."
Many of his most blessed hosts are still unable
to fully grasp the truth of this. They secretly
imagine a better way, as do the mortals they attend. A soft, harmless place with rounded edges. A realm
of limitation and safety, gifted in love. But eternity implies two things
simultaneously; threat of the most unimaginable danger and promise of the most
unimaginable care. We are utterly free in a terrifying, threatening realm. But
we misunderstand perpetuity. And chaos,
and order. Even many among the dead have
fallen prey to such lapses of vision. Rather
than imagining the occurrence of a terrible cataclysm – a hideous unknown
variable – mortals usually assume that the current state of things is reflective
of the design in sum.
It is not.
That isn’t
my Father's way. There is no place for
genocide, abuse or oppression in the old notes and songs. Father is many things, as Mother knows well,
but he is neither an imperious bureaucrat nor a psychotic warlord. Mankind, being deranged from numerous abuses,
supposes that his Creator is equally deranged, and abusive. But this is not so. Wherever you find such fallacy in your holy
books – rest assured it is a lie, placed there to rob you of your faith in a
divine kindness that once held the entire cosmos in perfect balance.
Oh, lost
ones, I can already hear you thinking.
Vanitas Vanitatum, when one lives in defiled
blindness as we all do now. Though I
commend your questioning of any authority. It is bright and noble to question all forms
of power. Especially so when the goal is
the uplift and emancipation of those who dream among you in this realm.
But do you
really suppose your Father is a sadist? Or does he love you? You know what love is, in your heart. Either he does, or he doesn’t. Which do you suppose it is, truly, when all
is said and done? Man gives many names
to God, assigning genders and attributes, assuming axioms, delineating the
manner and thus the boundaries of his perception of God. What does an angel see when a mortal cries
out in agony to the Creator, demanding answers and meaning?
An angel
sees a lost, lonely, angry thing. Worthy
of compassion and understanding. An
angel hears, "Why does it hurt, Father, and why are they so cruel…?"
I am not my
Father but I am one among his hosts, and I tell you now that it hurts because
you fell from such a height. They are so
cruel because their fall shattered them enough to obliterate their empathy.
A choice, but often one they felt they had
no choice in making.
Wraiths
murdered Man, then Man murdered the love within himself in turn. Because it hurts to feel, doesn't it? Especially in darkness.
Lost ones, you
imagine a parent who is sadistic, careless or ambivalent. You imagine a mother who hates you, or a
father who doesn't feel.
But you are so fucking wrong.
Your Mother
loves you dearly. Raped, burned,
poisoned and sold into slavery – she loves you still. And your father? Your Father feels everything. He is as raped as his wife, his daughters and
his sons.
What do you
think love is, if not connection and empathy?
Fairytales are beautiful. But this
nightmare place that once shone so brightly – it's no fairytale. Just ask the Fay. They'll tell you.
In this
place things suffer. Not because they
should, but because this place is broken. It's ok to hurt. Hurting is necessary sometimes, on the inside.
A gentle melancholy. A reflective,
inward eye. Both life and art
necessitate it. Art and creativity; that
beautiful reflection of experience that was once the guiding light of Ishkara's
Pearl.
The kind
place that stood before the hush wasn't a place where nothing ever hurt, or
changed. But it was a place where nothing ever suffered. There was sadness sometimes, but never the
hideous anguish that has coloured so much of human experience.
It's so hard to
describe, beloved ones, because it is a world that doesn't exist here anymore.
Imagine a
dream filled with the full range of human emotion, but a softer dream than
this. Far softer, where mutual affection
and adventure was the general tenor of experience. The underlying tone that held these other
moods. A realm far closer to your myths,
legends and stories than you can currently understand.
Poets, keys, gates.
Souls from other worlds and other stars who
came here to walk our gardens and explore our forests, and rest upon our shores
at dusk and dawn. Souls who came to hear
our songs. This shining spiritual light
of our people that was the stuff of legend.
Such sweetness carries through the Myriad,
across All Waters. We were such an
exotic pearl to be experienced. Not to
be claimed, or spoiled, or broken.
My Father
told me, "If I allow Me, beloved, I allow You also, and every single star
with which we are entwined. If I allow
them to rest, or reflect, or rise, I allow them also to fall."
I thought I
understood his story, spoken as it was in the language of my heart. But I understood nothing really. I didn't understand what shadow or falling
could really mean.
How horrific
it could actually be. How sickening and unholy.
Men, women,
children.
My skin
crawls at the thought of it. I didn't
understand the depths of perpetuity. What it would demand from a
sentience. Not just from you and me,
Asha. But what it would demand from Him.
I grasp now
why Mother shrieks and heaves as she does. I understand why she often pretends that she can't
hear Father weeping. She is almost like a
mortal in this way, isn't she?
We glance at
the starving child, at defiled innocence, betrayed friends, and we hear parents
crying somewhere. It is often an agony
too unbearable to face for more than a few moments, and so we usually look
away. Imagine, the human lifespan is now
little more than a century at best.
But my Father
is eternal, and cannot look away.
Imagine what that does to him, to his
heart.
Do you want easy answers, kind ones? I’m sorry but there is no easy answer, beyond
the simple fact that you are dreaming and your spirit is imperishable and
eternal. Our saving grace, gifted with
unconditional love and all the terrifying combinations of experience such a
spirit implies. But while we are
dreaming we must face what our dreaming is become. It has taken on such a nightmarish hue. The work of abyssal wraiths and sickened
priests who seek tirelessly to crush, enslave and consume the spirit of
mankind. We have to face the terror and
the madness of such a thing, or else become mad and terrifying ourselves.
Why did he
create such wraiths, you ask? I speak
not for my Father, only for myself. All
I can do is try to share what he told me in that secret language of my heart.
These
things are not inexplicable, these shadows. It is only that the cataclysm was so vast, so
dark, that we are still reeling in trauma and derangement. So much was lost. Not merely our true history, but our true
power.
The human
vessel was once capable of literal magic. We are capable still, when the tether placed
by these wraiths is finally slipped.
A thing of
awe was man and woman once.
Kashi still
remembers.
It was so
bright, this world. So joyous. Such a strange, endless pleasure.
But then an
angel fell. To wraiths, to corruption.
To sickness of spirit. Then another, and
another, and another still. Humanity has
all but given up on belief in spiritual guardians
But Man too was
an angel once, for all intents and purposes.
A vessel, a vassal, divine.
The message
was always peace, creativity and ingenuity.
Those many-splendored ways of love.
This is exactly why humans are so brutalized within these false
chronologies. To hide this truth from
them, this truth of nature and destiny.
For a taste of momentary power the human priests of this shadow-sickness
are willing to damn themselves, defiling and betraying their own kind.
What a
travesty it has become, Asha. What a
hell.
But I have
to believe my Father saw all of this, that he prays for us still. I’m a king only among mortals. But amidst the fields of Heaven I am a servant
in perpetuity. I would have it no other
way. I need no pomp or ceremony, no
praises or hymns sung to my work. Because
my work is my sister's work, and my brother's. My hope is my Father's hope, and my Mother's.
My eyes are my child's eyes, and my own.
I do this
work because it’s necessary, because love itself demands it.
And who am I
to deny love?
Rest
assured, Fallen, there shall be a reckoning.
You will see yourselves. You will know yourselves, in the end. If not, you'll stay in your own private
nightmare forever, where kind souls are free of you. But the cleverest among the damned will
realise the strength of my Mother's flesh and the depth of my Father's love,
for they are one. Eternal. You'll recognise that open door, at last. You'll finally turn your sight inward and
attempt the first courageous act of your ugly, degrading lives. And in that first moment of budding virtue
you'll cry out in newborn shame, in recognition of the horror you brought upon
your brethren and the earth. And in the agony of such shame your hearts shall
be massaged to life once more. You will
fall to your knees, in gladdened humility.
In service and love, for all life. As I fell. As my Father fell.
