PANTHEON: Introduction

“Your head's like mine, like all our heads; big enough to contain every god and devil there ever was. Big enough to hold the weight of oceans and the turning stars. Whole universes fit in there! But what do we choose to keep in this miraculous cabinet? Little broken things, sad trinkets that we play with over and over. The world turns our key and we play the same little tune again and again and we think that tune's all we are.” 
― Grant Morrison, The Invisibles, Vol. 1: Say You Want a Revolution

Near Pavilion Wyoming, I watched an event that has been classically portrayed in our mythologies as a portent of worldly doom.  Something that we now know as simply another turning of the celestial clock that we as conscious beings can stand in witness, awed by events more massive than we. Maybe the universe in us wants to be seen with its twin. And mine was somewhere lost in the void. So there, I stand alone with my heart and my fire transfixed by that void, like the sun's corona entwining around the dark side of his love for the whole of humanity to see.  And maybe in that mythology, Sol's love for Luna is seen as so pure, that it contains her darkness for all of us to see with our naked eyes.

If only it could be so easy to describe the novelties of human love. We have thousands of poets who scream at us through their obscure whispers of what they think it could be.  But it's never the same once you experience it.  And once you understand that what we experience is a tender glance while the universe carries on its celestial dance...  How much time have we wasted being distracted by inconsequential matters? Did I not give it all to love to overcome the greatest obstacle we all face, did I not bare my heart and soul, sacrifice my ego upon the alter of truth, only to have it wither into nothing?  And yet my finite existence within this universal timepiece ultimately means nothing, to be washed away with the winds and the tides.  The universal clock keeps ticking.  I keep breathing.

What did I ever want from this life? I never wanted this.  Never this.

The stories we tell help us understand our selves and the universe around us. What connects us to one another. Family ties, friendships, lovers, enemies, and even the random people that cross our paths. We weave ideas of where we belong and what we own, our interactions between our feelings reality. Outlining our identities and our sense of power.

Telling stories drives the human spirit.  Through the dark and the light.  We weave or the universe weaves for us.  We don't always have a choice, either. No matter if we are at the top of the mountain or being overran by a freight train, the universe keeps on going.

Are we adventurous enough to still climb that mountain after falling into a ravine?  Are we more powerful than the locomotive that directly confronts our soul? Or are we the skeletal remains at the bottom of that ravine, a testament to human limitations and a sign of risk for those who go to far..? or maybe for those who don't go far enough.

Do we possess the constitution, the depth of faith, to go as far as needed? When we've reached the edge are we willing to jump into the Abyss?  Can we create as God creates?  Met out Life and Death in equal fervor, balancing on the cusp of an atom, with solid and unmovable footing?

How do we tell these stories? Where do we start?  What principals govern our universe and to what Laws are we bound to?  How free are we to be an image of our Creator?What images of our world stay with us in our dreams?

With these questions, I'm going to create a Pantheon.

To Be Near Death

To Be Near Death
***

I had thought I was invincible. 
That I was going to conquer my world. 
Be the King of myself.
God was on my side.
How could I lose? 

Then I met her. 

Death.
Standing watch over me with raven hair and eyes the color of the purest turquoise.
Endlessly piercing the dark haze choking me in that hospital bed. 

Those that I had murdered in the name of God and Country in their infra-red glory.
Legions, it seemed, led by Thirteen that haunted my dreams. 
They stood there.
Waiting.
Emanating patience only the dead know. 
We all make it there. 
Now or later I would meet them in the Place of Judgement,
when mattered not. 
The inevitable weight of Fate.

When my life flashed before my eyes, I saw what was important to me. 
My family. 
Friends.
Love.
And Faith. 
Always that desperately unwavering faith. 

Then I saw myself for what I truly was.
A blind fool. 
A mad idiot.
A lost soul. 
Damned by ignorance.
My faith broke into nothing.

I was alone. 
No ever loving deity.
No only begotten son.
Just I gazing at Death. 

But I would not go quietly into that ghastly night.
I burned with rage at the dying of my light.

I didn't beg her to give me another chance. 
I didn't plead ignorance for my innocence.
All I asked was to make it right.
Restore my honor on my own merit. 

The Universe didn't let her escort me to my Judgement.
On condition that my Dead follow me until my task was finished. 
They would bear witness to my mission.
They would decide when I was done.

So I did.  And they are gone. 

I am alone.  My task is complete.
I am alive.  I don't know what that means.