Pre-existing Condition
Before the Beginning
Before form, time or life
The surging Void lay waiting
Fertile land of shifting shadows
Beyond which all boundaries dissolve
Revealing mysteries or shrouding secrets
Confining or releasing
Draining or enervating
Infinite potential
Erebus
Kek
Donn
Nyx
Roaming Seer’s eyes
Have peered into this Stygian gloom
There revealed to some
Chaos
Death, madness, unholy obfuscation
Doom
Evil Incarnate
Giants
Demons
Nightmares
Formless fear
The House Underhill
The Wild Hunt
The Underworld
Karmic Justice
Ebony deer
Hecate
Chernebog
Kali
Hodr
Kauket
To others were given visions of
Spiritual Evolution
Balance
Introspection
Transformation
Sacred Twins dancing in perpetuity
Primordial Cows leaking life, galaxies, moons
Axis Mundi
The Golden Egg
Oran Mor singing all into Creation
As the shell cracks in perfect silence
Let there be Illumination!
For those new to the game, each poem in this series is inspired by a Teacher found in nature; a star, stone, animal, plant etc. Everything around us holds lessons for those willing to listen. Can you hear who is singing today?
"Light thinks it travels faster than anything, but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels it finds the darkness has always got there first and it is waiting for it." Terry Pratchett
"Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift." Mary Oliver
“The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.” Robert Pirsig
In traditions around our world before anything there was... Darkness. To some this meant Chaos, others saw only the Void, but the Darkness is quite full it seems if unordered. Madness, sin, evil, ignorance, obscurity, sorrow, unrest, fear, hate, death, judgement, monsters formless and unimaginable, constraint, containment, binding, night unending and it is also mystery, secrets, knowledge hidden ancient or lost, innocence, immorality, transformation, the comfort and protection of being held by the power of Creation, the quiet furnace of the womb, unlimited potential without judgement, freedom, unbinding, a light too dark to see. What you see in the Primordial Dark may be only what you bring there in the first place.
Black is a color that hungrily absorbs all light. It literally draws the light and heat of our sun which prompts us to wear less dense, brighter colors in hot sunny conditions. Black is the color of funerary grieving, power suits, elegant ballrooms, authority with shiny buttons, bold headlines marking history, formal ties against the crisp backdrop of a white shirt, seduction tied up in a little dress, rich soil renewing life each spring and also collapsing stars at the edges of galaxies we haven't imagined yet.
In Greek mythology Erebus is the god of Darkness and his parent is Chaos. You may find him in the absence of Light anywhere... down a cave, crevice, in a shadow or the Underworld. He was one of the first to emerge before creation and is a sibling of Gaea (Earth), Nyx (Night) Tartarus (the Underworld) and Eros (Desire/Procreation). Depending on who you ask his other siblings could include Chronos (Time), Aether (Light), and Uranus (Sky).
