Free Read

I wrote the following story by way of explanation.  I’m working on a series of books about a group of people (not humans, but people) called Guardians.  They are shape shifters, embodying the image of trickster gods.  Every culture, it seems, has a story about a trickster: a Coyote, a Loki, a Monkey King, a Kitsune.  The stories are eerily similar, calling forth in my author’s mind the very idea that perhaps they are all connected somehow.

Tricksters bridge the gap between human and god.  They are neither, or both depending on the circumstances.  Usually they embody the more naughty urges of man, and at the same time grant us independence and autonomy from the gods.  Promethus and the whole fire thing, for example.

My trickster gods are not gods, or humans.  They truly do act as bridge, protecting humanity and serving the will of their Goddess, who is very much alive to them.  Their stories range from playfully sexy to intensely theological, but mostly I try to have a lot of fun.  What follows this longwinded note is their creation story, written in a midnight sprint during NaNoWriMo 2008.

The Creation by Amelia June

Material copyright Amelia June.  Feel free to share widely but don’t steal or say they’re your words. As Wil Wheaton says, “don’t be a dick.”

In the beginning, there was the void.  It was chaos, dischordia.  The swirling of that which came before danced and played in a limitless space, though that space spanned but a breath and not even that.  Her brothers and sisters and all those who came before and after lived together, reigned in the smallest of specks.  She could turn nowhere without seeing another, feeling another, sensing the greatness of her kind all around her.  She was not apart from them, they were all one.  They reveled in their joining, though they had no memory of what came before.  There was no before then.
They never wondered if there were others.  They never wondered if there was more or contemplated life, death, beginnings, endings.  There were no such concepts.  All was chaos, all was dischordia.  No order existed, no rules and no limits.  They were only themselves, each other, all things.  There was no sadness, no joy, no worry, no anticipation.  They knew all, were all, what therefore could there be to worry about?  What could they hope for?  But nor did they contemplate these things.  If she were to look back now, to try to describe that limitless, infinite time, she might call it grey.  Or perhaps entirety.  But she had no words for it then, a need for words did not exist.
She could reach out with her essence, the best way to describe what has no form or shape, and touch others.  As she touched others she touched her own self, for she had no start or finish.  Neither did they.  They lived as one, and more than one.  Their lives were not lives but beings.  They were.  Discordia reigned in the space between spaces.
Until, that was, she began to feel.  She felt hot.  And thus, order was born.
She awoke to herself, a being outside of the others, when her essence changed, something that had never happened before.  There was no change, time and change did not exist.  Inside her–for now there was an inside–something shifted.  Inside her, there were rules.  This heat, this warmth that came from nowhere but was not endless.  It could not have been hot longer than the time it took her to cross from one side of her space to the other, but even that was new.  Space was at once finite and infinite, nearly nothing and yet everything, but now it had form.  It had an end, it had a beginning.
She could remember being in one place, and then another.
And thus space was born.
She could feel herself moving.    Motion was new, too.  Where once was only being, now she was doing.  Her self was moving, and the heat was growing in her depth, preparing for… something.  She did not recognize any of these senses, nor the idea of senses.  She could only experience.  That there was a “she” to experience was also new.  She had always been one and all, all and one, now she was only one.  She reached out with her essence and she touched her brothers and sisters and they were one as well.  They were individuals, known and unknown to her.  She could not feel, not yet, but she could experience, and she did.  She turned her essence to the outside–for there was now an outside–and waited to see what would happen next.
And thus time was born.
She began to feel the heat and movement all around her, inside and outside and growing like a tidal wave of energetic motion until there was no space left for the movement to go.  Her kind were crowded and jostled, reaching out their essences to each other in desperation.  She reached for them, tried to grasp the formless and they only slipped through her own formless self.  They moved and moved, from one side of their space between spaces to the other, grasping and crying out from inside themselves but the heat only grew and grew until it became…something.  If asked now, she would describe the sensation as urgent, though then it was only experience.
In one heaving, unstoppable moment, only a moment after the first moment, their space exploded.  Those who had lived of each other and outside of time were flung apart, deep into the surrounding chaos.  She was flying, soaring, through a space heretofore unimagined by her kind.  She was moving away, far away from her brothers and sisters.  She was passing through them, breaking them apart and she too was breaking apart into her self and other selves who were her, but were no longer her.  She traveled away with immense speed and immense heat, steaming and moving and reaching out with all the essence she had left to those she had once been.  But they were gone.  They were all gone.  They were near, she could sense them near, but they were no longer her.  She was no longer them.  She cried out, she flung herself here and there in the darkness of dischordia, but no one answered.
And thus, loneliness was born.
For millennia she flew.  She glided across the new expanse of space, infinitely larger than what came before but with an end and beginning that what came before never had, watching as her brothers and sisters drifted and flew away.  She felt a pull toward, a push away.  Her essence began to change.  She developed form, a sense of body and shape.  She collected herself from the ether around, and the ether became vast space between things.  Around her she saw her kind form, she saw light and darkness, she saw motion and energy, she saw heat and cold, she saw vacuum.  She saw the first shuddering breaths of something new, and she experienced the beauty of that something that her kind called Chord.
And thus, the universe was born.
Someday, she would be named Dis.  Among other things.
What had been a light push and pull on her journey began to pull her harder.  She saw her kind begin to gather in groups, drawn together and pushed apart, sometimes changing and rearranging.  She shared in this longing, this need to pull together and disintegrate and reform.  Her body changed and changed, growing and decaying, swelling and shrinking.  Her body was drawn upon for other bodies, her being was torn apart and reformed as others around her created and recreated themselves.  Matter and energy were separate now, but also not separate.  All this she experienced, and began to form opinions about.  The beauty of what she saw pleased her, the synchronicity of what became of her self and her kind pleased her.  She sang out with happiness, her being calling to others in greeting as she passed them  by.
And thus, joy was born.
At once she felt herself slow.  She had collected much, become vast and now the pull was stronger than the push and her movement slowed.  She still moved outward, away from what was before, but slower.  She began to turn, pulled here and there so that she swirled around in a beautiful twist of color and energy.  Elements inside her fired and collided and became other things, all herself but also others of her kind.  Still they rearranged themselves in endless dances and plays, trying this form and that.  The individual self became more compelling than the combination and as she slowed, she longed for firmament.  She spun tightly into herself, shrinking her vastness to a smaller size.  She turned in lazy circles.  She was pulled together with several of her kind who also sought firmament.  They spun around each other, they danced beautifully together and they stayed that way, changing less but always changing.   Always moving.
And thus, and finally, the Earth was born.  The Earth who was she, she who was once something before but now she was only she, a nameless being who had traveled so very far, and so very long.  She decided to be content as she was in the vast space that had once been contained inside her–inside all of them.  They had brought the Chord forth, and now they reigned within it.  She had already forgotten what it was like to have no time, no motion, no beginning or end.  She had already begun to enjoy her beginning and existence as herself, separate from others.  Time had seemed long but she was still new and still craved experiences.
She became self-centered.
The thought occurred to her and those like her–not of her anymore, but like her–that they might be the only beings in this place.  They had never considered other beings before, in the time before time there was no need.  Now they yearned.  They yearned for each other but they were lost to each other, so they yearned for others.  They yearned for new experiences.  The flight through new space did nothing to quell their urge for more.  They began to communicate with each other, reaching out far across the distance to speak to each other.  None of them could report others, others besides themselves and their dancing in Chord.  They sang, they danced together, but no others shared their dance.  They craved the new, and they decided to create it.
Some created new by changing themselves, moving from form to form.  Black holes destroyed whole galaxies in an attempt to experience something else, but that had been done before now.  Supernovas exploded in a drive to feel the far flung fly through space and time, but space and time were already ancient.  Those first anxious, magical moments were far behind them.  Some became despondent, some conspired and made new galaxies or new pockets of darkness that filled the space between the galaxies.  She, however, focused inward.
She learned of the layers she had gathered to her.  She was heat, reminiscent of the same heat of her beginning, at her core.  Deep within her that same hot motion still swirled and swirled within her, her belly full of warmth.  She was many layers of rock and energy, of heat and cool, she was varied.  Her surface was full of variety too, ups and downs and liquids and solids, so much energy and motion and constant change she could spend thousands of years simply watching the swirling and whirling of her skin.  Above that were layers that formed and changed, burned off and regrew, and she took her first breaths of her own atmosphere in pleasant wonder.
She stayed like this for a long time, simply reveling in the joy of becoming inside herself.
For a time, another of her kind stayed near her.  A piece of herself broke off and became that other, a brother who spun around her as she spun around their sister and others spun nearby as well.  They spoke of many things, of the time before and what might have happened to create the Chord, but not one of their kind truly knew the answer.  They only knew that it had happened, and mostly they were glad.  Lonely, but glad.  He stayed with her, this other, spinning around her and watching her become herself while he stayed as he was, a blank rock in the sky above her atmosphere.  She was glad for the company for a time, but as her self became more interesting she turned further inward and ignored her companion.  She watched land form from her fiery depths and solidify within her liquid seas.  She watched the elements of her kind become her own elements, which created new things unique to her.  This fascinated her for millions of years, and her companion soon left.  The piece of her that he had been stayed behind, an empty rock that pulled on her tides and kept her company when she did choose to look away from herself.
This of course was the moon, and she embraced it as her own.
As she embraced the moon and incorporated it within her watchings she noticed her heart begin to beat.  Deep within her heat and belly she felt the pulse of life stir.  Rivers of bright, hot light pulsed away from her inner core, bled all over her skin until they criss-crossed her surface.  Veins and arteries carried this life force away from her heart, and back to her heart.  She noticed the moon pulling on this life force as it moved through its phases, as it pulled on her oceans it pulled on her very life’s blood.  She realized that she had become alive, her blood flowing here and there over her surface.  Where her blood flowed, power radiated though she had no need of it.  Her essence, once a formless nameless thing, flowed over her in rivers of light and power.
Dischordia was banished to the far reaches, far far from anywhere she could see or sense.  Near her, inside her, order and rules reigned.  There were less ordered forces, but she cared more for order now.
Sometime among the eons, she realized she had become separate from herself, and yet remained herself.  She had a body, and she had a mind/soul.  These were different things, though both resided in the same place.  She discovered she could travel.  She could leave her body to swirl and change and visit with her kind far away.  She learned of many things across the vastness of Chord, and she witnessed the life of many of her kind.  Many had developed hearts and veins and arteries as she had.  Many still remained quite formless, choosing to drift and change and reshape the Chord as they willed.  She discovered will.
She found it was her will to create more life.  Life was beautiful, all that swirling and gathering and pulsing pleased her.
She divided her seas and land, over many millions of years her body changed to accommodate new life.  She watched, mostly, as new life asserted itself–elements that she had claimed and had combined to be unique to her grew and swirled around each other.  A touch of sunlight (from her sister the sun) here, a pull of the tides from her departed brother there and the elements became complex molecules, and the molecules ever so slowly became proteins.  She could watch proteins for years and years, proteins were more than the sum of their parts as she was also more than her body.
Without much guidance from her, only a touch of this and that, life became itself upon her.  She burst with joy, flinging her mind into the Chord to tell all of her beautiful children.  Her kind celebrated with her, cheering for the gorgeous one-celled creatures, creatures new to the Chord as her kind were once new.  She celebrated, too, with her brothers and sisters who created life like hers in other places, and life not-so-like hers as well.  The Chord was vast, and could contain multitudes.  And did contain all manner of things, glorious things she had never even dreamed in the time before.
As she watched her tiny, fragile children grow, she could hardly remember the time before.  She seemed to have always been this self, this self called many things but most primordially called Mother.  Mother Earth.
A swelling of pride, moving from the self-centerdness of self-creation to the other focused of motherhood, formed deep inside her and her pulse quickened and deepened.  The life atop her responded at once, flowing out and around her veins and arteries, seeking the pulse and breath of their mother.  The children changed and swirled and grew as she and her kind once did.  They spread out and spread down and up, becoming all manner of things she couldn’t wait to see.  Cells divided and split and combined and became multi-cellular.  Slowly oh so very slowly she became mother to a million billion different kinds of children.  She rejoiced in their cleverness and their diversity.  She thrilled when they found ways to change themselves, danced with them in sexual heat and mourned with them as they died from stagnation.
All her children clustered and grew, drawing from her body of water and air, earth and heat.  They drew as well from her very essence, the veins and arteries of power that flowed over her surface.  She sensed at once that while all her children needed her essence, not all of them knew it was there.
The parallel between the life she created and the life of her kind was not lost on her, the mother.  She saw her own kind, some remaining near formless, always changing always seeking dischordia.  Others became as she did, settled into new bodies, new life, new places within the Chord.  Her heart grew and warmed to know she had created life in her own image.  She was so proud of her children, and herself.
And thus, plants and animals were born, oh so slowly and with only the tiniest of pushes from their mother.  Mostly, they created themselves.
As mothers are wont to do, she favored those children who resembled her most.  She favored those who looked around themselves.  She pushed and pulled them the way she was once pushed and pulled through dischordia-becoming-Chord.  She created pockets and places for them to learn and grow, for their kind to flourish or flounder and pushed them toward something more.  She wasn’t sure what, only that she was so very happy and pleased to see them respond to her gentle nudges.  Her children moved from the seas to the land and back, they wandered and explored, craving experiences.  They were not able to contemplate their being, they simply were, but they were driven toward something new.
Ever hungry for the new, she found she grew bored watching her children’s slow progression toward something more.  For a time she left her children to find themselves.  She went on a long journey away from her body, letting her children care for her while she was away.  She traveled far and wide, watching the life others had created.  One brother had created an entire race of tiny bodies like hers–planets that orbited around him at their center, spinning and dancing with their father in a beautiful ballet.  She marvelled in his creativity and ingenuity.  She found others with all manner of life under their purview.  One sister, a sister-planet, had living in her core a multitude of cellular creatures who were both one, and not one.  They lived much as her kind had before time.  The sister-planet seemed happy to nurture the togetherness, the infinite non-doingness.  Her children simply were, and were nothing more.
When she returned to check on her own children, she found them doing differently than before.  She found them… aware of themselves.
And thus, consciousness created by consciousness was born.
They grew and grew, separating and coming together, breaking into bands and families and coalescing into tribes and peoples.  They began to travel, spreading over her surface but always staying close to her rivers of power.  They began, slowly and subtly at first, to communicate with each other.  They stood upright and looked at the stars, her brothers and sisters.  They examined themselves, their surroundings.  They touched and learned and shared their knowledge.  They created new things, tools and ideas all their own.  They began to do more than function, but live as she had once begun to live.  Their passion beat deep within their chests, they loved and grieved and buried their dead and married their neighbors.  They raised children as parents themselves, caring and nudging them toward adulthood.  They created knowledge, studied their home and each other.  As they studied, they began to realize they had a mother.
And thus, religion was born.
They misnamed her all sorts of things.  Here she had the name Dis, there she had the name Ki.  Elsewhere too she was named and renamed as a goddess, a god, a higher being.  In many places they made her male, in others she remained without gender at all.  She was entire races of titans, she was a great turtle, she was all, she was alpha and omega.  No matter how they named her, the experience of her was the same.  All people could tap into her essence, the energetic power lines that flowed over and through her.  Her children named them ley lines, and used them freely as they used her rivers and crops.  They took care never to overuse, never to rob her of her life force.  They cared for her and nurtured her as she had once nurtured them.  Mother became Grandmother to thousands of generations of people who looked over her despite what name they used.  Everything she saw was beautiful.  For a moment, she was utterly content.
Then it was horrible.  Her children began to fight and kill each other.  As animals she saw it as necessary, but as self conscious beings she was horrified to see them turn upon each other.  Her kind had never hurt each other, had they?  They had formed and reformed and obliterated but they had form without death thus could not injure each other.  For the first time she discovered her own hubris, the flaws of her creation.  Death was a blight she could not reverse.
Her children’s children’s children argued over what crops to plant, how to raise their own children, and most horrifying, who their mother really was.  They argued and fought and slaughtered millions of themselves in an attempt to be the ones with the right names for things, the right places for things.  They ignored her gentle pushes and nudges, entirely self focused and self centered they pushed outward, bullying and beating each other.  In agony, she turned away from her children.  Horror flowed and her pulse sank deep inside herself.  Sadness dwelt within her.  She stayed inside herself, content to stir her soup and putter around, occasionally venting her anger in a shower of fire and rain.  She pulled her life force close to her and stayed away from the Chord entirely.  Shame turned to bitter rage and back again to shame as she hid.  Mostly, she left her children alone to kill each other if they wanted to.  She was heartbroken.
At first, this race of children keenly noted the loss of their mother.  They waded in the empty arroyos of her former power streams and cried out for her to return. All her people, just barely able to contemplate the lack of her, cried out and begged her to return to them.  They fought in her names, which she found at once repugnant and charming.  But she turned her face away from them, unable to face her own failures or fix her mistakes.
Ever resourceful, her children began to thrive even on the minimal essence of their mother.  They taught themselves to grow things, and make things, and pull from her very life blood the power they needed to live.  They created first small communities, then towns and finally gigantic, thriving cities.  Soon, they too were creators, making things their mother could never have conceived of.  They took from her elements and life force and formed things.  Things to use, things to dance and play with, things she barely understood as she kept her face hidden from them.  They poisoned her surface with chemicals and spent magick–their name for her life force was magick.  She did not pass judgment or nudge or nurture them any longer.  She let them be, and they began to forget her entirely.   She was nothing more than a fairy tale, and they were the true engineers of their own fate.
Still, she was a being of infinity and became bored stewing in her own molten core.  Once more she flung her mind outward, leaving her body far behind.  She traveled with comets and danced inside galaxies and visited with her brothers and sisters.  They shared experience, success and failures, hubris and pride.  They discussed the Chord and their own origins though they had no answers.  They discussed the life they had created, they considered ways to improve.  They disagreed, they agreed, they experimented.  She stayed for many thousands of years away from herself, learning and seeking and finding new ways to be among her brothers and sisters.  She began to long for her body and her children, mourn for the time when all was peace and harmony upon her.  She wanted to return.
Like all mothers, she was forced to realize her creations were not her belongings, or her clones.  They were themselves, unto themselves.  The intelligence and self awareness she had so carefully nudged into being was both blessing and curse.  She forgave herself her arrogance, and she forgave them for being exactly what she created them to be.  But something had to be done.  They had replaced her beauty with their own vision, replaced her lovely forests and seas with metal and rock and dirty pollutants.  They had thinned and damaged her atmosphere, once so lovely to breathe.  They had forgotten who and what she was, and she decided to make a change.  She decided to reveal herself, to remind her children just who they were so that they would not make her arrogant mistakes any longer.  She decided on a Punishment.
And thus, the race of Guardians was born.  They worship their Mother Earth and Grandmother Goddess as one being, both a body and a mind/spirit.  They know her, they communicate with her, and they love her to this very day.  They embody the presence of the Goddess on Earth, she enters them as is her wont and commands them to do her will rather than their own.  They are Guardians, they are her children for now and always.

If you liked it, drop me a note would ya?  I’m curious.  ameliajune@ameliajune.net