Another Origin

A/N: Just hit 1500 hits, and coming up on 100 posts. Wow.

It amazes me, as I edit old things I wrote, how redundant I was. Wonder what I'll notice in another few years.

“In the beginning, there was nothing.”

That’s how I’m supposed to start, right? But that can't be right. Because when someone says in the beginning, it means that there was the beginning. There is something present. The beginning is there. Were there truly nothing, it would not be a story.

If you merely wish to hear what happened, here it is: There was nothing, or so little that none would notice it. And then it became everything.

But the story is a story:

In the beginning, there was everything.

All wrapped up together, there was everything, tight as a bond between lovers, between mother and child, between trust and belief. And it was still.

There is no word left or yet for how absolutely motionless it was. A still pond has thousands of things moving in it, even in the tiniest drop. Motionless implies that motion is the basic state. But here, things were simply still because they were. None of the little particles in the universe had gotten the idea that one might turn yet.

So they were, and they were still—though ‘still’ is a shadow cast from that first stillness. And perhaps this is what some mean when they say, “In the beginning, there was nothing.”

And then, one tiny, miniscule little particle got the idea to move.

This was not easy. This was not moving against a strong wind, or moving against an ocean current pushing you the wrong way. This was not even moving against surrounding granite. A strong wind is still a force, and can be worked against; an ocean current can only push so hard; granite can be worn down. This was not merely moving against something tough. This was moving when ‘moving,’ ‘against,’ and, ‘force’ were not even ideas. They weren’t.

Yet this little, tiniest piece off a whole that had never been apart from anything managed to figure out that it could be done.

This was the first thought.

Then there was a slight movement, and the little piece—and ‘piece’ was as new as ‘slight,’ as ‘thought’—found itself doing something that was impossible.
This was the first action.

Then the first piece that had had the first thought and made the first action passed the idea to another.

It was possible for the piece to leave movement to itself. To be able to see all. To leave the universe an eternity before anything began to turn. But the piece simply shared the idea: the thought of being known or keeping this to itself as foreign as ‘moving’ had been a moment before. More, the idea of moving eventually came to this little one’s mind.

When I have been saying ‘little’, the only comparison I have had has been the universe. Our little one may have been larger than anything we could imagine. Or it might have been smaller than the smallest thing any will ever experience. The size does not matter, for, at this time, it was the smallest thing in the universe.

The idea being passed on was the first gift.

And something else picked up on the idea. There was a moment, an impossible moment. How do you introduce the idea of movement to one who has never felt it, never experienced anything like it? When it is not merely that you do not share a language, but there is no language, where do you begin?

This was the first story.

And the other piece, somehow, miraculously, understood. And they realized, together, that this was amazing. That this should have been impossible. That the little one should have sought for weary eternities, looking for one who could understand.

And then awareness sparked and they realized that this was simple. It was not luck. Once the first barrier had been broken, it was simple. For it is impossible to describe movement without movement, but descriptions are movement. They moved together, in the indescribable joy of two who have realized not just that they might be happy, but that everyone might be, and truly understanding.

This was the first emotion.

This was the first moment. The rest was background, now.

This was quickly followed by the first silence. Not because it had not been quiet before, but because there had never before been sound for silence to dance with.
And suddenly, one wondered about the other’s motives. Perhaps both. But then, one, the other, both, reached out for the other.

For each other.

This was the first trust.

This was the first truth.

This was the first time two souls, two pieces of collective divine, met.

They might have been together before, but they had not known each other, not even known of each other. They had simply had the universe, and were the universe. And that had been something.

But being able to be together, stand together, mind to mind, heart to heart, soul to soul, love to love, was something else.

This is why some people will insist that lust in any form is evil. Because that profound connection echoes through us still, and each any every one of us can feel that, in some way. And there is a fury in some spirits for doing something so similar, but so much less.

And, for the first time, they looked at each other. Then they realized that everything was moving. Had this been a sudden shift? Had it always been? How could everything have happened so quickly? They couldn’t’ve missed it, but they must have, hadn’t they?

And maybe they had. And maybe it hadn’t. It didn’t matter then, and it does not matter now. The two oldest souls are a part of each other.

They are just as old as everything else, but they came apart first.

They met first.