43.

Becoming One of the Ancients

Like a fish in water, like a lapwing among stars I breathe among the gods. I have lived among gods countless years. I am an old soul, a great man, one of the ancients. Many nights I have looked into the fire, felt the heat of their tongues, seen their faces, heard them speaking. Many days I have stopped behind my plow to gaze up, blind with the sun and the gods' power. In my times, and there have been many times, I have come to know the gods. By their silence I understand their presence. I have quivered beneath the power of their hands on my head and trembled in the powerlessness of their absence when they turned and left me to my destiny.

At dawn beyond the ring of trees, the great one comes like the golden eye of a hawk opening, like the wind that moves the boats, his breath caught in a tattered white sail. With invisible hands he tugs on the green shoots causing corn and wheat to rise. The first among us, he willed himself to be, then in his loneliness dreamed the company of others. Because he willed it ripples formed on the water and clouds billowed in the sky. Because he willed it stars spewed from his lips and the sun and moon sprang from his eyes. Because he willed it he gave power to lesser gods the way a mother gives bread to her children. They, in turn to please him, made fish in the sea, birds in the air and wheat in the fields. Because he willed it men and women leapt forth and made children, tamed cattle, harvested barley. Because it pleased him he made these things and lay destiny upon them. What passes, what is and what will be are the stuff of the old man's dreams. One day he'll wake and all he has made to flourish will wither. He will coil round himself, a snake devouring his children, then slither away with us all in his belly. And we shall go away with him knowing what a good dream it was.

He sleeps. A new dream begins.

I am an old man, an ancient one, and I have been many things, lived and died many times, and loved as often as possible. And I tell you the gods exist within the limits of every thing—stone or vegetable, woman or man. Even the red clay the potter molds hides their essence. That a creature or thing exists makes it one with god. Blessed are we all. Because we exist we live for eternity as women or men, birds or fish, stones or wheat, dust in the wind. We shall be what we imagine though we know not yet what that may be. Blessed are we in eternal changing. We live among gods because we are gods. Blessed are the creatures and gods of earth, things of the air and water, flame from the fire.

I have lived in the midst of gods who knew not who they were. You and I are pure as dream, lasting as words, opulent as women. We were given the gift of becoming and the ways of it. After a time of forgetting, I come back to myself. I am as tied to my destiny as an ass is tied to its plow. Because the gods will it, the work is done, and our labor to become what we must is like the perfume of lotus and red sanders.

I have taken pains to empty myself of the illusions of flesh, to accept failure, even success when it comes, but not to crave it as some men crave wine. I have looked into my heart and seen jealousy, pride and greed. I've seen fear and resistance to change. Even as I cast these off as a snake sheds skins, I've been tempted to congratulate myself. I have regretted the past and longed for the future, forgetting to notice the mountain of the present. But today, for this moment, I am here with you unburdened by thought and filled with joy. In this moment I regret nothing for the paths I chose led me here. I offer you my life. In this moment as the veil opens and before it closes, I see us as we are—that we are gods, that all that exists and can be named is god coming from the body of god. If I but touch the present, I shall know what lies before and behind for these, too, are holy members of his body. I am, therefore, a god among you, born in the company of men. I tell you in truth, here, in my field behind this sometimes slow and stubborn donkey, I am standing before god. It is good to be here.