Everywhere he looked he saw images of perfection. Angels were flying through the air and the most beautiful women in all creation were emerging from the waves of the purest seas. Glorious colours were all around. He found himself in the early days, among the earliest heroes of the Invisibles, at the first foundation of the golden age. He found himself with them, rising from the sea-bed, embarking on the building of their universal civilisation.
He was with the splendid array of men and women in their early battles with the darkness and monsters of the island. He was among them, building their bridges of light, their mighty cathedrals, their emerald towers, their architecturally perfect abodes, their marble roads. He was among them, conquering the marshes, constructing their houses of justice, their marketplaces and loggias, shaping their streets, designing the spiritual symmetry of their cities and towns, creating their holy places, filling their mountains with shrines, carving beautiful statues all over their hill tops, building canals, developing the sciences, planting flowers in their magical gardens, and inventing labyrinths which at regular seasons formed their arcane symbol of eternity.
There was harmony and spring everywhere. There was a difficult joy and a difficult light in the early heroic days. There were no hierarchies. Each person was an equal participant and creator. All worked to the rhythm of the most haunting music, a music full of sorrow and rich with hope. Together they built their towns and hamlets, their palaces and villas, their avenues of angels, their infinite libraries, their exemplary universities. There were no distinctions between people, none high, none low, and men fed children while women constructed temples. There was suffering and a profound vision on all their faces.
He was among them when they discovered the unnameable in the mountains, when the angels pointed the way to their destiny, when the sages and prophets were inspired by the laws of life which the seraphs brought on emerald tablets, and when the dreams of their distant future were revealed to them. His heart too was glorious with amazement and humility.
He was there when miraculous fountains spouted from the rocks and when signs were given from heaven about how they could transform their terror and their great suffering into beauty.
He was also there on the great day when all the people, freshly risen from the ocean bed, gathered on the occasion of the great covenant, the momentous event of the consecration of their master dream. It was a day of the most beautiful rituals. It was the day when the people promised to the heavens that out of their agony they would make a wonderful destiny. With the sweetest and most solemn vows, they pledged to create a civilisation of light and justice. They pledged to initiate on earth the first universal civilisation where love and wisdom would be as food and air.
On that great day a marvellous sign came upon the people. As the rituals were coming to an end, there was an extraordinary flash of light in the sky. Then the heavens, as if in a mysterious annunciation, revealed their splendours and their luminous glories. And when the people freshly arisen from the ocean bed looked upwards, they saw a fabulous sight. They saw themselves mirrored in heaven. They saw the shining doubles of themselves, clothed in the miraculous light of perfection.
To realise a little of heaven on earth, that was the glory of their promise.
The beauty of that moment was overwhelming. Suddenly, looking about him, he saw poets dancing with angels, musicians levitating over happy pastoral scenes, scientists discovering unknown sacred places.
He saw them all. He was with them all in the world of moving frescoes that quivered in that august hall.