Gaia- a myth

If you’re going to tell a story, you have to go back. Back to the beginning. Otherwise people ask questions about what happened before. Questions that might seem stupid to the storyteller. But if you’re actually going to tell the story, to give it to others, you have to start at the beginning.

I know on some level that before Reality began, I was there. Reality is really quite an unruly way to exist. How would you describe it if you’d been there? What’s the right analogy? Like trying to place the pieces of a puzzle without a picture? No, that’s too defined. Puzzle pieces have edges and borders that fit together in unique and specific ways; eventually you‘d figure it out. Reality is never that convenient. Reality leaves gaps that we fill in with our own beliefs and expectations. That’s why we don’t all see it exactly the same way. Like filling the space between tiles in a mosaic. Yes, Reality is a mosaic, seemingly whole but really broken. Reality is broken. We are the cement that binds it.

 When I first discovered my own consciousness, I was in the space that separated the only two things that had yet formed: the swirling hot mass called “Sun” and the vastness that opposed it. And in the middle there I was, a scattered mess still waiting to be ordered. Reality conceived me, and Chaos was my womb.

At my core, I was just a single bit of iron buzzing through the expanse propelled by the winds coming off Sun. I never saw his face--I say him because he seemed turbulent and destructive, hardly feminine--it was as if he kept turning his back on me only to show another side of his rear, like I was the ugly child he just couldn’t stand to look at.

As he pushed me through this space I eventually collided with something. Another piece of iron. I could feel parts of my body breaking free. I panicked. I feared I would be obliterated so soon after coming into existence. But I felt a force pulling back those broken pieces, pulling my core toward this other bit of galactic debris. A change was occurring. My small form began to meld with this object. I was growing. I suddenly had a stronger sense of my own body. I was inspired, by what I’m not sure since not much else yet existed, to say to words. Gravity. Accretion. These words showed me my power, taught me to grow. Gravity, the force of attraction between any two bodies in the universe . Accretion, the growing together of normally separate parts. My body was a force. And it was growing.

I don’t know how long I tumbled through the expanse accreting and growing. There were no words for Time back then. In fact, he didn’t even have a name. He insisted that words have power, that naming something gave you control over it. He said, “Give something a name and you can invoke it to do your bidding. Label everything that makes it up and you can break it down to nothing. Me, I just try to pass from moment to moment watching the rest of you struggle to exist.” I learned to measure my existence in visits from Time, each new arrival the end of one moment and the beginning of another. So it only took me a few moments to realize he’d been right about naming things. I had named Accretion and Gravity; they belonged to me. The more I accreted the greater my gravity and the farther it extended, pulling in , not just iron, but silicates, oxides and magnesia. You humans, of course, would eventually get around to naming Time too. You labeled his eons, millennia, centuries, decades, years, months, days, hours, minutes, seconds and made up a bunch more prefixes just so you could further break him down and restructure him to serve you. Some of you have him rushing about making appointments, cancelling meetings, moving up deadlines. Ugh, you have no idea how much he hates deadlines. But the worst thing is that most of you don’t even realize how you’ve treated Time. Right now, at this very moment, chances are he is simultaneously suspended from your wall like the hanged man, peering back at you through an electric glare, tightly wound about your wrist and waiting impatiently inside your pocket. You’ve got him trained so well you can make him jump back or forward an hour just because it suits you. The fact of the matter is you don’t need him in all of these places. You’ve trapped him and he’s wasting away. I’m sorry, I lost track for a moment. It’s just that every moment of my existence was punctuated with Time. Now he doesn’t visit anymore.

After several violent collisions with rocky clusters and icy comets, and even some other massive bodies my size that may have been my younger siblings, I ceased to grow. I had absorbed everything around me and wanted to refrain from gluttony in favor of a more modest existence. Sure, some might say I was incomplete--I was riddled with fissures, valleys, canyons, caves and craters, things that needed to be filled--but I was substantial. I felt sufficient.

And then something unexpected happened. Something dense and invisible was coming over me; gaseous particles were starting to cling to me, drawn in by my own Gravity. Well of course I wished they wouldn’t, the humidity was almost more than I could bear. But by then, Gravity had become part of my essence; I couldn’t just turn it off. And then it spoke to me, if you can believe that. This entity without form was somehow able to produce a voice. He said, “Hello”  almost like a whisper. I wasn’t sure how to respond at first. I’d only ever spoken with Time before and being that I was in the midst of a moment, Time was not around. I eventually decided on the natural response to “hello”. I said, “Hi.” “My name is  Uranus Atmos”, he said. God, his voice was entrancing. “That‘s an awfully long name don‘t you think?” “You can call me Atmos for short I suppose. What’s yours?” he asked. “Excuse me?” not even remotely aware of the question he was asking. “Your name?” he said. “Oh, I don’t have one.” I said matter-of-factly. He made a sound that I can now call disappointment; there was no way to say that then. “Perhaps I should give you a name then?” I vehemently opposed. I told him that I wouldn’t let him name me because then I would be giving him control over me. I decided I would name myself. That way no matter how much of myself I gave away I would always own it. It would always be mine. I told him my name would be Gaia. He said he liked that name because it was like me. His name, he said, was full of voice but too many wispy sounds that you’d quickly forget you’d said it at all, there and gone just like he was. My name was full-bodied and the hard initial sound would leave a sensation resonating through your body that you could hold on to. I had staying power. He whispered my name over and over, like an echo trying to find its voice. His body was pressed against mine but it was constantly motion, an unending caress that stimulated every spot. He was hot and wet working himself into a frenzy, panting heavily. I could feel his deep sighs filling me with oxygen and for the first time I could breathe. My body was overwhelmed. I began to tremble so violently I felt like I would break apart. My mountains rose up to meet his touch, my caverns expanded ready to accept him. We were like that for so long, panting and trembling and panting and trembling and panting and trembling and panting and trembling and panting and trembling and panting and trembling and panting and trembling and panting and trembling. Climax. He let out a groan of thunder and I was showered by him, showered with him. He filled my fissures and valleys and caves and craters to the brim with his fertility. Water, he called it. It was his gift to me. But I couldn't take what so obviously belonged to him so I gave it back. But then he just gave it right back to me. I’ve never stopped trying to give it back. He simply refuses to allow me to exist without it.

And in those streams and creeks and rivers and oceans that filled me, I could sense life forms too small to be seen coming into being. That was how it all began. We all began as something smaller and subtly different from what we are now. That is how Reality works. Placing one small tile after another for so long until you can finally see the bigger picture. That’s the story. Now I’m giving it to you.