Vidar Tyrz
"I am the First Immortal."
The Mouth of Kala:
"overwhelming might
BURNING. TRANSFIGURATION.
THE WAY OF all flesh.
The black gate, and beyond the final truth. I could describe an idea of it, but it would be false. It is the machinations of our conscious universe that drive it. For we are merely the universe exploring its own conscious essence. But this consciousness is recycled, within the mouth of Kala. The all consuming serpent, swallowing its own tail. Some call this Ourboros, for it has many names. But Kala is the oldest written name, and it is the name our ancestors would have called it. From a time before any flag known flew. In a steppe, in what is now Ukraine.
When this gate you at last traverse, you'll find that time is just a single droplet in a river. The rushing flow crushes all resistance as it follows the circle of causality forward. If you attempt to swim to the surface you'll find that the reflective edge nullifies any attempts to move through it. And that you must surrender to the warm flow of consciousness and stream where it takes you. Your individual willpower is meaningless to the collective current and upon accepting all your actions as true you may pass when you learn to forgive them and exist with them with no judgement.
From there the stream becomes light and darkness and flows in an eternal deluge down the boughs of the world tree. An uninterrupted, uncontrollable, pattern. The struggle of inertia versus motion. But since we cannot prove either over those concepts let's call it done. Welcome to consciousness.
First Bardo:
"I will take no material into the afterlife. Take no possessions, I would rather travel light." -Wotan the Tyr
Breathing deep. Mechanical heartbeat. Losing contact with the living. Flurry of sound. Clamor of steel. Screams of dying men. Metal taste, cold bitter agony. Pain within my bowels unlike any I've known before.
Animalistic willpower pulls me to my feet as I scream. Pulling the sword from my chest. The knives of the void knitting my flesh together from the Nothing. The cold chill releasing some of my essence to Kala. I can hear the distant thundering. The heartbeat of my future self, roaring as my current pulse slows. The cold knives, like barbs under my flesh, rending me.
I don't want to die, no I refuse to die, I won't ever die! This coldness gripping my very soul won't end me. I see it no so brilliant, glowing, as it rises from the bodies of those dying around me. A silver chord, tying our fate together. Greedily I pull upon them, tearing their chords free, mending my own.
Such complicated unresolved bitter emotions as I see my own chord still evaporates. Intense fear grip my bowels. Regret racks my brain. My heart heats in fury. It isn't fair this balance I see, my memories already turning to every wrong thing I have done.
As my consciousness streams the regret bloomed to suicidal anguish. And to end it I thrust my spear deeper pinning myself to the tree. Yet death, it would not take me. I fell upon my spear, as bloodless I could not stand. And stared as my vision faded. There was a mote of light and I stared into it. A well of knowledge I found.
How long I stared within I do not remember. For I lived inside this many millions of times. Eternally recurring to this singular fate. Very truly immortal, timeless. For it is here I saw that wherever life was, I was the conflict that drives it. All-Things become me, for I had become All-Father.
From this Delusion I awoke. EIR, had saved me I had fallen from my spear. Free of it my body renewed itself. I rose and walked the fields of the dead and dying. Ages past within that bloody field that I alone endured. Driven half mad by the sound of my future heart beat. But allowed to endure with it as my steadfast companion.
Second Bardo:
"These colors and sounds are now more precious to me, I realize, I haven't closed my eyes in a long time. Have I died?"
Resolution has come. No more the bitter sting of fear. No. I fear nothing, for I am become all again. The Nothing cannot be, it is not worthy of me to fear it. I give myself to The Nothing. Ah this is what it means to be one.
My heart has stopped but my mind races. Surging forward into this unknown. I am embarrassed, for I can feel Her, tasting me. It is not to consume me, but an erotic embraces as she savors my flesh. I welcome the notion to be Her succor.
She is a mighty bloom, the mycelium of a fungus that exists throughout the omniverse. She is the World Tree. She is Me. I give myself to her and she repeats me. Ad Infinitum, in our oneness we are everywhere. We are all time.
She shows me from beginning to end to new beginning. I am unafraid and comforted to see my reflection. It grows brighter and more real as the illusion of death begins to become transparent. My eyes so heavy at the end of our eternal journey. I must rest.
Third Bardo:
"I can't keep my eyes open any longer. I AM DYING."
Though blind I see everything. And now in this I convince myself once again. This God that I worship. This Demon I have blamed. They conspire as one, exactly the same, they're exactly the same.
Rational hate rises within, though from where I know not, for my body has been consumed, all that exists now is the idea of what was me. And that idea is fungible. Malleable at a whim. What was I? A man? Am I become God? No, there it is, I see my future. I AM The First, I AM The Last. Even The Creator and all creation will perish. And there I will become anew. Through me, all consciousness flows, and all that are conscious are carried by me through the Black Gate. I AM not God. I AM against God.
This God, who in vanity swallow the Light, and tastes a blade of my people's creation, dying feebly with a whimper not a shout. I was the first. I am now the last. What am I to do now? I the murderer of murderers. For not even death may claim me.
I become numbness, stillness. So still I become, she consumes me grows from me. Our union complete a marriage after eternal engagement. We persist.
Four Bardo:
"Is it a dream or a memory?"
I am conceived. My father and mother lie in loving embrace, their union of flesh and spirit, blessed by offspring. I live, I grow. Father dies, I break. Mother dies, I break.
I am a young broken man, carelessly tossed by the waves of misfortune. Tragedy after tragedy consume what little goodness I possessed. I become a monster. A killer of man. A slayer of kings. Destroyer of the Dragon. I fail myself, for I am too weak to continue along my own conviction.
I am a man, and this I remain forever. Rife with inadequacy I struggle. And become the very things I once destroyed. From boy to man, from man to king, from king to dragon.
I am The Serpent. For a flightless Dragon I was, and my greed and hunger perverted my nature. I consumed my own kingdom, destroyed many of my own children. Swallowed my own tail out of my ceaseless hunger. As it all comes crashing I find myself staring, once more powerless to prevent the death of my race as they are crushed by my most glorious son.
I am a humble wastrel. No longer king. No more the dragon. Just a pitiful and powerless viper. Cunning, envious of power, starving for a place to fit in. No more do my kin walk this world. They have been consumed instead by my own progeny. My children who daily forget their glorious roots, who choose to remain ignorant of their incredible world changing power.
I am a wise wanderer. I desire no name, and have long forgotten the names men once called me. Their opinion on such matters are irrelevant. Now, to me the only reason to live is to seek the truth. For ever will my wisdom grow. I have walked the face of this rugged old planet for hundreds of thousands of years. I have been king and fallen from the throne more times than I care to remember. The only two names which mean anything to me are the name of my Father, and All-Father. For I have had more names than words exist that are spoken. I walk invisibly among my children, seeking relics of the past. Yearning above anything else to see my home restored, to save my children from their lives of mediocrity.
I am the First, I will be the last.
Fifth Bardo:
"At the end of days, right or wrong will depend on, how we live and whether we will hang the last hangman."
I am dead, for the first time in one quarter of a million years. I have been here before. I will always be here again. I have known so much but in these millennia have failed to uncover the final truth.
I will not submit to this burden. I stare once more into the black gate. Armed now with the very blade I slew The Creator with. I see my silver chord. I take it in hand. It resists me, for it knows I intend to destroy it. Looking to the links I had forged from my dead brothers and sisters. I steel myself. Ready to plunge into the final unknown. To know what it means to be The Nothing. I sever the chord, emotion ceases, I cannot feel, yet still I see. I drop the sword, and leap through the Black Gate, straight into The Mouth of Kala.
Sixth Bardo:
"Should we not just be grateful, wretched as we are, walking this rugged old planet? Where that which occurs recurs eternally. Are you in a life trap? Or are you free to joyfully live the same life through the ages? Where then is free will in this? I am certain, willpower does exist, but nothing in this unforgiving world is free."
I am born again. I know no more, nor less, than any. This solipsism, I know to be a devilish device of my own design. Which I have invented only to hurt myself.
Last edited February 19, 2022 12:40 am
