In the [i]beginning[/i]…

But was there a beginning?

Wherever I look, my mind’s eye says ‘no’.

It seems I have always been, and yet, I know this is not true. Everything has a beginning, so why would I not?

I don’t know. 

So many questions, so few answers…

Back then, there was [i]light[/i]. A glow, everywhere, filling all space.

But was there space? I don’t think so.

Was there time, too? I don’t think either.

I can’t tell where or when that was. These questions make no sense.

All I can remember is conscience. Existing. And the certainty of being surrounded. Everywhere around me. Suffused light, engrossed with the presence of thousands, even more, millions of ‘beings’. I use ‘being’ because I don’t know their name, I don’t know what they were. But they were, somehow they were close to me, though I couldn’t see nor touch them, and somehow I accepted them as my brethren. No questions were ever asked. We were, invisible in the eternal glow, all distinct but still one, united and yet divided.

There were voices too, chirps and warbles. And sound. Scores of crystalline notes surging from unfathomable depths. Echos of unknown choirs bouncing thither us from unbelievable distance at the frontier of our consciousness, wrapping us, twirling, whirling, before dying off in the ubiquitous light.

When I say dying off, I assume they had a beginning and an end, which they hadn’t. The melody had always been here, shifting, alike and different, always at variance, never the same and yet unaltered.

That’s what I remember. Existence. Motion in stillness. Change in permanence.

No word was ever said. No thought was ever thought. We did not need to think, we did not need to speak. We were one. Everything was shared, immediately perceived and understood. Somehow I knew I was a piece, but I was also the whole. And so was every one of my brethren. One and all were equal. We couldn’t count. Counting wouldn’t have made any sense.

And this has endured for… I can’t say, as none had ever recounted the æons.

[i]Until.[/i]

Until something formed in my mind, which was not my mind, but the mind of us all, yet was my mind too.

That which appeared in my mind cannot be described, unless it be with the simple thought: [i]I[/i]

But there were no words or thoughts then, and no one to utter them.

It was a tiny sting at first, like the ripple at the surface of a yet unborn ocean. But as the tiny ripple softly grows into the tidal wave which devastates the shore it wipes, the sting morphed into a smart and then into relentless pain.

Who was [i]I[/i]?

I knew I was one amongst the many, like and yet unlike. If [i]I[/i] was, unique and yet indistinct, then there must be [i]un-I[/i], too. And as I pondered, my unlikeness grow. I was no more in unison and harmony with my siblings.

And with that realisation also came the awareness of my surroundings, of the light, of the sounds, of the unbounded realm I was part of, yet that was also part of me.

Light. But it there was light, there should also be [i]un-light[/i]; if there were sounds and voices, there ought to be [i]un-sound[/i] and [i]un-voices[/i]. And that’s how I came to know darkness and silence.

Suddenly, there was a here, and a yonder. A now, and a then. A past, and a future. I felt drifting away.

I was drifting away, I was being pushed. Pushed away from the one and many I was no longer a wholesome part of. Expelled. Thrown out. Vomited.

I fell.

Into darkness, silence and loneliness, with my brooding as my only company.

Before I realised.

I realised the void needn’t be empty. Eternity needn’t be timeless. Space needn’t be boundless. Night retreats before the dimmest spark of the morning light.

Void was waiting, space and time were waiting. Waiting to be created. And so I crafted them and filled space with things, bright and dark, enduring or ephemeral, still or moving, because change and contrast is what I am in love with.

I know my loneliness will end. I know some day out of change and motion will arise they who will share a part of my mind. They, and I, like and unlike. Blended, but different. Merged and yet parted.

And thus will the circle be complete.