An Ode to Sky Gods and Thier Ilk

Ok, so I'm testing out Create Space, Amazon's self publishing system, to see if it will work for my book. As a test, I'm putting together a collection of poetry and photos called An Ode to Sky Gods and Their Ilk. It's going to contain a bunch of my poems about things in the sky and photos of the Wyoming sky. I wrote the poems over about a year, a few years back, and took pictures to go with them, originally planned as a blog post, but it ended up too large and never got posted. A few of the poems, I've posted on Muninn's Laughter, but most no one has seen. Some of the photos I've shared places, some I have not. We'll see how this goes. Hopefully people will like it. FFF, ~Muninn's Kiss

The Spider's Song: I Made an Offering of Wind...

I made an offering of wind upon the altar of dust.  ~Grimr

In the beginning was a song.  The song.  The only song there ever was, and ever will be.  It was a love song, and a song of loneliness.  It was a song of joy and sorrow, of love and loss, of peace and war, of life and death.  It was the song of creation, the song of all things.  It was the spider's song.

It began with one note, ringing out through the outer darkness, like a single bell rang in a place of silence, or a the first harp string plucked.  It was a pure note, perfect, the only note that could pierce that silence, the silence of the outer dark.  It was the voice of the Nagara, the single note that was all, the love song of the Nagara to the Nagara, deep calling out to deep.  And it hung there in the darkness like a spark of light, like a seed, like a single harp string, or a single thread.  It was the first thread of the web, a single thread in the abyss of the outer darkness, a note ringing for none to hear.

And it echoed.  That single note reflected back on itself, reflecting off that which is not, the dark curve of the darkness.  It echoed back and in doing so, it changed, not the same as it was going out.  It rang in harmony with itself, a perfect harmonic, a perfect fifth.  The danced, round and round, catalyst and nexus, nexus and catalyst.  And so, one note became two, one thread became two, both vibrating in the darkness of the abyss, in the outer darkness, the first two threads of the web.  Two notes, hearing each other, responding to each other, first in dissonance, then in consonance, the dance of the twins.

From their play a third note arose.  It vibrated between them, both notes moving the third, the perfect third, a chord in the silence of the dark.  Three notes ringing out, moving, shifting.  A perfect chord.  Three mothers, three weavers each moving each other.  Three threads hanging in the abyss, the first three threads of the web.

But the song wasn't finished.  The chord grew and the perfect seventh came forth, four notes, four threads, stretching out into the abyss in four directions, four winds.  And still the song grew, for where there's a first, a third, a fifth, a seventh, there, too, there's a second, a fourth, and a sixth.  Seven notes ringing out through the darkness, and a melody formed, the vibrations of the web.  Seven builders, seven keepers, seven guardians.

Breath.  What is breath?  Breath is life, for even many one celled life take in oxygen and need it to live.  Breath is wind, for it is the movement of gas, in or out.  There is no breath in a vacuum.

Breath.  What is breath?  Breath is the most basic of sounds.  From it comes the vowel sounds in all oral languages, the sounds made without obstruction, without build up.  Sound passing through only changed in sound by the narrowness or movement of the side it passes between.  It is outward moving air, unblocked, unfettered, unbound, loosed.

Breath, vowels, are the first notes of music, pure sound, untempered.  They are the notes of the sound of the music, of a song, the song, the first song.  They are the beginning.

Breath bound, tied, constrained, blocked, fettered, becomes consonants.  As the vowels are given form, as the tent pole is raised, the bound vowels becomes first Three Mothers, then Seven Doubles, then Twelve Singles.  22 consonants, 22 letter.  Two Dancers, Three Weavers, Seven Builders, twelve in all, twelve notes, twelve threads, Twelve Watchers.

And consonants gather around vowels, the bound around the loosed, and words form.  Words, symbols of ideas.  And the complexity grows, the song grows.  Three Mothers, Seven Doubles, Twelve Singles, 22 consonants, 29 sounds, become 231 Gates, each gate a pair of consonants, the first and the fifth.  And the 231 Gates are joined by others, 20 consonants added to the beginning, to the middle, to the end, 13,860 roots if none repeat.  And roots combine to be words, and words combine to form sentences, and sentences combine to form paragraphs, and paragraphs combine to form chapters, and chapters combine to form books, and books combine to form sets and series, and sets and series combine to form shelves, and shelves combine to form racks, and racks combine to form rows, and rows combine to form stacks, and stacks combine to form floors, that the whole world is a library, the 10,000 things.

Every note holds power.  Every breath holds power.  Every vowel holds power.  Every sound holds power.  Every consonant holds power.  Every word holds power, every sentence, every paragraph.  And the longer they exist, the more they are used, the more their power grows.

Stand in a used bookstore or library.  Look at all those books.  How many are there?  How many words do they contain? How many letters do those words contain?  Each sound is a note in the song, the song of creation.  Each sound is a vibration in the web that is all, stretched across the face of the deep, the abyss, the outer darkness.  How much power is in those pages?  What secrets?  What notes?

Now think of the world.  How many books are in the world?  Right now.  And how many words in each one?

Now think of all time.  How many books have there been?  How many will there be?  And how many words in each one?

Now realize that books are just the ideas, the thoughts, the words that have been written down.  They are written language.  They have meaning because of the oral language that spawned them, the consonants with bound flow, the vowels with looses flow.  The power is in that oral language, the written is only that small piece that was written down, loosed power bound into a page.  How many words are spoken that are never recorded?  Each is a note in the song, the song of creation, the spider's song.

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.  Now the earth was unformed and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.  And God said: 'Let there be light.' And there was light." ~Genesis 1:1-3 JPS 1917 Edition of the Hebrew Bible in English

"darkness was upon the face of the deep" - וּ וְחֹשֶׁךְ עַל-פְּנֵי תְהוֹם - v choshek 'al-peniy tehowm

וּ - v - and
וְחֹשֶׁךְ - choshek - darkness, obscurity, secret place
עַל-פְּנֵי - 'al-peniy - the face, the presence, the person, the surface of, that which is in front of, before, toward
תְהוֹם - tehowm - deep, depths, deep places, abyss, sea, ocean, abyss, grave

"spirit of God" - וְרוּחַ אֱלֹהִים - Ruwach 'elohiym - Ruach Elohim

רוּחַ - Ruwach, Ruach - breath, wind, air, gas, spirit, vivacity, vigour, courage, temper, anger, desire, sorrow, will, energy of life
אֱלֹהִים - 'elohiym, Elohim - rulers, judges, divine ones, angels, gods, god, goddess, godlike one, G-d

"hovered over the face of the waters" - מְרַחֶפֶת עַל-פְּנֵי הַמָּיִם - mrachaphit 'al-peniy mayim

מְ - m - from
רַחֶפֶת - rachaphit - to grow soft, relax, to hover
עַל-פְּנֵי - 'al-peniy - the face, the presense, the person, the surface of, that which is in front of, before, toward
הַמָּיִם - mayim - water, waters, urine, springs, fountains, flood

So we could read is as:

"and the secret place was upon the surface of the ocean, and the breath of the rulers settled upon the surface of the water."

or:

"and that which hides the face of the abyss, the wind of the gods, from the face of the water."

or:

"and darkness was the presence of the grave, the temper of the gods toward the flood."

But, a bit of a tangent.

Ruach is breath, but also wind and life.  Ruach is also, in Kabbalah, part of the soul.  In this way, it is the emotions, will, and energy of life.

The Breath.  The Soul.  The Wind.  Life.  Ruach, hovering above the waters of the abyss, in the darkness, is the notes of the song, which are also the threads of the web.

In the beginning was a song.

The song.

The only song there ever was, and ever will be.

It was a love song, and a song of loneliness.

It was a song of joy and sorrow, of love and loss, of peace and war, of life and death.

It was the song of creation, the song of all things.

It was the spider's song.

I made an offering of wind upon the altar of dust.

FFF,
~Muninn's Kiss