“Always I absolutely knew that it was a true Riddle, not a trick. There was an answer! A REAL answer! Not just a philosophical one, but a truly scientific answer. And, I knew that they meant for me to find the answer, even if it be my whole life’s work... Strangely, I always knew that I would.”
“Yes, yes, I, too, always believed that you would somehow solve The Riddle one Day.”
“Then illumination... or at least recognition... came upon me.
“‘Just wait here a moment...’ I had commanded my thoughts: ‘The RIDDLE did not ask; what would NOT BE if there were nothing... But, ‘What WOULD there be, if there were nothing?’
“Yes, I was tormented by it... Each Day I would ponder it, to no avail...
“I, of course, had told no one else of it – only you, Brennos – lest they believe me daft!
“Then my whole life changed and changed and changed again... My studies with you, then my years with Vortigern, then Uther and Ambrosius, then the boys and so forth and so on... Still, at least once or twice in each half of a Moon’s Dance, I pondered the seemingly unsolvable Riddle... I never found the answer... no matter how hard I sought it.
“But in the end, so many years later, The ANSWER to that which I had fretted over for all of that Time – the answer to the Great Riddle was given to me in the flash of a moment... All it took was two words...
“THEY need not – nor have they ever – put all the rest into words! For there it was – the answer to all and everything! When the two words were spoken, I knew instantly what they meant. No preamble was necessary. No; ‘Gwyddion, remember US? Here is the answer...’ No repetition of the question...
“Well, you know the rest, Brennos... For, again, I could not wait to tell you – which I did upon our last meeting...”
“Yes, Gwyddion... You know I was just thinking as you were recounting this to me, that it is akin to a device of memorization taught in the Druidical Tradition. It is a tricksy twist of rhyme recounting the theological gulf between the old religions and the new; regarding the question of eminence or immanence. Is GOD a pre-eminent and separate Being, ‘out there’ somewhere in the vast Universe – a GOD who ‘rules’ Nature? Or is GOD an immanent Being who’s Presence ‘is’ Nature – the ONE, the ALL?
“It goes like this: The Hebrews and the Christian Fathers say that
The name of GOD is
‘I AM.’ also…
‘He causes to be.’
We say: SHE/He... Causes to be...
THEY Are... THE ALL...
Therefore are we...
Therefore we Are...
Therefore I AM...
It is all in the name of GOD...
The Making, the Breaking...
Creation, Destruction...
Expansion, Contraction...
It is All is in the name of GOD...
‘ALL’ is the name of GOD...”
With this having been said, we resumed our companionable silence for a while, during which I reflected on how it came about that the answer to the Riddle was given to me.
Not so very many years ago, I was alone save for Chronos, reading one of my precious books. This reading had nothing at all to do with the subject of the Riddle, when, in the middle of a sentence – out of nowhere – the “Voices of the Stars” whispered the ANSWER into my ears – two words!
“INFINITE POTENTIAL...”
I felt the blood drain from my face... I called out, “I have it!” …although no one was there to hear me, save for Chronos...
His feathers ruffled...
But the moment I tried to speak them, the words tried to flee my memory...
“No! No!” I cried, “stay with me – I must remember!”
Then, blessing of all blessings and wonder of all wonders, the words came searing back into my thoughts. “INFINITE POTENTIAL...” Two words: And I understood... everything!
Immediately upon my great epiphany, I closed my eyes. When I did, just off to the right of my face was a hand, seen, then unseen, unfurling the pages of a great book, at a humanly impossible speed... No, not a book – THE GREAT BOOK! Pages were whirling by, in seemingly never-ending succession – each holding concepts of Cosmic Truths... of EVERYTHING! And all of it was being implanted deep within my consciousness somehow!
When I came back to myself I knew that I had been given the answer to the RIDDLE – ‘WHAT WOULD THERE BE IF THERE WERE NOTHING?’ – INFINITE POTENTIAL, the what and how of it ALL!
Oh, it is not as though I have ever, since that Day, expected to be able to retrieve all of this great knowledge at my own will or in my own wanted Time, but there, within me, it lies, awaiting “remembering.” Piece by piece, as in a puzzle, understandings come, not as words, but just as quiet knowings. And these I hold as absolute truths!
Remembering that first moment of my epiphany is the easiest thing I could ever do – so concretely in my thoughts it is! But, explaining its meaning to others... now that is a different story – although, I have indeed tried to, for it is a Sacred trust and a knowledge given to me, which I must share.
So... here is what I “knew” from the moment “They” first whispered the words to me and the Great Book’s pages sped before my closed eyes...
The Great Initiator’s Diagram...
At the First Time, In the Beginning, at the Cosmogenesis, from out of the Infinite Potentials that SHE holds – or is, and with a great vibration – which diverse Myths call the ‘Word,’ ‘Sound,’ or Rumble – SHE caused to be an infinitesimally small spark. Within that spark was held the seed – the pattern, the mathematical equation, the Architect’s design, the diagram – of the Universe, of everything that would come to be. But not everything that could be... From the moment of that first vibration – and onward – as the Cosmos expands outwardly, from the center, which is HER, it grows and multiplies according to HER sequence. However, it must always and only stay within the boundaries of the finite building blocks, potentials and laws of HER pattern for this particular incarnation of the Universe. Beyond these boundaries, nothing in this Creation can ever expand... All things had then, and have now, great – but finite – potential.
Oh, the brilliance! – It is far beyond the frail reasoning of Man or Angels – that SHE could put all eventualities within that first seed... But just so is a Universe born!
Think of it this way:
As everyone knows, any plan has a beginning point and a completion – an ending.
If you or I were to make a plan to build and furnish a house – taking all of the Time we needed to decide upon everything we wanted of, and in, that house, we would first make a list of our desires, then a plan, and a drawing. Next we would accumulate all tools, supplies, building materials, and furnishings that were needed. Then we would proceed to build and furnish it according to our plan.
But when the last bit of wattle and daub were set or the last of the rushes were strewn upon the floor, and the last bit of food filled the cupboards – or whichever was the very last thing to be done to complete our plan – having accomplished our goal, all of our work would be done, for there would be nothing more left to do but to enjoy our house.
The thing is that the Earth would remain beneath our house, the Rain and Sunshine would still come to grow our crops, the Wind would still hit our shutters, and our Wood Fires would still keep the chill from our bones... This is all because the GODDESS would still provide for us, because the world – and Her Cosmic Creation – will not have come to a completion, just because we have built our house!
However, when HER ‘Great Plan’ for this Time is successfully completed – and by this I mean that all Creation will have achieved its perfection – all outward expansion will have reached the boundaries of HER diagram. Then, with nothing further to do, nowhere else to go and no further design, motion or energy to support its existence – this Universe will come to an end. ALL things, concepts, design, mathematics, powers, and laws in this Creation will return to HER. Even the existence and
form of the Gods and Spirits must return to HER, for They are, as well, a part of her diagram for this Time. This then, will be the Penultimate Contraction, the perfect, necessary, complimentary polarity of Expansion.
SHE is that which exists, before, beyond, between and after, all epoch cycles of Cosmic Creation. SHE holds within HERSELF Infinite Potential – all possibilities, Universal laws, concepts, Elements, and powers – from which all things in form, Spirit, and energy, come into being.
SHE is “what there will be, when there is nothing.” SHE is “Infinite Potential!” SHE is Chaos – the swirling, enduring, fathomless Sea of potentials – without form. SHE is The Great Initiator... a pure Consciousness of profoundly brilliant intelligence.
Cosmos, on the other hand is form and motion – the active, created Universe – the Male polarity. So, Chaos and Cosmos, Female and Male, Darkness and Light, Contraction and Expansion, are the Breathing in and the Breathing out of all existance. All are compatible polarities – and necessary for life to continue. One Creator, but many expressions – all beautiful and perfect. How could we and everything we see and perceive not be perfect? We all are expressions in form – and Spirit – of the Great One’s desire.
The Sacrificed God...
In the same way goes the Mythic round of the young God....
There is a Sacred Secret in this... For in all of the known world’s Myths, the sacrificed God... the Grain God – the Son of the Great Mother Goddess – is born and then grows to the full bloom and perfection of his manhood, only to be cut down as the Corn of the fields at Harvest... his seed resting in the womb of the Earth until She awakens at the budding of Summer, when He will grow once more to the fullness of life. As does the Grain, so does the God. Just so, will be the pattern and the fate of this Universe, as well as all others to come...
When He is likened to the Sun, He is born in the depths of the Longest Night – a babe – to grow to his full brilliance and strength at the pinnacle of Mid-Summer – the Longest Day. Then he is vanquished by his Brother/Other Self, his Divine Twin – God of the diminishing Light, to rest in the arms of his Mother/Lover – She who births him once again as the Child of Promise, at the next Longest Night.
It is my belief that all cyclic Rituals based upon these myths are the means by which all Humans beseech, appease or co-create with the Gods; in Sacred places and in ecstatic states of being, to the end that the continuance of the Wheel or cycles of life will go on.
Somehow this pattern must resonate deeply within all Humans. We must all feel this instinctually.
There is a great comfort in these thoughts to me: That all the worlds we know and beyond are of an order, a suitability, and although it seems right to me to call the Great Initiator “Mother” and “She,” I realise, of course, that Infinite Potential means the holding all possibilities – and that in reality, this must be Mother and Father, female and male, all and neither. How else could it be?
What boundaries of potentials SHE places upon the next incarnation of the Cosmos – when the next Word is spoken, when the next Sound vibrates, what is held within that seed, that spark – are entirely her prerogative. SHE may wish to make it all completely different from that which has been this Time. Perhaps nothing will be the same – or would even be recognizable to us.
As to the method of the dissolution of all in existence... who under the Sun could know? Will a second Vibration sound, to, in an instant, collapse all inward – back to the Origin? Or might everything just fade as though it never was at all?
How will it all end and how begin again? The explanation of this is absolutely unknowable... Except by HER – SHE who is the INFINITE POTENTIAL.
I have heard that the Greek and Babylonian astronomers and mathematicians have hypothesized that all things begin and end in nothing, yet they have no numerical symbol for nothingness... Funny that... Perhaps someday, this Mystery, too, will be revealed.”
Blissful silence – all but for the flickering of the flame in the lamp, the sound of our breathing and the trickling of Water somewhere in the back of the Cave.
His eyes opened, and as Brennos so often did of late – without skipping a heartbeat, he resumed our former conversation, returning to the topic left behind... sometimes repeating himself.
“Well then... Remember that the hole in the Stone you seek will have that life force emanating from it. It must be very pronounced, my boy. Remember, too, to look, not through the hole, but at the hole’s surface. If the ring of its life force is indeed very strong, then you have found your Stone of Truth.
“Oh... have I repeated myself again? Well, no matter... Use it in good Magic, my boy.”
We embraced.
“Farewell my boy, it is always good to see you...”
“See you,” he had said. I wondered, by then, what, if anything, he could still see. If he was totally blind, no one could tell it. And “boy”... He still called me boy, although I was past my fortieth year-turn.
There is one further observation I must quill to page, and that is that, although I did not know it yet, I would never again think of ‘The Dragon’ as being merely the central spiritual force of Earthly Creation – as I had believed and was held in Druidical thought. Perhaps some of the Druids that I have known know much more than they will tell to those who are not Dragon called.
Funny that – I just wrote merely, as if the whole of Creation were no more than a thought in the Psyche of the Great One. Well, then again, perhaps it is.
Or could it be that all things written in these pages of our histories have been woven into the Weavers’ Web long ago, to be thought, said and written now, without volition, to reappear somewhere in the distant future? I wonder...
I wonder, too, if my speculations will lead me off a precipice someday – into a “Dark Valley” of oblivion. I laugh at myself. But I have come to know that Dragons are Dragons, and of this I can say no more.
Chapter 16
Bedwyr and Gwenyfar
Bedwyr
Preparations for the royal wedding were amazingly complicated. Everything was a Beehive of activity. Fulfilling all the protocols, such as who would sit where and who would do what... Thank the Gods that I was not expected to be a part of those decisions.
At the first, Princess Rowena wanted to pay for the whole wedding and feast, including all of the week-long festivities, games, and entertainments.
“I am Gwenyfar’s older sister.” quoth she...
But her fortress, which had been designed by Gwyddion for Vortigern, was thought of as a bleak, albeit marvelous, military tower built for defense and war, not suitable for such a large and gay affair.
Hengist himself wrote, “She is my daughter; I should host the wedding feast in my long hall.”
But of course, the rest of the Chieftains, Queens and Kings, who voiced their opinion of this, would have none of it. The collective thought, as put to Arthur by Maelgwn, one of the Kings of Gwynedd was, “Peradventure, going into the thick of potentially hostile Saxon territory would be dangerous. So, no – an emphatic no!”
This having been stated, with a majority of those present nodding their heads in agreement, Arthur opened the floor for other offers to host the event. There were none forthcoming, as the cost of hosting a royal wedding was enormous.
In the end, it was decided that the wedding festivities would be held at Lady Igraine’s fortress.
Arthur sent a large chest of gold and silver, as a token of his thanksgiving, to his prospective Father in law, Hengist, for his gracious offer – hoping to placate any offense the decline may cause. Along with the gift, Arthur explained that his Lady Mother, Igraine, so very much wished to have the affair at her beautiful fortress on the rocky coast of Dumnonia.
“What is more,” wrote he, “although Dumnonia is not evenly convenient to all, the great old Roman Road, the Ermine Way, runs from Northeast to Southwest, connects with many other good roads and runs in close proximity to Lady Igraine’s fortress. This will make travel t
o Dumnonia easier, safer, and much more comfortable for most who wish to attend. Besides which, Lady Igraine holds one of the largest and most beautiful of the great halls of the Britons – more than large enough for a royal wedding.”
Arthur also pointed out that Igraine could provide sleeping arrangements for two hundred people inside her fortress.
This assurance – and Arthur’s treasure – had made sense to Hengist. It also meant, of course, that the extreme cost of the whole affair would fall upon Igraine and Arthur – not upon Hengist – and so he agreed. The matter was settled.
Arthur had arranged for a heavy Royal Guard to escort Princess Gwenyfar and her company whilst travelling from Gwynedd, where she was with Princess Rowena.
Everything was in place for Gwyddion to have the honour of leading the troop there and back to our family fortress in Dumnonia. It was agreed that Princess Rowena would then follow, in good Time, for the required three Day isolation of the bride and her attendants.
However, upon the Night before their leaving – The Merlin had a Great Dream.
His teacher, Brennos, was calling to him. He had seen him upon his Deathbed. The next morning he told Arthur that he must go to Brennos immediately. Arthur bade him safe travels and said that I should go in his stead to collect Gwenyfar and her retinue.
Of Gwenyfar...
I suppose I had fallen in Love with Gwenyfar the first moment I saw her – walking as she was through the midst of the parted company – that great and raucous crowd – to present Hengist’s golden chalice to Arthur. Trembling and pale was she, a little timid, perhaps... but brave... so brave. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever beheld. Never – even in my Dreams had I imagined one so beautiful. I felt protective of her. I wanted to run up to her, clutch her to my chest and shout: “She is not a Ewe to be put up for auction in men’s political games.”
But I also knew that Arthur must feel the same. We had talked many Times about this sort of thing. Our Mother, Igraine – for she was truly our Mother – would so disapprove of this.
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