The Beginning
Recommended Music for This Chapter
Now, to begin our story, we will journey back. In the beginning, everything that is today was not spread out into the Earth and Cosmos that we know today. It was condensed. It all existed in a single point, smaller than you could imagine, with all the mass and energy of the Universe. Because this point contained all that was to come and all that ever would be, it is no wonder that it was conscious. In fact, it was more than conscious. Since it was everything, it knew everything. It was the definition of omniscience. Now, this being, this point of existence, has been given many names throughout the years. It has been called Elohim and Yaweh, Apsu and Tiamat, Nippur and Areop-Enap. It has even simply been called "God". However, there is one name that, in my humble opinion, embodies the true nature of this enigma at the beginning of everything. Chaos. Chaos existed before the existence of everything and Chaos is what this Universe will fall back to at the end of it all. Chaos was everything. Chaos is still everything.
So, where were we? Oh yes, there was a point of everything, and we call that point Chaos. Well, Chaos existed for an indeterminable amount of time. Indeed, it existed before time itself. But, at some point, Chaos became bored of existence. Chaos desired more. But everything that ever would be was already inside him. How could he have more? What could be more? It was then that Chaos realized that all that was left to do was change. And so, Chaos decided to change. Gathering all of the energy, Chaos spread outward, his expansion and change creating the concepts of space and time. It was this expansion that created the Cosmos and the Void in which everything else would eventually exist. And as Chaos expanded, its energy and mass coalesced into new forms. New beings that shared a small portion of Chaos's power and consciousness. These beings are the gods of old that you may know from your stories and myths. They are the beings whose stories I will tell you next. But, for now, we remain with Chaos.
Now, to be clear, this expansion did not stop. It has not stopped. It continues to happen all around us. Our Universe exists within this expansion and will most likely cease with its end. The beginning of this expansion was rapid, spreading an unfathomable distance in a minute amount of time. But this is not the case anymore. The expansion has slowed. Bit by bit, Chaos changes at a slower and slower rate. Perhaps one day, Chaos's energy will be spent. The Universe will stop expanding, the Earth will stop spinning, and the change that Chaos invented so many eons ago will come to a halt. Then, perhaps, Chaos will finally rest. But, for now, Chaos continues, striving to create the change that keeps its existence interesting and gives it that something more that it so desires.
This, children, was how it all began. With Chaos and the desire for change. And this is the beginning of our stories. The origins of the beings that created the Earth and the Sky, the Oceans and Humanity itself.
Author's Note:
This story is loosely based on a few different stories. The name Chaos is a reference to Chaos from Hesiod's Theogony from Greek and Roman mythology. In the Theogony, Chaos was the abyss from which Gaia (the Earth), Nyx (the Night), Erebos (the Darkness), and Eros (love) eventually came. My story also has some basic roots in the Judeo-Christian creation story in the idea that, in the beginning, everything existed as a single entity, and, in some way, that entity led to the creation of everything else. In all honesty, these were the two that gave me the most inspiration, but I researched quite a few in preparation for this storybook, and all of them affected my choice of story-line in one way or another. For instance, the names for the original point that I gave in my story (Elohim, Yaweh, Apsu, Tiamat, Nippur, and Areop-Enap) all came from one creation story or another. Elohim and Yaweh are two names for God from Genesis (Yaweh is also the name in the photo above!), Apsu and Tiamat are the two original beings from the Enûma Eliš (a Babylonian creation myth), Nippur was an archaeological site that existed before creation according to the Barton Cylinder (a translation of an ancient Sumerian creation myth), and Areop-Enap (or Old-Spider) was the original being who created the Earth and Heavens from the shell of a clam according to the indigenous myths of the Nauru people (an island country in Micronesia). I hope you enjoyed this beginning to my stories! Please feel free to comment on my Comment Wall linked below!
Photo Credits:
Bibliography:
Story: Chaos and Gaia
Work: Theogony
Author: Hesiod
Work: Enûma Eliš
Author: Unknown
Work: The Barton Cylinder
Translator: George Barton
Work: Nauru indigenous myths
Character: Areop-Enap