The beginnings saw an Earth of flame. Molten rock pounded by an endless torrent of comets and meteors. But with this bombardment came riches in the forms of water, metals and organic materials… the stuff that makes us, us.
With the end of these violent early years, the Earth cooled. Mountains grew and mountains were leveled. Seas rose and fell. The great plates of granite that wrap the Earth, drifted slowly on the molten mantle just below. For all its life, yes, life, for the Earth is living, it moved with a slow but persistent rhythm, reinvented over and over on a planetary scale.
And within this rhythm, conditions were right for life. And as this life grew to an ever more complex form, some were instilled with intelligence and self-awareness. And then these became tribes, then societies and civilizations that rose, fell and were ultimately forgotten.
And the planetary rhythm continues, never stopping. Creating, changing, destroying and repeating endlessly as billions of years pass by. And this is what happened in the first two billion years of Earth’s existence.
# # #
It is of no use for us to try to name them for there are no linguistic, cultural or biological links to any life form we know today. It is enough for us to just call these creatures “They”.
They were the first advanced life on Earth. Sharing the same planet we do, but alien and far removed from our existence.
They moved, not as creatures do today with legs, fins or wings, but they could move.
They saw, not as we do with eyes, but they saw the world they lived in.
They had brains, evolved to great complexity. And they had consciousness.
They looked up at their scarlet red sky and wondered, even as we wonder today looking at our blue sky.
They had ancestors rising from the same pools of organic waters as our ancestors, but they evolved more quickly. Adaptation to their environment speeded an evolutionary path into complex forms while our distant ancestors were still single celled organisms living in the green tinted seas.
They thrived in the methane and ammonia atmosphere of Achaean Earth, an atmosphere instantly lethal to most animals living today.
They created societies and cultures, living very much in harmony with the harsh, violent, young Earth that surrounded them.
They had customs and stories passed from generation to generation. Customs and traditions grew as they lived and died under the red skies dominated by a moon that passed much closer to the Earth than it ever does today.
They dominated this early Earth as man dominates the Earth of today.
They grew their civilization on the understanding of the mysteries of the world in which they lived. They learned how symbols and language could possess the power to bend, fold and shape the natural world around them
They knew what words to say to move and shape large rocks that dominated their landscape and with this, they created cities, temples and palaces. They could chant an incantation and the forces of nature would bend to their wishes. With ritual dances and movements they could transform nature around them into sustenance, structure and anything needed for life.
They controlled the mysteries of nature. They controlled the mysteries of time. To them it was common knowledge known to all, to us, we would call it magic.
And their magic will play a large part in this tale.
________________________________
Coming next week...
Chapter 1: "I Really Prefer DB. It will Save a Lot of Trouble"
The tale continues in present day Owens Farm.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment