IN WHAT MUST BE THE MOST USEFUL OF CREATION MYTHS we are witness to a spanless, clockless void where the sovereign darkness lies riven with hues, mandelbrot tentacles, arabesque folds, everything coalesces at one line, sinuous and unending. It becomes two lines parallel. The eye follows that path and now focuses upon it, perceives the contour within the span of those lines. Scales do emerge once the eye can properly see: glittering, sharp edge, reflecting and refracting all the wild chaotic patterns about. A thin chimeric mail clothing the girth of this form in the darkness. Look up or look back, either way: this form does entwine with another its alterimage, over and over again, on into eternity— two great and resplendent snakes bound to one another in an infinite helix through the ageless void. Split at one end they embrace: her holding him close with one alabaster arm around him, her broad wings spread to the ends of the infinite, and himself a god of a thousand faces— bull, medusa, lion, more— with his own wings cast back to frame the limitless dark. They look only into the other’s eyes.
Time-Without-Age and his bride, Ananke.
The definition of the universe and the nature of it bound to one another.
The void about, it proceeds to shimmer like lightningcharged mist, separates from itself light from dark and it is this light that Time-Without-Age coils about, drawing it into itself, into a luminous sphere that collapses upon itself growing more translucent. Malleable. Finally solid but incandescent yet. He coils tighter still upon the sphere, loops more and more of himself about it until a line emerges bisecting the sphere, until it opens and opens to light more brilliant than anything the universe has as yet conceived. So bright neither one of them truly sees what emerges. Only Nyx— the Night— with her dark changeling eyes catches a glimpse of that which steps from the sphere:
Phanes Protogonos. Appearance. Final Beauty.
He steps out of the light but for a moment and then he shatters himself before that light fades, a constant reflection of this light scattering, falling, descending into time and into form.
This is what beauty is. This is what is perfect.
BEAUTY IS APPEARANCE. It refracts through the eye and into the mind. It reflects from the mind through the eye and onto everything the witness sees. Nothing can be seen but in comparison to it. Nothing escapes our thoughts but in some way is affected by it: a thousand thousand shards of brilliance reflecting upon everything as they fall.
Beauty is. It is its own history and its own witness. It stands before us asking nothing and giving all, perfect as a sphere is perfect and without fault. Beauty terrifies us because it is. It illuminates the finite nature of our existence. There will always be another man after us, as there was always another man before us, but Beauty stood before them all and saw them fall to time and nature and still it stands, wings outstretched so all might see, indifferent in its perfection to the audience that gathers before it.
Perfection itself is infinite, and so it is only fitting Time-Without-Age gave birth to Appearance and by proxy gave us Beauty. The law of the universe— Ananke— is blind necessity. However, within the definition of the universe, at once balanced against and intertwined with blind necessity, there is only Beauty, timeless and seamless. Just as drawn against but never extricated from blind necessity, we labor out our only lasting gifts: our art, our reflection of beauty. We pound it out of metal. We carve it into stone. We pass it down to one another, a neverending helix. A story told by men long since dead. A song played by instruments gone to disrepair and finally dust. Mud huts or skyscrapers, plows or planes: these are merely necessity. Art endures because that which gave birth to it endures: Time-Without-Age.
Yet there are those who believe that there must always be a purpose for things. Everything must fulfill some agenda somewhere, as if they have seen in their dreams the construction of the universe, the foundation of it, and as such every brick and cog must be defined and in its proper place or the architecture of things must be untrue and coming undone. They look upon Beauty, and lacking a definable purpose for it, they suspect everything about it. Something sinister in its affect. Something troubling in its form. The freedom to simply be, to exist without judgment— this mocks them. These are the children of the Law, and seeing Art, seeing offerings made to Beauty, it undermines their authority, casts doubt upon the constitution of Ananke, their own mother.
But there is in most men a natural instinct to be free, independent of the consideration of others. It is this very thing that Art celebrates. Therefore, those children of the Law must find some exception, some small case in Art that all find dangerous to illustrate and pillory, and in doing so give credence to their own fears while justifying their subsequent actions: to legislate Art, to bring it under control.
Too much tending will kill a flower and with so many shadows thrown upon Art, it dies as well. And civilization as a living thing then dies itself because civilization is based as all things are upon the reflection of those two serpents embracing: one the law of balance and one the living image of That Which Is. When Art dies and Beauty is overlooked in an overtipping of the scales, all that is left is the Law, and the Law is not alive; it is merely a cause, not a thing unto itself. Law is nothing but words and circumstance without blood, without appearance, without form, and, casting no illumination, everything before it dies.
But Beauty does not die any more than Appearance is a perishable thing. The lack of it kills, throws life into a shadow play with no meaning at all. In the end, from the ghosthaunted halls of ruins is Beauty found again, appreciated once more. The sacrifices come upon the heels of this discovery almost as a matter of form. There are always men who would marry it. Always women who would take it into their beds and hearths. And this incessant ritual begins the dawn of a new age and a new civilization. This is the history of mankind. It is not trading that builds civilization. Trading can be done in the lowliest crossroads. It is not protection that inspires civilization. A hole in the ground is a safer place from robbers than a city street. It is upon this statue that the city is founded, this altar to a god without a name, without need of a name. A god that simply is.
A god within a statue like the Athena Palladium, arms spread out so wide and a crooked smile asking you as you pass it by: Would you die for this thing, this Beauty?
You would die without it.
Time-Without-Age and his bride, Ananke.
The definition of the universe and the nature of it bound to one another.
The void about, it proceeds to shimmer like lightningcharged mist, separates from itself light from dark and it is this light that Time-Without-Age coils about, drawing it into itself, into a luminous sphere that collapses upon itself growing more translucent. Malleable. Finally solid but incandescent yet. He coils tighter still upon the sphere, loops more and more of himself about it until a line emerges bisecting the sphere, until it opens and opens to light more brilliant than anything the universe has as yet conceived. So bright neither one of them truly sees what emerges. Only Nyx— the Night— with her dark changeling eyes catches a glimpse of that which steps from the sphere:
Phanes Protogonos. Appearance. Final Beauty.
He steps out of the light but for a moment and then he shatters himself before that light fades, a constant reflection of this light scattering, falling, descending into time and into form.
This is what beauty is. This is what is perfect.
____
BEAUTY IS APPEARANCE. It refracts through the eye and into the mind. It reflects from the mind through the eye and onto everything the witness sees. Nothing can be seen but in comparison to it. Nothing escapes our thoughts but in some way is affected by it: a thousand thousand shards of brilliance reflecting upon everything as they fall.
Beauty is. It is its own history and its own witness. It stands before us asking nothing and giving all, perfect as a sphere is perfect and without fault. Beauty terrifies us because it is. It illuminates the finite nature of our existence. There will always be another man after us, as there was always another man before us, but Beauty stood before them all and saw them fall to time and nature and still it stands, wings outstretched so all might see, indifferent in its perfection to the audience that gathers before it.
Perfection itself is infinite, and so it is only fitting Time-Without-Age gave birth to Appearance and by proxy gave us Beauty. The law of the universe— Ananke— is blind necessity. However, within the definition of the universe, at once balanced against and intertwined with blind necessity, there is only Beauty, timeless and seamless. Just as drawn against but never extricated from blind necessity, we labor out our only lasting gifts: our art, our reflection of beauty. We pound it out of metal. We carve it into stone. We pass it down to one another, a neverending helix. A story told by men long since dead. A song played by instruments gone to disrepair and finally dust. Mud huts or skyscrapers, plows or planes: these are merely necessity. Art endures because that which gave birth to it endures: Time-Without-Age.
Yet there are those who believe that there must always be a purpose for things. Everything must fulfill some agenda somewhere, as if they have seen in their dreams the construction of the universe, the foundation of it, and as such every brick and cog must be defined and in its proper place or the architecture of things must be untrue and coming undone. They look upon Beauty, and lacking a definable purpose for it, they suspect everything about it. Something sinister in its affect. Something troubling in its form. The freedom to simply be, to exist without judgment— this mocks them. These are the children of the Law, and seeing Art, seeing offerings made to Beauty, it undermines their authority, casts doubt upon the constitution of Ananke, their own mother.
But there is in most men a natural instinct to be free, independent of the consideration of others. It is this very thing that Art celebrates. Therefore, those children of the Law must find some exception, some small case in Art that all find dangerous to illustrate and pillory, and in doing so give credence to their own fears while justifying their subsequent actions: to legislate Art, to bring it under control.
Too much tending will kill a flower and with so many shadows thrown upon Art, it dies as well. And civilization as a living thing then dies itself because civilization is based as all things are upon the reflection of those two serpents embracing: one the law of balance and one the living image of That Which Is. When Art dies and Beauty is overlooked in an overtipping of the scales, all that is left is the Law, and the Law is not alive; it is merely a cause, not a thing unto itself. Law is nothing but words and circumstance without blood, without appearance, without form, and, casting no illumination, everything before it dies.
But Beauty does not die any more than Appearance is a perishable thing. The lack of it kills, throws life into a shadow play with no meaning at all. In the end, from the ghosthaunted halls of ruins is Beauty found again, appreciated once more. The sacrifices come upon the heels of this discovery almost as a matter of form. There are always men who would marry it. Always women who would take it into their beds and hearths. And this incessant ritual begins the dawn of a new age and a new civilization. This is the history of mankind. It is not trading that builds civilization. Trading can be done in the lowliest crossroads. It is not protection that inspires civilization. A hole in the ground is a safer place from robbers than a city street. It is upon this statue that the city is founded, this altar to a god without a name, without need of a name. A god that simply is.
A god within a statue like the Athena Palladium, arms spread out so wide and a crooked smile asking you as you pass it by: Would you die for this thing, this Beauty?
You would die without it.
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