How different the world was today. Never would it again be the way it was before this day. Lowenah knew and understood just how dramatic the change, though she concluded that few of her children had the slightest comprehension that it was so. If ignorance was not bliss, it certainly was contagious. Even her most loyal children could not fathom the real need to end this Rebellion.
For these seemingly endless ages since the strife began, the loyal children fought for the glory and honor of the Maker of Worlds, for her cause. Willingly, they marched to the death in a war waged over sovereignty...who had the right to rule. Yet the very concept of sovereignty was an obtuse ideology based upon absolutes and conjecture.
Who did have the right to rule? Lowenah shook her head, laughing sadly to herself. Had she not spent countless eons of time preparing her now rebellious son to become ruler over the things she created in both the worlds above and below? Chrusion and those supporting him were constant purveyors of this religious viewpoint, all their ruthless acts of violence committed in support of its accomplishment. Yes, to them Mother had stolen back what had already been given… what was not even hers to give… thus making her the thief and usurper of the Kingdom.
AsreHalom, at one time the greatest of Lowenah’s councilors, he falling away to the Darkness early, had even declared that she was not the Creator, but merely a torch keeper preparing the way for the Son, Chrusion, the child, the First Born, rightful heir - created directly by the Master Builders - who was to take up command over the universe. Women - or gods in womanly form - ever were and always would be the servants of the men, their superiors. This religion was taught with fervency in Chrusion’s kingdom. Indeed! For his followers, it was the foundation upon which all law was written.
Yet history had proved to Lowenah that even her most faithful children invented a personal religion that led them in their lives. Most popular was that the universe revolved and existed around its Creator that the Maker of Worlds ruled over her creation with a harmonic control built into it. This religion had grown out of the children’s scientific study of the universe, a study they called ‘EbenCeruboam’. In essence, it declared that the soul of the Creator could be found in all living things and, if the children could discover how the universe worked, they would come to understand its Creator better.
After the Rebellion, this philosophy grew into the belief in Divine Sovereignty, that Lowenah had the right to rule because she had created all things, placing a little piece of her soul in them. That was an erroneous belief. Only the Third Element was made of her essence, and that energy was something unnecessary for life. It was the power of the Third Element that made one godly, and to this day was ignored, or at best misunderstood by her children. Mihai was filled with it, tapped into its power, but had no conscious awareness of its presence.
Lowenah cast a glance across the crowded plain, sighing. Did anyone understand? Who among her own most cherished children really comprehended the depth and breadth of matters, the reason for this hour, for their very existence? It was not sovereignty that was the issue, which was a collective concept where the whole handed over allegiance to a superior ruler. No, this issue was personal, and the future of the universe hinged upon it. It was a principle that was not based upon rulership but on the Third Element. What? So simple, yet so elusive a beast, it was a matter of doing the right thing just because it was the right thing to do. This was the true religion, the absolute, the bond that held together the universe and all living things in it.
Lowenah frowned. The children from the wild Lower Realms had a much better grasp of this reality, this religion. Garlock and Paul understood it, lived it… at least lived it through the spirit while not necessarily recognizing it through the mind. Tolohe understood it, but why not? Was she not already a god - mortal maybe - but still a god, made so by the Immortal Ones? Lowenah also believed her child, Rachel, leading ReaBhemah was heart-wise to this reality. Lowenah’s own heart told her it was true. She believed it so. It must be so. Whether so or not, it would be revealed this day. If the child could draw upon that reality to her success, then the Maker of Worlds would one day deliver her child up to the Immortals to be changed into a god, herself. If she failed? The child would succeed. Lowenah’s heart refused to consider it otherwise.
A small cloud suddenly covered the burning sun, its shadow stirring a morose heart filled with regret. In an instant of time, so many of the decisions Lowenah had made over countless ages swept through her mind. Surrounding her on this desert plain were the most precious of all her treasures, her children. Each one was a true creation of will, of heart, each one planned as carefully as one chooses the notes of a grand symphony. Oh yes, she had allowed Chance to choose so much of the physical and mental makeup of each child, but still she, the Maker of Worlds had personally dabbled with each individual soul, making it just so.
Then she had nurtured each of those souls within her body of flesh until that child’s little body was ready to be ushered into its exciting new world. All the while the child resided within, she sang to it sweet lullabies filled with love and affection. Then each newborn she lifted up to her breast and fed to it the elixir of life, the milk of her very person, to fill it up and nourish its soul and spirit. Even when her child had grown in power and stature, even up through its eighth year, Lowenah continued her nursing care, holding her child close in her bosom at night while it drank to dreamy satisfaction.
Had she not also built into her daughters this same motherly instinct, and given to them the power to produce the same creamy elixir to share with their brothers and sisters in their sweet times of lovemaking? Indeed, had Lowenah not created her children to become lost in the ecstasy of body, mind, and spirit, melting into the body, mind, and spirit of each and every lover companion the child shared its love with? Yet more...had she not made them in a way so that the profound condition of joy and ecstasy would only grow until it would become all-consuming, the more they loved one another, the greater the joy?
Lowenah pondered troubling questions as the gloom gathered its strength. What had her children lacked in need or comfort? Everything she had made in this universe was for them, to titillate their senses, satisfy every desire, the soul, the heart, the palate ear, eye - every sense satisfied to the state of intoxication. There were no laws, no restrictions, no boundaries except for what was written upon their hearts. And were not those laws written by the Third Element and not by her hand? Why the Rebellion? Why the revolt?
Yet here they were, she sitting her horse, preparing to do diplomatic battle, to make contest over what should never have been questioned - the freedom of the heart. But no, it must be contested, because rulership demands slavery of the heart to a ruler, lawmaker - whether to an evil cruel dictator or a kindly benevolent dictator - it still meant slavery to someone. Lowenah had not created it within her children to be ruled over, to be made slaves. They were free people; all men were created to be free. That is what made her children so different from the other creations of flesh. Her children were the masters over the other’s souls.
What then was so difficult for her children to understand? Should freedom be stolen, whether by good or evil, that loss of freedom would eventually lead to chaos of the heart, and eventually the destruction of all living things, possibly all material creation. Could her children not grasp that one little truth? No overlord could become master over another, by choice or dictation, without eventually destroying the very fabric of the universe. Freedom must be satisfied or all things would fail.
Pausing in thought, Lowenah nodded, considering. She could change things. She had grown in understanding since the beginning of time, the making of her worlds. She could stop time, even reverse it. She could return her universe back to the innocent days of bliss, rewrite its blueprints and redesign its very structure. Then she could start over, rebirth all her children exactly as she had done before, for she had their signatures preserved inside her mind. She co
uld reproduce them exactly as they had been before. And she need not sweep time aside and return to its beginning to do it.
No! Lowenah had the power to stop time where it was now, then back it up to the last age, the last great celebration. There she could freeze the moment, reach in to the souls of each and every one of her children, and alter ever so slightly the signature of Freedom’s meaning. She would hardwire her creation differently so that they would never come to want, never desire something they did not own, possess. Then she would fill their hearts with joy and bliss to the point of overflowing, drug their senses so that forever they would be thrilled with the creations offered them.
Then, when the universe again rested in the cradle of satisfaction and peace, Lowenah would gather her being to a self-induced forgetfulness, and when she awoke would remember not the evil done over this past vile age, or the wickedness of her children, or the treachery of her most cherished son. She smiled. Yes, yes, it could be done, and with ease, and freedom would become relative to life, not such an important thing, and no one would know.
Lowenah frowned. They would know. The Powers beyond the universe, the silent Watchers would know. Never would they speak about it to her, not a word, but she would know that they knew that she betrayed everything she was about, for she had made them in her carefree days, made them from herself, her very fabric, Immortals beyond Immortals, with her mind and soul inside them. Forever they would accuse her of the evil she had committed. To steal freedom from those who had no power to resist? She could not change them, bring them into a current forgetfulness, or even pass them along into eternal darkness, for they are as immortal as she. As are her days, so are theirs. They would ever be her reminder of evil done.
Yet, that was not the worst of matters. How could she forever live with herself? A shudder ran down her back. Might she not destroy the very universe in her anguish over being the greatest of all thieves? Her son could only steal the body in death, the hope of a return far beyond his grasp. She could steal the very mind and heart of any and all her children, and would if she carried out such a dastardly scheme as her heart currently entertained. Oh, the villainy of a twisted heart!
No! No! The pain of all matters must be allowed to come to its own finish. The heart must break, be broken, for if it does not break with knowledge, it cannot grow with wisdom. The heart will heal with time - her heart - and that wisdom attained can lead her creation to even greater heights. Are not the scars the greatest tribute to valor in the battle fought? Is not the hour of deepest despair and greatest dread the most oft tale told when around the campfire where one safely sits? And is not the smallest coin lost in time of great need the grandest treasure to be sought after and celebrated when found?
Then what was the Maker of all things missing? What was her mind failing to comprehend regarding the great equation of life? What elemental fact was escaping her? Was freedom of lesser import than she had assumed? Lowenah puzzled. Why had the fabric remained so strong when even her most loyal children submitted their very being to a king, a very frail foolish king, become her willing slaves? Michael did not fraction the power of the universe, but strengthened it. How? It was not her great wisdom or might. Wisdom the child lacked in sufficient amount to make her foolish at times, and her might was given her by the people who became her servants.
Lowenah smiled, hope growing in her heart. It was the Third Element that must move her children to allow their enslavement to a cause, or a person. It mattered little. When principled love… to do the right thing… was the motivating force, then there was no slavery. How could she have missed it, the very Creator of the fabric that held together the universe and everything within it, how?
Lowenah chided herself, recalling her own proverb. ‘A tricksy heart will make even the wise act foolishly.’ Here was the answer: It was not the mind knowing that one must do the right thing, it was the heart feeling the necessity to follow a certain course to its end that made the right thing happen. Even if her children knew not in their minds what to do, their hearts filled with the Third Element, this Love, would cause them to do the right thing. This, no matter the sacrifice to attain it, was freedom, freedom of choice, freedom of the heart.
The people gathered here on this day had all made choices. It was their freedom to do so. Whether one chooses to live a slave or die a free man is still a choice. Was not the choice to do good or ill a freedom given to each and every one of her children? Had she not made them gods over their own being, to choose good or ill, life or death for themselves? It was when that freedom encroached upon another that the Judge of Heaven and Earth must step in, not to prevent freedom, but to protect the innocent from enslavement. The slave here this day was anyone held against his or her will, in spirit or body.
Lowenah, the greatest of Potentates, had come here this day to put the universe on notice, that no forced slavery would be forever tolerated. Today she was going to demonstrate that freedom, bought at whatever the cost, was a treasure greater than all other things. She would show her children that to do the right thing was supreme, no matter the pain or sorrow… no matter the breadth or depth of tribulation. In the end, if the right thing has been done, the Third Element will heal the universe and all the souls within it.
Suddenly the sun broke clear of the little cloud. Lowenah looked up, smiling. Not by chance had this moment come and passed. Other powers, Powers she often ignored, stood vigil over her and all her treasures, especially over her heart. Even she had lessons to yet learn, riddles to understand. The game was not over. All knowledge was not yet hers. These stealthy Powers had reminded her of that. ‘Carry it on to the finish, for there is where you will find the prize. See it through, and stay on course. You will succeed.’
Lowenah smiled, acknowledging an oft-forgotten truth. She was not alone unless she chose to ignore the Whispering Spirits. They lived for her, not because they had been made that way, but because they choose to be that way. Made more of the Third Element were they than she often cared to understand. Never did they fail. Never would they, nor would they allow her to fail, ever...
Staring into the sun, Lowenah’s mind raced with future thoughts. The hour was yet come, would come for a certainty. Shiloh would arrive, and she would fall in love again, forgetting forever her former lover. Peace would return to her universe, but this time it would be tempered with wisdom and knowledge of just how precious and tenuous it really is. Her children would be filled with an understanding that a thousand ages of peace would have never been able to teach. The Third Element would no longer be taught as an abstract philosophy, but as something real to be sought for like a hidden treasure.
Lowenah looked up into the deep blue sky, her heart unburdened of its former gloom. Today was pivotal, but still it was only one more step up the long stairway to the everlasting Samayim. “Come my children, and we shall together tread the stairway to Heaven, to reach our destiny in the near beyond where all will find everlasting delight in dreams fulfilled.”
She looked over the heads of her loyal children to the man standing as her adversary, his evil, shadowy presence shrinking before her eyes. Yes, even his great wickedness was but momentary and light, so weak and insignificant in comparison to the bright light of Love, as quickly as the darkest gloom filling the land can be swept away by a tiny spark far off in the distance. Evil, where is your strength? How quickly you will fade when the day dawns new!
Lowenah grinned, her heart beating with hope renewed. It was a new dawning bringing with it the distinct scent of rebirth. True, the storm must yet pass, but the freshness of the after-breath was carried on the breeze. Sucking that breath in, she filled her lungs with its intoxicating essence. This day was the sunrise of coming eternity. What a joy! It felt so very good to be alive!