In the Beginning

In the beginning there was paradox: there was nothing and there was everything. In the end there was paradox: there was nothing and there was everything. In other words, the beginning is identical to the end, and in this identity there is nothing and everything.

This is how things got started, and this is why there is something instead of nothing. Our particular universe is a manifestation of some unfathomable number of possible universes. Each possible universe also exists, although we may be forever forbidden access to anything other than our own universe.

Time is a function of any specific universe; this is to say, without a universe there can be no time as time is what is formed when there are relations amongst parts. Space is also a function of relations amongst parts. Ergo, no relations means no spacetime.

Thus, we cannot get back to the singularity of the big bang because this is the initial point before time and space came into existence. Spacetime was created when the singularity became fragmented: its fragments formed the relations that both require and create spacetime.

Every universe begins the same; i.e., every universe starts from the same singularity. This is because the singularity transcends any specific spacetime matrix; thus, while any given universe blossoms forth from the singularity creating its own specific manifestations and its own unique spacetime structure, the singularity remains intact as the central force driving all possible manifestations. It is, in a sense, the Unmoved Mover of Aristotle.

The singularity is the ultimate paradox: it exists, and yet does not exist as existence is a function of some spacetime; it is nothing as something can only exist inside a spacetime matrix, yet it is everything as any instance of things is manifest only because of its fragmentation.

In the beginning there was I am & I am not.

Birth/Death Day.

Ah, another B2D arrives marking 35 trips around the sun for this particular human. I’ve been interpreting the event as an occasion of both birth and death for many years now—perhaps as long as I’ve been linking Oct. 2nd to mark a transition from one major arcana to the next, which means I’m leaving the year of the Hanged Man and entering the year of Death. So yeah, maybe the ‘death’ part of this year’s B2D seems extra significant.

I mean, I’m gonna’ live through the year and see the next: what I’m more feeling in the works are major shifts and transformations in my life (which is more often what the Death archetype of the Tarot means). There’s likely a change coming with regard to what I do to earn money—I’m getting pretty tired of my job—and that is at least one transformation on the horizon. Also, I’m going to make the effort and quit smoking! I feel these are two positive major changes in my life, and am looking forward to others—the more for the best, well, the better. Although, I’m pretty sure they won’t all come easy.

So yeah, back to the “B2D,” the ‘birth to death’ journey that began for me thirty-five years ago. The renaming in my interpretation intends to acknowledge the duality of birth & death, or what is sometimes referred to by some as sex & death—a more alchemical, mystical, and/or magic(k)al dyad—a human birth implying sex, after all (although, in these modern times, not necessarily, heh). Also note, perhaps, that a French name for an orgasm is la petite morte, “the little death.”

I mean, it’s pretty clear that birth and death are not possible without One & Other: a thing is birthed, literally or more metaphorically, when it comes into existence, and all things that exist will end at some time. There is no death without birth, and birth guarantees death. These two polarities make space for manifestation, for life.