old masks of death
remember the fear. remember death. parody it until the flame perishes and the sun rises.
there is no goodness and no kindness. no love and no admiration. as the sun warms the ground, it scorches the flowers and evaporates the streams.
i’m thinking about the masks and imagery of gods. no caring mothers, no benevolent fathers. no loyal sisters, no faithful brothers. instead, they are jaguars, serpents, demons and tricksters, pitiful children whose only entertainment is human suffering.
lavish greenery and the beauty of the vast river. carvings in stone and dancing around the fire. the older gods were venerated as those who possessed fear, as those who guarded death, as those who relieved the sunlit land from the fears of night. through the gods, we separated the two and built a threshold between them.
as we grew, our gods grew with us. they took human faces. they took over the universe. sin. blood. eternity. we no longer venerate those who guard death, but those who promise forgiveness and eternity within it.
we have used gods as a means of frightening each other, as a justification for our own fear. or for its absence. the ugly beast became the devil, the benevolent father became the god. we no longer venerate those whom we damned. as the walls of our towns, as the doors of our houses, as the fires of our flames are strong and untouchable. now we have turned towards prosperity and the abundance of life.
and it terrifies me.
we tried to remember death even within these shifting waves of time. but as easily as the wind changes direction, our thoughts abandon the prayers and promises of old.
the old fear and the divinity of death have both perished within the tall walls of the human mind. the world has no sacred corners left for man to fear. now man himself is feared. in lands emptied of the divine, we fear those in power, for they stand at the threshold once guarded by the old gods.
when people ask me if i believe in god, i pause, unable to answer. because the god had been forgotten centuries ago.