Part Three - The Akashic Record

 Part Three

The Akashic Record

There I was again, the Phase.

I stood alone captivated like a moth to a flare at the spectacle I found myself within. Fire and brimstone, lakes of lava carrying on its lethargic currents islands of molten rock, the sky was filled with gasses spat out by the fiery furnaces of various volcanoes that dotted the environment. And the ground shook as all around me the surface was bombarded by falling asteroids. Ahead of me the clouds of smog and smoke tried to conceal the sun, behind me a planet invaded the horizon with its portentous presence. It seemed like a visage from hell, but I knew it was not for I felt a serenity that suggested otherwise.

The lava languidly poured around my bare feet, I felt no pain and my perceived body was under no attack – it felt as though I stood ankle deep in thick, warm mud.

I looked intuitively to my left and I saw the figure of my Guide approaching, strolling over the meandering rivulets of magma. I walked out to meet him. We met with the sun between us, filtering its rays through the clouds of gasses in the atmosphere.

“Interesting destination you have chosen this occasion.”

I glanced around, “In what way?”

“You will see,” he said knowingly with a smile that added the weight of anticipation to his words.

“What am I witnessing here? It feels monumentally significant.”

“It is! For you see, you are witnessing the very birth of the earth, its formation into the gemstone of your solar system as you know it today.”

I looked out again at a new picture through a different frame of mind, “Magnificent!”

“Come with me, further back in time to its very conception.” He handed to me a thin paperback dairy.

“This is my personal dairy, I fill its pages with my thoughts everyday.”

“It is an archive of information, not your personal dairy. You only recognize it this way because you know the information it contains is priceless.”

“What sort of information?”

“Your planet’s history, written by the Universal Hand.”

“This little book’s pages can hold such vast information?”

“I believe it does, since you do too. Otherwise why not see it as an endless parchment or the thickest book you have ever held?”

I opened the book, “The pages are blank!”

“The pages only show you what you seek.”

I considered the conception of the earth and suddenly the pages began to fill, not with words – but with a random sequence zeros and ones; a binary code. I frowned, trying to find meaning; an interpretation to this arbitrary language.

“What does it show you?”

“I can’t tell.”

“You must ask the question to receive the answer.”

‘What is the question?’ I thought. Then it was obvious: ‘How did it all begin?’ I glanced up as I regarded this vague question and before me a spectacular vista greeted my eyes. A bright light flared out, like a bulb that had suddenly been switched on in a dark room, driving back the darkness and illuminating what I realized to be nebulous clouds drifting around a single point of light; a star. Billions of years raced by in mere seconds, the cosmic clock was on fast forward. I beheld various planets of various dimensions accreting in the dust; small, dense, rocky planets, large, denser gaseous planets. Like a snowball rolling down a steep hill these planets became steadily larger as they zipped around in their heliocentric orbits. I did not recognize it as my own solar system, there where too many planets, thrice the number that occupies my solar system today. I glanced around, searching for proof, I noticed a gas giant approaching, colossal in comparison to its contemparies. As it approached it seemed to fill the space, its rings where like a small factory, synthesizing new moons. Passing me I could discern air currents wrapping around its diameter in bands of colour; red, brown, magenta. I recognized this to be Jupiter.

A moment in time that perhaps no other human being has ever witnessed before.

Intense flashes and eerie echoes as some of these sentient bodies impacted. Their contents fused and some of it excreted in the vehement collisions, I found myself in the midst of a soup in a cosmic cauldron. The sun was the alchemist, and its satellites the ingredients to create the elixir of life.

“See the will of subsistence that strives through out the Universe? It is everywhere and everything.”

“It is difficult to comprehend my role in it.”

“Ah, the conundrum of life.”

“Why do we exist?”

“Watch and you may understand.”

At that moment, the cosmic clock seemed to slow. The dust had settled and the solar system seemed calmer, save for a few small rocky planets still attempting to establish their role on this grand universal stage. I picked up on concentrated vibrations, imprecisely familiar. It drew my attention to a particular source of interest. Two planets, like globular ectoplasms of viscous magma and molten rock, approached each other on a collision course. One planet only a third the size of the other. As their proximity increased their gravitational fields interacted, distorting their shapes. The space was electrified with fervid energies, I could distinguish them as plainly as the lines on my hand, as if a broader range of the electro-magnetic spectrum had revealed itself to me. I was enthralled by the display as the two rocky bodies collided in a violent upheaval. The smaller planet was vanquished, the larger planet struggled to hold itself together as pieces desired to break free and scatter the space with debris. Its gravitational field took on the characteristics of limbs, trying to piece itself together. It managed and the aftermath revealed a planet made anew surrounded by a ring that began to take the form of a companion to the rock. I realized that this tormented rock was the earth, and as the eternal sands of the cosmic clock continued to fall I began to recognize it. Oceans formed and land masses gathered to form a single continent.

I considered the pages of the dairy once again with interest.

“You hold within your hands the Akashic Record. All things that have transpired will leave its signature upon the ether, which will resonate through out eternity. You can access them all in these archives, you may witness them, experience them and feel them – understand them and the purpose of your own existence may be realized.”

“The Akashic Record… written by the Universal Hand.”

“Yes, one that the victors cannot alter to suit their whims.”

Then at that instant, a flash of light behind me and a vibration that spoke of a calamity. I turned around and my pupils dilated at the sight of a prodigious intruder barging through the solar system; another planet, larger even than Jupiter. A failed star with its own entourage of satellites circling it – it had just annihilated a planet unfortunate to find itself within its menacing path. One word came to mind, the name of this destroyer: “Nemesis”. It left in its wake ruin; fragments were all that remained of the rocky planet that once used to orbit between Mars and Jupiter. It would fade away into obscurity, then eventually return again – each passage threatened the existence of the earth. I was a spectator to these dramatic episodes and I watched as my solar system shared its story. I saw Mars and Venus with oceans and atmospheres as once being a cousin to the earth. I watched as the earth, shifted, altered and evolved. I witnessed the blue planet endure cataclysmic events and at least seven mass extinctions; deluges, arid droughts, nuclear winters, meteor impacts, and the reoccurring threat of Nemesis. The ages passed and the earth conspired to exist through them.

For the first time, I saw the earth much like I saw myself; a self-conscious living organism with the percipient intention to live, learn, and experience life.

“I’m still alive.” I thought I heard her say.

-from the journal of a Phase Drifter