THRESHOLD

Entry 26 – Elemental Mythology

Like fire is courage, water is healing, earth is patience, air is clarity ...

I am Earth, the first void of creation.

I am an ancient heartbeat, a primal elder, worn smooth by epochs.

I have carried the essence of humanity since the very beginning.

I was present at the first light of the Creator.

A deep, empty, formless chaos I was –

darkness loomed over me like a loyal friend,

until a divine light cut through and set boundaries,

making the darkness a visitor reserved only for the night.

I am the foundation, pillar,

and roofing of the world,

the silent witness beneath every story.

At the genesis of creation,

the Creator deemed me worthy to become the vast canvas of beauty.

He wrapped my formation in mysteries beyond unraveling –

secrets no scientist,

machine or modern lens can see through,

because my truth is ancient,

older than their wisdom and language.

My reality and principles predates them.

I am powerful,

I have carried lives,

I have lost them.

I have carried humans,

cradled them in my heart,

and watched them lose their loved ones.

But though they trample over me,

they still lower them into my heart,

they still build their tents on me.

No matter how much processed foods or progress,

they still till me to give them provision for natural food.

They still bury seeds on the ground and hope for a huge tree to sprout out.

I have felt the weight of kingdoms rise upon me,

and the silence of kingdoms that have crumbled into my dust.

I have watched empires roar and return to whispers.

I have seen children

take their first steps on my skin

and old age take its last breath in my arms.

I bear their joy,

I bear their sorrow.

They c***k me, burn me, bruise me, build on me,

yet I remain their home, their refuge, their grave,

their resurrection-ground for new beginnings.

I am earth – ancient, patient, wounded, forgiving.

I am the first void that became foundation,

the oldest witness of all becoming.

And though they seldom remember me,

I hold the footprints of every story they have

ever lived.

~*~*~

I am Fire, fierce, courageous,

blazing and unyielding!

I am the final destination,

where dead souls haze.

I fuel humans’ heat,

cook their daily bread,

But at the end, they’d be damned in me–

my wrath and dread,

if the forsake their Saviour.

I command the most fear,

a flicker to a scream,

Red.. yellow.. flames..

or dark as night’s dream,

but at my most dangerous point?

Blue...

where shadows play,

scorching and deadly.

I'm short-tempered and swift,

I burn in a touch.

I'm unfriendly,

always at high-temperature,

but I never fall sick.

Smoke’s my ally,

and together we choke the careless.

When I break out,

I unleash destruction

and cause severe damage to the earth

and its inhabitants,

but they can never leave me.

I am their toxic ex,

that manipulative love they keep running back

to because they need me.

They crave fire,

so they'll never walk away.

This deal between Me and humanity… is cold.

And I am never the one losing.

I hold the power.. they hold the hurt.

But do not mistake my power for cruelty alone.

I was there at the get go.

A spark in the Creator’s breath.

I refine as much as I destroy.

I expose truth as much as I burn lies.

Those who respect me, I warm.

Those who test me, I consume.

I am the boundary between life and ruin,

the thin line between the beginning… and ending.

I am Fire,

both judgment and mercy,

depending on who dares to touch me.

~*~*~

I am mist.

I am a droplet.

I am water.

I am Aqua.

I am Ocean.

I am a bottomless liquid,

holding the deepest trenches

where light has never lived.

I cradle the existence of creatures

you could never fathom,

beings hidden in my silence,

sheltered in my midnight blue.

I sink.. I drown.. I capsize..

I swallow journeys whole,

memories, histories,

stories long forgotten,

etched once on the tablets of cold hearts

and the ruined walls of broken men.

Anyone who meets an end in me remains,

unrecovered,

unreturned.

I am a source of life,

and an alleyway of death,

of fear,

of trembling,

of unfathomable depth.

As water, I have no enemy.

But when you meet me as ocean and you learn what my gentleness was warning you about.

Mystery is my beauty.

Without me,

the earth would c***k under

the weight of its own heat,

its gardens would crumble,

its forests dry to sighing deserts.

I soothe what fire wounds,

I cool what the sun exhausts,

I rise as mist,

fall as rain,

return as rivers,

and gather again as ocean.

I am the quiet balance of the world,

the wandering healer,

the restless destroyer,

the mirror of the sky,

and the grave of forgotten echoes.

I give life, I take it, and I remain… endlessly returning, endlessly stirring.

~*~*~

If you claim to know me, then point at me.

I am nothing – yet I am everything.

Above, below, in between…

I exist everywhere.

I am felt the moment I disappear,

missed so desperately,

like I was never there in the first place.

Everyone needs me –

humans, plants, animals.

Death wins the moment I am snapped away.

I am formless,

but every formed life depends on me.

I am air.

I am breeze.

I am storm.

I am Wind.

I am breath.

I am freedom itself, invisible but felt deeply.

Wanting Freedom is wanting Me.

But in my most dangerous form..

I am a hurricane.

A storm that rises in protest.

You inhale me every day,

but you dread the day I gather strength.

I move freely,

and everything follows without a choice.

Trees bow at my arrival.

Your hair and clothes almost leave you behind just to follow the direction of my presence.

Clumsy ones lose their balance at just a wave from me.

When I pass, things kept still, shifts.

In silence or in storm,

I am a proof that even the unseen holds dominion.

So fear me or forget me,

but the day I stop moving,

everything else stops as well.

I am the quiet force behind all motion,

the life you breathe without noticing.

My presence is a fact.

. . .

*

Earth was the first to speak

slow, deep, resonant, ancient.

The ground trembled with memory as he proclaimed what he had always known:

"Beginnings are older than understanding, and foundations outlive the feet that walk them."

*

Fire hissed at this, flickering with pride and

impatience, its flames rising as though the very idea of earth’s knowledge offended it.

“Foundations...” Fire scoffed.

“Are nothing without transformation. What lives

must burn. What is impure must be refined.”

*

Water, hearing them both, shifted in a slow, timeless rustle, neither agreeing nor opposing.

Just endlessly deep, endlessly stirring.

“You both speak of what remains or what ends,”

Ocean murmured.

“But I speak of what changes. I cool your fury, Fire… I soften your cracked body, Earth… and I drown anything that forgets I have depths beyond depths. Your strength and your heat both vanish beneath me.”

*

Wind arrived last, not walking, not roaring, just appearing, as if it had been present the entire time and just waving around.

Air circled them in a heavy current, like an invisible hand tightening around the conversation.

“You speak of weight, of flame, of depth,”

Wind whispered.

“But none of you move without me. I am breath, the beginning of beginnings. Fire dies without me. Water evaporates because of me. Earth stays silent until I sweep over it. Your power is loud, but my freedom… is absolute.”

.

For a moment, all four fell silent.

Earth held its quake.

Fire steadied its flames.

Water stilled its waves.

Wind quieted its fluttering.

Then, something primal shifted.

They now understood.

They were never rivals.

Never hierarchies.

Never enemies.

They were a chord, not solo notes.

They were a balance, not a competition.

They were the four witnesses of creation, and the four guardians of its unraveling.

Earth voiced out, “I hold the stories.”

Fire agreed, “I reveal the truth."

Ocean replied, “I cleanse and revive.”

Wind shrugged, “And I carry all things forward.”

And together, they became what they had always been, the spine of existence.

The breath of worlds yet unborn, the cycle that keeps creation from collapsing.

When they spoke again, it was not four voices, but one Mythical decree:

"We are the pillars of existence.

We do not compete. We complete.”

And the universe, hearing this, settled into balance once more.

. . .

So I,

The voice behind them all,

the witness of their becoming,

stand here holding the scroll of truth:

Creation was never chaos, it was a constellation.

Harmony is the balance.

Thus, here we stand – four elements, four truths, one creation, one Creator.

Earth holding us.

Fire refining us.

Water healing us.

Wind sustaining us.

We rise, fall, break, return… just like them.

For their essence dwells in us too, woven into our

breath and our becoming.

And in understanding them.. perhaps we finally understand ourselves.