The seed

And so the tale goes.

When she opened her eyes, she noticed a bubble wand next to her. She wasn't sure that she had ever seen anything like it before—let me correct that—she wasn't sure she had ever seen an object at all. This strange new thing was received with suspicion. It took her a few moments to understand how to use it, and the first bubbles filled her with bliss and curiosity. Remember that Isva lived outside of time, so the bubbles simply floated around her; fragile but safe. The mysterious wand became her companion in the void, an object that broke the stillness of immortality. For a couple of million years, it kept her busy and content.

At this point, it would be useful to clarify a few things about Isva’s world. It does not make sense to talk of "years," as Isva was alive long before any planet ever turned around any star, in a place with no minutes, days, nor years. Just a singular and unending eternity. Let us use the word "moment," then—but remember, a few moments could equal infinities.

Let's go back to our narration. We left Isva surrounded by countless transparent bubbles that, in a manner of exaggeration, we could say were filling the void. A forest of transparent bulbs floating around the abyss. But since the void can never actually be full of anything, Isva kept bringing more and more into existence. Her excitement could only grow when she noticed something moving, just for a moment, before it vanished. Imagine it like a red wind. Eventually, more and more bubbles began forming the same substance inside them.

The void around each bubble looked boring and uninteresting to Isva; this was the first time she had experienced movement. And what was more, a movement that could sometimes end up creating galaxies and stars; a whole universe was forming within the fragile spheres, which Isva could snap between her fingers whenever she liked. This was a secret unknown to her until she accidentally popped one in her face. Can you imagine the magnitude of her shock when she saw one of her bubbles disappear? The realization that something could cease to exist unsettled her, but it wasn't enough to stop her from experimenting.

She had discovered time, but also death.

A very similar story was unfolding every time. Light appeared first, then self-contained structures formed around it; what we now call planets, with a variety of possibilities and landscapes. To her disappointment, these bubbles were always temporary. Even when she didn't physically snap them, they would go through the course of their story before sinking back into emptiness. Isva was equally disappointed every time a bubble returned to its initial, still condition, but she kept trying to get a different outcome; something more reminiscent of her own nature, something that could last a little longer.

After repeating the same process a few times, and through a few useful accidents (some bubbles merged together, or some bubbles held a lot more energy inside), she knew what she had to do to see a larger amount of movement. She called the new type of bubble "double breath." That was the first time life was formed in the universe. This time around, there seemed to be creatures that looked a little more like her: animate. What’s more, this new kind of creature needed to eat and hunt to survive; to kill! And thus was created survival, but also violence. This was a point very far from inertia. The creatures had a very erratic energy to them, incapable of stillness, but they were even more temporary than the landscapes. They appeared for a brief moment, then vanished without leaving a trace.

Time after time, the same story was taking place, and so great was her disappointment—she felt quite incompetent, really—that she felt a pull towards sinking into her eternal sleep again, enjoying the endless inertia of her own nature. She thought she'd just create one last batch of "double breath" bubbles, then snap them all, because the trick of life was impressive but now it was getting old. She was bored of all the moving minions, the ones we call animals.

Their fleetingness saddened her so much that she noticed tears running down her cheeks. These creatures would only know a tiny fraction of reality, strive to survive, then just disappear. She brought her wand to her mouth and blew a few last bubbles. As she was breathing the double breaths out, she didn’t notice that a tear was caught in these universes and became part of the fabric that formed them.

Isva was quite bored at this point and started to sink back into her sleep as the bubbles were evolving. In her half-asleep state, she wasn't paying attention to what was going on until she heard a voice that wasn’t hers calling her name.

ISVA.

A whisper.

ISVA.

A tiny creature was looking upwards, its eyes piercing through the bubble. She choked, unable to tell if they could see her from down there. She thought this might be a hallucination. Was that ever possible? An option? She never thought she would be observed by the bubbles. This always worked the other way around. That's the wrong way for things to go. In her agitation, she accidentally pushed the bubble away, almost breaking it into droplets.

Then, she heard a poem. The mystic song of her own creation—a poem which told a story about an ancient Goddess with a magic wand. The first story and the last, the eternal story of creation. The song broke her ancient loneliness; this feeling was so overwhelming that, instantly, her fingers snapped, destroying the bubble. All the bubbles.

Content with the resolution of this horror, she quickly prepared to return to her great sleep. How insignificant she hoped this moment was. How all-powerful she still believed herself to be. Yet, in the emptiness of the world, in the silence and darkness of the sleep where she, for the first time, was able to dream, there sprang a voice chanting her name and asking her for help. For help, forgiveness, purpose. Such petty demands this new consciousness had—and yet they would not let it rest. Rest was something unknowable to the new consciousness, and not even nonexistence could bring peace to its nature. Her desire was fulfilled; she had created something timeless, something of her own making which would never go away once it happened: the internal voice, the eternal voice.

Desperate, she tried to find a way to get rid of this disturbance that was crossing every boundary. It demanded answers to problems that, just a moment ago, had not even existed. She could only think of one solution: to create another bubble and put the voice back where it belonged. The very last cursed bubble, destined to carry the voice. She brought the great wand near her mouth and, with a sigh, she created the last universe. Everything came back into existence; this time, she was careful not to miss anything that happened. She realised that every single insignificant detail could have incalculable consequences.

Soon, various creatures were moving on the earth. Something was different this time. Something about their countenance was quite odd: the way they carried themselves and dragged their steps, the way they looked towards the sky and sighed.

Tormented souls, walking the earth looking for something. Instantly, they heard a whisper in their minds saying, "Isva," and even though they didn't know what it meant, they felt an irresistible pull towards it. So they travelled everywhere, searching for her in the most impossible places. In their hearts. On other planets. Everywhere they could—and couldn't—imagine.Their mother, they called her.She covered her face with her palms and sobbed. She had damned herself with creatures that could observe her as much as she could observe them, and whose destruction was now far beyond their material annihilation.

She watched the next few moments of their existence as they strove to reach her. They built towers and walls. They developed theories, each time coming one step too close. They set fires that took thousands of years to put out, and they cried.She turned her head away. She couldn't watch anymore. A sound disrupted her grief. It was so loud that, for a moment, she forgot what had been disturbing her. Something like the snap of a bubble.

And silence rose again.

When she opened her eyes, she noticed a bubble wand next to her. She wasn't sure that she had seen anything like this before.

And this, the tale goes, is the origin and seed of all human consciousness and suffering. Of our immense pull towards God. So if you ask what the curse of humanity is, and where all the pain and grief, the blood and tears come from, that is the answer. God lives in us, and we live in God, in a way that's tormenting both of us. We created God as much as she created us, and our consciousness is a fragment of her tears.