STUDY - Technical - WRITING

a nEW mORNING for an Old atheist

The Beginning of a New Path

I am tired of so much searching! Through all the corners of the earth, together with many souls...

Most of those dear to my soul are long gone, beside or far from me, in far too many lifetimes, or I left them when their souls needed me! In too many lives!

But we always find ourselves, here or there, at home. Our family… Our big family of life, with experiences, feelings, and everything that belongs to them

Always with them, their joys and achievements, regardless of what they are, weaknesses, betrayals, disappointments drawn by my eternal love for them, my family...

Now I am alone, finishing a new meditation, waiting for a new morning, that of Christmas, when I will rejoice with those who are everything now.

Even if I am much too old in body and soul to change anything from what was...

When I came among them, I felt that with each new road, we would start towards the east… Always towards the light...

Since arrival, I believed in the powers of nature… But after a few lifetimes, I understood that I believed in too many spirits. But never enough, never strong enough.

I always had to deal with too little or too much food, love, stability, too few or too many friends, comrades, enemies, etc.

Too little or too much...

Something always appeared, which made me change, from one life to another, my faith, in my search.

And that moment came when I thought all my searching was over, when we began to worship Yule, of fertility and renewal when her feast was a time of celebration of nature.

Forgetting my search, ours. Dedicating our existences to someone else...

That something, belief or power, ours, but which always changed its name, became Zamolxes, the Creator from the Kogaion of the ancient Dacians, then Mithras, the Persian god of light and truth.

Here we are tired of our search, mine... Too much helplessness, too much injustice, and too much anger had gathered... And we became fighters in their name, for their power.

From a fight for life, for family, and for community, everything turned into a fight for empires. And we became their soldiers.

Organized, methodical, and powerful, under the power of the empire of Yuanxiao, the god of light and renewal... Wandering in the changing name of... When Dongzhi in future China, when Kobo-san in Japan, Yeongdeung in the Korean peninsula, and when Tết Trung Thu in Vietnam and the land of the proud Khmers.

We had become just a uniform, a rank lost in the multitudes of empires.

But, again, we got tired of so much fighting and anger and wanted some kind of peace and rest. And we returned to the places where we had arrived. Under the power of Bacchus, the god of wine, pleasure, and ecstasy in the lands of Dacian Hellion and Thracian Argos.

Then I tasted again the joys of believing in Demeter of the Greeks, the new face of Yule. But I had also lost my way with my family… Fighting more for myself, for every carnal, fleeting pleasure...

We plundered and profited now, in our name… From anyone, whether they or the empires... Escape who might be the justifying refrain of the times to come.

Thus, instead of peace, we let people’s things run their course towards... And we perceived more and more pain. The pain we fled from ancient and distant Asia...

Life, love, and family no longer mattered here, drowned in the ocean of everyday worries. They had become small pauses in a world of power.

The people had changed their faith again, marching in the iron of power, turning the gods into emperors. Like everywhere…

Sol Invictus, the unconquered Roman god of the sun, Jupiter, or even Apollo, had become only a justification for the temporal upstarts of power.

Unscrupulous opportunists… Gods or emperors, along with their "proxies"... Without even knowing what their search would be or what their family would be.

The “ordinary” people, the family, were lost in slaves, census, and other miseries of stealing their power for the power of a few… Wandering like us in the wilderness... In our search, with no chance... With nothing left to believe in.

When the old empires fell... We didn’t learn anything; we had completely lost our way. We didn’t know where to end up…

Wherever we were and wherever we searched, all that remained was prayer and meditation. We had surrendered.

But, again, we rediscovered hope through the birth and sacrifice of the first unique god for us, with his first son born among us, the "commoners."

Crucified and stolen in the name of new empires or people who stole the power of our faith for themselves...

By the time we realized our loss, we were already enslaved in the name of our hope. Yes, we had really learned nothing…

And we found nothing but to become the new merciless soldiers of faith. With the iron of dividing suffering, destruction, and death in faith or under the iron of their worldly laws, that will rebuild the world of their power.

Being far from any god or any real faith, the mistakes of our voluntary or forced enlistments attracted an unsuspected growth in our chain of mistakes and injustices.

Now death was the divine punishment that befell the unfaithful, regardless of the god, which justified the manifestation of empires that were recovering in power and size.

Fueling the fire of revenge or rage, dragging the whole world into this burning... Which curved sword that replaced the sign of the cross with the shamshir of crescent moons or another sword as a symbol of saving faiths… Marching more fiercely, from one life to another, in the search for the right path, the true creed...

This is how our struggle has come to be too corrupted by power, continuously shattered by the change of empires, by the new creeds of power, and, by no means, by life, family, and other values that brought us to this earth.

It seemed that we lost our way even more; the more we became, the more we worked and died so that, by strength, we could weaken the strength of others.

But the anger broke out among the many with that desperate cry, “Liberté, égalité, fraternité,” that spread over almost the whole earth. Even though everything was quickly suffocated and appropriated by the power of the “chosen” and opportunistic people.

We were exchanging a few thousand emperors and their henchmen for tens of thousands of presidents, senators, deputies, blah, blah...

Moreover, everything now belongs to machines. The iron of death and slavery had turned into the mechanized iron fist of a “representative” crowd; the democracy of the ancient Greeks had been lost to the interests of the few and the “enterprising”.

The iron of the old empires’ swords had turned into the lead of the new empires’ salvos. The “red coats” or uniforms of another color chose where the good or bad “gifts” of fate would be distributed.

Uniforms, everyday costumes, chosen by beliefs or imposed by our choices, without a real belief... Only personal or herd interests are attracted by conforming to the new rules in the conditions of losing any real belief related to the sincere respect for life, living, family, whole...

Now I am with what matters: my family, my daughter, and her husband enjoying the candor of their daughters.

Making gifts to us, to each other, without thinking consciously or not about the power of life, about what would be the love and gratitude between us, the one that pushes us to enjoy these days regardless of whether or not we have the power of the joys given. Living in the moment, simply…

Indifferent to the gods and their empires, to the “chosen ones” who constantly try to tax us or steal even these small joys, to fool us about our true faith: faith in life, family, and love. The only thing we’ve always had left...

My Santa “red uniform” is proof that I have chosen my only uniform, my family’s uniform! And we are more and more... More and more powerful against their vile empires! Even for a moment...

We’ve found our way, and I think we’re determined for this quest to end! Even if this is the end of us! Empires cannot survive without "militants." Families, love, and life, yes, will survive forever… The true God is in us, the true ones! Now or never!

I wonder if I only have this faith left, but I’m still looking for God, am I an atheist?

Merry Christmas!

P.S.

Maybe in the coming days, our children and grandchildren will visit us. I hasten now to conclude! My old girlfriend and wife are waiting for me at home, eager to tell her how the grandchildren received this year’s visit from their beloved Santa.

Note: Images are created by me, Merticaru Dorin Nicolae, using Microsoft Bing Image Creator.

Dorin, Merticaru (12.22, 2023)