III - The Awakening

---

"The Beginning was Conception,
of all things and formless,
being and creating of Itself,
one essence, one vision
and one power.

Book of Magres, Aeon I, Age I, Chap. I, v. i

---

---

From “The Song of Gorin” Stanzas 14-31

G orin regained consciousness slowly, his senses gathering together one after the other as if breathed into him by the wind. He became aware of the unyielding rock he was lying on and the warm sun beating down on him.

He moved his hand to one side and felt the roughness of the stone and the warmth it held. He touched the small tufts of grass eking out a bare existence in the tiny hollows where a little earth had collected and the dampness sustaining them. There was the delicate fragrance of wild flowers in the air, brought to him on the gentle, caressing breeze.

He lay immobile for several moments, as a strange sensation of incomprehension began to steal over him. Where was he? How did he come to be there? He must have been asleep for a long time to feel so confused… Just be patient, he thought. Everything would come flooding back in a minute... But it did not.

At last, he opened his eyes and tried to sit up. Only to discover his limbs would not obey him; they were stiff and tired as if they had lain in the same position for many, many hours on end. He managed to roll over onto his side and look out at the world surrounding him.

Then he knew that however he had come to this place, and the circumstances involved, were all far beyond his grasp. Simply because the landscape he now saw spread out before him was quite alien to anything in his conscious memory.

Nevertheless, he marvelled at the spectacle, for its sheer beauty was breathtaking. Particularly for someone with no previous recollections of such splendour.

He was lying on a rocky piece of ground inclined towards the edge of what appeared to be a precipice, some ten measures distant. On either side, tall pine trees reared up like sentinels, guarding the place where he lay. A mass of green undergrowth flourished around their roots and amidst it, he could see the blues and yellows of the flowers whose scent had come to him on the breeze.

Then his attention became focused on what lay beyond his immediate surroundings, as he struggled to take in an apparition of such wonder he did not know whether to believe in it as reality or as part of a dream. Yet the vision, if such it was, persisted. If anything, it became clearer as his eyes adjusted to the light.