Lord Triton’s Dream

We floated, light as feathers, in a darkness so complete that it was filled with all and nothing. The heavens were not created and named. The earth was not yet created and named. There existed only the great deepness in which all things dwelled and yet did not. Then the deepness filled with water, and above the water a wind arose, and they mingled and danced over the nothingness, into which no gods had yet been born and no destinies ordained.

Then, the first gods were called into being in a thought, and in their wisdom, in turn, they bore many children and gave to each a realm in which to dwell and over which to rule. The deep waters were given to Enki, and to him, too, the sacred powers of the Me*. He became the shaper of the world, god of wisdom and all magic, lord over the great deep, and father of the god-like.

And Enki danced, with the great goddesses, he danced, and he lay with them and fathered many children. And he fought fierce battles with his brothers, he fought, and saved both gods and mortals through gifts of knowledge, when destruction threatened. And he sang in the seas, he sang, and called men to venture abroad in ships, and to some he gifted knowledge of the Me.

Great Enki saved Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth, he saved her, from the hands of Ereshkigal, exiled in the irkalla, the great below. And he wept salt tears for Ereshkigal, who was feared and cast from the land of the living, so the god-like need not face their own shame.

And he soared and crested on the great waves and rode in a coach pulled by dolphins, he rode. He built his palaces of gold on the ocean bed and was revered by the powerful and the wise.

And in the second world he swam the middle seas and sent out his folk to guide seafarers through the night. Poseidon and Triton he was, both father and son, and he sang to the stars, he sang, and the stars bowed down to him and the peoples of the world praised him.

In the third age he watched as a bright star led kings and wisemen to a sacred place, to herald the birth of another god-like. He rejoiced, for the gods of his ilk had long withdrawn from the mortal world.

And he rode on the wind and danced under the winter sun. He spoke with the giant whales who carried his word far and wide. And he begat many children to fill his world with laughter.

All this the Triton dreamed, and I with him. And through his dream I felt his power, his joy, and his triumphs. I knew his being and becoming, his sorrows and his longings. I knew the spirit of water, the taste of sea foam, the keening of sea-folk for souls long passed into the otherworlds. I knew what is was to be cradled by an ocean swell, to watch the procession of human lives flitting past, like mayflies on a spring evening, and what it meant to be called by the piping of the golden conch.

The dream ebbed, and Lord Triton and I floated in silence for what seemed to me like a very long time.

Eventually he spoke. “I have no dream seeds to offer you”; he said, “and all I can do is hope that you will find a way to see your own dream and someone to dream it with you, if that is your wish.”

He held out a hand to me. In his palm lay a small piece of delicately folded jet black coral.

“Take this, and give it to the Keeper of Mudjimba. And now, fare thee well, for we are unlikely to meet again, though I should be honoured if we were to do so.”

I bowed, for I knew that even though he could not see, the water would carry my sentiment to him. Then, with the sliver of coral held tightly in my fist, I swam out of the Triton’s cave and up through the clear river waters into the light.

Captain Sorensen was already on board the Esmerelda. She helped me on board and handed me a thick towel with which to dry myself off.

“Ready to dock at Mudjimba?” she asked.

I nodded. “Ready to dock at Mudjimba.”
* Me (Sumerian) = The gifts of civilized living.

Lord Triton’s Dream is based loosely on the first tablet of
the Babylonian creation story, the Enuma Elish.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/enuma.htm