The Pyramid
You continue inland, climbing above sea level. Scrambling over the rocks along a ridge you peer down
into the valley below. A stream besides you trickles down the ridge to eventually join with the main river in
the valley. Beside the river, in the fertile flood plains, you see a town. The river meanders out of view
downstream. Like a serpent it snakes across the land, writhing in slow motion, slowly widening its flood
plain by cutting back the hills on either side. The river may slowly writhe from side-to-side, but the water
that flows through it is never the same. Once there was an arc of volcanic islands here, and another time
a coral reef beneath the sea, another time it was a dry desert of red sands, and yet another time the
whole area was under hundreds of metres of ice, but there was no town then. The human settlement is
but a recent addition as it is only ten centuries old. Before the town, hunters made camp in the ancient
valley on many an occasion for thousands of years, not long after the ice had melted. It is said that when
a full Moon falls on certain nights that the echo of their prehistoric flutes can be heard on the wind.

You sit beside a rowan tree and stare out across the lush verdant valley. You watch a horse and cart
arrive at the town, perhaps it is carrying firewood or fruit. The people there are building machines to mine
the earth, at a place not far from here. Few of them will farm the land in years to come as many will spend
countless days concealed in darkness for almost every daylight hour, seldom seeing sky or Sun and
seldom feeling the fresh valley air on their faces. Soon the town will expand and devour the land and
factories will appear, then offices and cars and trains. The human machine will devour everything, but
most of the produce will go to the ruling few and the labourers will be given only what they need to
survive. Once it was written that, 'The people labour in fields that they do not own.' So it is that now the
people labour in barren factories and cold offices flooded with naked light and other sterile places that
they also do not own. They labour to own a small area of land when the whole land belongs to them all
anyway. Many will think they own their own personal space, with garden and castle, but in truth they pay a
heavy price for the privilege of not owning what is already theirs.

The men who govern in the name of the common folk will in truth govern for themselves. They will be
masters of men, owning factory, business and corporation, or doing deals with those that do. They will
claim to own nine tenths of the land and the remaining tenth will be lent out to the people for a heavy fee.
They will make laws under the guise of the common good, but the laws will serve them most of all. A law
must bind all, high and low, or it is no law at all. All the time they will stand before the glory of the World
and proclaim themselves better and more righteous than their fellow men.

You think of walking down to the town and through the gate to purchase provisions. You see poor people
and homeless people sleeping on the cold stones. Many of these are people crushed inside by the
Machine of Man. There are few places where the learned and the free thinkers can take refuge in such a
place. You decide not to go, after all you have all the food you need in the wilderness. Soon you will have
to return to share with them what you have found, but they will not thank you.

                    'Despair not if the World hates you, for it hated me first.'

You decide instead to climb higher in the mountains. You rise to a plateau, and there you find a large
pyramid of rosy stone, glistening like rose vitriol. A bright white light shines down from above the pyramid,
a shining star that keeps the pyramid illuminated even though the Sun has just begun to set.

Walking up to the base of the towering colossal, you see that its glassy stone shimmers and shifts. You
find a flight of a thousand steps on the western face of the pyramid, climbing to the east. As you near the
steps, you make out the faces of what look like people shifting in and out of view in the glassy surface of
the pyramid wall beside the lower steps. Again you see images of hunger, people without food who would
risk their lives for a plate of crumbs. At least you think that's what you saw, as the images shift and fade
back into the mutating fractal as the rays of the setting Sun dance and reflect in the pyramid's face.

You climb the steps slowly, and you feel heavy, it seems hard work, as if you had just climbed to the top!
Still you decide to take your time and not to exhaust yourself. After many steps you again perceive
images in the pyramid, this time more definite and real. You see people, ordinary men, women and
children running for their lives, but without defence, as armed horsemen cut them down, and then the
image fades and shifts. You see a poor man cowering from a giant figure in extravagant robes, cursing
him when his back is turned and seeking a way to escape his enslavement, but probably he will never be
brave enough to try. You see a robed man wearing a crown that glitters with gemstone radiance. He sits
upon a thrown and carries a rod of flaming iron. People pay him homage as they fear his words and the
'righteousness' of his flaming sceptre. You sense their fear. You see a woman lamenting the death of her
child as all around her flame the fires of war.

Climbing still higher you pause to rest. Now you see a lonely child who seems to be seeking something,
she clings to people but they brush her aside and pass by. She transforms into a woman and she stops
bothering the apparent strangers that still pass her, and instead hangs her head. The wind blows and
resonates through the valley and an overwhelming sense of solitude and desolation sweeps through you.
You turn to look across the plateau, you must be nearly half-way up the pyramid, the plateau is barren
and so empty. You sink down and sit upon the steps for a while. Your heart echoes with emptiness as the
wind gusts, as if it was blowing through the chambers of your heart as if through the arches of a ruined
cathedral. It is cool up here and so very lonely. The pangs of emptiness bring tears to your eyes. After a
long while, and with great effort you stand up and climb on.

As you climb the loneliness gives way to a sense of worthlessness. Here you are, all alone, high above
the plateau, with the Sun almost gone, and only the wind to keep you company. All this sorrow and you
are powerless to prevent it. If you were rich, then perhaps you would spend much of your money on
helping the sad, the empty, the forgotten ones. Then again, perhaps such wealth would corrupt you,
indeed it probably would, for power corrupts and the greater the power, the greater the corruption. You
are as hopeless as the rest. Still you climb on, nevertheless.

Perhaps, if only you could understand the way the World worked, then you could at least help to fix it, or
teach the workings to those that can. Before any problem can be solved, truthful and accurate
information is needed, and the more that is known, the better the chances of finding a solution. You are
no saint, however, for you are curious and learning is as food to your hungry mind, but, perhaps, good
will ensue anyway, for all knowledge has its place. What is this pyramid and who built it? What does it
mean?

The people in power rule largely for their own purposes, for they are slaves to the pyramid too. They are
but half-way up and yet they think they are at the top. So it is that they often look down upon those far
below with contempt. Many do not climb, 'because they are idle' they reason, and so they 'deserve to be
down-trodden', but in truth, it is hard to climb, for the loneliness almost trapped you. They exploit people
just as they exploit the land, for the sake of greed, for this is a hunger that has trapped them! They thirst
for worldly riches, and for prestige and the glory of men, but one's heart is always where one's riches are.
Even gold, the most noble of metals, crumbles, decays and dissolves in the end. Why desire such things,
when you have already seen a much nobler essence, a much more beautiful thing. Crude wealth is of
little use, all you need is enough to feed the needs of your body, and enough to keep you safe for the
present. Why worry about the future, you will grow neither wiser nor taller by doing so. Only the present
exists. One who worries about the future to the extent that they have no present, cannot live.

The Sun warms your back. You turn and see the top of the red orb as you have climbed above its setting,
in time to catch the last of its rays before nightfall, and, oh, what a beautiful sight! The sky has turned a
brilliant fiery red that glistens and sparkles with a warm glow upon the sands and rocks of the plateau and
upon the beautiful glassy stone of the pyramid. This is what you hunger for now. It seems so simple right
now. You have beauty more to behold than any bank stronghold! You do not hunger for petty things,
instead the hunger you feel is a gratifying hunger and, oh, how it warms your heart! Here, alone you may
be, but the light comforts you and the wind caresses you and nothing can harm you here. If only all could
see what you are seeing now, always. With a rekindled heart you look up. You are almost at the top and
curious to see what lies there, you climb on. Now you feel light and the climb is a joy, in the rays of the
setting Sun.

At last you reach the top. You are not tired at all now. You step out onto the level top of the pyramid, a
space some 50 metres across. Your feet are light and you have little fear of falling, indeed, the gentle
wind might carry you up to the heavens if you were to step off the pyramid! The white light is above you. It
is brilliant and pure to behold, too bright to gaze at for long, but not harsh. You look around, are you
alone? On the edge of the pyramid, almost hidden by the glare of the light and the shadows of sunset
you see a man. You approach.

The man is a tribesman from times far past. He is tall, powerful and of dignified appearance. He stands
bold and straight. He stares out at the distant shore, but neither speaks, moves nor acknowledges your
presence. As you gaze at this elegant figure you hear a voice, loud and resounding, strong and fearless,
dignified and eloquent. You sense that it is his voice, yet his lips do not move.
"My people walked these lands long ago. Still they
remember with great fondness the green fields, the
dense forests, the murmuring of the waters, the
sweetness of the air, the shimmering of the trees, the
harmony of the dawn chorus, the nobility of the great
deer that once roamed here in such great numbers,
and the joy ... the joy of my people and of our children.
The young warriors respected the wisdom of the elders,
and the elders respected the strength of the warriors
who brought them meat. Our laws were not written in
such a multitude of weighty tomes, such that no man
could remember them and such that skilled men could
use it to snare the unwary, for our law was written in our
hearts.

Other men came and destroyed our world. They told us
that our way of life was sinful, and yet every member of
my tribe lived life to the full. What more can one ask
from life? Their race feared death and the fate that
might await them, but my people believed that the dead
lived in peace in the happy hunting grounds and would
visit the verdant world that nourished them in their
childhood, to relive fond memories, and to help guide
their children, the living. We were without fear and
without need."
His eloquence and the power of his voice are not as hollow as are those of 'civilised' men cultured to
speak in public, but rather his nobility is a natural consequence of his manhood.

You recall an ancient fable. In the beginning was the Golden Age, when Time was kind and human beings
were one with Nature and death was nothing but a dream. They walked among gods and old age was
unknown and the dead simply passed away peacefully into the Dreamlands and roamed the Earth at will,
protecting the land and those mortal children who lived upon it. There was no want, and no poverty, for
the earth provided abundant fruit of its own accord and the sap of the trees was as honey.

War in Heaven brought an end to such times, and created a new race of lesser people, and so into the
Lunar Age of Silver the Golden Age of the Sun did pass. A hundred years they lived as children and then,
once grown, they were tormented by guilt for their foolish ways. They would not honour the gods, and a
heavy price they were made to pay. Blessed spirits of the Underworld they became and the Age of Silver
did decay, and so alas, began the Age of Brass.

The Bronze Age people, though not equal to the men of silver, made from the tree of ash they were
strong and fierce, with armour and blade of bronze they fiercely fought until not one remained, and so the
light of the Sun faded from their eyes as into the Darkness of the Underworld they descended. Do not
mourn too much for them, for after the heroes all died, worse yet, as into the Age of Iron black, fell the
Age of Brass.

The Iron Age that blackened body and heart, and the gods abandoned, left the Earth one by one 'til none
remained in it. The trees cut down to make the ships of war, truth abandoned as the wicked hurt the
worthy with false words, and with strength and greed held above all things. The land was divided between
its reckoned lords. No lower mankind could fall, for that would be an end to all, so it is a cycle fully waned
at last, and so began again the Age of Brass.

So it is, you see, that those that govern the World of greed, the top of the pyramid they have not reached.
Survival instincts they can not hold, so around themselves they build walls of gold. Yet still they find, that
they have no peace of mind. So what you must seek, is the Castle of Gold non-metallic. Therein may you
find, a secret Grail of the philosophical kind. Revile not those with material hearts, for once the same
instincts played their parts, as without the fight to survive, there would be no-one left alive. Instead keep
all things in their proper place, and so bring Light to the human race.

You look out at the mountains, is that the ancient flutes you hear on the wind? You look back, but the
tribesman has gone and is nowhere to be seen. Now you are alone, on top of the pyramid, looking out
across the land and sea. You see an eagle pass far overhead, headed South for the mountains. You
decide that you too will head that way tomorrow, but tonight you will sleep up here. Though the light is
bright, it does not disturb you, but caresses you in a soothing glow. Sleep, rest in the arms of the Dragon.
The harbour town just inside the river estuary.
Where the river meets the sea.
The river mouth.
The mountains where you will head tomorrow.
"I tell you that a poor woman who owns a single gold coin and gives that coin to a crippled
beggar has given more than a billionaire who gives a million pounds."

There are two ways to climb the pyramid: you could satisfy all of your basal needs and desires,
but what if all the wealth of the World is not enough? The other way is to see through the illusion
of greed and to cease desiring excess. You can try to slay the Beast, but can you really kill all
desire? In truth, eating modestly never killed a man, but starvation or over-indulgence are both
great killers.

"I have not come to judge the World, for the World has already been judged."