{"id":39,"date":"2007-12-21T12:08:19","date_gmt":"2007-12-21T18:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/simpletone.com\/cdi\/aharon\/writing\/wordpress\/?p=39"},"modified":"2016-04-11T14:43:16","modified_gmt":"2016-04-11T21:43:16","slug":"in-the-beginning-there-were-seven-kings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aharon.varady.net\/omphalos\/2007\/12\/in-the-beginning-there-were-seven-kings","title":{"rendered":"Seven Kings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the beginning, there were seven kings<\/p>\n<p>One created a kingdom of earth and became suffused with it.<br \/>\nOne created a kingdom of one and hid himself in it.<br \/>\nOne created a kingdom of love and filled it with two and a challenge to entice them.<br \/>\nOne created a kingdom without number and became lost in it.<br \/>\nOne created a hole and pondered in it.<br \/>\nOne created a throne and a castle but rarely dwelled there.<br \/>\nOne created a kingdom of mystery of awe and of wonder, and an ocean of tears all about it.<br \/>\nOne created a kingdom of sorrow and filled it with souls of all manner of complexion and humour.<\/p>\n<p>Between the kingdoms, there were seven paths.<\/p>\n<p>One path led around a hill, and its passage could not be described.<br \/>\nOne path was covered with water.<br \/>\nOne path was hidden under earth and mountain.<br \/>\nOne path was painted with letters, sygils, and symbols, mostly forgotten.<br \/>\nOne path was so broad it was easily mistaken.<br \/>\nOne path was too narrow, and surrounded by demons.<br \/>\nOne path led back upon itself for those walking forward without their head turned backward.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>with apologies to Tolkien, a riff on his &#8220;Verse on the Rings of Power&#8221;, this was inspired by some thoughts after reading Raphael Patai&#8217;s <em>The Hebrew Goddess<\/em> on the transcendent and imminent aspects of divinity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the beginning, there were seven kings One created a kingdom of earth and became suffused with it. One created a kingdom of one and hid himself in it. One created a kingdom of love and filled it with two and a challenge to entice them. One created a kingdom without number and became lost [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-yiddishkeit","category-poetry","odd"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Seven Kings &#8226; Aharon&#039;s Omphalos<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/aharon.varady.net\/omphalos\/2007\/12\/in-the-beginning-there-were-seven-kings\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Seven Kings &#8226; Aharon&#039;s Omphalos\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the beginning, there were seven kings One created a kingdom of earth and became suffused with it. 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