Leviathan

  The visions of Emzara.

  Recorded by Dinyah daughter of Arpakshad, son of Shem.

  I came to live with my great, great grandmother Na’amah at Lake Van when I was barely seven years old. We met in the flesh at the Feast of First fruits, Mount Ararat, but I had seen her many years before in my dreams.

  I started having dreams and visions as a very young child, four years old and still plump with baby fat. I would relate these in great detail when I woke, either to my mother or my amah. Often I barely could comprehend what I was describing. Sometimes I would go into a trance in the middle of the day. The first time it happened my mother thought I had had a seizure, like the sorcerers at court, who like me would go rigid, barely moving a muscle. Unlike them I would not then fall down in a fit, shaking uncontrollably or have my eyeballs roll around in my head, spittle flying from my mouth; I was not the same as those demons.

  I would stand completely still, transfixed by the vision that was unfolding before my eyes. It often happened when I was alone or in the courtyard garden of my bedchamber at the magic hour, at dusk, when the veil is thinnest. My mother instructed my amah to tell no one and to move me out of sight if it should happen in a public space. The Mothers of Darkness found out eventually. Which is why I was removed from the Court of Babel and taken under the protection of my beloved zikeini, my great, great grandfather Noach, where I remained until I was fifteen years old and my father arranged for me to be married off to a political lackey.

  Yes, I first saw my sivata in my dreams, on the ark surrounded by endless ocean. She was standing on a small deck, alone, and she was oblivious to all the creatures that lived and moved beneath her feet, including the Nephilim creatures that had survived the flood, the sirens and mer-people of Atlantis. But somehow I knew that the great monster that coiled and twisted in the caverns of the great deep like a storm under the ocean was different, not a bastard creation of the Fallen Ones, but created by the Timeless One, the El over all the Elohiym, at the very beginning of time. This immense creature was under divine control and had been set apart for the final judgement, growing every day for thousands of years in the watery abyss until its moment came.

  Only the great El could control this monster, its mate had been exterminated so it could not breed, it was too dangerous to allow it to breed and multiply. So Leviathan roamed the deep, twisting and gliding, it’s scaly, armoured torso sending the other sea creatures fleeing in panic, its multiple, grotesque heads as large as islands, snapping its sharp teeth in lonely rage, until the great El put it into a deep sleep. It sank down into the deepest parts of the ocean, waiting, waiting in an interminable slumber. Somehow I knew this as a child, and the dreams would reoccur into my older years, each time with fresh revelation.

  That first time I had been put to bed by amah. Some things you never forget. She was weaving in the next room. I could hear the click of the shuttle against the frame of the loom and the soft beating sound as she pushed the weft of silk thread with a comb. It was a soothing, rhythmic sound and my amah was singing a Babylonian lullaby,

  Little one, who dwelled in the darkness,

  Now you’ve come to see the sun

  Why the crying? Why the worries?

  Let sleep come. Let sleep come.

  That was the first of many times that I flew in my dreams. One minute I am standing on the small balcony above the gardens, gazing at the huge golden moon rising above the palm trees, feeling its cooling light. Then I hear a voice say,

  Come, come.

  I felt my soul leave my body, and yet I had still a body, of sorts, which rose just above the level of the trees. The voice commanded me to dive into a lying position, face down, arms spread wide. I swooped like a bird, gliding on thermal breezes, as light and effortless as a swallow. I can almost remember that feeling of freedom and exhilaration.

  Stay close to the trees, I was instructed

  You must not be seen. They must not know.

  We flew away from the city of Babylon, leaving behind the flickering lights, the smells and noise of the vibrant city. We flew over small villages, forests filled with prowling night creatures, and I saw the tents and the camel trains of the spice traders in the silent warm deserts, until eventually we came to the ocean. I felt safe and comfortable. I could feel the presence of the voice beside me, but for some reason felt no curiosity to turn and see whom my guide was. I dove down towards the water making circles, to look back where I had come from, when I suddenly realised that I could see nothing but water in every direction. I felt a surge of panic, as if I was the only human being alone in the great expanse, the only human in the world

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  The spirit presence reassured me, without words, taking me higher and higher into the starry skies where the air was so crisp my soul body could feel its bite, and I could see the firmament shimmering like crystal clasped above the watery bowl of the world. The water was so clear I could see fathoms deep to the entrances of the underworld. Then time melted into a pageantry of moon and sun and stars spinning around me, endless shifting clouds, and dancing winds released from the portals of the firmament in the north and the south east and west, which told my spirit that time was passing rapidly. I was being shown something of importance in the spirit.

  In the watery kingdom below, cities and landmasses shifted and groaned as El and His angels rearranged the creation. Nephilim sea creatures and cities that had barely survived the great flood were destroyed in underwater quakes and tsunamis. Ancient cities imploded, sea creatures desperately trying to find refuge in the depths, to escape the turmoil, and beneath them all the shadow of Leviathan, coiling and uncoiling, as it grew and grew and grew, its heads as large as the islands of Mu, its body stretching along whole continents and the sound of its snoring echoing across the ocean floor like a hundred shofars blowing and a thousand drums booming, all at once. I saw the ark like a log bobbing in a boiling cauldron. It was lit up from inside, it seemed homely and safe. The hand of El was about it and angels protected it.

  Then it became completely still, as if the sea and its inhabitants, everything with life and everything inanimate settled under the water, rocks rested against each other, old ruins blanketed with debris. The water was crystal clear again. The monster slept on as barnacles and weeds grew over it; rocks, silt and sand settled over it too. The water started to recede, portals opened in the deep and the water drained into the worlds beneath this world. The ark became lodged between two peaks as land started to appear. My sivata came out onto the deck of the ark, calling my name. Suddenly I was standing next to her aboard the vessel.

  Never forget, my yachyid, look for the patterns, the stories that repeat, the cycles, the seasons, the appointed times of yahuah . Everything is foretold, everything is appointed. The ark will come again. The ark carries life. We are the ark .We carry within us the precious gift of life we nurture it and grow it in the dark…

  A great wind started to blow

  Thousands of years unwrapped before my eyes

  Empires rose and fell

  Cities, ziggurats, pyramids and tombs

  People dancing, praying, building, destroying

  Aeons, ephemera, afferent dreams

  War and peace

  Rhythm of life like steam on waters journey

  Rhythm of river, ocean and rain

  Circling this holy place, holy earth

  The music that inhabits the universe, permeates the earth

  A thousand, million stories of life, and love and hate

  Flaming stars, flaming angels flickering in heavenly waters

  Meteors and dark angels falling in the gloom

  Thunder and lightening, fires in the dark

  Majestic trees, creatures, great and small

  Field, forest and frozen tundra

  A thousand migrating birds, schools of fish

  Great herds of bison galloping across grassy plains

  The pulsing push of buds breaking through the soil in spring

  The soft fall of snow, drifting leaves

  Fungi and tree roots talking to each other

  A thousand dawns

  A thousand moons, a silver sliver, a holy face

  I am weeping at the beauty and the horror

  Men and women trying to remember who they are

  A billion faces breathing, hearts beating

  Inhaling, exhaling

  Babies birthed and elders shrinking

  Into bones and sinew, dissolving into dust

  Exquisite pain, so happy I could cry

  For all the while I see evil burgeoning

  Staining and corrupting all that is good

  Evil spirits inhabiting men

  Principalities ruling the nations

  And outside time El biding His time

  Until His plan comes to fruition.

  From my vantage point high above the plane of the earth, after the unfurling of thousands of years of history, I saw that the whole earth was decimated by war, molten with fire, burnt out fields and cities, black rubble, charred trees, filthy rivers. A small group of survivors, wounded and war-shocked were making their way, slowly, on foot, towards a light shining down from the heavens, through the firmament, and onto the surface of the ruined earth.

  The monster was awake, Leviathan, coiling and uncoiling like a jungle anaconda, feeding on the dead bodies that spilled into the oceans, drinking the blood red water, gliding towards the City of Light.

  I woke to the sound of my own screaming. Amah rushing to my side to comfort me, taking me in her arms,

  It’s just a bad dream little one, she crooned, just a dream.

  But I could still hear the voice of my spirit companion,

  Tell no one of the vision until you see your sivata again.

  I could barely speak and fell into such a deep fever for several days that my mother left the glamour of court life to watch over me, wiping my brow with cool cloths, fearing I would die. I suspect that in my feverish babbling that I spoke of some of the vision, but maybe it was meant to be, because I also spoke of my sivata, maybe it was Spirit planting the idea in my mothers mind that she could find refuge for me with sivata and Noach.

  It was not the last time I dreamt of the monster Leviathan or the war at the end of days. Sometimes I saw that my father Nimrod, The Mighty Hunter, was the warlord who was leading the whole of the earth towards its destruction and was somehow connected to the monster. My father was leading the battle against El and I felt mortified, deeply ashamed and heartbroken. But I was already starting to hate my own father, and the hatred for the man who gave me life was a bitterness that could have destroyed me.