Foto: Maarten Zeehandelaar
Before there was God, there was a myriad of gods. Tiny little gods that we let rule certain elements of existence. We had a god of the sea, and of course a goddess of rivers and streams. We had a god for the harvests, one for the hunt, we made a god out of the sun, one out of the moon. The stars were their messengers and the shadows that they threw were their warnings.
We envisioned them to be like us, only bigger and stronger, and only when we discovered God we realised we had it backwards. The gods weren’t like us, instead we ourselves were like God. In our joy and contentment we forgot all our old gods and they wandered off eventually in search of new followers. Only the wind stayed with us.
The wind had always been a fickle god. He was hard to please and more often than not would renege on a pledge made, sinking fishing boats or levelling harvests despite our generous offerings. Why he didn’t leave with the old gods is a mystery. Maybe he was too attached to these shores, or there are people who still worship him. Sometimes on dark nights a giant man with a radiant scythe is reported to stride the hilltops and lash out furiously at crops and shacks. The next day the old crones in the marketplace will whisper of him, just like they did this morning after the storm broke.
Texto por: Wibo Kosters
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