A hidden message from Minecraft (of all places)
And a New Moon in Gemini message for YOU
Happy Monday, and I hope you are having a meaningful Memorial Day wherever you are.
For today’s Mystical Monday, I was thinking about how Memorial Day is a time to honor military service people who died in service, and that got me contemplating death (again). And not just death but also the ongoing everywhere all at once-ness of consciousness and what came before us and what will be after us (as one does). One of the most moving texts I’ve come across in the past year came from a completely and totally unexpected source: Minecraft.
Last summer, my teenaged daughter AJ and I were talking about tattoo ideas. Neither of us have one yet, and we both are plagued with a deep need to make sure any tattoos we do get are packed with meaning. She told me she was thinking of having one of the lines from the Minecraft end poem as her first tattoo.
Minecraft end poem?
Minecraft has been part of my peripheral vision since 2012 when my oldest child got into it. It is, to this day, a common topic of conversation and game play, and even though I’ve never gotten into (because I am a lot of things, but a gamer I am not), but I had never heard of there being a poem connected to it. AJ explained that the text of this poem - written specifically for the game by Irish poet Julian Gough - comes up when you beat the game, and that lots of people find it really meaningful - perfect tattoo inspiration.
She found the text and sent it to me, and by the time I got to the final lines, tears were streaming down my face. I know it’s a little unconventional, but I want to share it with you today.
END POEM1
Minecraft credits narrative
I see the player you mean.
((insert player’s name here))?
Yes. Take care. It has reached a higher level now. It can read our thoughts.
That doesn’t matter. It thinks we are part of the game.
I like this player. It played well. It did not give up.
It is reading our thoughts as though they were words on a screen.
That is how it chooses to imagine many things, when it is deep in the dream of a game.
Words make a wonderful interface. Very flexible. And less terrifying than staring at the reality behind the screen.
They used to hear voices. Before players could read. Back in the days when those who did not play called the players witches, and warlocks. And players dreamed they flew through the air, on sticks powered by demons.
What did this player dream?
This player dreamed of sunlight and trees. Of fire and water. It dreamed it created. And it dreamed it destroyed. It dreamed it hunted, and was hunted. It dreamed of shelter.
Hah, the original interface. A million years old, and it still works.
But what true structure did this player create, in the reality behind the screen?
It worked, with a million others, to sculpt a true world in a fold of
the ***§§§???, and created a **??§§ for **??§§, in the **??§§.
It cannot read that thought.
No. It has not yet achieved the highest level. That, it must achieve in the long dream of life, not the short dream of a game.
Does it know that we love it? That the universe is kind?
Sometimes, through the noise of its thoughts, it hears the universe, yes.
But there are times it is sad, in the long dream. It creates worlds that have no summer, and it shivers under a black sun, and it takes its sad creation for reality.
To cure it of sorrow would destroy it. The sorrow is part of its own private task. We cannot interfere.
Sometimes when they are deep in dreams, I want to tell them, they are building true worlds in reality. Sometimes I want to tell them of their importance to the universe. Sometimes, when they have not made a true connection in a while, I want to help them to speak the word they fear.
It reads our thoughts.
Sometimes I do not care. Sometimes I wish to tell them, this world you take for truth is merely **??§§ and **??§§, I wish to tell them that they are **??§§ in the **??§§. They see so little of reality, in their long dream.
And yet they play the game.
But it would be so easy to tell them...
Too strong for this dream. To tell them how to live is to prevent them living.
I will not tell the player how to live.
The player is growing restless.
I will tell the player a story.
But not the truth.
No. A story that contains the truth safely, in a cage of words. Not the naked truth that can burn over any distance.
Give it a body, again.
Yes. Player…
Use its name.
((insert player’s name here)). Player of games.
Good.
Take a breath, now. Take another. Feel air in your lungs. Let your limbs return. Yes, move your fingers. Have a body again, under gravity, in air. Respawn in the long dream. There you are. Your body touching the universe again at every point, as though you were separate things. As though we were separate things.
Who are we? Once we were called the spirit of the mountain. Father sun, mother moon. Ancestral spirits, animal spirits. Jinn. Ghosts. The green man. Then gods, demons. Angels. Poltergeists. Aliens, extraterrestrials. Leptons, quarks. The words change. We do not change.
We are the universe. We are everything you think isn’t you. You are looking at us now, through your skin and your eyes. And why does the universe touch your skin, and throw light on you? To see you, player. To know you. And to be known. I shall tell you a story.
Once upon a time, there was a player.
The player was you, ((insert player’s name here)).
Sometimes it thought itself human, on the thin crust of a spinning globe of molten rock. The ball of molten rock circled a ball of blazing gas that was three hundred and thirty thousand times more massive than it. They were so far apart that light took eight minutes to cross the gap. The light was information from a star, and it could burn your skin from a hundred and fifty million kilometres away.
Sometimes the player dreamed it was a miner, on the surface of a world that was flat, and infinite. The sun was a square of white. The days were short; there was much to do; and death was a temporary inconvenience.
Sometimes the player dreamed it was lost in a story.
Sometimes the player dreamed it was other things, in other places. Sometimes these dreams were disturbing. Sometimes very beautiful indeed. Sometimes the player woke from one dream into another, then woke from that into a third.
Sometimes the player dreamed it watched words on a screen.
Let’s go back.
The atoms of the player were scattered in the grass, in the rivers, in the air, in the ground. A woman gathered the atoms; she drank and ate and inhaled; and the woman assembled the player, in her body.
And the player awoke, from the warm, dark world of its mother’s body, into the long dream.
And the player was a new story, never told before, written in letters of DNA. And the player was a new program, never run before, generated by a sourcecode a billion years old. And the player was a new human, never alive before, made from nothing but milk and love.
You are the player. The story. The program. The human. Made from nothing but milk and love.
Let’s go further back.
The seven billion billion billion atoms of the player’s body were created, long before this game, in the heart of a star. So the player, too, is information from a star. And the player moves through a story, which is a forest of information planted by a man called Julian, on a flat, infinite world created by a man called Markus, that exists inside a small, private world created by the player, who inhabits a universe created by…
Shush. Sometimes the player created a small, private world that was soft and warm and simple. Sometimes hard, and cold, and complicated. Sometimes it built a model of the universe in its head; flecks of energy, moving through vast empty spaces. Sometimes it called those flecks “electrons” and “protons”.
Sometimes it called them “planets” and “stars”.
Sometimes it believed it was in a universe that was made of energy that was made of offs and ons; zeros and ones; lines of code. Sometimes it believed it was playing a game. Sometimes it believed it was reading words on a screen.
You are the player, reading words…
Shush… Sometimes the player read lines of code on a screen. Decoded them into words; decoded words into meaning; decoded meaning into feelings, emotions, theories, ideas, and the player started to breath faster and deeper and realised it was alive, it was alive, those thousand deaths had not been real, the player was alive
You. You. You are alive.
and sometimes the player believed the universe had spoken to it through the sunlight that came through the shuffling leaves of the summer trees
and sometimes the player believed the universe had spoken to it through the light that fell from the crisp night sky of winter, where a fleck of light in the corner of the player’s eye might be a star a million times as massive as the sun, boiling its planets to plasma in order to be visible for a moment to the player, walking home at the far side of the universe, suddenly smelling food, almost at the familiar door, about to dream again
and sometimes the player believed the universe had spoken to it through the zeros and ones, through the electricity of the world, through the scrolling words on a screen at the end of a dream
and the universe said I love you
and the universe said you have played the game well
and the universe said everything you need is within you
and the universe said you are stronger than you know
and the universe said you are the daylight
and the universe said you are the night
and the universe said the darkness you fight is within you
and the universe said the light you seek is within you
and the universe said you are not alone
and the universe said you are not separate from every other thing
and the universe said you are the universe tasting itself, talking to itself, reading its own code
and the universe said I love you because you are love.
And the game was over and the player woke up from the dream. And the player began a new dream. And the player dreamed again, dreamed better. And the player was the universe. And the player was love.
You are the player.
Wake up.
Okay, now that I’ve composed myself and dried my eyes, I do have an oracle card for you for this Gemini New Moon! I spent extra time in meditation today before I pulled this for you, asking not only my Spirit team but also all the guides for this Gem Collective to bring a message for you for the lunar cycle ahead.
I wasn’t sure quite what to think when a card I just pulled for myself a few days ago came up, but there’s no denying that this was absolutely the card I pinged on!
I hope it speaks to someone out there as you consider the very end of Spring here in the northern hemisphere and get ready for the summer months ahead:
#33 Mermaid Soul
Deep within, you know what excites and inspires you. You job isn’t to decide whether that inspiration is practical, realistic, or even possible. Human beings have been shown throughout history that the ideas which they once scoffed at as being ridiculous or impossible to achieve can become the realities that they rely upon and take for granted as a natural part of their daily lives not long afterward. You too shall move from doubt to wondering how you ever lived without this passion, idea, or inspiration of yours. Let the Universe show off its creative flair for the unexpected and inspiration through you. Do not give up on what truly moves your heart, for soon enough it will be part of your world.
I hope that speaks to you not only for this week, but for the weeks ahead!
Once again, thank you for your response to the Spiritual Discovery packages. I’ve been completely immersed in natal charts for the past few days, and it has been so, so incredible to hear from someone that they’ve never really clicked with parts of their chart (especially sun or Rising sign), and when I look at their chart, I see a stellium or something else really significant that is a HUGE epiphany that unlocks for them a deeper understanding of who they are and why one specific sign has never told their whole story!
What incredible work this is, and it’s an honor every time.
(not too late at all to book one for yourself, and remember that the booking times are not for a one-on-one meeting; everything is delivered to you digitally!)
May your summer be filled with good quality sunscreen, evenings on the porch with a box fan, icy cold drinks, and just enough mosquito bites to remind you that you’re living well,
Meg
These are Gough’s notes on the text: Notes:
1.) I’ve given the two voices different colours, but you might prefer to differentiate them in some other way. (Perhaps with italics, or bold text, or different shades of the same colour…)
2.) The voices address the player directly, using the player’s name, a couple of times. So I’m assuming you can insert their player name where it says ((insert player name here)). If that’s a problem, just tell me, and I can rewrite it.
3.) Sometimes the voices say things that the player can’t read or understand. I’ve put in a few mysterious symbols at those points (**??§§), but I’m happy for you to come up with a more visually interesting way of indicating this.
4.) I use English spelling throughout, but if you want to change it to US English (“color” instead of “colour”, etc) that’s fine by me.
OK, that’s it! Hope you find interesting.
-Julian
Well, im off to check out Hygiene Tok. Ha :) I am on there but barely at all
Good grief! How has this been such a big part of our lives and I never knew the end poem? Why am I crying? I didn't know I needed this. Thank you, my amazing friend! xx