Unwinding

The idea of the universe as a coiling — of strings, a mainspring, a great serpent, or a ball of thread — is a key entropy-defeating idea. Nobody likes loose ends, a blind watchmaker, a mad snake or a universe at odds with itself. This is why in all our human attempts to construct the universe as an understandable concept, we prefer to ravel rather than unravel.

It is also why we think up theurges and demiurges to assist the Highest in the work of making. We have gods like Hephaistos, with his metallic handmaidens and his dactyls at the forge; we have the Moirai weaving the huge tapestry of the threads of life; and in all the other mythologies, the smiths and weavers, the potters and tinker(er)s, the architects and builders.

There are easier models for the larger universe — an egg that hatches, ice that melts, a river coalescing, a word out of nothing that becomes light. But each of us prefers smaller gods, because they are just like us, daily makers of daily goods.

Yet everyone pays tribute also to unwinding. The great escapement must in the end still allow the mainspring to unwind, the strings to uncoil, the serpent to sleep; and the thread to run out, to be cut, to fail. A poker hand might fold, but the sky and the story both unfold.

Sometimes the task is not one of making or unmaking, but of puzzle-solving. You need a hero for that. If there is a knot of vipers, that hero must be prepared to sacrifice a limb, or turn blue with venom, or even die saving the day. Not all heroes are hero enough.