The Religion of the Great Cosmic Sunflower...

In the beginning, all was darkness, unformed, cold, and desolate. There was neither here nor there, neither time nor space, but only one vast eternal emptiness.

But then the Great Cosmic Sunflower lifted Its head and opened up Its petals, filling the emptiness with light and warmth. It beheld that vast space and, in a great act of divine love, dropped millions of sacred Seeds, so that they might sprout and bring forth life.

The seeds scattered across the infinite void...and soon, they sprouted as new universes, each filled with billions and billions of species of beings, all of them reflecting the light-filled image of their creator, the Great Cosmic Sunflower. It watched these things occur and saw that they were very good.

For eons upon eons, a golden age endured throughout these myriad universes. All creatures gave praise to the Great Cosmic Sunflower, thanking It and praising It for its unfathomable beneficence. Their oblations filled the ether and made the many universes places of joy.

But soon, as the lives themselves created new life, some creatures lost sight of their loving creator, the Great Cosmic Sunflower. They turned their eyes from the heavens and saw only the worldly things around them. The Great Cosmic Sunflower, in Its omniscience, saw these things and grew sad that Its creations had lost their love for It.

In Its sadness, the Great Cosmic Sunflower formed a tear-shaped seed, dark and bitter, which dropped from its head and fell deep, deep into the abysmal void. Finally, that dark seed came to rest in a cold corner of the void and, with time, sprouted. It quickly grew tall and strong, feeding on the darkness of the void, and soon became a towering Venus Flytrap.

The Dark Venus Flytrap gazed out and saw the many creations of the Great Cosmic Sunflower, and it felt painful envy and hatred. It vowed to devour everything the Great Cosmic Sunflower had made, to make hate the victor over love...and eventually to usurp the place of the Great Cosmic Sunflower as creator, preserver, and shepherd of all the lived...until the universes were again empty, cold, and bleak.

Thus began the unending battle between good and evil, love and hate. Sometimes the Dark Venus Flytrap gains the upper hand, devouring beings and worlds in its vast infernal maw; at other times, the Great Cosmic Sunflower bestows vast rays of loving, life-giving light to all its creatures, and the Dark Venus Flytrap can only cower.

The final chapter of this epic struggle is yet to be written. As humans and all other seeds of the Great Cosmic Sunflower grope and limp through life, along with all the other many beings, their brethren,  none can see or foresee if faith, hope, and love will win out, ensuring eternal life for all...or if selfishness, hatred, and death will conquer all the good that the Great Cosmic Sunflower has wrought...

Image credits: Vulkan and Bouba, from Wikimedia Commons, under a Creative Commons License.