Throughout my life I have been confronted by people with my choice of seeking "requiem." "Why do you seek death?" they ask. The Catholics have the Requiem Mass for the Dead, so does the Greek Orthodox Church and several other churches. This entire ceremony to honour the deceased. I will point out to them that Requiem is also a collection of musical compositions by great composers, like Mozart, Verdi, and Dvorak... and they in return point out "yeah, for the dead!" The meaning of Requiem is much older than this, it goes back to when it actually meant "final rest" or "peace". As man evolved, this "final rest" and "peace" became linked to death as the concept of reincarnation was pushed aside by monotheistic religions. So today, I am going to tell you a bedtime story that I was told when I was young:
Eons ago there were travelers among the stars. The Tribes of Seven had been displaced from their home world and so they traveled among the planets seeking to find a new world in which they could live in peace. They had already lived many lifetimes of war and they were tired of fighting. They no longer fought among each other and no desire to fight with any planetary inhabitants, they only sought somewhere to call a forever home where they could finally rest in peace. They were seeking Requiem.
They came upon a young solar system that had just recently been formed and saw that it had potential. There was a humanoid species forming there, similar to their own, perhaps they could share a bond, help the young species grow, teach them what they needed to know to live in harmony with nature, and possibly prevent histories of so many other worlds from repeating itself on this third planet from the sun. Perhaps, they could teach these humans about Requiem and have their final rest in what would surely be their last life in this universe.
As generations passed, it appeared that many of the humans understood what the Tribes of Seven had taught them. They lived in harmony with the land and in oneness with each other. Then a rogue demon from another world found it's way to this planet causing a "Ja`desh", a feared event in which a species learns greed, hate, war, and self-destruction. The Tribes of Seven were able to hide many of the humans unaffected by the Ja`desh in remote parts of the world as they caused the singular land mass to divide into seven pieces and drift apart. They then integrated themselves in with the rest of the humans in an attempt to undo the Ja`desh. Over the next thousands of generations they would dedicate themselves to finding the right humans to awaken and remind them of what Requiem was and give them guidance on how to restore Requiem to this planet.
This thought of a world of peace that lives in harmony with the Earth has been a life long driving force for me. Every challenge in my life and each change that has happened in my life brings me one step closer to finding my own Requiem and helping make it possible for others to achieve their own.