And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh… (Genesis 6:3)

There reigns in the realm of the lower sands a great goblin. The creature has roughly the semblance of a man but is as nearly all made of what might only be described as tumorous growth. The thing appears pale, weak and scraggly in all the places where it ought to be strong, and great bulging muscles where it ought to be soft. Clumps of hair protrude from strange places, as well as teeth, and eyes – all out of place and strangely set upon the creature. The beast is the epitome of selfishness, and he speaks of himself with such elegance that to hear him, one would think him a very prince of the heavens.

Once many years ago, the goblin of the lower sands made insurrection against the flame of the High oak. Though in the time when he did, his visage was unsickly. Yet seeking his place among the stars the goblin clawed his way up from the lower sands and gripped the trunk of the High oak with greedy talons, pawing his way up he extinguished its flame, and broke off many branches before it tumbled back down to the earth.

When he had finished his assault, the flame was gone, and the oak left barely alive and now under the power of the goblin, who burrowed his way into the lower sands and knawed at the roots of the great tree.

Far above the realm of the lower sands, over he highest boughs of the High oak the Great Fire burned. The fire had no need of fuel, for it was a living flame, nourishing itself. When the flame of the High oak was extinguished, the oak, the lower sands and the goblin lost their connection with the eternal flame, and rottenness set in.

In many minds, the serpent wind – the prince of the air – is the greatest, and darkest enemy of the High oak, but this is not so. The cancerous goblin has the power to extinguish the flame, to kill the oak from the roots up, for the tree grew out of the lower sands, and man was made of the dust of the ground.

The serpent wind howls about the air, it disturbs the sands and is a great raging tempest; despite its might (and it surely is mighty), it has not the power to extinguish the flame of the High oak.

In the days of the seeds, when the goblin was still a man, but not yet alive, the Great Fire far above had struck the earth as lightning, and planted its seed in the lower sands, the seed of the flaming oak – for it is made in the image and likeness of the Great Fire. The place that the fire struck was in the nostrils of the man – the fire is life, and animated the man; the seed of the Great Fire sprouted roots, which grew down into the man, and a great trunk that sprouted up out of him. His flesh settled into the lower sands, for he was but the habitation of the High oak. He was flesh, and the oak was a mind, learning, and a heart of desire. As compost, he was to be food for the oak until its flame reached full height of stature, and joined itself fully with the Great Fire.

All grew well, and right for a time, for the flesh was itn its place: supplying nourishment for the High oak, which learned to burn with the life of the Great Fire. But the flesh was becoming ill content, and the heart of the serpent wind was full of murder.

Seeing that the end of this planting of the Lord was to be eternal fellowship with the Great Fire, and that his own lot was but to circle the earth as a wind, supplying the fires of the High oak with a breeze to make them burn bright, and flicker high, he jealously despised the plantings. He hated mankind. And so, crawling low to the ground, as a serpent on its belly, the wind coiled about the trunk of the oak, and whispered ambition into the flesh of the man.

Knowing that the flesh was of this lower realm of he sands, the serpent advised the man that should he usurp the flame of the High oak thet he, himself, would be the Great Fire. He would have no need to nourish the oak, to tend to the palanting of the Lord… but the oak would nourish him!

And the flesh believed the lie of the serpent wind who had used his own ambition against him, and he rose up and defeated the higher levels of himself that his own lust may be satisfied. But the goblin cohld not remain in the heights of the oak, for the heat of the Great Fire seared the flesh – it was not made for direct exposure to the Fire as the High oak had been, and so he toppled back to the lower sands and buried himself among the roots, where he could feed on the dying, fireless tree.

And now, the only hope for man, is that the Great Fire come down, Himself, as a planting in its proper order, and put the golbin to death, that the High oak may live again.

And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh…