The Temple of the Seven Songs

I bet you haven’t heard of the Temple of the Seven Songs. That’s my doing. I’ve written hundreds of online reviews of the place and never given it more than two stars. What’s pleasing is that no one else has given it more than two stars either.

If you don’t read reviews and just turn up then I am sure you will be disappointed. I’ve planned it that way. It’s my job.

The temple sits on top of a mountain. Not a big one, but definitely a mountain. It was in danger of becoming a tourist attraction. Mountain top temples are popular, especially if they are ancient. The Seven Songs temple is the oldest temple on earth – but don’t tell anyone. I’ve deliberately obscured that fact.

Sixty years ago I failed as a novice. The temple had been my life since the age of five. It was all I’d known. I had been raised in the temple and everyone, including me, expected me to take life vows and never leave the place. But I couldn’t hold the Song in my head. I was devastated. Over twelve years of dedication and study all for nothing.

That’s when the Grand-Warden called me into his office. I was expecting him to cast me out into the world. Instead he offered me a job.

My job was to keep the world away from the temple. I started by putting barriers in people’s way. I hid the main route up the mountain and created a smaller, harder one. That only seemed to attract more people. I erected fences and put up notices. People saw them as invitations. I instructed every villager to be rude and to offer no help to strangers. They kept on coming. Not many, but I could sense that this trickle could easily turn into a flood.

That’s when I left the temple and travelled away from the village for the first time. I needed to discover where these people came from and what motivated them.

It was frightening beyond anything I could have imagined. People travelled thousands of miles just to gape at pretty scenes. Our temple was exactly what they were looking for. All it would take was one photograph or one article in the wrong place and we would become the latest unspoilt, undiscovered, unique, traveller destination.

I returned to the temple transformed and fortunately the Grand-Warden recognised the wisdom of my advice.

I reopened the main path and made it as smooth and easy as possible. I took down the fences and instructed the villages to welcome and feed any strangers. I opened the doors of the temple and invited everyone in.

All that’s true but it’s not the whole story. The path up the mountain was still a hard slog; all I’d done was remove any sense of achievement. The villagers would insist on feeding you, but the food would be boring and bland with nothing distinctive and there was no chance you’d describe it as authentic. The temple itself required more attention. I knocked down many of the oldest sections and replaced them with modern construction. Other parts were hidden behind plasterboard and magnolia paint. The thousand year old stone floors were covered in concrete.

We’d be safe as long as no archaeologist started digging around. My plan was to divert them. The temple itself is isolated on the mountain top but in reality the temple extends down into the villages. The villages are part of the temple and it is part of them. That made it easy enough to abandon one village and send any curious diggers in that direction.

And finally I got the monks to set up an eighth order. That’ll need a bit more explanation. You see the monks always had what they called the seven orders, one for each Song. Each novice would dedicate themselves to learning one of the creation songs and when they took their life vows they joined the order of that song; the Song of Heaven, the Song of Earth, the Song of Air, the Song of Water, the Song of People, the Song of Plants, the Song of Animals. I set up a new order called the Song of Strangers.

There is no eighth song but the eighth order’s job is to keep the temple safe from inquisitive people. The monks of the eighth order meet and greet any visitors. They are incredibly welcoming and give long, long discourses about the temple.

They describe how it was started almost one hundred years ago by a group from the village who wanted to attract tourists. They explain away older bits by saying the villages took stones up from their own villages in order to build the temple. These monks of the eighth order will invite you to join them in the daily prayers. You’ll be disappointed. All it involves is the monks sitting in chairs and muttering prayer after prayer to themselves and then wandering off when they’ve said enough.

I’ve spent sixty years obscuring the truth so why am I telling you all this? As I come to the end of my time on this earth I feel compelled to tell the truth. You won’t believe me anyway so it doesn’t matter.

You see I wasn’t the only novice whose journey didn’t go in the expected direction. The monks had never known anyone like me who couldn’t learn any Song and had never known anyone like my twin brother who seemed to know them all before even being taught. I like to think that I gave him my share of ability and that’s why he found it so easy.

The seven songs are only sung in full twice each year. In the week before mid-winter’s day the novices each sing the song they have been studying. If they are perfect then the can take their life vows and become monks. If not they can wait another year, or in my case be moved on to something else.

On mid-winter’s day itself all seven songs are sung by the Song-Wardens to welcome in the new year. Each one takes over an hour to perform and each one needs to be perfect otherwise the new year might not arrive. You see these are not normal songs. They have the power of creation in them. They create the new year and can even create whole new universes.

I told you that you wouldn’t believe me. But somehow you are happy to accept quantum theory that says something can be a wave and a particle at the same time, and that objects can be in two places at once, and that entanglement means changing one object here instantly changes another object over there.

Creation is the secret of the Temple of the Seven Songs. Most of the monks don’t even know this themselves. I only know because of my twin brother. In the year that I got kicked out, he got promoted. At the start of novice week he was asked which song he was going to sing and replied that he was going to sing them all.

The Song-Wardens were stunned and started to argue but the Grand-Warden’s smile silenced them.

It was no surprise that my brother was perfect. It was a huge surprise when the Grand-Warden announced that my brother, who had been a monk for less than twenty-four hours, would sing all seven of the creation songs on mid-winter’s day.

The news quickly spread and before the sun rose the temple was full to busting with every monk and every villager. There were no tourists. This was the one time of the year when they are barred.

As the sun rose my brother sounded the first note of the first song and as the sun set he sounded the last note of the last song.

That’s when it happened. A new sun appeared in the middle of the temple above the creation stone. It was no bigger than a pin prick but the light was as bright as noon day. The light dazzled us all for an instant and then it was gone, making the darkness seem even darker than ever.

No one explained what happened. For several weeks the villagers and monks speculated wildly, me included, but when nothing further happened the talk died down.

It was years later that my brother, who was Grand-Warden by then, told me the truth. Each creation song has a unique power. When they are sung they reinforce the universe. They don’t literally make the sun rise but without them the universe would wind down a lot quicker.

When they are all sung by one voice something more spectacular happens. A new universe is born. A new big-bang. A universe that for an infinitely small moment exists here in our own world before striking out on its own journey with its own creation songs.

I know you won’t believe me and that’s why I’m confident to tell my tale and unburden myself of a lifetime of secrets. Now I can rest and go on my own journey to discover what comes after creation. Is there another song? It won’t be many days before I find out, but that’s a different story and one that I doubt I’ll ever get to tell.