In the hole,
in the whole,
there was something;Behold:—
not untold,
not unsolved,
not a Hobbit in a home—
older than hills.It was there,
and is there still—
more ancient than old,
staring us cold—If the whole there be,
and its hole unfold.A hole is a funny—
the funniest—
of things.It is a thing
that is missing,
or nothing therein:To be there away,
or to stay
in no place,
is a space
that is a hole—
in a whole
out of place.To stay out of place
in a whole full of space—(Things cannot occupy
at the same time
the same place.)And to be, yet be absent,
in a space we can place,
is a runny—
the runniest—
of things.When you look at it,
and stare
at something else there—:Something else is in it;
what was left when it left,
or came in
when it went out
to scout and look out.The hole wasn’t there—
and it’s not there still;
for you or for me,
not there for any and all:
not therefore at all.That’s the point—
at any point that you look—
at any hole,
at any moment: it is sold.That same instant, it is gone.
Something else moved in
and is calling it home.And that is the thing—
the thing that is missing:
what is missing is the hole.The hole cannot begin.
Therein—
herein—
wherein—
is the hole?In a hole in the ground,
there lived a Hobbit
with a soul.And the hole was full,
as the Hobbit was home.And we went to look in,
at the home in the ground,
and we found it was found—
and the hole was not around.It was whole,
and he was round,
with a name: Underhill.He had filled Bag End.
You see,
a hole is a thing that gets filled to begin,
with something else old—
now taking hold—The hole never has been,
never was,
and never is.It gets bagsed—
by Bagginses—
always filled,
always being Bag End,
with the living therein,
moving out and in,
at the same space-time point,
on the same quantum pin.The moment Bilbo disappears,
another Baggins moves in—Who becomes Underhill
the moment Nazgûl draw him out,
which is the moment Bag End is filled.With a One before,
an old set of eyes,
who were eyeing in—
Lobelia Sackville-Baggins,
a Sackville to begin,
comes to occupy the hole within.So you see, I hope,
this is more than a gap;There is a gaping hole
in the whole of things—
the whole of the matter,
which is the matter told.It is the matter with things,
as things with matter unfold.The matter is the hole itself—
the Hole of the Whole—
of all that unfolds,
or has,
or is.This is a fundamental Lack—
a massive Crack—
in the Whole itself.Of All there is,
and of all that has Been—
of all of Matter,
of all of Everything—There can be no Hole;
no Gap that is gaping,
left lonesomely Alone.And lo and behold—
herein lies the matter solved:Holes are a hole.
The Hole is the Hole.We are missing something missing,
the Whole thing.The Whole is not Whole.
It has a gaping gap in its soul—
a giant black hole,
at its centre,
at its beginning,
at its ending.Its underpinning
is missing—
the Hole of the Whole
is the Whole of the Hole.If the Hobbit exists,
it will have its Home.Not just a hole,
left soulless,
as a Whole alone—Living in nothing,
on nothing but null,
in naught but none.The Hobbit will habit
its place where it be.There can’t be a hole
that is free if you see.The Whole—the Hobbit—
has come to be.It began, it is here—
it is you and me,
and matter and stuff,
and enough of this puff.It fills a Hole that is where
we be, right now.Being demands freedom,
and comes to be somehow.The Whole fills this Hole,
but can’t conceive itself,
or labor itself to give birth
from a non-being self.The Whole of the Child
comes from a Womb outside,
that donates its Being—
as to Be, begets;
being Free, from frets.Nothing cannot leave behind
the kind of being we see and find—
like the Hobbit, the Whole—
like the Homo, the Soul.Including space and time,
and matter and science;
the universe of energy,
the multiverse of theory;And all of our kind,
our maths and our minds.It’s funny—this honey—
these runny of holes,
in our lives, in our homes,
in our eyes, in our minds.They run like a torrent,
like semiconductor current—
like electrons in wires,
like waves of particles and science.Isn’t it funny
how the Bee makes honey?Buzz, buzz, buzz,
I wonder why He does?Pooh Bear knew:
we too are runny things;
we are being, and we begin.All of it does—
Buzz, buzz, buzz.Did we appear in a hole—
I wonder how we does?The seas and the breeze;
the birds and the bees—
Australopithecus,
Habilis and Sapiens.Ask someone to tell you—
older who has seen,
how things have been,
and come into being.It is not sound grounds
on which to stand:A hole in the ground
of the whole that is found.Look down and see,
and find my meaning—
you’re being.Sticking God in this gap
would be missing the map;Like putting an ether in place
of the vacuum of space.But the multiverse theory
inflates things infinitely;
the gap we are missing
expands to infinity.No joke; I’m cracking
a serious jest:Infinite numbers
will also not rest—
They flow and can’t hide
the hole left behind.No matter—numbered or not—
neither universes sundered
within a multiverse unplugged,
can begin to begin to flow
in order to fill
a downhill universe,Without leaving behind
a hole underhill,
that must be full
before it begins.You see,
there is a hole in the ground
where the multiverse lives—Not a nice Hobbit home
with a warm hearth,
a full belly,
and all the comforts
of a complete whole—But a dank and damp hole,
a dirty whole,
dark and full of worms.The whole
is not whole
if there is a hole.The hole
is not a hole
if there is
a whole.We either have a gap,
or we are complete.Either we have a hole,
or we are total—
we have a whole.If we have a hole,
something must fill it,
and it is no longer a hole.If we have a whole,
there can be no holes
because we are completely whole.Either way,
holes don’t exist—
they cannot exist,
just as nothing does not
and cannot either.They are not-a-things—
non-things,
non-beings,
without beginnings.Nonsensical,
fictitious,
illusory,
surreptitiously
self-nullifying.How, then—I ask you—
can we possibly be missing
the very thing that must be,
by necessity,
underpinning the Whole
of what we call Everything?The Grand Total Sum
of all that we call All?That the question is rhetorical,
I hope is clear by now.For the concrete we are missing
is the ground under our feet.Materiality is afloat
on nothing merely remote.Physicality is adrift indeed,
and underpinning it,
we find no sea.Nothing hides behind everything,
like a glaring crack, staring back—
begging the question:What fills this gap?
In being and beginning,
in continuing and existing?Yes, space and time are very full—
(of energy and mass and every pull)—
and behind them and before,
and beneath their space-time floor,
there is a whoppingly ghastly hole—
without even the faintest drop of filler
for its vacuously empty soul.Well, not one which can be seen
(physically, that is, in place),
in the space that must be full
of filling—Whatever fills the materiality hole,
which is left behind existence,
existing in the first place.Its coming into being,
its staying in the first place,
its continuing in space and time—
with materiality of whatever kind.With thingness,
with the physical having physics.If it came,
or became,
in the first place,
then it left behind a space!What fills empty space?
What holds the hole in place—
where no Hobbit habits,
and no rabbits have it?And not a thing leaves
a physical trace,
and yet it stays,
and remains in place.If one were wearing
the ruling ring,
then one might find
and draw us in.What keeps the continuous—
the universal constant:
The Cosmological Constant?
The bush burning with fire
is not consumed.Why is being not burned?
Why does its flame neither flicker nor dim?Unclosed, unbounded, unending:
conservation of continuous,
constant creation—
consistently changeless
at every point in a continuum,
increasingly expanding
in space and in time.A zero-point constant
of non-zero consistency,
at all points continually,
of vacuum-filling energy.And behold,
the hole behind the whole—
this universal soul—
grows bigger,
under all things held.All that is old,
all that is told or sold—
all things staring us cold.That we see in a mold,
that can fold,
that holds anything at all.Material—
physicality itself—
is the size of the hole
that is inflating,
with accelerating,
acceleration!But we can’t see it;
it is completely dark.It must just be there,
but we don’t know where.Lying behind every point,
sitting under every pin,
filling every tiny prick,
standing space upon its stilts,
making it walk and run and kick.It is within being itself,
which is itself
full of nothing seen—
the empty, dark material soul,
filling this hole
as big as the whole.The Whole is the Hole;
and the Hole is the Whole.And the hole is full,
filled to the brim—And the whole is empty,
as vacant as naught—
as absence is not a thing—
and as dark as blackness,
as darkness is dim.Dark Energy is not observed—
this is why we call it dark—
It would be absurd
to call it real or physical,
to ascribe to it material.It is not a “thing,”
since its nature is unknown.We can’t detect it directly,
it is an effect we only infer,
an explanation of the outside,
a placeholder for our blindness,
a name for the unknown,
a symbol of the invisible,
a marker for what is beyond science.Saying merely:
“Something is not here,
and we don’t know what,
where, how, why, when, or who.
But it is having an effect,
it is doing something—
something that is here,
something we can measure,
something that we do see,
or feel and know.
What it does is all around us,
but we don’t know how,
why, where, when,
or who?”It means that physicality—
itself—
is the opposite of a black hole.It is a materiality appearing,
as a whole, alight with light.And—at the same time—
it itself is also
creating a black hole,
underneath its very self,
and behind its very existence.The whole is filled
by leaving—by vacating—
a hole of emptiness.The hole is void and devoid of all,
in order that the whole is full
and fulfilled with all.It is light that makes darkness,
by its very absence.It is fulfillment that creates emptiness,
by its very presence.Materiality is the light,
the whole that we perceive.Non-physicality is dark,
the hole we cannot see—
the black hole in all of being.Physics rejects a god of the gap,
evoked to fill this gaping black.Yet physics fills this very crack
with models shaped to size,
modeled to fill this lacking inside.A god of the gaps,
or physics of the cracks—There is a foundation missing,
underpinning existence,
with a glaring difference.Science is new to the problem,
and can describe but not explain.God is old,
and devolved what needn’t be solved—
being explanation in essence,
prior to the problem’s own quintessence.Science has shown us
that physicality is emergent—
we need only be observant.Physics works by maths describing
what happens to occur
within its immanent framing.It is an act of naming.
Science doesn’t discount—
it cannot account—
for an amount unobserved,
outside its field of reference;
beyond its field of view.Being anything beyond it—
including its contingencies.They are dark—
they give no light
except that inside
their starkly naked eyes.Can an embryo disclose
what is to know—
of its moment of conception?Can physics explain
what should be plain—
of its coming into existence?The world beyond the womb
is not open to its inspection—
until conception comes to completion,
when it is opened to revelation.Science cannot study absence,
this hole within its whole—
it cannot explain itself,
as offspring must be shown.Contingency is like that,
it proceeds from its source.Of course, any cause we seek
can’t be seen within the effect itself.A physical source—
itself, a course—
cannot cause material things
(another course)
without depleting itself in kind.A source will bleed
and leave a leak,
kicking the crack
only further back—
like the hole behind
the rock we find.Being solely unambivalent
(unlike the multiverse of theory,
leaving holes underneath
the soles of its feet—
like leaping anti-frogs in perpetuity,
yielding an infinitely greater whole,
with a crater by necessity
of infinite complexity
and only circular propensity).No source, however remote,
if equivalent to its kind,
can yield a whole
without being sold
to that very whole—
donating itself
to the hole,
with corresponding materiality.It belongs to its child—
it has given birth to its own insides.The multiverse betrays itself;
like a ruling ring,
slipping from its finger,
even as it lingers:it has been trapped
in and by its own game—
its own frame—;
it has fallen in the hole
that it has filled;
from whence it came.Physics must go beyond
its own immanent frame,
to account for itself,
to fill its hollow soul,
looking externally—
to complexity,
to infinity.And in so doing, it concedes—
it seeds to transcendence,
to an infinite, higher,
outside ordering
of the disordering;
the outsider order.This order is final,
it is fundamental,
and it is unified.That is, it is the One.
But it goes
as physics shows
not far enough—
it ends up where it begun.Any One
amounting to All
cannot make the Whole
without creating the Hole.One must be greater than All,
beyond the Whole itself,
without which the Whole
is left to drain down
its own plughole—
itself.Any One reduced
to the size of the Whole
is not One at all,
but is a gaping Zero—
a nothing that cannot exist,
just as naught is not a thing.One must be
beyond All,
not just infinite in theory being,
to be holding All
and making it Whole,
without a Hole conceiving.In All and through All—
by One, things exist.To One they come,
and from One
they have their being.This is clearly seen,
simply by seeing
what is before us,
in front and behind
all of our courses.And under our feet,
above our heads,
and within our beat—
our very meat:Invisible in essence,
unseen by light.Infinite in power,
no hole can arise.Divine in nature,
beyond all things.This One must Be—
filling the Whole,
without a Hole,
making it Whole,
giving it Soul.Holding All in All,
through whom and in whom
and to whom are all things.Before all things,
the First and the Last,
eternal, infinite, non-physical—
without body or parts:
One—the One,
the Only One,
the One and Only.This One is—
the One who was,
and is to be.Who is called
by that Name,
the Name of the
One and Only,
who came,
saying:“Hear, O Israel:
Our God YHWH—
YHWH: One!”And again, it is said:
“His invisible qualities,
His eternal power
and divine nature,
have been clearly seen,
ever since the making of the world,
in the things themselves
that have been made.”The Hobbit hole is solved;
it was not sold—behold:Bag End ended where it began,
with a Baggins within,
where it always had been had.For Frodo fulfilled
what Bilbo had filled,
and Tolkien, no doubt,
had seen Underhill
without any pout.For the story began
in a hole in the ground,
but there lived a Hobbit
who habited the Whole
and was home all along—
in the ground and in song.For the ground was full,
and the hills underneath,
and everything we stand upon,
including our feet.Isn’t it funny—
how a Being makes honey?Buzz, Buzz, Buzz:
I wonder why One does?In a hole in the ground—
not the Hobbit hill,
but the Hole in the Whole,
the Home to be filled—there lives One; the One—
of whom the Old Ones
have told;
more ancient than hills—
that was and is there,
older than Days,
staring us cold.Who is Here and Beyond,
holding All things Holeless,
not soul-less—
Holus Bolus.And behold:
all is Solved—
and nothing is Sold.I’ve sat here long enough,
wallowing in my soul,
in my burrow, in my hole.Time to come out
and gaze about:
look back and down,
and up and out,
and see the Whole—
without a doubt.If I cannot see the invisible,
cannot name the unknown,
cannot place what isn’t there—I see the effect,
I feel the benefit,
I am being,
I am seeing,
without falling,
without imploding.The whole of light,
and space and sight,
is a hole of darkness,
empty of might.A black hole exists—
that is materiality,
just as physicality
is opaquely white.In the hole in the ground,
there must be One
who fills the Whole,
before it begun.If One were wearing
the Ruling Ring,
would One then come
to find us?Would the One then draw us in—
and in our blindness,
bind us?Invisible,
immortal,
in unapproachable light,
the Only Wise,
the Only Sight,
the Only Might.The One and Only One.
In the Hole,
in the Whole,
there was One—who of Old,
of whom is told,
who has resolved
that the Whole
is made Whole:a home;
His own.
For John & Greta Carswell, in love and support of The Tolkien Road.
