The Heart Fountain

 
Waiting
I’ve been training for almost a month.
And I haven’t seen a tournament.

Today she asks me to wait again.
“Two more months, Neebol.”

“Why, Master Vala?”
She glares at me.
(Just yesterday she asked me to stop calling her Master.)

“In the tournament,” she says, “the moving energies seem visible to physical eyes.”
“But the most amazing aspects are hidden.”

“In two months, you’ll be able to see the hidden energies.”
“The tournament will be a thousand times more beautiful.”

“I want your first tournament to be extraordinary, Neebol”
“You’ll always remember it, even after you become Gen.”

[Continue reading: Gen - Bonds of Love]

November 19th, 2008 | Tags: bonding, change, energy body, Energy weaving, love, melting, shape shifting | Category: Part 3: Visions, Traveling Home | Leave a comment

 
The Birthing
The door to the school is closed and locked when I arrive at day’s end.

I raise my hand to knock on the door.
A soft green light rises from the green line around my wrist.

The door opens.
There is no guard here now.

I remember the way.
The lights come on as I enter the small room.

Vala appears a moment later, with another sparkling smile.

“Ready for your next lesson, Neebol?”
“Yes.”

“Tell me, Neebol, what you know about energy bodies.”

“Not much.”
“Just that both of us have energy bodies, but yours is different in some way.”

“Right.”
“This world is a mixture of energy and matter,” she says.

“Your energy body,” she says, “survives physical death.”
“But it can’t stay near this world without a connection to a physical body.”

“Something guides your energy body to a place of pure energy.”

“The energy body of the Gen is different.”
“It can live in this world or in worlds of pure energy.”

“To become Gen, people of flesh transform their energy bodies.”
“We call this, the birthing.”

[Continue reading: Gen - Hands of Power and Light]

November 17th, 2008 | Tags: chakra, color, energy body, Energy weaving, hands of power, shape shifting | Category: Part 3: Visions, Traveling Home | Leave a comment

 
Thirty-Five
I wake up, and almost jump off my mat.
I’m 35 cycles today, a child no more.

I’m fully grown, with all my adult strength.
But most of the customs around this age are gone, hundreds of cycles ago.

People don’t celebrate it as they once did.
The law doesn’t recognize the age as anything special, at all.

But I’m excited.
You can’t study the melting, or enter the stadium to watch the Gen tournaments until you reach 35.

The melting is our name for the ways of binding energy and shape shifting.
The melting is taught by Gen, energy beings who live among us.

The full name of the Gen is Gensai fon (hands of light).
But we just call them Gen.

Those who hate or fear the Gen call them the dead.
And say they are dead spirits who refuse to go to the next world where they belong.

[Continue reading: Gen - First Lessons]

November 16th, 2008 | Tags: gen, hands of power, shape shifting, tower | Category: Part 3: Visions, Traveling Home | Leave a comment

 
Return
My mind slips back, falling down an endless hole.
Until the body lands solidly in my awareness.

The warmth of the liquid in the vat surrounds me and supports my body.

How long have I been in the vat?
No way to tell yet.

The vat feels smaller than before.
I slowly stretch my muscles.

I feel relaxed and well rested.
Not sore, not weak.

I look at the liquid with energy eyes.

The energy shines and flows into my body from the liquid.
The liquid feeds us as we dream in the vat and journey far away and within.

The old ones tell me that the vat accepts us when it is time and not before.
If I’m awake, it’s time to leave the vat.

[Continue reading: The Tower and the Well]

November 12th, 2008 | Tags: grow, knives, tower, well, whirlpool | Category: Part 3: Visions, Traveling Home | Leave a comment

 
Children’s Children
I am 50 today.
The years run quickly.

And the village changes.
So big, and filled with children.

Soon the village will split.
Villages must be small to know everyone.
This is our way.

My sister, Shanir, is in both councils.
Like elder mother before her.

I whisper to Shanir that we must go climbing together.
Become children, again.

She laughs.
And then the smile fades.
A sad smile, I think.

My children grow up and make this chief proud.
I pretend to my children’s children they are too many to count.
But I know every name.

[Continue reading: Forest - Change]

November 3rd, 2008 | Tags: death, fire, forest, Kalmil | Category: Part 3: Visions, Traveling Home | Comments (1)

 
The Love of Chiefs

The chief is a great man.
Powerful, smart.

He loves children.
He fights for his people like each one is his child.
I am his nephew, but he treats me like a son.

Tonight I am fifteen.
We feast after a great hunt.

I think of another feast to come.
In a month, we gather with the people of the low country.
I will take Nanik as my first mate.

Tonight, I drink too much.
I go a short way into the forest to relieve myself.

When I finish, I start back.
And find myself surrounded by three shape shifters in the form of the great cats.

[Continue reading: Forest - Kindness and Killing]

November 2nd, 2008 | Tags: chief, death, killing, kindness | Category: Part 3: Visions, Traveling Home | Leave a comment