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Series: Traveling Home -- 4: Healing

Bound to Life

 
The Living and the Dead
I wake alone in the round, soft bed, surrounded by my childhood home.
I’ve slept here for the last few days.
It’s so strange and familiar at the same time.

Sleep slides away.
I walk out onto the porch, and fill my lungs will the cool morning air.
I remember playing here as a boy, but the memories are fragments of the old Yagrin’s life.
Still, the feelings of love are clear and bright, like today’s sky, free of dark clouds and lightning.
A soft wind brings me the smell of the sea, and … Read more

Gifts and Mastery

 
Away
The city fades, and the weight of the world falls away – wars, schedules, and questions.
Shazira, Tzina, and I escape it all for three days, hiding from an uncertain future.
Talking, traveling, and laughing together.

We open our hearts to each other, trying to forget a long year apart.
Our time together is just a breath, a moment, a beautiful sunrise that will soon disappear.
We pretend that nothing will separate us, but yesterday and tomorrow hover over us, just out of sight.

The fourth day comes, and finds us camping on a distant island.
I wake … Read more

Gifts and Mastery – 2

 
A Different Path
My life turns toward Flow, and becomes filled with masks and transformations.
There are five hundred common masks to learn.

I know a little about energy masks.
Shazira once taught me how to shape a mask and float it on my energy body.
It covers the pattern body like a golden garment of light.

The mask doesn’t penetrate the energy body, but it binds to it.
When the mask takes hold, your physical body vanishes.

I remember the excitement when my body was replaced by the animal body of a Twikul, a great hunter.
My … Read more

Listening and Healing

 
Listening
My whole life, I’ve circled around a dream of healing, hiding from a voice that whispers:
“You are born to heal.”

I’ve always been an outsider, looking through a window, at a clear, bright world, never finding my place, never reaching for the door.
I am Yagrin now.
There’s no more time for turning away, and letting the world pass by.
Now, healing calls me, in a voice that shakes the whole world.

My energy rises within me, and I easily cast off the fear.
Then, I turn all my strength toward healing.

Storms and Voices

 
Voice of the Storm
I sit quietly on an island and watch the waves and the clouds in the distance.
My perch is a ring of small hills, covered in green and flowers.
I learned of the island from the old ones.
It reminds me of the sacred hills in Tshuan, though the hills here are much smaller.
We are far from Tshuan, but long ago the kings would send their children here.
Age eleven is called the age of will.
At this age, a Jiku child can declare her desire to enter the guilds.
The Jiku believe … Read more

Lessons and Betrayal

 
Twin Visions
The brief contact with the Jiku sphere of mirrors takes my strength.
I feel the smooth stone under my Jiku body, as my awareness returns to the marketplace, but only for a moment, just before I collapse.
I sleep, but without peace.
A vision comes and takes me.

I fly quickly through endless, empty silver skies — no worlds, no life.
In the vision I have no strength, but something carries me, keep me always in motion.
I see nothing, but I know that I’m not alone.

“Show yourself,” I shout to the empty world.
The world … Read more

Healing the Watchtower

 
The Curse of Moonwatch
The full moon comes every six weeks, too soon for the guardians of the Watchtower.

The tower shines every night and drives away the Krale.
The full moon saps the strength of the tower, leaves the sky unprotected, and gives birth to the night we call moonwatch.
Two guardians, a bonded couple, live in the tower, flow master and weaver.
It’s a great honor to be chosen to be guardians.
The flow master prepares an ancient crystal, and the weaver absorbs it.
Then the weaver releases a wave of energy that fuels the tower … Read more

Thunder Voice

 
Stone
The world feels broken today, as I wake, but what does it mean?
Usually, I love greeting the sun, but now I have to push my way through it.
I eat almost nothing for breakfast.

“Are you sick, Yagrin?” asks Shazira.
“You barely eat, and your smile is gone.”

I scan my body with the listener, searching for sickness or injury, but my life energy burns strong.
The answer is somewhere outside of me.
“I’m not sick,” I tell her, “but I have to find out what’s wrong.”

I sit in the healing room, and spread my listener … Read more

Golden Eyes

 
Guild Circles
Two days after moonwatch, Shazira sends me out of the Watchtower.
“The guilds will never follow you, Yagrin, unless they know you.”
“Go meet them.”

I spend two days in the city, in the marketplace, the parks, and the guild halls.
I’ve spent time with the healers, teaching the thunder voice, but I’m a stranger to the other guilds.
They’ve heard of me, but they don’t know me.
Legally, I’m newborn, and a traveler no more, yet no one forgets.

The masters stare at me when they meet me, and see the three bands of color on … Read more

Dream Schools

 
Artists
The artist’s guild has one leader, one name, and pretends to be one guild, but it’s not.
The guild binds together many familiar visual and performance arts: painting, drawing, sculpture, pottery, digital imagery, story, theater, song, music, and dance.
One art remains that only energy masters can perform.
FlowSong, an art form built on flow and weaving, mixed with song and sculpture.

One simple idea that brings all the arts together, reaching toward unseen worlds of possibility.