Practice
I love high cliffs that rise at the edge of the sea.
The sea far below fills my eyes as the wind blows around me.
Today’s lesson and practice centers on binding things together.
Not with rope or glue or nails, but with energy.
Weavers bind objects together, through subtle changes to the energy patterns of the objects.
Today’s challenge is to bind opposites, to combine two things together which destroy each other.
I pull energy from the energy web, and bind it upon itself until it takes physical form.
I’m clumsy at this, and I only know the patterns for a few types of material.
Still, a large, odd shaped chunk of ice now rests upon the ground.
I wanted to weave a sphere of ice, but I haven’t mastered the shapes yet.
I make a fire, and place the ice five feet away.
I let my vision shift until I see the energy patterns of the ice and the fire.
Then I steal bits of energy from the energy web and bind the two patterns together.
The ice is drawn next to the fire.
Of course, the ice will melt, but there is a brief mixing of properties at the point of the binding.
A flash of flame above the ice that moves like fire.
It looks like a sort of bright, smoky ice.
A small chunk of solid fire glows on the ground, orange and translucent.
These miracles last only for a moment, and the rest of the ice melts upon the fire.
There is another type of binding called an influence bond.
We bind things together at a distance, and whatever happens to one object influences the other.
Balshown will show me this tomorrow.
The Music and the Centipede
I sit on a flat rock, and look at a few wisps of clouds drift across the unusually clear sky.
An insect climbs onto a small rock within my line of sight, a large, hairy centipede.
It raises up the front of its body into the air and looks directly at me.
It holds that position for a few seconds, then lowers itself and disappears into a hole in the ground.
I feel something, first in my ears, and then in my hands.
Call it a vibration, or call it music, but it pours out of the ground, and surrounds me.
My emotions follow the music, beautiful, powerful, and fast.
I leap off of the mountain, falling and flying toward the water far below.
As I fall, I spin around, and turn, end over end, in rhythm to what I hear.
The vibrations change slightly as I spin, and swirls of color follow my path.
Then, the bright area in front of me turns black, like a hole in space, with bright stars beyond.
There is time to turn aside, and avoid the tunnel, but I would lose the music.
I fly faster, and enter the hole.
For a moment, I’m in an endless space, full of stars, but warm and full of sweet air.
My awareness fades, and I come to a bright place, flat on my back, facing a strange sky.
Work and Play
I’m in a small round clearing, in a crystal forest.
The clearing is ten feet across, covered in a spongy material.
There are no plants in the forest, but endless arrays of crystal structures rise from the ground.
My energy eyes see them growing.
I still feel and hear the music.
It pulses throughout the crystal forest, and I see the crystals brighten and dim, in time to the music.
There’s a particularly beautiful crystal growth near the edge of the clearing.
Its color draws me to it, deep indigo with golden streaks throughout.
On this small, young crystal “tree”, is a centipede.
Like the one who found me on the mountain at the start of this journey.
My vision of the forest grows dim, replaced by a bright image in my head.
I see myself practicing on the top of the mountain, and hear a simple question: “Why?”
I picture the energy web in my head, and explain that I’m learning to bind energies.
“Why do you strain, and push energy?” it asks.
“Play with energy web – don’t push.”
“Play?” I ask.
“Web is real.”
“Imagine web is your friend, and you play together.”
“Must feel like play, not work”
The centipede jumps about 7 feet and lands on my hand.
I bring my hand near my face.
“Play makes you smooth, light and shiny,” it says.
“You always work.”
“Forget work.”
“Work is heavy and slow.”
“Nothing exists but play.”
“Talk to web.”
“Put a vibration, some music, in you, and pass it to web like you’re throwing a ball.”
“Let music carry your intention, like you’re calling to your friend.”
“Is the web intelligent?” I ask.
“Maybe it’s web,” he says.
“Maybe something else behind it.”
“Maybe you talk to yourself.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“You talk. You play. Something listens.”
“You learn. The world moves.”
I put the centipede down, and I try to play with the web.
It works, but it’s slow and clumsy.
“Enjoy!” the centipede says.
Play more. Don’t practice.”
“You get better.”
I play.
I let the intention fill me, but I let go of the result.
After a while, I pick up the rhythm, and the web and the world are playing with me.
Minutes or hours pass, as time moves far away.
The Playroom
I feel faint for a moment, and the world is gone.
Then, I see myself standing in a room made up of points of energy.
Along one wall is a web of energy that looks like a spider web.
I am there as a body of light, not flesh.
An energy body in the shape of a boy, not a man.
Through the door comes another being with an energy body also in the shape of a boy.
“Hello,” he says, “what’s your name?”
“Yagrin,” I answer.
He repeats my name again and again, and bright spheres of energy, like balls of string, appear all around him.
“Your name is good,” he says.
“My name is Filarin, and this is my playroom.”
“I called for a playmate, and you came.”
“Do you live somewhere else, Filarin, far from your playroom?
“Will you show me your house?”
“Do you have another form?”
He laughs.
“Too many questions, Yagrin”
“Another day, we’ll talk.”
“Now, let’s play.”
“It’s been forever since I’ve had someone to play with.”
Filarin reaches toward the spider web, and his energy hands glow brightly.
Strands of energy pour out of the web and fly toward him.
He twists and shapes the strands into all sorts of energy forms, and he throws them toward me.
They strike me and hurt in a strange sort of way.
“Ouch,” I cry aloud.
“You’re supposed to catch them!” he says, “or eat them, or reshape them, or fling them back!”
“I get it now,” I tell him.
We play for a long time.
I get better and better at this game of shaping energy with a quick thought.
I look at my energy hand, and a strange energy clock shows itself.
I can’t read it, and I don’t know how time here relates to time in my world.
Still, I feel the need to go back.
“It’s time to let me go, Filarin,” I tell him.
“Will I see you again, Yagrin?” he asks.
“Yes, if I can find my way back to your playroom.”
“It’s easy,” he says.
“Just call out to the web, and invite it to play.”
“Then think of me and my playroom.”
“The playroom will find you.”
The room fades away, and I find myself sitting in the crystal forest.
The Bizra
The centipede is gone, and a Bizra sits there in his place.
“Was there ever a centipede?” I ask aloud.
I’m answered with an image of the centipede transforming into a Bizra.
“What about Filarin? Is he real?”
I see an image of the playroom, and I feel that the answer to my question is yes.
I take a deep breath.
“I don’t like the tricks,” I tell it.
The Bizra turns back into the centipede.
“You make a mistake,” says the centipede.
“Not trick.”
“We play.”
“That’s all.”
“Thank you, then,” I say at last, “for teaching me to play with the energy web.”
Then it occurs to me.
“Was that real?” I ask.
“Can I really play and talk with the energy to bind it?”
“Yes,” it says, “play is true.”
“Now help this place,” it says, “grow the crystals.”
“Why not?”
I play with the crystal forest, and speak to the energy beneath the crystals.
Music shines out of me, and my intention rides on the music.
The crystals glow brightly and grow a few feet.
The Bizra bows his head.
I feel myself thrown through the air, and the crystal forest is gone.
I spin as I rise up toward the top of the cliff.
Then my speed slows as gravity takes hold of me.
It’s close to last light.
I reach toward the energy web, and send it some music, and a thought: “play with me.”
I fly home, and I feel for the first time, that the web is flying with me.
