Mia

 

Her awareness had not always been, but she could not remember how it had begun. It flitted around, taking the perspectives of many different things. Some things felt more like home than others, and her personality developed along with her preference for the different feelings. She was, in a sense, a colored spark; a pinpoint of consciousness, alive without a body in which to rest.

She inhabited stones for a while, moving on when the shape became too boring. The rocks were easy, but once she caught on to the dance of being a plant she was instantly hooked. It took a certain understanding of natural flow, but the rivers taught that easily enough, and she had loved being river stones the best. Small plants were her favorite now, bending gracefully in gentle breezes, sheltering under others when the storms came, and clinging tightly together under the earth to join in the consciousness of all. When they drew energy from the earth and air, they would put forth beautiful offerings in white and purple and red and sometimes numerous other colors. She loved the bright petals, and always wore them with gladness when they came.

She wanted to catch a chipmunk, or a bird of some kind, but they were too fast for her. Besides, she did not know how her awareness would fit against theirs'. Even in the plants she could feel a slight resistance. The plant's natural life force recognized the intruder and she had to be careful to match the dance in just the right way. Though the flowering ones always welcomed her awareness, she never stayed in a host for long. There was so much of the world to explore. With a thought she was on distant hilltops under cloud-studded skies, reeling from the sudden jump in place. Other times she burrowed down into small worlds near the ground that held just as much varied wonder as the sweeping open vistas.

One day she was a columbine; a red delicate dancer at the edge of a cliff. Other more common ephemerals danced around her on a narrow mossy ledge in the woods. Some distance below, the forest gave way abruptly to open rock and water, which stretched far out towards a shore also hilly and wooded. It had been a pleasant sunny morning, but as a breeze rose and ruffled the water below her ledge, she felt the urge to move along. She let the dance of the breeze pull her spark out of the bell of the columbine. The wind caught at it slightly, and it drifted right down to the edge of the water. She had been rivers before, dancing young streams and mature well-laden courses. She had felt the nature of their waters, but had never been something deeper. She wanted to be a lake. She wanted to know that stillness and depth. There was such a place nearby, one with a great deal of magnetic power.

In an instant she was in dark cold waters. Her awareness stretched out and she felt the vessel of the great lake; a long deep rift in the land. Its shoreline snaked around countless rocky curves and into rich muddy bays. Grand rivers fed its waters, flowing through metropolis and farm land, the whole mass moving steadily northward to, somewhere, the sea. Things lived and moved within her, and she held them in protective care, easing their way to gather nutrients from her bountiful waters. She was ancient and wise, an invisible natural goddess in plain sight.

When the sun began to rise, it varnished the surface of her lake with gold. The sheen shifted and glinted as gulls cried and heralded the busy shoreline cities to wake. If she had a face, she would smile, for this was a good feeling. It could not stay for very long, because her consciousness was not used to being stretched this far apart, but a little while longer would be fine. As she felt the filling being of the lake, she reflected. For a while now (she could not remember how long ago any of her memories were) she had wanted a name. A tone had come to her, a sort of mantra-chant, spoken in a dream state. The world, it seemed, was Gia, or something of that sort. She was an individual, perhaps the only true individual (she had no knowledge of any other spark like her). Therefore, her name would be Mia; the personal spark, the locus of awareness. She began to gather herself to slip into one of the smaller bays and felt secure in her decision. Mia was here and her and there was a whole world to explore. As she consolidated, she found a piece of solid matter that had not released from her being. It was a columbine petal, red and cup-shaped. In her transformation to the great lake she had not noticed pulling it with her, but now it floated on the water, dancing as her spark moved into the shallows of the bay.

Camping

Ayleah and Telon had left the village and hitched a ride to the south side of town. Leaving Pebble Cove behind, they continued on foot up a narrower, steep, and rocky track that led them along the mossy hillside above the water and around a head of land. Some grand old houses clung to the rocks here and there under the cool shade of the forest, but most had begun to retreat from the eroding shoreline. Massive moss-covered boulders formed the entire landscape here, under the trees, and the steep slope down to the water had few spots that looked entirely stable. Ayleah pointed to a sign next to the roadway that warned of potential relocation in the next few years. The waters of the bay were steadily eating away at the rock underneath the road and surrounding houses, and at some point it would become too dangerous even for through-travel.

“Even if Tormund is successful tomorrow, I don't know what they're going to do about the old college buildings. A lot of our most historic places have this problem. There's only so much that the metal supports can do.”

Telon heard the concern in Ayleah's voice. “It's true, erosion is always a danger for these lakeside communities. But in my experience these places, especially the venerable ones like Silver Shores, have good contingency plans in place. They'll be moving all the most historic buildings to new locations uphill, and the whole village will shift slightly. It's hard to say goodbye to somewhere that you know will be gone soon. The whole time it remains, unused as its former self, its ghost seems harmful to you. You don't want to be near it anymore because the desire for its old self would be too great. The shoreline of the lake is a good example of the impermanence of the world. Everything is geared towards decay, and we must find a way to exist and thrive in spite of that. It will be a very long time until no-one can live in heavenly groves beside the lake, but they may not be the same groves from generation to generation. Such is the cycle of life, in which everything must change.”

Ayleah said nothing for a while. Blue-green water lapped a long distance below the cliff to their left and the path rolled easily along the side of the steep hill. As they rounded a bend and the landscape began to soften she said, “Is all your advice going to be so annoyingly deep?”

Telon laughed. “I am sorry for that. I've been cooped up with books for too long lately. But in a sense yes, because of the nature of what I am to teach you. This looks like a good place.” Telon gestured at a rocky outcropping just off the road to their left. “We'll make camp for the night. It's a pretty short distance to the Paddler's Market from here, and we can get a lift on a lumber hauler in the morning.”

They stepped down a short trail and entered the clearing; a large flattish rock outcropping overlooking a tumbled part of cliff leading down to the water. From here Ayleah could see the broad languid arms of Kings Bay reaching into the land. A city built of rock dominated the central peninsula, and directly across the bay she could make out the rooflines of buildings in the parklands. The water was like the lake on the absolute stillest of days. There were waves, but they did not break the surface of the dark green water. She could tell it was much shallower here than back home, and the effect of the stillness in the bowl of land was entrancing. Ayleah put down her pack on a mossy patch of the rock and turned her attention to what Telon was doing.

The scholar had retrieved a small pouch from his robes and produced a crystal and a palm-sized wooden stick. With these objects in one hand, and a tiny folded cloth in the other, he was walking the perimeter of their clearing. Eight times he stopped, spoke something she could not hear, and crouched to do something on the ground. When he was finished, he stood in the center of the circle he had made, looked upwards for a moment, and then packed away his things in their pouch.

Later a proper camp had been struck and a fire had provided heat for the pair's dinner. As they relaxed after eating Ayleah returned the talk to what she would actually be learning from this certified scholar.

“So which class teaches whatever you did with the crystal and that stick to set up camp?” she asked, the last traces of the day's light glowing in the distance.

Telon explained. “There are many people who think of an apprenticeship with a scholar as kind of frivolous and an avoidance of a real education. Instead of training yourself in a specific skill for trade,with me you'll gain in 'general knowledge' which you can then use to pursue a life to the best of your newfound abilities. If, in the course of life you desire to learn a specific skill, you will have a head start on the mindset beneficial to learning. What detractors of this method fail to realize is the full depth of wisdom and self-assuredness that can come from leading a scholarly life.

What I can teach you is 'general knowledge' yes, but it is no less rigorous or easier to master than a professional skill. It is basic in the same way that maintaining your own life and health is basic, and yet that can be a most difficult and consuming task. It is basic in the same way that our health is a necessity, yet who among us can master the skill of perfect health? In truth, everyone should really be studying what you will, because it is so essential to understanding existence. The most basic knowledge we can gain about the world is often the least corrupted and therefore gives us the truest picture of reality.

I said my area of study was in property management, but a truer title might be landwork. My Council is fairly small, as Lone Rock holds the majority power in the metropolis. However, we are left to have our own existence on the edge of their power-bubble, and I have the distinction of being perhaps the only scholar on the local council who works directly in the field.” Telon couldn't help adding a tinge of pride to his voice.

“You see I study the natural energetic flow of the land. When you go to certain places, can you sense how they feel intangibly different from one another? Maybe because of the plants or rocks there, or the shape of the land, but there's a general feeling you get just by being there?

Ayleah nodded.

Telon continued: “That's a place's energy. It's a quality borne out of the totality of all the aspects of the place in question. Where I understand the natural currents of that quality, the way in which it flows across and through the elements of the ground and air, then I can attempt to manipulate and work with it for mutual benefit. This ties in, not only to our relationship with our environments, but to our inner and interpersonal workings as well.”

Ayleah was rapt with attention. “So, it is a sort of magic. I was right! That crystal you used, and that stick was like your wand! You must have been casting a protection spell on our campsite, that's so cool.”

“Hm, a magic spell. I suppose you could think of it that way,” Telon said. “Though I'm certainly no master of elements or shaper of reality- at least, no more so than the average learned person.”

“Will you teach me about the energy of this place?” Ayleah asked.

Telon smiled. “That's part of why I thought this would be a good spot to stay tonight. I want you to watch the bay and the shoreline for a little while before you go to sleep tonight. Don't stare too long at the water itself, but contemplate the land, and how it holds the water in its cradle. Tomorrow morning I will ask you what you think the energy is like on this peninsula.” Telon began to clean up and prepare their camp for the night. “After all, as someone already sensitive to the world, having lived here all your life you should be an expert on its power.”