On the Road, Rusty and Mam Jak

Rusty pauses and a world descends around him... The great forests, the vast plains, each knot and blade of grass moving as he strolls that great land.  The oaks bend to follow. "Damn this grit!" speaking aloud to no-one and all the same. Ah... but what can be done with a single grain of sand? 

"What do I see Mam Jak? The dust of forgotten empires and conquered lands. A tiny shell a grain of stone, here a weapon, an army charging down a rocky slope and the blood of its prisoners. You should perhaps ask what do I want to see in the sand... You and Crinna are both wrong. Have you noticed how hard it is to leave a pattern in the sand? Yet the tiny shell remains. How old is that shell? Its name is lost, but its presence has left a mark. I want to leave a pattern. The desert carries a taint, and that taint casts a shadow, even at midday. I intend to make sure that the shadows' taint is removed.  I am grey. I stand between the shadow and the candle."

He takes another sip of the dark coffee that has been brewing in the fire.

Different in every way and yet here and now in complete alignment, surefooted on a dark trajectory.

On the Road, Mam Jak and Rusty

If you were to ask Mam Jak she would sit and think a long time.  She would do this in order to form the words in a way that can express what she so clearly and intuitively knows.  

It is a warm evening, but a hint of the winter yet to come is breathing along the valley floor. The fire has burned low, and the embers dance into the clear night sky.

This is what she would say:

"Be not afraid of magic: some are born magic, some achieve magic, and some have magic thrust upon 'em - hehe, which preferably leaves only their

smoking boots!."

"Rusty, we choose which shadow world we wish to see.  For the fighter, there is rock solid reality - they see no shadows because they run into into the light, into battle.  Or because for some, there are no shadows, because there is no light.  Your monk friend is powerful, but Crinna

sees the world as a shadow of her mind.  She seeks to know it better by knowing herself - yet she knows nothing of true enlightenment - she looks in the wrong direction.  

"There is Huitzilopoctli and Quetzalcoatl.

"That is all that matters.  

"We are not in a world of shadows, squinting internally the better to see - we are luminous and the world is alight. We bask in the glow and warmth of the Divine.  It is we who are their

dreams, and we dream ourselves because they will it."  

The embers settle slightly and the fire seems to sigh.

"What shadows will you see Rusty?  What do you see in the sand?"