Written By Delilah
Sept. 3, 2019, 10:24 p.m.(10/9/1011 AR)
What is failure?
Failure is not losing the battle. It is not the surrender to greater forces. Nor can it be claimed of those who pick their weapons up from the dirt, regather their cracked composure, and look to the horizon through blurry eyes as they take the first arduous steps forward again on a journey leading onward to the unknown.
That, by definition, is success: to face the trials ahead of them rather than hide or be laid low by a setback.
Fall down five times, get up six.
Failure is not losing the battle. It is not the surrender to greater forces. Nor can it be claimed of those who pick their weapons up from the dirt, regather their cracked composure, and look to the horizon through blurry eyes as they take the first arduous steps forward again on a journey leading onward to the unknown.
That, by definition, is success: to face the trials ahead of them rather than hide or be laid low by a setback.
Fall down five times, get up six.
Written By Delilah
Sept. 3, 2019, 10:11 p.m.(10/9/1011 AR)
We burn down the past to blaze a fresh way for the future.
How often are we reducing mistakes to ashes rather than learning from the past? Are the ashes the fetters that once claimed us?
How often are we reducing mistakes to ashes rather than learning from the past? Are the ashes the fetters that once claimed us?
Written By Delilah
Sept. 2, 2019, 11:51 a.m.(10/6/1011 AR)
Knowledge and ignorance are immemorial adversaries.
Written By Delilah
Aug. 29, 2019, 1:08 p.m.(9/26/1011 AR)
Who do you think you are to think you can walk this road that no one has walked in centuries?
I am only myself.
You have no name. What right do you have to be on that path?
I name myself. By that alone, it is enough.
-- Fragments from A Conversation with the Wanderer
I am only myself.
You have no name. What right do you have to be on that path?
I name myself. By that alone, it is enough.
-- Fragments from A Conversation with the Wanderer
Written By Delilah
Aug. 16, 2019, 10:24 a.m.(8/28/1011 AR)
Once in a while, the pieces fall together just as intended. No delays, no quarrelsome diversions, no troubling holes in the plot or the plan. They simply fit nice and tidy. It's not common this happens, so take advantage of it while it does. And now I get to watch fifteen people lay grass again around the disturbed foundations of the manor, and soon enough, we can watch the leaves fall from the trees from a vantage that feels like it's enveloped in nature.
Written By Delilah
Aug. 6, 2019, 3:57 p.m.(8/8/1011 AR)
How fortuitous, sometimes, to think of someone and then suddenly a message comes directly from their hand. How finer still when that paper opens to a small token of affection, a simple proof of well wishes or a scrap of good news they've undertaken successfully.
Send words of kindness forth on the wind, and reap the gladness and joy for its own sake.
I've found myself combing the market today in search of just the right message, the appropriate token, a hint of something that might spur gladness. A flower, a fruit, a pretty gem (or a very expensive coronet of star iron and dragonweep fit to make a queen sigh). I've found myself labouring over parchment to locate a meaningful swatch of poetry, a worthy pinnacle of knowledge, to set forth.
Gratitude can be expressed, and acted on. It can be a gift enfolded, a thought shrouded, a smile shared.
Send words of kindness forth on the wind, and reap the gladness and joy for its own sake.
I've found myself combing the market today in search of just the right message, the appropriate token, a hint of something that might spur gladness. A flower, a fruit, a pretty gem (or a very expensive coronet of star iron and dragonweep fit to make a queen sigh). I've found myself labouring over parchment to locate a meaningful swatch of poetry, a worthy pinnacle of knowledge, to set forth.
Gratitude can be expressed, and acted on. It can be a gift enfolded, a thought shrouded, a smile shared.
Written By Delilah
Aug. 5, 2019, 2:39 p.m.(8/6/1011 AR)
I contend it foolhardy to take an Archlector's staff for a great many reasons. Of course, being in a position for the Archlector in question to have an impressive new staff to smack ne'er-do-wells on the knuckles or over the head makes up for it.
Written By Delilah
July 31, 2019, 10:01 a.m.(7/24/1011 AR)
Every once in a while, a piece of choice information falls into your lap and completely reshapes those guesses you may have held into crystallized truth.
I'm going to have a glass of wine and toast ingenuity from long ago.
I'm going to have a glass of wine and toast ingenuity from long ago.
Written By Delilah
July 4, 2019, 9:49 p.m.(5/26/1011 AR)
It feels so good to be back in front of paper and books. To say whatever ideas spring to mind and refine them bit by bit, shaping them into new forms. I have found a spirit missing long ago. What awoke in Stormwall lands? What urges such tides of creativity?
Written By Delilah
July 2, 2019, 2:44 p.m.(5/22/1011 AR)
Any knowledge that doesn't lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life.
Written By Delilah
June 24, 2019, 9:46 a.m.(5/5/1011 AR)
Preparations never cease. I watch the flowers spring up in the garden with a decided need to organize and build, to develop and to explore. Instead, I am permitted to sit on this pretty bench by the Mother Mercy's wise advice.
I hate sitting still. How the household puts up with me in this state of dudgeon, when energy threatens to spindle and bleed every which way, is beyond me. I appreciate their forbearance and thank the gods someone has the tolerance for sitting still, and enduring the trials of sitting still, that I evidently lack.
Now that I've spun up the hundred adventures I wish to take, the many pathways I yearn to travel along, the books to seek and topics to search, I am /stymied./ Is there no one to which I can offload some of these questions?
Alas.
I hate sitting still. How the household puts up with me in this state of dudgeon, when energy threatens to spindle and bleed every which way, is beyond me. I appreciate their forbearance and thank the gods someone has the tolerance for sitting still, and enduring the trials of sitting still, that I evidently lack.
Now that I've spun up the hundred adventures I wish to take, the many pathways I yearn to travel along, the books to seek and topics to search, I am /stymied./ Is there no one to which I can offload some of these questions?
Alas.
Written By Delilah
June 19, 2019, 8:35 a.m.(4/23/1011 AR)
A mere trifle consoles us, for a mere trifle distresses us.
Written By Delilah
June 11, 2019, 2:45 p.m.(4/8/1011 AR)
When the only choice is a leap of faith, grow wings as you leave the ground.
Written By Delilah
June 4, 2019, 10:23 a.m.(3/21/1011 AR)
I hear a great deal upon how we have failed as a nation. How we are arrogant as a people and shut our minds to the information around us. How we have forgotten a great deal of our past, to our own everlasting shame. How we are ignorant, failing to look outside our boundaries for answers, lessons in history, and our place in the world.
I am so very tired of it.
Do you curse the person who hasn't the insights to know the right questions to ask? Of course not. You teach them the context of an issue so they can find the right words.
Would a master artisan shout down a brand-new apprentice for having no idea how to use a chisel? Never. They would be shown the tool, the basic techniques, then refinements to the foundational knowledge as the student learned.
A swordsman doesn't expect a green recruit to match him on the sands, or slay monsters haunting the Gray Forest.
Then why, with the tribulations and trials of our lands, are we castigated for losing books of our history or investigating the wrong theories by those in a position to help us? Our attempts to find our way in the darkness and the mire of history, which is rarely a clear path at the best of times, earn scorn heaped by the imperious voices blessed by the position of good fortune and steep defense of their records.
Rather than reach out to elucidate and clarify, we are accused of being content by not asking for details. Yet we put out our hands and inquire most politely, only to have them slapped away for the audacity to question.
How peculiar a dichotomy.
I challenge the privileged: teach us. You reaped the reward of your forebears' labour or acquired it through hard work of your own and others. Pass on that gift to those around you. Do not expect us to leap to our feet and shout questions when we have neither the words or the awareness to do so, for this is a turbulent stage in history and society both.
What encourages us to look beyond our own borders is so often denied, our boldness used to strike back at us like a student acting out of turn.
Again, the vision of the student and the teacher. A good teacher does not bait a student with obscure terms, and then berate them for lack of understanding. Perhaps they might set out a challenge to stimulate curiosity and arouse interest.
I dare you to give wings to those who would fly in the vast spaces of discovery. Do not launch stones and arrows at those seeking the means for wisdom to carry them aloft.
I am so very tired of it.
Do you curse the person who hasn't the insights to know the right questions to ask? Of course not. You teach them the context of an issue so they can find the right words.
Would a master artisan shout down a brand-new apprentice for having no idea how to use a chisel? Never. They would be shown the tool, the basic techniques, then refinements to the foundational knowledge as the student learned.
A swordsman doesn't expect a green recruit to match him on the sands, or slay monsters haunting the Gray Forest.
Then why, with the tribulations and trials of our lands, are we castigated for losing books of our history or investigating the wrong theories by those in a position to help us? Our attempts to find our way in the darkness and the mire of history, which is rarely a clear path at the best of times, earn scorn heaped by the imperious voices blessed by the position of good fortune and steep defense of their records.
Rather than reach out to elucidate and clarify, we are accused of being content by not asking for details. Yet we put out our hands and inquire most politely, only to have them slapped away for the audacity to question.
How peculiar a dichotomy.
I challenge the privileged: teach us. You reaped the reward of your forebears' labour or acquired it through hard work of your own and others. Pass on that gift to those around you. Do not expect us to leap to our feet and shout questions when we have neither the words or the awareness to do so, for this is a turbulent stage in history and society both.
What encourages us to look beyond our own borders is so often denied, our boldness used to strike back at us like a student acting out of turn.
Again, the vision of the student and the teacher. A good teacher does not bait a student with obscure terms, and then berate them for lack of understanding. Perhaps they might set out a challenge to stimulate curiosity and arouse interest.
I dare you to give wings to those who would fly in the vast spaces of discovery. Do not launch stones and arrows at those seeking the means for wisdom to carry them aloft.
Written By Delilah
June 1, 2019, 1:25 a.m.(3/15/1011 AR)
I hope people in this city have skill with ropes and nets. I have the feeling I'm going to be in need of their aid to invent something fairly lightweight and portable that can nonetheless be set up over a fairly wide area, and tolerate a person in armour falling on it.
Like me.
Like me.
Written By Delilah
May 30, 2019, 3:39 p.m.(3/12/1011 AR)
I have begun to appreciate, in such abject terms, the importance of a good pair of boots. And pants. And a coat that keeps the wind out. For that, I a mutterly grateful in my current attire, for now I can pay more attention to the forests plunging down impossibly sharp, unforgiving slopes into a perilously deep ravine awash in white snow. The thaw won't come for some time yet, and I know the city remains buried under considerable dirfts. They seem like nothing compared to the glaciers capping these knife-sharp aretes, sliced and chipped from granite, leaving behind soaring vertical falls. Half-frozen rivers trace gelid, sinuous lines deep into the bedrock of their jagged beds. The air, so sparklingly cold and pure, drives a dagger between the ribs and leaves the mind swimming in lost thoughts before it's even apparent our breath is lost.
Human hands are so very far away upon these icy ramparts. What touches the sky here belongs to the raised palm, the stony mantle uplifting crooked fingers to snare lenticular clouds and send pangs of wonder reverberating through the bones. Our fires are more essential than ever, Lagoma's holy flame giving me comfort in those rare moments. The near misses.
It is so starkly beautiful here it hurts. That I could ever hope to capture a glimpse of stars in their brilliant dome of the sky, or somehow give sense of the majesty and enormity of where we stand. I understand a little better now the reverence and awe people hold their lands in. Especially in the north, where such vistas seem more accessible, more commonplace.
Could I walk on the bright glimmers of the stars, I would take you hand-in-hand, and let you see what watchfires blaze above, what spellbinding wonders lie below. What we have in this place is rare, and precious for that.
Human hands are so very far away upon these icy ramparts. What touches the sky here belongs to the raised palm, the stony mantle uplifting crooked fingers to snare lenticular clouds and send pangs of wonder reverberating through the bones. Our fires are more essential than ever, Lagoma's holy flame giving me comfort in those rare moments. The near misses.
It is so starkly beautiful here it hurts. That I could ever hope to capture a glimpse of stars in their brilliant dome of the sky, or somehow give sense of the majesty and enormity of where we stand. I understand a little better now the reverence and awe people hold their lands in. Especially in the north, where such vistas seem more accessible, more commonplace.
Could I walk on the bright glimmers of the stars, I would take you hand-in-hand, and let you see what watchfires blaze above, what spellbinding wonders lie below. What we have in this place is rare, and precious for that.
Written By Delilah
May 23, 2019, 9:09 a.m.(2/25/1011 AR)
Only the dreamer will understand realities.
Written By Delilah
May 17, 2019, 12:55 p.m.(2/14/1011 AR)
Every now and then, the veil slips back. An image takes shape from the blank background. Thoughts coalesce into clear ideas. A friend is found among the many faces of the city.
Like unexpectedly delightful tea blends, say, lime and rosemary, these joys are welcome when they strike.
Like unexpectedly delightful tea blends, say, lime and rosemary, these joys are welcome when they strike.
Written By Delilah
May 9, 2019, 4:57 p.m.(1/26/1011 AR)
Love and forgive yourself.
Written By Delilah
May 2, 2019, 2:02 p.m.(1/12/1011 AR)
Snow already piles up in the streets and glistens on the window, driven there by a cruel wind. How quickly the season turns into the welcome of the new year.
It seems barely a week ago, we were admiring the last colours in the botanical gardens. Now everything carries a grey or pale tinge, where visible at all, and nothing's fair in love, war, or winter.
It seems barely a week ago, we were admiring the last colours in the botanical gardens. Now everything carries a grey or pale tinge, where visible at all, and nothing's fair in love, war, or winter.
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