Written By Juniper
March 20, 2020, 7:36 p.m.(12/18/1012 AR)
I leave the city to do something that has been described as "ridiculously dangerous". That it is also absolutely necessary is a matter of personal opinion. I need to do this. I could shirk the responsibility but when I feel in my bones that only I could do this, and if I don't it goes undone... well. Some choices are more weighted than others. If we succeed, me and those who escort me, so much good will be done. Chains will be broken, someone freed. Someone who might be able to help the Compact. That's my hope. That love and light and hope will overcome. But hope is nothing without action, so I go.
Hope... I've modeled my life on hope. Even in my darkest moments, I was always reaching for the light, for balance. To be better, to have better, to make things better for others. Where I've succeeded, it's inspired me to do more. Where I've failed, it's been even greater inspiration to be better.
Leaving is so hard. To close the doors of the hospice and walk away from my garden, to know I'm the cause for worry in so many hearts.
I hate to worry you. I'm sorry for that, for the pain. I've felt it often enough, I know exactly where it sits in the chest and the stomach. How the mouth dries, and the palms prickle. That this is needful isn't a balm against that sort of fear. All I can offer is this: I love you and that love goes soul-deep. If this goes poorly, if I don't come back, that love is still carved onto my soul and I'll carry it with me onto the Wheel, bring it back with me if and when our Mother decides it's my time again.
That makes this love eternal. I love you and that means I love you always. What I go to do is proof of it.
If I don't return, remember me in smiles, and stars, and spring (though I do love autumn too). I'll try to be there for you in hearth-fires, and the smell of fresh baked bread, and sun-dried linens. I love you and I hope we'll see each other again.
Hope... I've modeled my life on hope. Even in my darkest moments, I was always reaching for the light, for balance. To be better, to have better, to make things better for others. Where I've succeeded, it's inspired me to do more. Where I've failed, it's been even greater inspiration to be better.
Leaving is so hard. To close the doors of the hospice and walk away from my garden, to know I'm the cause for worry in so many hearts.
I hate to worry you. I'm sorry for that, for the pain. I've felt it often enough, I know exactly where it sits in the chest and the stomach. How the mouth dries, and the palms prickle. That this is needful isn't a balm against that sort of fear. All I can offer is this: I love you and that love goes soul-deep. If this goes poorly, if I don't come back, that love is still carved onto my soul and I'll carry it with me onto the Wheel, bring it back with me if and when our Mother decides it's my time again.
That makes this love eternal. I love you and that means I love you always. What I go to do is proof of it.
If I don't return, remember me in smiles, and stars, and spring (though I do love autumn too). I'll try to be there for you in hearth-fires, and the smell of fresh baked bread, and sun-dried linens. I love you and I hope we'll see each other again.
Written By Juniper
Jan. 19, 2020, 7:27 p.m.(8.167967509920635/10.406180555555554/1012.5973306258268 AR)
I came to Arx more than two years ago and found the home I never knew I needed. Here, where people from all over Arvum come together, we are at our best, our brightest, because here we learn how our differences can act as complements to make us stronger as one people against the dangers in the world. There will always be dangers, there will always be shadows. Loss, grief, hardship, pain. It's important to never ignore the darkness. When it's pressed close on all sides refusing to be ignored, or even rising up inside of us, it's so easy to forget we can make our own light. More than that...
We are our own light, each of us carrying a divine spark of the Dream inside.
Be kind to someone else today. Reach out to someone else today. Be there for each other, one small act at a time. In that way we raise walls of light against those who want to drown us in the dark. In that way we grow and change and heal.
We are our own light, each of us carrying a divine spark of the Dream inside.
Be kind to someone else today. Reach out to someone else today. Be there for each other, one small act at a time. In that way we raise walls of light against those who want to drown us in the dark. In that way we grow and change and heal.
Written By Juniper
Dec. 27, 2019, 3:59 a.m.(6/13/1012 AR)
The body begins its dying the day it's born. But not the soul. Never the soul. The soul's a wheel unbroken, a thread uncut. I wasn't always this and I won't always be this. That's a comfort for the days to come, however many of them there'll be. But I can't let comfort become complacency, or focus so far behind or ahead I forget to touch what's here. The balance is tricky. Like a mossy wet log perched over a river fat with meltwater. Luckily, balance is change-- always shifting, always adjusting, hopefully always improving. I will be the change, I promise. I am, always have been, and I do it now by wobbling for balance. Soon enough I'll take that first step, and the one after it too. Right now it's alright to feel the moss under my feet, the water cold enough my toes, the spray on my face. Mountain air in my lungs. The hand held out, to hold and lift mine.
It's going to be alright.
It's going to be alright.
Written By Juniper
Nov. 15, 2019, 5:37 a.m.(3/14/1012 AR)
I'm fortunate that this time it was my left hand, my left arm, that was burned. I write this easily, without the difficulty of the last occasion of such an injury. And now my scars, they match. I am symmetrical.
One silver lining among several. Small but significant they are, and I give thanks for each of them.
One silver lining among several. Small but significant they are, and I give thanks for each of them.
Written By Juniper
Oct. 17, 2019, 11:43 p.m.(1/13/1012 AR)
I breathe more deeply in winter than I do in summer. The air seems clearer, cleaner. More pure. It pours into the lungs, fills them in a way summer air doesn't.
My little garden is blanketed under the snow to sleep for the season, there to dream green dreams. My spiders in their little tent, they are insulated behind thick walls of golden hay. Whether they dream I cannot say but I like to imagine it's so. Jeffeth has helped me lay in wood enough for months and months, and the pantry is full to bursting, the medicine cabinet stocked. The people I look after, my people, they will pass to the Wheel in light and warmth.
It isn't a hut buried in evergreen branches-- oh, I miss that smell, pine and snow mingling, the blue sky, and high mountain sun glittering on an icy crust with just a trace of camp smoke to remind us we people have a place in the world too-- but it's enough.
Light and warmth, a year put to rest tucked beneath a white blanket, and another new to come. I do love winter... though I would love it less if I weren't able to create a place within it, where my other loves can safely bide.
My little garden is blanketed under the snow to sleep for the season, there to dream green dreams. My spiders in their little tent, they are insulated behind thick walls of golden hay. Whether they dream I cannot say but I like to imagine it's so. Jeffeth has helped me lay in wood enough for months and months, and the pantry is full to bursting, the medicine cabinet stocked. The people I look after, my people, they will pass to the Wheel in light and warmth.
It isn't a hut buried in evergreen branches-- oh, I miss that smell, pine and snow mingling, the blue sky, and high mountain sun glittering on an icy crust with just a trace of camp smoke to remind us we people have a place in the world too-- but it's enough.
Light and warmth, a year put to rest tucked beneath a white blanket, and another new to come. I do love winter... though I would love it less if I weren't able to create a place within it, where my other loves can safely bide.
Written By Juniper
Oct. 13, 2019, 5:37 p.m.(1/5/1012 AR)
When the shadows rise, it's easy to see the light in others and lose sight of the light in one's self... like stars, we see others against the black, but don't recognize our own glow. It isn't gone. It's there. But it takes a shift in perspective to recognize it again. I have helped others make that shift. It took someone else's kind and guiding hand to do the same for myself, and I won't forget the lesson.
Written By Juniper
Oct. 12, 2019, 6:39 p.m.(1/3/1012 AR)
To Prince Victus and Thrax, to Princess Zara and Valardin, to Princess Berenice and Velenosa, to Princess Gwenna and Redrain, to Princess Sabella and Grayson, I offer up my heartfelt thanks and gratitude. They have granted their permission for a hospice in each of their capital cities and I could not be more humbled by their generosity. A place where the dying and destitute may go, each of them run by veterans who have recovered from the darkness and addiction which plagued them, trained by me to care for those with nowhere else to go, to tend the hearts and minds facing their return to the Wheel.
When I began my hospice, I thought it would just be a little place, a small lantern set in a tiny window of the world.
Such a light they bring. Thank you.
When I began my hospice, I thought it would just be a little place, a small lantern set in a tiny window of the world.
Such a light they bring. Thank you.
Written By Juniper
Oct. 3, 2019, 12:34 a.m.(12/11/1011 AR)
Every well has its bottom and even the deepest natural spring can become dry, in the right conditions. I'm tired. I am more than the good I do for others but it's hard to remember that, sometimes, when one is seen only in that light. I think I've realized why healers aren't held up as heroes, the way our greatest legends are. Why there are no healers, not one, in any hall in the Hall of Heroes. I understand now. And I am very, very tired.
Written By Juniper
Oct. 2, 2019, 8:06 p.m.(12/11/1011 AR)
Some weeks ago I wrote to the High Lords of the Compact, and their Voices, proposing to establish hospices like Elysium in each of the large capital cities. The goal is not that each does exactly what I do, for there's only one of me. But in my time with Whisper House, and running the hospice, I have treated very many veterans, the hopeless and harmed and addicted, who've wrestled with their darkness and emerged victorious (they credit me but it's their own tenacity which has seen them through). I proposed to the High Lords that these veterans, after being trained by me, be allowed to open a hospice of their own in each of these great cities, where they can continue on the path of dignity and self-worth by treating their brethren as they were treated.
As of this writing, Thrax and Velenosa have agreed, and I offer all of my gratitude to them for their embrace of this project. Thank you. We've seen so many changes these past years and this will be one of the better ones, to continue that trend. Thank for your foresight, and your generosity. Thank you for your willingness to help.
As of this writing, Thrax and Velenosa have agreed, and I offer all of my gratitude to them for their embrace of this project. Thank you. We've seen so many changes these past years and this will be one of the better ones, to continue that trend. Thank for your foresight, and your generosity. Thank you for your willingness to help.
Written By Juniper
Sept. 5, 2019, 4:39 p.m.(10/12/1011 AR)
This is going to make me look very silly but it is still worth writing, so here I sit, pen in hand.
More than two years ago, I came to Arx bright-eyed and eager to make my name. My path started in a tiny camp in the mountains, where I ran barefoot more often than not, and lived with dirt beneath my fingernails, and ashes between my toes. I became a scullery maid, and then a simple maid, and learned the graces that let me advance to lady's maid, which seemed the highest a girl like me could hope for, but I wanted more. When my lady brought me to Arx-- I love you still, Marquessa!-- it burned in me, my ambition, and I conspired to become a Whisper.
So it was. I was a very good Whisper, though not as good as I wanted to be.
I gave Aion credit for this. Not Gild or Jayus or Lagoma or Vellichor or Limerance, but Aion. In my heart of hearts I had always wanted to be more, and after seeing the state of the shrines in Arx-- grand and shining all, save for the Dreamer's-- I thought it would prove to the whole world I was special, if it were proven that I was more dear to Aion than any other god. This is what I wanted, what I felt I needed, dictated my own personal truth. I did not speak of it to anyone but it's what I hid in my heart as I worshipped at Aion's altar, as I left my poetry there, as I organized the fundraiser for the donations that will (eventually) see Aion's shrine renovated to be as grand as the others.
Some took notice. I was urged to ask the Faith to make me the Archlector of the Dreamer and though I demurred out loud, inside I was gleeful for it seemed others saw the same truth I wanted so badly to wish into creation.
They were wrong and I was wrong. Saying it does not make it so. Pining for it does not make it so.
I was not Aion's special chosen because the Dreamer has no need to raise one above all others. Aion has never raised one above all others. Before the Faith, when the gods were worshiped through the Grace of the Thirteen, this was true. It remains true now. No one speaks for Aion because Aion is already there. I carry their spark, as you do, in equal measure. We /are/ and no one is more true, in that regard, than any other.
Aion needs no voice. They need not give us signs, or instructions, or unimportant words because their message is written in our very existence.
I came to that realization through time and contemplation. Though I was lied to, more than once, by the excommunicated Elisha and his friend, Ras, I forgive them that trespass and still pray that they might find the same way home. The lantern I gave them was blessed to cast light which could always show the path to safety. To home. I hope it does so. I pray it does. I pray for them.
Making mistakes is also woven into our existence. It is how we recover from them which matters most-- this is one of Lagoma's lessons, for one cannot improve without failing, and one must always try to be better than we were before.
Perhaps that is Aion's greatest gift to us, that we also have that potential.
More than two years ago, I came to Arx bright-eyed and eager to make my name. My path started in a tiny camp in the mountains, where I ran barefoot more often than not, and lived with dirt beneath my fingernails, and ashes between my toes. I became a scullery maid, and then a simple maid, and learned the graces that let me advance to lady's maid, which seemed the highest a girl like me could hope for, but I wanted more. When my lady brought me to Arx-- I love you still, Marquessa!-- it burned in me, my ambition, and I conspired to become a Whisper.
So it was. I was a very good Whisper, though not as good as I wanted to be.
I gave Aion credit for this. Not Gild or Jayus or Lagoma or Vellichor or Limerance, but Aion. In my heart of hearts I had always wanted to be more, and after seeing the state of the shrines in Arx-- grand and shining all, save for the Dreamer's-- I thought it would prove to the whole world I was special, if it were proven that I was more dear to Aion than any other god. This is what I wanted, what I felt I needed, dictated my own personal truth. I did not speak of it to anyone but it's what I hid in my heart as I worshipped at Aion's altar, as I left my poetry there, as I organized the fundraiser for the donations that will (eventually) see Aion's shrine renovated to be as grand as the others.
Some took notice. I was urged to ask the Faith to make me the Archlector of the Dreamer and though I demurred out loud, inside I was gleeful for it seemed others saw the same truth I wanted so badly to wish into creation.
They were wrong and I was wrong. Saying it does not make it so. Pining for it does not make it so.
I was not Aion's special chosen because the Dreamer has no need to raise one above all others. Aion has never raised one above all others. Before the Faith, when the gods were worshiped through the Grace of the Thirteen, this was true. It remains true now. No one speaks for Aion because Aion is already there. I carry their spark, as you do, in equal measure. We /are/ and no one is more true, in that regard, than any other.
Aion needs no voice. They need not give us signs, or instructions, or unimportant words because their message is written in our very existence.
I came to that realization through time and contemplation. Though I was lied to, more than once, by the excommunicated Elisha and his friend, Ras, I forgive them that trespass and still pray that they might find the same way home. The lantern I gave them was blessed to cast light which could always show the path to safety. To home. I hope it does so. I pray it does. I pray for them.
Making mistakes is also woven into our existence. It is how we recover from them which matters most-- this is one of Lagoma's lessons, for one cannot improve without failing, and one must always try to be better than we were before.
Perhaps that is Aion's greatest gift to us, that we also have that potential.
Written By Juniper
Aug. 23, 2019, 1 a.m.(9/13/1011 AR)
I've done nothing these past week but debride bedsores and wash bedpans and make beds and scrub linens. My work is very bedcentric. Next week, life willing, I should be able to begin the process of stripping the garden (something which proper Petrochorians call "harvesting", I'm told) of all the usable bits with my more mobile patients. Then, preservation. It is productive, constructive, worthy work, the stuff which life is made of, day by day, week by week, with none of the grand flourishes which attended my previous existence.
Which is not to say I don't like a good flourish, now and then. If not for flourishes, we would have no cathedrals.
Which is not to say I don't like a good flourish, now and then. If not for flourishes, we would have no cathedrals.
Written By Juniper
Aug. 18, 2019, 5:16 p.m.(9/4/1011 AR)
There is a great satisfaction to be found in helping others achieve their goals and aims. I cannot minimize that feeling, for it consumes so many of my waking hours. It is the contentment of a fountain, continuously pouring itself out for the benefit of others. But people are not a fountain and I feel I have lost my own path, with so much of my effort being put to the work of others. Keeping nothing back for myself means I no longer have a clear view on what to achieve for myself. I have no goal, no great aim, and it leaves me restless. Unsatisfied.
I was told I would find my own song. In the quiet moments, between my duties, I strain to hear the notes. Nothing's come yet. Soon, I hope.
I was told I would find my own song. In the quiet moments, between my duties, I strain to hear the notes. Nothing's come yet. Soon, I hope.
Written By Juniper
Aug. 3, 2019, 10:47 p.m.(8/3/1011 AR)
From a sermon on the many aspects of change, held by Sister Juniper and Master Fortunato:
Change comes in many forms. Healing is change, and always for the better. The gentle touch of fire is change, for it gives us our food and our forges, our tools and our fields ready for planting. Self-reflection is change, for it helps us grow as people. Purification is change, to chase away the dark, to carve it out of hearts and homes, leaving the healthy behind. In the time before the Dance of Skulls, Lagoma was beloved among the Grace of the Thirteen for what she represents... but in the years since, we lost many of those early elements of her worship. What remains to us now are the Mercies, who enact change by tending the wounds and illnesses inflicted on our people, and blessed are they, for seeing us through.
"Healing the body keeps us alive. With the deep wounds fastened together, we are able to pursue our lives in pursuit of our greater self." - Fortunato
In the time of Caer'alfar, the Mercies were not alone in their upholding of Lagoma's many aspects. There were also Warmths, who focused on the beneficial and peaceful application of flame-- for flame is a tool in Lagoma's hands, not only a weapon. There were Beginnings who, with guided self-reflection helped an individual change and improve. Their Endings were those who understood the role purification plays in encouraging growth.
These aspects were lost to us through the ages, their formal role in Lagoma's worship, but we see echoes of them today. Echoes. But it's easy to forget what isn't named. When I came to Arx, I didn't think I was a healer for my work was with the minds and hearts of survivors of war, or with great houses seeking to mend rifts between their members. I was neither Mercy nor physician... but still I came to understand that my work too gave honour to Lagoma. A smith apprentice, plying hammer and metal to improve his craft, seeks his inspiration from Jayus... but it is Lagoma who smiles at how he hones his skill. Cascade Falls, built in the north, its shrine honours Mangata... and its community, supporting each other, building something greater than what existed there before, carries Lagoma's light as well.
"A thousand ways to scrabble. Scramble. Lagoma teaches us how to rise productively." - Fortunato
That she does... and like a flame, it need never look the same. A soldier, a healer, a crafter, a scholar, they can each do her honour in their own ways.
Change minds, heal bodies, mend ties, grow, improve, build. But always for the better. Perfection is, in many ways, stagnation. You cannot mend what isn't broken. You cannot improve what is already at a pinnacle. Change requires challenge too... our greatest changes often come from our lowest points.
Change comes in many forms. Healing is change, and always for the better. The gentle touch of fire is change, for it gives us our food and our forges, our tools and our fields ready for planting. Self-reflection is change, for it helps us grow as people. Purification is change, to chase away the dark, to carve it out of hearts and homes, leaving the healthy behind. In the time before the Dance of Skulls, Lagoma was beloved among the Grace of the Thirteen for what she represents... but in the years since, we lost many of those early elements of her worship. What remains to us now are the Mercies, who enact change by tending the wounds and illnesses inflicted on our people, and blessed are they, for seeing us through.
"Healing the body keeps us alive. With the deep wounds fastened together, we are able to pursue our lives in pursuit of our greater self." - Fortunato
In the time of Caer'alfar, the Mercies were not alone in their upholding of Lagoma's many aspects. There were also Warmths, who focused on the beneficial and peaceful application of flame-- for flame is a tool in Lagoma's hands, not only a weapon. There were Beginnings who, with guided self-reflection helped an individual change and improve. Their Endings were those who understood the role purification plays in encouraging growth.
These aspects were lost to us through the ages, their formal role in Lagoma's worship, but we see echoes of them today. Echoes. But it's easy to forget what isn't named. When I came to Arx, I didn't think I was a healer for my work was with the minds and hearts of survivors of war, or with great houses seeking to mend rifts between their members. I was neither Mercy nor physician... but still I came to understand that my work too gave honour to Lagoma. A smith apprentice, plying hammer and metal to improve his craft, seeks his inspiration from Jayus... but it is Lagoma who smiles at how he hones his skill. Cascade Falls, built in the north, its shrine honours Mangata... and its community, supporting each other, building something greater than what existed there before, carries Lagoma's light as well.
"A thousand ways to scrabble. Scramble. Lagoma teaches us how to rise productively." - Fortunato
That she does... and like a flame, it need never look the same. A soldier, a healer, a crafter, a scholar, they can each do her honour in their own ways.
Change minds, heal bodies, mend ties, grow, improve, build. But always for the better. Perfection is, in many ways, stagnation. You cannot mend what isn't broken. You cannot improve what is already at a pinnacle. Change requires challenge too... our greatest changes often come from our lowest points.
Written By Juniper
July 17, 2019, 4:07 p.m.(6/24/1011 AR)
Next season, everyone should try to think of what tree they would be. Or berries! What berry would you be?
I do not suggest this because I have a head start on my answer, not at all.
I do not suggest this because I have a head start on my answer, not at all.
Written By Juniper
July 3, 2019, 5:45 p.m.(5/24/1011 AR)
I have never felt so small as I did standing in the Cathedral before an audience, making oaths to the Faith. Especially the bits where I went a little off the beaten path in my replies. But it's done now, and I've become Sister Juniper, Most Kind Peacemaker, servant of the gods.
It's a bit of a mouthful, isn't it?
To those who came to witness my swearing, thank you. Seeing you there, it gave me the courage I needed to go through with it. No amount of Whisper training is enough to compensate for the nerves when you stand before the watchful eyes of the gods, in their house, and give voice to immense things, things you hope to live up to.
It's a bit of a mouthful, isn't it?
To those who came to witness my swearing, thank you. Seeing you there, it gave me the courage I needed to go through with it. No amount of Whisper training is enough to compensate for the nerves when you stand before the watchful eyes of the gods, in their house, and give voice to immense things, things you hope to live up to.
Written By Juniper
June 28, 2019, 3:35 p.m.(5/14/1011 AR)
Sometimes there are choices to make which have no wrong outcome. Or at least, no wrong outcome in the sense that neither will do harm, and each is equally valid and worthy. Those are the choices which scare me most, the ones which feel as if there's the most at stake. Two separate paths and they were both lined with flowers for me, sketched out in glowing terms... and both so radically different from each other that there's no way to tell if five years from now, ten, twenty years, if I'll regret the choice or not. I've changed so much in the two years I've been here, how can I predict what I'll feel, who I'll be, that far down the path?
Some choices are easily made. I thought when I made this one, I'd feel less restless and worried about my future self.
It wasn't the wrong choice but I do hope it was the right one.
Some choices are easily made. I thought when I made this one, I'd feel less restless and worried about my future self.
It wasn't the wrong choice but I do hope it was the right one.
Written By Juniper
June 28, 2019, 3:35 p.m.(5/14/1011 AR)
Sometimes there are choices to make which have no wrong outcome. Or at least, no wrong outcome in the sense that neither will do harm, and each is equally valid and worthy. Those are the choices which scare me most, the ones which feel as if there's the most at stake. Two separate paths and they were both lined with flowers for me, sketched out in glowing terms... and both so radically different from each other that there's no way to tell if five years from now, ten, twenty years, if I'll regret the choice or not. I've changed so much in the two years I've been here, how can I predict what I'll feel, who I'll be, that far down the path?
Some choices are easily made. I thought when I made this one, I'd feel less restless and worried about my future self.
It wasn't the wrong choice but I do hope it was the right one.
Some choices are easily made. I thought when I made this one, I'd feel less restless and worried about my future self.
It wasn't the wrong choice but I do hope it was the right one.
Written By Juniper
June 22, 2019, 4:42 p.m.(5/2/1011 AR)
Jayus was a frequent presence in our little camp. Our smiths called on him each morning when they fed the forge to work the ore brought up from inside the mountain and I remember, among the elders, there was a great hunger to discuss one's dreams-- especially in the winter when the nights were longest, and there was precious little good to be found during the days. A good dream could be spun into a week's worth of entertainment, every facet gone over, every detail rehashed until it took on a life of its own.
But what I remember most of Jayus is my Father's shadow-animals. My father came up from miner to smith to foreman. His hands were bigger than the sun, or so it seemed to me when I was a little pebble. His palms pure horn, so calloused there was little skin left, and every finger thick and strong as the trunk of a tree.
Block hands, ham hands. Strong but looking at them, you'd never think them deft. My mother's hands were strong too but looked so much more clever, with long lightly calloused fingers, and palms that could be tender, though she was of a height with my father.
Yet, it was Da who'd chase flights of fancy and let inspiration take him. Somehow, in the long dark nights, beside the fire, he could shape his hands to throw shadows on the wall into moving shapes that captured fantastic things. Birds and bears and fish, and more wondrous creatures too, like dwarves and dragons and unicorns. And he'd do their voices, speaking for all of them, weaving stories out of nothing but his broken smith hands and the spark of creativity granted by Jayus himself.
I learned to love Jayus early, for it was the god Da would always credit when I asked him how he'd learn to do it all (away from my mother's hearing, for she venerates the spirits still). He's up there still, weaving wonders out of firelight and shadow now for his grandchildren, and Jayus is with him. It makes me smile to know it. Something as eternal as the mountain itself.
But what I remember most of Jayus is my Father's shadow-animals. My father came up from miner to smith to foreman. His hands were bigger than the sun, or so it seemed to me when I was a little pebble. His palms pure horn, so calloused there was little skin left, and every finger thick and strong as the trunk of a tree.
Block hands, ham hands. Strong but looking at them, you'd never think them deft. My mother's hands were strong too but looked so much more clever, with long lightly calloused fingers, and palms that could be tender, though she was of a height with my father.
Yet, it was Da who'd chase flights of fancy and let inspiration take him. Somehow, in the long dark nights, beside the fire, he could shape his hands to throw shadows on the wall into moving shapes that captured fantastic things. Birds and bears and fish, and more wondrous creatures too, like dwarves and dragons and unicorns. And he'd do their voices, speaking for all of them, weaving stories out of nothing but his broken smith hands and the spark of creativity granted by Jayus himself.
I learned to love Jayus early, for it was the god Da would always credit when I asked him how he'd learn to do it all (away from my mother's hearing, for she venerates the spirits still). He's up there still, weaving wonders out of firelight and shadow now for his grandchildren, and Jayus is with him. It makes me smile to know it. Something as eternal as the mountain itself.
Written By Juniper
June 18, 2019, 4:43 p.m.(4/22/1011 AR)
We have no oceans in the mountains, nor did we plant very many crops in need of rain, but Mangata touched our lives all the same. We enjoyed her extremes: the howling storms, come winter time, and in summer the beers and whiskeys which allowed tired bodies to clap and dance and sing. My father'd say when the winds rose up, the keening they made through the trees was her voice. I was so young then, that's what I remember best of her (since I only had a sip of beer or whiskey now and then on special occasions). Her voice.
Those storms were dreadful things, leaving our little camp buried under snow, and I couldn't understand why a goddess would put our lives at risk until Da told me once that she wasn't looking specifically to hurt us, when they'd come down on the camp. Winter means storms, and they're our reminder that the Dream, the world, is bigger than us. It's not ours, we just live here, and she's not just our goddess, she's a deity of the whole Dream, which means land and sky and all the things that live in them, not just people alone.
More importantly, when the wind rises, they remind sometimes all you can do is huddle together. Sometimes, all you can do is remember that no wind lasts forever and when the keening stops, the sky left behind is blue like a promise. There's an end to every storm.
My father's advice boiled down to a very important fact: it's good to remember we're small sometimes, so we don't get too big for our britches.
Those storms were dreadful things, leaving our little camp buried under snow, and I couldn't understand why a goddess would put our lives at risk until Da told me once that she wasn't looking specifically to hurt us, when they'd come down on the camp. Winter means storms, and they're our reminder that the Dream, the world, is bigger than us. It's not ours, we just live here, and she's not just our goddess, she's a deity of the whole Dream, which means land and sky and all the things that live in them, not just people alone.
More importantly, when the wind rises, they remind sometimes all you can do is huddle together. Sometimes, all you can do is remember that no wind lasts forever and when the keening stops, the sky left behind is blue like a promise. There's an end to every storm.
My father's advice boiled down to a very important fact: it's good to remember we're small sometimes, so we don't get too big for our britches.
Written By Juniper
June 14, 2019, 6:09 p.m.(4/14/1011 AR)
I will never be a proper scholar. I lead with heart, not head, and when I sound confident and knowledgeable, it comes from intuition rather than intelligence. Those who are capable of digesting information, of analyzing it, of understanding through reason and study...
They impress me so much. Vellichor hasn't blessed me but I have all of the admiration in the world for those he does favour. My blessing comes from being close to those with such abilities.
They impress me so much. Vellichor hasn't blessed me but I have all of the admiration in the world for those he does favour. My blessing comes from being close to those with such abilities.
Please note that the scholars may take some time preparing your journal for others to read.