This one on the Nature of Balance, and the Humanoid Animal

[Shiokara]

Port Hempstead - This one did not approve. Darthirâe tells this one Port Hempstead is a termite hill--natural. Lord Keel tells this one Port Hempstead exists for at least 700 years. He tells this one kobolds come not before the Dark Ages. This one is satisfied. If Port Hempstead termite hill exists for so long, perhaps it has become nature?

[Shiokara]

On the one Darthirâe Zhalberen - This one discusses balance with Darthirâe and learns more of the forest, The Deep, and the Gods. Darthirâe believes in balance, but marks the world unbalanced in the favor of benevolence and chaos.

This one discussed the nature of God with Darthirâe. She believes one cannot start a large wave separate from the Gods. Darthirâe wishes to balance the chaotic gods of the dark elves. This one learns dark elves will refuse Gods like Rofirein, and accept gods like Quarvalsharess. To balance the powers of Quarvalsharess, Darthirâe would enact an orderly malicious God. This creates balance, but this one wonders if the balance is truly tipped as Darthirâe suggests.

This one also learns of Pyrtechon. Pyrtechon is an enemy of the tree, and this one will fight it regardless. Pyrtechon stands outside nature and balance-he and his followers must be stopped.

[Shiokara]

This one meets Pallena, answering the call. While traveling to the crypts of Krandor to "destroy" some undead he speaks with her about the town of Krandor, asking many questions.

What is the human animal's role in nature? Are settlements like Krandor natural if it is human nature to build settlements? He has trouble thinking that way. Human settlements displace nature--they force animals to find new habitats, new resources. They change the natural landscape, undermining and destroying webs of life.

However, is it possible for this unnatural artifice to become natural through time? There is still the question of Port Hempstead, that termite hill (which Pallena said was actually an ant hill). She also said to him, no. Necromancers have raised the dead for years, but they are never natural.

He wonders now: What is nature? Is there a nature that exists pure, outside the perception of the humanoid animal--a true form of the world? Does the humanoid animal construct his own reality based on the information he receives?

If nature exists outside human perception, should we as druids seek to achieve a state of perception that can access this plane, or to shape our world in that world's image?

He has heard these are questions for a high druid. He will keep them to himself a little longer. For now, questions without answers are enough.

[Shiokara]

The self - It has been suggested, not by druids, that he is unnatural for seeking to distance the self in order to find a truer connection to nature. He must consider this. A meeting with a high druid may help him clear his thoughts.

This one has observed much, but he realizes the views of others may be valuable. He will consider a symposium of druids, clerics, and other great minds to discuss the nature of reality and the self.

He met a priestess of Lucinda, Sala Stonehill. Lucinda is of magic. She told him a little of the Al'Noth. The Al'Noth is woven throughout Layonara naturally. She admits that some manipulate the Al'Noth with their spells. Perhaps nature itself is the same. The human animal manipulates it with his hands, yes, but perhaps he also does so with his mind by shaping his own reality. Something for him to think about.

[Shiokara]

While this one maintains his research into the self and the nature of reality it is important he does not disregard the importance of spreading the teachings of the Oak, balance, and nature.

There is much to be done and his own pursuits will mean nothing if the true nature he so longs to see is destroyed.

Balance must be maintained, and those who upset it must be returned to the cycle. Such is the way. Nature is change, ever-present.

Elastic, and her false balance of the flame, is one such creature. She believes that the flame is Power. This is false. Balance exists between all things and within those things as well. Fire may oppose water and create a balance, but the flame is itself a balance between creation and destruction. It can warm one in the cold, or leave one homeless. In the human, if fire is the life the red-girl argues, then water is blood, and the skin is of earth. Wind, finally, gives us breath. If he meets her again, she will know balance.

Affronts to the cycle occur and reoccur. The bandit Sashka and the Sun Kingdom. So many undead. So many constructs. Why?

[Shiokara]

He spoke to Darthirae near the Red Light Caverns. She told him of seers, old users of the Al'Noth who glimpse into the future or see as the Gods see. He does not believe in the future nor has he any wish to imitate the Gods. These are not balanced means of perception, but the argument that one must become an object in order to truly understand it is strong.

Perception is not understanding, though. However, if this idea leads him to stray from balance he will discard it. It is not worth it to upset the natural order of things.

Darthirae suggests the natural action for humans is to expand without limitation and nature will limit them. He believes the human animal is too destructive to expand without limitation. Like the kobolds near the Hempstead fields, if humans continue to expand without considering the consequences, then they, too, will have to be taught balance. Such is the way.

Settling unbalanced nature, killing the oasis animals and his tribe. The expansion of settlements will bring the same.

The desert is always changing its shape, and so must we, but a delicate, ever-shifting balance exists. This is nature.

[Shiokara]

At the Stormcrest Crossroads he spoke to one whose name he did not catch, but who called himself "this many" and gave the sign of druids. It was an impressive conversation. This must be set down in order to stress a few points.

Under the agreement that a tree is not the same because the act of perception is different among individuals, even when one sees as many, it must be said that the thing that stands outside human perception, the true Nature as he calls it, is no longer a tree. This is because words such as tree impose forms on something--it is as though the words themselves are a second means of perception. If something can be named it is defined. That means there exists some energy, which we perceive to be those things.

What causes us, then, to perceive trees? Perhaps it is merely because they were given shape with the word by someone else.
Who first gave that energy shape? It was a question we did not discuss.

Rather we moved to where the energy itself began, but to talk of beginnings and ends is to suggest time is more than just a track of observable change. The energy, then, may have just been.

What does this energy, true Nature, mean for balance?
It means that on that level of energy all things are already everything else. The tree is in the earth and mushrooms and all else is connected. This is supported by the energy being outside of time as it suggests all things are already everything else and there is no change. The cycle of life is merely what we observe on the perceptual level.

Balance, therefore, already exists. Our mission is not to seek or create balance on the level of true energy, but on the level of humanity and creatures. As such expansionist humans are not stopped as a means to preserve balance, but on an observational level to keep them from crushing themselves. This is the wisdom of the great Oak.

[Shiokara]

He has left the island near Hurm with sorrow. The human town, which appeared self-sufficient at first, had actually been taken over by a perversion of natural fungi. It seems the distortion was caused by some ancient growth ritual, but all the connections of why and how were not made before the island had to be rebalanced.

Nonetheless it was interesting for this one to see an organism not wholly of man that was expanding beyond its means.

It is not worth the risk of nature to find explore this further. He left his three samples of fungi in a fire.

[Shiokara]

Looking around at the peacefulness of Corax lake, Zahid sighed. What was the point? Some time ago he had spoken to this many, to Rhizome, about nature, nameless energy, balance, and life. It all existed and still does, in some form, without the help of the Druids.

"What then, is the point?" Zahid mumbled to himself as he circled around the lake, picking some cranberries from a bush and making his way to a small boat tied to the ground.

Rhizome had said the point was to ensure that no life became unbalanced, destroying itself in the process. He used an expanding empire for an example, arguing that once it grew too large people would rise to destroy it either from within or without. He said to prevent that destruction druids spread their wisdom to try to keep any one power from becoming so large that it is a danger for itself, out of care for humans and other creatures.

"Why, though?" Zahid cared for humans and other creatures in ways they, nor himself, could understand, but who could say that what existence that came after would be more or less valuable? Why bother to do anything at all? Nature was on it's course, nameless energy everywhere--who was anyone to change that at the material level?

Zahid paddled across the lake in the boat and took a look around. Surely Rhizome had asked himself these questions, and perhaps he found some peace in this lake. Zahid knew he had to find his own peace, but he was lost. He still felt drawn to nature, and knew why, he could feel life, but what value was it? How could one value what was and is, over what might be? What use was there in protecting anything?

Zahid climbed up the island to one of its rocky precipices and looked down. After a moment he sat and closed his eyes. He would wait at this precipice for, something.

// http://forums.layonara.com/druid-network/243692-lost-corax-lake.html#post1408352

[Shiokara]

The power of I is interesting. Since resolving my conflicts regarding the relationship between the self and the collective I have found that people are much more willing to listen to my thoughts and inquiries.

I is the tool with which the Wisdom of the Oak can be spread. I suppose it stems from the self's want to be connected to another as opposed to receiving information from a transmitter, or relay, as I previously thought.

The collective is not without power, though. In fact, it seems to be directly related to my connection with energy.

[Shiokara]

Ellasia is showing up again. She is very curious. She seems to see something in me, a fire, and while I will not deny the existence of the fire element I should hardly think it is stronger in me than anyone else. Regardless she seems to respect, or tolerate, me among others.

She is again collecting funds for her monastery and the flame. It is likely she tried to take the invisible man's funds, and she did take the true of that little boy by the Stormcrest shack. This cannot be allowed. While begging for coin for food is not foreign to me, to take it by force shows a weakness to one's own desire.

Desire--it seems to be her fuel. Perhaps with the Wisdom of the Oak I can show her the way. I will inform the other leaves if necessary, but for now I just want to talk to her again.

He will show her the folly in only fanning flames.

Fisterion.

[Shiokara]

I heard from some travelers that the Leringard Arms burned down. That's where Tyra was staying with Bella, so I went to check on the rumors. The place stinks like burnt wood and bodies. I have heard nothing from anyone I know, only some rumors from a stranger who stood at the fire with me.

To change is nature, but it is human to feel pain in moments of uncertainty. Although I'm sure Tyra and the thin one are fine, I cannot help but stick around these steaming ruins.

The stranger and I connected over the fire. He said he had played creatures with the people in the next building over, also destroyed. There were children there, he said.

Change may be the equivalent to nature, but the I within myself seizes whenever I look where the Arms once stood.

What can be reborn from fire? Anything is possible I suppose, but wholesale destruction is hard to bear.

[Shiokara]

Fussing with the jukebox today for something cheering brought me to meet the owner of the Twin Dragon Inn, Tyrian. She was very kind and showed me around the place, even giving me some food and drink to sort to those who lost their homes in the fire. Which reminds me, I suppose I should write that I have decided to stay in Leringard while looking for Tyra and Bella. These people need help, and while it may not be the woods, desert, or plains, there are still living people here. They are just as connected at the same base level of nameless energy as everything else, are they not? Part of the balance as it were.

Some may say they are druids of the forest, ocean, desert, tundra, cave--wherever. I am a druid of life; of energy.

[Shiokara]

There was a man working on the estimates to rebuild the inn that burned down today. He finally got it posted late at night. I remember because I was playing a game of cards with Kendrix when he tacked it on a bulletin board. When I looked at the figures, I felt so inadequate because the work and true required far exceeded anything I could gather. Tyrian is trusting me to help, though, and there are others. If I am to recognize all life as being connected I cannot expect to take the entire burden alone.

So what is ten thousand true and some tools? True is worthless if it is not spent. The whole human idea of economy falls apart without the cost of needs.

Ten thousand true. I realize once I give it up that I cannot choose what it goes towards, that is for those in charge. Still.

Zahid looks at the bulletin board from the table he's writing from.

10,000 true -- Restitution to Families of Deceased

He thinks a moment, then writes:

One, this one, can only hope it is enough.

[Shiokara]

Tsunamis, Palden Lake, the refugees of the arms. There is so much. This one wonders if there is enough in I to contain it all. Nature is change, it is true, and destruction is change. But there is just so much.

At least I can still manage a smile. Acacea granted me that. Perhaps her horse has it right. It would be tempting, perhaps, to be a badger for a while, and to cease being Zahid. This one. I.

[Shiokara]

The more I become myself instead of this one, the more I realize that I have no place in society. It is hard to find those who care for ideas as much as they do actions--hard to find those who will consider the ripples their actions may create before they do them.

I once had someone tell me that I am Elven in my beliefs. I have also heard that it may take Elves decades to make a decision. I wonder if it is because at that time they are sure the one they take is the right one.

It seems so clear to me--that all things are connected. It is abstract by it's very nature, yes, but it's the truth. Why doesn't anyone else seem to get it, or if they do, why don't they care?

I am ready for death when it comes. I am at peace.

[Shiokara]

Zahid looks out on the edge of here, but not here, and finds himself constantly wondering where there is, or where he is, really; yet he also doesn't care at all, walking along the great, big, wet forest. Wet, he thought it strange when she first told him about it, but it certainly was. To think that this was all desert.

Zahid shook his head. He would need to focus here, and climb. He wanted to see that cave again, with all those glyphs and markings. What were they? Like tattoos they were magic. Who knew what they all meant? With some amount of effort he scrambled his way from ledge to ledge, more easily than last time. What was he saying?

That's right. He wasn't saying at all, was he? What was he thinking? It was easy to lose yourself in this place. There was the cave. The Laughing Cave or the Whispering Hollows, he wasn't sure which name he liked better. Neither of them seemed to fit what he found in the cave. He wanted to age there like the wind. Coming in and out, and out to where?

Sometimes when he thought of a particularly good question, he would ask the atmosphere, and it kept even stiller then, because it was following him. It never answered, but it was comforting in a way, just to have it there with him, even if it was watching his every move.

If he did leave this place, he thought, he should come back here if he could choose the place of his dying. He could be happy, then, and perhaps forget that he was ever alive in the first place. How nice.

His stomach growled. It warned him that he was still alive. Zahid took a little water from his canteen, but no food. It was not necessary just yet. He lay down, here but not here, closed his eyes, and listened.

[Shiokara]

Today, I learned of her death. She who showed me "here but not here". The loss reminds me how easy it is to become only this one--a container or instrument through which the possibilities of the world funnel. What remains of her after she is dead? What will remain of me? If it is nothing, then why not live on as nothing now? Why manifest as I separate from he and she and everyone else? And why do they manifest?

If all is possibility, why is anything? Perhaps, if all is possibility, it is possible to leave something behind. What is this something if not language--that the old winds of the glowing caves may bring her song and secret to all else that lives. Perhaps then we can all feel her youth in us, a youth brought on by the wisdom of old age: Self-actualization.

And in her living song her youth lives on eternal. The feet of her lyric will run well after those small sooty feet have stopped, and perhaps even mine own feet.

How will Zahid leave his mark? How will this one say he was, when all was wrought, separate from others? What will his brightness be for generations to come?

Nothing if the Horn kingdom has anything to say about it. "Sit in silence, ye druid, and watch your friends ne'er return." What will it be like to be the last leaf left on a dying tree in winter?

//Rest in peace, Acacea.

[Shiokara]

Zahid writes while sitting at the Center campfire.

Looking out at all the dark it is no wonder that men have compared separate events in the memory to different campfires in the dark.

And perhaps that is true of life. We move from fire to fire by stumbling through the dark in between, cursing like washed-out barmaids and stubbing our toes.

Yet I need only step into darkness in order to see the shapes it hides.

Darkness. Yes, nature can remove as well as it can move. The mushrooms will do the work the scavengers left from the predator's kill. But what would an old man who sits at campfires know about the goings on of the invisible night around him.

If the lights are memories, then we druids are currently blinded by them and cannot see the reality in the darkness. One can only hope that we soon take a step.

Zahid closes the book and casts an enchantment on the fire to make it burn a little warmer, and perhaps a little brighter.