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Sun, Jun 29--A talk with Slug, who keeps impressing me with bits of wisdom and mirth
I swung by the farmhouse to drop of one of those solar/battery/crank/plug-in combination spotlight/floodlight/flashlight/alarm/radio/weatheralert/dry storage survival radios. I grabbed it on a whim at WalMart, and it ended up being a bit of a piece of crap--hard to tune, a little finicky, and the speakers are shit, but it does get the job done. Slug came down from the second floor, chugged a Coke, and that got me inspired to remold the can into a parabolic-style dish. A little Matter and Forces magic, used coincidentally, and with the end result looking like shit instead of as good as I could have made it look, and presto. Much better reception when I put it on the antenna.
We chatted a bit. I mentioned the Hermitage and he suggested not talking about it in a quasi-public place like the Farmhouse. Dirk doesn't want people to know it exists, and I'd thought he was only concerned about people knowing its location. My bad. Slug then made a pretty wise comment: "People don't look for something that they don't know about. People don't try to pry secrets out of you if they don't know you have them." True enough. I was actually considering, since I had access to the caern now, revealing that I was a world warper to the sept. Then I heard through the grapevine that Jacinta has opened up caern access to kin in general, not just me. I wonder.... Is she covering for me being there? Iiiiinteresting. And perhaps telling as to how desperate the sept is right now.
The rest of the conversation with Slug was relatively uninteresting in the grand scheme of things. Theories and speculation as to what the enemy is doing in Saint Claire, how they might go after the caern, etc. (It's unfortunate that the garou are going to have to divide their forces between the umbra and the realm if they need to defend the caern. And Slug estimates there's about 20 BSD, 60-70 fomori, and 10-20 BSD kin in the city. Unknown numbers of banes, but he thinks the riots and chaos is Beast of War's doing, which will help feed the banes.
Things are really not looking good for the garou at this point.
Slug asked me, next time I was at the Hermitage, to keep an eye out for anything that sounded like it might heal scars or massive injuries. Specifically, he wants to de-scar himself and recover his missing eye. He's afraid another serious injury might leave him blind, and he doesn't give a damn about honor associated with big scars. If I were in his shoes, I'd have the same mindset. Unfortunately, I doubt he'll get lucky. If there were an easy solution to fixing nasty scars that even a garou couldn't heal, I suspect mouse would have gone that route rather than disappearing into the Cyberrealm for umpteen months. Besides, my next outing to the Hermitage is to skim for any Mage-related books that need to be spirited away. Poof.
He mentioned he gave Emma the bulletproof vest and that she'd been thankful to get it. He said he didn't check to see if she wore it because he didn't lift up her shirt. I cracked up. I don't know why, but that mental image and Emma's outrage. Heh. It'd have been briefly funny until she beat Slug's ass. :)
June 29--Follow the stream to unintentional insights
Salem's going to do a Cleansing ritual on the black liquid once I find a willow branch and some pure water that's not been processed. After my chat with Slug, I went out to the woods, Dreamed about willow trees, and located a nice Salix columbiana--a subspecies of the willow tree associated with the Columbia River. That seemed appropriate. For the pure water, I went back to my property and the small stream that runs through it. I figured water from its source would do for pure water. But rather than hike to find the source, which might be miles away, I opted to cheat and use some magic. I took my shoes and socks off and just stood in the stream. (Sorry, downstream, for any foot-related smells/tastes.) The water was shockingly cold, but I could feel a connection to the stream with that tactile immersion. Against my better judgement, I scooped some water up in my hands, brought it to my face, drank of it, and splashed the rest on my face. Refreshing (though I hope I don't get dysentery.) I closed my eyes and, rather than work on extending my senses, I dwelled upon the oneness I shared with the stream. I was part of it and it was part of me. I was in it, and it was in me. I could really /feel/ the waters, both upstream and down, almost as if it were a living thing. I focused on upstream and....
When I use Correspondence magic to scry other places, it's like I'm looking around with my own eyes. This time was different. It was like that limitation had been pushed aside and I could see sooooo much more. Imagine, if you will, going through life trying to see things using blacked out goggles that have straws attached to them in front of your pupils. The only thing you can see is through those tiny drinking straws. It's limited severely, but if that's all you'd known all your life, you'd never know how limited it truly was. And then someone comes along and pulls those goggles off. That. Or imagine looking at a satellite view of Google Maps, but you can zoom out more and more and more and not lose a single pixel of resolution, but you can still take it all in without losing anything. Seeing the things on the map that others simply cannot see without zooming in, panning, and zooming, and panning, and zooming, and panning.
The key is in recognizing The Oneness of places. The underlying, connecting resonances. Not "I want to look over here" and then using your own, existing senses. Eyesight is a hindrance to true sight. Truly seeing. Truly perceiving the world around us.
Once I understood the breakthrough I'd made, I sought out the stream's source and found it nearly instantly. It was no longer a hidden thing. It was merely a part of the stream I was standing in, existing at the same place even though they were 3.67 miles apart (linearly, and 8.94 miles following the creek).
I stayed in the water for some time, enjoying the feel of its coldness, its fluidity, it's movement but it's always-thereness. And I realized I could merely dip a bowl into the stream and what I would come up with would be water taken from the source many miles away. It is all One. And I One with it.
I swung by the farmhouse to drop of one of those solar/battery/crank/plug-in combination spotlight/floodlight/flashlight/alarm/radio/weatheralert/dry storage survival radios. I grabbed it on a whim at WalMart, and it ended up being a bit of a piece of crap--hard to tune, a little finicky, and the speakers are shit, but it does get the job done. Slug came down from the second floor, chugged a Coke, and that got me inspired to remold the can into a parabolic-style dish. A little Matter and Forces magic, used coincidentally, and with the end result looking like shit instead of as good as I could have made it look, and presto. Much better reception when I put it on the antenna.
We chatted a bit. I mentioned the Hermitage and he suggested not talking about it in a quasi-public place like the Farmhouse. Dirk doesn't want people to know it exists, and I'd thought he was only concerned about people knowing its location. My bad. Slug then made a pretty wise comment: "People don't look for something that they don't know about. People don't try to pry secrets out of you if they don't know you have them." True enough. I was actually considering, since I had access to the caern now, revealing that I was a world warper to the sept. Then I heard through the grapevine that Jacinta has opened up caern access to kin in general, not just me. I wonder.... Is she covering for me being there? Iiiiinteresting. And perhaps telling as to how desperate the sept is right now.
The rest of the conversation with Slug was relatively uninteresting in the grand scheme of things. Theories and speculation as to what the enemy is doing in Saint Claire, how they might go after the caern, etc. (It's unfortunate that the garou are going to have to divide their forces between the umbra and the realm if they need to defend the caern. And Slug estimates there's about 20 BSD, 60-70 fomori, and 10-20 BSD kin in the city. Unknown numbers of banes, but he thinks the riots and chaos is Beast of War's doing, which will help feed the banes.
Things are really not looking good for the garou at this point.
Slug asked me, next time I was at the Hermitage, to keep an eye out for anything that sounded like it might heal scars or massive injuries. Specifically, he wants to de-scar himself and recover his missing eye. He's afraid another serious injury might leave him blind, and he doesn't give a damn about honor associated with big scars. If I were in his shoes, I'd have the same mindset. Unfortunately, I doubt he'll get lucky. If there were an easy solution to fixing nasty scars that even a garou couldn't heal, I suspect mouse would have gone that route rather than disappearing into the Cyberrealm for umpteen months. Besides, my next outing to the Hermitage is to skim for any Mage-related books that need to be spirited away. Poof.
He mentioned he gave Emma the bulletproof vest and that she'd been thankful to get it. He said he didn't check to see if she wore it because he didn't lift up her shirt. I cracked up. I don't know why, but that mental image and Emma's outrage. Heh. It'd have been briefly funny until she beat Slug's ass. :)
June 29--Follow the stream to unintentional insights
Salem's going to do a Cleansing ritual on the black liquid once I find a willow branch and some pure water that's not been processed. After my chat with Slug, I went out to the woods, Dreamed about willow trees, and located a nice Salix columbiana--a subspecies of the willow tree associated with the Columbia River. That seemed appropriate. For the pure water, I went back to my property and the small stream that runs through it. I figured water from its source would do for pure water. But rather than hike to find the source, which might be miles away, I opted to cheat and use some magic. I took my shoes and socks off and just stood in the stream. (Sorry, downstream, for any foot-related smells/tastes.) The water was shockingly cold, but I could feel a connection to the stream with that tactile immersion. Against my better judgement, I scooped some water up in my hands, brought it to my face, drank of it, and splashed the rest on my face. Refreshing (though I hope I don't get dysentery.) I closed my eyes and, rather than work on extending my senses, I dwelled upon the oneness I shared with the stream. I was part of it and it was part of me. I was in it, and it was in me. I could really /feel/ the waters, both upstream and down, almost as if it were a living thing. I focused on upstream and....
When I use Correspondence magic to scry other places, it's like I'm looking around with my own eyes. This time was different. It was like that limitation had been pushed aside and I could see sooooo much more. Imagine, if you will, going through life trying to see things using blacked out goggles that have straws attached to them in front of your pupils. The only thing you can see is through those tiny drinking straws. It's limited severely, but if that's all you'd known all your life, you'd never know how limited it truly was. And then someone comes along and pulls those goggles off. That. Or imagine looking at a satellite view of Google Maps, but you can zoom out more and more and more and not lose a single pixel of resolution, but you can still take it all in without losing anything. Seeing the things on the map that others simply cannot see without zooming in, panning, and zooming, and panning, and zooming, and panning.
The key is in recognizing The Oneness of places. The underlying, connecting resonances. Not "I want to look over here" and then using your own, existing senses. Eyesight is a hindrance to true sight. Truly seeing. Truly perceiving the world around us.
Once I understood the breakthrough I'd made, I sought out the stream's source and found it nearly instantly. It was no longer a hidden thing. It was merely a part of the stream I was standing in, existing at the same place even though they were 3.67 miles apart (linearly, and 8.94 miles following the creek).
I stayed in the water for some time, enjoying the feel of its coldness, its fluidity, it's movement but it's always-thereness. And I realized I could merely dip a bowl into the stream and what I would come up with would be water taken from the source many miles away. It is all One. And I One with it.
