*I've decided to recount this lesson on a holochron because of its many layered nature*
~I entered the cave through its all but hidden opening between folded spines of sandstone and was struck again by the sweep of its entry cavern, the walls and vaulted ceiling made up mostly of tumbled boulders but with a much more ancient broken stone structure or framework randomly exposed. I felt very balanced at the moment and ready for whatever the cave might have in store for me...or so I thought. Only moments after entering--the interior light a soft golden-cream and the smell of moist shadows calling me into the cavernous depths--the walls began to blur and fade...until I was standing on a barren plain I knew well, shielding my eyes from the remorseless sun beating down upon this furnace pan, myself and Master Jinn.
~For four days we'd traveled on foot across this hell, unendingly flat and cracked. Master Jinn had told me that it would be a needed teaching, for me to learn survival skills augmented by my connection with the Force. Now his words of years ago came back to me full force: "The life of a Jedi--or in your case Force Sensitve, is not an easy one. Never fool yourself about that." We had taken no food and only a small amount of water each. We walked until the hottest part of the day, when we each propped our robes up with thin, telescoping rods to make the crudest of shelters from the sun's direct rays. My master taught me how to walk lightly without droping my entire weight onto the burning surface; to breath with a pause that allowed my breath to cool slightly before taking it into my lungs; to control the release of sweat from my body, loosing just enough to cool the skin; to keep moving through the many phases of exhaustion, what each felt like and its effects on my body, mind and spirit. it was now the time of day when we normally rested, but today Master Jinn informed me that we'd keep moving. We did, through the worst of the soaring temperatures, the blessed sunset, twilight and limbo of the long night. One agonizing step into the next, breathing the pain away, breathing strength into exhaustion, breathing through split and bleeding lips. The sun rose on the fifth day and still we marched, Master Jinn intermittently muttering to himself. Peering at him through my puffy eyes, he seemed to be in his own daze; his eyes glazed and distant, his jaw slightly slack, his right hand twitching uncharacteristically.
"Padawan, stop your incessant complaining," he muttered loudly enough for me to hear, although I couldn't say for certain that he was actually addressing me. Especially as I hadn't been able to speak for the last two days. A few more steps and he mumbled something els and I saw him glance at me in a furtive, suspicious way. I was becoming very uncomfortable by the feelings emminating from him.
"You've always been weak..." I then heard. "You'll fall...are falling...should end this now..." and I suddenly knew what that twitching hand meant. In that instant of knowing, the green blade of my master's lightsaber sprang into his hand and I had less than a heartbeat to bring my own into my hand and block the descending blade. The force of that strike, physical and mental, sent me reeling. I tried to croak out words but nothing escaped my parched throat.
"Groveling won't save you, Dark One!" I heard above me and rolled from beneath a second strike. My master had lost his senses somewhere in this inferno, the lesson gone horribly wrong.
He fought me then, really fought. Nothing like our practice of years together. I would never strike at my master, even if that was an option; it took all of my abilities simply to counter, block, redirect and avoid his much stronger and experienced cuts. I tried calling out to him, finding my rough voice in desperation, but there was a wild look in his eyes and my words fell on ears that could not hear them. i was both terrified and grieved as I scrambled across the burning ground, thinking furiously how I could disarm him, subdue him, bind him long enough to heal him. Then a Force Push sent me tumbling head over heels, my lightsaber flying from my hand, pale dust filling my eyes and nostrils as I landed sprawled on my face. with the greatest effort, I pulled myself onto one knee, got one foot under me...and he was bearing down upon me, stalking forward with no hint of recognition or remorse.
"I *will* kill you," he said in a voice I'd never heard, absolute and merciless. I knew then that the unthinkable had occurred: Master Qui-gon Jinn had fallen into darkness through this insane, blistering landscape. I could not save him, heal him or defeat him. Nor did I care, at that instant, to attempt to save myself. My friend and mentor was gone and there was little point to anything now...I hung my head, awaiting the stroke that would free me from the pain in both body and soul.
"Fight me!" I heard him hiss. "Get up and fight me, you worthless cur!" I felt a tear track through the dirt on my cheek.
"I yield," I was able to squeak out.
"There is no yielding, no whimpering, no self-pity. Now get up and fight or so help me I'll cut you apart piece by piece!" At that, he slashed my left forearm, a shallow cut instantly cauterized but stingingly painful and galvanizing me to action. In that moment, I saw only this dark force before my swimming vision and my lightsaber had flown back into my hand. I was on my feet and we were dueling again, lightsabers and Force channeling. All that I was, all that I had left and could tap into was pouring through me. I did not fight from emotion, from any need even to destroy this thing attacking me, but from the Living Force singing inside of me that all life is precious and I must live completely until the instant my essence is returned to its source. That is the way of things. In the end, of course, I was no match for Master Jinn. Instead of a Force Push, he used the same energy to toss me into the air and then slam me down so that the wind was knocked out of me; my lightsaber streaked from my loosened grip into his waiting left hand. He clipped it to his belt.
~I struggled onto my knees, unable to stand or speak, barely able to breath. Inside thought, I had crossed some line to understanding the fullness of myself and my connection to the Force. I was not affraid to die, nor did I secretly seek it as an escape. I felt more centered and balanced than I ever had. It wasn't for me to kill or save anyone; it wasn't a horrible tragedy or travesty; it wasn't right or wrong what was happening. It was simply happening. We'd fought so long that the sun had slipped beyond the horizon, the sky now magenta clouds fading into descending indigo. I don't think I'd ever seen anything quite so beautiful.
~I felt the heat and vibration of my master's blade close to my neck and let my eyes travel to his face. I let go of him as well, coming fully into my own center. No anger, no betrayal, no sadness, no fear...just a fullness, a completeness of myself in this moment of all life. Our eyes locked and I silently communicated all of this to him, felt my aura swell and radiate outward.
"I could take your head right now," he said softly, "but I could never take your spirit. That...is what we really came here for you to learn, my Padawan." His voice was again the one I knew so well, his face free of its demented mask. Instantly the green light of his saber was gone and a few stars appeared beyond his head in the gathering dusk. "Embrace this feeling. Live it in every breath and know it without doubt in every fiber of your being. Be it as you pass throough this life; be it with or without a teacher; be it when you think that all is lost, corrupted and you wander blind. it is the Living Force fully awakened in you. I had to bring you here, wear you down to breaking because some Padawan are extremely stubborn."
~I saw the ghost of a smile cross his parched lips as he drew back his left sleeve, showing me a long scar much like mine would become. "Now," he said matter-of-factly, falling to his knees and resting his weight on his hands on his thighs, "we need to rest. I am glad it didn't take you longer because I'm exhausted." He pulled a beacon emitter from his robes and activated it. "Our transport will be here shortly...let's take a look at that arm."
~Feelings of anger, confusion, betrayal and distrust roiled then through me...but seemed to find nowhere to attach themselves. They were merely shadow forms next to this centered self I felt. I watched them churn inside me for a bit, almost like an outside observer, until they simply dissipated from lack of interest on my part. I lay back on the cooling ground, watching the gathering stars overhead as though they were stars in my own eyes, without separation.
~The cave reappeared and I stumbled from it. Still a powerful lesson after all this time...but why had I revisited it? My answer was immediate. An irritating mechanical whine filled the air and, gazing down the long dry valley falling away from the cave's hillside, I spotted the plume of dust thrown into the air behind the dirtbike racing in my direction. There was power and arrogance in that flying dust, the sharp scream of that engine that shattered the surrounding stillness. This is why, I now understood. I hoped I'd learned the lesson well....
to continue...
~I entered the cave through its all but hidden opening between folded spines of sandstone and was struck again by the sweep of its entry cavern, the walls and vaulted ceiling made up mostly of tumbled boulders but with a much more ancient broken stone structure or framework randomly exposed. I felt very balanced at the moment and ready for whatever the cave might have in store for me...or so I thought. Only moments after entering--the interior light a soft golden-cream and the smell of moist shadows calling me into the cavernous depths--the walls began to blur and fade...until I was standing on a barren plain I knew well, shielding my eyes from the remorseless sun beating down upon this furnace pan, myself and Master Jinn.
~For four days we'd traveled on foot across this hell, unendingly flat and cracked. Master Jinn had told me that it would be a needed teaching, for me to learn survival skills augmented by my connection with the Force. Now his words of years ago came back to me full force: "The life of a Jedi--or in your case Force Sensitve, is not an easy one. Never fool yourself about that." We had taken no food and only a small amount of water each. We walked until the hottest part of the day, when we each propped our robes up with thin, telescoping rods to make the crudest of shelters from the sun's direct rays. My master taught me how to walk lightly without droping my entire weight onto the burning surface; to breath with a pause that allowed my breath to cool slightly before taking it into my lungs; to control the release of sweat from my body, loosing just enough to cool the skin; to keep moving through the many phases of exhaustion, what each felt like and its effects on my body, mind and spirit. it was now the time of day when we normally rested, but today Master Jinn informed me that we'd keep moving. We did, through the worst of the soaring temperatures, the blessed sunset, twilight and limbo of the long night. One agonizing step into the next, breathing the pain away, breathing strength into exhaustion, breathing through split and bleeding lips. The sun rose on the fifth day and still we marched, Master Jinn intermittently muttering to himself. Peering at him through my puffy eyes, he seemed to be in his own daze; his eyes glazed and distant, his jaw slightly slack, his right hand twitching uncharacteristically.
"Padawan, stop your incessant complaining," he muttered loudly enough for me to hear, although I couldn't say for certain that he was actually addressing me. Especially as I hadn't been able to speak for the last two days. A few more steps and he mumbled something els and I saw him glance at me in a furtive, suspicious way. I was becoming very uncomfortable by the feelings emminating from him.
"You've always been weak..." I then heard. "You'll fall...are falling...should end this now..." and I suddenly knew what that twitching hand meant. In that instant of knowing, the green blade of my master's lightsaber sprang into his hand and I had less than a heartbeat to bring my own into my hand and block the descending blade. The force of that strike, physical and mental, sent me reeling. I tried to croak out words but nothing escaped my parched throat.
"Groveling won't save you, Dark One!" I heard above me and rolled from beneath a second strike. My master had lost his senses somewhere in this inferno, the lesson gone horribly wrong.
He fought me then, really fought. Nothing like our practice of years together. I would never strike at my master, even if that was an option; it took all of my abilities simply to counter, block, redirect and avoid his much stronger and experienced cuts. I tried calling out to him, finding my rough voice in desperation, but there was a wild look in his eyes and my words fell on ears that could not hear them. i was both terrified and grieved as I scrambled across the burning ground, thinking furiously how I could disarm him, subdue him, bind him long enough to heal him. Then a Force Push sent me tumbling head over heels, my lightsaber flying from my hand, pale dust filling my eyes and nostrils as I landed sprawled on my face. with the greatest effort, I pulled myself onto one knee, got one foot under me...and he was bearing down upon me, stalking forward with no hint of recognition or remorse.
"I *will* kill you," he said in a voice I'd never heard, absolute and merciless. I knew then that the unthinkable had occurred: Master Qui-gon Jinn had fallen into darkness through this insane, blistering landscape. I could not save him, heal him or defeat him. Nor did I care, at that instant, to attempt to save myself. My friend and mentor was gone and there was little point to anything now...I hung my head, awaiting the stroke that would free me from the pain in both body and soul.
"Fight me!" I heard him hiss. "Get up and fight me, you worthless cur!" I felt a tear track through the dirt on my cheek.
"I yield," I was able to squeak out.
"There is no yielding, no whimpering, no self-pity. Now get up and fight or so help me I'll cut you apart piece by piece!" At that, he slashed my left forearm, a shallow cut instantly cauterized but stingingly painful and galvanizing me to action. In that moment, I saw only this dark force before my swimming vision and my lightsaber had flown back into my hand. I was on my feet and we were dueling again, lightsabers and Force channeling. All that I was, all that I had left and could tap into was pouring through me. I did not fight from emotion, from any need even to destroy this thing attacking me, but from the Living Force singing inside of me that all life is precious and I must live completely until the instant my essence is returned to its source. That is the way of things. In the end, of course, I was no match for Master Jinn. Instead of a Force Push, he used the same energy to toss me into the air and then slam me down so that the wind was knocked out of me; my lightsaber streaked from my loosened grip into his waiting left hand. He clipped it to his belt.
~I struggled onto my knees, unable to stand or speak, barely able to breath. Inside thought, I had crossed some line to understanding the fullness of myself and my connection to the Force. I was not affraid to die, nor did I secretly seek it as an escape. I felt more centered and balanced than I ever had. It wasn't for me to kill or save anyone; it wasn't a horrible tragedy or travesty; it wasn't right or wrong what was happening. It was simply happening. We'd fought so long that the sun had slipped beyond the horizon, the sky now magenta clouds fading into descending indigo. I don't think I'd ever seen anything quite so beautiful.
~I felt the heat and vibration of my master's blade close to my neck and let my eyes travel to his face. I let go of him as well, coming fully into my own center. No anger, no betrayal, no sadness, no fear...just a fullness, a completeness of myself in this moment of all life. Our eyes locked and I silently communicated all of this to him, felt my aura swell and radiate outward.
"I could take your head right now," he said softly, "but I could never take your spirit. That...is what we really came here for you to learn, my Padawan." His voice was again the one I knew so well, his face free of its demented mask. Instantly the green light of his saber was gone and a few stars appeared beyond his head in the gathering dusk. "Embrace this feeling. Live it in every breath and know it without doubt in every fiber of your being. Be it as you pass throough this life; be it with or without a teacher; be it when you think that all is lost, corrupted and you wander blind. it is the Living Force fully awakened in you. I had to bring you here, wear you down to breaking because some Padawan are extremely stubborn."
~I saw the ghost of a smile cross his parched lips as he drew back his left sleeve, showing me a long scar much like mine would become. "Now," he said matter-of-factly, falling to his knees and resting his weight on his hands on his thighs, "we need to rest. I am glad it didn't take you longer because I'm exhausted." He pulled a beacon emitter from his robes and activated it. "Our transport will be here shortly...let's take a look at that arm."
~Feelings of anger, confusion, betrayal and distrust roiled then through me...but seemed to find nowhere to attach themselves. They were merely shadow forms next to this centered self I felt. I watched them churn inside me for a bit, almost like an outside observer, until they simply dissipated from lack of interest on my part. I lay back on the cooling ground, watching the gathering stars overhead as though they were stars in my own eyes, without separation.
~The cave reappeared and I stumbled from it. Still a powerful lesson after all this time...but why had I revisited it? My answer was immediate. An irritating mechanical whine filled the air and, gazing down the long dry valley falling away from the cave's hillside, I spotted the plume of dust thrown into the air behind the dirtbike racing in my direction. There was power and arrogance in that flying dust, the sharp scream of that engine that shattered the surrounding stillness. This is why, I now understood. I hoped I'd learned the lesson well....
to continue...
posted by:
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Colorado
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Re: the holochron of Darth Vex
Sat, April 8, 2006 - 8:10 AM~I folded my robe and laid it on the cushion where I liked to sit and 'listen' to the Force, then walked slowly down the path to the open space below my home; the dirt road curved below even this place, heading parallel to the ridgeback wherein hid the Cave and off to an adjacent valley. Lack of road was no deterrent for the cyclist, however, as he shot off the marked track and followed the path up the slope to where I stood quietly awaiting him. Without pause, he flew from the bike in an aerial summersault, machine skidding off on its side and red lightsaber streaking to life in the bright morning. Then we were duelling, he trying to get a sense of my strengths and weaknesses, while I was more interested in simply getting a sense of *him* through the Force, sensing more confusion and anger than true malevolence. Red and teal clashed against one another, thrumming and hissing as birds in the scattered trees took flight and the sun rose to full morning unnoticed by the two of us.
~He was so much younger than I--certainly the more skilled combatant--although my Force powers were more developed than his, allowing me to sheath myself in a protective aura. He relied more on the brute strength of youth, speed and the general driving hatred of a Sith against a seeming Jedi. So, to break through that particular ingrained conditioning, when our blades locked closely I whispered: "I am not a Jedi". He immediately broke off from me and although his strokes did not falter, I sensed the fluctuation of doubt inside of him, a tremor of uncertainty. Then I began to perceive the softest, sweet sounds swirling through and around him...the song of his personal and unique connection with the Force...however choked, clouded and muted by this dampening blanket of powerful, heavy emotions he'd thrown over it. What I could catch of it was lovely...and an image...a dark haired woman with raw blue eyes standing at a weathered gate, face tear streaked, holding onto three young children at her long skirt.
"Who is Bridget?" I asked into the fray.
~The young man's black hair was plastered to his forehead with his efforts and now his blue eyes widened briefly, only to close down instantly into a glare of ferocity as if I'd touched something precious to him. He attacked with new vigor, but it was short lived as if the memory of this woman was slowly turning his rage into a suffocating sorrow. I took that moment to step back from him, my teal blade vanishing into the hilt of my lightsaber. I exhaled deeply, let the Force flood through me and took up the stance of complete openness and allowing that I had learned with Master Jinn's blade at my throat, the power of my joyous spirit swelling into the will of the Living Force.
"Who is Bridget?" I asked once more, quietly and calmly.
~I could sense the confusion stronger than ever in this young man. His inner struggle was intense as he seemed to be fighting his own impulse to move to attack me, to cut me down, his saber arm raising and then lowering a number of times before he settled on a guarding stance. His blade held before him, he paced back and forth in front of me like a caged tiger on the verge of springing.
"How can you know that?" he barked at me.
~Then I knew. "Ah, Bridget is your mother...and you were parted from her...by..." I was feeling my way along his storyline through the Force.
"The Sith! I was strong in the Force and they were hunting on distant planets for any adepts. I was lucky! I would have withered on this forgotten world, but the Sith showed me how to use my unique abilities to hunt other adepts and bring them to the Sith. I can follow lineage through time and space to a source...as you also seem to have this gift..."
"Not so unique," I replied, "one of the many aspects of the Force avaliable to most sensitives who allow themselves to be moved more by the Force than their own--or their master's--will. It actually seems to occur quite naturally and easily the more one opens, accepts and allows this guidance."
"No, it took years of severe training for the Sith to hone this skill in me and others." He seemed to be considering something, possibly recalling his 'education' under his Sith masters.
"I would suggest that the years of severity were more about binding you to their ideology than enhancing your natural gift. If anything, their narrow, dark view has probably limited you skill..."
~He was glaring again, leaving me to wonder in passing if he'd even smiled in years. Then he half asked, half demanded: "You say you are no Jedi, yet you are trained in many of their ways..?"
"My late master was a Jedi, found me here as the Sith found you, but he was more interested in my full growth in the Living Force than in adhering to strickly to any set doctrine. I can sense these lines of lives because I'm not afraid of letting go of 'myself', of surrendering myself to the Living Force. Just as I am not afraid of surrendering myself to you at this moment..."
"I should cut you down!"
"After training so long and painfully to locate Force adepts?"
"For the Sith!"
"Who, along with the Jedi Order, are presently no more than a spark in a very vast universe. There is only you and I and this moment"
To continue... -
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Re: the holochron of Darth Vex
Sat, April 8, 2006 - 3:01 PMOk, you've got me glued to my computer screen! :) -
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Re: the holochron of Darth Vex
Wed, July 12, 2006 - 7:53 AM~The muscles around his eyes and jaw tightened enough to indicate to me that he was calculating a shifted perspective. "I could," he began slowly, "bend and bind you to my will. There is that about you that knows of the Dark Side...I can feel it so don't try to deny the truth."
~I gave a slight bow of my head. "I lived most of my early years in that darkness, yes; I came to choose a different path."
~He slashed crimson against teal as if testing my resolve. "I can make you my apprentice; there is much power in you."
"Through me," I countered with a wry smile. "It's only on loan."
"I can teach you to tap into the fullness of the Dark Side, to retain and manipulate that power for yourself. Or are you so content in your quiet contemplation, alone here in your stone hovel?"
~Rembering Master Jinn's lesson in the desert, I allowed my blade to retract and stood with arms gently by my sides, opening myself to the wholeness of the Force. Darth Vex tossed his black hair as if barely able to contain the wildness inside himself. He was almost 'sniffing' the energy tides between us.
"The full power of the 'Dark Side' is merely one filtering device, as is a strict adhearance to only the 'Light Side'. Fullness and wholeness can only be known by embracing the totality of the Living Force--by allowing it to embrace you--to which the entire Dark Side is a lesser echo."
~I could feel my connection to the Living Force swelling, passing through me in a hightened field flowing seamlessly in and out of my physical form. This energetic sensory field encompassed Vex, the sprawling desert, the roots of the continents and rolling oceans; this spinning sphere, its solar mates and out into the life spangled frozen spaces of the universe. Then deeper, below and beyond the Seen to the sublime structure of all things. To the multitudinous pulses that made up the Living Force. I let my eyelids slide shut, 'seeing' Vex through the Force and the raging, conflictive tumult that made him up. Then, again on the edge of perception, that sweet soft glow that I now saw not only emmanated from him, but was connected to me as well. Neither of us was here to die today...we had a karmic connection through the Force. Of it's nature only the ever fluxing moment would reveal...
~He could freely strike me down at any instant, yet he hesitated, seeming to sense an unknown that made him wary.
"I can kill you!" he asserted like an angry child.
"And I will only become that much more powerful in the Force," I replied calmly.
"...or I can let you remain in your pathetic life here in this empty place," he snorted, retracting his own fiery blade.
~The barest smile pulled at my lips as my eyelids slid open. "Then why have you come to this 'empty place'? Surely there's nothing here of advantage to such a powerful Sith Lord..."
~The briefest flicking of his eyes in the direction of the Cave told me everything.
"So you, too, were called here."
"It's powerful in the Dark Side."
"It's a power spot of the Force, yes. What you take in with you will greatly determine the outcome...but the Cave has it's own impartial lessons to impart, it's own unknowns to play upon you. If you allow your ego to lead the way, well, the lessons could be much more than you bargained for."
~In one graceful, fluid motion, Vex shrugged out of his leather jacket and all but through it in my face. "Here, 'Jedi'," he sneered, "why don't you clean that up and put it in your hovel like a good servant while your master takes from this Cave what he will."
"By all means. Shall I also prepare a meal for you? Tea? Bandages? A recovery spot in a nice quiet corner of...my hovel?"
~Now it was his turn to have one corner of his mouth twich momentarily in the shadow of a smile. Ah, I thought, if even an echo of humor remained within this young man than there was still a being in there not wholly consumed by the numbing, cold darkness. That sweet, soft thread...
~Without another word, with all the confidence of youth, power and promise, Darth Vex turned on his heel and strode bodly up the narrow path toward the Cave of the Force...
to continue... -
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Re: the holochron of Darth Vex
Wed, July 12, 2006 - 9:44 AMCOOL! :)
I think you are vexing Darth Vex. ;)
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