Meditation
in the Horned Waterfall
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As
every year, I was back in this charming place where I had known my strongest
experiences of meditation.
The
Horned Waterfall I had arrived there almost accidentally. Naturally I
knew the existence of it as everybody on Mentha, but as all its inhabitants
I had forgotten it. I had learnt the existence of it and the location
the South of Ered Boryn during my small childhood when my grandmother
told me Isthil's legend.
During
my twentieth year, I decided to go through this continent which had seen
me being born, to learn more about my profession and life before I fix
in a harbour city to exercise my profession of naval carpenter. During
one year, I had decide to let my feet to go where they would lead me.
It was a pure fate or my subconscious it had kept a burning desire to
discover this legendary place, two weeks after my departure, I arrived
in this magic place, while, I known later, it is necessary not far from
the double of time since the city of Hashbend on the coast is from the
rich valley of Lokh (where I came from) to reach there.
I
stopped here for the first time just after the Spring last full moons.
Two fine croissants rose just above the Horned Waterfall. Under the clear
sky of this early summer, the waters of the waterfall seemed black, underlined
by some brilliant reflections here and there, the cataract crashed in
an immense foaming sheaf which colour contrasted under lunar lights. All
around, cliffs and rare vegetation were plunged into pale monochrome the
quirky silhouette of the old dead tree got loose in backlighting. As matter
of fact, this landscape has nothing extraordinary and it is not the only
waterfall in a mineral environment with non-existent vegetation, but in
spite of the tiredness of fortnights journey, I stood still there till
the following middle - day. I had to remain standing to harness all my
baggage during sixteen hours, to satisfy me with getting intoxicating
on the spectacle of the waterfall.
When
I went out of my trance, the next day was so begun, but I seemed as washed
by the tiredness of my journey. I bathed in the waters of the waterfall
and there in spite of the fortifying prosperity found in the cold waters,
sleep submerged me. I found so a hollow of cliff covered with moss and
let me succumb.
According
to my calculations I slept two or three days. In my alarm clock I was
stiff, my tiredness due to the journey not still totally shaded off and
for the first time for four days I noticed that I had not eaten anything
and nevertheless I was not hungry. I stayed one week without eating.
This
place has really something magic. I stayed there one month, satisfying
me with a fruit or with some mushrooms a week. In this place outside time,
it is not any need to eat, to drink or to sleep, one seems to be able
to live eternally. I had only the desire to enjoy the pervading tranquillity.
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My naval
carpenter boss had been for me more than a teacher in the profession which I
had chosen, he had been a mentor for me, a guide, it is due to him that I had
moreover begun this journey. The education had not only concerned techniques
necessary for the elaboration of a masts, for the drawing of a profile of pod,
for the choice of materials... He had urged me to look into my heart to sort
out good and bad things to pull the essence of each who could express itself
in my future works. He had also shown me the first steps of the meditation.
He always said: " The good artisan makes his profession in the enjoyment without
concerns of the next day. If you lose patience on a detail, you are missing
your work. Then stop you, take necessary time to meditate, to make body with
yourself, the nature which surrounds you, your materials, your tools and your
profession. Then all your problems will be resolved by themselves, without making
an effort. " I was young, many of the advices of my boss were for me abstruse
and I had never envisage meditation as other thing than a technique belonging
to my corporate body.
Discovering
the Horned Waterfall, only one thing did count for me, meditating. Why? I do
not know, I asked the question for a long time but did not find any answer.
Today, I like thinking that this place and I were made for that.
After
this month, in this extraordinary place, abandoning my body to the spiritual
wanderings of meditation, my life had fallen over. It was not able to fix me
in a port any more, to build vessels, in spite of the nobility of this profession.
I abandoned this profession as every others, for a life of ascetic to go from
cities to cities, from hamlets in hamlets to bring in the poorest and miserable
a little of understanding, comfort and enlightened advices.
Many
people of high conditions invited me, repeatedly , in their majestic houses
to receive some advices from me. People of power can not understand, can not
accept, not to receive at least as much as the plebs. I was never full of my
person, and never refuse a listening or an advice, but for the first meeting
it was to other one to make the step to come to see me. Except the big of this
world think that to give evidence of a minimum of humility it is to fall, and
to come down from their bases they shall never be able to accept it. Nobody
of these noble persons has never take advantage of the least of my advices and
it is certainly better so.
I came
back many times to meet my teaching boss, to take news, he received me, and
I always saw shining in his eyes an incandescent light of pride, I had become
what it seems to me he had always dreamed to be, but having got married early,
he had never been resolved to abandon his family. Twenty years ago, I accompanied
him in the death, we both lamented a lot, having never felt so close one of
the other one. After he had been cremated, I went to collect myself in the Horned
Waterfall, for the first time I discovered it in another season than the beginning
of the summer, it was full winter and I found it as I had always known it, the
same temperature, the same fruits, the same mushrooms, the same fresh and invigorating
water, desolate vegetation, even old quirky tree. In this environment which
warmed me the soul, I saw my boss again features underlined by an infinite serenity.
Since, I feel him accompanies me and every day I meet him in meditation.
My life
only consisted in crossing in any direction the Mentha continent, from the Boryn
Sea to the Sa-Khâr Valley, from the Forest of Ice to the Rich Valley of Lokh.
I never have taken the same road, I discovered places of a supernatural beauty
that no other eyes but mine were able to watch, I overlapped and lived with
animals no one has the least idea. But each year for the end of spring I returned
me ressourcer in the Horned Waterfall. I spent sixty years to stroll and I know
that I did not discover everything of this continent, but I am not sad because
all I know already brings me a big happiness.
You,
who will find this manuscript, will be able to be deprived to learn the existence
of so many natural treasures without I reveal their location or not even a description.
But I have not the soul of a scientist and I have no will to put at mercy of
anybody these treasures.
My name
will not tell you anything, moreover for a long time I even forgot it, all my
life I was the Hermite to pragmatic Hû, the Stateless to stay-at-home Naïs,
the Wise at respectful Ajians and the Ancestor to facetious Iflis.
I so
spent my life in the service of the other one. As every year, I am back in this
charming place, today my skull is also poor in hair, as the waterfall in vegetation,
today I am as quirky as the old tree... Today I am back to finish my life, here.
Written
by JAZZY, May 2001.