THE THREE NAMES FOR PEACE

[Sonybut7 530]

As penned by Herald Dremyur
82, Age of the Dragon

༺ I ༻

⧲────────────⟪ P R E F A C E ⟫────────────⧲

“Last, the World is a misty weald of white branches.

Trees reach for the heavens; they seek without growing.”

⎝ 𓆩༺                     Vessel of Eternity, the Aurelects.                     ༻𓆪 ⎠

 

Beneath the rimed and hoary aperture of the All-Seen, All-Known, there lies an expanse without edge or contour. A blanket of sugared white. Snow falls ever so often; it remembers naught of its falling. There, beyond the silvered pines and ime-clad spruce, the land opens into a breadth unscarred by path or furrow, a stillness so complete it persuades the Unwoken Man that nothing has ever MOVED there, nor ever must. The surface does not answer the sky. Snow falls and so easily lays forgotten. Wind passes and leaves no mark. Sound dies before it arrives. To the Unwoken Man, this is enough. They name it PEACE for it does not resist them. They say - Here, nothing changes, therefore nothing conflicts. - Thus, they find themselves calling the absence of motion stillness. From stillness they infer wholeness. And so the Unwoken Man crosses without hesitation, believing silence to be truth and calm to be proof.

 

What is the surface, if not an answer delayed?

 

Beneath glassed calm, far below the reach of Unwoken sight, the ice lay restless. It is not SHATTERED. For it has not failed. It is FRACTURED. Fracture lines running, each a wear of strain upon bone, unseen yet telling of an expansive journey. Each passing step presses weight unto them. Each passing leaves a history, though the falling snow conspires to erase its record. These wounds were not born of sudden conflict. They are the slow reply to strain endured without release. This, too, is named PEACE by the Unwoken Man; the quiet of restraint, the discipline of avoidance, the comfort of claiming wholeness while pressure accumulates unseen.

 

What is restraint, if never tested?

What is quiet, if bought by denial?

 

For every IGNORED FRACTURE is a fault-line waiting, not for collapse, but for acknowledgment. For the lake endures and endurance is not proof of completion. It is the refusal to answer the pressing question. So time passes. And the very winds lament the long, still days. The design holds. Not because it is whole but because it has not yet been asked to sing. Two figures walk along these fault-lines. They do not face one another. Each believes themselves ALONE. Each listens to the silence above and mistakes it for assurance. Neither hears the echo beneath their steps. They have not yet met. And so PEACE remains unnamed.

 

What lies above is falsehood.

What lies below is misinterpreted.

What lies in their meeting is yet to be named.

 

Thus, as we venture and frolick within the bounds of PEACE. Where it ends, where it starts, where it has yet to go. Thus we shall need to dive into the stories, into the ideals, and thus attain UNITY by PEACE.

 

──𓆩𖤓𓆪──༺ ۝ ༻──𓆩𖤓𓆪──

 

༺ II ༻

⧲────────────⟪ T A L E S ⟫────────────⧲

 

── ─༺✧༻─ ── March did the Unwoken. In a world yet asleep. A sky unaware of a storm. A lake unbroken, for disturbance had no place in it. The ground yet to tremble for weight had not learned to press meaning unto it. There did Unwoken Man cross, resistance never present. Their breath did not quicken, for effort had not yet found reason to exist. Words upon Silence had not yet been uttered, for naught had broken it. To them, the world was WHOLE. Yet not because it was complete but because it had yet to be tested. And so, they named nothing. The unmoving air was not still, for the wind had yet to carve its first memory. Nor was the ground firm, for a foot had not yet slipped. So did Unwoken Man call the absence of strife, PEACE, for conflict had yet to arise. However, the question was already there, though none dared test the answer. ── ─༺✧༻─ ──

 

What happens when the storm breaks the skies? What occurs when the lake is disturbed? When the ground trembles? What dares test it?

CONFLICT WAR BATTLE COLLISION

What occurs when effort is required? What happens when our steps meet resistance? Who shall speak the first word? Who dares test it?

 

── ─༺✧༻─ ── Arrive did the Unnamed. There where the ground now trembled. Where pressure grants meaning. Where the sky rumbled, the lake now rippled. Would Unwoken Man meet resistance? Their breath quickened. Not from fear but from effort newly born. Where motion pressed upon motion and silence gained its reply, two forces came together. Not in hatred nor in purpose. But in presence. Neither yielded, for yielding had yet to be taught. Neither advanced, for advancement had yet to be written. Where passage was given, it stood contested. Where once there was silence, now came answer. They named it CONFLICT, for something now stood opposite them. They named it BATTLE, for movement no longer passed unhindered. They named it WAR, for the strain endured beyond a single instance. Neither force was undone and they marked one another. Each was changed but neither was ended. And so Unwoken Man unknowingly opened his eyes, briefly, to a sensation they would come to call PEACE. ── ─༺✧༻─ ──

 

༺ III ༻

─── ───── ──⟪ T H E S I S ⟫── ───── ───

 

── ─༺✧༻─ ── That which is calm proclaims itself WHOLE, yet calmness is only the absence of MOTION. The surface sleeps and calls it PEACE, for nothing has yet asked it to answer. FALSE PEACE is named where pressure is naught. The lie endures only until CONFLICT arrives. ─༺۝༻─

── ─༺✧༻─ ── That which is FRACTURED hides itself deep, and names CONCEALMENT enough. A single crack is CHOSEN and tended, while the rest are denied their voice. Restraint is misinterpreted as PEACE, crowning the unfinished complete. ─༺۝༻─

 

INNER

PEACE

꧁⎝ 𓆩༺✧༻𓆪 ⎠꧂

 

So it is seen that EXTERNAL PEACE denies pressure, thus shatters when touched.   While INTERNAL PEACE hides strain, it finds itself rotting beneath itself.   Thus Unwoken Man wakes in the crossing of wills; learning that PEACE is neither given nor kept, but entered.   And those who enter depart altered. Never whole as before; never divided as they were.   So is PEACE named only in COLLISION. When Woken Man is as ONE.

 

──𓆩𖤓𓆪──༺ ۝ ༻──𓆩𖤓𓆪──

 

 

⧲──── ─── ──⊰𒌐⊱── ─── ────⧲

 

For now Unwoken Man has learned: PEACE is not stillness. PEACE is not calm. For it is not the absence of strain nor the evasion of opposition. PEACE does not exist where nothing presses nor where pressure is denied. For reaction and action are required, for a foot to press upon the earth towards a goal of opposition. It is there, when those two actions cross upon the point of COLLISION, where PEACE is. For it is there that Unwoken Man becomes Woken. For in their shared deeds are both marked. Forever shall they be altered, whether or not their goals align. Forever shall each imprint CHANGE and, for a brief instance, are they ONE.

 

Those who enter do not depart whole as before.

─ ─༺۝༻─ ─ “All things ariseth from ONE by the will of ONE, and so all things cometh from this subtle process.” -Eresar sin Nathemas- 𓆩༺✧༻𓆪

Those who enter do not depart divided as they were.

That is what it means to be TESTED. It is to press and be pressed in return. For endurance proven without CONFLICT is assumption. A mountain does not endure because the wind blows around it. Nor does a river flow because the earth lets it. It is TESTED, in their CONFLICT and subsequent COLLISION, and through such they are proven real; proven to hold PEACE.

Their steel collides in UNISON. Their steps march forth in UNISON. And their minds are focussed in UNISON. It is there that it’s spoken that within PEACE we find UNITY. For where the Unwoken names silence as virtue and stillness as completion, it is the Woken Man, who see that silence is falsity and stillness misrepresentation. It is the Woken Man who acknowledges the forces that cross another fully, without withdrawal nor refusal.

 

── ─༺✧༻─ ── That which is strained is not undone by its answer. The Unwoken fears the moment the surface breaks and the being changes. Believing that to yield form is to end. They name the FRACTURING damage and the final SHATTERING the end. Yet the breaking does not erase the lake; it becomes more of itself. What was held apart released into motion and motion is not ANNIHILATION. The pieces do not vanish; they remember one another differently. Thus the error is not the breaking but the belief that holding forever was possible. ─༺۝༻─

── ─༺✧༻─ ── That which does not move brings forth nothing. The Unwoken Man looks upon the unmoving surface and believes that PEACE has been achieved, as though the absence of conflict is an accomplishment. They will quiet into virtue by calling the silence whole, mistaking the lack of motion for UNITY. Yet no COLLISION has occurred; no force has answered another. Thus they are veiled in the solace of the self-made lie. For they have named the calm PEACE and have made themselves content upon the emptiness of it. ─༺۝༻─

“Nid los al; Nid los zorox.”
⎝ 𓆩༺     Eremun, the Loving Ordained.     ༻𓆪 ⎠

─ ─⊰𖤓⊱─ ─ FAITH ༺✧༻   Faith untested grows pragmatic. For every voice begins to echo another belief, turning into habit. One is required to seek Conflict unto the edges of the known tradition; to lean upon the altar until a new question arrives. Faith kept whole by naught but agreement rots. INNER PEACE lies where courage presses belief back into motion.

─ ─⊰𖤓⊱─ ─ WAR ༺✧༻ Titan of Ebrietan Stone, the one who stands opposite in unyielding, martial weight. Steel sang and stone answered. Each blow a question; each parry an answer. Both gave to one another in full. Neither withdrew. There, where blood marked the ground, respect remained. And in the rhythm of battle, INNER PEACE was sung.

─ ─⊰𖤓⊱─ ─ ART ༺✧༻ Upon silvered peaks, where a hallowed flame gleamed, hammer met iron. Fire met Vessel. Hammer pressed iron; iron pressed hammer. Each collision erased intention and revealed what must remain. Authorship was surrendered. Thus the hammer learned as much as the arm. There, in making, INNER PEACE awoke.

 

─── ─── ───── ──⟪ ─⊰۝⊱─ ⟫── ───── ─── ───

 

 

༺ IV ༻

⧲───────────⟪ T E R M I N U S ⟫───────────⧲

“Let the one who lit it be too careless, or too cruel,

and it can be cast down against a carpet, parchment, or a dry wooden floor.
And then what does the flickering flame become?”

⎝ 𓆩༺                   The Second Lesson of the An-Gho                   ༻𓆪 ⎠

 

Beneath the rimed and hoary aperture of the All-Seen, All-Known, there still lies an expanse, changed as it once was. The blanket of sugared white was broken. Where once ice lay flat, it rises and sinks in uneven plates, lifted and bowed by what it could no longer deny. Deep azure washes between, dark and patient waters chasing through channels where stillness once reigned unchallenged. The snow still falls but it no longer conceals. The wind still passes but now it stirs Woken Man’s reflection. This is the lake after COLLISION. For the fractures have widened into passages and what once hid beneath, denied, now declares itself with horn. Ice shifts underfoot, each step sending ripples through the azure below and the rime above.

Here, Woken Man walks. Care has left them yet they do not halt, marching without retreat. For they do not mistake instability for danger nor the changed state for destruction. The lake remains the lake. Their steps remain steps. What has altered is not the world’s nature but their reading of it. For Woken Man now knows the eternal dialogue of CAUSE and EFFECT. They have learned the meaning of conflict, battle, war, and collision, and not shy away beneath lies aimed for solace. The ice no longer deceives Woken Man with wholeness. For in each crossing, he feels the dialogue of force and answer. In said dialogue, he finds no division.

This is INNER PEACE.

 

The two figures are no longer visible. Their meeting has dissolved into flow. The lake bears their meeting in every motion to follow. The water now moves because it was pressed. The ice yields because it was contested. And though the shape of the lake has changed, in that shape it has become truer to itself. For PEACE had not arrived when the conflict ended. PEACE arrived when the conflict was fully entered.

 

So, Woken Man continues, step by step, EVER-BRANCHING. Across surfaces that no longer lie. For each movement alters the lake, and the lake alters them in return. Neither precedes the other. Neither follows; They move together, marked by the same exchange. Thus Woken Man is as the Lake, enduring by participation.

 

⧲──── ─── ──⊰۝⊱── ─── ────⧲

 

Writing & Formating:

Sonybut7

Formatting Imagery:

Karim

Referenced authors:

Jentos, Viros, Holyland, Moumins
Consultation:

Celestial_Bleh, Karim, Moumins, Holyland

 

Edited February 10 by Sonybut7

[DizzyGrey 1229]

Spoiler

Gorgeous tbh

 

[Jentos 9422]

Smoke rose from the An-Gho's pipe. Water rushed beneath his feet as he read in silence over a bridge. 

 

Smiling, he beheld that work most lovingly. He wrote to that disciple, a short few words of wisdom;

 

 

"As all things are destined to break, 

 

That which is lost

 

Will be found again.

 

-

 

Look to the east,

 

And see the peace of men's suffering

 

Why?"

 

 

 

[KidKrinkles 2044]

Spoiler

Already said but, gorgeous post.

 

[Celestial_Bleh 224]

"I am writing a book." 

"...And you tell me because it is a romance?" 

✦•┈๑⋅⋯ ⋯⋅๑┈•✦

 

Gloved hands held the papers, pondering the timing of their arrival. A journal, simple in appearance with jagged edges, rested in his bag.

 

In a cozy, cramped room, upon a mess of a desk, this new book was set. Birds roosted there. A mechanical raven, a plush crow, an inkwell twisted into the image of a nest, a quill that remained sleek with a raven's feather. All grounded and caged within the author's abode. Ink splattered on the page. Conflict to the beginning. Notes and thoughts were scrawled into margins. The very first of which was how much he despised the freezing cold no matter its faux peace. 

Edited January 15 by Anonymous_Rando