Summary: A word-picture from several points of view.
Warnings: No spoilers, some implications, though. Lots of
philosophy & introspection
Archive: M_A, anyone else just ask.
Feedback: Please please pretty please.
Disclaimer: George Lucas is god and owns everything...
Notes: This piece was inspired by the photo-manip that is on
the main page of the M_A archive, though the meditation
position described is not what that picture shows. If one of
the fabulously talented artists of this list would care to draw
what I have put in the story, I would be deliriously happy!
Thank you, Sockii, for the inspiration, Ruth for encouragement,
Mark & Destina for the editing & input. Destina gets
extra thanks for helping me figure out the real title.
Meditations on a Moment in Time
Year of the Republic 24,982
Gail Riordan, 2000
wander@dnai.com
--An exerpt from Master Peyrr's 'An Introduction and Overview
of Meditational Forms' in "Foundations of the Force; Essays
on the History and Development of Formal Training Within the
Jedi Order" Edited by Master Mirjen Nona, published 24,827
The Force is within us and surrounds us, always; held and
holding, touched and touching, as the child is held, as the
parent-teacher-master holds. Living and Unifying, illumination
and shadow, the Force is - being and becoming.
It is the first position of meditation, the first taught, the
first learned. The teacher, the elder, kneels comfortably -
balanced, stable, centered - and the learner, the other, sits,
kneels or stands within the circle of the elder's arms and
energy. The physical closeness and the satisfaction of the
body's need for touch frees the mind, heart and spirit to reach
out and perceive - interact with - the things beyond the body,
with the Force. Both face outward, eyes resting on whatever is
before them. They share sight, sound, scent, even breath, as
the elder patterns each inhale and exhale in slow, deep rhythm,
communicated by touch. Learning to quiet the mind from a very
young age, relearning it daily.
The crechemothers spend time every day with each pre-initiate
child just like this. Initiate children learn solo meditation
positions and techniques - focus, centering, observation,
breathing, relaxation and movement within the moment - all
rooted in this most basic lesson. Friends may meditate
together, but independence within the Force is fostered and
encouraged under close supervision.
Padawans and Masters return to this form of shared meditation.
Early in the relationship, it is a way of building and
strengthening the ties of trust and the connection within the
Force needed for proper formation of the training bond. Later,
certain lessons and assessments require both the physical and
metaphysical closeness achieved most easily and safely through
this means.
As the student grows in knowledge and strength, the need for
this closeness lessens and becomes gradually obsolete. Indeed,
one of the marks of approaching readiness for Knighthood is the
diminishment of the bond itself.
Senior Padawans must demonstrate independence of more than
thought and discernment from their Masters; they must also show
clear ability to function within the Force, separate from undue
considerations of Masterly approval. Trusting one's own
perceptions and judgement of the will of the Force is
essential.
Knights meditate alone. Single and at one with the Force. Even
when sharing meditation - touching as friends or companions,
entwined as lovers - there is separation, aloneness.
The paradox of singularity of self within the Unity of the
Force is at the heart of both what it is and what it means to
be Jedi. A Knight is always and never alone.
Masters learn to live within a greater paradox. Embraced within
the Force, a Master must then embrace the student, but only
enough - enough to strengthen, to heal, to comfort, to teach.
To support, not strangle. Simultaneously separate and together,
the Master must hold and know the reality of each of their
singularity as well as their unity. To be a Master is to be
always embracing and letting go.
Mace:
They love each other.
Not that they are doing anything rash, anything physical or
overt about it. They are both Jedi, and too well trained to be
that selfish. And I believe they love each other too well.
If they loved less deeply or less completely, they could couple
with our blessing, relieve each other's tension, make simple,
joyful energy to give back to the Force. The Code does not
forbid sex. It is passion that is proscribed: commitment to any
thing or person or idea other than the call of the Force, the
vowed and witnessed binding to the Light, the Code and the
vocation to be Jedi. Ours is a singular relationship with the
Force, one to one. A relationship that is reforged,
re-promised, and renewed at every stage of training, with each
initiation and ordination.
A Jedi is forged in a hot fire, and tempered in very chill
waters. We cannot flinch. We cannot fail. "Do, or do not, there
is no 'try'." And so, in this, they do not. Too much depends
upon it.
With them, sex would not be simple. Hearts, not bodies;
commitment, not mere physical relief.
And is it relief I feel that they do not? Fear that were they
to act, the Code would crack, the foundations of the Temple
tremble? That the sacrifices of generations would be proved to
be in vain? No. I am a Master as well, have forged and been
forged and tempered in that fire. What I feel is nothing so
simple as relief.
Mastery is marked by the ability to hold, hammer, teach, train,
love, and then release. It is a difficult thing. A
harsher path, a higher, ultimately more lonely call than
Knighthood. "The past creates the future in the moment." The
Master must hold and know all three; the student need only
participate in the moment, the now.
It wears on him, generous and affectionate man he is, that his
student, held by fewer promises, may give what he cannot.
Padawan Kenobi may offer and accept what Master Jinn,
oathbound, honor bound, may neither offer nor allow himself to
accept, lest all they have both worked for be undone. I see it
in his eyes, in the unfaltering strength of his control, in the
faint, perpetual ache he carries in his broad, willing back and
those wide shoulders.
Were they to lose control, there would be no parting them. I
fear they would be lost to us, lost to the Jedi (though not, I
know, to the Light). The Council needs them, requires their
knowledge, skill, love, duty. The Republic needs them as
Knights, as powerful, independent and active agents, even as
mavericks. The need of the many.
And I, Master Windu, Voice of the Jedi Council, I could not do
as they do. I know in the depths of my heart, in the secret
places of my spirit, that I do not have their strength. Not
alone, and most certainly not as they are together. So I watch,
and try to understand.
They meditate together, in the First Form. How can such
vulnerability be anything other than a liability, a weakness?
Yet with them, it is strength.
Obi-Wan:
I am loved. I know this. He loves me. And I, him. Ever and
always. In all ways. Existence without expression, actual in
potential. In paradox. His words, not mine, but I have no words
of my own for this.
I would laugh for joy, but he is holding me, we are meditating,
so I laugh only inside, in potential, in the Force. I would not
try his need too hard. Or, indeed, my own.
I find myself both pleased and frightened that I have that
power, that I can test him so. And to think that once I
believed he had no such needs, felt no such passion. That I,
too, would grow up free of those distractions. But his is the
calm of long struggle and sharp vigilance, not a lack but an
abundance of desires to control and discipline. It is not
freedom, and oh, I am not free. I am as bound to responsibility
as he is.
It does seem that the lessons of philosophy and ethics apply
more to me - to us - than all the straightforward data of the
classes in sexuality and reproduction. Hormones and
biochemistry made me laugh once, squirm, red with
embarrassment, as I learned things I could not imagine needing
to know. I know so much more now, and the need of the body -
however ticklish or joyful - is never something to laugh *at*,
only *with*, never a fit subject for ridicule or scorn.
My body desires his body, even as his desires mine. But we will
not act upon this mutual desire, lest it become a distraction,
bleeding away strength, shifting our focus.
We will not act, but neither will we part. We are careful and
mindful of each other - in many things, but this in particular.
I do not flaunt myself, nor am I over-modest. To do either
would be a disservice to us both, to my training and his
teaching. "Appreciation of beauty, in whatever form it may
come, is a refreshment to the soul, a reminder of our purpose,
and a necessary thing." So we are taught, and I believe and
hold to this, even as he does. And my Master is beautiful in
his age and strength, skill and grace. I know he finds beauty
in me as well.
I do not picture him when I pleasure myself, and he does not
imagine me. We are too close, and how could imagination match
reality? Instead, we acknowledge and let go. And we meditate
together, in the First Form. Touching, closer than bodies. As
in dancing and fighting and healing we touch, and connect in so
many ways. His hands have moulded me, made of me what I
am even as the touch of his spirit has shaped so much of
who I am.
I am loved, always. He is loved, in all ways. But I am not so
serene that I do not sometimes wish for more.
Qui-Gon:
The spirit is satisfied with propinquity, the flesh desires
sensation, the mind thirsts for knowledge as the heart seeks
connection. We are both spirit and flesh, intellect and
emotion, and as manifest beings, present in time and matter and
interpenetrated with Force. Of the Force. One with all and each
other, in the greater scheme of things.
Our love is not in question. Our love is. I am, he is,
we are: in the Moment, in the Now, cradled in and of the
Force. Living and Unified.
There is little I have left to teach him, though much he has
yet to learn. As there is so much I have still to learn.
So much that he has taught me.
We breathe together, watching and not watching the sliding
drops of the little fountain in this green and quiet space. Our
ears take comfort in musical silence and thought calms in the
warm fall of light. Our hearts beat together in simple time,
this time, this now, without expectation or anticipation or
anything other than unity in the moment. It is a gift, his
presence in my arms, his light in my spirit, his laughter and
joy in my mind, joined to my own light, in the Light. He has
lit candles in so many places that had gone dark and cold.
Our lives allow too little joy. Our power, our perception,
demands responsible use, to listen to and act within the will
of the Force. To bring hope to those who have not, to defend
those who cannot defend themselves, to find the path of justice
- so many high, hard and lonely things. To look to and dwell on
the future is to invite grief, for our calling is not to those
places where peace and light and plenty already abound, but
where we may bring them into being. When I tell him to keep his
attention on the here and now, I am telling myself as much as
him. When he knows that, when he lives within the awareness of
self as fully as the awareness of unity, then he will be a
Knight, trial or no.
We breathe together, held and holding, serene and alive and
alight with the Force, with each other, a greater whole. Now,
in this Moment, there is only Us, the Force, and the singing
perfection of joy. Joined-ness. Love.
Yoda:
Lie together, they do not. Yet, together, they are. The actions
they do not take, keep them outwardly apart; those they do,
inwardly together. Always together, flesh and Force. Brief time
they have, but also forever.
Clouded the future is, but not without hope. I, too, love well
my Padawan. Grieve I will the loss of the outward form and
beauty. Grieve the Council will the loss of results, though not
the arguments. Grieve the student will: for what could not be,
what will be gone. The Force is strong in them. In the Force,
lose each other they will not.
--Exerpt from 'Symbology and Iconology in the Creche' by Master
Li'Ra K'kesal, 24,954
Legend says that the First Form of Meditation was taught to the
First Seeker by the Force itself, that z'Jhedhai knelt in the
garden only to be enfolded in arms both manifest and immanent,
present and transcendent, visible and invisible, and sustained,
comforted and taught in that manner until all of the First
Principles were imparted.
Plate Five shows a typical example of this: a figure kneeling
in the Learner position of the First Form, picked out in dust
colors - cream, brown, ochre, umber, tan - and haloed by a
translucent blue glow. (Lightpainting, Coruscant Main Temple)
Scholars interpret this image as a purely symbolic
representation, and grant little credence to the legend. The
Jedi themselves remain silent on the subject.
Archive 