backup

gopher/Oleander/006-sister-hawwa.txt

@@ -128,17 +128,15 @@ Until me.
 It began with Asiya's dream. They came in a dream that became
 a nightmare and which she can never wake. She is still there on
 Hazen, though with much prayer we have been able to give her
-glimpses through.
-
-The veil of dreams is parted not through medicines or machines,
-but through meditation and the manipulation of the mind.
-
-Our evolution as a species has been one of the mind. We have grown
-in complexity through biological changes until the greatest
-physical expression became a mental one. When we learned to use
-the first tools, when we harnessed fire, we did so by tempering
-our minds to a task. Our wrought history of violence and suffering
-has evolved that mind to grow many new powers.
+glimpses through that darkness. The veil of dreams is parted not
+through medicines or machines, but through meditation and the
+manipulation of the mind. Our evolution as a species has been one
+of the mind. We have grown in complexity through biological
+changes until the greatest physical expression became a mental
+one. When we learned to use the first tools, when we harnessed
+fire, we did so by tempering our minds to a task. Our wrought
+history of violence and suffering has evolved that mind to grow
+many new powers.
 
 With one flex comes the sciences. Our observation and deduction
 give us understanding of the rules which bind us. Our knowing
@@ -160,25 +158,33 @@ that boy see the Jinn before the women gathered at the well? What
 put him between them? By what arcane power did Uzāir pierce the
 veil, do you think, my sisters?
 
-The veil is built of fear. It lives in a place of dreams, of
-nightmares. They move past eyes like those unseeing in the midst
-of a night terror. The terror blinds us to reality, but is not
-a terror of fear, rather the mysterium tremendum, the ineffable,
-the unknowable. It is the fear of the deep, unmade world.
+The veil is built of fear and nightmares. The Jinn move past eyes
+like those unseeing in the midst of a night terror. The terror
+blinds us to reality, but is not a terror of fear, rather the
+mysterium tremendum, the ineffable, the unknowable. It is the fear
+of the deep, unmade world. This is their shield and weapon. The
+Jinn's nature creates this veil of fear and with it we are all
+blind to their movement.
 
-Asiya's dream has taught us the rules the Jinn and Hajar's witness
-taught us the way through. These are the tools with which we
-practice our art. Our meditation and prayer are disciplines of
-that art. For an art it is we have here in this Istishhad.
+And so Asiya's dream has taught us the rules of the Jinn, while
+Hajar's witness taught us the way through. Valor overcomes fear,
+even a spiritual one.
 
-To part this terror requires the greatest of loves. It must draw
-from a place beyond fear, from the ecstasy of the unknowing beast
-in the awe of its creator. To part this terror requires
-abandonment of self into the void. This is the lesson of the Tree.
-Our knowledge came with a cost. Dust to dust, good and evil, but
-not life.
+These are the tools with which we practice our art. Our meditation
+and prayer are disciplines of that art. For an art it is we have
+here in this Istishhad. To part this terror requires the greatest
+of loves. It must draw from a place beyond fear, from the ecstasy
+of the unknowing beast in the awe of its creator. To part this
+terror requires abandonment of self into the void. This is the
+lesson of the Tree. Our knowledge came with a cost. Dust to dust,
+good and evil, but not life. Death.
 
-This is my mystery. This is the story of the first time I died.
+This is my mystery. Death is the mystery which frees us all from
+fear. How can we fear it once it is done?
+
+First Asiya, then Hajar.
+
+This is the story of the first time I died.
 
 ... (lots to add here about Hawwa's backstory)