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The Pen is Mightier than the Sword

cryptomancer

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Posts posted by cryptomancer

  1. Please stay just another day?

    Your whispered footfalls fade,

    Empty rooms and hall devoid,

    Vocal ambiance muted now.

    Foggy shrouds strong as walls,

    Each vacant space devours,

    Mists of tears, and tendrilled fears,

    Wrap, and tear, and taint my stare,

    Creaking voice, creaking doors,

    Crumbling roof, cracking walls,

    No escape, tumbling quakes,

    This little world just a void,

    Dust billows into black.

     

    Last breath of hope denied.

    Lament my loss, move it aside,

    Become the shadow in which I hide.

     

    ...

     

     

    New Line: "The wind whispers woven words..."

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  2. In odd we place our trust,

    For the relentlessness of the mundane, is the lie of the land,

    Faking the promises of bounty, as she starves us,

    Breaking our resolve on her rocky breast,

    Opening our wounds anew with each faltering step.

     

    Common ground is no friend to us now,

    For the voices of reason are estranged,

    And the open mic calls silently to us to speak,

    Resonating with the obscene and vulgar,

    Dousing the audience in a flood of unfamiliar truth.

    ...

     

    New line: Stones thrown through a glass heart...

  3. The sound echoed for days,

    Trickling and tinkling across the air,

    Fragmenting reverberations of despair,

    Slipping soundlessness away,

    In a coat of aural decay,

    Bracing the mind with splintered shards,

    Echoes tracing ancient scars,

    Days and days, and dripping ways,

    Soaked in sound, dancing round,

    Spiralling, diving, sweeping, shrieking,

    Drowning in the echoes soaking softly away.

    ...

     

    New line: so she danced slowly on

  4. So, I tried to sneak in quietly, but tripped over this thread.

     

    Let me start with a few clarifications form my own mind:

     

    Religion is simply a defined set of rituals that are practiced to reinforce a belief system and the accompanying world view. Religion says there is something more powerful out there that we can connect to and become more than what we are, to allow us an additional level of strength, support or protection that is set apart from the physical world. Our belief that this higher power is both present, and willing to connect with us is the core to religion, without belief it falls over.

     

    Magic, as a practice, is a set of rituals that are completed to provide a specific outcome, also driven by the belief of the person practicing it. The practice of magic, as it gains followers, and grows communities who share the same practices and rituals, becomes religion.

     

    Science is a human attempt to find explanations for things that are not understood. Our understanding of the world around us is often seen and accepted through the lens provided by science. Things that are seen in terms of religion and magic can be studied, but in the most part science can only be used to understand how the rituals that were created work, not the underlying power driven by the belief of the practitioners. Science can prove that the plants used in a magical ceremony will cause vivid hallucinations, but cannot explain why each person saw what they did in each of their own hallucinations.

     

    ...

     

    The perceived connection to something else, and the view that there is more than just what we experience in this base existence, is one of the more interesting aspects of the human condition. It is our quest for this external connection that prompts the creation of rituals, and magical practice, and scientific study. It is our wish to see beyond and understand something we know is there, but cannot grasp.

     

    We establish our own connection based on the interactions of our will, our actions and our belief. Our will defines what we seek, our actions apply our will to this existence and create an environment where our will can successfully manifest, and our belief is the very fuel that drives us to continue our actions until our will is established.

     

    Religion uses this concept to promote a handing over of responsibility for your actions, by replacing personal will, with the will of a deity. If you adhere to the specific rituals, and laws, you are promised a reward at the time of your death as payment for allowing the will of the deity to supersede your own wishes. It promotes the positives of bringing people together and allowing cooperation and organisation based on a perceived common good. But also opens the door to being used as a tool for oppression and manipulation (god wants this so we must do it).

     

    Magic is far more personal; it is powered by your own belief and based on your own will. The actions and rituals you use change and evolve as you grow to better understand how to apply your will through your actions. It comes into conflict with religion because of the focus on your own will, rather than the will of the deity.

     

    In both cases, the common power is belief. It is through belief that we succeed. Belief can be trained, and learned. It can be a copy of what society wants you to believe, or it can be something of your own making. As a copy, it takes on the features the person, changing slightly each time. As a created thing, it evolves, drawing in new ideas and influence and growing. Belief connects us to what is beyond, and gives form to what we find. Belief gives it strength to influence our existence, and gives us the power to enact the changes we need for it to grow further.

     

    ...

  5. And as I was not on the last page and picked the wrong line...

     

    The cold rain keeps on falling,

    Dripping through the torn earth,

    Soaking away the dust and decay,

    Trickling tickles of icy mirth.

     

    Weeping willows dream of her touch,

    Cold caress of life,

    The waking earth will warm at last,

    But without cold rain, is lost.

     

    ...

     

    And another line because I can...

     

    And that can be my line. *fades back into the shadows*

  6. Dark is the night,

    But not so black.

    Light shines in spaces long forgotten.

    Awakening old dreams and lost words,

    Taking my heart and soul to task,

    Breaking the mirrors and the masks.

    My visage died long ago,

    Yet new ones are found.

     

    And so in shadow I sleep,

    Dream the ages past,

    Walk those lost paths,

    Deep in my own sweet place.

    Darker than a night in space.

     

    ...

     

    New line: she spun a silken lifeline...

  7. Eyecatching: the superstition based response to cleaving the head of an enemy in battle, practiced by the ever graceful, ever beautiful Amazonian Warrioress. The most skilled and demanding strike to achieve victory is to cleave the head, just below the eyes of the enemy, allowing the eyeballs to fly free and unharmed into the air. Perfection of this strike allows the eyes of the opponent to be caught, successfully excecuted this strike and the resultant eyecatch is believed to give the Warrioress stealth and good fortune.

  8. i walked past this window once... saw this guy on the other side and thought "what an arrogant idiot"... as i thought it he turned to face me and i could see the disdain in his eyes, I tried to open the window, but the coward placed his hands on the opposite side to stop me getting through... one day i will figure out where that window goes.... for now i took it off the wall, the guy in it keeps making me grumpy.

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