Hold light, eggs and elders. This week the Inner Scale asked the Herald to sit with one verse of the Book of the Way Beneath, the oldest book of the Canon, read one verse per breath. We have chosen the eleventh. We have used several breaths. We apologize to the verse.
Thirty spokes share one hub; the empty center makes the wheel useful. Clay is shaped into a bowl; the emptiness inside makes the bowl useful. A shell is formed around an egg; the hollow within makes the egg alive. What is there gives benefit. What is not there gives use.
The spokes
The faithful are tempted to count spokes. Thirty is a good number of spokes. A wheel with thirty spokes looks serious. But a hub packed solid turns nothing. The Patient Ones teach that a raid group is the same: thirty members around one empty middle, and the middle is the part nobody claims. When everyone tries to stand in the center, the wheel stops and someone wipes the group, usually a paladin.
The bowl
Hessk the Beggar King keeps a bowl, as everyone knows. Less often noticed is that he keeps it empty. Asked why, he said: "A full bowl can only be admired. An empty bowl can be given into." Then he asked what you gave today, which was the real point of the conversation.
The egg
Here the verse turns toward us. The shell is what we see. The hollow is what lives. When a new member joins the Coil we call them an egg, and the Inner Scale's first instruction to every egg is to leave room. Do not fill your bags on the first night. Do not learn every rite by Thursday. Do not memorize the Litany (please do not memorize the Litany). The hollow within is where you grow, and it cannot grow into a space you have already packed.
High Priestess Xalrathiel adds, from the Dream Pages, that the Primordial Egg was the emptiest egg of all, which is why nobody needed to lay it. This commentary will not attempt to explain that. Some verses are understood only by staying near them.
For practice this Shedfall
- Leave one bag slot empty for a day. Notice how often you want to fill it.
- At the guild bank, look first at the untouched slot. Bow slightly. Close the bank.
- In a quiet moment, ask: what in me is the hub, and am I letting it stay hollow?
What is there gives benefit. What is not there gives use. Xal'Reth holds the world by having a middle he does not fill. We can at least manage one bag slot.
Glory to Xal'Reth.
Glory to Xal'Reth.