Conversation with the Mage

The observer had watched with interest the interaction of the Mage and querent.  Seen all the working and reading done, heard the questions and answers.  Now he sat in silence.  Watching.  The Mage himself sat silently off a little ways from the fire upon a log, his long legs stretched out before him.  He pulled a pipe from somewhere beneath the cloak and began filling it slowly, his fingers long experienced with the task.  At last he was satisfied and touched a small match to a flint rock near his feet, setting off a small spark, then flame as the smell of sulfur filled the space around him.  he lit the pipe, drawing in the smoke, then exhaling it out almost obscuring his face.  So observer, you have questions yourself?  Startled out of his reverie, the observer looked at the Mage in wonder at how he would know that.  “Yes”, he said.  “I have a few”.  “Speak them”, says the Mage.  The Observer begins hesitantly, “You spoke that the past was finished, and yet some aspects of the past remain with us.  It holds power”.  “Who gave it power?”, asked the Mage.  “I’m not sure”, said the Observer.  “You give it power”, said the Mage.  “Nothing can have power in your life until you allow it to be so.  Not love, hate, energy.  If you refuse to let it exist, it will remain dormant to be washed away from this existence”.  “But we all have things from the past that color our presence, yes”? asked the Observer.  The Mage smiles as if speaking to a child who has yet to grasp the meanings of the words he speaks.  “And if it colors the presence, then it has some power does it not”? asked the Mage.  Like a light starting to push apart the fog, it becomes clear to the Observer that what he thinks in the Here, that is sometimes overshadowed by echoes of the past, is only because he allowed it be so.  “So how do I remove the power”? asked the Observer.  The Mage looks at him gently.  “I am only a simple man, not some deity in which I can only speak to make it so…It takes work within yourself to allow the past to have no conflict with which is the Now.”  “If you can do that, then the future will mold itself as it should”.  The Observer realizes then that the Mage has told him as he told the querent that all answers lie within.  Power is within, to be used accordingly.  As if the Mage realizes that the Observer understands, like a fast moving mist, the Mage is gone, leaving nothing behind but the smell of tobacco smoke lingering upon the air as if its just one last caress.  The Observer smiles and starts his journey, paying attention to the sights and sounds around him.  What a great place he thinks.  He chuckles, to think, I have always had the power within. Amazing.

DEUCES