Page 32 of All That Has Flown Beyond
Kaiyo expected for there to be months of assistant work, of cutting herbs and making incense, before they approached his training. Akiko, however, only raised her eyebrows when Kaiyo mentioned this out loud.
“A fan of fantasy books, are you? Don’t mistake my words, you’re going to be doing those tasks as well, but I am here to give you your due as you are here to give me mine.”
Akiko had given him things to read, cutting methods to practice, gardening techniques to study up on. In the midst of this, however, they also began exploring the conductive quality of his Ousía.
“Let’s begin with this,” Akiko said just two weeks after the beginning of his apprenticeship. Kaiyo looked at the table where Akiko was pointing. He inspected the simple pot of soil and the flat, round seed on the table beside it.
“Um…”
“It’s a tomato seed. I want you to make it grow.”
“With my Ousía?”
“Yes. No spell. No ritual. Make it grow.”
“Uh. Shouldn’t we start with something like…lighting a candle, or…”
“Why?”
“Um…’cause it would be easier?”
“Why?”
“Because it takes less energy, time, and effort to light a candle. And…a candle consumes less. Right? Wax…oxygen…but the plant needs nutrients, light, all the proteins that make it. Or something.”
“Yes. Good. But the plant is more tightly related to the universe’s Ousía. The world doesn’t often need candlelight for itself. But what the plant provides—oxygen, food, the green material that will rot and enrich the earth—is part of a larger system. It is more in relation to the balance of Ousía. It takes more energy, but it gives more. You need to understand the context of what you are affecting and manipulating. So. Tomato plant it is.”
“Right.” Tomato plant it was.
Kaiyo spent the day with the potted plant, the seed now buried in its soil. He struggled in and out of concentration as he felt his Ousía. Felt the Ousía of the plant. Of the world around him, the air and moisture and light.
He felt, but he affected nothing.
He took the potted seed home. His frustration mounted as days passed.
His Ousía. The plant’s. The world. It was all connected. He just needed to open the line of communication between them.
“I can’t do it,” Kaiyo told Akiko on the fourth day of nothing.
“All about you, is it?” she replied.
Kaiyo frowned but let the words permeate.
All about you, is it?
Kaiyo went out to the forest. He dug a hole in the sunlight. He packed it loosely with the potted soil and buried the seed slightly with his finger. He sprinkled water on top.
He knelt in front of the covered hole and closed his eyes.
He felt. It wasn’t himself, the plant, and the world living separately from each other. They were all connected. He was part of something. The plant was part of something. The world brought them together.
He was not above or below. He could not influence Ousía because he was powerful, but because he was the same and understood that. He could not hold himself to a higher standard than this plant, than a river, than a blue sky. He was what he was. The seed was what it was. Together with the world, they just were.
It was like seeing without eyes. He could sense the change like the flowing of water shifting course against his skin. Listen to the changing rhythm of the steady heartbeat of the Ousía.
He felt a pull, a melding of himself with the world as the plant grew. He was sacrificing something, the energy inside him. He was using from the earth, which would receive in return. He felt the point of balance and followed it through.
He opened his eyes. There. The long green stalks, the wide, hanging leaves, the glowing red of the fruit. A tomato plant from a tomato seed with a push from the world.
