update from sparkleup

writing/middle-notes/making-incense.html

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 <p>To build a scent from the bottom up is to tell the first of three prayers of creation to Ýng, and Lyut works with devotion in his heart as he grinds. He does not speak his prayer; the sound of stone against stone are his words. He does not look up to the heavens where he knows Ýng to reside for sight is not a sense he possesses; allows, instead, his lord&rsquo;s presence to pierce his heart and travel down his limbs and guide the motions of his paws.</p>
 <p>The powder of the incense, thus created is sifted into a small bowl, the finest silt brushed from the mortar with the very tip of his tail.</p>
 <p>To mature incense in the quiet and the dry and the cool is to tell the second of three prayers of creation to Ýng, and Lyut again works with devotion in his heart as he unlimbers himself from where he had been kneeling and carries the bowl to the back of the cave where it will always be driest. He does not speak his prayer; the sound of his paws padding in dirt and fingertips dragging along stone wall are his words. He does not look for the shelf containing the other two incense bowls for sight is not a sense he possesses; allows, instead, his lord&rsquo;s presence to pierce his heart and travel down his limbs to place the bowl beside the other two.</p>
+<p>Lyut will then clean up his board, bringing it back into his cave and replacing unused ingredients back in their bowls, jars, or baskets by touch and by scent</p>
+<p>At last, he will pick up the last bowl in the line and scoot the other two up into its place and carry it to the mouth of his cave. Along the way, he will bend down and lift a bowl filled with ash, and carry it with him as well.</p>
+<p>To lay the incense trail is to tell the third and final prayer of creation to Ýng, and Lyut works still with the devotion in his heart as he tamps down the ash in bowl into a smooth plane with the tip of his finger, then draws a careful furrow in the fine powder, sowing incense in its wake. He does not speeak his prayer; the rhythm of the tamping and the quiet hush of incense and ash are his words. He does not look at the boxy spiral he draws for sight is not a sense he possesses; allows, instead, his lord&rsquo;s presence to pierce his heart and travel down his limbs guide his left foreclaw while the right hand follows by touch, dropping the powdered incense in its wake.</p>
+<p>The presence of his lord burns bright within him. Lyut does not know light from darkness, but were he pressed to answer, he would say that Ýng&rsquo;s presence is that of light, their absence that of dark, and by this point in the day, Lyut is filled with light.</p>
+<p>The prayers of destruction follow the prayers of creation.</p>
+<p>Against a crease in the rock at the entrance of his cave is his fire pit. The night before, he brought in sticks and bark from the near-woods and laid them at the feet of the fire. In the mornings after preparing his incense, he begins the first prayer of destruction, of breaking down the sticks and shredding the bark into tinder and kindling. The sound of the crack of dry wood and the tear of fibrous bark his words, the spirit of the lord guiding his every movement.</p>
+<p>The second prayer of destruction is the forging or rekindling of fire. If there are embers left, then the words of this prayer is the sound of Lyut&rsquo;s breath against them and the slow crackle of kindling catching alight. If the coals are out, then the words of this prayer is the singing of the bow drill between his feet, thermoception stretched taught as he strains to feel the warmth of the new flame starting in the tinder.</p>
+<p>The third and final prayer of destruction that Lyut offers to Ýng is that of the lighting of the incense. He works with the same measured care as he lights a punk from the fire, the spirit of his lord singing along his limbs, and touches it to the small mound of incense at the center of the trail he has built. The words of this prayer are silence.</p>
+<p>Only now does he speak his prayers aloud, and by now, he is overflowing with light. It seeps out through his fur, falls from his mouth in honeyed drops, shines from darkened eyes.</p>
+<p>Ýng is with him now as he chants, as the smoke wreaths him, as the scent of his labors fills his cave and the clearing and rises up past the tree-tops.</p>
+<p>Ýng is with Lyut, and I am as well.</p>
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                 <p>Page generated on 2020-11-20</p>