Faction Heji Tal Tea (Light Hand/RTL/Outer Rim Light Siders)

[Tiland Kortun]

Pretri Mapore Pyeth Raffinki Naada Sa Khyra Tani <inactive> Kaleleon Cotan Sar'andor Dair Cotarin <inactive> Jax Thio Salazar Niminen Jerek Zenduu Jannik Morlandt Minerva Nightmoor Sigyn Vanir Sinn Shak
​

Heji Tal. Compared to most Jedi techniques, it was surprisingly new. Less than a thousand years old, in fact, concocted by Luke Skywalker as a modification of the older empty meditation. Tiland had taken it and modified it a touch more, integrating it with a form of moving meditation.

Three forms of meditation at once, integrating Sense, Alter, and Control. It was a challenge, to say the least, especially utilizing the tea ritual. He had invited the rest of the Circle of the Light Hand, as well as any of the Outer Rim Force-groups to join him in the practice.

War once again brewed in the Outer Rim and the Dark Side surged. The many protectors of the Outer Rim would need to once again unite to beat it back. Not through force of arms, per se, or mighty armies, but with their trust and reliance on the Force. Only the Light could defeat the Dark, and rarely through violence.

Light Hand. Jensaarai. Wardens. Matukai. Falanassi. Jedi Pilgrims. He had invited them all. This would hone and strengthen their minds, their clarity, and help ward them against the sorceries of the Dark.

He had borrowed the conference room from the Yumfla chapter of the Church of the Force again, setting up low tables and cushions. Each table had a simple tea-seat with a pot of tea leaves, a pot of water, a heater, two cups, and strips of cloth.

Tiland leaned against his staff by the door to welcome the others as they entered. "Welcome, please, take an open seat. We will be training in pairs for today's exercise. So come, make yourselves comfortable."

A small collection of lavender and incense burned gently in one corner, filling the air with a calm, sweet aroma, while candles burned softly in the corners of the room. "We will start shortly."

 

[Kyra Perl]

Kyra slipped in, the red head sticking to the edges as she slid in for a seat near a corner. Things like this still made her nervous, even if it had been years since she left the order.

It made her imposture syndrome flair something wicked. But. Tiland had invited her and jedi or not, a clear mind helped her managed everything. And so the little empath sat cross legged on a cushion, rounding her shoulders in to not be noticed.

Well now she wanted tea.

 

[Pretri Mapore]

Pretri was quick to arrive upon the request of Tiland Kortun . While travelling across the Outer Rim was certainly exciting and illuminating, nothing quite beat the wisdom of her old Master.

Walking into the space, Pretri waved to the other souls that were already there. Tiland, she recognized. The one that Pretri did not quite recall was Kyra Perl . Still, she took a seat next to her with a smile. This was an opportunity to make a friend, she assumed. "Hey, you're here for the session, too?"

A harmless smile was painted on her lips.

 

[Naada Sa]

Naada could be quite busy and hard to reach most of the time as she often was far away, travelling for different reasons. When she got the invite for todays gathering however, she had been reading into the seriousness that was written between the lines. Besides, tea was one Naadas weak spot.
Walking into the Church of the Force, the togruta woman courtsied briefly with deep respect for Tiland once she saw him. "Tiland." she spoke and stood tall again, her hands folded in front of herself, well hidden inside expensive red sleeves. His welcome was warm but she still sensed the same worry she had when she read the invite. Moving over the floors, she soon took a seat, gracefully sitting down on her knees, nearly drowning in fabric. Looking over to the two others that had arrived before her, she bowed her head to silently great each of them from her seat as well.

 

[Pyeth Raffinki]

Meditation and Tea​

Location: Church of the Force
Theme: The Force
Tags: Tiland Kortun | Kyra Perl | Pretri Mapore | Naada Sa

Pyeth had kept to himself, trying to remain isolated from the larger groups. While exploring the grounds he was conscious of his appearance, standing out like an apple amongst tomatos. He overheard Scholars, wondering aloud where he might belong. Part of him wanted to inform them, but the other half persuaded him otherwise. The life of refuge was hard to shake, especially after what he had experienced.

For a moment, he felt comfortable amongst friends. Tiland was something of an anchor, a feeling of familiarity that grounded his emotions and the other Jedi although foreign still had the wind at their backs and that at least was something. Even so, when the Togruta (Naada Sa) settled down next to him his plumage bristled cautiously.

Pyeth tucked in his tail, ensuring he didn't disturb her and sat in silence waiting for Tiland Kortun to begin.

 

[Kyra Perl]

Kyra smiled tightly at Pretri Mapore and moved her leg out of the way so there was more space.

"Yeah, um. Heard there was tea," she downplayed, a nervous laugh to her voice. "You?" A conscious glance was shot Tiland Kortun 's way, the girl ready to quiet their harmless chatter the moment he appeared ready to start the lesson.

 

[Tiland Kortun]

Naada Sa Pyeth Raffinki Kyra Perl Pretri Mapore

Tiland smiled at them all as they entered, “Welcome, welcome. Good to see you again Pretri, and you Naada. Ah! Even Kyra! How have you been? Over by Ossus, I think I have heard? And Pyeth! Excellent, excellent.”

He gestured to the low cushions at each table. “Please, do take a seat and partner up. Introduce yourselves to each other while we see if anyone else attends. This will be a challenging class and you will have to be able to trust your partner as well as yourself.”

Tiland settled himself on a cushion in front of the row of low tables. “After that, why don’t you each explain your ideas and methods of meditation to the rest of us.”

 

[Pretri Mapore]

The smile seemed a little strained to her, but Kyra Perl must have just been a little nervous. There were quite a few people here, anyhow.

She sat down beside her, smirking. "I'd never miss a chance to learn from my old Master," Pretri explained before quieting down so the aforementioned 'old Master' could speak. And, once that was out of the way, she figured that the girl next to her was as good as any to partner up with. Oh, she should ask, though.

"Would you like to see if we'd be good partners? I'm Pretri Mapore. It's no sweat if you don't want to, of course, I just thought I'd offer..."

(other tags: Naada Sa Pyeth Raffinki Tiland Kortun )

 

[Kyra Perl]

"He was your master?" She chirped in surprise. She realized how loud she had said that and winced, lowering her voice at once. "I'm Kyra." She let the woman sit next to her, wordlessly accepting the invitation to try and work together. Kyra wasn't so sure what to expect, but when Tiland asked for them to speak up and talk about the ways they meditated to the group she visibly curled into herself.

"New comers first," she whispered under her breath, nudging the woman.

Bullet dodged!

Pretri Mapore

 

[Tayrankii]

Tayrankii ducked in late and sank into one of the cushions. She pulled off her helmet, a bulky breath mask, and set it on the floor. She gave her face a brisk rub.

On the way in she'd caught Tiland Kortun 's introduction. She offered the rest of them a tentative sharp-toothed smile.

"Hi, I'm Tyrankii. I don't...I don't come to things like this."

Like too many people these days, she'd taken a bullet straight to her trust in institutions. There was a time, not even that many years ago, when she'd happily participated in Jedi group training. These people weren't Jedi, not the institutional kind anyway. Not the kind who'd drill down on where she'd been since the late 860s.

An old ex-Jedi on Pagodon, Jend-Ro Quill , had told her about this 'Circle of the Light Hand.' Seemed worth a shot, or at least an improvement over always going it alone.

Pretri Mapore Kyra Perl Pyeth Raffinki Naada Sa

 

[Tiland Kortun]

Pretri Mapore Kyra Perl Pyeth Raffinki Naada Sa Tayrankii

Tiland would wait as the others spoke and settled in before continuing, but a newcomer arrived, and Tiland bowed deeply.

"Tyrankii, welcome. I am Tiland Kortun, and honored that you would attend one of these when you normally would not. I hope it will be of some benefit to you and you forge new connections here as well."

He turned back to gaze at the others, letting his gaze wander across the small gathering. "Now, an important thing to remember is that there are many types of meditation, and not all forms of meditation are equally useful for all individuals. This technique was developed several hundred years ago by past Jedi Grandmaster Luke Skywalker."

He gestured to the tea-sets and the blindfolds. "It builds upon the meditation of emptiness which goes back even further before then. Master Skywalker combined this meditation with a form of active meditation utilizing the traditional aspects of sense, alter, and control to find a state of meditative stillness, even while in motion. To practice this, we will create tea, wearing blindfolds, and without using our hands."

He grinned at them. "It should be enough of a meditative challenge without posting a danger."

 

[Pretri Mapore]

Pretri just smiled and nodded to the girl's question of mentorship. Yes, he had trained her, but he'd also taken her in when she was young and helpless. As things could be on Sevarcos II, life was brutal and cruel. It was lucky, in all honesty, that she'd been found and gotten to someone with good intentions. Yet she said none of this, simply taking the hint to explain her ways of meditation.

Of course, Tiland decided to move ahead with the lesson. As he did so, she simply sat and listened. Stories of the past were what kept her going, in all honesty. They told of great falls and great evils, but also of great rises and great goodness. This wasn't the first time she'd heard of Luke Skywalker, the man who'd toppled a tyrannical Sith Emperor and brought back the Jedi from the brink of oblivion. It made her feel as though, no matter how bad things got, they could always get better.

Somehow, she felt as though Tiland was speaking to her with the small comment about danger. As it was, Pretri had a slight inclination for doing dangerous, oftentimes insane things in the name of the thrill and excitement. But he was wiser than her, so she was willing to sit down and make tea instead of hopping around on unstable cliffsides... or any number of other things she'd done before. Nonetheless, she took stock of the tea sets and the blindfolds as well.

"Hmm... shouldn't be too hard, right?"

Kyra Perl Pyeth Raffinki Naada Sa Tayrankii Tiland Kortun

 

[Kyra Perl]

"I dunno... I don't even know how to make tea with my eyes opened," Kyra admitted to her partner, a bit abashed. Kyra sucked in a deep breath, then picked up the straps of silk laying on the trays. "...You first?" She offered, running the fabric over her fingers as she gestured for the girl to turn.

When and if she did, Kyra would help move stay hairs out of the way before tying the silk neatly behind her head.

"That ok?" She waved her hand in front of Pretri Mapore 's face for good measure.

Stuck out her tongue too.

 

[Tayrankii]

Tay fiddled with the blindfold, winding it around her fist, as she eyed the tea set nervously. She'd had tea tablets and enjoyed them: add tablet to cold water, get hot tea. Miracles of engineering, and a parsec away from making tea from leaves. She'd need to, what, heat the water pot and pour it into the leaf pot? Thence into a cup?

She put on the blindfold and reached out to touch the water pot, both physically and in her mind's eye. The contact gave her a better sense of the pot and how to move it with the Force.

Somewhere in here she'd need to find stillness, a meditative state. Sensory deprivation helped. The more she focused on the water pot blindfolded, the more constricted her reality became. She leaned into that tunnel vision (so to speak) and slowed her breath like the Jedi had taught her a long time ago.

The water pot moved to the heater. Step one done.

 

[Tiland Kortun]

Kyra Perl Pyeth Raffinki Pretri Mapore Tayrankii Naada Sa

"Very good," Tiland said softly, eyes half-closed as he felt the presences move within the Force. "Let yourself sink deep into the Force, emptying your mind and letting it flow through you. Feel the energy of the flame, of the water, of the way the essences of the tea leaves interact, and let them fade from your conscious awareness."

His voice was almost hypnotic, but not in the same way that Anzati tended to be. This was soft, quiet, and thoughtful. "Narrow your focus to just the water to start. How does it feel in your mind? Can you sense how the energy of the heater transfers to the water??

 

[Tayrankii]

A shift from Alter to Sense, said a quiet little memory. Eyes shut, Tay nodded and obeyed.

Obedience had been a struggle once upon a time, and a source of guilt. Then came the Raskava, where obedience was less about guilt and more about fear. Both the Raskava and Tay's old Jedi instructors, despite their other differences, had demanded and rewarded obedience. She'd doesn't years finding herself thereafter, and that work wasn't even remotely done.

But all that aside, when Tiland Kortun obstructed the class, Tay found herself obeying.

The water stirred at the bottom of the pot, down near the hot plate. She dwelt on that and watched in her mind's eye.

 

[Pyeth Raffinki]

"Of course, I would not have dared miss this opportunity," Pyeth replied nodding back at Tiland Kortun .

He stared at the blindfold puzzling just about how to wear the strip of cloth. His beak would make it awkward, almost like trying to sleep in the cramped spaces he typically found on starships. No one gave much thought to the winged species of the galaxy, and often he slept on the floor. In the end, he decided to tear in two to wear like a pair of eye patches. His ear tufts raised proudly as he solved some grand puzzle.

With that sorted, he turned his attention once more to Tiland's lesson. He learned recently, that although focusing on familiarity was easier it was not always advantageous. The Dark Side, or his own emotions, could easily be twisted against him. In the heat of battle, he couldn't afford to have Tiland or anyone else risking themselves to protect him. So his attendance here was as much about breaking that reliance upon familiarity as it was about studying the Force.

Letting that go was difficult, but nothing worthwhile had ever been easy in his life. He cleared his mind, focusing upon the subtle movements in the wind displacing the heat and rising steam and seeing where that would take him.

 

[Tiland Kortun]

Tayrankii Pyeth Raffinki Naada Sa Kyra Perl Pretri Mapore

"Very good, Tayrankii," Tiland said softly, watching the water shift in the bottom of Tayrankii's teapot. "Feel the motion and see it in your mind. You've Altered, Sensed, and now try Control. See if you can increase the heat on the stovetop. Let it become a cycle, if you will, and then let your mind move the tea leaves to the water."

He leaned on his staff, watching Pyeth, nodding gently. "Excellent, Pyeth, just like that. Follow the same sort of process. Cycle between the three modes as you make the tea."

Tiland surveyed the rest of the room, nodding. "Meditation is not simply empty-mindedness, it's also fully-presentness, to make up a bit of a word."