25
" Sometimes," Jem said, " our lives can change so fast that the change outpaces our minds and hearts. It's those times, I think, when our lives have altered but we still long for the time before everything was altered-- that is when we feel the greatest pain. I can tell you, though, from experience, you grow accustomed to it. You learn to live your new life, and you can't imagine, or even really remember, how things were before. "
28
" But it may be that I betrayed myself. Since Dorcastle, my ability to supress my emotions has diminished. I know feelings are showing, not in ways which commons might see, but clearly enough for Mages to spot. My elders could well have decided that I am ruined, that my contact with you has corrupted me beyond correction." ..." What does it take to corrupt a Mage, anyway?" " I told you. They thought that you had attempted to seduce me. Perhaps they thought that you had already succeeded despite my denials that such a thing had happened." Once again Mari stared at him, her face darkening. " I was under the impression that your elders thought I would try that at some future point. What did you tell them to make them think that I had already put my moves on you? Or that I had already hooked you?" " Hooked?" Alain asked. " Ensnared." Mari got the word out between clenched teeth. " I told them nothing. That is the illusion they wished to believe, not thinking there could be any other reason for a female Mechanic to seek my company." Alain paused in thought. " A young and attractive female Mechanic, that is." " Oh right. The one with all those physical charms." " Yes," Alain agreed. She gasped a laugh. " I was being sarcastic again, Alain. I hope that isn't the only reason you've been attracted to me. Not the only reason anyway." " You are very pleasant to look upon," Alain said, and Mari's face flushed again. Had he angered her? " But my elders were foolish to think physical desire alone could corrupt me. It should not be possible with all of my training, but I found that a single shadow was by far the most important part of the world illusion. That is what doomed me, so my elders were correct in thinking that you had altered my thinking. Not with your body or other physical temptation, but with who you were and the things you did." Alain made another effort to bend his lips into a smile. " I will never be able to return to what I was before I met you. "
31
" Rylan!" Nadia and I turn our heads simultaneously towards the entrance to the living room as Tim Powers appears." Yeah?" I yell across the room.That's when I notice the expression on Power' face. A mixture of awe, amazement, appreciation, and a bit of jealousy." Your girlfriend's here," Tim informs me.He steps aside, and a goddess enters the room.It's been forever since I first had those dreams Ivy sent me with her in her disguise. But I still remember how she looks. Pale skin, long hair, bright-green eyes, and a model's figure. A perfect dream girl, who's now reality.Ivy smiles shyly as she steps into the room. Her skin is porcelain, unflawed and shiny. White-blind hair, straight and flowing, falls down her back and ends a little bit past her waist. She's not wearing her woven grass robe, but instead a dress mist likely altered from a piece of clothing from her clothes sack. It probably reached the floor at one point, with long sleeves, but the sleeves are gone and the skirt's been snipped away, leaving behind a green dress that shows off mile-long legs.But her face...all that pales in comparison to her face. Heart-shaped, with high cheekbones, an elegant nose, a well-shaped chin, and her lips—she's not covering them anymore—two shimmering, bright green pools I would be happy to drown in or go through. People believe the eyes are the window to your soul, and Ivy's soul is beautiful. "
33
" Antigonus, having taken one of his soldiers into a great degree of favor and esteem for his valor, gave his physicians strict charge to cure him of a long and inward disease under which he had a great while languished, and observing that, after his cure, he went much more coldly to work than before, he asked him what had so altered and cowed him: “Yourself, sir,” replied the other, “by having eased me of the pains that made me weary of my life. "
― Michel de Montaigne , The Complete Essays
37
" Meditation has also been proven scientifically to untangle and rewire the neurological pathways in the brain that make up the conditioned personality. Buddhist monks, for example, have had their brains scanned by scientists as they sat still in deep altered states of consciousness invoked by transcendental meditation and the scientists were amazed at what they beheld. The frontal lobes of the monks lit up as bright as the sun! They were in states of peace and happiness the scientists had never seen before. Meditation invokes that which is known in neuroscience as neuroplasticity; which is the loosening of the old nerve cells or hardwiring in the brain, to make space for the new to emerge. Meditation, in this sense, is a fire that burns away the old or conditioned self, in the Bhagavad Gita, this is known as the Yajna;
“All karma or effects of actions are completely burned away from the liberated being who, free from attachment, with his physical mind enveloped in wisdom (the higher self), performs the true spiritual fire rite. "
― Craig Krishna , The Labyrinth: Rewiring the Nodes in the Maze of your Mind