versed lark
When I was watching the Class Guide from Matt, it got me thinking about Void Elementalist, as I am playing one right now.
I tried to approach the concept of Void as something which cannot be known looked at some real life examples and got Inspirations from Heidegger's "Nothing".
Using that, I wrote a small scene for how it might be taught by a senior elementalist/sage in a school setting.
I wanted to share it here, if other people want to use it or like it to use it for themselves:
🕮 Lecture the Seventh: On the Nature of Element Void
“What is Element Void?”
“Pray, Master, explain to us the nature of Element Void.”
“Sir, I cannot comprehend Element Void.”
Questions such as these, my pupils, have I heard oft and again these forty years that I have had the honour to teach the arcane arts.
And to all such inquiries I give the same beginning:
No man—nay, not even the gods entire—can claim to understand Element Void.
Yet, by diligent study, we may approximate its likeness.
§ I. Concerning Misconception
Know first that Element Void is not Nothing.
Even as Element Fire is not mere flame, but the very principle of Destruction;
so is the Void not absence, but the womb of all potential.
The common folk, in their simplicity, deem it a darkness or a hungry gulf that devoureth all.
They are mistaken.
The Void is not the eater of worlds but the space wherein worlds may be born.
§ II. Of Its True Nature
Element Void is infinite possibility—
the Troubadour’s domain, the breath between words,
the white page awaiting the poet’s quill,
the silent rest between notes of a celestial song,
the midnight firmament against which the stars proclaim their fire.
It is the horizon of all becoming,
the context of creation,
the unseen frame that giveth meaning to all that is seen.
§ III. Of the Mind’s Limitation
Yet take heed:
Because the Void holdeth every potential, it exceedeth the grasp of mortal reason.
The mind that seeketh to contain it shall find itself dissolved like salt in the sea.
Thus we name it the Mystery, the Unknowable Element.
We may gaze upon its traces, as one might behold the moon’s reflection upon water,
but never may we clasp it in the hand.
§ IV. Of the Discipline and Its Practitioners
To be a student of the Void is therefore to walk the path of the Artist as much as of the Mage.
Each soul must devise his own manner of communion with the Unknowable—
some through painting,
others through music,
others through recitation or meditation upon silence.
In so doing, each seeks to shape from the boundless blankness
a single gesture of meaning, a stroke upon the infinite page.
§ V. Concluding Admonition
So remember, my students:
When ye work the arts of translocation—of passage through space and shadow—
ye do not move through the world;
ye but turn the page,
and find yourselves upon another line of the same grand text.
Beware pride, therefore, in your study of the Void.
For it is not you who command the Mystery,
but the Mystery that graciously permitteth you to partake in its vast silence.
“The Void containeth all things, yet itself is contained by none.”
— Axiom of the Seventh Element
fervent sage
smoky falcon
thorny drum