Special Illumination

by ponichaeism

CHAPTER VII: Practicing Self-Harmony

"Ooh," Clover shouted, "I found some!"

Her words echoed through the forest until they reached Starswirl, who'd just bent forward to tear a flower out of the ground to munch on. Chewing heartily, he reared back and scanned the woods for her, but even fifty feet from the edge of the village, it was already thick and overgrown. The gnarled trunks thrived with life, their innermost vital energy radiating the serenity and tranquility of the Harmony and drowning out the paranoia and distrust emanating from Hollowed Ground.

Unfortunately, Clover's pale green coat blended in almost perfectly with the greenery, and he couldn't pick her out from the shrubs and the grass dotting the ground. At least, not until she sat up, causing her bright red hair to shine in the scant rays of mid-morning light that made it through the thick branches. She waved to him, and he picked his way through the undergrowth towards where she sat. As he approached, she brushed away the plants on the forest floor until he could see quite clearly the valerian herb standing by itself.

"You have a good eye," he said, then paused to swallow the flower. "I daresay I would have missed it."

She hopped into the air gleefully. "Now that I found it, can you please, please, please tell me?"

"Very well, Clover," he said, nodding. "Have a seat."

She promptly planted her haunches on the ground.

Starswirl cleared his throat. "If you remember nothing else of what I tell you today, remember this one thing, and this one thing above all else...."

She nodded rapidly, her lips slightly agape.

"Everything is connected." He slammed a hoof in the dirt for emphasis, making her jolt. "Everything."

"Connected to....what?"

"Everything else. See this plant?" He gestured at the small green valerian surrounded by soil. "See how it looks like it is set apart from the plants surrounding it? That is an illusion. Under the dirt, its roots stretch out and intertwine with the other roots, with the soil, with everything. This forest is all one living being, though it appears to our eyes as many separate ones. They are all connected, and they are all dependent on one another."

She gawped at the small plant, then at the forest. "But what does that have to do with ponies? We're not plants, and we're not connected to the forest."

"Yet you depend on this plant for its medicine. So how does that make you distinct from it? Simply because you have hooves you can use to walk away?"

Starswirl lit his horn with magic and surrounded the valerian with a cerulean glow.

"If this forest were to perish, so would this plant, and you would have its medicine no more."

As he spoke, he ripped the plant from the ground and magically levitated it into Clover's saddlebag.

"If the soil were to spoil," he asked, "where would your food come from? Do you think you could learn to eat air? Everything is connected, Clover, even though it may appear divided. That is the key you need to unlock the mysteries of the universe."

He traced a circle on the ground with his hoof, then drew a curving, wavy line down the center to separate it.

"Light," he said, tapping one half, then the other. "Darkness. Two opposites. But at the same time, they are not opposites."

"They're not?" Clover asked. "Then....what are they?"

"Compliments."

"Is this one of your jokes?" she asked with a wary eye. "You're not going to say they're telling each other they look pretty at sunrise and sunset, are you?"

Starswirl smiled. "No, but I might have to borrow that joke from you. Come, let us find more herbs."

They set off deeper into the woods. As they strolled along, Starswirl gestured to the forest around them.

"Light and darkness do not fight each other any more than the soil and trees do, or the air and water. In fact, they allow each other to exist in the first place. If there's no ground, then what is air? Air becomes everything, and so the very idea of air itself becomes meaningless, as there is nothing to compare it to. Nature is filled with such pairs. Wet and dry, hot and cold, active and passive, solid and liquid...."

He pointed at her, then at himself.

"Young and old. This world is full of a duality that is not actually dual, because everything is a balanced half of the same whole. Without that balance, there would be nothing but one extreme or the other. Ponies cannot live if it's too hot, or if it's too cold. They must consume both liquids and solids to live. You'll grow older, but as days go by you'll wish more and more for the simpleness of youth. You see? The world is in balance, creating a web of complimentary forces that are constantly in motion, yet in that motion there is stability."

"And all this stuff is connected to each other," Clover repeated slowly. "Always moving. Like the sea?"

"You're learning. Have you ever seen the sea?"

"No, but papa told me all about it, how you go out on boats and fish, or go down to the sandy beach and watch the waves come in for hours. It sounds so beautiful."

"It is, just like the natural order of the universe is beautiful to behold, if only you know how to see it."

"This natural order thing, does it have a name?"

"How could we 'name' something so limitless with our imperfect language? It is beyond description, it is beyond quality, it is beyond even our full understanding, just as the wonders below the sea cannot be fathomed by staring at its surface, or the wonders below the soil cannot be unearthed by staring at its top layer. This natural order appears--manifests--itself in everything from the valerian in the ground to the celestial mechanics governing the stars in the sky. One mere word, to name the entire underlying order of the universe? I should think not."

"It's got to have a name, otherwise it'd be really confusing to talk about."

"Well," Starswirl said, chuckling, "that is true, as many philosophers have discovered. The best we can do is describe it through the analogies our flawed language and limited minds can produce."

"So what is it, then?"

"In the marbled halls of Varnice, the philosophers call it the Harmony. The universal order connecting us all. It calls on everything and everypony to act in unison with it, to let its energies flow through them freely and uphold the universe's motion. Everypony has a place within its grand scheme. That's why we have cutie marks, as a matter of fact: to reveal our true path within the Harmony."

He gestured to his cutie mark, a galaxy.

Clover frowned at her own blank flank.

"What happens on any one level of reality is reflected everywhere else," Starswirl said, sweeping a foreleg majestically over the mid-morning sky. "By looking to the stars, we can discover our own future, because we are all part of one vast, living universe."

"And that's why we can all break out into singing without knowing why?"

Starswirl nodded, then plucked another valerian from the ground and magicked it into Clover's saddlebag as they walked on.

"The Harmony unites everypony, but it's also apart from us. Its radiant substance is much too powerful to appear to us directly, so it shields itself by manifesting through layers of the material world, things like natural laws and physical substances. Only rarely does the connection binding us together reveal itself so boldly. But the greatest knowledge you can ever gain in life is the fact that that unity exists all the time. Just as this tree and that one over there are connected under the soil, so are you and Golden Vein connected, even if it doesn't always seem that way."

Clover kicked a rock with her hoof and said angrily, "Then why's she so mean to me, if we're connected?"

"I said everypony is connected, Clover. I didn't say everypony knows they're connected. Even though this tree is overflowing with life, if I were to ask it how another tree feels, I doubt I'd get the answer I was looking for. The gift of ponykind, and of all the other speaking species, is our ability to think and reason. However, that brings with it a terrible burden, for not only we can understand we are connected, we can also choose not to uphold that connection by refusing to act in accordance with the Harmony. Disturbances like that cause the natural order to stagnate and falter, and spread ripples of discord and discontent throughout the world."

"How can somepony choose not to act in core-dance--"

"Accordance."

"Right, that. How can somepony do that if they don't know they're connected to the Harmony?"

"Ah."

For several seconds, there was no sound but their hooves crunching the underbrush.

"Well?" she asked.

Starswirl chewed his lip as he ruminated whether to burden the filly with the innate falliblity of ponykind. Finally, he decided that she'd seen enough cruelty in her short life that, sad to say, knowledge of ponykind's deep-seated self-destructive impulses wouldn't unduly affect her.

"It has to do with our own weaknesses. As I said quite a few times, the Harmony depends on balance, and since everything is connected, ponies must strive to maintain balance within themselves, as well, which so few ponies do. It is natural to love, but the secret is realizing that loving too strongly is just as unbalancing as loving too little."

"Huh? How can too much love be bad? I thought love was supposed to be the best thing in the world."

"Too much love of a spouse leads to jealousy; too much love of money leads to greed; too much love of a pasttime leads to obsession; too much love of a hometown leads to hatred of outsiders; too much love of a skill leads to pride; too much love of yourself blinds you to your flaws. You see? Like light and darkness, all these emotions appear separate, yet all stem from the same source: love. Whether the having of it or the lack of it, love drives the universe. Love is Harmony, and Harmony is love. But it must be balanced, in moderat--hello!"

It wasn't just the glimpse of stone through the tree trunks off to his right that made Starswirl stop in his tracks; he felt a slight impression in the the Harmony's composition pulling him in that direction, something not natural. Calling the stretch of forest they were walking at the moment a "path" felt altogether too generous, but straying from it would send him and Clover into pure wilderness. And yet, like water is tempted to run into a rut, the faint dent in the Harmony pulled him down....

"Moderathello?" Clover asked from ten paces down the road, staring at the ground beneath her hooves as she walked on, deep in oblivious contemplation. "I ain't never heard a word like that before. Is that Varnetian?"

"Clover," he called.

She stopped, stared over her shoulder at him in confusion, then trotted back to his side.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I don't know yet."

Steeling himself, he plunged into the thick foliage, with Clover reluctantly tailing him. They worked their way through the rough bushes and low-hanging branches until they stepped into a clearing in the middle of the overgrown forest. Slanted sunlight poured through the canopy and onto the flattened earth.

"A little off the beaten path, isn't this?" Starswirl asked, gesturing to a circle of ancient stones ringing the clearing. "This had to have been made by ponies. The positioning is too precise."

"These must be the Foalright Stones," Clover said.

As Starswirl approached the center of the clearing, which had been dug up and refilled many times, he asked, "The Foalright Stones? What do you know of them, Clover?"

"Papa told me about them. He said this is where they used to give thanks to a, um, forest spirit, I think."

For a pony who acts like he wants nothing to do with the townfolk, Starswirl thought, Carmine seems very keen on their history, doesn't he....?

Starswirl touched a hoof to the ground and felt out with the Harmony. "Oh," he said. "Oh, my."

"What is it?"

"I'm trying to sense the Harmony in this area, but it's very conflicted and unbalanced. There's hope and unity, and its lending energy to the forest, but there's also doubt and fear and mistrust, which is spoiling it. And this is very recent, too. This place may be old, but these emotions aren't...."

His heart started pounding. He snapped his eyes open and hurriedly scanned the treeline surrounding the clearing.

"What is it?" Clover whimpered. "What?!"

Starswirl narrowed his eyes and scanned the trees again, slower this time. He reached out with both his vision and his connection to the Harmony, seeking out the presence he'd felt. But it was no use; he couldn't see or feel it anymore. Still, the sense that he was a trespasser in Hollowed Ground had never been stronger.

"We'd better go back," he said, still keeping his eyes open for the slightest sign of movement from the forest. "We don't want to risk upsetting your papa. He told you to stay near the mill, and there may be timberwolves about."

"He won't be back for hours, though, and you're here to protect me with your magic--"

"Clover, please, trust me."

"Alright," she said dejectedly.

Starswirl turned and walked out of the clearing, Clover in tow. As he made his way back to the edge of the forest, he tried to remember the way. It was a full moon that night, and since many cultures held great significance for the full moon as an object of worship, he had the feeling he'd be taking a midnight stroll.

The shadow-clad stallion parted the bushes and watched the unicorns leave the ancient circle. He was sure the adult had sensed him, and it had taken all his craft to withdraw his presence and conceal himself in time. This Starswirl was powerful, no doubt about it. But rather than a threat, the stallion thought such a formidable magician could be useful, could teach him a thing or two....even if he had to rip the magic out of Starswirl's body to do it.

The little filly, on the other hoof....

The shadow-clad stallion's upper lip curled in disgust.

Oh, she would get what she had coming to her, he was sure of it. He was tempted to chase them down and confront them right now, but managed to rein the urge in. It wasn't time yet, and his power, incredible though it was, was still raw and unfocused, like the forest's own. He would need precision if he were to overcome a unicorn of Starswirl's caliber. Soon, when he had tamed his wild magic, he would cast aside his mask and reveal himself, and then he would come for her and her guardian. He snickered to himself as he imagined the filly's delightful screams of torment.

The stallion retreated back into the depths of the forest, glad to have stumbled upon something to occupy his thoughts until the evening....