The Shakun Mystai Initiation
Abbreviated Initiation Ritual
Until your eyes snap open in darkness, and your vision begins to adjust. Everything is gray and shadowed as if you’re watching the world through a thin dark curtain like a veil, preventing you from seeing clearly. You seem to be floating above a tumbled scrub land of rock and grass and low hills. You can sense your companions with you, but you can’t see them, you can just feel their presence next to you.
The ground is moving belief beneath you, but you don’t feel a sense of movement – it’s as if you are stationary and the ground is scrolling below you. You come to a road cutting through the scrub, and you float along as the ground picks up speed beneath you, the land moving quicker now, a blur almost. You begin to drift higher and higher, and you can see across the entirety of Dunmar below you, as if you’re floating far up in the sky. You can see a river glittering in the distance, tall mountains rising out of the planes to the north, open fields below, tall grass blowing in the wind, the rain falling, summer thunderstorms washing the earth clean and as you begin to fall back towards the earth, the image changes.
You see the faint flicker of a vast forest of unimaginable trees superimposed on the land, stretching as far as you can see, reaching the mountains – everything still in shadow, still as through a veil – but every now and then pierced by lights. You can hear the sound of singing in a strange language.
Until time pauses. And with a flash, ash and fire spreads across the land and everything is red with the flame, you see nothing but ash and dead trees across the land. You see, burning, fighting the smell of blood and death. Until the image fades again, and you drift closer, looking at a huge city that’s spreading out below you, growing, stretching, covering all the land. This impossible city then melts and begins to ooze across the land, like red blood, until a light cuts across it, and water is falling, washing it clean.
As the land is cleansed, you’re disoriented for a moment, because you are the rain, flowing down the river into an ocean somehow both yourselves, but also, part of the water. It is almost as if your individual identity is gone and you’re catching impressions from the water around you that both are yours and not yours: the pungent smell of blood and war, the taste of mushroom and lambs stew, the acid ashy taste of some bitter polluted smoke in the air, the sound of gulls, the smell of salt in the air, the clean crisp cold taste of water from a high mountain stream.
Until just as suddenly you evaporate into the sky, and are a cloud drifting over the land, growing as you rise in the hot air over the dry planes below, until you burst. Still everything is faint and seen through a veil but now it feels more like a fine mist than a shadow. As you are falling the earth rises up to meet you, eager for the life you bring, and as you soak into the ground everything is dark and earthy around you.
And then suddenly you feel like you’re being stretched in five different directions almost like you’re being pulled apart until you burst forth images flashing. You see yourself turning the corner on a narrow track high in the mountains, watching small trails of smoke rising in the distance from the cook fires of the small village, feeling the anticipation of hearing again the sounds of hammers against stone, the soft patter of young feet running over the earth, the background murmur of life. As you walk forward approaching the village you take a step and are falling through the mountains, through the stone, emerging on an enormous white fur rug by a fireplace looking up at a vaulted ceiling covered and complex patterns of tile. You turn in anticipation, as you hear the distant rushing of water growing louder, and then watch as a waterfall starts cascading down the facade of the building. As you are overwhelmed by the joy of this sight you notice the water is driving a number of small stone and class automata, which start to move. You’re drawn into them, pulling closer and closer as they begin to come to life, drawn into one of them in particular, a glowing crystal lantern. As your vision pulls out, and you can see now that this lantern is sitting on a beautiful and intricately carved mantle. It seems ancient and as your gaze falls upon it, you feel a sense of loss and melancholy, as you stare at the light. As you focus on the light it becomes the sun setting behind you, as you are on a ship at sea, cutting through green waters watching the waves, the wind in the sails as you leave port. As you watch the sun set behind you on the shore, you feel a sense of happiness and contentment at setting off for somewhere new. As the sun sets, the image fades into the night sky full of stars, clear and bright. A sense of calm washes over you as for a moment you feel a sense of profound peace and everything slows.
And pauses.
Your vision clears for a moment, as you see a great empty cavern, vast but dark, the only light coming coming from shimmering crystals surrounding seven carven thrones of stone, an intricate design etched on the rocks below, a strange metal taste in your mouth almost like placing your tongue against the vein of some metal in an ancient rock face.
As you rushed towards the floor, crashing through it, for the briefest of brief of moments you can see everything. You can see the world below you, lines of energy twisting across it, points of thought superimposed, too complex to really understand. But for a moment you feel as if everything is clear, and you can see people, you can see the Shakun Mystai, and from each one a light stretches into a web, and that web stretches together into a complex interweave of energy that reaches out across Dunnar. The web stretches for the border, and piles up, almost making a soft net. But as you watch this web, you can see that there are holes in it, you can see that it’s tearing, it’s beginning to pull apart.
As you follow these strands, you can see that this energy is coming both from here, from Dunmar and from elsewhere, beyond this plane. As you watch this web of power, shifting and shimmering with the thoughts of the people whose dedication to Shakun and, more importantly, to each other, supports it, you can see that at the center, where there should be energy, where there should be light, where there should be life, where there should be the pulsing of divine power and divine energy through this web, there is just emptiness. There’s just nothing – it’s not darkness so much as just the absence of energy, the absence of sustenance. And that that emptiness is spreading through the web, the knots are beginning to crumble and flicker and fail and tear. You can see cracks stretching across the land.
Then the clarity you had is gone, and you’re now standing on the top of the Red Mesa. It’s evening and everything is again distorted by grey, the ground itself unsteady under your feet. The mesa cracks open beneath you, the rock shifting as if you are traversing an unstable glacier and not solid ground, solid rock. You can feel now, here, the absence of something, you can feel this is where the heart should be, this is where the blood flows, this is where the energy that powers that web of people, that web of thought, that web of souls that protects Dunmar, is ripped loose.
As you watch the scene grows darker, you have the feeling that something is reaching for you, a vague impression of a woman who is maybe also a mesa, and a whisper breath as darkness grows: “Please. Will you help me.”
Kenzo and Drikod’s Shakun Initiation Ritual
As Kenzo and Drikod prepare for the initiation into the mysteries of Shakun, Candrosa spends time leading them in meditation and prayer, and also explaining the history of the initiation ceremony. He explains it will be a little bit strange, because you’ve already experienced some of it, having gone through this ritual before without the heart. But what is different is that now, the presence of the heart will be there to guide you. And things that didn’t make sense may make more sense, he hopes.
The initiation itself is also the story of Shakun. Not exactly her history, but her power and her spirit and connection to Dunmar. And so, after a week of training and meditation and prayer, the the last evening before the feast of Bhishma, Candrosa takes you down through the Temple of Shakun, underground into this cavern where there’s a pool of glowing water. The room, unlike the last time you were here, is brightly lit, and there is a warm glow that comes from the rock all around the the walls that surround this pool of water in the middle of this chamber, that just glowing sort of burnished red like the sunset, basically walked into a living sunset almost or sunrise. So everything is warm and bright.
Candrosa says, “This is the power of Shakun’s heart. With her here the mesa is alive. Bright and powerful, not dark.”
As before he you change into the robes of the initiates, and Candrosa paints a crescent on your forehead with this red ochre pigment made from the mesa itself, which now also is glowing. You feel almost as if you feel somebody, something, is wrapping its arm around your spirit, around your aura, and leading you to this pool of water.
As before, the surface of the pool bursts into flames of blue light. The acolyte leads you to the pool, gives you a drink of something, and submerges you underneath the flames.
For a moment everything is darkness, until your vision adjusts and you’re looking down, lying over the land of Dunmar from west to east. Starting in the tumbled scrub land of rock and grass and low hills near the border of Chardon, along the outskirts of the mountains that are Drikod’s home, and then turning south along the river, passing across the plains and into the desert then turning west again to the Yuvanti Mountains. You fly upwards approaching the mountains, soaring over the steep high peaks, and looking at the the savannas and the lush jungles beyond the mountains.
As you fly across this land you can feel yourself being being buoyed up by some presence. It and you are circling around the mesa, which is near the center of this land. As you circle the land becomes almost a blur of he plains and tall grasses and deserts. You drift higher and higher, until you hear a voice, maybe Candrosa’s, saying, “Look to the past.”
The land changes. Now, before you you see a vast forest covering the entire land, huge trees stretching as far as the eye can see, the occasional sound of singing in a strange language dancing across the top of the trees. The voice says again, “this is what was here before.” The mesa is, in this time, not a mesa, but its presence is obvious. It is like a big open sinkhole, a sharp sided canyon with trees growing around and through it, with one enormous tree growing up from the bottom of the depression.
The voice speaks again: “And then evil came.” There’s a flash of light, and you see fire in all directions, the forest burning, turning to ash. Everything is red with flame; you see nothing but the ash, the dead trees scattered across the land, the smell of death and blood.
The image slowly fades to to almost translucent, so you’re looking at the same landscape but as shadowy realm. All you see is fire for a moment, there’s no there’s no visual image of anything other than fire marching across the land. Slowly, you see cities begin to spring up, still containing at their center a dim reflection of the fire that has faded. Then, from each city, a red ooze begins to bubble, spread across the land. Everything turns dark, and it looks almost as if there is acid spilling out across the landscape. Everything is being blackened, everything is being corroded and worn away.
The voice says again, “Until the land was land was cleansed.” You are pulled up into the sky., and then you feel yourself disjointed, falling as rain, flowing down onto this landscape, washing away this acid, life springing up behind you as you flow from the mountains down to the rivers into the sea. All of the ash. all of the blood, all of the fire, all of the corrosion wash away with your passing.
The water now begins to pool at the center of the canyon that is, or will be, the mesa, and the voice continues, “But somebody had to protect the land that was left.” The mesa is starting to contract slightly, beginning to beat, starting from the pool of water formed in the canyon. As it beats, the land grows around it, with each beat stretching higher into the sky, until the mesa you recognize from today appears, the pool of water shrinking with each beat.
The voice again: “The land was and will be protected by the people who believe.” Your vision shifts, focusing on the pool that remains, the pool you recognize as Shakun’s Wellspring. Reflected in the water is an image:
Walking, turning a corner on a narrow track high in the mountains, seeing small trails of smoke rising in the distance from cook fires of a small village. And you can feel the anticipation of hearing again, the sounds of hammers against stone, the soft pattern young feet, running over stone, the background murmur of the life of this small village. As you walk up this path, approaching the village, you then see in this pool of water falling through the mountains through this stone—
Emerging on an open plane, riding fast on a horse, your companion, a young boy riding beside you, both of you racing across the plains, laughing at how fast you’re going. You look around at home as you arrive in camp, sitting down as the sun sets, talking to your family, acknowledging the land that supports you, that protects you that provides for you. And then watching as the sun sets—
Into the night sky full of stars, clear and bright. And a sense of calm then washes over you as for a moment you feel the sense of profound peace and everything slows.
Your vision returns to this pool of water. You can see the lines of energy that are starting to run out from this pool. They start to gather, start to pull themselves together, start to form this fibrous mass in the center of the mesa. It’s somehow your energy, your connection, your feelings of peace and happiness and the echoes of the land of your home that are also somehow pulled into this fibrous mass that’s growing and forming into stone. You begin to see Shakun forming around stone. She takes it, she reaches into her translucent body and pulls out the heart, and lays down. As she does you can see the mesa grow around her, and as she places the heart down it grows bigger and bigger. The web of power has coalesced into the Shakun’s heart, and the mesa springs up with this light that is illuminating the cavern. You are bathed in a warm reddish glow that washes across Dunmar.
The voice says again, echoing with the voices of many, “We will protect this land together.” You can feel the energy now flowing back and forth between you, the heart, and everybody else who you sense now who is part of the Mystai of Shakun and this network that protects Dunmar. You can feel the ebb and flow of energy with each beat of this heart, now in its place in the temple here.
As your eyes snap open, standing in blue fire of this water, you can see now in the pool around you the images that you’ve seen once before: the village track in the mountains, running across the plains, the starry night, and then many, many others, camps, tending horses, praying, a particularly delicious meal, snuggling with your parents, just images and images and images of what you realize must be the memories of the moments of peace and happiness of all the other Mystai that you are now connected to.
And then Candrosa nods to you, saying “Welcome, my friends.”