Surprised at the sudden magical appearance of the wizards spell book in front of him made the young warrior realize this was no ordinary person. The wizard waved his hand as if turning a page and the spell book opened by itself. Its cover a thick worn brown leather with aged gold gilding. It obviously was a valuable book indeed.
“To use any spell of type of magic” the wizard began, “One must be Aware.”
“Right now take a moment and feel how your feet connect with the floor. Sit up straight and start to bring your awareness to your breathing.”
The young warrior shifted in his chair. Placed his feet firmly on the floor and followed the wizards instructions.
“Good.” said the wizard as he nodded his head.
“Now listen to the sounds around you. Don’t lock in on any particular sounds but take all of them in. The birds singing. the fireplace crackling, your own breathing, my breathing. Take it all in.”
The young warrior again did as he was instructed. He began to notice sounds he did not pay any mind to before. The dripping of water, the gentle breeze moving through the trees outside.
“Now” continued the wizard. “use all of your senses. What do you smell? What do you feel on your skin?”
The young warrior concentrated and felt the warmth of the fireplace but yet the coolness of a gentle breeze coming through an open window. He felt his own weight in the chair and took a deep breath and smelled the fire in the fireplace, the different herbs on the old wizards numerous shelves. He noticed the warmth of the sunlight on his left hand as a small beam broke through a crack in the doorway.”
‘See.” said the wizard. “You’ve expanded your awareness. You’re not a separate part of this environment now but taking it all in.”
“There are many things that can distract us and make us miss all the things right before us, if we let them. Where the mind goes your energy flows. This is the power of your awareness. Learn to focus on what’s necessary but not at the expense of what’s around you.” The wizard then gestured with his palms up and said” Awareness allows you to know if you need or don’t need to take action.”
The young warrior nodded and said “you can’t fight a dragon you’re not even aware exists.”
“Right!” agreed the wizard.
“But when are we going to get to the spells?”impatiently asked the young warrior.
The old wizard smiled at the young warriors youthful excitement and said “A powerful spell has multiple ingredients. This one has seven parts. Each part has multiple ingredients. If any of the ingredients are bad then the spell won’t work. Awareness leads to Action and these are the first ingredients of the first part.” And as he said that a large decorative capital letter ‘A’ bordered by a drawn star faded into the first page of the spell book and under it were the words Awareness & Action.
“The next two are Breath and Balance.” continued the wizard.
