Anyone can become a wizard. They just have to create their own fully realized language to speak their commands in.

Anyone can write down their spells into spellbooks. They just have to create their own unique script to do it in.
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G. once told us the rest of the story for the Emperor’s New Clothes.  It’s good.  I went back and it predicts Black Lives Matter.

I want to talk about the back story.

Swindlers come in, talk up their new clothes, tell lies about how only good people can see the cloth, and then social pressure and lies do the rest.  Everyone pretends to see it and half-believes that everyone else has.

You can believe that in a story.  It wouldn’t happen that way in real life.

Unless the court were already used to lies and  manufacturing opinions and fashion and trying hard not to be caught out with the wrong set of beliefs.  (more…)

A boy was set to watch a flock. After awhile he saw a peculiar thing come creeping over the hill toward the flock.

It had a sheep’s skin and wool, slightly askew. But it walked strangely low the ground. There were glimpses of what seemed to be darker fur down below. It seemed to have sharp teeth. And its eyes were set straight ahead like a predator.

It’s hide could appear tilted a bit because of a spine condition, the boy reflected. The same spine condition could cause a peculiar walk. The darker fun could just be mud. The teeth, well, the animal is far away, perhaps I am mistaken. And wouldn’t it be wonderful if some few animals in the flock had far-away binocular vision like a predator the better to see predators sneaking up? Finally, who am I to judge? I must be charitable.

So,

“Sheep!” the boy cried.

A crow with a malicious twinkle in its eye suggested to a goat kid that it come play in some sewage run-off.

“But that’s sewage,” the kid said.

“Look on the bright side,” replied the crow.

“Well . . . it’s organic, and mostly water. I’d be 80% bathing in a stream. This is fine!” And in the kid went.

Moral: The wise man looks on the bright side of circumstances he cannot help. The fool looks on the bright side of circumstances he can.

The greatest festival of the kingdom is the releasing of the waters of growth from their reservoir in the mountains every spring.  Each family has their own little gate and their own channels that run to their land and on this special occasion, they release them all together.

The occasion is special for many reasons.  Tradition, the holiday sense of fun and excitement, the feasts, the games.  But most of all, it is the waters themselves.

These waters have strength and power beyond ordinary waters.  They are literally magical.   They carry a fresh scent with them, wiping out the must of winter.  Everywhere they go, the land brightens, the green of the plants deepen, and nature grows.  To drink from these waters is to be renewed.

The time of the waters is a time of joy, of renewal, of happiness, of spiritual peace.

The second greatest festival of the kingdom is releasing the waters at midsummer, when they bring furthered growth, coolness, and happiness and joy.

The third greatest festival of the kingdom is the final release at the end of the summer, when they soften the land, ripen the harvest, and gladden all hearts.

Well, not all hearts. (more…)

Once upon a time there was a kingdom so orderly that its laws and institutions had all sorts of branchings and variations, like a healthy, growing tree.

One of those odd little variations was the Christmas King. (more…)

These build on each other.  We’ll start with the First Parable of Rule again.

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A bull was grazing in a field near a stream. Now in that country there was a flock of escaped parrots who busied themselves in other people’s matters. (more…)