The Meditation
Snippets of the meditation from Diane Duane's 'Wizards' series.
I will meet the cruel and the cowardly today, liars and the envious, the uncaring and unknowing: they will be all around. But their numbers and their carelessness do not mean I have to be like them. For my own part, I know my job; my commission comes from Those Who Are. My hand raised is Their hand on the neck of the Serpent, now and always. I shall walk through Their worlds as do the Powers that Be, seeing and knowing with Them and for Them, tending Their worlds as if they were mine: for so indeed they are. Silently shall I go my way, as They do, doing my work unseen. The light needs no reminding by me of good deeds done by night. And in this long progress through all that is, though I will know doubt and fear in the strange places where I must walk, I will put both these aside, as the Oath requires, and hold myself to my work...for if They and I together cannot mend what is marred, who can-?
And having done my work aright, though I may know weariness at day's end, come awakening I shall arise and say again, with them, as if surprised, 'Behold, the world is made new...!'
When I wake, I will meet my old enemy uncertainty, and its partners, the shadows that lie at the back of my mind and others'; those darknesses which go about hunting for some action of mine to which to fasten themselves. They will lie in my road and say 'Why bother' or 'It will never work'; or they will lie out long and dark behind me, saying 'What difference have you made? It is all for nothing.' But I will pay them no mind. They are only the servants of the Lone Power, and against me and Those Whom I serve, they have no strength unless I allow them the same. My commission comes from Those Who Are, the Powers that were before time, and will be after it: the Powers Who made time, and to Whom it answers. My hand, lifted to strike the shadows away from the feet of the Event enacted, holds hidden within it Their hand that strikes the Lone One to the heart, day by day. So it was done anciently, so shall I do tomorrow.
And for tonight, I admit of no shadow but that of my closed eyes, and I give Their claw the resting time to sharpen itself in dream; for at eyes' opening, together We go to battle again.
