I could never wrap my head around it. Teacher said it was not about the material world and the immaterial world, any more than ice melt flowing from a glacier was otherworldly. Matter and energy back and forth, life and death as different clothes for the same body. Demons were the waking of the elements into sentient shape, ghosts were the thoughts that outlive meat, breath is our reminder that energy moves in tides both in this state of being and in the next. All that is one single unknowable idea that is speaking out through you, even if you do not hear it. Your thoughts are not yours, nor are they real, but they are byproducts of your being that are as ephemeral as mist and as indestructible as color.
All that? Just a jumble of images and nonsense to me.
So my cousin was accepted to train as an adept, and I just learned to paint the charms and guide the boat. It’s not a bad life. I tell you this because when you look at adepts, you are seeing people who grasped the depths of their ignorance enough to fundamentally change how they see the world. They see life, and death, and existence in a way you never will. When you look at Whispers… don’t mistake them for people. Whispers have touched the root of the Real. When they deliberately alter their perceptions, the whole world shifts.
From “Reflections on the Waterways: a Gondolier’s Truths” by Simael Trent