Tranquility
Scene 9
A quarter hour's span of time – unpunctuated by complaint or wry commentary – and the garden is starting to come together in exquisite balance. Three stones have been placed exactly where they should be – in a poised equilibrium of weight, shape, texture, distance, color, size; about these three delicate ripples have been drawn in the sand, a symbolic representation of the Force's uniting power, its fullness-in-emptiness, the unity and connection of the seemingly disparate.
Obi-Wan leans upon the rake, still blindfolded, and vexedly flicks sand from between the toes of his left foot, wriggling a bit. He then repeats the procedure on the right side. And then grunts in annoyance.
But he has been forbidden to speak, so that is the end of his grousing.
"Now the others," Qui-Gon urges him, squirming a little in place himself. How can it take so long to place the rocks in their appointed order, when each and every one of them, the sand, the very space around them, is crying out clear and clarion instruction? The very Force is alight with a kind of music which need only be transcribed into artifice, put on canvas. It is as though the padawan is dragging out the exercise on purpose, to torment his master, to test the limits of his own taskmaster's considerable patience.
But a subtle probing of the boy's aura reveals no such seditious intention. Obi-Wan is merely absorbed in what is –to him- a complex and elusive puzzle. He hesitantly levitates one of the smaller, red-hued granite chunks toward the garden's center, then appears to change his mind. It drops into the sand a meter from where it obviously should be, then wobbles upward and shifts over onto its side, resting at a drunken angle, askew and poorly integrated into the energy flow of the whole.
Master or not, Qui-Gon cannot take any more.
"Here," he commands, shucking off his own boots and crossing the enclosure's width in four long strides. "Give me the rake."
His apprentice pulls off the obscuring strip of cloth and peers up at him with mingled amusement and confusion. He wordlessly hands over the tool, a smirk tugging very gently at the corners of his mouth.
Qui-Gon tweaks his tiny learner's braid and shoos him away, taking a moment ot gather himself in the present moment, in the living, breathing Force. This is so simple. And then he remembers.
"Hold this, Padawan." His 'saber's hilt is pressed into the boy's outheld hands. Traditionally, neither shoes not weapons are worn inside the precinct of the Serenity Garden. The contemplator comes in poverty of spirit, and in peace. He is a pilgrim to the shrine of the Force, shedding his role as warrior-diplomat for that more fundamental one of servant and adept.
Obi-Wan retreats to the perimeter, relief lightening his step, and settles in to watch a master at work, the 'saber resting reverently across his bent knees.
His mentor sinks deep into the eternal now and commences his own moving meditation, perfectly focused, flawlessly in tune with the All.