ARISTASIA FORUMS

Rayati Raihiranya!

I would like to ask for the opinions of all the honourable maids here at the Aristasia Forums concerning this question:

Do you believe that it is possible to be both truely Aristasian and Tellurian, to have past Aristasian as well as Tellurian lives - to be equally at home in two (theoretically more) worlds?

Thank you.

Your question is most interesting, ma'am.

When we think of those who have a "past" (however we may see that) in Aristasia, normally we think of the most usual case (at least it has been most usual for us), in which the maid in question is an "exile".

An exile is someone who belongs to the Motherlands and normally feels quite painfully out of place in Telluria. The two kinds of maids we have in Aristasia-in-Telluria as plenary Aristasiasn have generally been divided into exiles and adoptees. Adoptees are not of Aristasian descent at all but are adopted into the Bridgehead Protectorate and become "naturalized" Aristasians.

The third kind has been the Law of Manifestation Aristasian - who is not an exile and neither is adopted. She is simply has an Aristasian persona who takes part in Aristasian life on a basis of "when in Caire". LoM Aristasians have always been welcome, but it is understood that their primary live lies outside Aristasia and that they will never be (or wish to be) plenary Aristasians.

You are postulating a fourth category. Girls of part-Aristasian descent who are not actually alienated by Telluria (as even some adoptees are). Such a girl might even not seek a place in Aristasia-in-Telluria, since she is at home and happy in Telluria (if not the Pit).

What you say is indeed logically possible - even probable. It is surprising we have not thought of it before. Possibly the reason is that such girls, being content with Telluria, often do not seek out Aristasia.

As you suggest, they may also be connected to other worlds. The idea that there are other intemorphic worlds is one that has been hovering on the periphery of our consciousness for some time. We suspect that intemorphic worlds would likely be more common than schizomorphic ones, being more "natural" and "primary".

Thank you for provoking thought on this fascinating question.

Rayati, honoured Lady Aquila.

Thank you very much for your response.

Reading it, I realised that behind my question, there are many more questions that I did not even conciously know I had.







If there are many worlds, all "surrounding the Pillar", all around the same Axis, and all inhabited by axial beings, maids, is maid then not a pilgrim, a traveller through many worlds, many states of existence?
And if so, what does it mean to have a Homeland, a Home-World in all those worlds? What does it really mean to belong to Aristasia, or to belong to Telluria or any other specific world?

I thought I was asking my original question because I used to be sure I was an Intemorph possibly an Aristasian, until something happend that made me feel sure I was a Tellurian Schizomorph. Having tryed living as a Tellurian, I have come to the conclusion that I am not.
At least, not that alone. So I wanted to know whether it was possible to be at home in more than one world.

But I realised after reading your response and thinking about it all some more, that that would not really feel "more right" to me, and that what I probably really wanted and certainly want to know is something more.

Is our truest Homeland not Avala, and beyond even that, Dea Herself?
And if so, are we not all "sent to do a job and serve the Motherland", Aristasians, Tellurians, and all other Maids in all possible worlds? The job of being Her Princess Regent on "Earth"?

I know I can enjoy and feel "at home in" and loyal to Telluria and Aristasia (and possibly other worlds) but sort of as if they were different stages - it seems like a very ellaborate, beautiful game which must be taken very seriously if it is to be played well (and playing well is actually the important part), but which is really ... a game.

I feel as if I were just as much a LoM Tellurian as a LoM Aristasian, or rather, both (and more) completely and at the same time neither. I get sad when I try to make myself feel that I must think of myself as belonging to one particular world, rather than as a traveller who is connected to all the places she has been to, and still has more business with some of them, than with others, still has some work to finish here and there or places to revisit.

Should I feel differently? Is there something wrong with feeling like this or seing things like this? Could a maid think and feel this and be a Child of the Empress?

Honoured Lady Aquila, I hope these are not too many questions at once. I did not intend to write all this, but I suppose these questions have been on my mind for some time without me becoming fully aware of it until today.

Thank you for reading all this. I look forward to your response.
Rayati,
Fräulein Bernstein

I'd like to attempt to add a few thoughts...



Yes, I believe it would be correct to say this.



Yes, I believe it would also be correct to say this. However, remember that all worlds are not equal. Some are higher than others. Aristasia Pura is higher--better, one might say--than Telluria. It is necessary for Maid to travel, through her lives, from the lower worlds to the higher. She may backtrack at times, but the overall goal is upward.



It is natural to "go native" to some extent, to feel some loyalty to the place one lives in. (For example, my biological mother is dreffly bongo but I love her anyway.)

To say that one world or the other (or both) feels like a game can be taken positively or negatively. The Pit says that games are only for entertainment. Yet, when little girls "play house" they play at the things that they will really do when they are grown up. I should think that a maiden who cooked plastic play-meals as a child would feel more at home in a kitchen than a maiden who...say, did nothing but play Pittish lightgames as a child.

So I think it's not entirely incorrect to view Telluria and Aristasia as different stages in one's life. When one is born, one must learn to handle the immediate problems--that is, functioning in the society she is living in. Then, with that frame of reference, she can remove herself and move on to the real world--Aristasia.



I rather feel otherwise--I think it is sad to think of oneself as belonging to no particular world. I don't see why a maiden cannot have a homeland and connexions to the places she has travelled. I would go so far as to say a maiden needs a homeland, even if she is not living in it. Without a real home, there is no "us".



You feel what you feel; you cannot help that! It is what you do with your feelings that really counts.

It seems to me like you have a lot of questions about who you are, what you are, and where you belong. There is nothing wrong with that! If we never ask questions, if we never do "soul-searching", we will never find out who we really are.

Rayati, honoured Miss Yu, and thank you for taking the time to respond to my post.



I did not intend to to say that a maid cannot ( or should not) have/feel to have both a homeland and connections to the places she has travelled. I am assuming that that is the way most Aristasians-in-Telluria would feel since they do speak of Aristasia as their homeland and obviously, or they would not be here, do "travel" to other places.

I feel differently, and want to know wether this would be accepted in Aristasian society.



That is what I was really asking: do you, personally or as Aristasians, believe that a maid needs a homeland.

There is an "us" for me in the fact that we are all maids and reflections of a fragment of Deas Spirit and on a journey back to Her, our "Home". I don't feel the need for attachment to any one particular world as something more than a station on that journey, and as, not unlike myself, an expression of Her.



In a way, this is right, and in a way, it is not.
I know what I am.
What I truely do not know, is where I fit in. In Telluria, for example, I will obviously have to create, with others, a "place" to live in, as the Real World has collapsed. But few Tellurians can understand the way I feel about Aristasia.
Likewise, I feel "at home" here in Aristasia, but I am unsure, and that is why I am writing these posts, wether, feeling the way I do about Telluria and "belonging" to any world, I will be welcome and accepted, as I am, by Aristasia-in-Telluria.
If put more bluntly and simply than it is, I might say it is comparable to an old immigrant-problem: when I am here in Aristasia, I feel Tellurian - when I am in Telluria, I feel Aristasian.



My experience has been, that when my thoughts change, and I understand truth, my feelings do change to reflect my understanding. I am asking these questions, and telling you these things about myself, because I truely believe they can be helped, if they need to be helped. They need to be helped if they are based on falsehood or a misunderstanding of the Truth. That is what I am trying to find out, with your kind help.

Thank you again for your response, Miss Yu. I look forward to reading from you again.

Rayati,
Fräulein Berstein

Ah, I understand what you mean now! Yes, I believe your sentiments are fine and would be accepted in Aristasian society. As you can probably tell by my original response, the concept may be difficult for other Aristasians to understand because we are so loyal to the Motherland. But I don't think there is anything wrong with your sentiments.



I think I understand what you're saying more clearly now.

You are quite welcome and accepted in Aristasia, even though you feel you have more connexions to Telluria than the average Aristasian. Many Aristasians are more connected to Telluria (Telluria, not the Pit) than we appear because we try to leave Tellurian things outside Aristasia. Living on a foreign world, one simply cannot help it if one is to survive.

It doesn't matter to us what you do in Telluria. Someone (I cannot recall who) once said that you may be Jill the Ripper for all we know; we don't care as long as you are a proper maiden while in Aristasia.



The only problematic thing that I see (and it is only a little problem, and one that only affects you) is that you've said you feel more Aristasian in Telluria and more Tellurian in Aristasia. Obviously I see nothing wrong with the former; it is more the latter.

My advice is the old adage--when in Ladyton, do as the Arcadians do. Be what is where you are, if that makes sense. When you are in Aristasia, try to forget about Telluria and be Aristasian. When you are in Telluria, you can forget about Aristasia and be Tellurian. It is not a lie. It is the Law of Manifestation in action.

Thank you Miss Yu.
I will try to keep what you wrote in my heart as I leave for a four day trip tomorrow. I have a feeling that "forgetting Telluria while I am in Aristasia" or the other way around, might not be easy for me, since it makes me feel a bit torn apart and I do so love to be "plenary-ly me" .
But I will think about it, and see what happens.



This was especially helpful.

Thank you and Rayati,
Fräulein Bernstein

I hope to say more on this fascinating topic later. I agree that our real home is Dea. But it is also natural and proper for us to have a homeland - a "we", as Yu-chei put it - in our incarnate state. That is why Dea made the worlds as she did.

Now your immigrant problem - taken in its Tellurian form - sheds an interesting light on the mind of an Aristasian exile (a question you raised earlier).

In its Tellurian form it might be "when I am in America I feel Thai and when I am in Thailand I feel American". But an Aristasian exile is a maid who just doesn't have that sense of Tellurian identity at all. She doesn't feel German or Chinese or American or anything else. She only feels Aristasian. She has never been able to identify with her Tellurian stationment. She always knew she belonged to somewhere else.

She did not think she belonged nowhere (except perhaps in moments of despair) because Aristasians, like most traditional peoples, are a very "belonging" folk. It is natural and right to feel American or Chinese or whatever one is, but an Exile Aristasian cannot feel that. Because that is not what she is.

Now that isn't how you feel, and there is no reason you should. Many LoM Aristasians feel perfectly at home in their Tellurian environment (minus its Pit problems). That is fine.

We also feel the way we feel. We are not transcendent beings with no home or nation. We are ordinary world-bound, home-loving creatures who have a different world and a different home.

Rayati honoured Miss Sakura!

I'd love to hear more of your thoughts!
Maybe it helps in understanding me, that though I am married (to blonde, by the way) I have actually always felt a very strong monastic calling. I should think that had there been orders for filianists I would probably be a nun by now. Even as it is, I can not help hope that one day, in one way or another I will be able to live that life.
But that is just a thought that crossed my (very tired) mind as I read your post.

Rayati,
Fräulein Bernstein