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Tamriel Data:A Nobleman's Garden

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A Nobleman's Garden
Added by Tamriel Data
ID T_Bk_NobleMansGardenTR
Value 85 Weight 1.1
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A Nobleman's Garden
by Neril Sevuro
Spiritual implications of an Indoril Nobleman's garden

They ask me why I garden. "Muthsera", they cry, "why do you hide from the world in your tree-lined cloister? What of your duties to House and Hearth?"
They do not understand what it is to be a lord of the true nobility of Resdayn. Our duty is to sharpen our minds and spirits, and to glean the determined workings of the world so we can guide our children along the path of righteousness. It is in the cultivation of my prayer garden that I find the wisdom for these tasks.

Observe the northern wall, along which I have planted sweetbarrels. The spines of the young plants bring pain to the touch, and discourage close ministration. With diligence and focused meditation however they can be made to bloom, ugliness giving way to beauty and the diaphanous, out-of-body visions of the sweetpulp vapors. This is the progression of the spiritual self: from resistance to blossoming to the numinous.

On the southern wall opposite are a bed of timsa flowers. Saint Timsa-of-the-Long-Hours happens to be an ancestor of mine, and the flowers first emerged from her body as she lay broken at the feet of Molag Bal's magi. These flowers blossom in sun, rain and ashfall and illuminate the virtue of resistance, and the futility of profane sorcery against faith.

On the western wall, facing the sunrise, is a cluster of bright fireferns- difficult to cultivate in heartland soil. I use a little of the ash from my hearthfire as fertilizer. The ash contains a trace of my House's holy offerings. This token of faith is sufficient to bring forth these plants from ground which does not welcome them, and once they have taken root they will endure forever. This is how the laws of the gods, properly interpreted, create citizens of the highest caliber who will never stray from the proper course once they are shown the way.

On the eastern wall, facing the sunset, are rows of noble sedge. These plants are my pride and joy, because they are grown from cuttings rather than seeds. These particular flowers are in essence parts of one flower that has lived since the middle of the Second Era. They represent continuity and careful planning, and give me faith that eternal vigilance and care can engender eternal harmony.

In the center of my garden is a stone, upon which I sit in contemplation and occasionally carve my insights. This stone is to be my legacy, alongside my military victories and descendents. Like the garden, if properly tended with wisdom and reverence to the past, it will provide enlightenment to my successors for generations to come.

They ask me why I garden. I say I am a lord of the House Indoril, and my garden is a world and the world is my garden. This is our birthright and our burden.