Monthly Meditation: Water and Curiosity

Continuing the monthly meditations by the way of worldbuilding =)

The fourth month of the year, on Halqueme, is called the River-month. In the north is associated with the spring thaw, and in the south with the seasonal flooding. It is also associated with the lerale of Water, and with the virtue of curiosity.

Yes, curiosity—novelty-seeking, the drive to learn and experience new things—is generally perceived as a virtue on Halqueme, and one of the foundations of wisdom.

It’s hard to tell how the association between curiosity and water arose. Perhaps it was because water seemed to get everywhere, as though seeking something. Or perhaps it is because, before the advent of the sky ships and the domestication of wyrms, water transport was the easiest way to travel to new places and explore the world.

Artwork of the month: The Invigorating Wave by Ivan Aivazovsky

Ivan Aivazovsky (1817-1900) was a Russian Romantic painter who painted water a lot. Mostly sea. Mostly dark and dramatic, with sunsets, storms, shipwrecks, and shipwrecks in sunset-lit storms. And they all of them have stunning water.

The wave in this painting, too, is painted lovingly, complete with the… uh… what the 3D artist in me wants to call the subsurf. That scattered light, filtered through the wave. Aivazovsy was a master of it.

Unlike most of Aivazovsky’s waves, however, this one is oddly hopeful. The ship in the distance is tilted precariously, yes, but the sun is shining, and the water is bright. And even if the ship does go down—which it won’t, because it’s the invigorating wave, it only picked it up to carry it further than expected—the trip was worth it.

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