• Can you elaborate on ossayu?
• Can you elaborate on annayu?

Ossayu simply is:

That which is necessary to attach meaning to one's life and give wholeness to one's existence.

That is, Ossayu is that which we undertake to find our assayim. On Atriua, ossayu is a formal journey with the expressed goal of traveling to see The One Book at V'nadana in the City of Spires. Many Atrian's undertake this journey through which most connect to their annayim. Those on the journey are called ossayim, and are accomodated by Atrian society.

Ossayu is symbolic of the inner journey we undertake to find meaning and purpose in our life. In the story, this quest is externalized as a physical journey to find Annayu. Annayu is that connection to one's purpose. Ossayu is the Journey to find Annayu, and by definition, while on ossayu, the journey is one's annayim.

Ossayu does not refer to any journey undertaken with a personal purpose. If I undertake a journey to find a rare plant growing in wilderness, that activity is not an ossayu. Ossayu must be more spiritual. Though certainly for some people, finding such a plant in a remote place would constitute a spiritual activity. The differenc is that finding such a plant is most likely not one's purpose in life, though protecting such a plant or species from the deleterious impact of humans could very well be one's purpose (at least for a while). All ossayim seek annayim -- the seeker seeks their unique purpose. Ossayim are said to be “in search of their current.”

Ossayu (as the journey to connect with purpose) is inherently self-contradictory for if one finds another annayim they are by definition no longer ossayim (one who is undertaking ossayu). An ossayim who finds their annayim, their purpose, has found paradise, and hence can shed the pomegranate robe traditionally worn by ossayim.

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Annayu is the attachment of meaning and connection to purpose in life. Annayu is Paradise. To find annayu is to find paradise. Annayu is personal; one's annayu is called their annayim. Hence the Journey of Ahmenar Ishtam is his quest to find annayim, his paradise. Annayim is something that exists within.

One's annayim can change in the course of one's life. Annayu is a River, and one must get into the flow of that river. But the flow of Annayu is mysterious and might lead to unexpected places and take us to them through roundabout and circuitous byways and backwaters.

Annayu is the Great River (the great river of life). One's annayim is their current. If one stays in their annayim, that current might take them away from the staid. Life is unpredictable. Stasis is not necessarily (and perhaps rarely is) the objective. Too many people grasp on to a status or station in life and want to make it last. However, growth requires challenges. In the western world on earth we have grown increasingly afraid of challenges and change, and have become increasingly disconnected from true spiritual and soulful growth; hence we have fallen from Paradise.

Human beings easily fall into the comfort of repetitious patterns and can get stuck that way -- stuck in a pattern of behavior, stuck in a mode of living, stuck in a place or a way of being. When one is stuck they may have left their current, their annayim. Now, it is very difficult to distinguish:

• being stuck outside of annayim and being in annayim but in dead-water
• moving and feeling motion but not being in one's annayim

Exploring these subtleties is the subject of Ahmenar's time with a great mystic he encounters and travels with.

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