The Kindness of Strangers: What it means to be Sparked Based on “Life Begins With a Stranger” by Algiza D’Ariel and “The Long Walk” by Medas 6/29/2025 0 Comments The following references to scrolls are personal letters from my once beautiful wife, Elaret. They are works based on the texts “Life Begins with a Stranger” by Algiza, and “The Long Walk” by Medas. When Aislings speak of the Spark, they often speak as if it is a fire. A moment. A flash. A change. Something almost violent, a magical detonation inside the soul. But Elaret tells a different story. According to her, the Spark did not begin with power, or even with realization. It began with a question. “My first memory is not of fire, or breath, or thought. It is of a face I did not know, asking if I was well.” Not a vision, not a spell, or a face. A question. This, she says, was the moment her life began. Elaret suggests that being Aisling does not begin at birth, nor when the gods grant form or magic. It begins at the moment another being sees you. What does it mean to be truly seen? It means to be witnessed, to be regarded as real, in Elaret’s words; “If no one had spoken, I would not have risen. If no one had touched me, I would not have known I had form.” This is a radical notion in Temuairan theology. It challenges the dogma of divine origin by arguing that Aislings co-create each other. The stranger is not merely a person who helps, but the midwife of identity. Without that interaction, one’s own self cannot fully emerge. “Perhaps the gods gave me body. But it was the stranger who gave me shape.” Think about that. It means you, the one reading this have the power to birth others into the world. Not through ritual. Not through prayer. But by noticing someone who doesn’t yet know they are real. The Divine in the Mortal If this is true, then the divine resides not only in the heavens, but between Aislings. It appears not as commandment, but as kindness. As compassion. As risk. Because speaking to a stranger is a risk. In many parts of Temuair, strangers are treated with caution. The gods are distant, and people can be cruel. Yet Elaret claims it is the unknowing face that brings life, not the familiar one. And this leads to a profound inversion of the usual order. Templars, priests, even monks often ask: how do we hear the gods? But Elaret’s experience suggests a better question: how do we let the gods speak through us? And her answer is: we begin by reaching out to the forgotten, the unsure, the quiet. The ones not yet shaped. That is where the divine breaks through. If your Spark depends on a stranger’s compassion, then every Aisling who fails to act, every priest who walks past suffering, every warrior who ignores fear isn’t just apathetic. They are actively denying creation. Let that settle. To withhold kindness may be to delay or deny another soul’s emergence Social Death and the Withholding of the Spark There’s another layer to this. If an Aisling can be sparked by acknowledgment, can they also be un-sparked by erasure? Elaret’s text trembles on the edge of this idea. She speaks of nearly vanishing: “There was a moment, before the voice, where I wondered if I had been a mistake. An accident in the aether.” Without the stranger, she would have remained formless in a world full of form. That’s not just loneliness. That’s ontological exile, to exist but not be confirmed. This idea of not being named, not being known runs through all kinds of spiritual traditions. In Temuair, it becomes political. Who gets seen? Who gets shaped? It reframes the Spark as something interpersonal, not mystical. Not an abstract gift of Deoch or Glioca. But a moment of radical witness. The stranger sees you, and you begin. If life begins with a stranger, then divinity does not descend. It emerges. Between you and the one you choose to see. So what does this mean for us Aislings? It means that our divine test may not be found in battle or scripture, but in the small act of stopping, noticing, asking, and offering shape to someone still unfinished. It means that temples can be built in glances. That ritual may be no more than eye contact. That the greatest spell you’ll ever cast might be: “Are you okay?” Closing Reflection In the silence of the gods, in the absence of miracles, Elaret teaches us to look to each other. “I do not remember who they were. But I remember that I stood.” That is the legacy of the stranger. Not fame. Not reward. ​But the quiet act of birthing another soul into presence. You may not know the lives you’ve ignited. But you will feel them standing. And that is enough.