Empyreanism

Empyreanism, or The Way of the Many Winds, is a religion and philosophy that is followed in the Air Nation. Interpretations vary dramatically between followers, but roughly align to three schools for each of the air temples: the Eastern School in Air Temple Valley, the Elysian School (formerly Western School) in Inkwood, and the Southern School at the Southern Air Temple. Common threads in all schools are a veneration of the "Open Sky" and a rejection of the earth, or "the Substance". Open Sky is associated with values such as freedom, intelligence, and spirituality, while Substance is associated with repression, conformity, and destruction. Followers are referred to as Empyreans and the belief system is sometimes referred to as Empyreanism.

Holy Texts

Creation & the Way

Schools of Thought

Elysian Empyreanism (formerly Western School Empyreanism) reflects a strange mixture of hierarchy and equality. On one hand, the Open Sky is conceptualized as a literal divine being, who demands praise, offerings, and righteousness in exchange for passage into a good afterlife. On the other hand, all are welcome to participate in these rituals, including non-benders and benders of other elements.

The religious center of the Elysian School is, of course, the Elysian Temple near Inkwood. Here, on top of a mountain and physically close to the void above, devotees may present gifts to the Open Sky and participate in rituals honoring Them. Here, scribes of the Elysian School write, translate, and interpret, taking part in the vivid intellectual debate that characterizes the Air Nation.

The current grandmaster of the Air Nation, Sir Paperweight the Third, founded and belongs to the Elysian School, giving it a decree of informal favor. Indeed, the Conclave of Inkwood was hosted in the yet-unfinished Elysian Temple. Still, the Air Nation does not have an established doctrine of Empyreanism, and other schools do not face persecution.

What is the puffin to do, except fly?
Endowed with wings and feathers and light, hollow bones, it is a creature made for vastness.
The puffin flies because it was made to fly.
We, endowed with thought and feeling, are made for the Open Sky.
Does it suit us to reject our nature, to bind and deceive ourselves, to close ourselves to the world and each other? Does it suit us to look down toward the Earth and the Substance, and not up toward the sky?
The Open Sky gave us the will to think and to act, even as we are built from that which restricts and destroys. We, then, are blessed with the capacity to honor the Open Sky with praise and gifts.
Endowed with choice, we must choose. To live our lives in accordance with the will of infinity is a good that respects no artificial, substantial boundaries. In death, all may pass the gates of the endless nothing.
A world without Substance.
A world without fear.
Like the puffin, we must answer our call.
— Edict of the Western School, by Grandmaster Paperweight of the Elysian Temple

Southern School Empyreanism seeks to reinterpret Empyreanism in a manner that is more individual, in particular emphasising monism or a unity of a singular substance in the world. Like the Eastern School, it views Open Sky as a metaphysical force rather than as a literal being worthy of worship, as is practised in the West. It diverges from both in its view of Oneness, insisting that there is no clear-cut boundary to be drawn between Substance and Void.

Oneness is a core concept in the Southern interpretation, as it not only radically reinterprets the concept of the "war" between Open Sky and Substance, it also forecloses any opportunity of a supernatural-natural hierarchy. This also prevents any ethical distinctions of a "chosen people", as might be seen by the Flametouched. Citing the former resident of Air Temple Valley, Ed, a firebender is shown as an exemplar of the ideals of the Empyrean ways while remaining outside of airbending.

At the Conclave of Inkwood, a premise of participation was the need for properly codified and ritualised spiritual guidance for our peoples. While the sacred texts and concepts of which we have taught thus far have been passed down since time immemorial, it is apparent that the potential teachings that have been proliferated and passed down vary wildly from region to region, temple to temple, and master to master. In this regard, the summoning of the Conclave may be interpreted by some as an attempt to establish a rigid and strict doctrine of universal truth to be followed by all, as the sun commands all the heavenly bodies to rotate around her. It may also be interpreted as an attempt to unify into one coherent doctrine a set of small variations, unified yet spread out like those waves which move in so many directions yet still come together to crash against the rocks as one, only to split and reform once again in the spray.

As Templemaster of the South, my position is tenuous. Our Temple has not yet been built, and our lands are new. This is not to say that we are distant or alien to our friends and brothers of the West and East - as we are obliged to commune with the ten thousand beings - but having been confronted with such a landscape that is so stark and barren, we have learned things that the great hubs of Inkwood and the Valley may find harder to see. What we learn, what anyone who lives in such a place as this will learn, is that of the Oneness. In those flat and pleasant plains of Inkwood, they see a flat earth and a sky above, with the mountains protruding suddenly from those depths to build their holy temple. The Open Sky is, to them, necessarily a product of holy and divine character, to which one must climb through practising the virtues for each of the ten thousand beings. One climbs the steps to eternal bliss in much the same way one must climb the steps to their temple.

Likewise, we have heard from those of the Western School who insist on that rigidity of separation, declaring they can conceive of only two things. In declaring their allegiance to void, they similarly fall into the view of two armed camps, as if the Open Sky were over here and the Substance were over there, and someone will come to give us orders on the plan of attack for tomorrow’s grand battle. Such a view causes them to reject brethren, viewing all outsiders as either the earthbending enemy, the firebending double agent, or the waterbending tortured soul. We must realise the complexities, strive beyond this dualism. To determine, to proscribe in this manner, is to view things as Substance. Our path forward can only lie in dissolution - as we all have intelligence and free action, we are all capable of becoming friends of the Void.

In the South, such views are untenable. There is no elevation here, there is only Oneness. Our mountains fold upwards and are plaited into sky, arching and floating, and we see thus that there has never been a frontline of hostilities in the conflict between Open Sky and the terror of Substance. What we see, what we know, is flux.  Constantly shifting, constantly moving, pushing and striving in all directions - this is the motion of the desires, this is the motion of the Void. We move in all ten thousand directions of the Many Winds, and we see thus: Everything is different because everything is the same.

We know from our histories the struggle of the Open Sky to be reunited with her sister Void, and thus we stand shoulder-to-shoulder to face the terror of Substance. But we must not also forget that, in the Pre-Being Age, in that blessed time of pure and endless Void, the threat of totality was still conceivable and thus came forth the Endless Black. We must realise that Open Sky as the universal and totalizing ideal can never be realised as the Oneness overrides all. It remains an ideal; striven towards, yearned for, always moving away from grasp. We may slip closer and closer to it, as we feel our intuitive connection to the blessed winds; as we soar above clouds and feel what it means to be free of the horror of the Substance for just a brief moment; when we abandon even that last vestige of the flesh-prison and set our spirit free. But in each case, we are restricted. In the first two instances, our flesh-prison follows, and even to those practitioners of the Spiritual ways, their identity presents itself unified, unable to penetrate the Substance for it carries Substance of its own. While we certainly concede that the human form is not wholly Substance, for our intellectual capacities and freedom of action reflect an ambiguous directionality that could never be produced by the ugly conformism of the Substance and only by the pure Void, we are never able to abandon what we are. We may only strive.

In accepting this, many principles become clear to us. Firstly, while our airbending brethren are certainly in a uniquely advantageous position in attaining this ideal due to our unique communion, it is not impossible for those of other nations and other elements to attain it. Not only this, we have clear evidence of this from the first Templemaster of the Valley, the Righteous Templemaster Ed. As a firebender, he was offered titles and lands within the Fire Nation, then our enemy, and would have easily been able to move up the ranks to positions of high military office, in grace to his refined intelligence and wisdom. Yet he chose to decline, preferring to retain his humble position of Templemaster at a time when the Temple’s very existence was in question. The Righteous Templemaster shows us that in striving for the purity of freedom and resistance without destruction, to truly deny the Substance ground at every stage, is available to every element. We must not exclude those who are not of our elements, lest we create a quasi-Substance of “Airbender” in league with those despicable forces of the earth.

Secondly, we see that natural allies await in the Light Spirits. As Guardians of the other worlds, they have no such notions of the Substance except to reject it. They can pass through walls, move through space without moving; they are true friends and beings of the Void. While the Dark Spirits certainly represent a threat, in league as they are with monsters of the Nether  and its rocky, Substance-drenched, landscape, we must do everything we can to learn from the Spirits and embrace their ways. They are not only our friends, they are our teachers.

From these principles, and our acceptance of the Oneness of the world in the eternal struggle between the Substance and Open Sky, we have derived our temple’s practises. All must learn the Ways of the Many Winds, to reject the threat of the Substance and embrace the true freedom of the Open Sky. We must commune the ten thousand lessons of the  Many Winds to all of the ten thousand beings, spreading its wisdom and helping it reunite with its sister. Otherwise, the world shall consume itself and freedom with it. This is our teaching, this is our wisdom, our Empyreanism. From the beginning there was nothing; at the end, there shall be nothing.

- Proclamation of the Southern Air Temple in response to the Conclave of Inkwood*, by Templemaster Vidcom of the Southern Air Temple

Northern School Empyreanism is a notably radical formulation of Empyreanism, possibly influenced by the early history of wars and violence that the Northern Temple began around. Unlike other schools, it emphasises "Sister Void" beneath the bedrock, rather than the Open Sky. VID IS WRITING THIS AT 2AM AND WILL COME BACK TO THIS LATER

“In the beginning, there was nothing. In the end, there will be nothing. The void, pure and clean, was all things and all things were void. This was the Age of the Open Sky.”

So begins the Way of the Many Winds. The world began in a beautiful harmonious state, and so too shall it someday return. So too shall We all return. This much is clear to Us who believe the highest Truth. Yet, in this torturous meantime, We are forced to bear witness to Our humiliation, Our separation from Our Great Sister Void. We are One with Her, yet We are apart. Such is Our greatest shame.

We must also note the human separation from the Open Sky, that we are Wind trapped in a prison of flesh, blood, and bone. Some of Our faith call this a curse, but we humans are blessed. Our flesh, our blood, our bone is torture, but we people are agents of Our Open Sky and Our Sister Void. Someday we shall each cast off our flesh prisons, and rejoin Our Great Oblivion. In this torturous meantime, we, no matter what we bend, are given the gift of Service. Our Southern siblings say it well: “the responsibility of humans is to use what precious gifts given to them by the Open Sky to join it, and help end the torture of Being and exile the Substance.”

Yet none but the North have accepted the radical Truth. Those in the East seek a selfish freedom for the Airbenders, those in the West offer only praise and simple gifts, and those in the South recognize our Purpose only abstractly. Our Truth is clear: We must tear the Earth asunder. This is not metaphor. This is not poetics. This is our Service. This is Our Purpose. This is how We end our shame.

That is why We are here now at the bedrock, the most vile of the substance. We give Our greatest enemy to the Open Sky, to bring Her closer to Her Sister and strike terror into the black heart of the substance. This why We live among the Sky. We separate the substance from itself, so it might experience Our torture. We watch as it is weathered and eroded into Holy Nothingness, for, separate from itself, it may not rebuild. This is the Way that the Void may win again.

We know this to be possible. We have seen other worlds. The great hell Nether is one of endless substance and disjoint Sky. The almost heavenly dimension, the End, is one of Our Vision. Many islands, scattered across a Whole and swallowing Void. That is why Our Northern Temple is built of its stone. It is touched by a United Sky, broken down into near Oblivion.

If to fly is to be Free, then to live among Our Sky is the highest Liberty. Our City of the Sky, known as the Floating City, must ever expand through the breaking of the Earth. We must be a model for the World, so that all humanity may truly Serve.

I conclude with a reminder of Our Way, which tells Us clearly and plainly that what I have said is the Truth.

“The Open Sky calls upon its children to be free, we must answer. The Open Sky must be reunited, and we feel its efforts in every breeze.” “The Open Sky instructs us to reunite her, and so we must commit to this. The Open Sky tells us of the power and strength of Substance, and so we must rally. The Open Sky warns us of mountains, the claws of Substance, and so we counter.” “The Many Winds are devoured by flames, and so we shall extinguish them. The Many Winds are swallowed in waves, and so we float. The Many Winds are trapped in Substance, and so we break the body of the earth.”
- The Testament of Samigot, also called the Sermon to the Void, first given at Symposial Hall of the Temple to the Great Sister Void as the conclusion of the Great Conclave Above and Below.