“
For a third of their day they seemed to freely give what was in them to be given, whatever passion woke them each morning and just spilled over. From what Charlie saw, those passions included building things, growing things, teaching, dancing, learning. People seemed to almost become themselves simply by offering what they loved doing most. Another third of their day dedicated time for growing, strengthening the body, the mind, the heart. All over the city, people gathered together in groups talking, eating, training, learning history, planning futures, accepting all the things others had to give. The method of erudition struck him as similar, in many ways, to Howard, where classrooms and schedules could not contain learning. And there was so much to learn, new things and old, equaled only by a willingness to teach. Spirituality, in the last third of their days, played a formless role in the lives of the Mobile people. Some prayed on their knees to gods in the earth. Some shook runes in their palms and dipped bones in blood to access the lessons of the dead. Some stood face up at the bases of obelisks, their serene expressions brightly painted in the light of the sun. Charlie acknowledged the spirituality in everything, an awareness of magic and gods and spirits. But no defined religion. The people of Mobile dreamt. They meditated. They communed with something higher, seemingly capable of sensing the subtlest energies.
”
”