This One's For You, Mom

Some of you may know that my mother is a stained glass artisan. As a result, I have grown up surrounded by some singularly gorgeous glass. (Here, have a few more for good measure.)

Now, I am certain that if I were to ask her, my mother could give me a fairly accurate history of her craft, tracing it's origins back beyond the cathedrals of the middle ages to whichever mineral-rich, lightning-struck beach it got its start on.

But that is way too easy. And also probably not as much fun as the theory I've just stumbled upon:

In ancient times people looked around themselves, saw the transient beauty of nature, and wished to capture and preserve it for their own perpetual enjoyment.

The original stained glass artisans were powerful shamans- magic users who could command the elements and trap them in crystalline form. In the beginning this is all they did, bring pleasure to themselves and others by capturing moments of beauty to be gazed upon eternally. It wasn't until centuries later that an enterprising young magic user got the idea of using these shimmering artifacts to craft still more powerful spells. She began to piece the disparate shards of nature into entirely new images, with which she could shape the very dreams of mankind. It was a powerful working, and one that could easily be used for ill, as some of her pupils would later prove.

As the centuries continued to turn and magic began to recede into slumber, a descendant of the Image-maker (the last of her line, and barren) made one final, desperate play to keep a trace of her family's legacy in the world. She created a panel that drew all the glass-magic in existence to itself, and used it to gift a young, mortal artisan with a dream that had never before been possible: the dream of non-magical glass production.

The effort involved in such an endeavor led to the magician's death- but what she gave to the world lives on.

(Dream)