Donning the Law of the Day

Awake and aware — present to what is actually there, with nothing sleeping through it.

1. 01Awake; having the senses and mind in operation
2. 02Aware of what is happening in and around her
3. 03Knowing — present to her own thoughts and motives
4. 04Deliberate; done on purpose rather than by habit
5. 05Alert, with attention actually arriving in the room
6. 06Sensible of a fact — taking notice of it
7. 07Self-aware without being self-absorbed
8. 08Perceiving; registering what the eye takes in
9. 09Intentional — choosing with the lights on
10. 10Mindful: holding the thing in view while she acts
11. 11Wakeful, in the old sense of keeping watch
12. 12Not asleep at the place where she is responsible

Knowing, not only seeing — perceiving, reasoning, and building understanding from what she saw.

1. 01Of knowing — relating to perception and understanding
2. 02Able to reason from what has been observed
3. 03Intellectual: working by thought rather than reflex
4. 04Discerning — telling one thing apart from another
5. 05Comprehending; taking the whole into the mind
6. 06Analytical, in the sense of separating cause from noise
7. 07Learning — changed by what she has taken in
8. 08Rational: holding conclusions to evidence
9. 09Perceptive beyond the surface of a fact
10. 10Of the faculty by which knowledge is acquired
11. 11Deliberative — thinking before pronouncing
12. 12Instructive by nature, because she understands it

Having official knowledge of a thing — and therefore answerable for it.

1. 01Having knowledge or awareness of a matter
2. 02Informed — in possession of the facts
3. 03In law: having jurisdiction, and so able to take cognizance
4. 04Apprised, formally and on the record
5. 05Answerable, because she cannot claim she did not know
6. 06Conversant with the state of the thing
7. 07Sensible of a duty as well as of a fact
8. 08Recognising — knowing a thing again when it appears
9. 09Attentive at the level of office rather than mood
10. 10Acquainted with what falls inside her purview
11. 11Alive to consequence, not only to information
12. 12Knowing, in the way that binds

To look closely — to inspect, test and turn the thing over before deciding about it.

1. 01To inspect closely and in detail
2. 02To scrutinise — to study with a careful eye
3. 03To test, as a claim, a sample or a student is tested
4. 04To question formally in order to learn the truth
5. 05To survey — to go over the whole of a thing
6. 06To audit: to check the account against the fact
7. 07To probe; to search into what is not on the surface
8. 08To weigh evidence before forming a verdict
9. 09To review — to look again rather than once
10. 10To assay, in the old sense of proving a metal

What she has examined she teaches — a purview kept private is a purview wasted.

1. 01To teach; to give instruction to another
2. 02To train the mind and the judgement
3. 03To bring up — to rear and form a person
4. 04To inform: to hand over what you now know
5. 05To school — to put through an ordered course
6. 06To develop a faculty by exercise
7. 07To enlighten; to remove ignorance from a subject
8. 08To coach — to correct in motion
9. 09To cultivate understanding as land is cultivated
10. 10From educere — to lead out what is within

To draw out and develop — to bring the conclusion out of what was only data.

1. 01To draw out or bring forth what is latent
2. 02To elicit — to obtain a truth by right questioning
3. 03To infer: to derive a conclusion from evidence
4. 04To develop what exists in germ into what it can be
5. 05To extract, as a chemist extracts what was dissolved
6. 06To bring out a quality that was present but unseen
7. 07From educere — to lead out
8. 08To deduce, in the sense of reaching the ruling
9. 09To evoke a latent capacity in another person
10. 10To distil many observations into one finding

The one seen thing, written down — line of sight turned into a record.

1. 01The act of watching attentively
2. 02A thing noticed and noted — a recorded fact
3. 03A remark based on what was actually seen
4. 04Attention paid to something in order to learn from it
5. 05Surveillance, in the plain sense of keeping watch
6. 06A reading taken — as of a star, a sky or a number
7. 07Notice: the faculty of taking in what is there
8. 08Perception carried far enough to be useful
9. 09A finding, before it becomes a conclusion
10. 10Line of sight made permanent by being written

An office — the one trusted to watch, to witness, and to report what is actually there.

1. 01One who watches attentively and reports
2. 02A witness — present, and able to testify
3. 03One appointed to be in the room and take note
4. 04A monitor: watching to keep a thing honest
5. 05One who keeps a rule or a rite — an observer of the law
6. 06A spectator who is doing work, not passing time
7. 07An examiner sent to see for the ones who cannot
8. 08A watchman, in the old office of the walls
9. 09One whose seeing is trusted enough to be entered as fact
10. 10The eye of a house, an estate or a board

Plural — the seeing she has gathered, and the observances she keeps.

1. 01Many recorded seeings — a body of noted fact
2. 02Readings taken over time, from which a pattern appears
3. 03Findings: the collected work of a watching eye
4. 04Remarks worth keeping because they were earned by looking
5. 05Observances — rites, hours, laws and days kept faithfully
6. 06The keeping of a rule, as well as the noticing of a thing
7. 07Vision widened: seeing further than the day requires
8. 08Line of sight extended across a whole estate
9. 09The log of a house — what was seen, and when
10. 10Increase measured in what she sees and in what she honours