Here is another snippet while I wrestle with ch 43:
"What will keep it from happening again?” Solusar asked.
Mara bit her lip, taken aback. She really didn’t want to air everything out again, but she remembered her talk with Gantoris. “It was me and Luke. We didn’t understand certain things about each other and I…I didn’t deal with it well.”
“You felt attacked so you retaliated,” he said simply.
Mara nodded.
He lifted a hand to her head and her own came up to block. His lip twitched up. “Like that. It’s instinct.”
Mara brought her hand down, feeling suddenly sheepish. He'd moved slowly with no indication that it'd been an attack.
“It’s something you’ve been shaped to do,” he explained. “I understand it well. I reacted in that manner towards you, probing your mind the second I picked out your mannerisms.”
“You were right to be…concerned." Mara frowned. "Look at how it all turned out.”
He shook his head. “Was I? Or might I have approached you differently and tried to create trust between us? Then maybe you would have felt listened to -- perhaps it wouldn’t have ameliorated your anger entirely, but it could have lessened it slightly.”
Mara tilted her head. “You just said there’s no use dwelling on the past.”
“This is not dwelling, Mara. I tell you this so you can trust me,” he said bluntly. “I am on the path to being a Jedi, but I make mistakes, costly ones sometimes. No one is exempt. You’re no better, but you’re no worse. But that means that you are not alone. It could have just as easily been me, enraged by something, someone and choosing to retaliate.”
Mara looked away. “Oh come on. You’re a Jedi apprentice.”
“You would be surprised,” he replied. “Being a Jedi only makes you more aware, but feelings and instincts never simply vanish. Being with others grounds us better, defangs those negative feelings. Belonging is something to cultivate,” he said. “And it’s never too late to unlearn unproductive habits. Doesn’t mean it will be easy, but working through it will make you happier and more balanced – and then perhaps you can rethink your relationship with the Force.”
She groaned there. “Don’t tell me you believe Halcyon’s nonsense.”
“It’s not nonsense. You feel it.”
Mara made a face at him. “Fine, the Force gives me warnings. It comes to me like that, but I don’t do anything with it.”
“You do plenty.” He seemed to think back. "Tionne told me she was self-taught for a while. Her first forays into music were just about finding which notes sounded good together. She could mimic a piece by ear quite well. But it wasn’t until her grandmother sat her down and methodically taught her scales and finger exercises that she stopped copying and started gaining enough structure to compose her own.”
“I was given Force instruction,” Mara countered.
“Any instruction that focuses on using the Force is no better than playing music by ear,” he replied evenly. “At worst it’s a stumbling block for true knowledge, being taught to use the Force is an easy road for us to be used.” He shook his head. “True knowledge comes from being guided to feel the Force.”