Aeric
[8 of Wands]: Spirit of Nature
The Spirit cards jointly pertain to literal disembodied beings, and the emotional spirit or mood that the suit invokes. The Nature cards are full of towering majesty, in both wood and stone, and for me recall walking through forests and looking at awe at the giant, ancient trees dwarfing me. The role player I felt suited this card is the shaman's apprentice from the 2 of Souls.
"There are good days and bad days to my position. I try to make most of them good by recalling that my mentor's spirit is always with me and his lessons live on in my mind and heart. On the bad days I find myself missing him still, not hearing his steady voice softly singing next to me as the drum beats on. The shaman's path is a lonely one to walk, and I don't pretend there aren't times when it's incredibly difficult and I'd rather be anyone, anywhere else.
One day, I left our cave on the pretext of going to search for sacred plants, and went for a walk in a nearby forest. Lost in my somber thoughts, a musical chirping turned woke me from my daze and I turned to see a pretty warbler perched on a nearby tree. The afternoon was heavily overcast, the sun a comfortably viewable ball in the distance, which oddly seemed to radiate green rather than golden light. It was at that moment I knew that something was different. I observed the tree, a long dead, gnarled thing with thick, curving branches. But as my eyes traced its curves from the top downward, it was what I saw in the ragged bark of the trunk that caught my breath.
It was my mentor, in perfect image! I was sure of it! His face peered out with a pleased expression, glowing green, while his ears seemed to blend into the brown knots of the tree. In profile, he wore the topmost branches of the tree like a strange, towering headdress. I couldn't tell if this was a mischevous spirit masquerading as my mentor, or whether it was my mentor, manifesting himself from the world of the spirits through this tree. It would not speak when I called my master's name, nor asked for its own name. Regardless, the entity was due respect, and I addressed it with reverence. How strange it would have looked if someone had wandered by to notice a person addressing a tree! But I am a shaman, so the clan has come to expect such strange sights from me...
I would later leave the site having had a full one-sided conversation with the tree. When I returned to the cave and stepped across the threshold, a wave of calm and happiness washed over me, and I knew the truth. My mentor had not left me, and had briefly placed his image upon the tree that I might feel comforted and reassured. He had become one of the spirits of the forest, inhabiting the body of a tree long dead that his soul might use it for a receptacle. I returned later to the same spot only to find that the image had vanished, the dead bark no more than that.
From then on, I would recall the vision whenever I felt lonely for my master's presence. He was everywhere, and would always be. Nature, the unconquerable force, Earth Mother, had comforted her child with what was needed."
The Spirit cards jointly pertain to literal disembodied beings, and the emotional spirit or mood that the suit invokes. The Nature cards are full of towering majesty, in both wood and stone, and for me recall walking through forests and looking at awe at the giant, ancient trees dwarfing me. The role player I felt suited this card is the shaman's apprentice from the 2 of Souls.
"There are good days and bad days to my position. I try to make most of them good by recalling that my mentor's spirit is always with me and his lessons live on in my mind and heart. On the bad days I find myself missing him still, not hearing his steady voice softly singing next to me as the drum beats on. The shaman's path is a lonely one to walk, and I don't pretend there aren't times when it's incredibly difficult and I'd rather be anyone, anywhere else.
One day, I left our cave on the pretext of going to search for sacred plants, and went for a walk in a nearby forest. Lost in my somber thoughts, a musical chirping turned woke me from my daze and I turned to see a pretty warbler perched on a nearby tree. The afternoon was heavily overcast, the sun a comfortably viewable ball in the distance, which oddly seemed to radiate green rather than golden light. It was at that moment I knew that something was different. I observed the tree, a long dead, gnarled thing with thick, curving branches. But as my eyes traced its curves from the top downward, it was what I saw in the ragged bark of the trunk that caught my breath.
It was my mentor, in perfect image! I was sure of it! His face peered out with a pleased expression, glowing green, while his ears seemed to blend into the brown knots of the tree. In profile, he wore the topmost branches of the tree like a strange, towering headdress. I couldn't tell if this was a mischevous spirit masquerading as my mentor, or whether it was my mentor, manifesting himself from the world of the spirits through this tree. It would not speak when I called my master's name, nor asked for its own name. Regardless, the entity was due respect, and I addressed it with reverence. How strange it would have looked if someone had wandered by to notice a person addressing a tree! But I am a shaman, so the clan has come to expect such strange sights from me...
I would later leave the site having had a full one-sided conversation with the tree. When I returned to the cave and stepped across the threshold, a wave of calm and happiness washed over me, and I knew the truth. My mentor had not left me, and had briefly placed his image upon the tree that I might feel comforted and reassured. He had become one of the spirits of the forest, inhabiting the body of a tree long dead that his soul might use it for a receptacle. I returned later to the same spot only to find that the image had vanished, the dead bark no more than that.
From then on, I would recall the vision whenever I felt lonely for my master's presence. He was everywhere, and would always be. Nature, the unconquerable force, Earth Mother, had comforted her child with what was needed."
