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virtueofnothing · 1 year ago

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The world is a Great Wheel that grows tall and withers in equal measure. All things ride its turnings; ruling for a time flowering and splendid, fruits of life's magnificence. Then we grow old and stagnate, returning to the hungry earth to nurture the next cycle. In this way we live our lives in eternal change, becoming more then less then more again. Life can be found in all things here, it permeates the very foundations of existence. Tis not for us to judge when wild animals tear at one another, or great oaks take root in corpse dross, or fungi enslave whole colonies of social insects.

Naturally this makes a bridge between the ephemeral and flesh, as much between wilderness and civilization. Death hungers for life, just as life aches to pass its time on the Wheel. Hungry Ghosts crave the sensations of the living, while living beings strain to pierce the Veil that is only a turning away. Those Wise of The Wheel seek sacred Mysteries like the Empress Hanging herself; shades clothed in flesh and speaking through beasts’ cries. They are but two sides of the same coin. A stag runs through the woods leaving a trail of blood. His flesh will sing in the stomach of the hunter and kudzu will grow along his bones. This is Its Truth, flowers blooming splendid before being plucked and pressed between the pages of the Old Ways.

Time moves forward, yes. But here, in the fullness of the Wheel, time has no true substance, for growth and decay birth one another in the same instant, there are no beginnings or ends, nor past or future. Only a cycle always moving in ceaseless cycles unto eternity.

Things happen. They always have and always will; this is how the Wheel sees Fate, markings on the spokes that signify important events but will naturally happen in the same way, just more worn. Eventually these testaments to experience will erode to the point of no longer being recognizable from their origin, but that is simply the nature of things.

Space is the movements of the Wheel itself; connections growing and dying in lockstep. Sympathy & synchronicities are simply where ourself and others have gone, and will continue to go. When Fate and Space run together in harmony they keep things going at a holistic rate; relationships cultivated then returned to the earth as right to do.

The Wheel and its Turners have gods of their own. They are primordial things, representing that which is of substance here, great hunting wolves, and leviathans of the abyssal deeps. But also, the lesser things equally of importance, the first corpse to be interred to a graveyard and the wheat seed that will eventually feed thousands; exalted as they are, for they are life clothed in death, and death clothed in life. All things have power, yet it is those who create momentum in the Wheel who are truly impactful.

I have found Timber's Wise have difficulty discerning where the line is drawn between the elemental forces & extancy; as they do with most things, we simply don't care much to ponder it though. Are the massive storms or roaring wildfire that ravage hearth and land really that different from the Wild Hunts of old? What matters to the Wheel's Truth is not in these details but rather in how it changes nothing. Of course tsunamis rip apart fishers' homes and disturb aquatic ecosystems, but new spirits join the local cycles and sediment rearranges the topsoil in peculiar ways. And those who survive another day will adapt to it all or perish.

Yet the Wheel is not as wild as it appears. The symbols and rites invoked here may be frightening to a people who have forgotten the true sacrament of sacrifice, but they are its fundament, and even the most detached city-dweller offers their own obeisance. Grinding the grain, seeding the soil, slaughtering the lamb, and brewing the beer distinguished complex creatures from the more base; they still do. Burying the dead and hoping they will be reborn to whatever next comes, we build our testaments of memoriam for those who no longer walk among us as if it matters. And in ways, it does. Both royalty and fodder, all things are the Wheel, and the Wheel is in all things.

#Wheel #personal philosophy #all is as it always was #royal and fodder #truth of a kind #worldview

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river--ghost · 10 days ago

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