Deer Forest Spirit, page 1

Princess Mononoke - Forest Spirit

"You run like a herd of luminous deer and I am dark, I am forest. You are a wheel at which I stand, whose dark spokes sometimes catch me up, revolve me nearer to the center.” ~ Rilke, The Book of Hours

Hovering in the full moons luminous path, between above and below. Stepping lightly forward between here and not-here while gazing back over its shoulder. This shimmering white deer bridges the earthly and the spiritual realms, embodying and leading us into the symbolic, intermediate realm of the soul. With its velvet coat, soft moist muzzle, brown eyes glistening beneath long lashes and slender delicate limbs. It seems the the deers very nature is to symbolize purity and sublimity. A pair of deer is often depicted flanking the throne of Buddha, who is said to have incarnated in a previous life as a honey-voiced, golden stag whose mission it was to calm the passions of humans lost in despair and lead them to the eightfold path. The deers graceful caution, elegant leaps, sudden appearances and swift disappearances link the animal to the alchemical Mercurius, the transformative intermediary soul substance, as well as to pilgrimage or initiation paths that are circuitous, indirect, constantly shifting direction or, like the deer, disappearing altogether. The occasional, mysterious hoof-sounds we hear in the brush along the meandering way belong to a hidden creature that teaches us to tread our path with calm reverence for the unseen and the unknown.

edit on 201692 by tikbalang because: image