How to See Spirits / d5x5 intimations of the Spirit of Pyre-Shadows

This post is for the That We Are So Much More Setting. But it's also for the setting outlined by Magic as Radiation: Enter the Spirit-World, and a new setting I'm creating which incorporates the Spirit-World into it.

How do we see spirits?

In order to see spirits, you must be a talented semiologist, who believes her signs to be symbols. When the rams raise their heads at a wolf's cry, it is the Epimeliad raising their heads; they pay attention, and the Epimeliad watches too, because when they attend to that which the Epimeliad attends to, the Spirit abides in them. When the sheep encircle the lambs as the wolves circle, the Epimeliad guides their steps and inheres in their geometry; the instinct to protect the young is the motivation of the Epimeliad, and the geometry of the circled flock is a manifestation of that protective spirit, and thus of the Epimeliad.

In those ramblings, I named a few signs of the Epimeliad. I'll add a few more at the end of this list:

  1. The attentiveness of rams to the sounds of predators; this is a sign of the watchfulness of the Epimeliad, and it is a symbol which reveals that the Epimeliad is wary of predators of the flock.
  2. The movement of the adults, to encircle the lambs; this is a sign of the guidance of the Epimeliad, and it is a symbol which reveals that the Epimeliad acts through the flock to protect the flock.
  3. The geometry of the circled flock, adults shielding the young; this geometry is a manifestation of the pure noesis, the spirit-substance of the Epimeliad. It's a little abstract. I don't actually know how to describe it. But imagine the circled flock, and the wolves looking for weak spots, and the furious eyes of the rams staring out from their phalanx, and you can feel the protectiveness which lets you know that the Epimeliad is present.
  4. The feeling of governance which fills the shepherd when he looks over his flock; this is a sign of the role granted to the Shepherd by the Epimeliad, a symbol that they are a governor appointed by the Epimeliad over the flock, a free being who has the appointed role of watching over these subjects.
  5. The sorrow in the air as a wolf picks at the entrails of a lost lamb; this is a symbol, revealing that the Epimeliad is sorrowful when a lamb is taken by the wolves. It is also a sign that the Epimeliad is currently experiencing sorrow. (Its sorrow says something about its nature, and about its state in the moment.)
  6. The sheep eats from the hand of the shepherd. This is a sign of the Epimeliad, acting through the sheep, communicating to the shepherd that it trusts the shepherd, and thus that the flock trusts the shepherd. 
The spirit manifests in reality through signs; it inheres in those signs, which are symbols too, because they reveal how the spirit manifests. When groups of people all interpret signs as the presence of a spirit, the spirit is able to achieve things it couldn't before, just as cells are able to perform qualitatively more complex functions when they coordinate than when they are separate.

I'll give you another example. This is the Spirit of Pyre-Shadows. 
  1. First, you have rich moments: moments which are capable of being interpreted as signs of the presence of a Spirit. 
  2. Many spirits demand action of you, to declare your belief in its reality through something greater than the workings of your own little mind, but instead through workings onto the world. By doing this, you act as a conduit for the spirit, participating in the creation of its body.
  3. When you truly act as if the spirit is real, it will move more energetically upon the world, growing stronger and gaining more of a grip on reality. 
  4. Certain conditions make the spirit more likely to be manifest through signs.
  5. Certain acts lessen the spirit's grip on the moment, because they are anathema to its being.
The Pyre-Shadow Spirit only appears in the shadows cast by sacrificial and ceremonial fires. These shadows can be shadows of light, love, reason, reality, order. This spirit tends to be masculine, but it is subversive, chaotic.

(Rich Moments) The spirit breaches your awareness when:
  1. A coal, spilled from the fire, seems like the red eye of the shadow of a hound, lunging from the shadows of the dancers like a dog on a chain.
  2. An old man muttering the eulogy under their breath, chuckling in good humor at the end of each line; you search, but cannot place him about the pyre.
  3. The great shape of a predatory bird flits about the sky above the fire, its edges fluttering like flame, not quite expanding, not quite receding, as the smoke evaporates into its feathers and fills its pneumos.
  4. A stranger with eyes the color of coal, dead and cool, comes from the woods or the lowlands, and asks you for water and, if you oblige him, a memory of the one who passed.
  5. The ritual officiant faints suddenly and collapses into the fire, which seems to lunge greedily at them as they tumble.
(Demands) If you:
  1. Take a burning log from the fire and walk out into the night with it,
  2. Dig a hole at the furthest tip of the shadows’ reach,
  3. Sacrifice to the fire that which you love the most, beneath the noses of your people,
  4. Try to put out the fire with your own breath,
  5. Ask why this all had to happen,
(Movements) It will:
  1. Meet you there, to answer what you wish to hear;
  2. Give you a sign: a letter, branding itself suddenly into the face of a log;
  3. Wink at you, in a sense;
  4. Explode in the flames, spitting coals and logs everywhere, burning your neighbors and family, destroying the ritual and banishing itself from the group, for the moment;
  5. Lace secret messages in the speech of the officiant, who keeps looking at you as they speak, and doesn’t sound quite themselves.
(Conditions) It grows strongest when:
  1. The moon and stars refuse to bear their faces over the ceremony.
  2. The timber-beam holding the sacrifice aloft begins to splinter and fail.
  3. The wolves howl in the woods, and seem to be laughing;
  4. The fire goes out;
  5. One’s wonder at life’s make becomes overwhelming.
(Anathemas) To exorcise this spirit:
  1. Console the grievers:
  2. Remember the history of the rite;
  3. Sing the prayers with your fullest fervence;
  4. Believe in the sacrifice;
  5. Tend to the flame.

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