#river spirit

[livebythemoonseclipse]

caught in your aura -::- @earthtowildrose

[gigantic-spider]

This is a big day for me! It's my 10 year anniversary on this hellsite (affectionate) and the launch of my first TTRPG crowdfunding campaign.

I'm funding a print run of "The River Spirit", a solo journaling TTRPG about saving your hometown from an awful drought by sacrificing your memory to the River Spirit. You use a deck of playing cards to build up your memories of your hometown and community, tell stories about them to a cast of eclectic spirits you meet walking through the forest, and finally cast pieces of your identity off to satiate the enigmatic River Spirit.

I have to thank @crowdfundr for making this such an easy process. It was a daunting proposition to embark upon this journey, but thanks to their help it didn't feel like I was doing it alone.

If you're interested in the game, check out the campaign here: https://crowdfundr.com/River_Spirit

[necromorph-slayinglovemachine]

Redraw of a (very) old piece

Bonus side-by-side comparison:

[mumblelard]

the falling man and the flying monkey or happy friday imaginary constructs

i told the people around me that i thought my brain was damaged because i kept finding myself in places without knowing how i got there. they looked at each other and then back at me, stonefaced. that's when i realized i was in a dream and immediately woke up to what has been a really wonderful day

[beifongkendo]

Names and river spirits, from Miyazaki’s Spirited Away (2001)

[tombofmemories]

🌺🐉

[lailoken]

hello, excuse me! i'm having a very hard time to find a concrete answer to this question, so, maybe you can help me — regarding the spirits of the Land, specifically river spirits: how do you think pollution affects them? we have this gigantic river where I live, crossing all of the city, but he's unfortunately really, really, polluted. people still throw trash there to this day, big industries use it as their personal dump site... even sewers (that i have no idea where the hell they come from) end up there. it's sad, it's sick, but people just don't care. when it rains hard (which happens a lot) the river floods and destroys everything around it - there's a lot of houses near. people are always falling on it and dying, animals are always drowning, cars fall down on it all the time... to the point it's way too absurd to be just random accidents. i don't know. it feels angry to me. sad. everytime i pass through it just feel this necessity to cry that comes from nowhere. do you think i can try to work with it? would the pollution ruin any chance of communication? thank you, and sorry for the length! this is really taking a toll on me.

First of all, I want to say that I’m sorry it’s taken me as long as it has to respond to this question. I think it’s a really important question, and one I wanted to put a lot of thought into, but it came at a very strange time for me when a lot of different things were piling up and taking a lot of my attention. However, I finally feel able to respond with at least some degree of cogency.

The river you describe reminds me of someone who has been hurt. This ecosystem is witnessing the destruction of its existence, through the destruction of the organisms that live within it and make it up. It is a place that has been dishonored, degraded, and hurt, so it will accordingly lash out, just as you or I might be prone to lash out in anger if we were denigrated, our loved ones harmed, and our homes vandalized

One aspect of honoring something or someone is extending ourselves outward to them— not to say you understand, but to be open enough to recognize their suffering or struggle. I think there is a lot to be said of the ‘Indigenous way of knowing’ as described by Robin Wall Kimmerer in her novel Braiding Sweetgrass, where “we understand a thing only when we understand it with all four aspects of our being: mind, body, emotion, and spirit.” To honor this river, I would try and reach out to/understand it in this four-fold way. Understand the ecology of this place with your mind, experience the waters with your body, recognize the rage of the river with your emotion, feel a connection to this place with your spirit. We will never truly understand being like this, or the pain they experience, but we can be witness to it in every way that we are able.

Our honor can be demonstrated through the dichotomous path of ritual and service. We can give honor by the practice of our rituals, our sacrifices, our songs, ect. Yet the efficacy of ‘thoughts and prayers’ must also be rooted in actions. Our honoring must weave ritual into action, be it picking up litter, working with restoration programs, protesting, direct action, or what-have-you. These actions can be performed as ritual acts, or coincide meaningfully with ritual acts. A song can be sung and incense offered while we replant riparian vegetation. Or we can pray to this genius loci for help and promise to pick up trash in return.

This river may never wish to work with you, but you can work with and for the river in faith and love for the power it offers to the world. This river owes us nothing, and this may not be what you seek in a power ally. However, the spiritual growth we may gain when we reach out to a force of nature like this has incredible potential. Thank you for trusting me with this question. I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.

[diabloindigo]

[rosasyruda]

Offerings to the saddest river I’ve ever met

[wildlifeyetpeacefullife]

Spirited Away Tattoo of my own design (drawn by the tattoo artist)

[nixieintheshallows]

Looking for people to follow

Please interact with this post if you are:

mermaidkin

Nixiekin

Selkiekin

Naiadkin

Sirenkin

Any kind of river spiritkin

River witches

[arianwen44]

Another new OC, this time the river spirit in my previous painting! Both @jacky-luluwrites and I wanted to try a story set in feudal Japan, so here is my boy: a dragon who is obsessed with seeing a real samurai. I love this baby soooo much xD

[uxuec]

River Spirit design!

[mumblelard]

arlene or i found a bag of weed down by the river so boba and i are listening to old monster magnet demos

[thesorceresstemple]

River spirit

[lokabrenna13]

I love the voices of the river spirits. (From Saturday's hike at the Gorge)