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Chrysalis-Lyn — Spirit Realm
Published: 2018-04-18 23:06:28 +0000 UTC; Views: 189; Favourites: 25; Downloads: 0
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Pen, watercolors & highlighterRelated content
Comments: 12
Ethereal animal art is wonderfully fun!
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Quite foxy! I love drawing the clever, handsome creatures. There's something so alluring about them 
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Great work, as always. Your background here seems more active and textured than usual -- To me, this suggests that the inhabitants of the spirit world can shape their own reality and take on whatever form suits them. Or perhaps the fox-spirit is building a bridge to the material world via dreams or other non-ordinary means? It's thought-provoking no matter how you slice it!
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Many thanks! I love your interpretation. I'd like to think of the spirit realm as similar to a dream. I used to meet foxes so often in my dreams that they became a symbol of an inner spiritual world. There are other ways to access that same state of mind, like through meditation, thought, or daydreaming. As a side note, I would be fascinated in getting to know the spiritual landscape of your ongoing story. The world that it takes place in has a lot of divine undertones. Do your characters visualize their gods a certain way? Do they visit them in altered states of consciousness, or do they communicate solely through ceremony? Just a few of my ethereal wonderings
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I definitely think you are onto something vis-a-vis the spirit world and dreams. To me, they are different parts of the same territory, which we can visit under the right conditions (sleep, meditation, trance, etc.). The animals we meet there are (in my opinion) just the outward forms of spirit-beings, just as our own bodies are (to a certain extent) the outward forms or expressions of our souls. Animals are at once familiar and alien, which is why I believe spirits like to invoke them when appearing to us. Just a thought
As for the spiritual landscape underlying my story, I would say it operates on the general shamanic principal that everything is spirit and everything is holy. Although an object may have a physical form (be it animal, vegetable, or mineral), it is still held to have a spirit and to be imbued with divine consciousness of some kind. Thus the people are enjoined to treat everything with a great deal of respect, for ultimately, all things are brothers or sisters, mothers or fathers. Everything belongs to the same family as it were. The gods serve as parents and elder siblings, influencing the world and ensuring that everyone maintains spiritual decorum. The people know that spiritual harmony results in physical well-being, which in turn makes life easier. Most individuals have an ingrained understanding and absolute acceptance of how their world works, but apart from occasional dream encounters, only the shamans and seers of their society actually intercede with spirit beings. Even so, everyone is believed to have one or more tutelary spirits, who are regularly honored, both individually and corporately. Gratitude is a fundamental spiritual virtue to these people, and is the cornerstone of their many festivals.
(Hope this helps -- Thanks for asking!)
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Wow, thank you so much for your thorough response! I think there is both a spiritual & scientific basis for everything being considered holy, seeing as all things come from the same base "essence" (which could be like string theory, or else some kind of soulful material, or perhaps even both!) You've constructed an impressively elegant landscape. Quite a beautiful & idyllic expression of faith 
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My pleasure -- Thank *you* for reading through it! And as always, thank you for your good words.
I've spent a lot of time trying to find the Great Mystery in churches, books, teachers and what-have-you, but the most authentic spiritual experiences I ever had were in dreams. Not to sound like a fanatic, but there really is something to them!
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That effect of emerging from the 'formless' realm is great!
Also, that special stare, once again
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Oh yes, that stare is spooky-fun to draw! I had a great time working with textures & colors here. I wanted it to have the vibrancy of a dream come to life. Thank you
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