Gate: The Hanging Man

I stepped through the vision gate and found myself in an ancient forest with trees far larger than anything I have ever seen with my waking eyes.  I felt quite small as I moved beneath the behemoth branches and a strong wind moved high above the trees but, such were the size of the trunks, they barely moved in the gusts. I, on the other hand, had to gather my strength so that I wouldn’t be blown away like an errant leaf.

“I require a guide, please,” I said as I shielded my eyes and grounded my form during yet another gust of wind. As I endured the elements, the blades of grass came to life beneath my feet.

“This way, Heidi!” they said in their myriad voices. “You have got to see this. Pretend you’re grass like us and you’ll do much better in our world.”

Utilizing a little imagination, I visualized my feet reaching deeply into the ground as if I was a plant rather than a woman. To my surprise, it worked like a charm and I was no longer bothered by the wind through the trees. My diminutive guides moved about me in swirling patterns upon the ground, leading me deeper into the woods.

The grass brought me to a tree that looked like all the rest in the middle of this forest and, hanging from the upper branches and swaying in the breeze, I beheld a spirit in the shape of a man.  He hung upside down, bound hand and foot with ropes, and was apparently unconscious. I gasped when I realized what I was looking at.

“Blades of grass,” I said in some distress. “Please cut that man down. I can’t fly up there because the wind will take me to another place.”

Half of the plant guardians rushed enthusiastically up the trunk on a rescue mission for the hanging man. “Those of you who are soft and cushioning, please position yourself beneath the spirit,” I said to the rest. “He is going to need a soft place to fall. It would not do to injure him further as we’re trying to help him.”

The blades of grass who had ascended the trunk cut through the ropes with their sharp edges and the hanging man landed with a thump on a springy patch of green beneath the tree. I was at his side immediately, untied the remaining ropes and saw the man was not breathing.

“I hope we didn’t arrive too late,” I said as I reached into the bag at my hip and pulled out my cup, a mirror of one from the Castle of Skye.  I raised its perpetually full brim to the spirit’s lips and dashed some of the cup’s contents down his throat.

At first, there was no response.  But then, the spirit coughed weakly and his eyes opened.  He began to struggle in an effort to sit up and I gave him some assistance, offering him my hand as the blades of grass shifted beneath his back, lifting him from his prone position upon the earth.

“You’re an angel of mercy, whoever you are,” the spirit said. “Was I dead?”

“You were either dead or so close to it I could not tell the difference,” I said. “The angels are in the grass, I am merely a visitor here from another world.”

“Another world? Which one? I am somewhat of a world traveler myself,” the hanging man said. “How did you bring me back?”

“It is this cup that I drank from Love’s fountain with once upon a time in a castle in the sky,” I said, handing it to him. “It heals all wounds and returns life to the body and also the spirit if it has departed. I consider it to be a gift from Love herself.”

“I was dead, are you sure?” he said, becoming excited. “I was dead!” The hanging man tossed some of the water from the grail upon the ground and started digging through the grass in a state of agitation.

“Oberon promised me,” he muttered. “I wish I had more faith in his predictions.”

“If what you seek is hidden in the grass, we can make your search easier,” I said and, with a motion of my hand, the living blades of grass departed.  The formerly hanging man and I were left sitting on bare dirt beneath the giant tree.

The spirit laughed as he scooped up hardened patches of ground caused by the combination of the water and dirt, and placed them in the grail.

“Oberon said if I hung from the tree, the runes would appear beneath. And here they are,” the spirit said with a smile. “He says lots of things that never come to pass. I’m so pleased this is one of the prophecies whose time has come.” He filled the cup to the brim with the shaped bits of earth and their arcane symbols.

“We must write the runes down before they vanish again into the dust,” he continued. “I don’t want to be forced to ascend the tree and hang again tomorrow because I was too slow to record their knowledge today.” With surprising speed for one who had been so recently deceased, the spirit rose to his feet and sprinted off into the forest.

“Good plan. What’s your name?” I called after the fleeing figure. “I’m Heidi.”

“Odin,” the spirit replied and vanished through a doorway cut into one of the enormous trees.  I followed at my leisure and soon entered the tree myself.