Post

Guidance from Beyond

300-Word Post

Byeolsan, Inner District, Seongyeunja Temple

Shirin closed her eyes. Not that it made any difference. The deepest chamber reserved exclusively for her communications with the Astral Plane was always kept completely dark.

Wearing a simple white robe, showing nothing in terms of rank or power, Shirin breathed in through her nostrils and out with her mouth, cross-legged in the center of the chamber.

It was only the second of a new yearly tradition of only the top Gyunhyeongji clergy in the nation to enter into communication with what was beyond the Veil. Shirin deemed it was important to learn of the general path of the future in order to outline their role in keeping balance in all things, yet it was also in this pursuit of balance that these auguries were to be quite minor. All participants would be called to nothing less and nothing more than a sixteen-day fast and monetary sum of sixteen days’ wages. Whatever information they could purchase from beyond with these would have to do; potentially dangerous visions of the future warranting a sacrifice of an animal, or a worse deed, was completely out of the question.

Shirin exhaled. She swept her hand gently around. Sixteen stands of incense lit in a rosy ring around the queen, casting the floor and Shirin in a reddish glow. What insights did the Astral Plane have for her? What wisdom did the gods perceive necessary for Ryeongse to know? Or would Ryeongse stay in the dark, at the whim of the gods above?

Silence. Even the crackling of the incense all around her faded into complete nothingness. It was as if the silence was waiting for Shirin to ask her question.

“Gods above,” she mouthed noiselessly, "Let us here receive whatever insight you deem proper and fitting for us, your humble servants and executors of your will of balance and harmony.”

Shirin’s eyes sprung wide open immediately. The incense sticks around her burst from lazy smolders into open flame, pillars of bright crimson casting everything in a blinding light. As soon and instantly as the flames sprung, they died, silent smoke climbing idly into the air where an inferno once burned.

Shirin stood, troubled. She scrunched her eyebrows quizzically, standing silent and still in the dark. It was a whisper, distorted and fuzzy, Shirin had received from the Astral Plane. As clear as day the one word was, what it meant completely escaped her.

Dusk. What did it mean?