Spirit Lodge

All good and evil in the world, and every cycle of rebirth, are governed by cause and effect. "Only after Pangu created the heavens and the earth could life exist. Only after Nuwa created humanity and repaired the heavens could you and I be alive today..." Of course, these things come from ancient myths and may not be true, but they are the simplest examples of cause and effect.

Cause and effect can be good or evil. Some people are born gifted, while others are born with intellectual disabilities. Some are even physically deformed, with three arms, six fingers, or a large fleshy growth across their face. All such differences stem from the good deeds, evil deeds, and grudges accumulated in past lives, as well as the good fortune built up by their ancestors. If a soul carries too much resentment when it is reborn, and its anger has not faded after crossing the River of Forgetfulness, it may be incomplete. Or it may be too attached to something to leave its place, and Granny Meng may fail to notice it or accept a bribe to let it cross the river and be reborn in the world. Its disabilities, illnesses, and grievances will then manifest in its body in this life.

I am a person who was born safely thanks to all these tangled causes and effects, healthy in some ways and not in others. I'm like a box full of odds and ends. Many brothers and sisters who once competed with me but never got to exist in physical form live inside me. They may be good or evil, but none of them has all three souls and seven spirits. Since their yin and yang energies conflict, they can't fit together to become whole. They can only be crammed haphazardly into my body. Though they don't get along and are constantly fighting over what's inside me, I know they all share the same goal: "To live, and to live a complete life..."

Theme: Everyone's survival has meaning.