Eight of Batons (foreword to The White Deer), by Gordon White
The following is the foreword to Melinda Reidinger’s upcoming book, The White Deer: Ecospirituality and the Mythic. It was written by Gordon White.
Information on The White Deer, including how to order, can be found at the end of this piece.
The first tarot deck I ever owned had the White Hart as its Eight of Batons. Not a bad association as these things go. Forward momentum. A rapidly approaching opportunity. A gathering speed. A harbinger. Even growing up in regional Australia—a place not exactly known for its white deer—I implicitly understood this signification at the age of thirteen. The card began to intrigue me whether I was playing with my tarot or not. Omens. Signs and wonders. I was taken with the idea that the appearance of some animals might “mean” something. I had just purchased a fortune telling oracle, after all. In for a penny, in for a pound.
Why was it that some animals carried more meaning than others? The owl. The snake. In comparison to, say, the guppy or the plover. As for the hart, was it just the rarity of finding a white one that gave it more semantic heft? Or was there something else? Years later, I pondered this while drinking at the White Hart on Drury Lane—London’s oldest licensed premises. This creature has been bounding through the English unconscious for centuries.
But what is it? Is it a physical deer? Is it the idea of a deer? A deer spirit? Some kind of pagan survival (as if that were in any way a differentiator)? Plainly, how we encounter, how we experience an “animal” is contingent on the cosmovision in which such an encounter takes place. During the creation of the Fifth Sun at Tenochtitlan —now Mexico City—the Gods convened and set a great fire. Tēcciztēcatl had volunteered to immolate himself in the fire and become the new sun but at the last moment his resolve failed. Nanāhuātzin, who had also volunteered but was deemed too old, stepped into the flames and became the sun. Seeing this, the younger Tēcciztēcatl discovered his resolve and followed him into the fire. Two suns begin to rise but the Gods, angered by his cowardice, throw a rabbit at Tēcciztēcatl, dimming his brightness and turning him into the moon. (Which is why the moon has a rabbit-shaped mark on his face, incidentally.) Two animals threw themselves in after: Jaguar and Eagle. Note this is not the Jaguar God, this is not the Eagle Spirit. It is Jaguar and Eagle.
In the Wiradjuri Dreaming of eastern Australia, the task of creating the sun belongs to Emu. All was darkness and Emu was the only being in existence. She flies up and lays an egg that hatches the sun. Again, this is not the Emu Goddess. This is Emu.
We derive the word “spirit” ultimately from the word for “breath.” So it is an essence that can enter and leave a physical form. And to be the Emu Goddess is to be above “mere” emus, or at least to be somehow bigger than an emu one might encounter in the wild. How we conceptualise our non-human brothers and sisters under the fifth sun tells us everything about our cosmovision. If the White Hart is, to you, some kind of deer spirit then you are operating inside at least a partial dualism. There is a special “deerness” that can enter and leave the otherwise base or lower matter of the physical deer. If you conceive of the White Hart as some sort of God then perhaps you are closer, as divinity does not necessary preclude the physical or material encounter.
Those cosmovisions around the world that never had the life drained out of them can say 'deer' and allow that term to carry the complexity of spirit, god, food, friend, teacher and guide. In Amazonia there is the notion of the Beast Master or Beast Mother, where every animal in the jungle has a mother or lord in the spirit world that the various human groups must negotiate with, especially if they plan to hunt her children. This Beast Master is, is not, and can enter the form of any of her children. This is not imprecision. This is precisely the best framework for managing the complexity of being in relation to the rest of the living cosmos.
Deer comes to bring us this message also. As described later in these pages, the first lesson in the Mabinogion story is one of interrelation, of a decentring of the human, of humanity in its true and much wider context. Pwyll, out hunting with his hounds, sees another pack of dogs bring down a stag. These turn out to belong to an Otherworld prince, also out on his hunt. The story shows us that humans are not the only game in town, and we are not the only beings to have agency. The cosmos is not our backdrop. The world is out there worlding. Our failure to see this has and will continue to lead to disaster.
In the form of White Deer, the hart returns to share this message once again. Melinda Reidinger first catches sight of her quarry deep in the thicket of the European imagination. From there she tracks it through history and then out into the wild uplands of some future scenarios, many of which we would do well to avoid. This is a journey that asks us to consider firstly what these beings are. And, contingent on our conclusion, what they will say when we allow ourselves to hear them.
Gordon White
Gordon White is the author of many books on magic, animism, and the occult, including Ani.Mystic: Encounters with a Living Cosmos and Star.Ships: A Prehistory of the Spirits, both from Scarlet Imprint. He can be found at Rune Soup and lives in lutruwita/Tasmania .
The White Deer: Ecospirituality & The Mythic,
by Melinda Reidinger
In ancient myths from throughout the world, the appearance of a white deer presages a warning, leads humans to crucial crossroads, and points us to a gate to better understanding our our relationship to the world. Also, throughout history and in science, the white deer has been a sign of imbalance, impending peril, and also profound moments of opening and transformation.
In The White Deer: Ecospirituality and the Mythic, Melinda Reidinger chases the white deer down mythic paths and startling (and sometimes shocking) tracks. From the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand to the blue blood of horseshoe crabs, “monstrous” ladies and fallen knights to Magyar star-myths and desert forests, The White Deer speaks to a relationship with the living world we’ve forgotten but can learn to find again.
Deeply researched and densely rich with details from science, history, myth, and dream, and written with a warmly engaging voice, Melinda Reidinger’s opus also features the haunting interior illustration work of James Hutton and a foreword by Gordon White.
Specifications
The White Deer—a crucial reference and a deeply inspiring tome—will be published in multiple editions including Ritona’s first hardback edition.
Deluxe (hardcover): 6.14 inches x 9.21 inches (Royal), full color with images on 70lb paper, 290 pages, matte dust jacket, digital cloth.
Standard (paperback): 6.14 inches x 9.21 inches (Royal), full color with images on 70lb paper, 290 pages, perfectbound with matte cover
Ordering Information
The White Deer: Ecospirituality and the Mythic by Melinda Reidinger released to the world 1 March, 2023. Deluxe (hardcover) editions retail for $37.50 US and Standard (paperback) editions for $22.50 US.
In addition to single edition sales, The White Deer is offered as part of two packages. These allow readers to purchase several related books together for greatly reduced prices.
Deluxe (hardcover) release package:
Includes The White Deer by Melinda Reidinger as well as The Dead Hermes Epistolary by Slippery Elm and True To The Earth: Pagan Political Theology by Kadmus. The cost of this package is 55.00 (save 12.50: these books together retail normally for 67.50).
Standard (paperback) release package:
Includes The White Deer by Melinda Reidinger as well as The Dead Hermes Epistolary by Slippery Elm, True To The Earth: Pagan Political Theology by Kadmus, and Courting The Wild Queen by Seán Pádraig O'Donoghue . The cost of this package is 55.00 (save 13.50: these books together retail for 68.50.
To Order Print Editions:
Select your desired option below and click “add to cart.” When you are finished, you can either go to checkout or continue browsing.