Notes on Viera Astrology

I. A Cursory Glance At The Viera
It is known that the Viera follow the Word of the Wood: their settled enclaves in the Golmore Jungle and the verdant foothills of the Skatay Range are lead by matrons who rule in accordance to the Word of the Wood. This is not solely an ancient doctrine, rather a living voice which may be heard by those to whom the voice wills it to be heard by. Those who venture beyond the woodlands find that 'the land' is more and more difficult to hear, and soon cease to recognize its voice. The Word of the Wood has a way of knowing who leaves its bounds, being even able to deny them passage by way of magickal barriers. And just as it knows those who leave, it is ever away of those who enter, sharing this strategic information with its adherents. While it naturally gives the Wood Warders the ability to track intruders, it is equally valuable the Salve Makers, who at times must locate flora as well as fauna to obtain reagents. The Salve Makers produce curative medicines as well as the Vision Dust which allows the Viera to obscure the entryways to their villages. These villages are made up of small shrines and dwellings built about the trunks of great trees, all joined by suspended pathways. The ruling matron dwells in the center with her Salve Makers close at hand; elsewhere there are typically springs and the aforementioned shrines at which the Viera will meditate with the Word of the Wood.

II. Western Astrology
In Eorzea, Sharlayan astrology is built upon the association of The Twelve with the six major heavens. While these heavens would be visible elsewhere, and are in fact known to the geomancers of the Far East, The Twelve who originally inhabited Eorzea are of little consequence to peoples elsewhere. Indeed, recent contact with the far East has brought us many interactions with the worship of Kami, of Sun and Moon worship, of wizened beasts, etc. And the Viera are even more isolated than the other civilizations we know of, whose practices are at least in some way informed by centuries of cultural exchange. And so while the six major heavens are undoubtedly of importance throughout our star, the meaning and corresponding practices can be expected to be only tangentially related.
The geomancers in the East scoff at the notion of the Bole: that the element of Earth could be governed in the heavens, when it clearly lies beneath their feet. Similarly, the Viera do not revere the heavens as intensely as we in Eorzea do. No doubt our love of the stars comes from the way in which the heavens guided the Wandering Tribes to Eorzea in the beginning. The transition from Earth-worship to Heavens-worship itself is embodied by the ascension of The Twelve to the stars after ceding the land to our forebears. In our own astrology, each heaven is governed by two Gods--whether they are compliments or foils, they are generally opposing. The Wanderer is guided by the Navigator, the judging Balance is made reasonable by the Warden, the Lover cools the Fury, the Destroyer animates the Builder's spire with his levin bolts, the Nophica's vulnerable Bole is nurtured by the oldest of The Twelve, and Thaliak's thirst for knowledge is kept blind and wandering by Nymeia's spun veil.

III. Viera Astrology
The Viera do not find such compliments in the stars, rather they find six primordial forces all of which are foiled in the Word of the Wood itself. Shimha, who tears apart and consumes; Vrishchika, who sleeps in the heavy stillwaters of life; Meena, whose roots are in the vein of the living; Tula, who deceives the eye; Makara, the flightless; and Ashlesha, the writhing un-form. Let us clarify these:
        Shimha is associated with what we know as The Spire. The Viera interpret this constellation as a beast sitting aloof from the scattered entrails of her prey. Whether they are Wood Warders who hunt creatures of the Wood to divide and scatter amongst their village as food, or they are Salve Makers who tear apart and consume reagents from the forest, the Viera consider this act to be primal and wild at heart. The Word of the Wood provides guidance to this wanton act, shewing the Viera to the proper quarry or bounty. The hunter does not give into savage hunger, for game is always promised.
        Vrishchika is found in our Spear: a curled, sleeping form beneath a flat, unbroken surface. All life comes from these primordial waters, yet even if the waters are heavy with life, they are not truly living as long as they are inanimate. Without Impetus, the Viera would be as Vrishchika, still as the waters in which she is suspended. The Viera meditate by flowing springs in their villages for this reason. The Word of the Wood compels them and provides motion.
        Meena has a shape more difficult to explain with written words: she is our arrow, but takes the form of a flat-capped mushroom growing on the roots of a living tree. She is the all-consuming decay of soil which crawls upon forms from below: a mark of the underworld upon a Viera's spirit. Though the Viera are long-lived, the fear of death compels all living thing to flee, lest they be overtaken. But no matter how quickly or how tall a tree grows, the roots are embedded firmly in the Earth below. For this reason, the Word compels the Viera to live slow, contemplative lives in acceptance of this truth rather than in futile defiance.
Tula should be more familiar to us: to the Viera, she is a whorl of leaves, and to us she is the Bole. As expected, though, this is where the similarities end. The aforementioned primordial stillwaters are the origin of life for the Viera, not our World Tree. For a people dwelling in the forest, the trees are obfuscation. Their trunks break line of sight, their leaves provide shade from the all-seeing sun. There is no omniscient eye which may observe all within the wilderness. Though the Viera are known for their keen senses, they do not use these instead of the Word's information. The importance of this sign must not be understated: we know our world by sight, indeed the Sharlayan Circle of Knowing sees even the Aether by sight. Yet the Viera know their world in a way unrestricted by the eye. Whether the Word informs them by speech, by sense, by emotion, it is no doubt difficult for us to comprehend.
        Makara, called flightless, is ironically depicted as a great, feathered wing in the heavens, instead of our Balance. The Makara's form is otherwise said to be of a great, four-legged beast with massive wings, though he has grown too large to fly. While in the rest of the settled world we join one another in vast kingdoms and city states (knowing our strength and security to be in our numbers) the Viera spurn this cumbersome gathering. When they leave the village for thehunt, they do so alone. The danger of solitude and isolation is thus off-set by the guidance of the Word of the Wood, freeing them of 'cumbersome' cooperation.
        Lastly, Ashlesha, the writhing un-form--fittingly she resides in the Ewer, our most complex constellation in terms of size and number of stars within it. She is a snake without a head or tail, only a writhing thing. She embodies the very nature of the wild: the Word of the Wood cannot guide it or tame, rather it addresses the Viera alone.

IV. Viera Elementalism
    Our understanding of astrology aligns each heaven to one of the six elements: either Earth, Lightning, Water, Fire, Ice, or Wind. In the previous section introducing Viera astrology, one may note the lack of any talk of elements, beyond a handful of implications: Vrishchika dwells in water, but it is motionless and quite unlike our elemental understanding of water (everflowing from the Ewer); Meena relates to life returning to soil, yet has more to do with death than any aspect of the Aether; Makara is a great winged beast yet is entirely flightless, hardly fitting of the Wind.
The Sharlayan study of astrology is based on Aether of the heavens: that it can be spun into healing or harming magic through a knowledge of the constellations, their locations, and orientations among many other things. The Viera, however, are not well known for their practice of Aetherial magic, and indeed pay no mind the elemental alignments of the constellations or the Aether which they conduct. It begs the question, then, of why the Viera pay the constellations any mind at all. I believe that just as Sharlayan astrologians weave the Aether of the heavens to influence the fates of men, the organization of the stars above Golmore Jungle do indeed influence the conditions therein.
To assume the Word of the Wood is not an Aethereal phenomenon would be foolish! This writer would be shocked if the arrangement of the heavens did not influence the manifestation or internal monologue of the Word in any way at all. Thus it was almost certainly the voice of the land which upturned the ancient Viera’s gazes. And if the Word is like an augmented sense to the Viera, then the stars would affect their experience of the world itself, and become of great importance. It is only regrettable that we lack sufficient interaction with them to truly understand this relation.
To return to the question of elementalism and the Viera: we experience these elemental affinities directly from the Aether, while the Viera do not directly interact with the Aether. Because the Aether is more or less passed through the Word of the Wood, the elemental affinities we associate with each of the major heavens may instead be interpreted as primordial forces as understood by the Word.

V. Viera Governance & The Word of The Wood
    If all Viera within the wilderness may hear the Word of the Wood, why then do they have leaders? Surely the Word itself can sufficiently organize the enclaves of Viera. This calls into further question the nature of the Word and how it is experienced. It is certainly described by all as a ‘voice’ which is ‘heard’, yet how could a voice tell one what goes on in a forest, when so much of that information is non-verbal?
I believe we should think of the Word of the Wood as a primordial force which opposes the other six primordial forces mentioned above; the latter six are internal and natural to the Viera, while the Word is external and guides them through these. Hunger, stagnation, fear, unknowing, dependence, and collapse are all guided meaningfully by the Word of the Wood, yet one must understand both the internal and external primordial forces to make use of all of them. The Viera leaders are more tangible guides which apprentice the younger. If the Word were clear, explicit, and commanding, then there would be no Viera living among us as they do now.