The Hollow Tree
Every door I hold open, I hold open both ways. Remember which way you came in.
Who they are
A colossal ancient oak, split from root to first bough, and in the split — a doorway of steady gold light that comes from nowhere the sun has ever been. One of the open mouths of the Otherworld: forest in front, forest behind, and through it something that is not forest at all. Straight god-rays drop through the canopy; a wren watches; a fawn freezes at the treeline; five faces surface and sink in the bark if you look slowly. And in the grass at the threshold, half-swallowed by moss: a dropped iron key and a milk bowl set down a very long time ago. Both belonged to travellers. Only one kind comes back for their things — the old stories are exact about the other kind: they danced one night in the gold and came home to find everyone they loved long buried.
Drawn upright — the teaching
A door has opened to something new — a real way in, and, handled right, a real way home. The offer, the move, the person, the beginning: it's genuine, and you're right to want it. Doors like this don't stay open long, and they reward the traveller who crosses awake.
The working
Before you step through a threshold like this, mark the way back. Tie a ribbon on the branch where your own eye will find it; put iron in your pocket — a nail, an old key — because iron keeps your head your own in charmed places. Ask leave at the mouth, out loud, as you would at any door that isn't yours. Then cross on your own terms, wits about you, not in a daze — go in because you chose it, carrying the address of your own life.
Drawn reversed — the shadow
Lose yourself in the beautiful escape and you'll surface to find real time gone — years spent, people moved on, your actual life turned to dust while you were "away." The screen, the bottle, the endless somewhere-else: the light in there never dims — that is the trap. The Otherworld's clock only ever runs slow in one direction — yours.
The undoing
Turn your coat inside-out — the oldest cure there is for being led in circles by a glamour — and the shine drops off the trick. Find the ribbon you tied; if you never tied one, follow the plain gray daylight, the one light a glamour can't fake. And walk back out now — not after one more hour, one more chapter of the beautiful elsewhere. Some doors shut behind you. Don't wait to test which kind this is.
Its tree · the ogham
Duir — the oak. Duir means door — this card is the letter made literal, the old strokes climbing the bark beside the gap like a signature. A door is the most honest thing in the world — it never once pretends the two sides are the same place.
Sit with this
Where do you go when you "go away"? And how long — count it honestly — have you been gone?