The Pooka
Get on or step back, friend — but do it before I decide for you.
Who they are
The púca — the shape-shifter of the Samhain hills, most often a shaggy black horse with golden eyes and a mane you would be wise to grip. November is his month; in some parishes the first of it was the púca's own day, the one day of the year his word could be trusted, and people climbed the hills to hear him tell the year ahead. He has honestly done both of the things they say of him: carried lost farmers gently home, and carried proud men through gorse and bog till dawn broke them. After Samhain the blackberries are his — he spits on the bramble, and fruit picked past that night carries nobody's luck. Brian Boru is said to have bridled him once. Nobody has managed it twice.
Drawn upright — the teaching
Say yes to the wild chance you can't fully control — the move, the venture, the love that comes without guarantees. The ride into the unknown is on offer, and it will not stand at the gate while you draft your conditions.
The working
Mount the Pooka's ride with respect and a hand in its mane. In plain terms: say yes to the thing, then commit your grip — the notice given, the savings put in, the yes said out loud where people heard it — and stop trying to steer every stride. Don't fight it, don't fall off; half-riding is how people get thrown. Let it carry you somewhere you'd never have walked on your own careful feet — that is the entire point of the horse. Respect the ride and hold on, and the luck turns real and rich.
Drawn reversed — the shadow
This is chaos that doesn't ask permission — the plan that sours, the wild ride that wrecks, the luck gone bad overnight. Not every risk pays. Some rides only ever end in the ditch, and they were recognizable from the ground.
The undoing
Before you climb on — or right now, mid-gallop — look hard at this ride: does it free you, or just crash you somewhere new? Ask the sober question: who profits if I stay on? Then get off the one that only ends in the ditch — the trade you can't afford, the thrill that costs more each round, the person who calls the wreckage passion. The Pooka carries some to wonder and some off a cliff. Learn to tell which mount you're on before it tells you.
Its tree · the ogham
Ruis — the elder. In the old word-ogham, Ruis is the reddening of faces — the flush. The flush of the wild ride, and the flush of shame the morning after: same red, two causes. The elder fruits dark and sudden at the edge of the year — sweetness with a deadline. His kind of tree exactly.
Sit with this
The thing in front of you — is it the ride of your life, or the ditch dressed up? You already suspect. Check.