A gift of body, mind, and soul.

I'm stumped.

To start a journey my mc needs to present gifts of body, mind, and soul. And then get lost. For body and mind she's giving her hair and retgoning her name, but I can't figure out soul for the life of me. Best I've got is literally giving a piece of her soul that ends up becoming a very hungry doppelganger, but that leads down very dark paths I don't want this story to tread.

Any ideas on what a gift of soul would be?

Or maybe her name would be a gift of soul, in which case I need a gift of mind.

edited 27th Mar '12 5:51:55 PM by Bur

A name does sound more like a gift of soul. For a gift of mind, maybe memories? Not necessarily all of them, but maybe all her memories of a particular place or time period?

I was worried that memories might be too... cliche? But maybe if I can come up with the right set... Important but not cheesy is difficult.

What is regarded as most integral to the mind? It could be memories, but what about knowledge?

A belief?

I thought of it because of this one offhand reference in a Neil Gaiman book about someone taking a person's memories from before they were three as magical payment. Maybe something like that that's silly but still carries some kind of personal significance.

To get all Gnostic on you, there's always the option of choosing to reincarnate rather than pass on to another world after death. (The Buddhist offer would be less to reincarnate than to reincarnate more, vis à vis the Boddhisatvas, but it's otherwise the same deal.)

Alternately, one could go even further in the notion of the name as a "gift of the soul" (assuming one decides on a different "gift of the mind") and have your character undergo temporary ego death—they, for a time, would no longer think of themselves as themselves, as it were, having given up part of that aspect of their self that would recognise itself. Maybe that's convoluted but, assuming your character is paying these things to a magical entity of the old school, it's great leverage material: "'I' gave you more than you asked for; now you owe 'me.'"

edited 27th Mar '12 7:13:10 PM by JHM

This is good stuff to mull over.

What may be weird is that it's not actually to anyone. If anything it's a show of intent to the universe, saying "Yes, I really want to undertake this journey. Bring it on." but in a much more ladylike manner with my character. I guess in this case the universe can be thought of as a very very impersonal deity so large that these kind of things work as a catalyst? Like molecules causing cell functions or something.

Situation is something like this: She's inspired by a monk to go on a pilgrimage to where all things are created. Her world is borderline magicless, so she needs outside help to make her first trip to a goblin market, where she can find/buy/work for a way to go to more and more worlds under her own power. The sacrifice shows she means business and triggers a rift between worlds which she's able to get through by virtue of being lost - having no destination she's knowingly walking towards.

edited 27th Mar '12 7:27:43 PM by Bur

Names would almost have to be soul gifts.

A gift of mind could be the loss of her memory of her parents. A symbolic "cleansing" of her home. She may remember she had parents, and even what they taught her, but she does not remember who they are or where they were. A symbol of journeys, and cleansing.

That is at once horribly sad and perfectly appropriate, I think, and not unlike the whole idea of "killing one's parents" in the old Zen koan or renouncing the love of one's mother and father in the New Testament. It's kind of a universal idea, yet also very drastic.

Another prospect: The symbolic destruction of everything that the character has written. How one would manage that, I do not know, but that must be a powerful something.

edited 27th Mar '12 11:01:30 PM by JHM

For the gift of soul: her enjoyment of whatever it is she loves most. Not her memories, just any feelings she has toward whatever it is.

JHM, that idea is awesome. I'd also assume the ritual would handle that. A cleansing of one's effect on the world, of one's mind's effect on the world; I like that better than my idea.

That is a really awesome idea. I think I'll try it and see how it works out.

Thank you! I hope it works out well for you.

Hmmmmm: that reminds me of a traditional story I read once where the heroine had to give up all trace of her footsteps and her shadow's passing to gain the man she loved. Turned out the destruction of all she had done and all memories of her is what was meant, so she could never have him in the way she wanted, as he'd fallen in love with her ages ago.

Can I remember if it was a Zulu or a Tswana tale? Can I, heck.