Today's Stichomancy for Yoshitaka Amano

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Rig Veda:

bring us hither their possessions.

11 I craving joy address with hymn and homage your heavenly host, the company of Maruts, That we may gain wealth with full store of heroes, each day more famous, and with troops of children. HYMN XXXI. Visvedevas.

The Rig Veda

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard:

the spirit!'

Then I clothed myself in the ghastly looking dress, and they took lamps and motioned to me to follow them.

CHAPTER X

THE PASSING OF ISABELLA DE SIGUENZA

Silently we went down the long passage, and as we went I saw the eyes of the dwellers in this living tomb watch us pass through the gratings of their cell doors. Little wonder that the woman about to die had striven to escape from such a home back to the world of life and love! Yet for that crime she must perish. Surely God will remember the doings of such men as these priests, and the

Montezuma's Daughter

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Flame and Shadow by Sara Teasdale:

Behind the apple tree the sun goes down Painting with fire the spires and the windows In the elm-shaded town.

Beyond the calm Connecticut the hills lie Silvered with haze as fruits still fresh with bloom, The swallows weave in flight across the zenith On an aerial loom.

Into the garden peace comes back with twilight, Peace that since noon had left the purple phlox, The heavy-headed asters, the late roses And swaying hollyhocks.

The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Shakespeare:

I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself, and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd, Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising, Haply I think on thee,-- and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate,;