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The king's legacy: 'Some had seen right down to the deepest pulse of life. Others knew the path where the form of life was fashioned. Together they could bring knowledge of tending life itself, understanding something of when and how to prolong it, when to let go.'
A life-tender considers how this may be done: 'We work with many different forms of life - human, animal, vegetable. We have to have intimate knowledge of the elements and essences that we work with, how to oppose one nature with another, how to sympathetically conjoin, and how to use one force to drive out another. Some of us are healers, others ecologists, surgeons, gardeners, spiritual counsellors or preparers of medicines. We may prevent or cure, but sometimes we stand back to let matters take their course.'
Though life-tenders are devotional, they may also be ruthless, for they have to try and understand what may be best of all, which is not necessarily what they themselves or their charges desire.
Life-tenders can include:
Life-tenders is one of the twelve orders. In the octahedron, its neighbours are:
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