by Wendy Hawkin | Feb 17, 2017 | Book Review, journal, mythology, writing and publishing
“If we do not raise our arms and will the mists to rise we will stumble forever in the fog.”
I first read The Mists of Avalon, written by Sci-fi Fantasy author Marion Zimmer Bradley, close to thirty years ago. It was a Christmas gift from my sister. No doubt she saw a connection; for this is a book about sisters.
An epic narrated by women, it unravels the story of how the new Christian religion eclipsed magic in Britain. Viviane, Ingraine, and Morgause are the three sisters who birth the kingdom of Arthur. Great granddaughters of Taliesien, the Merlin of Britain, magic is in their genes. Viviane, the eldest, becomes priestess of Avalon and Lady of the Lake; while Ingraine conceives Arthur and then marries her lover, Uther Pendragon, with the magical aid of Merlin.
Ingraine, feeling her heart pounding in her breast, knew it was true, and felt confusion and despair. In spite of the fact that she had seen Uther only four times, and dreamed twice of him, she knew that they had loved each other and spoken to each other as if they had been lovers for many years, knowing all and more than all about each other, body and mind and heart. She recalled her dream, where it seemed that they had been bound for many years by a tie which, if it was not marriage, might as well have been so. Lovers, partners, priest to priestess–whatever it was called. How could she tell Gorlois that she had known Uther only in a dream, but that she had begun to think of him as the man she had loved so long ago that Ingraine herself was not yet born, was a shadow; that the essence within her was one and the same with that woman who had loved that strange man who bore the serpents on his arms in gold…How could she say this to Gorlois, who knew, and wished to know, nothing of the Mysteries? (64).
by Wendy Hawkin | Feb 10, 2017 | journal, writing and publishing
galwaysalbum.com
The Quays is one of my favourite bars in the whole world. Naturally, it’s in Ireland. If you ever find yourself wandering Shop Street in Galway, you must go in and explore.
Excerpts from
To Charm a Killer. WL Hawkin
inter-bar.com
Stepping through the portal of THE QUAYS was like plunging back through time. The pub was enormous and packed with people, all laughing and talking and drinking. It was nothing like she imagined: three floors joined by carved wooden staircases, gothic arches, and stained glass windows, even thick church pews, and over the enormous bar hung the steering wheel of a wooden sailing ship. Maggie, who had never been farther than Vancouver, stood momentarily stunned.
“They went to France, packed up a Seventeenth century church, and rebuilt it here,” explained Primrose. “Well, go on then. Have a wander.
Later, Maggie has her first real look at her fey friend’s tattoo when they sit down for a bite to eat.
Primrose whisked off her cap as they settled into one of the wooden snugs and Maggie was startled to see that her shaved head was tattooed in colourful swirling symbols. Seeing her fascination, Primrose bowed forward to reveal the heart of the design—an intricately patterned mandala etched on the top of her skull. Three violet trees with intertwining roots formed the centre, while their branches connected in a circular knot. Between the trees were coiled spirals in emerald green. Another circle of knots wrapped around the first and split near the base of her skull into two trails that merged at the top of her spine.
“That’s amazing. Does it go all the way down your back?”
“Aye, and ends in a serpent’s tail. St. Patrick did not rid Éireann of all the snakes. A few of us survived.”
by Wendy Hawkin | Feb 4, 2017 | journal, writing and publishing
Are you waiting to read Neil Gaiman’s latest book: Norse Mythology? I am.
As Gaiman wrestled with these stories, he says, he had no idea he was writing a topical book. But then, as political events unfolded in the second half of 2016, he could not help but draw parallels. “For me, it was Ragnarök,” he says, referring to the apocalyptic end of the gods. It begins with a long winter, continues with earthquakes and flooding, and then the sky splits apart.
The view that Brexit and the election of President Trump have brought about chaos and even a sense of impending doom is widely held, but Gaiman’s version of it is particularly eloquent. “I remember the 80s and the nuclear clock and the cold war and Russia and America and [thinking] ‘I hope you guys don’t press buttons and it would be very nice to not live in the shadow of everything ending’,” he says. “But at least at that point, what you were scared of was just one action. Now one is scared of the accretion of a million actions and a million inactions.”
He says there is “a strange kind of magical thinking” afoot and tells me about waking up the morning after Brexit in a hotel in Scotland and checking the result, then having “that sort of moment at the end of Planet of the Apes where Charlton Heston sees the Statue of Liberty … I was going, ‘Oh, no. Are you really … ’
via Neil Gaiman: ‘I like being British. Even when I’m ashamed, I’m fascinated’ | Books | The Guardian
by Wendy Hawkin | Feb 3, 2017 | journal, writing and publishing
Fridays seem to come faster and faster as the world shivers with a blink and a breath…and sometimes a bang.
Faerie reveals that evil exists, but cannot triumph. Though shadows threaten and shroud, there is a way through…a glimmer of light; an ever-expanding force of truth and goodness, of thoughtfulness and kindness.
Though it may take a fight.
Lettie Hempstock is one of my most favourite characters. In The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman (one of my most favourite books by one of my most favourite authors) Lettie Hempstock fights evil beside a nameless, friendless seven-year-old boy. And we stand beside her.
In the myths of Faerie, there is hope and heroism that transcends worlds and enlightens.
Lettie Hempstock held me tightly. “Don’t worry,” she whispered, and I was going to say something, to ask why I shouldn’t worry, what I had to be afraid of, when the field we were standing in began to glow.
It glowed golden. Every blade of grass and glimmered, every leaf on every tree. Even the hedges were glowing. It was a warm light. It seemed, to my eyes, as if the soil beneath the grass had transmuted from base matter into pure light, and in the golden glow of the meadow the blue-white lightnings that still crackled around Ursula Monkton seemed much less impressive.
Ursula Monkton rose unsteadily, as if the air had just become hot and was carrying her upwards. Then Lettie Hempstock whispered old words into the world and the meadow exploded into a golden light. I saw Ursula Monkton swept up and away, although I felt no wind, but there had to be a wind, for she was flailing and tipping like a dead leaf in a gale. I watched her tumble into the night, and then Ursula Monkton and her lightnings were gone (89).
by Wendy Hawkin | Feb 2, 2017 | journal, mythology
Today, pagans celebrate Imbolc (pronounced EE-molc). It is the first of three spring festivals occurring every six weeks.
Like most pagan holidays, it has been transformed into something else. Groundhog Day. Though, an echo of animals and a promise of spring remains, it is not a celebration; just a pronouncement, and the groundhog, a weather forecaster. Today, where I live the sun shone bright, so the retreating groundhog forecasts six more weeks of winter. This may not be true for you.
But, Imbolc is a Wiccan/Druid celebration of light and fertility. Originating in Celtic Europe, it derives from a pastoral time, when people were connected to the spirit of the land and animals. It is the time when lambs were born and shoots pushed forth from the earth.
Frolicking Sheep at Kilmartin Glen, Scotland
If you live in the northern hemisphere, you will notice that as the year spins, days are growing longer, the sun is shining brighter, and our energy is shifting. We shake off the wools of winter and begin to frolic ourselves.
For a more in depth discussion of Imbolc, visit this impressive UK site:
via Imbolc – The Wheel Of The Year – The White Goddess
by Wendy Hawkin | Feb 2, 2017 | Canadian writers, journal, writing and publishing
And now something light, but true.
If this is what readers experience, imagine what happens to writers?
I LIVE somewhere between two and five, in the all consuming life of the book. I’d like to see a video on what happens to the brain when we read and write. I’ve seen what happens on music, and it’s extraordinary…a symphony of light.
Thanks Kristen, for this.
