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.
by Wendy Hawkin | Jan 30, 2017 | journal, writing and publishing
Croagh Patrick, Co Mayo, Ireland
In these times, when the energy in our world is frenetic (and I mean that in a most ancient sense) we long for sanctuary of body and mind. One way to soothe this yearning is through pilgrimage…a walk on holy ground. For some, this happens when we visit an ancient site, walk the sacred path of a holy being, or wander a wild landscape. Still others may journey in mind through reading or meditation, or bathe in the natural energy of the elements.
Where and how do you restore your equilibrium?
What follows is a post written by Michael Maxwell Steer that brought me some peace this morning. Thanks to Philip Carr-Gomm for sharing these words.
via Holystone Well, Northumbria National Park | Philip Carr-Gomm
PS: Frenetic
“When life gets frenetic, things can seem absolutely insane – at least that seems to be what folks in the Middle Ages thought. Frenetik, in Middle English, meant “insane.” When the word no longer denoted stark raving madness, it conjured up fanatical zealots. Today its seriousness has been downgraded to something more akin to hectic. But if you trace frenetic back through Anglo-French and Latin, you’ll find that it comes from Greek phrenitis, a term describing an inflammation of the brain. Phrēn, the Greek word for “mind,” is a root you will recognize in schizophrenic. As for frenzied and frantic, they’re not only synonyms of frenetic but relatives as well. Frantic comes from frenetik, and frenzied traces back to phrenitis.” Merriam-Webster
by Wendy Hawkin | Jan 20, 2017 | Book Review, journal, mythology, writing and publishing
Canadian author, Charles de Lint is, perhaps, my favourite urban fantasy writer–at least, he’s the first one that hooked me. And, of all his books, Widdershins is the one I return to time and again. He’s a poet and musician; both talents seep through his work. Interweaving the fantastical world of humans and faeries (both European and Indigenous) with Celtic traditional music, de Lint’s pure voice catches my heart.
Here are three favourite quotes from Widdershins:
Music needs to live and breathe; it’s only pure when it’s performed live with nothing hidden–neither its virtuosity nor the inevitable mistakes that come when you try to push it into some new, as yet unexplored place. It’s improvisational jazz. It’s the jam, the session. The best music is played on street corners and pubs, in kitchens and on porches, in the backrooms of concert halls and in the corner of a field, behind the stage, at a music festival. It’s played for the joy and the sadness and the connection it makes between listeners and players.
The fates of men and fairies weren’t inexorably etched in stone. If there were weavers, making a pattern on their looms of how lives were lived, they could only nudge and hint, not force fate to unfold on some strict schedule. And a seer’s vision saw only probabilities, not truth. The only truth was now. The past was clouded by memory; the future, in the end forever a mystery. Even to a seer.
As I was straightening up, my gaze became level with that of one of the small twig and leaf fairies that were regulars at the mall revels. She was lying on the roof of the car, pixie-featured and grinning, head propped on her elbows, her vine-like hair pulled back into a thick Rasta ponytail. She wasn’t really made of twigs and leaves and vines–or at least I didn’t think so–but her skin was the mottled colour of a forest, all greens and browns. (Hazel)
by Wendy Hawkin | Jan 20, 2017 | environment, journal, writing and publishing
Have you ever met someone you knew was a kindred spirit? Someone, for whom you felt an immediate kinship, mutual love, and joyous understanding?
I want to share this beautiful post by Maria Popova which includes many quotes from Rachel Carson’s letters to Dorothy Freeman.
Rachel’s heart–intense with love, not just for our Mother Earth, but for her friend–was too soon broken.
We owe this pioneering woman our respect, our gratitude, and our loyalty. If you’ve never read Silent Spring (1962), you should.
Rachel Carson was a prophet, as well as a naturalist and marine biologist.
These letters reveal the woman.
via Rachel Carson’s Touching Farewell to Her Dearest Friend and Beloved – Brain Pickings
by Wendy Hawkin | Jan 17, 2017 | journal, mythology
The Theme of Binding
Twice this week, I’ve noticed a similar theme in fantasy stories. It is the theme of binding. Out of fear, a mother binds her daughter. Out of fear, she tells her that what she is experiencing isn’t real. Out of fear, she buries the joy of magic and imagination, and crushes her spirit.
In The Moral Instruments: City of Bones, Cassandra Clare creates a parallel world of demons and Shadowhunters. Clary Frey is a powerful Shadowhunter—Nephilim who were created when angels mated with humans. But, she doesn’t know this until her fifteenth birthday, when she begins drawing symbols, and seeing people mundanes cannot see. To protect her, Clary’s mother bound her as a child. Took her to the warlock, Magnus Bane, to have her memories removed time and time again. There is something sinister lurking in this stunting act of love.
Deborah Harkness explores a similar theme in A Discovery of Witches. Her protagonist, Diana Bishop discovers that as a child, she had incredible powers. She could control the elemental forces of fire, water, and air. She could fly. She could manipulate time. To protect her from herself, her mother, who was also a powerful witch, performs “spellbinding”so Diana is no longer aware of her abilities. Once she forgets her powers, Diana becomes locked inside herself until her mother’s prophecy unravels and the “shadowman” appears.
Charming Prince or Shadowman?
In the archetypes of Faerie, the charming prince must rescue and free the spellbound princess so they can live happily ever after. This happens to both of these young women, who only discover their true nature when they meet their beloved. Clary begins to see the Shadowhunter world when she meets Jace. Though secrets have been kept from Jace as well, he has grown up in this reality. He’s been trained, and understands how to wield his power. He introduces Clary to the world of her birthright, and she discovers her true self.
Diana Bishop is enacting a prophecy when she falls in love with Matthew Clairmont, a fifteen-hundred-year old vampire. Clairmont, her “shadowman” keeps a firm grip on Diana when her powers start seeping through the “spellbinding”. By the end of the book, he’s decided that she needs a mentor to teach her how to use her powers. But there are dangers lurking in this binding and unbinding. Clairmont is controlling and abusive. He is not the charming prince we want for our daughters.
By binding, we send our vulnerable girls into a dangerous world without their inherent power, where they become easy prey for the shadowman.
Why must we continue to bind children? Is this a phenomenon of fear passed down through generations? Is it cultural? For it is not just mothers who bind daughters, but fathers and brothers, and the religious and secular community. And we bind our sons as well.I remember as a child feeling that I could fly. I used to dream of flying…of running along a grassy clifftop, pushing out with my arms, and grasping the air as I lifted off. I loved my flying dreams and I wonder when and how they became suppressed. I also had an “invisible” friend, and so was never alone. I was at home in the forest and believed in faeries and angels. But, somehow in the crack between childhood and puberty, I became bound: disillusioned, restrained, and retrained. Like Clary, I fought against those restraints and searched for Shadowhunters to help me break free. Sometimes, I found the shadowman instead. And therein lies the danger.
Is the fantasy genre so popular with girls because they feel the bite of their bindings?The emptiness of memories removed? Are girls searching for a way out; or perhaps, trying to remember a way back in? In their unbinding, will they be fortunate enough to find a “Jace” or will they become prey for the “shadowman”?
And what would happen if we didn’t bind them at all; if we nurtured and developed their passion, their bliss, and their power?
There is no containment. The knowing never vanishes. That is what the stories tell us. There is only this pushing against the forces that bind us; this overwhelming desire to be free, to be our true selves, to feel our power, and to remember what we knew when we came into this world.
