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 18, 2017 | history, writing and publishing
When so much of our politics is trying to manage this clash of cultures brought about by globalization and technology and migration, the role of stories to unify — as opposed to divide, to engage rather than to marginalize — is more important than ever.
via Transcript: President Obama on What Books Mean to Him – The New York Times
Thanks Kristen Twardowski for sharing this amazing interview. It really does provide insight into the man and the current state of our world.
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.
by Wendy Hawkin | Jan 13, 2017 | book stores, journal, writing and publishing
This book was one of my favourites when I was a little girl. I never forgot it. My mother used to read it to me before I could read it myself. Published in London, in 1956, it is a hardcover rife with sketches on newsprint-like paper, but has this wonderful colour image of Fairy Fluster upsetting a bus full of people with one of her mixed-up spells. I was able to find a copy on abebooks.com
I find that the things that inspired us in childhood rarely change as we grow older; sometimes we just forget what they are. And sometimes, we “put away childish things” when really, we should keep them close to our heart. They are the essence of our bliss.
There was once a fairy whose name was Fluster. She was a very kind-hearted little fairy, but she could never remember how to do her spells. Just as some of us can’t do sums or read long words, so Fluster couldn’t learn her spells properly. Whenever she forgot a spell, she would get in a dreadful fluster trying to remember it. And that was how she came to be called Fairy Fluster.
All the other fairies in Fairyland were very fond of Fluster. She was such a kind little fairy, and always ready to help anyone or to do them a good turn. But, to tell the truth, the other fairies always hoped that Fluster wouldn’t try to do them good turns, because she often turned her friends into hedgehogs or tadpoles, when she really only meant to give them a new pair of magic slippers because their old ones were worn out.
