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 | 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 27, 2017 | Ireland, mythology, writing and publishing
Another poem from my beloved, Yeats.
In 1897, WB Yeats began his literary liaison with Lady Gregory at Coole Park (south of Galway, in Ireland).
The Ruined Gates of Coole Park (Lady Gregory’s Estate)
I’ve wandered there myself, and hope these words were penned there, near the rushes beside the grassy sea.
The Song of Wandering Aengus
I WENT out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
WB Yeats, 1899
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)
