The Book Club Returns...

Wow...

It's been forever, hasn't it?

I got distracted by life, had a baby, and weathered our roughest winter yet in the yurt. We're getting back into things slowly, purging out the distractions, and focusing on the good. And Our little book club is good! It gets me thinking and writing, and conversing just a bit more than I otherwise would.

Jenna's post is here: Go check it out. She has some lovely thoughts, and you can catch up on her life as well (and in more detail).

Especially interesting to me, we get to talk a bit more about divination (something Rowling doesn't really seem to respect, though there are moments in the books..). Jenna can happily anticipate having fewer "curiously clarifying" dreams when I send her the sleep pillow I've almost made (bad timing keeps delaying it)..though my hope is that it brings restfully-prophetic dreams, not the terrifying ones! But mugwort it sometimes difficult to control. (Don't worry though, Jenna, it's been blessed!)

Trelawney is a delightful fraud for the most part though, and I think Dumbledore is depriving his students by keeping her as a teacher..a guest, or a 'resident reader' would be acceptable, but a teacher?! I'm reminded of too many from my own public education..

I'm also reminded of a woman I met at a bar, a friendly, modern-day worshipper of Diane who asked why I was afraid to use magic, then 'felt my energy' and wondered why I didn't feel afraid after all...we talked for hours, but she had no interest in God-magic that comes with limitations, and goddesses tend to bore me.

I wonder if part of the issue, in Harry's world as well as ours, is that (moral issues aside) most people who can read the future don't because, as Firenze mentions a few times, they can so easily be misread or mis-applied. Or because it's generally just plain intrusive.

With Rowling's other treatment of magic though, I tend to assume it's more that divination isn't objective enough. It can't be turned into an A+B=C formula, as most of her magic appears to be. But maybe that's part of her point, too...maybe Trelawney's merely a reminder that attempting to make a formula from a mystery is impossible and makes those that attempt it look ridiculous. Actually, I like that last assumption best. Let's go with that! 

I also wonder if, as Laura mentioned in the comments on Jenna's post, a plain-old slap is more insulting in the wizarding world because of it's 'lowly' connotations, that divination might be seen in a similar light among certain wizards because it's a gift not limited to wizards, and apparently not any more common among them than it is among non-magical folks? 

What do you think? 

And welcome back after all this time!

Divination 101: Reflections on Harrys introduction to fortune-telling

Who wants to look at this stuff all wet and smooshy at the bottom of a cup?

Tea leaves are not easy to read. Trelawney should have started with something basic. Tea leaves are not basic. 

I can (but don't, so please, don't ask!) read pretty much anything: cards, palms, fire, moles, dreams, handwriting, wax...I used to love it, until I started worrying about my soul. Tea leaves - not so much. I think it's because they're soggy. I hate soggy things. I love tea, but staring at the sodden leaves at the bottom of my cup is completely unattractive. Soggy things are gross. So I was all in sympathy with Harry & Co. when they have to start their Divination journey reading tea leaves. Ugh. My inner-eye drowns just thinking about it.

* * * *   * * * *

coffee-reading..I'd almost be willing to try!

Trelawney is a delightful fraud though. I love watching her work! I remember once coming across a book of divination almost completely focused on 'faking it' (because sometimes you're having a Hermione sort of day).. I wonder if Rowling has seen the same book. Trelawney hits every point - I can't help but be impressed with her presentation. All the same.. I can see the 'truth' in Harry's cup..he does have an enemy, he will be attacked, and if you avoid to horrifically dramatic death-omen, well..the whole 'dog' image is...[Spoiler]..you know..applicable. Death omens are not a good choice - unless you're not really interested in accuracy. Because death images in Divination rarely relate to actual death.  All the same..I'd love to get my hands on a book like What to do When You Know the Worst is Coming.. sensational and fear-inducing as I'm sure it is. (Thanks for bring that book up, Christie!) I kind of love that Trelawney probably knows this, but can't help going for effect over any sort of reliability or educational effectiveness. She's much more interested in putting on a show than in actually informing her students - it's the sort of teacher I'd probably be..which is fun to imagine.

Her showiness is a good reason to start with tea leaves..since most of her students are pretty much guaranteed to see nothing more that clumps of soggy leaves..but the cups and saucers give her props to wave about, the steam and hot tea aid in relaxation..and who knows what's actually in the tea!!

* * * *  * * * *

Overall, Rowling's treatment is so very affectionate. Hermione is the harshest critic of the art, and she's obviously lacking a sense of humor - due perhaps to her overloaded schedule and her obvious need to succeed at everything..poor Hermione, if she could just learn divination, maybe she'd be able to look ahead at her tests and comfort herself a  bit. She needs comforting..or at least a couple beers (oh, wait, she's 13..just one then!). It's nice to know the flakes of the world (Trelawney, Lavender, Parvati)  show up alongside the Type - A, rationalists in the wizarding world as well as the real world. And really, there's no better place to reveal them than in the Divination tower.. Flakes of all types love divination  - until you tell them the cute-guy-from-Whole-Foods won't actually be marrying them in the next few months - and Hermione or McGonagall  types loathe it..even when it's dead on. Jenna mentions that in this first class there is "a clear refutation of the idea that there's anything in the standard charlatanry primarily associated with ..fortune-telling" but reminds us that "we're not through with Divination yet." ..Not through yet...a fun thought to hold on to against the lurking Dementors and the haunting 'Grim'.

So..What do you think of Rowling's introduction to divination? Fair, fun, likely to lead teens toward the tarot-card section of Barnes & Noble?  

found on pinterest & love it

November Writing

 Every morning now begins before dawn - and I can no longer walk barefoot without regretting it - even after noon on sunny days. I have tea steeping beside me nearly every moment of every day, indulging in November's primary joy while the world dies around me. 

My husband and I are attempting National Novel Writer's month (Nanowrimo) to make November interesting. It's a challenge - but one that invigorating  and fun after a few months primarily focused out of doors. I wonder sometimes why I invited my husband to write with me - I try to tell myself that he has it easier, as he's writing a bundle of short stories and not a proper novel..but it's embarrassing to read his drafts and know they are better than mine!  The truth is, that he has a natural gift for writing, and a style that is pure delightfulness. I'm talking him into submitting one in particular for one of the Tuscany Prizes that Christie claimed last year! So writers, beware..
 
I do actually love working with him on this. I have no focus or discipline of my own, I have to borrow from others to get even the smallest project done, and to nestle into the couch with him, notebooks and good pens, and a bottle of wine for an evening of talk and writing is a delight! We've got plans to take our projects out as well - leave Yarrow with friends for a few hours and settle in to a cafe for a less distracted (hopefully) and more romantic 'writing date'. Enviable, isn't it?

The Novel itself is a problem. I'm delving back into books and notes I haven't look at in months? Years? I even found some notes I'd made on a a fascinating and long lost book of death magic and superstitions..full of curious little rituals that make me nervous on the long night-time walk to the outhouse. The 'novel' as it stands right now is essentially an attempt to recapture the symbolic essence of the vampire-myth from repeated (read that: not just Twilight) bastardizations; explore the concepts of death and redemption; and the possible variations in the effect of immortality on individuals..without falling too far into the "vampires OMG!" swamp. It's a mess right now, as I have too many good characters, lots of imagery, and too little plot. I am not a novelist..any advice, my thoughtful writing friends?

Believing in Hidden Things

The three who wander among our Birches aren’t ghosts, the never haunt; and my daughter greets them laughingly on bright spring afternoons “Hi Patrick, hi friend!” So I never worry. But I do believe in proper ghosts.

Not ghosts with unfinished business who wander looking for some lost path to heaven, nor ghosts who don’t realize they’ve died and so ‘refuse to move on’. Both ideas seem contrary to God’s way of letting men live. My ghosts are always permitted, sometimes invited by God to visit their loved ones - either from heaven or from purgatory, to bring some good about - like saints who appear to aid us, like my three relics guarding our little home; like the holy souls in purgatory - who never sleep, and so welcome the chance to wake us early in the morning. There are other ‘ghosts’ as well, mere impressions that hover when the soul has long gone to it’s eternal home, remembrances of a life that was so strong the world is marked forever by it - so strong the place itself does not forget. But they’re not true ghosts, just images and reflections. And of course I believe the devil does as he will with the souls he’s collected, sending them out as he is permitted, to haunt and make miserable and misdirect if at all possible.

As a Catholic, belief is free within bounds, and anything that doesn’t contradict revealed Truth is open to absorb. I absorb a good deal - and ghosts are both my favorite and least favorite of these mysterious beings. What do you think of them?

Monday Reflections

 

This Friday is the due date of Spinning Straw into Gold's Fourth Friday Fairy-Tale prompt. If you're in any way interested, check it out and share some of your work. I've got a page of half-thoughts scribbled down somewhere on my desk: buried under seeds or tucked between grapefruit, but it's in an unsightly stage. I'm trying to clean it up enough to share. My writing has given way to gardening, pig-tending, and eating grapefruits by the dozen..I feel like there is a fuzz in my mind that only goes away when my hands are buried in dirt or my mouth is full of citrus. I would like to wake up properly at some point, but the actual dreams that come from a fuzzy mind are amazingly rich. I feel a bit like the men in those Lovecraft stories, the ones whose dreams bring them to lands so absorbing as to call them further and further from daily life..I am not so absorbed, but the dreams are strong, and my writing is suffering from it.

The apple trees are all in bloom! They remind me of a friend of mine. I want apple trees of my own now, and cherries, and peaches, and plums, and pears..Every good thing.

God is either preparing me for a great disappointment, or else training me to see beyond what I'm accustomed to. He's showing me lonely crows all over the place. One by one by one..I've never gone so long without seeing flocks of two, or three, or five, or more. I don't feel disturbed by them, but I wonder if I ought to. The number of them worries me. What do they mean?

My Husband's Hands..

I’ve already written about my hands. But hands are one of my favorite features to study. They attract me (or repulse me) more than almost any other..and repulsive hands are impossible to ignore, really, I have a hard time getting over hands that repel me. I fell in love with my husband’s hands (and voice) before I fell in love with him. He has good hands, they’re honest and clear, they hate complications. When he took photos of his new tattoo, he was kind enough to include his hand in the photo for me.

He has fire hands, like I do, but they're more stable than mine, because he is essentially a water person. His hands have changed more than mine since we've been married, mainly because, as a mason, they take a beating daily. He has scars from washing brick with acid; deeper, stronger creases than before and he's settled more into a strong sense of self. They're creative hands - more consistent than mine, with a deep, imaginative mind, but a smaller writer's fork. Hand's that laugh often, work hard, and love well. Hands to be trusted. Stubborn though, and a bit too strong-willed - hard to argue with.

His new tattoo is beautiful, isn't it?!

Hands..

Christie (at Everything to Someone) and Jenna (at A Light Inside) have recently shared hand photos to study. Here is mine..though it's my left - and less dominate - hand. 

Talk about dirty..and do you see my messy nails? I couldn’t get a proper photo of my right hand, but they’re pretty similar - a have a longer writer’s fork on the palm of my left hand, but a more creative ‘head line’ on my right..The fingers themselves are very similar. I have fire hands (longer palm, shorter fingers), and you can see my little finger curving in toward my ring finger - which shows a tendency to talk, and to play with words, to use language artistically. My ring finger leans away from my middle finger though, which shows my art will never amount to much - financially speaking, I'm too careless, to unfocused. But my index finger leans decidedly into my middle finger, showing I might make some money with freelancing. My thumb has gotten less stubborn over the years, it's now firm, but forgiving. If you could see my palm, you'd notice first my uncommon good luck in love (which you'd notice anyway, if you've met my husband!) - or else my unstable and over-imaginative mind..with the potential for insanity late in life..hopefully I'll manage to hold it together! Or, if not..my hand is pretty certain I'll be joyful all the way through, which is a blessing. I tried to take photos of my palm as well, but the lines didn't show..an Indian musician I met once on a train had the same complaint - your lines are too light..so perhaps my life is still somewhat fluid, nothing set in stone yet - except love and joy.

Easter Tuesday and St. George

 Easter week is delightful! We have sunlight and warm fires and meats and cheeses and wine. I am twining a red ribbon around my wrist to distract evil and anticipating the feast of St. George, when he welcomes the warm spring and invites that grass to grow again. For now, we have only mud and snow.

St. George is not one of my particular saints, but then, neither was the Infant of Prague until I was overwhelmed with him. In the spring, I start to think of George again, with Joseph and Isidor and Anthony - all the springtime saints. It’s funny, I don’t have any women saints in my spring, but the Marys are so summery, Therese is fall, Paraskeva so autumnal or Lenten, and Agnes is winter.

I have bulbs to plant when the ground is thawed, an edited manuscript to send back to it’s mother, and the mess of my own written ones to collect on the desk yet again. I’ve been rejoicing with thick cream in my coffee and dreaming more and more of dairy goats - unlimited cream being my primary goal in life. Petka has begun picking out letters, but only when they don’t distract her by resembling too much the moon she loves. C is a particular problem.

 

Fourth Friday Fairy-Tale prompt (from Spinning Straw into Gold)

(I almost gave up month, because I'm not happy yet with this one, and I generally don't like sharing poems I'm not completely happy with, but the prompt is designed to encourage us to open up a bit writing-wise with each other, and so here it is, warts and all. Be kind with criticism, please, but do give it!)






Rusalka

 

Why do you call us
angels? Laughing at our bird’s wings
The river gave us?

You, smelling of incense and dark, earth-
birthed greens. Soft-eyed
boy under dying tree; thoughts
like early apples bursting in the sun-

come

               
              nearer. It will be

a baptism with us, while your eyes
reproach and tiny wings
sop the blood.

Our Happy Dead

 

October is the dying month. My beeches are dry, earthy gold, rustling and clicking in the wind. The days are as haunted as the nights. I have candles burning all evening for all my many intentions, on the altar where St. Francis refuses to look away from Christ, a bundle of twigs at his feet to remind the saints of the coming winter. The burnt Virgin looks tired, watching the fire all night while St. Anthony spends his time hiding earrings and spoons. 

 

 

 

There are so many happy signs around us this week, I’m collecting them for understanding later. I watch the crows gather and play while Petka waves welcome to them, we watch the falling leaves and the shooting stars, bless our days with beads and water and wait for clarity. Good days are building in the slow month before All Soul’s.

 

Call Only the Present Your Own

I have trouble living in the moment. The past and the future are never far out of mind. I used to think that Petka could ground me, but she, too, is blurry. I feel as though I’m seeing her in many dimensions, wrapping what was and what may be in one tiny body, in one moment of time. It’s difficult to follow the world when it shifts constantly. I forget the fruit trees have not yet been planted beside the road, the fences are not built, and I am confused to see leaves after dreaming snow.

The other night I dreamt her in the soft colors of memory, a big girl with brothers and a front yard to play in, all a glow with flowers: Hollyhocks, roses, lilies of all shades, and sunflowers. I like to think it’s the future peeping back at us, but dreams are such uncertain things. I only know they’re true for certain when they come in threes, one night after another, or when there’s something under my head - like wedding cake - to feed prediction.

       Tonight I think my dreams will be slow, meaningless things, with the sounds of late night radio running through them. I can’t wait to welcome them in.

Birthday week

Yarrow's first birthday was Monday. My family is up for the celebration. I'm just in shock. When did a whole year pass? The weather was lovely, and my husband hung pretty headscarves across the drive (our version of Tibetan prayer flags, I guess). I baked in my new oven a bright yellow, lemon cake and covered it with berries.

In my family it's a tradition that the child, on her first birthday, is presented with three items: a coin, a rosary, and a shot glass to chose from. The choice reflects her future. Yarrow was offered her choice, and she confidently grabbed for the rosary. My little, holy one. I wonder where it will take her.

Not looking very holy.

We've been socially busy these past few weeks, and it's beginging  to take it's toll on me. Visits one after the other, lots of driving and errands to run. I would like to string up a hammock out in the woods and disappear with my books and iced tea and scones with heaps of butter and jam on them..a picnic would be just the thing right now. A private picnic all my own.

Talking Art

“That terrible mood of depression of whether it's any good or not is what is known as The Artist's Reward.”

~Hemingway

Jenna touched on something really good last week when she said “the desperation with which I want to be an artist is the sort of thing I can't speak openly about." To respond to it I have to leave Flannery for a week and fall back into Hemingway. Hemingway is the sort of writer who can understand this feeling. He wants desperately, and he understands the sacrifices the writer makes without even realizing they are sacrifices.

It's hard to talk about art when you're in it, and it's bad luck because, as Jenna says "you follow the desire of your heart into Oberon's wood, ignoring rebuffs, with no hope except that you might possibly be overheard by sympathetic magic—" and we all know that magic hides from acknowledgement, twists and changes itself to avoid gratitude. Better to keep your mouth shut, magic comes when and how it choses - even when we try to manipulate it.

Jenna's post is honest and open, and even not talking about the sacrifices of art, she manages to say more about those sacrifices than I did.  How do we talk about art without distracting from the art itself, and without being "one of those people"? You know the kind who only talk about "this book I'm writing..and can I just read a bit to you, to get your opinion, you know?!" Because talking about art often kills it, which is why I am rarely open about particular projects until they're nearing the close, because I hate talking specifics when in comes to writing, and unless I'm directly involved in the editing process, I don't really like hearing specifics - it's like hearing the details of a birth over the phone, or reading them on facebook. I like speaking of generalities, not specifics. Jenna is right when she describes the desire for art as primal. It is, too personal for blogs, for daily conversation, to be cheapened by common talk.

"The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other."
    ~Hemingway

When people ask about my writing I tend to mumble a bit, drop my eyes, and say something banal.  Writing grows best in silence, as the artist does. 

Fantasy & Folklore: A Sense of Symbolism

“You slowly peeled me out of time;
I swayingly stepped into it
and yielded after subtle fights:
but now your darkling presence grieves
your gentle victory.

You conquered me and know me not.”

     ~Rilke

One of the greatest aids belief gives the writer is an ability to understand the symbols and images he uses. Belief, a relationship with the symbols, is something allows us to see them as living, changing, growing things; images with deep roots; and that understanding is the place from which to pull the nuance of meaning, without either over-extending the symbol or misrepresenting it entirely. Jenna’s Monday post emphasized it perfectly, “I believe in mysteries—”. Mystery is a challenge to us, especially as we populate our stories with characters from folklore and legend. We’re a jaded lot, and while we may love the old tales, too often we look at them with eyes unused to mystery. We need to retrain our eyes. Mr. Pond joined us again with a surprise, one of his tales woke up and walked the earth - thrilling, but is it unexpected? “There are more things in heaven and on earth than are dreamt of”.

Often, it seems, the writer will see as a symbol, a creature he loves or hates, like dragons for Michael O’Brien, and cling to one aspect of the symbolism, forgetting the rest in his enthusiasm. There is no relationship to the symbol, and the deeper meanings are lost. O’Brien is so full of the sens of the dragon as Satan image (dangerous, cunning, wicked) that he pushes out conflicting images of the dragon as counselor (powerful, wise, dangerous). It’s where the two intersect that the true symbolism is found. Dragons represent power, power outside of morality, and power of the mind as well as the physical power. Dragons are dangerous, but they don’t have to be a symbol of evil. Relationship to the image, how the author chooses to emphasize and down-play aspect of the symbol, is the key.

I am thinking especially of the symbolism of plants right now, Jenna mentioned them in last weeks discussion, and I am realizing more and more as I begin to reply, that symbols are shifting things, requiring an intimate friendship. I began by writing about birches - trees I love, trees I walk among daily for inspiration and friendship. In the spring, I bring in birch twigs to set on the altar, because my Saints love them. Birches bring so many good things: babies, healing, sweet dreams, and good spirits. But they’re also ghost trees, in birch groves, the souls of unshriven girls dance for the death of those who join them, late at night, under the waning moon. Birches link us to the dead, good and evil, they lean toward the good - all things have a leaning. But the tales speak mostly of the dancing girls, of terror and madness. Without a relationship we often miss an important aspect. Mr. Pond is right when he reminds us that “belief in fairies is certainly not [a] comforting thing.” As writers, we need to remember this, our fairies are not angels, and our angels are not merely fat cherubs.

"What will you do, God, when I'm dead?..
without me, you end up losing making sense...

I fret about you, God."
   ~Rilke

 Symbols are powerful, and now, living in a world that to often fails to appreciate them, we who write with them, need to write with love and understanding. Need to absorb their darkness and their light in order to make sense of them. In order to share them with the world.

Fantasy & Folklore: the importance of belief

Last week, Jenna gave an excellent response to my post on the effect of time and culture on the writer and her audience. This week, I'm hoping to continue to look into culture, but with a focus on belief in mysteries and in magic.

“..the darkness holds it all in:

figures and flames, beasts and me,

        whatever it may catch..

It is possible there might

     be moving a power right next to me

I believe in nights.”

~Rilke

There is some element of the fantastic in the writing we do: Jenna, Mr. Pond, and I.  Each of us deals in myth to some extent.  For me, it is the little myths - folklore and superstitions that weave their way into my writing because they are woven through my life. “I believe in nights” and in those flourishing there; which is why I love to walk under the stars, and why I’m frightened out alone after midnight.

The writer should believe in possibilities, and the writer whose creative world is alive with the fantastic must not, in her daily life, be able to close the door leading to fairy. How she props it open depends on many things, on faith and on dreams, on the past and on the future; but the doorway must stay open. I don’t insist that we believe in everything we create, in the literal sense - or I would never write, too afraid I'd call up some malevolent being - but we should still believe in mysteries. Tales of the miraculous by jaded writers ring false, like listening to an old cynic describe his youthful ideals. It is part of my trouble with many of the writers I see, they often seem to build up worlds as a defense against a life too mundane to love; and because they don't believe, these writers don't see the value and the limits of the symbols they employ.

When the writer who believes makes a world of magic, she builds it in fear and trembling, unwilling to play fast and loose with her myths because she understands them at their core, loves them and refuses to do them harm. I’m disturbed when I see writers who scoop their myths directly from Bulfinch's; who seem to cut and paste carelessly without giving the myth a home and living with it a while in love or fear. They haven’t taken the time to let the myth become real to them before trying to make it real for their readers.

          “You see I want much.
           perhaps I want it all:
          the dark that goes with any bottomless fall
         and the sun-speckled climbing up..”

         ~Rilke

What do I ask of real writers, living and creating outside the bounds of my imagination? Simply that we who deal in fairy tales ought to believe in them. Read Bulfinch's by all means but don’t start there, or end there. Listen to old tales, live the myths. Go out hunting the fern flower on St. John’s eve, bury statues in the yard, count crows, light candles, and feel the eyes of the unseen watching as you build them up with words. Don’t sacrifice dreams for responsibility and don’t attempt to confine your miracles to the written word. And don't write to escape the mundane, write to color it with the magic you see.  Sleep on a bay leaf and write your dreams.

No Place to Hide

I don’t like big houses at night, or on dark days, or even on bright sunny days. There are too many rooms and too many corners. There are stairs to walk up, with your back to the dark room below, and stairs to walk down, into emptiness. There are noises - creaks and shiftings that only get louder the longer they go on. I’m grateful for the roundness of our little home, the room with no corners, where the Icons can watch everywhere and the moon can shine in on clear nights. I like knowing that there is nothing walking upstairs, no small space where blessings have yet to be flung. Our household devils have nowhere to hide, they’ve been forced out among the beeches and pines to shiver in the cold night air. True, it can make for a frightening walk to the outhouse, but I know my saints are resting in the birches, watching to keep away harm. It’s an interesting balance, and my dreams at night are full of people on both sides, perhaps Petka’s are as well. She wasn’t sleeping for a while, her naps were brief and hard fought, her nights restless. I started to wonder if her dreams were frightening her, and so St. Anna, protector of little girls was invoked, her oil dripped on Yarrow’s head, and blessed salt sprinkled in her cradle. I was impressed with how completely it worked. That night she slept with a little smile, long and well, woke happy and the restfulness of sleep is back. I don’t know what she dreams, but I imagine happy ones, full of warm milk, Luba, and laughing times with the wind in her face.

St. Cassian the Unmerciful

The leap-day is an unlucky day. It is the feast of St. Cassian, whose evil-eye can look out on the world today, withering what he sees. In one story, it is said St. Cassian was given the leap-day as a punishment for failing to help a peasant whose cart had turned over in the mud. Cassian, unmerciful, had passed him by, unwilling to dirty himself by helping the poor man. St. Nikolas, always compassionate, came by later to save the peasant, thereby earning himself two feast days in the Russian calendar, while Cassian was punished with only one every four years.

St. Cassian - unmerciful, is not a Saint to pray to, so much as an entity to fear. His day is dangerous. We went out anyway, but I wrapped Petka in red and gold to keep out his eye, and I wore my red seeds to distract him. When the sun sets, his eyes will lower once again, unable to see and harm for another four years, unless some resentful one asks his intercession, to sour milk or darken the sky.

Household Gods

“You often-comers, sleepers in things,

Who arise brightly,…

Once more be it your morning, gods.”

~Rainer Maria Rilke

Practically all houses are haunted in one way or another. The very old are haunted by relics of the past, ghosts, impressions, or emotions that can’t fade away, the very new are haunted by the possibilities that come flooding in. Most houses live somewhere in between. They are haunted by past, present, and future; by the good and evil their owners do, by hopes, desires, and memories. “Desires are memories from our future” says Rilke, but too often we forget and let the desires of today take over, let them become the demanding little gods that fill up the corners of our homes until there is no room for the others, the domovoi, the helpful friends who tend the stove at night and clear away the cobwebs.

In our home we have an abundance of both. We have the desires that gather behind the stove, whispering their impatience at night, collecting dust and blowing it upward to coat the rafters. We have the three relics who walk in the birches, guiding the frightened at night, keeping the darkness away. In the early morning, when I’ve lit the altar candle and crawled back into bed, they chant their prayers to the rising dawn, reminding me that each day is a new beginning.

Money Jesus

I have a statue of the Infant of Prague watching over our finances. He belonged to my mother when she was small, and at some point in his history a quater was taped to his back, under the robes - to attract wealth, or at least stability.

We've kept the quarter where it is, and beside his little candle I give baby Jesus my coins to look over, in the hope one of his multiplication miracles will be repeated over them.

The Art of Other Worlds

The discussion with Jenna & Mr. Pond

A masterpiece of fiction is an original world and as such is not likely to fit the world of the reader.
  ~Vladimir Nabokov

Last week we discussed darkness, magic, and fairy in fiction. I'm grateful to both Jenna and Mr. Pond for their thoughts, which rested on a sense of love and compassion for the dark ones. A search for the light within. Mr. Pond encourages politeness, and the respect that ought always be shown when strangers meet. Jenna gives respect to the dark, even as she walks quickly through it. I admire them both for seeing things as they are. For refusing the tempting gifts of fairy, for embracing light in a world of shadows, and for judging the darkness kindly.

"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world."
  ~Oscar Wilde

Part of the reason I began with darkness is that I tend to listen too often to Catholic Radio. There is a lot of good there, but also a trend against mystery that disturbs me. Mystery in fiction is often accused of being darkness, pagan dreams put out to tempt the young. But, as Jenna writes, "most Western fantasists would have to work a lot harder than they do to escape utilizing basic Christian concepts" in part because paganism itself is rich with Christian concepts. Even unintentionally a writer can fill his work with them. Mystery and magic go hand in hand with  the Christian worldview, and running from them we run from Christ. Magic itself doesn't make a work dark, and too many in the Christian world, as well as the writng world, forget this.

"I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day."
  ~Vincent Van Gogh

Good writing, "a masterpiece of fiction" can take us into the soul of the author, the "original world" created, and peopled by the writer's own dreams - dark or light. And it is a blessed artist who can show the world a dawn only he has seen, darkness fading to light, mystery infusing the everyday. Jenna, Mr. Pond, and I are in agreement on the beauty of mystery in the stories we love, if not always the stories themselves. In part because I probably tend to read with less charity and more criticism. When the worlds painted aren't as alive and richly colored as mine I grow dissatisfied. There are flaws I can't forgive, and generally they are flaws of attitude. I can revel in darkness with only the smallest flicker of light, but if an author gives the indication he doesn't recognize a character's personhood I'm gone. Stock characters are all well and good, so long as I can feel their humanity. I can embrace a world unlike my own, so long as it doesn't offend it.

Jenna, Mr. Pond, your charity impresses me, but do you draw a line where quality is concerned?

(I hope this is as clear as I meant it to be, I'm working quickly, on a new computer, as our old one was lost to the slush-puddles of Portland, and I've only just replaced it!)