My husband, Craig, came home last weekend with a grocery bag full of chanterelles and stories about his camping trip with our friend Larry. Since Larry loves to cook, much of the conversation was about food prep. Craig mentioned that Larry is of the school that believes water boils faster uncovered.
My hackles rose.
“No,” I said, shaking my chanterelle cleaning brush at him, “Larry doesn’t believe water boils faster uncovered, he thinks it does.”
My long-suffering husband sighed and settled back for a long rant.
“It would be a simple experiment,” I continued, “Just boil the same amount of water over the same heat in the same pan covered and uncovered a few times and you’d have your proof, one way or the other. But you can’t prove a belief.”
And yet, we are all so certain of ours. Not because we can prove they are correct to the rest of the world, but because our bodies tell us at a gut level that they are correct. We don’t form them in an honest, straightforward manner. There is no logic involved, although we are sure there is. They sneak up on us through our parent’s DNA, our mother’s milk, our childhood environment, extended family, and friends.
It’s sad to see any decent, self-respecting word fall into disuse, but it’s especially hard to watch it happen to belief. This is a really important word. It’s what makes humanity so brilliantly and frighteningly insane. Much as we blather on about how rational we are, it is a mystical mixture of raw data and belief that forms our unique philosophies of life. The same set of information poured into the ears of three people gets filtered through three different belief systems and comes out as three different interpretations of that information. Any policeman will tell you that if three people witness the same occurrence they will come up with three slightly different accounts of what happened, due to their expectations about that situation which are formed by their beliefs.
Our philosophies in turn dictate our codes of ethics. Civilizations don’t rise and fall in a logical manner, but in an inevitable seesaw between belief that might and money make right and the belief that justice makes right. Much as most of us would like to see justice prevail, it seldom lasts for long because no one can agree on what is just.
Remember Dragnet?Everything would run much more smoothly if we could all learn to separate Joe Friday’s “Just the facts, Ma’am” from our beliefs. Unfortunately, I don’t think (believe?) this is possible.
This, IMHO, is humanity’s predicament in a nutshell. Belief fuels chaos and hatred, but it also makes us capable of divinely inspiring acts of beauty and courage. It is what good fiction is all about. Breitenbush Hot Springs, OR, image by Toni Bailie
Several years ago I was relaxing on a sunny hillside at the Northwest Fall Equinox Festival. The ground was still warm with summer’s heat and autumn’s soft, golden sunshine was baking my bones. As I drifted into sleep I thought how marvelous it was to be alive at this time of year.
A hand pressed down on my shoulder. I jolted awake and looked up into the grinning, vaguely crazed face of my friend Blythe.
“What happens when you die?” she said.
I swallowed the obvious answer of “I haven’t a clue, but if you continue to wake people out of a sound sleep with that question you will soon find out,” and just stared at her.
Blythe has a closer relationship with death than most of us. Over ten years ago she was diagnosed with a weird form of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and decided against treating it with radiation and chemotherapy. Instead, she follows a spiritual path that includes a regular quigong practice. She’s doing just fine–even better than before her diagnosis. Her search has given her an inner peace and strength.
“I’m asking everyone I know and writing down their answers. I think it will make an interesting book,” she continued, waving a notebook over me.
No shit! This is the million-dollar question, and the main raison d’ etre for religion. Talk to ten pagans and you will get at least eleven different answers to it. Even Christians haven’t quite got their story straight. Some believe in a literal Hell, some don’t, and some will tell you that Hell is the problems you make for yourself right here on earth. Some say that if you believe in Jesus you will get your body back after you die and live happily ever after; some have a more abstract idea of Heaven. Most Christians believe that this life is your only chance at Heaven, but I know of several that believe in reincarnation.
Muslims also believe in Heaven and Hell.
Hindus and Bhuddists reincarnate until they reach Nirvana.
Classical Judaism posits an afterlife or “world to come” known as Olam Haba. Osiris, Lord of the Egyptian Underworld with Isis and Ndphthys, Page from The Book of the Dead of Hunefer
Pagan afterlife possibilities include The Summerland, Valhalla, Hades,coming forth by day out of Duat—the Egyptian underworld, and/or reincarnation and Nirvana. Valhalla
Atheists say that when we die we’re compost, and Agnostics don’t know.
“I’m not sure,” I replied.
“So what do you think happens?”
I gave her my best guess.
My initiating High Priestess once told me about sitting on her Grandfather’s lap as a little girl and asking him what happens when you die.
“I don’t know, Patricia,” he replied. “I haven’t died yet. But let’s make a deal. Whoever dies first has to come back and tell the other what it’s like.”
Years later, Pat was studying for college exams late one night. Half asleep and half awake, she looked up and saw her Grandfather standing in the doorway between her room and the hall. He smiled, gave her the thumbs up gesture, and disappeared. When she phoned home her Mom told her that he’d died just a few minutes ago.
Death is the final mystery that we all must face. It is our deepest fear. It simultaneously binds us together and tears us apart. Stories like Pat’s and countless others hint that there may be an afterlife, that we need not be afraid. But they are only hints. Trapped as we are on this side of the veil we can only imagine what lies on the other side. Death on a Pale Horse, Gustave Dore
But deep in our hearts, most of us believe we know. And this belief colors our personalities, tweaks our sanity, and influences the way we interact with the world around us. A woman who believes that all that will remain of her after her death is a bunch of molecules will have a far different set of priorities than one who believes that, depending on whether she is a good or bad whatever, when she leaves this place of pain and sorrow she will live a life of either eternal bliss or eternal torment; and a very different outlook from someone who believes that she will have many lifetimes to get it right and when she does, she will have eternal bliss.
A friend of mine loves to tell the story about a Caucasian man he works with who is married to a Japanese woman. When he explained to his Buddhist mother in law that Christians believe that they only have one life and when they die they go straight to heaven or hell, she shook her head sadly and said, “No wonder they are always in such a crazy hurry.”
What someone believes happens when he dies and the way he prepares himself for death tells us more about that person than about the afterlife.
There are an amazing number of chilling accounts of what we would call vampirism in the historical records of Eastern Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. (see The Secret History of Vampires: Their Multiple Forms and Hidden Purposes) And so I decided that the vampire in my second novel would be from 19th century Sevastopol. He was a civilian doctor there during the Crimean War and the Russian army “requested” that he stay and work in the field hospital when the British and French fleets arrived, captured the area south of the city, and began bombing. Sevastopol is located on that island (the Crimea) in the middle of the Black Sea
The Siege of Sevastopol has been lurking in the back of my brain since I studied it in high school European History. I don’t remember anything I learned about it and I’m even a little shaky on the particulars of the Crimean War in general, but the name sounds so romantic and exotic that I thought it would be fun to have Iskander, my vampire, live in Sevastopol during the siege.
I Googled the Siege of Sevastopol and began to get a bit worried. All the accounts were from the British and French points of view. I found one reference from the point of view of the Ottoman Empire, which was allied with the British and French during the Crimean War, but I couldn’t find anything from the Russian point of view.Siege of Sevastopol, Sept 1854- Sept 1855, from the panorama at Sevastopol. There were several Ukrainian tourist web sites with recaps of the Siege, but no human-interest details. I needed to know what it was like inside the city during the seige, because that’s where my character was. Were they starving? Did the bombs reach into the city? Was the field hospital really the place of pain and terror I imagined it to be? What did the city look like in the mid 1800s? What were the officers and soldiers like?
I clicked through several pages of references and on page seven I found a reference to The Sevastopol Sketches by Leo Tolstoy, (1828-1910).
Why would Tolstoy write about Sevastopol?
Click
I arrived at the goodreads recommendations website and experienced one of those sublime internet research moments. It turns out that Tolstoy served as a second lieutenant in an artillery regiment during the Crimean War and was in Sevastopol during the siege. He wrote a series of three accounts of the Siege of Sevastopol titled “Sevastopol in December 1854”, “Sevastopol in May 1855”, and “Sevastopol in August 1855”. I did a happy dance and put the book on hold at the library.
Leo Tolstoy came through for me in spades. His descriptions of the city are vivid and so beautiful that you want to go visit—until he mentions the half-decayed horse carcasses in the streets and the constant boom of the cannons, the screaming bombs and the occasional patter of musket fire. The field hospital was even worse than I’d imagined it. They did have chloroform, but it wasn’t strong enough to hide the pain of an amputation. And they did a lot of amputations. The hospital echoed with the “terrible, heart-rending screams and curses” of the wounded as “doctors with pale, gloomy faces, and arms red with blood up to the elbows” cut away at their limbs. The next patient in line for amputation lay “on a stretcher watching the operation, and writhing and groaning not so much from physical pain as from the mental torture of anticipation.” In winter, the wounded arrived covered with the stinking yellow mud of the trenches. (Sevastopol was one of the first instances of the terrible trench warfare we’ve come to associate with World War I)
Tolstoy also saved me from a major mistake. I was sure the inhabitants would be starving and living off rats, but because the Allies only occupied the coastline and the territory south of the city, Sevastopol was well supplied with food and necessities from the north. A typical officer’s meal included veal cutlets and caviar. The regular soldiers ate as well as any others in the Russian army. No one starved.
And yes, the bombs occasionally made it into the city. By the end of the siege, lovely Sevastopol was in ruins.
Tolstoy describes in careful detail the hopes, dreams, and fears of the Russian officers. These character sketches show the nobility and the pettiness, the bravery and the mind numbing terror that the horrors of trench warfare pulled out of them. I have no doubt that they are portraits of men he knew.
The Sketches are not only great literature but also anti war journalism at its best. And they supplied me with enough background information to write two or three convincing paragraphs in a 70,000 word novel. Sevastopol, by Olga Kudryashova, April, 2010
I found the following comment on my “Virgin Mary, Isis, The High Priestess, and the Empress” blog: “I’ve never really liked the Greek myths….(and I’ve)……always loved Egyptain paganism, because the women have much better and stronger roles, and their gods just seemed more like more ethical, more pleasant people.”
Zeus in the form of a swan “seducing” Leda, a Titan goddess and wife of Tyndareus, King of Sparta
Fond as I am of Greek mythology, I had to agree with him. Zeus and most of the other male gods are obsessed with fighting and sex and spend way too much of their time raping women. Artemis is a spiteful man hater (with good reason, it seems); and Hera, Zeus’s wife, is often portrayed as a jealous, nagging spouse (with good reason, it seems). Apollo and Hermes have the same father, Zeus, but different mothers. They are constantly fighting. Even Athena, goddess of wisdom and weaving, gets so pissed at Arachne, a mortal weaver who claims to be more talented than her, that she turns the woman into a spider. The Greek gods detested hubris, the thought by a mere mortal that they might be comparable to the gods.By contrast, Egyptian gods and goddesses behave pretty much the way one would expect gods and goddesses to act. They aren’t perfect. Set is jealous of his brother, Osiris, and chops him up into 14 pieces and Isis can be tricky, but compared to the Greek gods, the gods of Egypt are, for the most part, “ethical” and “pleasant”.
Why are the two pantheons so different?
Because the cultures that created them were different. Someone (not me) could write a book about how different these two cultures were and why they created such hugely different theologies and pantheons. But this is a blog. I’m just going to tell you what I think, give a smattering of information to back it up (with sources, of course), and then step back and let you tell me what you think.
It is important to remember that classical Greece was not one country. It consisted of a bunch of city-states (Athens, Sparta, Thebes, etc.) that were constantly at war with one another and claiming new territory. Cultures that are constantly expanding and at war tend to be male dominated and value things like beauty, harmony, logic, physical fitness, purity, and strength above all else. These are the same bright ideals that America values, and, like the Greeks, we tend to undervalue the feminine or yin qualities of instinct, feelings, flexibility, circular logic, darkness, and receptivity.
Greek mythology reads like a soap opera because it was created by the same sort of very brilliant, very rational, very talented, and very dysfunctional society that created soap operas. (That would be us) And, like soap operas, the main purpose of this mythology was not theological edification it was more about story telling. The Greek myths started out as theology, but as Greek civilization matured and evolved I suspect that the myths were rewoven and retold to suit the changing culture. They began to fall more into the province of art and philosophy.
In her book, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, Jane Ellen Harrison does a mind-dazzling job of showing beyond a shadow of a doubt that the classical Greeks practiced two different and separate types of rites.
The newer Olympian rites were the joyous rituals of a favored people who were confident of the beneficent quality of their gods. They included ritual sacrifice of some sort of animal, making a burnt offering of part of it, pouring libations, feasting, and the creation of things of beauty like statues, plays, and poetry, all in honor of the Gods. For the most part, these were masculine pursuits, and most of the people that created the art, wrote the plays and poetry, and formulated the philosophies were men. There is never any mention of sin, atonement, death, or rebirth in the Olympian rites.
The older rites were chthonic (underworld) rituals of riddance, cleansing, avoidance, and aversion. The entities in these rituals were forces of nature, snakes, spirits, and the ghosts of friends, family, and fallen heroes and were considered evil and/or dangerous. The Greeks didn’t worship them; they banished them. The nature of these rites was feminine. Of course, the only description we have of them is from men who were probably never involved in them in the first place.
Isocrates (436–338 BC), an influential Greek orator, had this to say about Greek religion: “Those of the gods who are the source to us of good things have the title of Olympians, those whose department is that of calamities and punishments have harsher titles; to the first class both private persons and states erect altars and temples, the second is not worshipped either with prayers or burnt sacrifices, but in their case we perform ceremonies of riddance.”
The Eleusinian Mysteries seem to be an exception. They were chthonic rituals of initiation of the cult of Demeter and Persephone (Demeter was a chthonic deity).
Demeter’s Caves, Agrigento, Sicily. Demeter, in her chthonic aspect, was worshiped here for centuries.
They were performed underground and were so wrapped in secrecy that we know very little about them except that they had to do with death and rebirth, and that the people who attended them no longer feared death. They were performed for over 1500 years and many famous Greeks and Romans were initiates.
The Greeks didn’t talk much about death. Dionysus, with his myth of death and rebirth, was worshiped in Greece primarily by women, the Maenads. Any man who dared to spy on their wild rites was torn to pieces. (see The Bacchae)
Maenads with Selenoi
The Orphic Cult was the only other set of Greek rites that I know of that dealt with death and rebirth. Most Greeks believed that when you died you went to the underworld, the chthonic realm of Hades, he who must not be named. By most accounts this wasn’t a pleasant place. When Odysseus visited Achilles in the underworld, Achilles said, “I’d rather be a slave on earth for another man–/some dirt-poor tenant farmer who scrapes to keep alive–/than rule down here over all the breathless dead.” Odyssey, Book II
So it should come as no surprise that in ancient Greece, women were essentially slaves in their own homes. There were exceptions. Spartan women were a bit more liberated. But their babies were still killed if the Gerousia (all male council) decided they were unfit, and their boys were taken from them and raised in military camps. (Wikipedia, Sparta)
Greek men, apparently, merely lusted after women. Most of the touching, romantic poems were written by men about prepubescent boys. It was customary for boys, especially in Athens, to submit to an older man, who carried them off and became their mentor and lover. (Wikipedia, pederasty and The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, Roberto Calasso)
Greek society was dysfunctional because it was out of touch with its feminine side.
By contrast, Egypt was very much in touch with its feminine side. Egyptian women had greater freedom of choice and more equality under social and civil law than Greek women. There were even women rulers. The most famous was Hatshepsut. Many Egyptologists consider her to be one of the most successful pharaohs. She still had to wear the funny beard though.
Unlike the Greeks, the Egyptians weren’t into innovation and creativity. Their religion started around 3000 BCE and continued with only minor changes until a century or so CE. There was no layering of one religion over another as we saw in Greece because Egypt prospered for centuries with out being invaded. The Nile River unified the country, and a closely structured, static social system was created to accommodate its life giving floods and ebbs. The religious art is a dramatic example of this conservatism. Egyptian tomb art retains its distinctive, stiff, style over thousands of years. The Egyptians were perfectly capable of creating realistic statues, etc. Some lovely examples have survived. But these creative innovations were not permitted in religious art. They had a system that worked and they were stickin’ to it.
And what was this system? Unlike the Greeks, the Egyptians had a religion that guaranteed them an eternal and blissful life. Not in some musty underworld, but in the bright daylight of the world as they knew it. They could watch over and aid their friends and families and could even speak directly with the gods. It seems that at first only the pharaohs had this privilege, but it eventually was extended to anyone who had led a good, honest life and knew how to navigate the terrifying netherworld known as Duat. He also needed to know how to declare a blameless life when Anubis, the embalmer and guide of the dead weighed his heart against Maat, the feather of justice.
Anubis weighing the deceased’s heart while Ammit, the devourer, looks on.
If his heart was light as the feather he could continue his journey through Duat and in the morning emerge into the daylight and enjoy eternal life. If his heart was heavy, it was thrown to the monster Ammit, the devourer of hearts, and the deceased remained in Duat for eternity. Egyptian religion taught you what to do so in this life you could live an eternal, blissful life in communion with the gods. They didn’t mess with perfection. Their religion had no room for innovative art, philosophy, or creativity. It was all about salvation. (Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, translated by Raymond O. Faulkner, Introduction by James P. Allen)
The Egyptian system was complete. It integrated yin and yang, night and day, our world and the netherworld, death and rebirth. Each had its time and place and value. It supported one of the most stable and balanced civilizations in history. It follows that the mythology of this culture would also be balanced and ethical.
It’s a huge, echoing void that begs to be filled even though it’s already jammed full of stuff. Unfortunately, the prices (at least on some things) make it irresistible. I had to make the sacrificial journey last Friday to get tested for new hearing aids. COSTCO charges over two thousand dollars less than the last place I went.
I needed to pick up a few things so I tucked a bright yellow shopping bag with the Virgin Mary printed on both sides under my arm and ventured into the void. It was a normal, mind numbing COSTCO experience until I put a box of contact lens solution into my bag and headed back to the cheese cases for a COSTCO sized portion of fresh mozzarella to go with our tomatoes that have just now started ripening. A sad looking, elderly man’s eyes focused on the colorful BVM print and he looked up at me and grinned. A young woman glanced at my bag and complemented me on my T-shirt. As I moved through the crowded store, heads turned and people smiled.
I checked to make sure I didn’t have toilet paper stuck to the bottom of my shoe or food dribbled down the front of my shirt. As far as I could tell, I looked about as normal as I ever get.
At the hearing aid center a woman who had been helping her aunt get hearing aids spotted my bag on her way out and walked back to me. “I love your bag. Isn’t that the Virgin of Guadeloupe?”
“I guess it is,” I replied, looking at the bag more closely.“I thought it was The Virgin Mary.”
“My aunt would know,” she said, “She goes to mass every Sunday.”
“Ah, they’re the same,” replied the old woman in response to our question, and gazed fondly at the picture on my bag.
A COSTCO employee did a double take as I unloaded my two items and laid the bag next to them on the checkout counter.
“That’s great,” she said, patting it gently.
A girlfriend gave me the bag several years ago and the Blessed Virgin has accompanied me uneventfully through many grocery stores, but this was the first time I’d taken her through COSTCO.
I think I’ll take her through again. She made the journey much more pleasant.
When folks ask me to recommend a book on tarot I give them a list of what I consider to be the classics—the golden oldies.
The Tarot, A Key to the Wisdom of the Ages, by Paul Foster Case Paul Foster Case (1884-1954) was a member of The Golden Dawn and founder of The Builders of the Adytum. The Tarot examines the 22 major arcana cards from a ceremonial magician’s point of view. It can be a bit abstruse at times, but it is well worth the effort.
Mastering the Tarot, by Eden Gray (or any of her other books) Eden Gray, dressed as The Sun, with Mary Greer as the Hermit, and Barbara Rapp at the 1997 International Tarot CongressChicago debutante Eden Gray (1901-1999) followed her dream to New York City and became an actress. She also worked in radio and on the London stage, earned a Doctor of Divinity degree, lectured and taught classes on Science of the Mind, ran a bookstore and publishing house, and wrote the first easy to comprehend books on tarot. They are still in use today. See Mary Greer’s blog for more information about this amazing woman.
The Devil’s Picture Book, by Paul Huson Paul Huson (1942-) drew his first tarot on index cards when he was 14. Like Eden Gray, he acted on the British stage and was also an art director for the BBC. Trained by the Society of the Inner Light, he has written several excellent books about the occult. When I began studying witchcraft and tarot in the 1970s, his book, Mastering Witchcraft, was one of a very few decent books available on the subject. The Devil’s Picture Book and its new and improved version, Mystical Origins of the Tarot, are a delightful blend of mythology, tarot history and old school modern witchcraft.
Tarot for Yourself, A Workbook for Personal Transformation, by Mary Greer
This book finally convinced me that, contrary to what I was taught, yes, indeed, you can read your own cards. Tarot for Yourself is not so much about the tarot, although she does give excellent explanations of each card, it’s more about the many ways that tarot can be useful to you.
But it’s been a few years since I’ve read a book on tarot and many more since I’ve read one I’d recommend. But there must be scads of good ones. The tarot section of Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon is huge and most daunting.
Water is a mysterious substance. It expands when it becomes solid instead of contracting like any other self-respecting compound, and it contracts instead of expanding when it liquefies. It flows easily into any shape you choose, but no matter how hard you compress it, it won’t get any smaller. Without it life as we know it would be impossible, yet everything will eventually dissolve in its persistent caress, especially if you add a bit of salt and turn it to tears. It can be as gentle and refreshing as a warm summer rain or as dangerous and cruel as a raging sea. It is everywhere. 90 to 94 percent of the human body is water, and it covers two thirds of the earth. Swirling with opposites and contradictions, it is The Hanged Man’s element.
Neptune, the planet of mysticism, spirituality, deception, and illusion, is also associated with The Hanged Man.
Its Hebrew letter is Mem, which means water. In this case it refers to the deep waters of the subconscious, Jung’s cosmic unconscious, and the High Priestess’s blue cloak that flows through the major arcana.
When The Hanged Man appears in a tarot spread, look at the other cards. If there are lots of static pip cards, read it as a slow time in the querent’s life. She is waiting for something, apathetic, frustrated, unable to make a decision, bored, or stuck in a rut. If the other cards show movement and action, perhaps she needs to slow things down a bit, look at the situation from a fresh perspective, or pay attention to her inner voice. If more than a third of the cards in the spread are major arcana, this is an important time for her. She may be called to trust herself to a higher power and reverse the path of her life, or sacrifice herself for a higher good or to gain inner wisdom. It can also signify a rite of passage, eccentricity, or martyrdom. If the card is reversed, I read it as the exact opposite of the upright position—release from suspension, disillusion, improper drug use, unaccepted or wasted sacrifice, etc.
In the hero’s journey, The Hanged Man is almost always the hero. He may be bored, frustrated, hung up on someone or something, searching for inner wisdom, or simply waiting for something to happen. Some people spend their entire lives in this state, but in fiction, the hero isn’t usually allowed to spend too much time here. More often, he becomes The Hanged Man when he sacrifices himself for the good of others. Frequently, but not always, he is reborn.
I was able to think of several mythological Hanged Men and quite a few real-life Hanged Men–every time a patriot fights for his country, or a parent works a boring job to feed her family they become The Hanged Man. But I was having trouble thinking of fictional examples. My niece came to my rescue and supplied these two:
In the movie Matrix Revolutions, the third installment of the Matrix Trilogy, Neo allows himself to be blasted through the Matrix, killing Smith and saving humanity and the machines. The Oracle hints that he will return.
In the anime film, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Princess Nausicaa lives in a post apocalyptic future. She gives her life trying to save her people from a war that would not only wipe out her island but also destroy most of what life is left in the world. But the invading army of monsters raises her body up on their antennae and heals her.
Spiderman doesn’t die, but he does choose to continue to fight against evil, even though he must give up the love of his life.
Sacrifices, both great and small, make meaningful lives and great fiction.
I got good news and bad news at this year’s conference.
The good news was that Miriam Kriss, an agent with Irene Goodman Literary Agency, asked to see a synopsis and the first ten pages of Forging the Blade. She was the only agent I pitched to because I’d already pitched to all the other agents there that were looking for YA fantasy.
The bad news also came from Miriam Kriss. After carefully listening to my pitch she said:
You’re book isn’t really young adult fantasy because you’re main character doesn’t have the same concerns and problems that young adults have and she spends most of her time with adults.
Your book is high fantasy, which doesn’t sell as well as urban fantasy.
Your second book should never be a sequel to your first book (mine is), because if you don’t sell your first book, or if it sells poorly, you’ll never be able to sell your second book.
Ah well, maybe she’ll like the first ten pages and decide to sell Forging the Blade anyway.
I only went on Sunday, but the three workshops I attended were interesting.
In a workshop on Fantastic Fiction I learned that in the early to mid 1800’s when Mary Shelly’s monster was created and The House of Usher fell, and Captain Nemo cruised the seas in the Nautilus, they were all characters in literary fiction. It wasn’t until about 100 years ago that literary fiction redefined itself as real-life “serious” fiction and banished fantasy, horror, adventure, and science fiction their own separate genres in the realm of commercial fiction. They are slowly becoming serious literature once more.
The take-home lesson from Christine Fletcher’s workshop on plotting YA stories was: “Voice is character is plot. This is the very essence to the young adult novel.”
–Stephen Roxburg, children’s book publisher
Jane Friedman’s workshop on “How to Get Readers and Keep them” reminded me of the marketing concept of cheese cubes. Internet advertising isn’t about advertising. It’s about getting involved in chats and offering help, and offering cheese cubes of interesting, useful information. It’s about developing an online presence, which allows you to reach people that are interested in your work. The unspoken but vital given is that your cheese cube has to be tasty.
I returned home to my computer with lots to think about.
The Hanged Man is in search of enlightenment. But notice that he’s not having a cup of tea with Great Aunt Ethel. The knowledge he seeks can only be given to him by the gods, or for those with a more secular viewpoint, by his subconscious. This sort of knowledge is available to everyone; all we need to do is ask. It’s attainment is the selling point of the major religions and meditation techniques. The part that they sometimes don’t mention is that to receive the answer, you must go to a place where you can actually hear it, and then you must be very still.
It isn’t a physical place.
It exists where the world as we know it and the realm of the “other world” intersect.
It’s that ethereal, dusky place between the dark and the daylight.
Psychologist call it “liminal space” and define it as a place where borders meet and soften and become neither one nor the other, a place of transformation.
Modern day witches and magicians go there whenever they cast a circle. They call it “between the worlds,” and believe that what happens between the worlds changes the worlds.
It’s where mystics go to pray.
The vesica piscis, the vulva shaped space that is formed when two circles intersect and the circumference of one intersects the center of the other, symbolizes this place. Vesica Piscis The Celtic Pagan Sheela-na-gig found over the doors and window of many Irish and British churches may be reminding the people who pass beneath her that they are entering sacred space.
The Christian fish logo that has inspired so many silly bumper stickers is a vesica piscis (piscis is Latin for fish) turned on its side.
Jesus, Mary and many of the saints have been pictured within vesica piscises. Once you understand the symbolism, the meaning of these images becomes clear: “If you seek communion with me, this is the place to find me.” The Virgin Mary
So how do you get there?
Fasting will put you there. I know this from experience. I once did a seven-day water only fast for a magical working, and when I cast a circle on the fifth day the quarter entities nearly knocked me over when they came in.
Mantras and repetitious prayers like the rosary lull the conscious mind and encourage the subconscious to come out and play.
Drugs like LSD, peyote, mushrooms, and ecstasy can open your mind to an alternate reality.
Meditation stills the nattering of your conscious mind and lets you feel your connection and oneness with the universe.
Pain will also take you there.
All of the above are accepted practices of one religion or another and bring the practitioner closer to the divine. They are done alone and involve opening up, being still, and waiting. However, if taken out of a religious context they could be seen as antisocial or aberrant behaviors.
And so the Hanged Man seeks enlightenment alone, suspended upside down by one foot with his hands tied behind his back. Vesica Piscis Pool at Chalice Well Gardens, Glastonbury, England, 2007
My husband, Craig, came home last weekend with a grocery bag full of chanterelles and stories about his camping trip with our friend Larry. Since Larry loves to cook, much of the conversation was about food prep. Craig mentioned that Larry is of the school that believes water boils faster uncovered.
