Terri Windling's Blog, page 107

Tunes for a Monday Morning

In the quiet of early morning, with Tilly sprawled sleepily beside me, roots music from America rests gently on the misty hills...

Above: Bob Dylan's "Boots of Spanish Leather" performed by Mandolin Orange: Andrew Marlin & Emily Franz (from Chapel Hill, North Carolina). Their fifth album, Blindfaller, is due out this month and is getting great reviews.

Below: "Early Morning Light" performed in at McCabe's in Santa Monica last week by singer/songwriter Sarah Jarosz (from Austin, Texas). The song appears on her fine fourth album, Undercurrent (2016).

Above: Husband-and-wife duo B��la Fleck (from New York City) and Abigail Washburn (from Illinois) perform the melancholic but lovely old spiritual "And Am I Born to Die," filmed at the ocean's edge. It's from their first album together, B��la Fleck & Abigail Washburn (2014).

Below: "Now You Know," a tender little song by singer/songwriter Anais Mitchell (from Vermont). Mitchell has released five albums, including Child Ballads with Jefferson Hamer.  "Now You Know" is from her solo album Xoa (2014).

And to end with: Mandolin Orange again, with "Waltz About Whiskey" from This Side of Jordan (2013).

Widdershins collage #6

Fairy Tales

Once upon a time there was a girl, there was a boy, there was a poor woman who wanted, there was a queen who couldn't have, there was witch who lived under, there was a green frog at the bottom of, there was a troll, a tree, a bear, a bright eyed bird who knew the secret of, there was a fairy who had lost, there was a child who had found, there was a wizard who had made, there was a princess who had broken, there was a story that was trying to be told. Listen. The wind is speaking....

Photograph above: With our daughter Victoria at the Widdershins exhibition opening, the six collages behind us.

Widdershins collage #5

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

   Now I lay me down to sleep,
   I pray to Earth, my soul to keep.
   I pray to Wind, for gentle dreams.
   To Water, for sweet murmurings.
   To Grass, where I will make my bed.
   To Moss, where I will rest my head.
   To blood���s Fire, to keep me warm.
   To Dark, to keep me safe from harm.
   To Moon, to dim her silver light
   so Fox will pass me by tonight.
   I pray to Stars, who watch above.
   Bless me, and everyone I love.

This post was composed on 8/27, & set up for automated posting on 9/2. I'll be back on-line on 9/5.

Widdershins collage #4

The Language of Trees

The thing you need to know, child, is that trees do speak, they do tell tales, they sing when the've a mind to, they are gigglers, gossips, grumblers, cataloguing every ache and pain, and yet they hold no grudges, claim no debts, speak ill of no creature. They have their tempers, yes, trantrums of branches lashed in gusts and gales, but then they come to rest in stillness, spent, humming contentedly. You've heard them, child, just yesterday. You thought it was only the wind. The thing you need to know is that by dawn-light every tree stands tall and chants its name, its history, its kinship web and lineage. You've heard them, child, the rustle beneath the dawn chorus of birds. The thing you need to know is that the trees tell stories older than the oldest tales of humankind -- by dusk, by night, by starlight, you have heard their midnight murmuring. You told me so. You thought it was just water running in the stream. The thing you need to know, child, is that trees do speak, in their own language. They mutter with the crackle of old brown leaves, they sigh with the snow drifiting at their feet, they utter exquisite arboreal poems as each tender new leaf unfurls, they laugh in shivers of green and gold tickled by the passing breeze. The thing you need to know, child, is that trees do speak, in the tree language. And yes, you will understand their speech one day, root child, sweet sapling.

This post was composed on 8/27, & set up for automated posting on 9/1. I'll be back on-line on 9/5.

Widdershins collage #3

A luminosity of birds....

This post was composed on 8/27, & set up for automated posting on 8/31. I'll be back on-line on 9/5.

Widdershins collage #2

But the youngest bunny could not sleep....

This post was composed on 8/27, & set up for automated posting on 8/30. I'll be back on-line on 9/5.

The end of summer, diving into "deep work," and Widdershins collage #1

Howard and I are developing the practice of taking regular Work Retreats: a few days in every month in which we hole ourselves up in our respective studios, the Internet switched off and the phone disengaged, in order to focus with greater attention than is possible during ordinary interrupted working days. Today is a holiday here in Britain, but starting tomorrow, and for the rest of the week, I'll be incommunicado in my quiet studio. Then I'll be back online again on Monday, September 5th.

I'm working on a writing project right now, while Howard has several things on his plate, from Commedia to puppetry. Come step through the gap in the garden hedge that leads from my studio cabin to his....

...where you'll find him at work (in the picture below) building the frame for a Punch & Judy booth.

Each day, a wide range of sounds floats over the hedge from his busy workspace to mine: sawing, singing, accordion or mandolin practice, the laughter of theatre collaborators. the distinctive raspy voice of Mr. Punch...

...a steady murmur of creativity that is close enough to feel companionable, yet distant enough to preserve the peacefulness I crave as I write or paint.

Meanwhile, the Widdershins exhibition at Green Hill has ended -- and I do remember that I promised to share my art for it here once the show had closed its doors. Below is the first of my six Widdershins collages. I've set up the other five for automatic posting each morning of the week ahead while I'm on Retreat, one per day.

This one is called Once Upon a Time....

Here it is framed in my studio before the exhibition, and on the wall at Green Hill with the other five pieces in the series:

I hope the end of your summer is gentle, peaceful, and full of creativity. See you in a week.

"Sometimes I need only to stand wherever I am to be blessed."  - Mary Oliver

The end of summer

My hus and I have developed the practice of taking periodic Work Retreats: a few days in every month in which we hole ourselves up in our respective studios, the Internet switched off and the phone disengaged, in order to focus on work with greater attention than is possible during ordinary interrupted working days. Today is a holiday here in Britain, but starting tomorrow, and for the rest of the week, I'll be incommunicado in my quiet studio. Then I'll be back online again on Monday, September 5th.

I'm working on a writing project right now, and Howard is working on a range of things, from Commedia to pupptry. Here he is on the porch of his own studio (on the other side of the garden hedge from mine), building the collapsible wooden frame for a Punch & Judy booth:

The Widdershins exhibition at Green Hill is now over, and I do remember that I promised to share my art for it here once the show had closed its doors. Below is the first of my six Widdershins collages. I've set up the other five for automatic posting each morning of the week ahead while I'm on Retreat, one per day.

This one is called Once Upon a Time:

Here it is framed in my studio before the exhibition, and on the wall at Green Hill with the other five pieces in the series:

I hope the end of your summer is gentle, peaceful, and fully of creativity. See you in a week.

"Sometimes I need only to stand wherever I am to be blessed."  - Mary Oliver

Children, reading, and Tough Magic

From Touch Magic: Fantasy, Folklore and Faerie in the Literature of Childhood by  Jane Yolen:

"The great archetypal stories provide a framework or model for an individual's belief system. They are, in Isak Dinesen's marvelous expression, 'a serious statement of our existence.' The stories and tales handed down to us from the cultures that proceded us were the most serious, succinct expressions of the accumulated wisdom of those cultures. They were created in a symbolic, metaphoric story language and then hones by centuries of tongue-polishing to a crystalline perfection....

"And if we deny our children their cultural, historic heritage, their birthright to these stories, what then? Instead of creating men and women who have a grasp of literary allusion and symbolic language, and a metaphorical tool for dealing with the problems of life, we will be forming stunted boys and girls who speak only a barren language, a language that accurately reflects their equally barren minds. Language helps develop life as surely as it reflects life. It is the most important part of the human condition."

"In fantasy stories we learn to understand the differences of others, we learn compassion for those things we cannot fathom, we learn the importance of keeping our sense of wonder. The strange worlds that exist in the pages of fantastic literature teach us a tolerance of other people and places and engender an openness toward new experience. Fantasy puts the world into perspective in a way that 'realistic' literature rarely does. It is not so much an escape from the here-and-now as an expansion of each reader's horizons."

 "A child who can love the oddities of a fantasy book cannot possibly be xenophobic as an adult. What is a different color, a different culture, a different tongue for a child who has already mastered Elvish, respected Puddleglums, or fallen under the spell of dark-skinned Ged?"

"Just as a child is born with a literal hole in his head, where the bones slowly close underneath the fragile shield of skin, so the child is born with a figurative hole in his heart. What slips in before it anneals shapes the man or woman into which that child will grow. Story is one of the most serious intruders into the heart."

���Children���s books change lives. Stories pour into the hearts of children and help make them what they become.���

"We have spent a good portion of our last decades erasing the past. The episode of the gas ovens is closed, wrapped in the mist of history. It is as if it never happened. At the very least, which always suprises me, it is considered a kind of historical novel, abstract and not particularly terrifying.

"It is important for children to have books that confront the evils and do not back away from them. Such books can provide a sense of good and evil, a moral reference point. If our fantasy books are not strong enough -- and many modern fantasies shy away from asking for sacrifice, preferring to profer rewards first as if testing the faerie waters -- then real stories, like those of Adolf Hitler's evil deeds, will seem so much slanted news, not to be believed.

"Why do so many fantasies shy away from Tough Magic? Why do they offer sweet fairy dances in the moonlight without the fear of the cold dawn that comes after? Because writing about Tough Magic takes courage on the author's part as well. To bring up all the dark, unknown, frightening images that live within each of us and try to make some sense of them on the page is a task that takes courage indeed. It is not an impersonal courage. Only by taking great risks can the tale succeed. Ursula Le Guin has written:

"The artist who goes into himself most deeply -- and it is a painful journey -- is the artist who touches us most closely, speaks to us most clearly.' "

Words: The quotes above are from Jane Yolen's influential book Touch Magic (Philomel, 1981; August House, expanded edition, 2000), which I highly recommend. This text has also appeared in a previous post: "Breathing in the world," August 15, 2013. All right reserved by the author.

Pictures: Artists are identified in the picture captions.

On reading: in words and pictures

"When we read a story we inhabit it. The covers of the book are like a roof and four walls. What is to happen next will take place within the four walls of the story. And this is possible because the story's voice makes everything its own."  - John Berger

"Reading was my escape and my comfort, my consolation, my stimulant of choice: reading for the pure pleasure of it, for the beautiful stillness that surrounds you when you hear an author's words reverberating in your head."  - Paul Auster

"Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window."  - William Faulkner

"A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading."  - William Styron

" You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive." - James Baldwin

The art today is for Jane Dorfman and Stuart Hill, who wanted more pictures of men and boys reading. Artists are identified in the picture captions.