Terri Windling's Blog, page 232

On thankfulness

Wandering this Rackham landscape is a walking meditation, a daily transformation, a prayer composed of sun and rain and wind:

"I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes."
- e.e. cummings

Today, like every day, there is just so much to be thankful for.

Bones for Tilly

My dear friend Ellen Kushner has asked me to remind everyone that the Magick4Terri auction (*blush*) is ending tomorrow (Thursday) night  at 5 pm Pacific Standard Time (which is 1:00 Friday morning here in the UK), so if there are books, works of art, CDs, or other treasures you have your eye on, this is the last chance to bid.

My family and I have been completely overwhelmed by this astonishing flood of support from friends and colleagues and fellow lovers of fantasy and mythic arts from all over the world. In the midst of a difficult time, I feel awed and blessed to be part of such a caring creative community. In addition to the practical fundraising help (which will allow us to deal with the things we are facing without sinking into debt on top of everything else), the auction has done so much more for us: it has brightened what's been a dark, uncertain time. To turn to myth for a moment (as you know I always do), we've been traveling through a dark and tangled wood, encountering various trials along the way...and this community has just shown up with a lantern to light the trail back home.

I know (from all the worried email I've been getting) that a lot of people are concerned about us, and would like to know a bit more about what prompted the auction...but I'm afraid all I can do right now is to repeat that there are legal reasons why I can't be more explicit. Perhaps once we find our way out of the woods, I'll be able to talk about it further -- or at least those aspects of the journey that are mine to discuss (without stepping on the privacy of other family members). In the meantime, please don't worry. We've got expert help and advice for the things we're facing; we've had an enormous amount of support from all of you; and now we just need to keep traveling forward until we reach the clearing beyond the trees.

My heartfelt thanks to everyone: most especially to Ellen Kushner, Mia Nutick, Liz Loveday, and Deborah Brannon (the amazing, hard-working auction organizers) and their helpers, and to all the incredibly kind donators and bidders...as well as to all the sweet people who've been spreading the word with blog posts and tweets and such. Also to the Faery Godmothers of Chagford, who had the idea of a fundraiser in the first place. I have to say that I never expected anything like this...which has touched my heart, warmed my soul, and created real honest-to-god magic for me and my family.

Plus, Tilly is excited about all the bones -- which she fully expects to be delivered as a great big pile in studio garden.

Reflections on work

"Before the gates of excellence the high gods have placed sweat; long is the road thereto and rough and steep at first; but when the heights are reached, then there is ease, then there is ease, though grievously hard in the winning." - Hesiod (700 BC)

"I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it." - Thomas Jefferson

"Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes; work never begun." - Christina Rossetti

On finding one's path

"People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself.  But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates."  ~Thomas Szas

"Never mind searching for who you are.  Search for the person you want to be."  ~Robert Brault

"I think that wherever your journey takes you, there are new gods waiting there, with divine patience - and laughter."  ~Susan M. Watkins

(Today's post is dedicated to Victoria.)

Tune for a Monday Morning

Today's video is "Blacksmith's Prayer," the recording of a new song from singer-songwriter and fiddler extraordinaire Seth Lakeman, who hails from the other side of Dartmoor. It comes from his terrific new album, Tales from the Barrel House.

Now here is, um, where I make a small confession: I haven't loved the studio-produced sound of the recent albums quite as much as his earlier works -- so I'm thrilled that Tales from the Barrel House marks a return to the music that moves me most: a raw, stripped-down, more-personal sound rooted in this young musician's passion for the land and history of Devon. The songs were all recorded at Morwellham Quay, a local heritage site that preserves the crumbling remnants of Devon's old mining industry, and documents the hardscrabble life led by those who worked in, or for, or close to the mines.

Here's a brief article (reprinted from the Seth Lakeland website) which explains this interesting project further:

"Seth Lakeman could not have dug deeper into his Devon roots for his 6th album, Tales from the Barrel House, even descending into a disused West Country copper mine to record one track. The rest of the songs were laid down in the old cooperage (or 'barrel house'), smithy, and other workshops at the ghostly Morwellham Quay mining port on the north bank of the River Tamar.

"Seth has not only written all the songs, but played every musical contribution himself, as well as producing and mixing the album. His usual bow-shredding violin riffs are there, as are his driving tenor guitar rhythms, but it's the new primitive sounds he's conjured up that give this album its atmospheric vibe. These include a booming bass heartbeat from an old Salvation Army drum rescued from a junkshop, and a jangling array of percussion made up from bits of old iron or discarded tools found down the mine and around the Morwellham workshops.

"Birdsong from the Tamar Valley opens the album, before rasping viola and scraping banjo shatter the peace and raise the nape hairs as first song, 'More Than Money,' ( an evocative tale of the hardships suffered by men working underground) kicks in. It's a call-to-arms for all labourers and artisans, setting – solid, hard and uncompromising, like the granite bedrock of the songwriter's West Country stamping ground.

"Seth says he has enjoyed this solo project like no other. 'I've been aching to do something musically experimental like this for some time, to get right back to the basics of Kitty Jay [the 'produced around the kitchen table for £300' debut album] and beyond.' To be blunt, this is a concept album I could never have done with a major label.' (Seth recently parted company from Relentless/Virgin Records after three albums.) 'I'm grateful for having worked with top producers, but with this record I feel free. I've not had A&R men looking over my shoulder or record bosses influencing me in any way.

"'I was determined from the outset to do it as simply as possible, with just one recording engineer and as little multi-tracking and overdubbing as possible. I want listeners to feel they are down that mine, or in the barrel house, immersed in this living history while hearing the stories of the people who inhabit the songs. I'd like fans to literally feel the atmosphere in which the album was recorded. The theme I was seeking was to pay homage to hard-working miners, sailors, skilled craftsmen and artisans, who worked for little reward but took a pride in what they did.

"'It was an extraordinary freedom to explore my music in this magical valley, which is close to my Devon home. I couldn't wait to get back to Morwellham every day, it was such a unique experience. I know this set of songs may be judged as harsh and raw, perhaps challenging for some, but – for me – that's the whole point of Tales from the Barrel House.'"

In the video below, he talks a little bit about the creative process of making the new album -- which is a limited edition, by the way, so if you want a copy, order it soon.

I'm out of the office today, and will be back on Monday....

I'm out of the office today, and will be back on Monday.

(The image above is by the Scottish artist John Duncan, 1866-1945.)

Inspiring Women: Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon

"Sisters Working in the Fields"

If your general impression of Pre-Raphaelite women is that they all drooped languidly among the lilies, beautiful and passive, their role confined to inspiring the famous men around them...well, think again. Quite a number of the women in Pre-Raphaelite/ Arts-&-Crafts circles led creative and courageous lives...and none more so than Barabara Leigh Smith Bodichon (1827-1891).

How can one not be inspired by Barbara Bodichon? She palled around with the likes of William Morris, Rossetti and Lizzie Siddal; she was best friends with George Eliot; and she was a hugely important figure in the early British feminist movement. When she wasn't off climbing remote mountains with her women friends, her rucksack crammed with art supplies, she ran a popular "art & politics" salon in London, published the influential English Women's Journal, established the Society of Female Artists (while pressuring the Royal Academy schools to open their doors to women),  and was the co-founder (with Emily Davies) of Britain's first university college for women: Girton College, Cambridge. As part of the Langham Place Group, Barbara fought for four fundamental rights which benefit every woman in Britain to this day: the right to vote, the right of access to education, the right to work and keep ones own wages, and the right for married women to retain their own legal identity and property. She changed the world she lived in, while also pursuing love affairs, international adventures, and living a rich, full artist's life. She was vivid, she was brave, she was beloved by her many friends, she was mourned by thousands when she died...

...and then she was largely forgotten. Barabara's biographer, Pam Hirsch, posits one reason why: "She did many things, and historians seem to find it easier to understand and write about a man who pursued one 'great' goal. Women's lives and women's histories often look different, more diffuse and (perhaps) harder to evaluate."

Barbara's life story is unusual and fascinating, but rather than recount her history here, I'd like to send you to the Hastings Press website, where Helena Wojtczak has posted an informative short bio. Here's a snippit:

"When each of his children reached 21, [Ben Smith, Barbara's father] broke with tradition and custom by treating his daughters the same as his sons, giving them investments which brought each an annual income of £300....The combination of an unconventional upbringing and a private income placed Barbara in an extraordinary position for a mid-Victorian woman. Whereas most women were raised to be obedient and expected only to marry, bear children and live in subordination to a husband, Barbara was free to live her life almost as she pleased. Money could not buy everything, however; for example her brother Ben went to Jesus College Cambridge in 1848, but Barbara was denied such academic opportunities, since no university would admit women. But she did not succumb to housewifery; she became a painter and social reformer. Despite her wealth Barbara eschewed high society and allied herself with the bohemian, the artistic, and the downtrodden."

Barbara herself said, charmingly, "I am one of the cracked people of the world and I like to herd with the cracked, such as...queer Americans, democrats, socialists, artists, poor devils or angels; and am never happy in an English genteel family life. I try to do it like other people, but I long always to be off on some wild adventure, or long to lecture on a tub at St. Giles, or go off to see the Mormons, or ride off into the interior on horseback alone and leave the world for a month..."

(To learn more, I recommend Pam Hirsch's 1998 biography of the artist: Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon: Artist and Rebel.)

I wish I could have known Barbara Bodichon -- and her whole vibrant circle of smart, fearless women friends. I'd like to gather them all around the dinner table, along with a few smart, fearless friends of my own. We'd open a bottle of wine and sit back to to hear their stories -- marveling at all the things that have changed, and commiserating about all the things that haven't.  And then we'd tell them thank you. We'd tell them that we never take for granted the rights they fought so hard for. And that we hope we, too, can make the world just a little better for the ones who follow after.

I love this...

Above: a Google Street View stop motion animation short, created & directed by Tom Jenkins (of The Theory Films), with music by Cinematic Orchestra. (via Elizabeth Hand)

The story: A lonely desk toy in New York City longs for escape from the dark confines of the office, so he takes a cross-country road trip all the way to the Pacific Coast in the only way he can – using a toy car and Google Maps Street View.

"Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things."
- Mary Oliver (from her poem Wild Geese." Not only is it one of the Best Poems Ever, but these lines seem strangely appropriate for the poignant little film above.)

Readers in the woods...

I adore this quote by the great John Cheever, discussing his creative process as a writer:

"The sense is of one's total usefulness. We all have a power of control, it's part of our lives: we have it in love, in work that we love doing. It's a sense of ecstasy, as simple as that. It always leaves you feeling great. In short, you've made sense of your life.

"All sorts of pleasant and intelligent people read [my] books and write thoughtful letters about them. I don't know who they are, but they are marvelous and seem to live quite independently of the prejudices of advertising, journalism, and the cranky academic world....The room where I work has a window looking into a wood, and I like to think that these earnest, loveable, and mysterious readers are in there."

Now that really touches my heart.

Tunes for a Monday Morning

Above: As the weather turns distinctly colder here on Dartmoor, today we have a magical winter's tune from singer/songwriter Alela Diane (via Karen Meisner). Raised in a musical family in Nevada City, Diane is now based in Portland, Oregon, and tours with a back-up band (Wild Divine) that includes her father and husband.

Below: Diane performs a traditional song, "The Cuckoo," for the Toad Sessions in 2008. The backing vocals are by singer/songwriter Mariee Sioux, who is also a Nevada City native.

I also recommend the gorgeous version of "Matty Groves" (Child Ballad 81) that Diane performs with  Alina Hardin (also from Nevada City) on the 2009 recording Alela and Alina.