![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Strange Fruit
16/08/2003 12:11 am"The main teaching in cultures where spirits visit frequently and the world itself is a bridge--such as those of Haiti, West Africa and Melanesia--focuses on knowing the distinct nature and names of different visitors. These cultures have gatekeepers and bouncers who know ways of holding off what doesn't belong at this place. We had them once, too.....
But that permeability existed long ago in another kingdom of consciousness.
Since then, the retraction of our interest from what rational consciousness calls magical, mystical and mythical merges all the imaginal bodies indiscriminately into the monstrous. Result: The invisible becomes "alien" The alienation of the invisible makes it more eerie and distant, and more represented by werewolves, time-warps and abductions in the Stephen King-dom of our culture. Our modern passages are so narrow and with such low ceilings, the invisibles must twist themselves into freakish shapes in order to come through"
James Hillman from "The Soul's Code- In search of character and calling"
Strange creatures indeed. Iz cannot help but wonder. Life has taken the most strange and wondrous twist since becoming acquainted with them. Is it mere coincidence that the Cocytusian Cat sends Izzie an owl bearing gifts of mysterious books....encounters with wierd creatures Damballah and Ayida and numerous others?
And today I just happen to come across a most wonderful book in the bargain basement of a second hand bookshop... a guide to world mythology which I had seen several months earlier but the price was way beyond the handful or so of silver sickles that Izzie had to spare.
The eternal encounters of lion or phoenix (and other feathered incarnations) and serpents are becoming too frequent to be coincidental.
That Izzie's path of discovery along the green spiral road converged so quickly with the occurences in the Chamber of Secrets was the beginning of a sequence of seeming coincidences.
What was most peculiar, until Izzie met the Potter boy, it was the Stephen King books that were my re-introduction to the invisible worlds.
Oh I had always been interested..but it was always like some sort of quaint and quirky freak show reserved for superstitious, stupid and possessed people.
But then Iz came across the tragic tear jerking stuff in "Le Ton Beau de Marot" by her favorite writer of all time D R Hofstadter, the even wierder speculations of Rupert Sheldrake and to top it all off.. a seemingly insignificant quote in a hand out for Izzie's "Strategic Games 201" unit about John Nash of "A beautiful mind " fame "The friend asked how Nash could believe that aliens were recruiting him to save the world. Nash simply replied "Because the ideas I had about the supernatural beings came to me the same way that my mathematical ideas did. So I took them seriously."
Even little seemingly insignificant incidents make me wonder. The luscious 85% cocoa Lindt choccie bars that were not going to be seen again until Christmas suddenly reappeared in Chokeby Road for the princely sum of 5 silver sickles. Very very expensive for only 100g but boy they are scrumptious. Defence against Dementors. That is Izzie's excuse and she is sticking to it. Was considering going to get another one or two before they rapidly disapparated like they did two months previously. But first I had to get some batteries for my radio that had suddenly died. Iz knew the place to go...a cheap and cheerful bargain basement sort of place with all sorts of bits and pieces but the cheapest place in Dursleyville for batteries. Just past the batteries was the confectionery. A lot of very dodgy so called Swiss chocolate bars. But inexplicably, Izzies eyes were drawn upwards to the top shelves with none other than those very same Lindt 85% choccies for 3 silver sickles instead of 5.25!!!(And no..they are not fakes..in fact they came from the very same batch as the others. I did indulge and bought one the previous day and the use by date and batch numbers were identical) There was only 8 and I was decadent and bought every single one of them! And two hours later just happen to see that wonderful book on mythology that I had resisted a few months previously.
Oh...it seems so silly and so insignificant in the grand scheme of things but this sort of thing just happens so often these days. Now when Izzie hears stories of guardian angels she does not smirk and snigger any more. You may have an airy fairy fluffy angel and I have got a green and slinky serpent but it seems to be the same sort of thing, just with different names. And having such company is sssso much better and infinitely more fun than being alone and friendless in the universe.
And I can only talk about such things with the interesting creatures in Secret Diary Land because to do so elsewhere is only to confirm that Iz is even crazier than they already suspect. But I like being eccentric and crazy. When I was 'normal' I was just so miserable.
As Helen Reddy used to sing
"It's so nice to be insane. Nobody asks you to explain... ;)"
But that permeability existed long ago in another kingdom of consciousness.
Since then, the retraction of our interest from what rational consciousness calls magical, mystical and mythical merges all the imaginal bodies indiscriminately into the monstrous. Result: The invisible becomes "alien" The alienation of the invisible makes it more eerie and distant, and more represented by werewolves, time-warps and abductions in the Stephen King-dom of our culture. Our modern passages are so narrow and with such low ceilings, the invisibles must twist themselves into freakish shapes in order to come through"
James Hillman from "The Soul's Code- In search of character and calling"
Strange creatures indeed. Iz cannot help but wonder. Life has taken the most strange and wondrous twist since becoming acquainted with them. Is it mere coincidence that the Cocytusian Cat sends Izzie an owl bearing gifts of mysterious books....encounters with wierd creatures Damballah and Ayida and numerous others?
And today I just happen to come across a most wonderful book in the bargain basement of a second hand bookshop... a guide to world mythology which I had seen several months earlier but the price was way beyond the handful or so of silver sickles that Izzie had to spare.
The eternal encounters of lion or phoenix (and other feathered incarnations) and serpents are becoming too frequent to be coincidental.
That Izzie's path of discovery along the green spiral road converged so quickly with the occurences in the Chamber of Secrets was the beginning of a sequence of seeming coincidences.
What was most peculiar, until Izzie met the Potter boy, it was the Stephen King books that were my re-introduction to the invisible worlds.
Oh I had always been interested..but it was always like some sort of quaint and quirky freak show reserved for superstitious, stupid and possessed people.
But then Iz came across the tragic tear jerking stuff in "Le Ton Beau de Marot" by her favorite writer of all time D R Hofstadter, the even wierder speculations of Rupert Sheldrake and to top it all off.. a seemingly insignificant quote in a hand out for Izzie's "Strategic Games 201" unit about John Nash of "A beautiful mind " fame "The friend asked how Nash could believe that aliens were recruiting him to save the world. Nash simply replied "Because the ideas I had about the supernatural beings came to me the same way that my mathematical ideas did. So I took them seriously."
Even little seemingly insignificant incidents make me wonder. The luscious 85% cocoa Lindt choccie bars that were not going to be seen again until Christmas suddenly reappeared in Chokeby Road for the princely sum of 5 silver sickles. Very very expensive for only 100g but boy they are scrumptious. Defence against Dementors. That is Izzie's excuse and she is sticking to it. Was considering going to get another one or two before they rapidly disapparated like they did two months previously. But first I had to get some batteries for my radio that had suddenly died. Iz knew the place to go...a cheap and cheerful bargain basement sort of place with all sorts of bits and pieces but the cheapest place in Dursleyville for batteries. Just past the batteries was the confectionery. A lot of very dodgy so called Swiss chocolate bars. But inexplicably, Izzies eyes were drawn upwards to the top shelves with none other than those very same Lindt 85% choccies for 3 silver sickles instead of 5.25!!!(And no..they are not fakes..in fact they came from the very same batch as the others. I did indulge and bought one the previous day and the use by date and batch numbers were identical) There was only 8 and I was decadent and bought every single one of them! And two hours later just happen to see that wonderful book on mythology that I had resisted a few months previously.
Oh...it seems so silly and so insignificant in the grand scheme of things but this sort of thing just happens so often these days. Now when Izzie hears stories of guardian angels she does not smirk and snigger any more. You may have an airy fairy fluffy angel and I have got a green and slinky serpent but it seems to be the same sort of thing, just with different names. And having such company is sssso much better and infinitely more fun than being alone and friendless in the universe.
And I can only talk about such things with the interesting creatures in Secret Diary Land because to do so elsewhere is only to confirm that Iz is even crazier than they already suspect. But I like being eccentric and crazy. When I was 'normal' I was just so miserable.
As Helen Reddy used to sing
"It's so nice to be insane. Nobody asks you to explain... ;)"
