(no subject)

My husband got me a fantasy pulp which he thought I would like; it's reminding me viscerally of how much I struggle with reading, but I'm also having fun, it's all creepy forest stuff. I can't get enough of that.

One thing I am thinking, however, is like the class politics of being surrounded by stories of Lords and ladies and princes and Kings. apparently the "low born orphan" in the story is still known as the Darkling Prince by his followers, and every character thus far had been count this or lady that or has started normal but then turned into the King of the forest (weird idea that a forest would have a king? like, there are many forms of government, and it doesn't seem intuitive to me that the forest would be like ah yes! Monarchy!)

Interesting tho that Tolkien, the progenitor of a lot of English language fantasy writing, is very certain to make his protagonists ordinary people and people who work as gardeners.

& then more broadly in pagan fantasy, I think about the use of titles like lady and lord; there's never anything wrong with fantasy, of course, but for example most re-enactment circles I know have quite strict rules to prevent everybody being nobility & I feel like there's a lot to explore there. Like, on the one hand - why is this a thing everybody wants? And on the other hand, why is this not a thing everybody gets to have? On the one hand, you could say -there are lots of interesting roles here and in fact middle class craftspeople are a really interesting demographic to re-enact! On the other hand you could say, well we don't believe that hierarchy is real or good and certainly in our community we don't believe in those kinds of imbalances, so let's all be nobles because all it means is you wear a different hat (because if we can't all be nobles, if only some special people can be nobles, well...)

I'm reading this book basically from a spiritual perspective - to fill my imagination with visions and dreams. But the visions it's giving me is, what would it be like to be the lady of the Grove? To be the king of the forest? To be the outsider who claims the name prince? I'm aware that among with the foresty things that I'm finding appealing in this book, when they enter my mind they bring other things with them, like - a desire for certain kinds of power.

Ross Nichols (?) Has a nice druid writing where he talks about going into the Barrow to find the Sword/Excalibur, "for the sword I'd always YOUR sword" - and I love this image, I love the sense of empowerment it brings.

All the same, I think about how nice a fantasy culture - fantasy both as genre and the world of fantasy - which isn't centered around the strongest, the most beautiful, and the noble. Which instead pointed the reader towards models of heroic living which were ordinary - normal people of an average standard of skill and appearance - like, away from fantasies of being chosen, unique or the best, and certainly away from fantasies of having like feudal class power as a mark of specialness. And which centered interconnectedness too, like, surely it does something to you when your self-image is being formed by thinking it is good to be King of rhe Forest, instead of part of it; good to be a May Queen, instead of like any of the other village girls who are just there standing about.

Idk,this isn't like. The most important thing, it's just weirding me out as I read, and as I idly think about making costumes/personae/power images for myself, quite how often those images are like being some kind of Elf Princess. The way that "princess" has all these other inner connotations of like innate loveliness, and why that feels like a thing to aspire to. Why is it never an Elf Librarian? & when it is an Elf Librarian, why is it always the greatest lore master who rules the book Kingdom instead of like, the elf who stacks shelves.

I get that the idea of a power fantasy is that you get to be The Best, but so many of these bestnesses feel culturally loaded to me. And like, and tbh that a fantasy of power is necessarily one where you are "the best at something" -instead of making a fantasy power about being who you presently are. It just feels telling. What if "bestness" was taken totally out of the equation? Why not a power fantasy about feeling the power of who I am and where I am and all that I am, and nothing about me is best or beautiful, and it's certainly not aristocratic, so why are we so often encouraged to aspire to that as what powerful looks and feels like?

Three Winds

wrt the weather right now, I keep toying with a system - I have no idea where it fits in with anything or how it should be used - of a white wind, a red wind and a blue wind.

The white wind is when things become clearer, a blowing-away-the-cobwebs of a walk ( ☉☽︎ and/or  ☽︎). It brings clarity, freshness, a spring-clean-for-the-soul, a blank sheet of paper, a bath in the air; it may be bracing, but always helps you see your way more clearly by cutting back what is clutter.

The blue wind brings despair, brings weight of water. ( ☽︎🞱) - like a fog sitting on your soul, like being doused in misery, like the air you breathe is wet and the earth beneath you is sodden and your skin is soaked with sorrow, and the clouds blot out the sun and the darkness is unending. Helps if you're British, to know the blue wind I think; a properly Welsh wetness.

But the red wind wakes you up inside with laughter ( ☉🞱) and its this red wind I've been feeling for a few days now, reminding me what autumn is. Red winds sweep you up with them. Red winds are generally dry (but not always), and they can be felt more inside than out - a great hurrying and harrying to getup and go dancing; a playful wind which destroys things in its joy and never notices, a hysterical wind which says now, now, now; the sort of wind that gets you into trouble. Where I come from, when the wind ruffles the cornfield, the rhyme goes:

Herodias's
daughter
is shaking out
her skirts

as if somebody was dancing and swirling there and making the land dance with her, overpowering the senses until you go and dance alongside - no matter where it leads.

I have missed red winds. Red winds can be accompanied by red stars. I felt the red wind once at night as slender clouds streaked across a strangely hot darkness; it felt a little like getting swept up into the final track of Seance at Hobs Lane, an insistent pulsating of everything - not like a wind at all, and sometimes the red wind is sudden stillness but a thrumming inside. I have missed red winds

I have no idea how such a system would be "put-to-use" in a magical context, but that says more about me than it; I like to exist alongside the spirits more than I've ever felt drawn to "do" anything with them

(no subject)

For one thing, there is just the pure class politics of fiction routinely encouraging you to identify with aristocrats; like, by definition, one will never become an aristocrat - one either is or is not - it's not like identifying yourself with a billionaire,which is unlikely but still theoretically possible. There is no way to become a princess, except o guess by marrying a prince; and a quick glance at British royalty columns over the past 3 decades ought to put you right off.

Nontheless, so far we have the Darkling Prince (not a prince, people just call him that) and the King of the Forest (an ordinary elf who is destined to become the avatar of the earth through a secret ceremony). So it's like, neither of those things are actually monarchy - a hereditary system based on land ownership and patronage and a feudal network of inherited kingly magic that is passed down to nobles beneath you. What are these titles providing to the narrative, then; how does it impact the way we think about monarchy in real life, as well as ourselves when we identify ourselves with it, when we jump straight to prince or king for "a person who is very good at their specialism, and that others have recognised for their success, and consequently rewarded".