Florence + The Machine - Only If For A Night (Ceremonials)

(for my mother who died in 2009)

And I heard your voice

As clear as day And you told me I should concentrate It was all so strange And so surreal That a ghost should be so practical Only if for a night And the only solution was to stand and fight And my body was bruised and I was set alight But you came over me like some holy rite And although I was burning, you're the only light Only if for a night

Sigard the dragon slayer

He was expert in sword-play, in throwing a spear or hurling a javelin, in shield-work, in archery and in riding, and many and varied were the arts of chivalry he had acquired in his youth. He was a wise man, having foreknowledge of future events. He could understand the language of birds. 

     from a description of Sigurd the dragon-slayer

    The Saga of the Volsungs, ed. and trans. R. G. Finch 

Writing quote from Jeff VanderMeer

I also devote a lot of time to learning technique. When I’m writing a novel, even one like this, if I’m reading another novel, I might plug in a technique I just saw used by somebody else in an unusual way. And then take it out again. Just to see how it works.

      — Jeff VanderMeer

Lady of the Lilacs painting by Arthur Hughes

Lady of the Lilacs, by Arthur Hughes

(painted for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson aka Lewis Carroll

Favorite Quotes

"Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning." 

              — C. S. Lewis

Ariel in the Cloven Pine

 

Ariel in the Cloven Pine Paul Vincent Woodroffe, 1905

Fairies in trees are part of my own personal mythology. Like dryads, it pushes them into a botanical existence. In trees, they thrive, sleep, rest, refill their magic.

Camus Quote

"The true horror of existence is not the fear of death, but the fear of life. It is the fear of waking up each day to face the same struggles, the same disappointments, the same pain. It is the fear that nothing will ever change, that you are trapped in a cycle of suffering that you cannot escape. And in that fear, there is a desperation, a longing for something, anything, to break the monotony, to bring meaning to the endless repetition of days."

— Albert Camus, The Fall