The Allure of Fantasy - Jareth and Crystal of Dreams

Down in the underground

You'll find someone true

Down in the underground

A land serene

A crystal moon

It's only forever

It's not long at all

- Underground, David Bowie

I watched Labyrinth for the first time last week, and it strongly affected me. Since then I have watched the whole movie twice more, certain scenes many more times, danced alone in my room to the soundtrack, and raged at the "unfairness" of the mundane world. Normally I am very attune to the magic and mystery inherent in all aspects of the world. But after Labyrinth my desire for fantasy increased to bittersweet intensity, and for a while my "real"  life seemed unsatisfactory in comparison with imagination. I was intrigued by the strength of my emotions - the co-mingled joy and sorrow - the unrequited longing after the fantasy world and the goblin king.

Look at what I'm offering you. Your dreams...

I sought words to describe my state - and Tolkien's words from On Fairy Stories resonated within my mind:

The realm of fairy-story is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, and an ever-present peril; both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords.

Yes, I thought. This is the feeling that burns within me - which I have felt before. It is the mark of Faerie - the longing felt by those who have once crossed into that Other World, and who pine for it on their return to mundane life. Cecilia Dart-Thornton named it Langothe - and anyone who has even briefly entered fantasy, and afterwards felt the "real" world to be unsatisfactory and diminished, will know how it feels - a poignancy of spirit, in which beauty and despair are inseparable.

This feeling may be sparked by different things - a piece of music; a painting; a reflection upon water. I have felt it come upon me when I was looking at The Beguiling of Merlin; reading Ode to a Nightingale; watching the elves in The Lord of the Rings; and at the end of Prince Caspian. All of these things have in common a "light better than any light that ever shone, in a land no one can define or remember, only desire".

Something about Labyrinth made me react the same way. But it was not the labyrinth itself that I desired - nor the company of the grotesque creatures that Sarah meets along the way. My feelings coalesce around Jareth the Goblin King. But why?

Need you ask?

Looking past the obvious - David Bowie's magnetic and mesmerising performance, and Jareth's spectacular appearance (which is undeniably attractive) - the character of the Goblin King seems to personify fantasy, with its capacity for both beauty and darkness. 

He is by times exuberant and dazzling; cruel and tender; careless, entreating and sorrowful. Mercurial and fey, he is archetypal - the trickster, the animus - at once the shadow and the hero.

How are you liking my labyrinth?

I'll leave my love between the stars.

I'll make you a prince. Prince of the land of stench!

The power of voodoo!

He shapes the world of Faerie and creates the story - the labyrinth - through which Sarah can express her heroic journey. He creates "dangers untold and hardships unnumbered", so that Sarah can overcome them. 

She'll never give up!
Won't she?

Within the labyrinth, Sarah undergoes a mythic quest - and on the way learns to find her innate courage, to look beyond appearances, to stop taking things for granted, to resist temptation, to show compassion, to realise her love for her little brother - and to exercise her fantasies. The journey is a universal one of maturation and development. But essentially - Jareth is the storyteller.

Jareth's fascination therefore, is his ability to craft living stories - a fully-realised fantasy world (the ultimate in subcreation, put in Tolkien's terms). Who can help loving a character who bestows gifts of beautiful dreams? In Labyrinth, the fairies do not grant wishes, but the Goblin King is master of wish-fulfillment.

There's such a fooled heart -

- beating so fast 

- in search of new dreams...

A love that will last within your heart.

I'll place the moon within your heart...

Part of the sorrow of Labyrinth has to do with the tragic bind in which Jareth finds himself. The storyteller becomes confined by the story - by "the way it has to be". Despite his capacity and desire to transcend the "villain" role - expressed in the masquerade-dream he crafts for Sarah - despite his dissatisfaction with his goblin subjects, his affection for Toby and his loneliness - his "generosity" drives his inevitable defeat. 

What have you done that's generous?
Everything.

You asked that the child be taken -

- and I took him.

You cowered before me - I was terrifying.

I have re-altered time.

 I have turned the world upside down -

- and I have done it all for you.

I am exhausted - 

- from living up to your expectations.

Isn't that generous?

This explains the pain in his last song, when Sarah seeks Toby in the "Escher" room. Jareth loves her - believes in her ability to rescue her brother. But he knows that when she succeeds, she will leave the labyrinth. Jareth's grief is his knowledge of the inevitability of Sarah's departure - the finite time she has left in the fantasy world he created for her. 

Your eyes can be so cruel. Just as I can be so cruel.

Though I do believe in you.

Live without your sunlight. Love without your heartbeat.

I - I can't live within you.

Watching the movie, the mingled love and pain that Jareth feels echoes in my own heart. But the archetypal, fairy-tale nature of the story extends and amplifies these feelings. As Jareth sings his desolate song - I burn with unrequited love for the heart of Faerie. Just as Sarah cannot stay in the labyrinth, neither can I stay in the fantasy. The sorrow is the unrequited longing for permanence in something that is by nature fleeting. But a mere glimpse of this beautiful world makes me realise the truth of Yeats' "dull world" of the mundane. And so I long for the fantasy even more desperately. In vain. As Jareth knows to his sorrow, no matter how much we wish to live in it, a fantasy is ephemeral as a bubble. 

Before the story began, Jareth knew how it would have to end.
"Give me the child!"

"You have no power over me..."

But there is one thing that one must always remember about the fae-folk. They cannot die. Jareth is defeated, but he changes into an owl. He was only required to be the villain up until Sarah reached the words "you have no power over me". But that was the middle of Labyrinth book. A fairytale does not ever end. Fantasies are blown and burst like bubbles, but Jareth has an inexhaustible store - as numerous as the dreams of a fertile mind. The labyrinth is only part of the infinite world of Faerie - the limitlessness and eternally changing nature is unconstrained. 

Stories continue and are retold and shaped again and again. 

I am fortunate. I am one of those who have access to Faerie - to its glimpses of mystery, heroism, grandeur, beauty and terror. Unrequited desire is the price that I must pay for entering. But I would rather burn forever with the Langothe than live without the glorious, strange and enchanting world.

After watching Labyrinth, let me modify Tolkien's famous words:

"I desired Faerie with a profound desire… the world that contained even the imagination of Jareth was richer and more beautiful, at whatever cost of peril."

This is no ordinary gift...

I'll be there for you

As the world falls down

Falling

Falling

As the world falls down

Falling in love

"I'm Going on an Adventure!"

The world is not in your maps and books - it is out there... Gandalf, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

I met Gandalf the other day, and he asked me to go on an adventure. And I said yes. Here’s how it came about.

I watched The Hobbit movie recently. Actually I saw it twice. It’s a beautiful movie, full of the magic and depth, great acting and integrity we’ve come to expect and love from Peter Jackson. As expected, it took me on an immersive journey through Tolkien’s marvellous world and filled me with many conflicting emotions. I felt joy, and a great wonder at the beautiful places I saw, and I was moved both to laughter and tears; heroic admiration and absolute loathing; pity and envy. But it was the envy that inspired a chain of thought that led to Gandalf knocking at my door.

It began with “Good morning!” As soon as Bilbo set his eyes on the wandering wizard I felt instant envy and exasperation. How on Middle Earth did Bilbo fail to recognise Gandalf as being somehow special? I think – my feelings not entirely rational, and surely clouded by my being privy, as someone familiar with the lore of Middle Earth, to the innumerable instances of Gandalf’s extraordinary nature… But anyway – such was my instinctive thought that it led to a fellow thought, as surely as Balin follows Dwalin. As soon as Gandalf spoke the words “I’m looking for someone to share in an adventure,” this thought makes its presence known. Pick me! Pick me! I want an adventure! Why does Bilbo hesitate? Wait -what is he saying? “Nasty unpleasant things”? What a fool! Gandalf – leave that idiot and pick me! I would jump at the chance! And this feeling persists all through the Unexpected Party. I thrill at the unfurling of the map of Erebor, and share the dwarves’ enthusiasm for the quest. Although my rational mind understands Bilbo’s demurral, I can’t help but feel that were I given the same opportunity, Gandalf would not have to ask twice.

"...laceration, evisceration - incineration?!" 

Surely the longing for adventure is an integral part of humanity? Do we not all have a part of us that longs to escape the ordinary? In history I can find many examples – too many to list – of humanity’s audacity and the glorious results of their adventures. It was in the spirit of adventure that, thousands of years ago, people paddled in tiny coracles across vast and unmapped oceans to settle in the islands of Polynesia. It was in the spirit of adventure and discovery that the wonders of the natural world and science were revealed, that we discovered how to harness electricity – that we set foot on the Moon and plumbed the crushing depths of the sea. And in story, song and legend – the inspirational tales are always of adventures… of people who go beyond the average and who dare greatly and win glory.

I have grown up on tales of adventure. I hunger for it. I dream of heroism and of discovery. Surely therefore I would not hesitate, like Bilbo, to take the opportunity – I would never be left alone in a spotless house wondering what would have happened if I had gone with the Company to the Lonely Mountain! Or would I?

The Map of the Lonely Mountain

Suddenly I considered my life and reviewed it – were there any times that I could have gone on an adventure and chose the safe option? Were there opportunities that I let slip away because of laziness… or fear? In that moment I realised – that Gandalf appears in many guises and adventures take many forms. And he comes to all of us, and many times. And I realised that all the greatest experiences and achievements in my life so far have come when I have said “yes” to the offer of an adventure. The adventure could be starting a new creative project, learning a language, travelling, starting a new job, developing a personal relationship – anything that has the potential to lift life out of the ordinary. Each adventure comes with dangers and hardships to face – risks of failure and no promise of return.

Gandalf: You'll have a tale or two to tell when you come back.
Bilbo Baggins: Can you promise that I will come back?
Gandalf: No. And if you do, you will not be the same. 

What then is the reward of adventure? I think it is a new horizon, the satisfaction of striving and of testing yourself, of discovery and – perhaps – glory and renown. At the end. If you are lucky there might also be treasure. But most important is the moving and the personal growth. Bilbo discovers bravery and cleverness, resourcefulness and hardiness within himself, and a wanderlust – qualities that he would never have known if he had not stirred from his comfortable armchair. Adventures teach us to ignore and defeat doubt, and to step outside the comfort of our hobbit-hole and to move beyond the expectations of our peers - to discover the forests and mountains, the beauty of Rivendell and the splendour of the Eyrie; to face that which we fear and face ourselves.

This was the wisdom I learned from The Hobbit, and straightaway began an adventure – starting my own creative business. Who knows what I will discover, and how it will change me, and what new horizons I will see... 

I'm going on an adventure!

Real Life Places Straight Out of Fantasy

Come travel with me to the truly fantastical places of the earth.

Often it can seem that this world of ours is depressingly and incorrigibly mundane - that all wonder and magic retreated, against the steam-powered onslaught of the Industrial Revolution and later against the threat of nuclear and biological catastrophe - into pages, pixels, daubs and reels of film: into the recesses of human consciousness, never to emerge. As worldwide travel becomes more commonplace - we think we know all there is on Earth - and to dreamers like myself it can be saddening to think that the fantastical realms we long for are unreachable save by proxy... I sigh and imagine a cold, Romanceless world -

- and then I am proven wrong - delightfully wrong.

Again. 

And again.

And again.

The following images were discovered on Quora and I highly recommend you spend time looking through ALL the pictures on the site in this category as they will truly feed your organ of Wonder and transport you to far distant lands (admittedly still by proxy, but if you are able to travel you may have the capability to visit these places in reality). 

Climb astride your steed of choice - horse, camel, dragon or pegasus - or if you prefer a vehicle - air balloon, motorbike or unicycle and join me in the journey.

Our first place of note is Bagan Myanmar. These ancient pagodas and temples number in their thousands and are the magnificent remnants of "The Kingdom of Pagan" in Burma. Although these temples no longer sound with the prayers of the devoted - the wonder and mystery of the site persists.

Next on our travel agenda are the Italian Dolomites. This scene seems like an Arcadian paradise - straight from "The Pastoral Symphony" in Fantasia - we expect to see the gods of Ancient Rome - Jupiter and his family - to emerge from the clouds, triumphantly proceeding to glorious accolade, into the valley. The scenery is truly god-worthy. 

Let us turn now and follow the track of the stars, drifting in calm waters wherever the currents and breezes lead... Wait - trail your hand in this body of water and a line of light will trail from each of your fingers. How is such a thing possible? This phenomenon is caused by bioluminescence - the waters of Mosquito Bay in Vieques, Puerto Rico teem with millions of microscopic organisms that shine brilliantly when disturbed. 

In the jungle of Cambodia there exists the ultimate place of glorious decay - where the grand edifices of a vanished civilisation stand crumbling in the grip and tangle of strangler figs. Marvel at the force of nature, and the beauty that is Ankor Wat.

Are those towers on the horizon? If they are - no mortal hand has shaped them. This is a fantasy city carved by wind and rain - the pillars of Cappadocia, Turkey - turret-like caps of hard stone on soft, easily eroded pedestals. Some of the rock formations here have been further carved and catacombed by humans to form habitations - but the locals name them "fairy chimneys".

Welcome to Narnia-on-Earth. This is a truly magical place of infinite wonder - containing crystal-pure and aquamarine pools fringed with icicles and white-feathery pines in winter; verdant forests and cascades of paradisaical hues in summer. Here is ample magic for the searching, at Plitvice National Park, Croatia.     

Do you wish to travel out of this world completely? The Socotra Island in Yemen is the closest you will get to alien life while still earthbound, containing bizarre and fantastical lifeforms that evolved for aeons in isolation... 

Our next destination could be the "lagoon" from Neverland - the one that forms in brilliant colours behind your eyelids when you squeeze your eyes tight as possible... but this place is the "Liquid Rainbow" or Cano Cristales in Columbia.

"The Wave" in Arizona is one of the most eye-watering and surreal natural formations- a place of vivid colours that change with every caprice of the weather and position of the sun. This desert has its cousin in the perilously beautiful "Desert of Colours" from the Neverending Story - imagine running over these striped undulations on the back of a flaming lion...

Halt here for a moment at the rim of the pit of the Inferno and gaze into Hell's depths. Dante himself would quail. Or do we look into Sauruman's foundry - where the Uruk-Hai are born from fiery mud and tortured elves? We are at Darvaza, Turkmenistan - and only a fool would dare to get any closer...

From the pit of Hell, to Eden's ease - let us rest a while by the pristine, natural pool at the Sua Trench, Samoa.

High as the surrounding hills, the Tiantan Buddha meditates in the verdant valley of  Lantau Island, Hong Kong, dispensing benevolence and wisdom with every breeze that rushes between the mountains and rustles the treetops.

"But rose-red as if the blush of dawn,

that first beheld them were not yet withdrawn;

The hues of youth upon a brow of woe,

which Man deemed old two thousand years ago,

match me such marvel save in Eastern clime,

a rose-red city half as old as time." -  John Burgon

We pass through a warm-hued fissure in a desert cliff and come upon the magnificent facade of a city, carved into the very cliffs. This is a precious, palatial mausoleum - the memorial of the ancient civilisation of the Edomites. The "rose-red" city of Petra in Jordan well merits a place on our journey.

This delicate seeming sanctuary in the Columbian canyon of the Guáitara River owes its creation to the miraculous healing of a deaf-mute girl. Although it was built fairly recently (in 1949) - its appearance is straight from fairytale and its miraculous origins add wonder to the already beautiful Santuario de las Lajas.

This monument seems straight out of "Ozymandias" - we expect to see "nearby, on the ground/Half sunk, a shattered visage"...  But this is no monument to an ancient king's hubris. El Mano del Desierto in Chile was created in 1992 by sculptor Mario Irarrázabal to express human vulnerability in the presence of nature. Its very size is poignant - expressive of the same futility so well conveyed in Shelley's poem.

Now we come to a city in the clouds - the Incan "estate" of Macchu Pichu in Peru. Although it has fallen from its state of sacred city - its stones still hold commune with the winds and stars, and proudly the weathered ruins overlook the valley Urubamba.

If you, like me, thrilled to the glowing wonderland of Pandora in Avatar - try visiting the Waitomo Caves, New Zealand, the haunt of millions of glow worms that star the stalactites of the caves...

This looks like a fantasy fountain - painted in beautiful hues by the ores and pigments of the earth and sun - Fly Geyser, Nevada is worthy of any otherworldly domain. It looks as though it ought to have mythologies written to its huddled forms - a petrified first-family spraying hot life over the world.

I dare you to find a more imposing and terrible tower in a fantasy book to rival the Hassan Tower, Morrocco. This tower was intended to be the base of the tallest minaret in the world - to the peak of which a horseman should have been able to ride on long ramps - but construction stopped halfway (like the tower of Babel) when the Sultan Yacoub al-Masour died in 1199BC.

This pearly bridge and impossibly aqua river in Bosnia-Herzegovia is the perfect place for us to conclude our traveller's log, for now. Here we can find sweet and tranquil rest in a fairytale town of Mostrar. But the journey never ends - and soon we will shoulder our packs and ride together, following the river to parts unknown... 

Who can tell what wonders we will find? The world is wide and strange, still.