The Elusive Quality of Autumn

Autumn leaves in a forest pool...

I am enamoured of Autumn.

It is such an exciting time of year - a season of colour and contradictions; harshness and sensuality, sorrow and celebration. It is a time of fruiting and of dying - a season both "mellow" and tempestuous. It is a time of mystery - a transitioning time from the light and life of summer to the dark, bleak time of winter. As with all "between" times, it eludes definition, save through a poet's metaphors and an artist's brush. 

Mist blurs the boundaries of perception - autumn is a season of mystery...

When we think of autumn we tend to think in terms of images, sensations, emotional stirrings and stories. So I have found it, at least. In writing this blogpost I found my first attempts to describe and define my love for this strange and changeful time of year to be pitifully inadequate in their colourless generalisation;, and found myself recounting instead my vivid memories and perceptions of the season.

Autumn at Ashley's Cottage by Thomas Kinkade

Autumn can be beguiling and sensuous. It is  time when one has a pleasant excuse to stay indoors, wrapped in soft wools while it rains or mist envelopes the house. At this time of year we revel in the crackle, the light and the sharp, exciting smell of an open fire; and we taste the sweetness of stored summer sunlight in the taste of a ripe plum or bulbous, juicy berry and rejoice... Hot, filling, homecooked meals fill us with a contentment and comfort provided by a bounteous harvest.

The traditional harvest feast of Mabon

"Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may findThee sitting careless on a granary floor..." - Ode to Autumn, John Keats

Autumn's harvests have traditionally been celebrated with festivals of mythic, religious and communal significance. Though harvest festivals have been of recent years too often commercialised and trivialised in the Western World, I was fortunate enough to experience some of their traditional, mythic flavour when I was in primary school. I attended a Rudolph Steiner school, and in April we celebrated with a communal feast of light and song and story. Each family contributed homebaked food and fresh harvest fruits. The mudbricked ovens (built by children's hands) glowed from within, as hippie parents with long hair and colourful clothes baked pizza on handcarved paddles. In the amphitheatre, surrounded by bushland and decorated with paper lanterns painted with watercolour, the children acted out the mythic archetypes of hero, saint, princess and king. Music was provided by a group of children playing wooden recorders, while others chanted the narration. A drumbeat was heard. From the shadows of the trees came a horned and snakelike figure - a dragon with a dozen little bare feet, pounding joyfully on the dirt. 

Samhain

Dark tales are associated with autumn; a season that is not merely about fruitfulness, but also dying...

Of course, there are darker rituals associated with autumn than the one in which I participated. Darker stories that, however legendary, hold a "truth" in the mind and shape my perception of the season. Autumn evokes for me stories of Samhain - images faces half-bestial and eldritch flickering in and out of shadows at the edge of firelight. The pages of an old book of tales evokes Old British spirits and superstitions, and eerie tales of witches and "ghosties and ghoulies and lang-legged beasties" told around the hearth. There are tales of blood and death and the things beyond the grave that prick the skin on the back of the neck, while outside the wracked trees claw at the stormy sky.

Mist is incredibly evocative...

Keats was right when he said autumn was a "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness", though that description of course does not encompass the whole. Many of my most abiding memories of autumn are of mist rolling into my garden, obscuring the valley and the mountains, beading crystal droplets on the leaves of trees and grass and clover. Some drops roll into the centres of nasturtium leaves, making me think of the pearly dew in the story of Jorinda and Jorindel. Mist also bedews the needle-like leaves of the juniper (blue-green, now taking on a reddish tint) and the golden fringes of the cypress tree. Mist encrusts the wool of my jumper, and my eyelashes and hair. It creates mystery, but gently. It beautifies, even as it conceals. 

Autumn rain

Autumn is also a time of rains - fierce, driven and torrential. Yesterday I looked out of my window at the harbour and marveled at the glory of a rainbow across the water. Five minutes later the entire harbour was blotted from my sight in a sudden flash-downpour that was so forceful, the roofs of the houses below me seemed to "smoke" from the spray sent-up with each droplet. After a minute of white near-blindness, I saw blue sky through the pouring rain. In another two minutes, the rain had completely stopped and the sky was clear again. 

But as well as being a season of darkness and diffuse dimness, Autumn is a season of colour and splendour. The very light is more golden; all colours are more saturated and the sky deepens to a rich sapphire. Most spectacularly the leaves of deciduous trees blaze forth in innumerable shades and hues.

The myriad colours of autumn

How many shades are there of red? Our language can describe crimson, scarlet, vermillion, carmine, blood-red, cerise, claret, puce, roseate, garnet, geranium, russet, rust and titian... And of the other flame hues: yellow and orange, the thesaurus provides us with: champagne, xanthic, creosote, aureate, aurulent, citrine, canary, fallow, flavescent, flavicomous, fulvid, lutescent, primrose, sallow, sulphur, xanthous, tawny, sunshine, ochrous, saffron, cadmium, apricot, bittersweet, carrot, coral, salmon, tangerine, titian and auburn. For  brown we have amber, auburn, bay, beige, bister, brick, bronze, buff, burnt sienna, chestnut, chocolate, cinnamon, cocoa, coffee, copper, drab, dust, ecru, fawn, ginger, hazel, henna, khaki, mahogany, nut, ochre, puce, russet, rust, sepia, sorrel, tan, tawny, terra-cotta, and umber. For green (and there is green in autumn) we have: apple, beryl, bice, chartreuse, fir, forest, malachite, jade, peacock, moss, olive, verdigris, viridian, pine, sage and sap.

Fallen leaves on wet stone - what image can do justice to the indescribable scent and colour of reality?

This is a mighty, and one might say, comprehensive list. But how many of these words are but the names of trees and plants and pigments, found in nature? And what of the myriad tints and gradations that cannot be written? A painter could better capture this iridescence with a brush, but the breadth and vibrancy of Nature's palette in Autumn is unrivaled by any mortal artistry. 

Autumn Leaves, by John Everett Millais

And oh - what are the words for the scents of Autumn? How can one do justice to the smell of wet leaves underfoot; the smell of sunwarmed blackberries or the smell of wood-smoke? And what about the emotions evoked in the soul by the sight of departing birds, flying in wavering arrows towards a warmer land; or the wildness stirred in the soul by the rising winds, until the feet and blood pull you pelting down the road to dance with the blowing leaves; or the state of peaceful melancholy evoked by the contemplation of yellow willows trailing in a slow-moving stream?

The wild winds of autumn stir the soul...

... and set one dancing with the leaves

Autumn seems to me sometimes like a beautiful, emotionally-volatile lover, who dazzles the eye differently in every changing hour; a lover who can be fierce and gentle and cold; generous and destructive; golden and pale and lowering storm all in one day... Infinitely fascinating; infinitely complex; infinitely beautiful. One who never lets you see their whole self - yet in the facets revealed to you is such a beauty that you spend the rest of the year musing on the mystery of their being. One who mocks you for your pitiful attempts at definition.

The Spirit of Autumn

Perhaps the wisest words belong to Robin Hobb, who wrote in her beautiful novel Golden Fool:

"Words do not contain or define any person. A heart can, if it is willing."

I think the same could be said of a season. 

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun...

Why Do We Desire Dragons? A Dragon-Seeker's Quest

“The dragon is the patron saint of all storytellers and artists” – Guillermo del Toro

"I choose to believe in dragons." - Robin Hobb 

Tintaglia by John Howe, for Robin Hobb's "Ship of Destiny" 

 This blog post was inspired by Terry Windling's "Moveable Feast" on the topic of The Desire for Dragons: What Brings Us to Myth and Fantasy?.

I think it is a question that every person who has ever felt the "desire for dragons" should ask themselves, not in an attempt to "explain the magic away" but in a quest to discover these elusive beasts and on the way, perhaps to ourselves... It is a question that leads into a hundred other questions, for example:

Why is it that we out of everyone in the world feel most strongly a desire for Faerie - for myth and story - for transcendence and legend and perilous beauty? Is it innate - like a magic of old - or is it something that is taught? Why do only some people feel it, and why do others become accountants?  What is the "real" basis of our desire and belief? How much should we care about "reality" anyway? Is story more important than reality? Does story create reality? What is lacking in modern life, that we turn with wistful eyes to a mystical past that never existed save in story? How can we live according to such precepts? How can we use story to make the world we live a better place? Why dragons?

Dragon and Warrior Princess by John Howe

Well, I think the answers to all these questions can only fully be discovered, and crafted, over a lifetime. So as Woolf would say, if you are looking for a "nugget of truth" I'm afraid you won't be getting one (sorry dragons - but gold is shinier than truth anyway). 

Smaug the Golden by John Howe
He seems to agree...

Instead I invite you on my dragon-seeking quest. With staff in hand and dusty sandals, armed with nothing more than a pencil and a roll of parchment (or pad of paper, take your pick) we shall follow the road that leads away across the hills, into the mountains and beyond. And perhaps on the way we will find some glimmerings of the elusive answers to our questions, on the sun-caught wings of a dragon high above, or the dully metallic scales of a Worm wrapped around a hill; or between the serpents coiling at the edges of an old map...

Earthsea by John Howe

Where shall we seek? It does not matter. Dragons are not difficult to find. As anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of world mythology would know, dragons have colonised all the earth and sea and sky. From China to Australia; from South America to Africa to Britain - in all places where humans have settled, it would seem that dragons have preceded them. Sailors feared the deeps for the serpents that lurked below the surface, beyond sight but not beyond knowledge. When the first maps were created the edges of the "known" were marked and everyone knew that dragons were beyond. After rain, we glimpse the tail of the Rainbow Serpent. Look up into the sky at night, and the shining length of "Draco" can be seen. Dragons can be sought - and found - everywhere. It all depends on how you look.

Sea Dragon by John Howe
You would be wise to fear the deeps...

I seem to be blessed with the ability to see dragons. Almost everything I see can be evidence of a dragon - the jagged, granite peaks of a mountain so easily becomes the spine of a sleeping, half-buried dragon, and a massing bank of clouds becomes, with little effort, dragon's breath. Of course, at the same time I "know" that the granite spine was formed by erosion and geological forces of the earth, and the clouds are shaped by air pressure and evaporation. But somehow, strangely, all my scientific knowledge does not diminish my wonder. 

Dragon Isle by John Howe 
I see dragons everywhere... and clearly so does John Howe. 

The dragons and the "magic" of the world I sense every day have the same solidity in my mind as the scientific phenomena. They exist, in my mind, on parallel planes. I do not deny scientific "reality", nor do I believe that the "real-ness" of magic and dragons is the same kind as this more mundane knowledge (though it is as important to me). 

The Stone Dragon by John Howe for Robin Hobb's "Assassin's Quest" 

Tolkien wrote in his essay On Fairy Stories:

“Fairy-stories were plainly not primarily concerned with possibility, but with desirability. If they awakened desire, satisfying it while often whetting it unbearably, they succeeded… The dragon had the trade-mark Of Faerie written plain upon him. In whatever world he had his being it was an Other-world. Fantasy, the making or glimpsing of Other-worlds, was the heart of the desire of Faërie. I desired dragons with a profound desire... the world that contained even the imagination of Fafnir was richer and more beautiful, at whatever cost of peril.”

That is the gift of dragon-sight; the purpose of the dragon quest. Dragons embody the beauty and the peril of an "other world" that is "richer and more beautiful" and full of strange and marvellous things. Ah - I see a glimmer of an answer - a flash of desire on the wing of a dragon! I understand a part of why I desire Faerie - and dragons - with such aching passion. When life can contain "even the imagination" of such eldritch possibility - when a world of unplumbed depths of mystery exists alongside our own - then what a glory is opened to the soul! What visions of wonder, far beyond the ken of mortal sight, unfold before the inner eye, lit by a "light better than any light that ever shone; a land no one can define or remember, only desire"... 

 "In this unfolding, ever-changing but constant drama, dragons have always played a role. They are among the First...They embody concepts of considerable importance and they are clothed in scales. Their origins are inextricably interwoven with our psyche, and they breathe fire. They are Freudian and, better still, eminently Jungian, and they spread vast wings over the sky.”  - John Howe, Forging Dragons

Dragon of Chaos by John Howe
The dragon that created the cosmos...

Volcanic Dragons by John Howe

I have heard people say that science killed magic. I disagree. Science is an exploration - an attempt to penetrate mystery. Artists and writers; scientists and mathematicians - all share a desire to explore and to discover. I do not think that science explains everything - Mystery abounds yet, and dragons were ever the gate-keepers of mystery.

The Gates of Night by John Howe

This is why, I believe, dragons are such potent and universal figures; so beloved by storytellers and artists from the beginning of human thought. That is why they are so tenacious, and will not let themselves be rooted from our stories, from the land or from our consciousness. That is why I follow their fiery trails, ever seeking Faerie. And that is why I think dragons are eternal. No matter how "advanced" humanity becomes in scientific pursuits, the dragon will be there.

"The skies of this world were always meant to have dragons. When they are not here, humans miss them. Some never think of them, of course. But some children, from the time they are small, they look up at the blue summer sky and watch for something that never comes. Because they know." - Robin Hobb, Golden Fool

Dragon Moons by John Howe

Fool's Fate by John Howe, for Robin Hobb's book of the same name 

Marsh Priestess - a Personal Story

But all I remember 

Are the dreams in the mist... 

There's something out there 

I can't resist

In my last blog post I wrote a bit about the mysterious feeling of sentience one senses sometimes from trees in the forest. It put me in mind of a short story I wrote last year, which was based on my own experiences in the bushland at the bottom of my mountain garden. 

Most of the garden is cultivated, with roses, bulbs and other flowers, deciduous and fruitful trees, little paths and birdbaths... It is a lovely garden, with a magic of its own. But about a hundred metres from the bottom of the garden stand two giant pines, marking the transition from the garden to the wild. Beyond is bushland, often mist-shrouded, where all the colours are different, mysterious and strange and where the eucalypts stand like pale gods with their proud heads crowned by cloud. And at the very bottom is a valley with a grassy, gurgling marsh, full of humming things and secretive trickles. Perhaps the mythic nature of trees is what calls to me, or I sense the borders to otherland fade when I am by a marsh. For sometimes I feel a call to I wander there alone, and at these times I feel a sense of kinship with the forest. 

I hope you enjoy the story.

Photograph credit, Stephen Hayden Photography

Marsh Priestess

I am the priestess of the scorned and wild forest. Afternoons, the softly falling chill brings with it the mists, which, clinging, frost the eucalypts with tiny jewels. I stand on the track my constant pilgrimage has worn, while the borders of reality are shrouded; first the garden, green and tame beyond the furthest pine; the straggling wire fence; the bleached rope swing; all fade. The bush has reclaimed the land from civilisation, and I am enclosed by the pale trees, their stringy bark hanging in rags off white and virgin limbs; initiates disrobing for an ancient ritual. I tread carefully, hesitant to disturb the soft and steady dripping of condensation from the myriad leaves. The track is soft and spongy; new-speckled with tiny ferns I weave around, unwilling to crush.

As I descend, I briefly pay homage to the matriarch, the huge red-bark whose maternal roots shelter and protect the forest’s treasure: the waratah I discovered with my brothers last summer. The red and sticky sap has crusted carnelian, and it beads my forehead as I lean against the trunk. I feel the soil’s moisture soak my knees and watch it slowly darken my skirt. Further down, the grasses have starred themselves in pale blossoms that glow amidst the slate and khaki of the dimming mist. In the half-light my merino cardigan fades to muted steel, until an intruder, stumbling from the end of the road, (hidden a scant thirty metres to my left), would find it hard to see me, my goose-pebbled arms around my wild sister; my wet and darkened hair sticking to my face like sheeted bark.

I near the end of the track, averting my eyes from the plastic teeth of a rake, which leers drunkenly from its precarious position in the fork of a banksia, where my father must have propped it. The rake is a blasphemy to the untamed sanctity of the forest. Angrily, I push it over and watch in satisfaction as it is swallowed by the eager shrubs. A cluster of ferns ends the path, damp fronds caressing a weathered piece of sandstone. Many years ago, the rock was engraved with plain, sensible English, marking the boundary between our property and the next. Now, the crumbled inscription is illegible, translated by the endless dripping of the mists into an arcane script. Here, I too can go no further. The track breaks off at the edge of a sharp depression. Beneath me lies the fertile green of the marsh, waiting silently for nightfall.

The ceremony will not be marked by sunset. My family’s cottage, sitting smugly at the top of the hillside beyond the bushland’s boundaries, regularly catches the last rays of the setting sun. Here, however, obscured in the mist, the marsh is enveloped in mystery. A little to my right, a scribbly-gum has split itself into three, extending over the swamp like the hand of a druid over a cauldron. Gingerly I walk along the middle finger, uncomfortably aware of my sneakers’ tentative friction on the wet wood. Convulsively I grip the twigs then straighten, poised above the morass. As the mist dims and the pale, scented stars light the long grass, I await the invocation, my sacrifice clutched in my hand.

 Sonorously, the bullfrogs give the signal. Symbolically, I sacrifice a piece of my body, heart and soul to the wild spirits of the marsh; a bead from my childhood necklace; a twist of my hair moistened in spit; a name scribbled furtively on a scrap of paper… They slip from my fingers and vanish into the dark trickling of the swamp. On the other side, two foxes perform their mating ritual unconcerned before my gaze. For a few moments, I am one with the forest. But a few moments are all I am granted. The carrying deep voice of my father, floating down the valley, calls me back to humanity. Reluctantly I force myself to turn away from the marsh; to walk slowly back up the path in the chilling fog, feeling the damp cling to my skin; back to reality.

At the border I pause, my hand on the solid trunk of the vast pine marking the end of the forest. Up the hill, past the new-mown lawn and the rose garden, the kitchen light gleams warmly and my father’s shadow moves industriously against the glow. Solemnly, reverently, I turn and make obeisance to the silent eucalypts and they toss their crowns in acknowledgement. Then I cross the border, and make my way up to the house, out of the mist.

Interesting and Liberating - Thoughts on Looking Up

I love to look up. There is so much to see and rejoice in - the ever-changing light spectacle of the sky; the unique and often quirky facades and tops of buildings; the faces of people passing, and of course, trees. I am never bored when I look up. In the most dingy part of the city my eye seeks out, and finds beauty - the wispy mare's tails in the sky, curiously bubbled glass on windows, and the stained-glass effect of sunlight seen through leaves on a plane tree. In surroundings with less aesthetic disadvantages - such as a suburb verdant with trees and gay with flower gardens, or better still, the country - there is even more to see when I turn my eyes upward.

The trees are still more beautiful - have you ever noticed when certain trees are blown by the wind, the sun creates reflections on the outer surface, like a bunch of silver shards shaken on thin wires? Or seen a winter-blasted tree clawing at the sky, like something out of an Arthur Rackham illustration? And faces! Such interesting speculations can be had, on the cause of an expression, or the history of a line. Is that woman's face creased with wisdom or bad temper? Is that man's vacant expression indicative of an empty mind - or is he wandering in some personal dream world?

With such constant stimulation for the eye and brain to be found when looking up - why is it that I see so many people with constantly downturned eyes?

Whenever I am anywhere - out walking in my neighbourhood, in the park, in a shopping mall or in the city - I see them. When I walk by, they scuttle or meander past, eyes down in avoidance of human contact. Bored, they hunch over their iPhones, or slouch idly looking at scraps of rubbish blowing like tumbleweeds across the road.  It would seem most people spend their lives looking downward - at the ground or at their electronic gadgets.

It bothers me. And there are several reasons why.

Firstly, the view when looking downward is so uninspiring. What are all these people looking for on the ground? Surely not gemstones. Now if the streets really were "paved with gold" or studded with gems (as  innocent medieval rustics believed of London and later conquistadors believed of El Dorado) - if our city streets were littered with jewels rather than junk, then I too would assiduously rake the ground with my eyes. But aside from the aforementioned (and depressingly familiar) bit of rubbish - the urban street contains few treasures. Looking down, you are likely to see nothing more interesting or spirit-lifting than grey pavers, concrete and asphalt, blobbed with the tar-like and shiny spots of old chewing gum, scattered with cigarette butts and grimy leaves. And instead of faces - a parade of legs and feet adorned with so much black leather; so many Nikes and stilettos. Where are the vistas - the colours and the wide space, where the imagination is free to roam? Suffice it to say, turning the eyes perpetually downward, rather than up toward the horizon or beyond yields only a limited view, which in turn provides limiting stimulation for the mind and imagination.

My second reason for raising my sights is that it allows me to take my bearings on my surroundings and my life. Without our destination in  our sights - how can we properly direct ourselves? To me, this constant looking down implies a lack of purpose - a directionless wandering of the feet and of the mind. If we look up, then we can clearly see where we want to go, and in a real and metaphorical sense, take steps accordingly.

Finally - it is an act of submission and self-effacement to walk around with perpetually downcast eyes. Every time we drop our eyes before someone else, we self-abnegate, signalling a lack of assertiveness. Whether we do it out of fear, awkwardness or a desire to not stand out - it badly affects our psyches, making us more likely to give way before the opinions of others and stand small.

To break the negative cycle, try raising your eyes. Meet the eyes of others, not in a spirit of confrontation, but creating a moment of human connection and making, every time, a quiet declaration of courage and self-worth. Meeting someone's eye, even briefly, says "I am your equal, and I'm not afraid to show it". When it is time to break contact - look aside, not down. See the trees and the buildings, and the faces of all those other wonderful, complex human beings. Feel yourself their equal too. Eye contact is an empowering experience - looking up is both interesting and liberating.