Do you see the cobbles on the streets? Everywhere you look, stone & rock. Can you imagine what it feels like to reach down with your bones & feel the living stones? The city is built on itself, all the cities that came before. Can you imagine how it feels to lie down on an ancient flagstone & feel the power of the rock buoying you up against the tug of the world? And that's where witchcraft begins. The stones have life, & I'm part of it. - adapted from Terry Pratchett
Coming back to report on my progress of reading my Lent book this year, which as I said in my last post is Grant Morrison's The Invisibles.
All acts of magic have the magician as their primary target, and reading a book so notoriously magical can only be described as transformative. Morrison described how he put a spell in it to turn the reader into an Invisible and without publishing details of things that are overly personal, it's hitting some serious stuff and pressing buttons.
In terms of stuff which is sayable in public, this post was prompted by the idea of a Hand of Glory (in folklore the hand of a hanged man used by burglars as a sort of candle to put the household to sleep so that they could burgle it undisturbed) which makes obscene gestures is so very me. I also particularly love a scene where Jack Frost makes a magic circle from fag ends taken from the Tesco bag Tom O'Bedlam gave him.
My only sorrow is that at least in appearance I seem to be passing from King Mob to Tom O'Bedlam!
Annually, I post here about the practice I have stolen from the Christians of taking a book to read for Lent, and since Lent starts on Wednesday it's that time of year.
The only thing the books I choose have in common is that they're completely unsuitable and not likely to be picked by the Archbishop of Canterbury as his Lent book. Of course since the archbishop has crashed and burned there isn't one to pick a book this year so they can all pick the witch's Lent book.
This year I have managed to lay my hands on a pirated electronic copy of Grant Morrison's The Invisibles graphic novels so that's my choice. I have read this hugely far-ranging chaos magic apocalypse at various times, but never in order and the omnibus edition is very expensive to buy in any form so it feels like it's dropped into my lap.
I'm absolutely howling at the Wikipedia page for the series, which is terrifically vanilla for a series which is, even by my standards, absolutely WILD. Of course I'm most interested in the magic and I remember being impressed with the way the Invisibles invoke John Lennon as a god. I keep threatening to channel Derek Acorah but have somehow resisted the temptation. Perhaps the cover which illustrates this post are the best explanation.
I'll see how I get on with it because I've also started another read through of the bible (not the New Testament, the Hebrew bible is a longstanding passion and I think I can truthfully say I'm the only dog to come top in Hebrew) and hope I haven't bitten off more than I can choose. I heard Jewish scholar Robert Alter say on a podcast that he originally translated a line from 'The Lord is my shepherd' as 'You pleasure my head with oil,' until his wife, shocked, protested that he couldn't possibly publish that, and I immediately knew I'd found my guide for another read through. So I'm using the notes in Alter's translation, but actually reading the updated New Revised Standard Version in approximate order it was written. This gives a completely different impression from starting from the beginning, because you literally just have a few bits of poetry and then straight into the prophets.
Oh, there's something we have to do before I bury myself in my books. *Some* people are always welcome in the United Kingdom.
