Show your magic

Part One

THE AGE OF MYSTERY

Egypt Before Time

...It is quite one thing to perform the mysteries on inanimate objects, to cause boulders to melt into lava, to dry up a stream with the force of one's breath, for it is well-known that all things exist in all forms at all times; it's merely a matter of learned skills to shift them from one state into another. But to transform oneself--- that is the thing that will tempt and terrify every Practitioner, in one form or another, for as long as he lives. Many an adept, quite competent in all other areas, will never achieve the state of simple Oneness that is necessary to become another living being. But for the three of us, in that long-ago time in the House of Ra, the gift came easily. Perhaps too easily. 

 There has been much debate over the millennia as to whether the transformation was literal, physical transmutation of matter, or an equally literal, but far less demonstrable, transfiguration of spirit. Did I become the frog <deer>, or did I merely cast my consciousness into the essence of frog-ness <deer-ness>, and did I do it with such power and conviction as to cause others to see me as I saw myself- in the form of a frog <deer>? I tell you now it is one and the same. All magic is an illusion, and all reality is only what one perceives it to be, and in the world in which we lived the fine line between these two planes of existence was so faint as to be almost invisible.

This passage is from Donna Boyd's excellent work The Alchemist. If you are a fan of Lev Grossman's The Magicians, you'll find Boyd's lyrical writing just as wonderful. Although I'm only  four chapters into The Alchemist, it makes me think very much of Norman Mailer's Ancient Evenings.  You may be asking yourself, "what does a deer in the woods have to do with ancient Egypt?" In fact, the real inspiration for this spread was the beautiful book, Sunshine by Robin McKinley. Published in 2004, before sparkly vampire-mania exploded, Sunshine is just that, a beautiful prism of sunlight piercing through the dark genre and it puts the Twilight series to shame. It's wonderful.

Reluctantly returning back to this time/space continuum, this is one of my very favorite journal spreads. I used bleach to get that mottled look, a deer stencil that I cut out and glittered, stars that I stenciled and connected with a stardust gel pen to get a look of constellations.

I'm sorry the pictures just don't do the pages justice. I guess some things need to remain a mystery.