Poetry as Magic
Looking at Mandragora introduced me to Ruby Sara’s take on this subject. However its not new to me. One of the formative concepts that initially attracted me to the Irish Celtic pantheon was the importance that the regional mythology placed on the role of poet. His power was beyond magic. He was the singer of souls, and his wisdom sought after by kings. Word of the mouth of the poet was the greatest verbal insult, and had the power to irreparably tarnish one’s caracter.
I found myself in agreement with Sara’s assessment of magic in the words we use. Words create imagery and paint portrayals of who we are and how we view the world. Rejections or reconstructions of language and how we use it can break down taboos and social constraints and rebuild the world around us. Social criticisms are elementary to the task of evoking change in our world. And what else is magic bu the evocation of change, the ability to use criticisms to villify, and poetic rhetoric to beautify. People respond to stimuli accordingly. Sound, color, texture, form: they create ambience and evoke mood. Perhaps this helps to elucidate the impact of the performance arts on the psyche.
In my own time, I am very influenced by music and word pairings. In my work, which is largely verbose, it is about telling stories using fictional and mythic symbolism that bare some reflection or relationship with subjects of modern consideration. And most often my work are retellings of mythic tales, sometimes written from alternate perspectives. Yet they are also criticisms of social ideas which seem to have become things that others take for granted or hold as sacred entities. And I seek to challenge them because nothing is so sacred that it should escape individualized scrutiny. We should be fully aware of why we do as we do, and clarify for ourselves whether we are looking at ideologies that hold meaning for us, or if thse things are antequated and outmoded functionalities worthy of re-appraisal.
One of the fundamental arguments among members of the Pagan community at large is that so many people have lost sight of the magic and beauty in the natural world. Sometimes poetry is necessary to open the door and reveal what has been lost from our world.
