Tag Archives: magic

Truth Won’t Die – New Song For Halloween

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Halloween GraveyardIt’s Halloween!! Also called Samhain and my favourite festival of the year, the night when the veil between realms is thinnest and magic feels close enough to touch. The night when anything is possible…

And to celebrate that and also the fact that it’s a year since my first title ‘When Joe Met Alice’ was published (now that was a magical day!) I am honoured and very proud to be party to the release of Truth Won’t Die, the song from the story.

I may have written the lyrics but the song as a whole was written and performed, mixed and Jedmastered by my son Jed. He took my words and a couple of suggestions that I made as to the direction that Joe would have taken them in, and has come up with a song that is just perfectly in tune with the story. (Yes, pun intended, sorry Jed!).

It has taken him hours of painstaking work. I don’t think most of us realise, when we listen to a song, just how much time, care and attention to detail goes into the creation of it. From the development of the melody and the guitar riffs, the keyboards and additional effects, the vocal line and accompanying harmonies, and of course the bass line and the drums that are the glue which holds it all together; each is created separately but written to fit into a perfect whole.

Then the recording; Jed put the drum track down using a keyboard and some specialist sequencing software then recorded keyboards, bass, rhythm guitar, lead guitar, lead vocals and lastly backing vocals, each in separate tracks layering on top of the drums. He played and sang all the tracks himself, a pretty impressive achievement, and mixed and mastered it afterwards. I’d like to say a huge thank you to him for all his work, and also thank his friend George Hunt for acting as studio engineer when Jed was doing the vocals.

So below is the link to Soundcloud; enjoy Truth Won’t Die. And as you light your candle this Samhain let it feed your inner flame and open up the magic inside.

https://soundcloud.com/jed-robertson/truth-wont-die-single-version

Just One Of Those Days

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washing machine symbol

 

Ever had one of those days when it seems that all machinery is out to get you, all electronics are conspiring against you and the world in general is having a laugh at your expense? A bit like this:

 

The washing machine ate my jumper

The computer just wouldn’t play

The shower packed up

And the car broke down

What the heck’s going on today?

 

And then other days you wake up to sunshine (real and metaphorical) and the world gives you a big hug and shows you something like this:lavender

 

There are jewels in the lavender.

A flock of greenfinches are

Having breakfast.

Intent on their fluttery purpose, they are

Stripping the heads with glee

Soft jade among the amethyst.

We watch without breathing

Entranced

And then suddenly

They are gone.

 

Everyday magic both, but one definitely preferable to the other. I try and take mental snapshots of moments of wonder like these on sunshiny days; then when everything is going pear shaped they help to remind me that things will get better. Along with a little cathartic swearing and a nice cup of tea, they’re a good way of restoring balance.

The Sock Goblin

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Odd socksMost of us are familiar with this vindictive little creature. Part of the gremlin / goblin family and relatively benign in comparison to some other members, this small, rarely sighted being likes to wreak havoc in the quietest yet most irritating of ways. In common with its gremlin relatives it targets modern electrical equipment, in this case specifically washing machines. It makes its nest in the outer casing and accesses the drum to steal odd socks from random loads. Sometimes it will take a particular fancy to one and use it as a sleeping bag but usually it stores them in a pile and may reintroduce them one at a time to another load at some future point.

Thefts and returns will be random but frequent in order to lull the target human into a false sense of security before upping the ante to make them feel that they are going mad. Many socks it likes to nibble on before they are returned. This is not to satisfy hunger but merely to further hinder its target. What sustains it are the cries of frustration and the palpable annoyance of said human each time they are sorting the socks into pairs and always find one or two orphans, or a pair that look as if they have lost the battle with a giant moth. Then its wicked grin grows wider and its little teeth grow sharper and it eagerly awaits its next opportunity to cause havoc. On occasion and to cause maximum distress it may also stick a sock down the out pipe to block the drain and possibly flood the kitchen.

Sock goblins are frighteningly common and sadly very difficult to get rid of. The only way is to starve them out. So if you frequently find odd socks at the bottom of your basket, don’t curse and swear. Smile, be glad and use them as dusters instead. The environment may thank you but the goblin most certainly won’t!

Dreaming the Moon

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crescent moon over seaI am delighted and very excited to say that my first novel, Dreaming the Moon, will be coming out in paperback on 25th August 2014. The fantastic cover photograph was taken by the very talented Alex Smith (thank you so much) and formatted by the amazing web wizard, Simon West (again, thank you).

It’s a modern fantasy that follows Robyn, heartbroken and haunted by strange dreams, who discovers that this world is not the only one, but is separated from another magical realm by a protective shield that is failing. Thrown into a desperate situation, she and her friends are pitted against time and dark forces in a seemingly impossible task, the search for a lost fragment that will restore the shield and save both worlds.

If you like to look at life a little sideways, if you ask yourself sometimes ‘Was that only a bird rustling in the hedge or was it something else?’, or ‘Did I misplace my keys or is something otherworldly teasing me?’; If you’ve ever thought that the woods seem darker than they should when you’re walking alone at dusk, or wondered if it was just coincidence that you called your best friend at exactly the same time as he/she called you, then I hope that this will appeal to you. And if you’re not familiar with my work, may I (very cheekily) say that I have two ‘snack-size’ stories out as e-books: When Joe Met Alice and Catching Up With The Past, available from Magic Oxygen and Amazon, just in case you fancy an appetiser.

Izzy

Music and magic

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Fairy glen

Christine Westerback

Gar tuht river, ger te rheged.

Having been listening to the most extraordinary and magical album Imaginaerum by the Finnish band Nightwish, courtesy of my son Jed, I was wondering what this phrase meant and where it came from. Jed kindly investigated and found some debate online; the closest he could get (and by far the loveliest) was that if it is Old Cumbric it means go to the river, you’ll come to a fairyland.

How beautiful.

There are places along any river where we passersby are called for some reason to stop and look. For no apparent reason honey flows through our veins, or hearts flutter, or perhaps goose bumps rise. There is nothing overt, nothing obvious, yet we are caught unexpectedly by a glimmer, a promise of something beyond what we see, the feeling that actually all is not just as it appears and that the real truth is hiding just out of sight.

I’ve said before that to me, magic is not complicated or theatrical. It’s the occurrence of the unexpected, the acceptance that just because we can’t rationalise and explain things it doesn’t mean that they’re not real. If we stay open to it, with a little luck magic will reach out and touch us.

Never take a rainbow for granted

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rainbow on streetA little piece of magic on a rainy day, that’s a rainbow. The upturned smile of colours arcing across the sky, joining darkness and light, steel grey cloud to sun; light refracting, splitting and settling overhead in a translucent promise of something better, unreachable, untouchable, but with the power to elicit a lifting of the heart. But think about rainbows. They aren’t just in the sky. They glimmer from the surface of bubbles, they surprise from oil slicked puddles in the street. They catch you unawares as they slip off the corners of mirrors, and appear in unexpected corners through tricks of light and glass. Explain them with science if you like. I prefer to think that they’re a gateway, a glimpse into the magical and supposedly impossible realms that are beyond our world and our understanding.

New Book Out Today!

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girl with blue hairThe wizards at Magic Oxygen pressed the button this morning and Catching Up With The Past has already appeared on the digital shelves of the Amazon Kindle store as I write. Needless to say, I am very excited! And although the process still seems like magic, there’s a lot of work that goes in  beforehand, so thank you Tracey and Simon West for all your hard work, and thank you also Sophie Graves, Anne Maloney, Lucy West and Abby Smith, for giving me such helpful feedback on the original.

 As I mentioned in my last post, bullying is a theme in the book, and sadly still affects many people of all ages. If you are being bullied, please do not feel that it’s your fault, or that you have to suffer in silence. Tell someone you trust – you don’t have to be alone.

I hope you enjoy the story!

Wonder

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Magic happened to me last week – ‘When Joe Met Alice’ is officially available for download! That may not seem very magical to a lot of people, but actually the fact that you can press a few buttons and have virtually any book you choose on your device ready to read in a matter of moments is nothing short of miraculous. Magic is seeing the ordinary through different eyes and accepting the wonder of it. So next time we see a beautiful view, or light pouring through the trees, or our loved ones smiling at us, let’s allow ourselves that moment of wonder. Here’s one of mine, in a poem.

Toad - By Walter Siegmund (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsTOAD

Tucked behind the log pile and
Hidden in the hedge,
He had backed into a fallen flowerpot.
That was how I saw him.
His earthen skin,
Well disguised amongst roots and branches,
Stood out against the terracotta.
Crouched so still
With limbs drawn beneath him,
He might have passed for a rock,
Except for his eyes, obsidian, brilliant,
And the slight shiver of his breath.
He knows more than he’s telling,
That toad, old as stone.