Mystical Realms Newsletter for June, 2012

[Jef]

Greetings!

And welcome to my newsletter for June, 2012! Please feel free to
forward this to anyone you believe might be interested in keeping up
with me! To receive these newsletters regularly, please drop me an
email or subscribe online from my website (http://www.JefMurray.com )
or at: http://groups.google.com/group/Mystical_Realms . Notices of
events and items of interest are at the bottom of this email.


Pitchers ===============

My first book, “Seer: A Wizard’s Journal”, has been formally released
as the inaugural offering from Oloris Publishing, a new imprint of the
Middle-earth Network (www.mymiddleearth.com). Oloris is dedicated to
bringing new multimedia works to fantasy, mythology, and sci-fi fans
worldwide, and I am honored to have had “Seer” chosen as their first
offering.

You can learn more than you’d likely ever want to know about Oloris,
and about “Seer”, by clicking on of the following link:

http://olorispublishing.mymiddleearth.com/


Ponderings ==============

Summer is upon us. And aside from our customary charges (Ignatius
the spoiled-rotten hamster and all the robins, cardinals, wrens,
squirrels, and chipmunks that abound within the MooseNest borders),
we’ve been managing our neighbors’ menageries while they’re away. New
wards include mollies, guinea pigs, three dinner plate-sized turtles,
and Prissy the Cat.

The poignant part of caring for all of these critters is that we’re
reminded of God’s immense imagination as well as His sense of the
strange. As warm weather sets up shop, there is hardly anything odder
than watching three enormous turtles vie with each other for bugs, or
spying guinea pigs absconding with carrot sticks. And Prissy the Cat
is an education in herself; she bounds upon my lap when I come to feed
her and purrs like an idling freight train as we watch the evening sun
set over the treetops.

Summertime reminds me of how little we know about the world around
us. This, our Middle-earth, is filled with glorious glens and deep
leafy dells, each flush with unnamed flora and fauna. It moves in odd
rhythms: stillness by swollen streams at dawn, the rise and rout of
thunderheads in heat of afternoon.

Summer is cicadas and crickets and katydids, each with its own
distinct dialect; and lightning bugs, named by northern folk
“fireflies” or “glow worms”, that first appear high in branches, then
descend as the days ripen. As waifs, we would catch mason jars full
and leave them as fairy lights on windowsills at night; releasing them
and beginning the game again on the morrow.

Even after I developed a Tolkienian disdain for fairies, I always
found deserted country lanes and fields to be pregnant with
mythological possibilities. I would sit still on the verge, chiggers
notwithstanding, and hearken to every twig snapping and leaf rustling
in the woods. I sat still as stone and waited for wayfarers. And I was
rewarded time and again by the passing of squirrels, chipmunks,
opossums, ground snakes, and even deer.

But what I really wanted was to spy out a Hobbit, or a wood Elf. A
knight on his charger or a passing angel also would not have been
taken amiss. But none of these came; for them, I must needs resort to
mind’s eye or to paint and brush.

But the important part is that all of these _could_ have come; when
summer sports, all portents are possible.

I’m like Puddleglum in C.S. Lewis’ The Silver Chair. If told that
in this world there are no Elves, or Hobbits, or knights or damsels in
need of saving, if someone presumed to prove there were no angels or
saints, then we would all be beggared; and I would rather believe in
such a world, even if wrong, than foreswear such magic and mystery. A
world without these would drown in despair; and my heart yet whispers
“deceit” when a Christopher Hitchens brays on his bugle.

Years ago, long after I had first consciously assented to the
tenets of Christianity, there came a point when my heart caught up
with my head. There came an overwhelming maelstrom of emotion, as I
realized, to the very core of my being, that the whole story of a
spurned savior come to earth to save us all was sooth. I gasped aloud
as I grasped that angels and demons, saints and the Savior, were not
some delusions developed to tame toddlers, but literal truths.

And life seemed infinitely dearer to me with that realization; the
universe itself opened and expanded as I pondered such power, such
potential, such promise….

But now, summer is again upon us. Enigmas abound. Mollies are
multiplying and tadpoles transforming. Now is the time to return to
the woods in search of unicorns and halflings. Now is the time to
mimic the brave and chivalric knights and to seek out adventure in
sunny dales and glen’s gloaming.

At the sounding of the Solstice, angels abound…may your summer,
too, be blessed with infinite imaginings….


Prospects ===================

• The Middle-earth Network ( http://mymiddleearth.com ) has a new
store up and running that will include many items of interest to
fantasy and sci-fi fans. You can access it by going to http://store.mymiddleearth.com/
. The works of many talented artists, writers, musicians, actors, etc.
will be featured there over time, and many of the items listed will
only be available through http://mymiddleearth.com. Do take a look!

• The Return of the Ring 2012 (see http://www.returnofthering.org/)
will be a huge Tolkien-themed conference and gathering at Loughborough
University on 16-20th August, 2012. Although I will not be able to
attend in person, I am hoping to have some of my work included, either
in publications in support of the event, or at the art show. Stay
tuned for more details!