Walking Through The Gloam...
...into the Magician's mouth.
The sun is slowly sinkin’
The day’s almost gone
Still darkness falls around us
And we must journey on
—Emmylou Harris1
Well, dear Musers.
The year is fading fast, and a new one is coming around the bend.
The Winter Solstice has been and gone. So too have the holiday festivities. We’re in that betwixt and between space.
You could say we’re in the twilight time of proceedings.
The gloam. The not yet dawn.
Gloam is a funny (properly) old word. It means twilight and has shared roots with the verb ‘to glow’.
I don’t like that, I love it.
So perhaps that’s where we are, in that paradox, both gloaming and glowing.
As I grab my coat on the year that was, I want to say thank you for being here with me on this journey. Thank you for reading my words, commenting on posts, and for generally sharing your love. And to those of you who have contributed in extra ways, a double thank you - your support is never taken for granted, you are directly helping me shape a new existence, beyond the corporate world I thought I would be trapped in forever.
More hijinks to come in 2025.
In the meantime, below is a story from the Fens to see us out2.
Keep going and keep glowing, friends.
Will
Cape of Rushes
Once upon a time.
In a time beyond time.
In a time that has long been lost to the dark time of Fenland,
there was a wealthy landowner who had not one, not two, but three daughters...
1. Listening: The Gloaming - Fáinleog (Wanderer")
Fáinleog also translates as Swallow, and given the light is now returning, the future return of these birds to our islands gives me something to look forward to.
2. Watching - The God of Loss - Darlingside
One of my highlights of 2024 was seeing Darlingside again at the Cambridge Folk Festival. This is one of my favourite tracks and the accompanying video here is just beautiful. You can read about the making of it here.
An Invitation: The Rose & The Wren, A Mythopoetic Journey for Men
This is an early announcement for the 2025 Annual Gathering for Men.
If you are interested in having a chat please do get in touch via email at will@thewilljohnsonjourney.com.
And we have some early booking discounts too for the super keen.
Headline details here.
…Into The Magician’s Mouth
Finally, you may recall that in May I created a ‘Mandala’ to attempt to give some shape to my life and work. It was a fun process if nothing else.
If you missed it you can read about it here.
Through that process, I felt called to allocate a decent chunk of the darker part of my year to do a ‘deep dive’ into a theme, story, or simply something big…
And, well, I found my thing.
Listening to Dr Martin Shaw’s Bardskull again I noticed a name that kept returning, Väinämöinen. Väinämöinen is mentioned fifteen times in Bardskull.
But who is Väinämöinen?
He is one of the principal characters in the Finnish folk epic, The Kalevala.
And so, alongside digging into some more East Anglian fairytales, next year I’ll also be working my way through the whacking great story of The Kalevala.
Interestingly, I have discovered that the Kalevala is not one story, but hundreds (if not more) fragments of oral folk tales and songs that were collected and curated into one story. 3
Fire4
Ilmarinen struck
fire, Väinämöinen
flashed above eight heavens, in
the ninth sky: a spark
dropped down through the earth
through Manala, and
through the smoke-hole caked with soot...I look forward to sharing more with you.
Onwards.
Grow Your Courage
If you would like to book a chat with me, you can use the link below, I would love to hear from you!
Fenland Musings will always be free to read, but if my writing efforts have helped or touched you in some way, please consider taking out a paid subscription - even a month or two would make a huge difference to me. And I appreciate we live in tough times, so your support is deeply appreciated!
Adapted from Kevin Crossley-Holland, The Old Stories - Folk Tales from East Anglia and The Fen Country
Into the Magician’s Mouth was inspired by the essay “Wäinämöinen Finds The Lost Words, Reliquiæ Volume One, Corbel Stone Press
Excerpt from Technicians of the Sacred, Edited by Jerome Rothenberg
Lovely gentle piece as ever Will, although your mention of the gloaming immediately brought to mind Kenneth McKellar, a favourite singer of my father, and Roamin' in the Gloamin'. You may know it? If not, it's a jaunty tune of which this is the chorus ...
Roamin' in the gloamin' by the bonnie banks o' Clyde,
Roamin' in the gloamin' wi' ma lassie by ma side,
When the sun has gone to rest,
That's the time that we love best,
Oh, it's lovely roamin' in the gloamin'.
Beautiful writing, Sir Will, I’m over the moon to have found you! Be happy, Geraldine