As "Black Friday" begins the gift-buying season, please consider giving your money to artists, artisans, indie shops and local small businesses instead of low-wage paying, tax-avoiding, book-industry-damaging Amazon (and similar companies). Artists and small local shops make the world a better place, and many depend on holiday sales to keep going the rest of the year.

There are many visual artists, artisans, writers, publishers, musicians, etc. who sell mythic, folkloric, magical, and nature-inspired work online. Please recommend some of your favourites in the Comments below so we can spread the word about their work. If you're an art-maker yourself, please do list your own work. Don't be shy; we want to know about it.

And if you're anywhere near Dartmoor, the annual Winter Artisan Fayre is tomorrow at Endecott House here in Chagford, featuring the work of Virginia Lee, Danielle Barlow, Silverandmoor, and other fine local artists....

Art above: Embracing the Bear by Virginia Lee and The Wisdom Keeper by Danielle Barlow.

For folks within travelling distance of Devon:

A number of women artists (including me) have donated art-work and craft-work to a charity auction happening tomorrow (Saturday, November 18) in Chagford's Jubilee Hall, 2 - 5 pm.  No ticket required, no entrance fee. Please come if you can.

My friend Susan Harley organised the auction to raise funds to support women with breast cancer in Gaza, via the Amos Trust. As a cancer survivor myself, I can't imagine what it's like to face any sort of cancer under the kinds of conditions these brave women cope with. From the Amos Trust:

For women with breast cancer in Gaza, Israel’s and Egypt’s near-total closure affects nearly every stage of their diagnosis and treatment. Doctors in clinics and hospitals say that vital medicines, including chemotherapy drugs, are hard to procure. Patients have reported having had their chemotherapy course interrupted when drugs could not be supplied, or simply having been unable to complete the course at all.  Radio isotopes used in bone scans or for guided biopsy of axillary lymph nodes are forbidden entry into Gaza; and Gaza’s surgeons are prevented from travelling out to attend conferences or further develop their skills, freezing surgical practice many years behind the rest of the world.  A Harvard Medical School study has shown that five-year survival rates for breast cancer patients are as low as 30-40%, compared with around 85% in England. Having breast cancer is bad enough -- but having it in Gaza is unimaginable. The Amos Trust supports women with cancer, and runs community outreach prevention and early identification programmes as this is the women’s best chance of survival.

Please come if you can, have some cake, look at beautiful art, and support women helping women.

Update: Thanks to the hard work of Susan Harley & team, this event raised over £3000.00! Many thanks to the young woman who bought my donation to the auction (the "Fairy Tales" collage above) for giving the bunnies and tree girls a good home.

Fairy Tales

Once upon a time there was a girl, there was a boy, there was a poor woman who wanted, there was a queen who couldn't have, there was witch who lived under, there was a green frog at the bottom of, there was a troll, a tree, a bear, a bright eyed bird who knew the secret of, there was a fairy who had lost, there was a child who had found, there was a wizard who had made, there was a princess who had broken, there was a story that was trying to be told. Listen. The wind is speaking....

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

   Now I lay me down to sleep,
   I pray to Earth, my soul to keep.
   I pray to Wind, for gentle dreams.
   To Water, for sweet murmurings.
   To Grass, where I will make my bed.
   To Moss, where I will rest my head.
   To blood’s Fire, to keep me warm.
   To Dark, to keep me safe from harm.
   To Moon, to dim her silver light
   so Fox will pass me by tonight.
   I pray to Stars, who watch above.
   Bless me, and everyone I love.

This post was composed on 8/27, & set up for automated posting on 9/2. I'll be back on-line on 9/5.

The Language of Trees

The thing you need to know, child, is that trees do speak, they do tell tales, they sing when the've a mind to, they are gigglers, gossips, grumblers, cataloguing every ache and pain, and yet they hold no grudges, claim no debts, speak ill of no creature. They have their tempers, yes, trantrums of branches lashed in gusts and gales, but then they come to rest in stillness, spent, humming contentedly. You've heard them, child, just yesterday. You thought it was only the wind. The thing you need to know is that by dawn-light every tree stands tall and chants its name, its history, its kinship web and lineage. You've heard them, child, the rustle beneath the dawn chorus of birds. The thing you need to know is that the trees tell stories older than the oldest tales of humankind -- by dusk, by night, by starlight, you have heard their midnight murmuring. You told me so. You thought it was just water running in the stream. The thing you need to know, child, is that trees do speak, in their own language. They mutter with the crackle of old brown leaves, they sigh with the snow drifiting at their feet, they utter exquisite arboreal poems as each tender new leaf unfurls, they laugh in shivers of green and gold tickled by the passing breeze. The thing you need to know, child, is that trees do speak, in the tree language. And yes, you will understand their speech one day, root child, sweet sapling.

This post was composed on 8/27, & set up for automated posting on 9/1. I'll be back on-line on 9/5.