Magic Realism & Everyday Life.
Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet was full of magical events . Some characters started to glow, other started to fade, a pig was speaking in acknowledged yet incomprehensible tongues, all kind magical fishing events occurred, ghost appeared and the house in cloudstreet seems to breathe life in the everyday.
With it I (re?)discovered Australia was a fertile ground for magic realism. It also reminded me of Giono and his books full of everyday magical events.
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Today on my Facebook account this ancient report from Bendigo surfaced.
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The Mining Record January 14, 1868.
Remarkable Mirage over Mount Alexander
A beautiful mirage was seen on Friday 6th of December at 25 minutes to 12:00 o’clock on top of Mount Alexander. The Daily News says it was the reflection of a town, but all the objects visible were in their natural position, or rather not inverted as is usual in such phenomena.
The sun was to the north, and shone on the mount. The scene was wondrously distinct and so novel that Captain Simpson, our informant, hurried on first witnessing it, to his friend Mr Fyans, to verify the fact and enjoy the spectacle.
There were streets, spires, buildings, and houses visible for upwards of 20 minutes, when many other folks in the vicinity came out to look at the strange aerial city in cloudland.
The mirage was judged to be about 3/4 of a mile long, and hovered about 40 feet above the summit of the mount, and was thrown out in brilliant light from the background of a dark, heavy of cloud. It began to vanish from the north point first, when it soon died out, as there seemed to be a current driving south.
Captain Simpson suggests that it must have been Bendigo reflected on a heavily charged watery cloud over that town, reflected again on the dark gathered clouds over the mount, and that thus the mirage represented the figures as in their ordinary position.
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When was the last time such a story hit the news headlines? And is that a good thing?
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It seems there was a time where a simpler/ more direct/ less rational approach to our environment allowed us , rightly or wrongly, to see and experience magic.
Children seem to have that kind of connection. New-age practices seem entirely focused on that, constantly rediscovering and rehearsing ancient elemental rituals.
Today Jean and I took cuttings of a Leucadendrum.
Some of them will strike roots, some of them will not. There will be a rational explanation to it. Or it could be down to just magic. Experiencing and understanding. Two very different takes on living, yet constantly intermixing.
In both cases trying to reproduce the same outcome over and over will involve a bit of learning.