#spirits

At Bealltainn, or May Day, every effort was made to scare away the fairies, who were particularly dreaded at this season. In the West Highlands charms were used to avert their influence. In the Isle of Man the gorse was set alight to keep them at a distance. In some parts of Ireland the house was sprinkled with holy water to ward off fairy influence. These are only a mere handful out of the large number of references available, but they seem to me to reveal an effort to avoid the attentions of discredited deities on occasions of festival once sacred to them. The gods duly return at the appointed season, but instead of being received with adoration, they are rebuffed by the descendants of their former worshippers, who have embraced a faith which regards them as demons. In like manner the fairies in Ireland were chased away from the midsummer bonfires by casting fire at them. At the first approach of summer, the fairy folk of Scotland were wont to hold a "Rade," or ceremonial ride on horseback, when they were liable to tread down the growing grain. ↗

— Lewis Spence

#demons #faires #fairy #gods #halloween

I found that it wasn't so oddball to like music and poetry and visual arts, they're kindred spirits. ↗

— J. Carter Brown

#found #i #kindred #like #music

Their spirits and their visions are embodied in their craft. And so is mine. It's not Jane Saw Puff. But the clarity of Jane Saw Puff is precious to me. ↗

— Sharon Olds

#craft #embodied #jane #me #mine

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. ↗

— Theodore Roosevelt

#better #checkered #dare #defeat #enjoy

Any man may be in good spirits and good temper when he's well dressed. There ain't much credit in that. ↗

— Charles Dickens

#credit #dressed #good #man #may

But we can hold our spirits and our bodies so pure and high, we may cherish such thoughts and such ideals, and dream such dreams of lofty purpose, that we can determine and know what manner of men we will be, whenever and wherever the hour strikes and calls to noble action. ↗

— Joshua Chamberlain

#bodies #calls #cherish #determine #dream

He was one of those inexplicable gifts of nature, an artist who leaps over boundaries, changes our nervous systems, creates a new language, transmits new kinds of joy to our startled senses and spirits. ↗

— Jack Kroll

#boundaries #changes #creates #gifts #inexplicable

All I'm trying to do is not join my ancestral spirits just yet. ↗

— Joshua Nkomo

#i #join #just #spirits #trying

People need a sacred narrative. They must have a sense of larger purpose, in one form or another, however intellectualized. They will find a way to keep ancestral spirits alive. ↗

— E. O. Wilson

#ancestral #another #find #form #however

It is time, therefore, that you should apply for aid to such helpful Spirits. But will you have the strength of mind, the courage to endure the approach of Beings so different from mankind? I know that their coming produces certain inevitable effects, as internal tremors, the revulsion of the blood from its ordinary course; but I also know that these terrors, these revulsions, painful as they undoubtedly are, must appear as nothing compared with the mortal pain of separation from an object loved greatly and exclusively. ↗

— William Beckford

#occult #revulsion #spirits #terror #courage