LIFE AS MYTH
JOURNAL
JOURNAL 2024
Of wonder
AUTUMN 2024
Finding joy
SUMMER 2024
Future continuous
SPRING 2024
I and Thou
WINTER 2024
All the truth
LIFEWORKS
ATLAS
JOURNAL 2024
BRAVE NEW WORLD
MIRANDA [rising and coming forward]:
O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world
That has such people in ’t!
The Tempest, (V.i) William Shakespeare. 1611.
It is difficult to describe what the sky and the water do here -- but it is like they are one seamless curtain of silk, a silk that is every shade of blue. Because the horizon is so open, you can see an unlimited expanse of that blue silk and it ripples and shifts every time the light breaks through the clouds to dance on some distant stretch of waters.
At the furthest most point, there is a beautiful beach with fine white sand. It sits in a deep basin with mountains rising up on either side and the water is a deep turquoise which turns powder blue further out. In the distance you see the backs of blue-violet mountains rising out of the ocean.
The Celts told of a place called Mag Mell. According to their myth, you only find it by accident -- usually when you are in a boat which is driven off course by a storm. What makes this Celtic paradise different from others in world mythology is that it is not an afterlife realm of shadows or eternal punishment. It is something altogether different. Mag Mell, meaning "the plain of joy," is a place of eternal youth and beauty, a place where sickness and death do not exist, a place where all those things which are beautiful in this Life finally come together.
Life as Myth, Collected writings, Usher. (2006 - ). From a 2008 essay.
The time polyptych: Future continuous, panel 3, (2021- ). Watercolor, charcoal and ink on paper. 24 x 30 in / 61 x 79 cm.
(above, left) Self portrait at Keem Beach. Achill Island, Ireland. Usher. 2008.
