Friday, September 17, 2010

The magical mystery tour

In the night, together with journalist Karen Meirik, driving the comfortable Citroen C5 from the town of Saint Malo to Vannes crossing Brittany in France from the north to the south.

On small roads through dark forests and nobody else on the road.
The atmosphere was magic and fairytale like.
The age old trees sliding away around the smoothly moving car and the bright light shining from the headlamps illuminating a scene that could have any moment a giant come out of the woods.
Or maybe some dwarfs accompanied by a fairy.
Around the bend the road entering a huge cavern full of candles and the witch with her sharp pointed hood sitting on a throne for magical potents to serve.

This is the area, Karen Meirik explained, where people believed there were dwarfes, witches, giants and other fairy tale characters.
The forest at the time was so deep and mysterious and the people in several ways lacking appropriate knowledge, that a whole universe of weird characters was invented.
In which they strongly believed.

But those days are over.
Science has progressed and the forest is not deep anymore.
Hobbits are existing but only in books and fantasies.
Like the giants and the fairy and the dragon.

But while driving on the small and dark French road a new thought developed between the two friends.
That the people have lost believe in the characters of the fairy tales but a new imagination has replaced it.
Now we live in a time that many people think aliens exist.
Creatures from other planets that secretly come to Earth where they do weird things.
It seems these aliens mainly group and manifest themselves in the USA where magazines about them are published.
And films are made showing the aliens and nightly radio programs have witnesses tell their stories about close encounters.

The aliens are today’s representatives of the fairies and dwarfes and giants of the past.
Filling up holes in our knowledge.
Calming our fears for what we don’t know yet.

The road through the forest with the fairies and the aliens came to an end in front of a lovely house in a romantic village.
Where a kind man was waiting with warm herbal tea.
And a cookie.




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1 comment:

Vakantiefietsshop.nl said...

Hi Michel, eventually I contacted my cousin Karen Meirik and heard that you visited her, I told her that I knew you also from the Librije hedendaagse kunst in Zwolle, where I worked as an educator in the '80 years. you had an exhibition there. I follow your blog now because I am very interested in photography and art in an adventurous way. Greetings from Ellen Geersing.