My new contribution to A Sense of Place is up.  An excerpt:

Not everyone may be able to see them. Maybe some people cannot. Some people say we don’t need to see them at all, or speaking of them this way is wrong. Some people even say they don’t exist.

I think they do.  I’ve seen them, or as best as I can so far.  This is not just the province of the mystic or the seer, it is also the art of the Bard, who shows others not just how something can be seen, but that it exists both with and without us. This is the agency of the magician, this is how we world the earth.

I mention my friend Eric Wallen’s experience in the piece.  He’s been working with the spirits of land in an area of northern California.  Sudden Oak-Death is annihilating the forests on the hills around him, and he’s had several experiences attempting to communicate the pain of the spirits.

He’s also an artist, and created this piece while working with that land.  He described the experience of this figure thusly:

“This being insisted I draw him. The urgency of his message and forcefulness that he came thru has prompted me to send this image out beyond my small world. “

So this is my attempt to help it get a bit beyond his “small world.”

His info:

Also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Alison Leigh Lilly’s gorgeous take on the myth of Gwydion and Blodeuwedd: The Goddess, the Broom and the Barred Owl