Cover Illustration: Maxim Peter Griffin
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I n t r o d u c t i o n
Welcome to my last gathering of light and shadow, welcome to The Final Hex.
HEXES got its start in March, 2011 largely as a very stoned Sunday lark. Basically I wanted to share “cool links,” with a special emphasis on a podcast I was fond of at the time, A DARKER SHADE OF PAGAN.
HEXES quickly evolved into a full blown webzine, one that I remain modestly proud of. If nothing else I had a lot of fun…
There were several “themed” issues, such as The Vampire Special, a heartfelt salute to the late Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith of Doctor Who), and, working within that vein, several “Death” issues marking the passing of Jean Giraud (Moebius), Ralph McQuarrie, Eiko Ishioka, Christopher Hitchens, my black cat of 19 years, and several others.
But as of 2014 new issues became sporadic and irregular, prompting me to change the zine’s subtitle from The Sunday Spectra to The Sometime Spectra, and I am weary and sad to admit that entire calendar years slipped by without a single appearance of HEXES.
HEXES still matters to me, however, and I want to lower the curtain with something special. Thus The Final Hex. All of the artists represented in this issue were approached personally, and I am grateful and dazzled by their generosity and talent.
Thanks to all readers and friends through the years. And so,
G A L L E R Y
Andrew Liefer is an artist, illustrator, and graphic designer who likes to combine digital and traditional media in new and exciting ways. His work is created as an attempt to fill the empty gaping void of our soulless contemporary society. It is a means to create personal excitement while immersed in the boredom of day-to-day wage slavery.
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F I C T I O N
It was one of those cold, bright days in early autumn and traffic was a monoxide-emitting river on the Mombassastrasse from Narodni Basilica to the Windmill. I caught a Harrisbus tram as far as Nijinski’s and ducked into the arcade between Marx & Sparx and the Golden Palace Casino. The ceilings of the arcade were netted off to prevent pigeons from landing on the roofs of shops and vacant retail units.
Hundreds of these arcades could be found between places on Mombassastrasse: the voids that made matter viable. Down this particular arcade there was a jeweller, which sold silver cannabis leaves, golden clowns and other assorted bling; a camera shop; a francophone bookshop; two shoe shops; a travel luggage stall; a women’s costumers; a non-stop bookies; and, of course, the inevitable Kinemat.
I was tempted to leave. The bad lighting and the shabby shopfronts reminded me that I was drifting – between places. The arcade curved around to the right like a lower-case “r” and out of the far end there was a grassy square where it had started raining. Intermittent bursts of euro-techno came from somewhere behind. Discovering my tobacco pouch to be almost empty I faced up to my responsibilties and entered into the primary-lit darkness of the non-stop bookies. Digital gunfire and grandstand audiences roared from left and right, up ahead was a small hatchway overshadowed by a brow of LED readouts.
“Is The Mandarin here?”
The old woman in the portal blinked at me and took off her glasses, “do you mean Henry…”
“Hush Grandma!” I put two fingers on her mouth, “he is as he describes himself. I don’t know and I don’t want to know anything else.”
“The, uh, The Mandarin is over at the Kinemat at the moment. You’ll probably find him in the bar. You don’t happen to have anything, do you?”
“Anything?”
“Any pukka adreneline? You have anything like that?”
“I’m surprised at you, old girl!” I’d seen it a thousand times. Pensioners who worked the arcades to pay for their habit. A fifteen minute burst of teenager followed by two days of senility. I pointed two fingers at her eyes and took my leave of the non-stop.
I had never been into this particular Kinemat before. It was walled with frosted mirrors decorated with bevelled diamond-shaped patterns and dark wood, or more likely dark wood veneer. There was a ticket office in the middle and stairs: a bar and a screen to the left, two more screen to the right.
Climbing the lefthand stair case I was stopped by a steward in a green uniform, “do you have a ticket, sir?”
“I don’t need a fucking ticket, boy!” I touched his ear and he shook his head and backed off.
“Tickets can be purchased from the…”
“I don’t want to watch a fucking kino, boy! Do you understand me?” I reached out to stroke his cheek by he shrugged me off.
“Blind customers are required to…”
I pushed past him and up the stairs. He grabbed at the back of my coat. I turned, kicked out at him, failed to connect. He fell over anyway and tumbled down the stairs. I pushed through the double doors. A boy was towelling a shaggy haired dog dry on a huge screen in front of a steep flight of seats. I took the archway to the left and into the bar.
There was a big horseshoe sofa in the middle of the saloon. The Mandarin was sitting at a table with a black-haired chick who looked like a panel game assistant. There was no-one else in the bar apart from a waistcoated barman who was lost in the gleam of bottles and chintz beneath the moorish arch of the far wall.
“Hej, Johnnie!” The Mandarin looked up from a viewtext screen and attached a long moustache to his face. Low-res colours flickered off his mirrors. The chick didn’t move. Not an inch.
I pulled up a stool, “How’s the fucking lifestyle, Herr Mandarin?”
“So, so, Johnnie,” he closed up the viewtext screen, “Hong King Dairies Anchovizers are down against the Westinghouse model. The Grailings is a very different list to what it was in our day, Johnnie.”
“Who’s your friend?”
“This is Lucie Divaldo, Johnnie,” he grasped the back of Ms Divaldo’s hair and pulled to reveal a short blonde bob, “don’t you never get out to the theatre? You should take some time to educate yourself. Education is a beautiful racket,” he showed a lot of titanium dentures, “do you like her, Johnnie?”
“What’s not to like?”
“Lucie is out at the moment, else everything we’re saying would be going back to the group mind. Nah mean?”
“I don’t see no strings.”
“You never do, Johnnie. You never do.”
A waiter with a waistcoat to match the one at the bar brought The Mandarin another bottle of Heineken and a Becherovka for the doll. “What you drinking, Johnnie?” I pointed at the Heineken and gestured the waiter away. The Mandarin placed the Becherovka glass in front of Ms Divaldo. She took the glass, drank it off, and put it back on the table.
“There are things we are not talking about here, Johnnie. You know that, I know that. She is the merchandise, she is currently offline, she needs to be taken somewhere safe.”
“Where are you thinking, Herr Mandarin?”
The waiter arrived with my beer. The Mandarin indicated that he should leave.
“I want you to take her off-world, Johnnie. There are places where the tentacles won’t stretch, and one of them is not-here,” The Mandarin put the black wig back onto the doll, “and I want you to leave her alone, Johnnie. I want the merchandise to reach its destination intact.”
The moment they got the faintest whiff that Lucie was incommunicado tentacles would be starting to twitch around the Royal Borough. We needed to be not-here quickly but the Kilburninreal Hauptbahnhof wasn’t safe for the likes of us.
Ducking back through the back streets running parallel to the Mombassastrasse we caught a monocar as far as the funicular railway near the Wassgotterspeck Viaduct and at the top of the hill stopped for a breather at the Seeland in St Real Increments.
At Seeland they were doing a special on haddock, so I got two portions with fries and a pilsner. Seelands are better than many jonts, in that they always have bier on draught, they still serve it in collapsable plastic steins. I put the fish in front of Lucie and told her to eat. After she had efficiently polished off the food with all of the relish of an ocean trawler it was time to play twenty questions.
“Okay, doll. Prophesy!”
“I remember: going on holiday on the Pergolesi Littoral as a child. My mother was a beautiful tall woman with a great mass of black hair and deep-eyes that would scare me so much when he succumbed to madness after father died…”
“Switch channels. Tell me about networks!”
“The group mind propgates as a form of airborne pollen, although it is more literally fungal in structure. Some fourteen hundred bodies currently carry Giptic symbiotes in the Royal Borough, although only eight of these are active at any one time. The central nervous system is curretly located…”
I missed the rest of the sentence as a short order cook swung a chair at my head. I threw myself back off of my seat and rolled to avoid a pile of plates that one of the waiters attempted to drop on my head. I pulled an Ascii-izer from my jacket and turned both of them to text.
“Let’s get out of here, doll!”
We took a train from St Real Increments to Chingford. Chingford is one of those end of the line stations. Raw, slightly prettified and lopsided. Two lines run down beside the station itself while the others end short at buffers beside what appear to be garden sheds. There are duck boards between these tracks which reinforce the feeling of being in a garden centre or nursery.
Lucie had started to lose the automaton blankness and had started to sag, becoming greyish and tired. Whatever voodoo The Mandarin had cast on her was starting to wear off. She would regain consciousness soon and who knows what would happen then. We were on the other end of the line and the cilia of the group mind shouldn’t be able to affect her here but who knows what local conditions we might expect.
“Where are we?” she looked up and down the road trying to find identifiable landmarks.
“Chingford. London. Or at least it’s on the edge of London. We’re going to try to get you a coffee someplace.”
“I’ve never been to London before,” she replied in a dazed sing-song voice and pulled off the black wig, “and who are you?”
“I’m Johnnie.”
“Johnnie who?”
“Johnnie fucking who to you too! C’mon, doll. Let’s get you that coffee.”
Turn right out of Chingford station and you’re not likely to find much but forest. The only other thing you find is a golf course. We didn’t need a golf course at the moment so we went in the other direction past bistros, restaurants, pizzeria – all just a bit too conspicuous for my liking. Soon we discovered the grubbier end of Chingford and we took a table at the Starburger in search of coffee.
One table was populated with a local family. Heavy men with spare chins and middle aged women with shreiking voices, teenagers with big hoop earrings and all of them in shellsuits. The uniformity of dress made me wary – signs of a symbiotic group mind? But it soon became apparent that there was precious little mind of any sort amongst them.
“What are we doing here, Johnnie?”
“Drinking coffee, or at least we will be as soon as I can get some service,” another waitress with plates full of fat and cholestorol avoided my eye.
“No, but what are we doing in Chingford?”
“I’m not sure yet. You’ve got a friend back in the Royal Borough. A heavy friend. Not heavy like those guys over there, but heavy – as in heavy influence. He wants you out of the Borough ‘cos you’ve been getting in too deep with the wrong crowd.”
“The wrong crowd? What the fuck does that mean, Johnnie? Who is this heavy friend?”
“I wouldn’t like to say, doll. Put it this way: do you know a guy with a ‘tache like Fu Manchu?”
“Henry?” she cried. Those voice projection classes sure had paid off.
“Not so loud. Yeah, Henry. He wanted you outta the scene. You’d been hanging with some funny people.”
“What I do and who I associate with are no concern of his. What does he mean anyway? I work with a lot of “funny people” – actors, directors – that’s my work, that’s my life…”
A young guy in a Starburger uniform stopped at the table, “excuse me, madam. You wouldn’t happen to be Lucie Divaldo, would you?”
I reached inside my jacket for my ascii-izer.
The young guy backed off rapidly, “sorry mate, I didn’t mean to be rude or anything,” stopping with his back to the Chingford family, who remained oblivious to the scene being played out behind them, he pointed at the barrel of the ascii-izer, “but why are you pointing that chunk of Lego at me?”
“How do you know Ms Divaldo, kid?”
“Oh, I’m a huge fan of her work. I loved ‘Ta Fantastika’ and her portrayal of the flower-girl in ‘Buffooneries!’ was deeply touching,” he looked down nervously at the ascii-izer again, “but I don’t mean to invade her privacy or anything, mate, and um, what does the Lego do?”
“I touch this trigger and you’re text, kid! It might take decades for a low-life like you to get reappraised by the critics and by that time you’ll be deeply unfashionable.” This wasn’t strictly true of course. It often happened that Joes who got ascii-ized would reincarnate more vividly than ever if they caught a wave of retro-fashion, but he wasn’t to know that, “So if you want to retain your physical structure you’d better start talking. How do you know Ms Divaldo’s work?”
“I’m a very well regarded actress,” Lucie interrupted.
“Can it, doll!”
“She is,” the kid insisted, “but I guess she’s not very well known Over Here, if you know what I mean?”
“Keep talking.”
“I only know of Lucie (you don’t mind if I call you Lucie, Ms Divaldo?) because I spent a few years over on your side. That is to say,” he stepped closer, “over in the Royal Borough.”
I closed the safety catch on the ascii-izer and put it back into my jacket, “what’s your name, kid?”
“Arker, sir. Spiro Arker.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mr Arker. Now listen. Ms Divaldo here is in some danger, that’s why were Over Here. It’s not safe for her in the Royal Borough.”
“You are so patronising,” Lucie interjected.
“Whatever. The thing is: we don’t know how much longer it will be safe for her in London so we’ve got to get her off-world. Lucie needs your help, kid. Now, being an experienced gentleman as you are, you must know agencies who can move people.”
Spiro looked nervous, “I’ll be finished here in an hour. Wait in the pub by the station. Have you got a motor?”
“We can get one.”
“Good. We need to find a certain B.G.Ramachandra. And I’m not sure it’s going to be easy.”
Spiro Arker guided us to an address in between Leytonstone and Stratford, “just up the road from Maryland monorail.” It was late in the afternoon when we arrived at a tree-lined avenue of tall Edwardian houses.
“It’s number twenty-six,” Spiro told us.
A girl in a big coat was sitting on the steps in front of the house. It was difficult to get any idea of what she looked like. Her head was crowned with a car-wreck of hair and her eyes were obscured by large flying goggles. There was a carrier bag on the steps beside her and she was eating a yoghurt. I stepped past her and knocked on the front door.
No reply.
Looking up and down the doorframe I found a row of doorbells. I pressed the one labelled “Ramachandra” a few times and then tried knocking again. Still no reply.
“Have you got a mobile number for this Ramachandra character?” I asked Spiro.
“I don’t think he has a mobile,” he replied. He didn’t look like he was joking, “he doesn’t like them.”
“Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure I’m sure,” he looked up at the windows of the house, “maybe he’s gone out?”
“He left five minutes ago,” the girl on the steps said.
“How do you know that?” Spiro asked.
“Because I arrived five and a half minutes ago and I saw him leaving.”
“Where did he go?” I asked.
“He didn’t tell me,” she took another yoghurt out of the carrier bag and opened it, “he left in a bit of a hurry.”
“Where might he be going?”
“Somewhere bad.”
“Why ‘somewhere bad’?”
“Because,” she sighed, “he was being carried over the shoulder of a big man.”
Lucie started laughing.
“What did this ‘big man’ look like?”
“He was about your height,” she squinted behind her goggles, “perhaps a little taller. He was wearing a well-tailored suit and sunglasses,” she took another spoonful of yoghurt, “mirrored sunglasses. It would have looked ridiculous if it wasn’t for the fact that he was carrying BG into the back of van,” she finished another yoghurt pot and put it beside the previous one, “that was about the time that I got here. The van almost drove me over. It was quite frightening. So I decided to have a little sit-down and decide what to do.”
“Okay, start talking, Mr Arker. Who might be likely to abduct B.G.Ramachadra?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“Does he have any enemies?”
“Not that I know of.”
“What does Ramachandra do?”
“What do you mean?”
“What line of work is he in? What is his business?”
“Oh, I’m not really sure. He sort of makes things.”
“He’s a noted manufacturer of electronic shruti boxes,” said the girl in the big coat.
“A maker of what?”
“Electronic shruti boxes. Although he was also known for designing some of the first shortwave anchovizers.”
“You know about anchovizers?” Spiro Arker looked like he might be in love.
“I think he did some design work for Hong King when they were still owned by Maurice Donne in the nineties. The anchovizer as we know it today owes as much to ideas that were plagiarised from Soma Jones.”
“Soma Jones!” Arker flapped his arms with an impressive lack of dignity, “how do you know about Soma Jones?”
The girl in the big coat smiled, “I was married to him once.”
“You must be Bilhelmina Carrow!” Arker was in danger of taking off. All of this was making no sense to me whatsoever.
We drove up through Stratford and across the Plaistow Marshes following the course of the River Lea where possible until we got to Canning Town. The air was sweet with fumes from the Tate and Lyle factory beside the Thames. A few light aircraft flew overhead carrying small loads of white goods. From here we followed the course of the river down to the Woolwich Ferry. The Ferry, when it arrived, was full of local kids howling and shouting as they fought in the corridors of the boat.
At Woolwich we took the car as far as Maze Hill where the road was blocked. An articulated lorry had been hit by a Zanussi fridge-freezer and an Ariston washing machine, a black cab and an early eighties Ford Escort had ploughed into its back end.
“We can walk from here,” Bilhelmina announced. Greenwich was a scene of devestation. White goods – fridges, freezers, washers, dryers, dishwashers – were crumpled and buried in the road at awkward angles. Shattered glass and roofing tiles were scattered across roads and pavements where appliances had smashed into roofs and windows. A bus shelter was bowed under the weight of an electric cooker.
We followed bill across Maze Hill. “Look, that’s the Greenwich Observatory!” Spiro Arker observed. Bilhelmina stopped long enough to give him an impatient look.
“Where are we going?” Lucie asked.
“I think we’re trying to find this Ramachandra guy,” I replied.
“And why do we need to find him?”
“He can get us out of this place.”
“But what are we doing here anyway?”
“Beats me, doll!”
“Are there always all these household appliances here?”
Bilhelmina Carrow stopped in front of the rose garden to get her bearings. “It’s that road over there.” Looking back over the Hill towards the river a flight of light aircraft were coming out of the black clouds. Half a rainbow emerged from the Greenwich Dome. “We’d better get under cover before the next bombing run.”
Traffic was taking heavy casualties as we ran up Shooters Hill. A bus had fallen sideways after being struck repeatedly by chest freezers dropped from a twin prop aeroplane. By staying to the park side of the road we avoided the worst of the bombardment. It seemed like the aviators were mainly targetting roads and properties.
“This one here!” Bilhelmina indicated an imposing town house with a dark stone facade, quite out of keeping with the character of the street. Some of the topiary had been damaged by a flurry of microwave ovens. Spiro Arker reached the front door first and was rapping the big brass knocker rapidly. There was a sickening crunch in the road as a motorcycle was engulfed by a large photocopier.
“Jesus Christ!” exclaimed Arker, “they’ve moved onto office equipment.”
No-one seemed to be answering the door, I pulled out the ascii-izer, “stand aside, kid!” A stream of alphanumerics turned the door into a mass of punctuation.
We plunged through the doorway. I use the word “plunged” advisedly. If this had been any normal doorway we might have just “stepped inside” or “entered the building”, the matter of crossing the threshold could have been ignored altogether, but in this case “plunged” is entirely accurate.
The classical columns and chequered floor of the entrance hall twisted as we stepped through the portal. We might have withdrawn from this commitment but for a terrible gravity that drew us into the house. By the time I had crossed the Welcome mat the entrance hall had spun into a fierce vortex. Spiro Arker was pulled past me and over my head into the gyrating perspective. I was pulled off my feet and towards the singularity, winds tore past me as I rushed headlong. Looking back the way I had come the doorway had become a tiny rotating rectangle of light which spun away across an eccentric trajectory…
Zali Krishna is a writer, painter and musician living in Graz, Austria. The above selection is a forerunner and a digression from his three novels Dashanka Junction, The Narthex and Sine Cygnet & Signifier. A fourth related volume, entitled Kings of Infinite Space, will appear sometime this year through Polyversity Press. He doesn’t eat celery. Ever. http://www.iotacism.com
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V I D E O
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G A L L E R Y
Paul Watson is an artist based in Brighton, UK, whose work deals with themes of the weird and the eerie, progressive politics, and potential futures, using motifs from myth and folklore. He is currently working on a series of artwork called Acid Renaissance: Albion’s True Standard Advanced which includes photography (including the two pieces here), drawing, printmaking, and video pieces. He has published two books – Myth and Masks (2016) and England’s Dark Dreaming (2018) – which are available to order from his website at http://www.lazaruscorporation.co.uk/shop along with selected large prints and smaller postcards.
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M U S I C
You Do Not Have to be Good
S Elizabeth, aka Mlleghoul, and The Ghoul Next Door is Florida-based writer and blogger, rambling about art, music, fashion, perfume, anxiety, and grief—particularly as these subjects intersect with horror, the supernatural, and death. Her complete collection of spotify playlists can be found here.
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G A L L E R Y
Earlier – we drove from Saltfleet after a night on the stout and sloe gin. The early tide brought the usual junk – bottles – fragments – debris – trees – dead seals – I see more plastic on the coast than before – pick up what I can.
There is always a Frozen balloon in the thorns – I saw Olaf washed up once, like a drowned mariner.
A bright fog – low sun diffused and filtered enough to look at the disc of it.
The road is above the fields – land drops down – glacial valley – old railway line in the murk – black headed gulls, flying with us.
The usual landmarks are hidden – road through the trees to the Bluestone Heath – a space for painting – a big painting – might be too Hockney.
Fog thickness on the top road – the sun goes out – crows on the turn – right – an older couple preparing to go rambling, dressed for a different landscape – nylon walking poles, neoprene skull caps.
Red Hill – other side of the fog – in the valley, green fields divided with black lines / purple woodland – exposed chalk, pale grass.
Over the valley – Colley Hill, Imber Hill – down the hill – an iron age herepath – crossroads – gibbet – ditch, bank, tributary, bog.
A hawthorn with rags – a Cold War listening station – a deep tunnel that leads to a private church – a triangle enclosure with brambles + one swing.
Maxim Peter Griffin…
I was born in 83
I’m almost 37.
Youngest of 6
I like the North Sea
Big, low rivers
And flat round pebbles
Right now I’m listening to
Pyroclasts by Sunn O)))
It makes me feel like a mountain
I swam in the sea earlier
But it was freezing
Then I flew a kite with my sons
Later, I cooked a simple meal
Beef pie, chips, greens
Gravy etc then fruit cake
and drank beer from Spain
as a ship from Singapore rolled up the Humber
and wrote this as Chinese sailors prepare for a night on shore in Goole
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P R A Y E R
Prayer to the Gods for bringing transformation, awareness and more understanding to the cause of the disabled, neurodivergent and chronically ill. It is time for the eyes of the abled to be wide open to our cause and for more kindness, compassion and aid to be the norm towards us. May the Gods hear us!
O Asklepios, Patron of Medicine, thou who was punished for thy craft, bring knowledge and open the eyes of those who do not want to see the suffering of those who are ill. Dear Healing God, bring peace and safety to those who need thy help and unleash the serpent on those refusing to bring their help to the sick. O thou who was human like us, understand our suffering and our plea. O blessed resurrected one, thou received thy place on Olympus as a God for thine sorrow and woes, may thee bring strength to our cause. O Saving God, thou who loved humans and the ill so much, we worship thee, may thy staff always heal true.
O Cerridwen, Goddess of the Cauldron, bring the transformative power of magic and wisdom to the ill and disabled. Help their might be reborn so their souls may have the strength to help the fight. Bring fertility to the cause and bring them the inspiration for their words to flow, bringing understanding to those who have their eyes shut. O Goddess of science, make researchers and doctors be more compassionate, but also help them find the way to make the lives of the disabled, neurodivergent and sick as best as possible. O Wise One, transform the world for us into a better place and may your cauldron-womb birth again the Earth into a safer and more empathic place. O Goddess of the Dark Moon, we worship thee and ask for thy help, please bring us all out of the darkness.
O Hathor, Primeval Goddess from whom all others are derived, with thy sistrum drive evil from the land and inspire goodness in all. O Patron Goddess of joy and celebration, bring happiness and light in the darkness to all who hurt and can’t find the light. O Patron of the evening and morning star, take us out of the night, and may each new day bring us strength and inspiration to make the world a better place. Dear Goddess of Rebirth and Rejuvenation, birth us all again into a better world. O Mother, bring the Field of Reeds to this world and protect us all. O thou who fertilises the land, we worship and honour thee for paving the way for a more compassionate world.
O Cernunnos, Wild God of the Forest, bring fertility and prosperity to those who need it.
O God of Death and the dying, comfort the dead and dying by singing to them on their way to the spirit world. Make the path easier to those who fear death and bring thine blessings to the disabled and ill. O Horned God, thou who reflects the seasons of the year and the cycles of life, death and rebirth, please help us see the right path. Dear God of bi-directionality, be the mediator between us and the abled, bring peace, fruitfulness and understanding to our cause. O Green Man of the Woods, thou who brings life to the forest and all the beings, we worship and honour thee.
O Hekate, Goddess of the Moon, magic and the night. Bring calm and peaceful sleep to those who suffer so they may have the power to fight. O thou who guided Persephone through the night with thine flaming torches, guide the ill, disabled and neurodivergent so they find the strength in themselves to bring understanding for those who suffer of chronic illnesses, who are disabled or even just different. Please lift the mysteries and bring empathy and knowledge to those who refuse to see our light and beauty. O Mighty Goddess, ruler over the souls of the departed, make their suffering not in vain so their lives have meaning. O Goddess of Crossroads, show the right path to the world so we may all live as equals. O Goddess who has power over the heaven, earth and sea, we honour and thank thee for thy help.
O Cailleach, Creator Deity and Queen of Winter, lift the veil from the eyes of those who refuse to see us. Take us out of the cold winterland and show us the path out of the wilderness. May thee show the abled that their thoughts about us are wrong and need to change. O dear Goddess, freeze the soul of those who refuse to help us or to have compassion so they may see the error of their ways. Please bring thy firewood to our hearths so we may battle out of this long winter and finally see the dawn. O Ancient Crone of Wisdom and Bringer of Transitions, the winter might bring death, but it also brings the spring, and all will be endlessly renewed. Thou who is also Brighid, bright Goddess of the Flame, Medicine and the Well, may your many faces help us have the power to change the world, and finally destroy the walls built around us.
O Helios, God of the Sun, thou who emerge each dawn on your chariot and who fly the land from East to West, please bring understanding to the whole world and bring light to the unfairness that is the bane of the sufferers. O Guardian of Oaths, make that doctors and physicians follow their promise of bringing no ill to the sick, neurodivergent and disabled, make them remember their oath of helping us all, without judgement, unfairness and ill-will. O God of Sight, make all see the errors of their ways so they may protect the ones who are different, ill and disabled, as they should, and not keep us in the darkness, alone and lonely. O God of Light we honour thee and thank thee for bringing the fire to fight to our hearts.
O Gods and Goddesses, hear our pleas and make the world a fairer and safer place for us all. May we live as equals and may the abled see beauty and worth in our differences. May they realise that we are all one, abled and disabled, neurotypical and neurodivergent, ill and healthy. Bring transformation, compassion, awareness and more understanding to our cause and lives, and bless us all with strength in our struggles. We thank you and honour you all!
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Ω
Photo: Haunted Museum of Nature
Special thanks to Tor for the ARC
