guacamole
March 14th 2005, 11:20 AM
I just picked up a book of AB's short stories entitled "Ancient Sorceries and Other Stories." Two of his stories were supperlative, including a story called "The Willows", about an extended canoe trip down the Danube river and spiritual forces encountered in an extremely remote and isolated area. Some of the others were so-so. I tend to dislike gothic romances and several of his stories deal with that sort of tragic love, with a supernatural twist thrown in: one about a man who falls in love with a shape changing witch and another about a man who falls in love with a snow spirit. I haven't quite finished the book yet. One thing that stands out to me is AB's extreme reverence for nature. He refers to "Nature" as it almost becomes a character in his stories.
Spiritually AB dabbled in many paths, from eastern mysticism to spiritualism to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Later in life he abandoned most of these for a quasi-naturalistic spirituality which seems drawn out in many of his stories. I bring this up here because he seems like he would have been a wiccan (of the nature worshipping sort, I suppose) had those ideas been formulated at the time of his life (late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries).
anywho,
guac.
Spiritually AB dabbled in many paths, from eastern mysticism to spiritualism to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Later in life he abandoned most of these for a quasi-naturalistic spirituality which seems drawn out in many of his stories. I bring this up here because he seems like he would have been a wiccan (of the nature worshipping sort, I suppose) had those ideas been formulated at the time of his life (late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries).
anywho,
guac.