So, where was I? Oh yes – it's
winter, the fires are lit, the moon is new, the air is clean with the
cold of the season and the darkness of the year grows thicker. The
signs in the passing year are clear -
it is the time when the forces in our
subconsciousness become vivid, are imagined more forcefully, and are
cast onto the blank canvasses of deeper, darker nights.
One of the key elements of this
interplay of creativity that becomes externalised as we retreat into
our hibernation is that of sharing our stories. Whether by
candlelight on Halloween, round the fire on Bonfire Night, or at a
seasonal masquerade, carnival, or pantomime. The ritualised aspect of
sharing our stories, or pooling our imaginations, is a key part of
this process. By mutually indulging our dreams, our imagined demons,
we allow our perceptions of reality to shift. We engineer situations
that are eerie, are chilling, are atmospheric, so that we can
experience reality through a different filter – or, perhaps, no
filter at all.
In many ways, the birth of the 'modern'
gothic archetypes can be traced back to such an exchange. It was in
the summer of 1816 at Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva that three days of
incessant rain made it's summertime inhabitants – Shelley and his
wife Mary, Lord Byron, and his physician John Polidori – spend
their days inside exchanging tales of the macabre and fantastical. It
was this shared experience, done in the spirit of collaboration and
not a little competition, that led directly to the conception of Mary
Shelley's 'Frankenstein'
and indirectly (from Stoker via Byron and Polidori) of 'Dracula'
and the romantic conception of the vampire myth.
It is easy to imagine the scene: the
log fire, candlelight, incessant rain, thunder, lightning and wine of
a night spent in collective creativity. It is equally easy – not to
say tempting – to think that any such culturally significant act of
genius could be achieved if we had the resources and means to spend a
summer at a lakeside mansion in Switzerland.
But such an interpretation misses the
point. The core activities of that lakeside meeting were the simple
acts of creativity and communication; and as an activity that can be
performed more or less anywhere at any time this holds in itself a
liberating, democratic act of vocalising our summoned spirits. After
all, the emphasis placed on the written rather than the spoken word
is not universal; the art of handing down and elaborating tales has
fallen out of practice due to the saturation of mass communication,
rather than dialogue. Yet although the practice of shared
storytelling cannot necessarily translate to any widely understood
truths, they can absolutely lead to the uncovering of our innate
creativity. As a process, it is a key that unlocks our subconscious –
and even more so our shared shadows.
So take some time this winter to spend
a night with friends, light a candle, share a glass of wine, and
enjoy the process or expressing and imagining our stories. And who
knows? Perhaps through that process you can unlock some of the doors
in your own mind – and these stories may take on a life all of
their own.