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My highly upset, anally retentive and very hygienic father raged at my dragging a decaying and decrepit rams skull from a deserted mine into the house when I was seven, despaired over my obsessing over an image of the hand of glory in a copy of ‘Man Myth and Magick’ when I was ten but we both knew the die was already cast.
Despite being passionately anti violence, a lover of animals and a long time vegetarian and sometime vegan my magick involves the appreciation and crafting of bones and remnants of that which was once living, i.e. dead stuff.
About 10 months ago I met a compatriot in this obsession, Georgina, who has the benefit of being a taxidermist in training who donated to me the most beautiful bones to recreate into magickal art.
We recently joined forces to set up an online occult art gallery and bone supplier and to launch ourselves joined forces with Mandrake of Oxford to do a joint stall at the Verdelet Event in Ludlow, Shropshire on the 9th June.
I felt a certain comfort hidden behind a barrier of books which gradually melded into mounds of animal skulls, horns, jars of snake vertebrae and my business partner‘s pet bird eating spider (security).
As I couldn‘t indulge in the wonderful speakers on offer I merrily chatted away to various browsers who by and large were more than happy to ogle over the meditative possibilities of a selection of snake vertebrae, ruminate on how to get a full size horse skull home, what they could do with porcupine quills and query as to whether we had any sheep’s hearts.
Most seemed to appreciate our wares though one chap refused to believe that everything on the stall had died naturally or as road kill and was legal/papered and fastidiously investigated.
Muttering that ravens were too intelligent to end up as road kill and it was a disgrace (to which a wonderfully earthy Devon witch retorted ‘we kill them where I’m from‚ they’re pests’) and then moving onto a rant on how strange everything on the stall was before skulking off to another talk clutching his book on Phallic Worship and leaving us to continue talking to other members of the drifting crowds who liked the feel of our stall because it reminded them of their living room.
A really great day ensconced amongst my favourite thing: books, magick, art and bones.
Next time I really must get to see those speakers!
Charlotte Rodgers
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