online: 29 june 2015
modified: 28 june 2015
23 june 2015 midsummer night
...i can hardly think of this time without being reminded of
Shakespeare's play... and fairies... and how is it that many of us who
might dismiss supernatural beings as nonsense nevertheless are attracted
to his most magical plays...
...how is it that the writing and performing of imaginary people and
events can partly dismiss the real world as we call it... and in doing
so can permit new ideas to take form and be tried out... ?
...what sort of a thing is the human being and brain that can support
and enjoy or even fear such (self-created ?) diversities of belief and
reality... ?
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear ? *
...and as i write of these things i feel that the words are
insufficient to such questions and imaginings...
...but soon it will be too dark to continue sitting in the forest... and
looking round for living beings or even supernatural... while a most
delicate and elegant mosquito hovers above my fingers...
...almost midsummer's night... and still no fairies... among the tree
trunks leaves and branches... and many hidden insects and other larger
creatures who must be waiting for me to leave... before they can
continue lives we do not notice...
*William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 5 Scene 2 (lines
21-2 in The New Penguin Shakespeare, edited by Stanley Wells,
Harmondsworth 1967).
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