Incantation

In 1795 the great German thinker, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, published a fairytale, 'The Green Snake and the Lily', in a magazine named Die Horen, created by his contemporary, Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller. Such tales are also embedded in the far ancestral past, in ancient Egyptian tales transcribed by W. M. Flinders Petrie in 1899. For the storyteller, Genie Poretzky-Lee, this knowledge underpins awareness of an ancient literary genre, validating a tradition of short poetic stories. The INCANTATION publications facilitate an exploration of this unusual form of writing, in a renewed and inspired way, alongside Genie's photographic illustrations. Volume 1: Calling Forth the Unexpected is inspired by Rudyard Kipling's The Crab that Played with the Sea, part of a volume of children's stories titled Just So Stories, published in 1902. Listening to a reading on BBC radio 4. Genie became intensely absorbed by the tale; the rhythmic cadence of the words were an INCANTATION manifesting the presence of magic and this experience absorbed her totally. Her inner child, never far away, woke up to the power of those words, facilitating her writing; a recollection of forgotten rituals practiced by our ancestors to honour and tame the natural world around them when 'incanting' magical powers of witches and wizards. The words are dedicated to Pan, a personal mythical hero - protector of raw and unspoiled nature - sounding his pipes to accompany this story - barely a story, almost a song - invoking a bewitching transmission.