Forge = make or shape (a metal object) by heating it in a fire or furnace and hammering it; create (something) strong, enduring, or successful.
“Witchcraft is a poetic reality – born from the dragonflies that took shape in the sparks of the first blacksmith’s hammer – as He forged Beauty in the cave of Wisdom.”
Nicholaj de Mattos Frisvold, The Nocturnal Gospel
Art by Paul Gustave Doré.
Calcification = abnormal deposition of calcium salts within soft tissue often causing thickening or hardening.
“Keep awake, alive, new. Perform the paradox of being hard and yet soft. Survive without calcification of the tender membranes. Be a poet. Be alive.”
–Tennessee Williams
Art by Tsuchiya Koitsu.
Steward = someone who looks after something and protects it.
“Tell the whole truth. Don’t be lazy, don’t be afraid. Close the critic out when you are drafting something new. Take chances in the interest of clarity of emotion.
Be a good steward of your gifts. Protect your time. Feed your inner life. Avoid too much noise. Read good books, have good sentences in your ears. Be by yourself as often as you can. Walk. Take the phone off the hook. Work regular hours.”
–Jane Kenyon
Art by Eugene Lushpin.
Marsh = an area of low-lying land which is flooded in wet seasons or at high tide, and typically remains waterlogged at all times.
“You’re a fire person. What you’re most like is marsh-fire; (…) you got witch-oil in your soul.”
– Philip Pullman, Northern Lights
Art by Michael Cheval.
Trek = a trip or movement especially when involving difficulties or complex organization.
“A man’s work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.” – Albert Camus
Art by Charles Courtney Curran.
Porous = having minute interstices through which liquid or air may pass.
“Make your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing. Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude is everything.” – Rainer Maria Rilke
Art by Vladimir Kush.
Eccentric = unconventional and slightly strange.
“Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.” – Bertrand Russell
Art by Michael Cheval.
Hermit = a person living in solitude, recluse.
“Consciousness is a born hermit.” – George Santayana
Art by Tim White.
“A philosopher once asked, “Are we human because we gaze at the stars, or do we gaze at them because we are human?” Pointless, really…”Do the stars gaze back?” Now that’s a question.” – Neil Gaiman
Yes, they do. When you’re in love.
Art by Warwick Goble.
Foretell = to tell beforehand, to predict.
“The moon is dark, and the gods dance in the night; there is terror in the sky, for upon the moon hath sunk an eclipse foretold in no books of men or of earth’s gods.”
– H. P. Lovecraft
Art by Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky.
