The Free Radical

(Waiting By the Bridge by Ritual from their 2007 album The Hemulic Voluntary Band)

In case you haven’t noticed, the Hoodoos are the most attention-grabbing landscape feature in our neck of the woods. The highway curves around their base just across the Dutch Creek bridge where things often get a bit tricky. Tourists don’t hesitate to stop anywhere on highways, even in blind curves, when they see something so obviously photo-worthy. The Hoodoos have been the site of many many motor vehicle accidents over the years. There’s just something about them…

“The world over,” began Rodney’s latest presentation, “the Amnesiacs insisted that there was only one right way to live, and they enforced it through a policy of genocide. There’s was an agroindustrial form of domination that demanded the forests and vales be abandoned or transformed according to a totalitarian method of food production.”

“Once the StoryKeepers had passed their oral traditions to the Rodderick clan of the Raven Nation for safekeeping, they abandoned their peaceful homes and embarked upon a journey of warriorship. They knew that without their oral traditions, the Amnesiacs would be disconnected from the Earth… for they would be disconnected from that portion of their minds engaged in myth. All of their plans would become so very short-sighted… and ultimately doomed.”

“The StoryKeepers transformed themselves into the Ancient Sorcerers; their magicks relied upon the art of ritual; they remained mythic in their basic orientation… for as long as they could endure.”

“But the unliving, unloving technology of the Amnesiacs became too proficient at dealing death to any resistance… and ritual is blocked by a mind in fear. Among the Ancient Sorcerers a fatal doubt took hold.”

“With the loss of the ritualistic mind, with the loss of myth and intuition, their magicks became weak and ineffectual. There was only one, Ajna, who continued to rally the noble cause of the Ancient Sorcerers. Ajna was whole and complete in himself, a being of great vision. If ever his leadership was severed from the rest of the clan, the fight would be over…”

…and all their dreams for themselves and their children would all turn to stone.”