Natural wonders, elves, gnomes, trolls, gremlins and smurfs: real people, imaginary world

excerpted from IN AND OF: memoirs of a mystic journey, by Jack Haas

            I was free, and so I fled back to the Charlottes once again, back to the land of inexplicable wonders, magical vortices, and natural abundance. Back also to the land of elves, gnomes, silkies, trolls, gremlins, and smurfs. I say this because it was here that I would meet all these mythical species hidden in the disguises of the craziest litany of seekers, bush folk, renegades, musicians, anarchists, occultists, hippies, angels, demons, tree-huggers, and an implausible assortment of other fringe types who had found their way to the outer edge of the known world, and there paraded their sublime beings on the diaphanous veil of the corpulent flesh. Which is another way of saying that my frequent sojourns to the luminescent isles were regularly peopled by a plethora of colorful locals, drifters, and eccentrics; individuals who, for one reason or another, had seen fit to step aside from the stampeding herd of manic degenerates- from civilization, that is- and venture out into the isolated and forgotten reaches where the malaise of the mob had not yet fully infiltrated.

excerpted from:

IN AND OF: memoirs of a mystic journey

by Jack Haas

*

*

Mystical books, visionary art, and fine art photography by Jack Haas