Music of the Night (25 page)

One way of keeping a grip on the Zeitgeist, of course, is to hitch our stories to the avatars of permanent fascination, the creatures of mythology who may shift shapes but who still retain some measure of their ancient forms in order to keep their power in changed times. They are the shadows of our imaginative heritage: the monsters of depravity and of genius, the border-runners of cultural values, the ancestors of our deep and vigorous inner lives. They are the gold that artists mine, the bogeys that we long to outgrow, the angels of inspiration and creativity.

This work is meant to honor these eminences of the deep cultural mind even as it makes playful use of them, invades them and exposes them. Vampire, werewolf, witch, and monster: they are our siblings and our teachers, our mirrors and our guardians. Enjoy them, learn from them, treat them with respect, because where we go, these unreal beings will go with us until we have evolved into different creatures ourselves.

And maybe even then.

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