Until last night I’d never knowingly listened to a song by Grimes. Last night I listened to Grimes because she is now on my fairy radar.
I was reading The Manifesto Handbook by Julian Hanna (a terrific book, btw), when I experienced a delightful moment of serendipity.
Hanna mentioned in passing Grimes’ Instagram manifesto from 2017.
“The fae are the children living at the end of the world, who make art that reflects what it’s like to live knowing the earth may not sustain humanity much longer.
“We live knowing that environmentally driven genocide is nigh, that the least equipped are to be struck down by the very earth itself. Repentance by the innocent for the sins of the rich. This does not mean that all fae art is directly about this, but that the influence of this reality is inescapable for the fae.”
Grimes writes that this is only the first part of the manifesto, but a cursory search does not reveal the rest. I know Grimes only from her connection to Elon Musk.
This is a neat find since the conclusion of the fairy book (extremely long essay?) will be about appropriating fairies and other spirits for radical ecology.
I haven’t started researching the concluding chapters yet, but something like Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future by Bron Taylor is probably digging in the same garden.
“How can environmentally oriented, spiritually motivated individuals and movements be understood as religious when many of them reject religious and supernatural worldviews? The “dark” of the title further expands this idea by emphasizing the depth of believers’ passion and also suggesting a potential shadow side: besides uplifting and inspiring, such religion might mislead, deceive, or in some cases precipitate violence.”