Last week I wrote about an overnight stop in Kutaisi to pick up guests and bring them to our mountain house. As I descended to Jvari, then towards Zugdidi from Etseri, there was a lot of rain, which overflowed the drainage channels and shattered the quiet night in the city.
The next day, it was revealed that the rain in the lowlands of west Georgia had turned into snow on the mountain walls opposite Etseri. Early September? Indeed.
The mountain wall was not visible until the morning after that day when I took photos of the unexpected change in weather and scenery. What, or who?
The light snow on the Wall revealed the face of an enormous skull, complete with eye sockets and a ghastly smile. I took the shot, and I can’t look away. The raw digital file confirms what I saw. All I did was crop and increase the contrast. Death in all his terrible finality. He occupies about 1/3 of the image’s width and height, and is looking at the upper left corner. He was not meant to last more than a few hours or days. The light snow that formed him would quickly melt.
I don’t pick what I see; I just take pictures. Sometimes the subject is happy or beautiful, and other times it can be one that brings dread to the heart. “Death” would not be something most people would want to hang on their walls, but I was fascinated by the image and noticed its grimace and terror.
The ending of the Dancer story has several branches. The Dancer is supposed to avalanche and kill the four young men who attack him with shovels in order to improve Etseri’s fortune for the next year. (The residents of Etseri used to do this by leaving his one leg pointed right at the village). There is much weeping, wailing and mourning at the loss of brave but foolish youths in the village. They all share a common funeral.
The other ending has the Dancer resign and only wound the young man, to teach them an important lesson, which they finally learn after several years of trying. They survive. The Dancer had planned to kill them.
Death is the one who brings about the endings of our world, and in my fictional one. He is also the one who convinces Denver to not go down this path that leads nowhere. The villagers could use their shovels to attack the land beneath him, not just his snowy form. This would alter the topology that causes him to form every midsummer and prevent him from ever re-forming. He would be gone forever, after reappearing every July for centuries.
Listening to his grim counselor, he pulls a little back, releasing the bruising pain instead of giving the youths over to Death’s hand, sparing the villagers from bitterness that could change their lives.
I am realizing more and more that my photographically-based Svaneti fantasy stories may continue to grow and get richer as more details emerge and find their way through my camera lenses. Another question that I have is, do those who read the stories discover what those with vision and wonder see? Or does the capacity for such vision draw, or even cause images with all of their underlying physical reality of water vapor, or geology, to those who have it? This is also a question I will attempt to answer.
In the meantime, what I see is sometimes beautiful, other times inspiring awe, or even terror. I record it and find a place for it within the mythology that I am creating. Do I ever wish that I didn’t possess this gift?
Never.
Blog by Tony Hanmer
Tony Hanmer is a writer and photographer who has been working for GT since 2011. He has lived in Georgia and Svaneti, respectively, since 1999. He runs the “Svaneti Renaissance” Facebook group, now with over 2000 members, at www.facebook.com/groups/SvanetiRenaissance/
He and his wife also run their own guest house in Etseri: www.facebook.com/hanmer.house.svaneti
Read More @ georgiatoday.ge