Today is one of those days where everything changes, we’ve all experienced them, where something occurs and you know your life will never be the same again.
I have been broken and remade many times since this journey with FoolishPeople began and I long ago learnt to value the dead.
This is a time where we remember our ancestors. The ones far back in the reaches of time, who we never knew. And those who were very close, ushering us into the world to nourish and nurture us, so we might grow into adults and live and love and experience the wide and varied adventures life offers us each on our journey.
Today is different, today I remember my mother. A woman with a gift, a connection to the divine realms, to the lands of the spirits. A woman who could hear the whispers of other places. My mother raised me alone, for a great deal of it in a graveyard, she would visit every week to tend to the graves and remember those she lost so young.
My father and her parents.
The loss of those we love is a form of Armageddon that we cannot survive intact. We are broken and remade.
I lost my mother in 2016 and I did the only thing I knew would help.
I began a ritual. A rite to mark her passing.
The creation of a story, that would help me traverse the landscape of grief and loss.
A ritual in dedication to the memory of my mother. The portal through which I entered this world.
That ritual came to its conclusion today, with the release of Armageddon Gospels which is dedicated to the memory of Joyce Rose Harrigan.
The Ritual has ended, the ritual has begun.
Refugee gods, transposed to flesh and blood, wash ashore to rouse the myths of ancient England, half-drowned in a forgotten past. They disperse through shifting realities to awaken the giant Albion and find the holy grail in a ritual to save England from the rot of darkness and hatred that’s strangling its soul.
“Armageddon Gospels is a true and timely work of magic in every sense: often delightful, firmly anchored in British myth, consciously an act of ritual, and deeply profound.” Cat Vincent - The Daily Grail
You can rent or buy the film today from iTunes and AppleTV in the UK, USA and Canada.
Tonight at 8pm the trailer to Lightships, my third feature is released. You can view the premiere here at 8pm.
This is the first email from my new newsletter. I can’t apologise if it’s too honest or raw.
I hope to share lots of useful information, things you can apply in your own work and life, things I’ve learnt over the last thirty years as a ritual storyteller. Filmmaker and writer.
I hope you’ll join me for the next stage of the journey.
Love
John Harrigan