The Magical Society of Rocks

“The Good Witch of the North amused the people by transforming ten stones into ten birds, the ten birds into ten lambs, and the ten lambs into ten little girls, who gave a pretty dance and were then transformed into ten stones again, just as they were in the beginning.” L. Frank Baum, The Road to Oz, Books of Wonder, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, NY 1909, P. 252 Inspired by L. Frank Baum’s fictional land of OZ (1), I play with the idea of a powerless sorceress, which travels through North America to find sanctuary in nature’s enchanted wilderness. She is wandering around, discovering rugged landscapes where magic unfolds in its natural way. - OZ - In 1900 L. Frank Baum created a magical country, the Land of OZ(1), which is described in his children’s novel “The Wonderful Wizard of OZ” and its thirteen sequels. In this book series young readers are invited to discover a hidden fairyland cut off from the rest of the world by a natural barrier, known as the Deadly Desert. Baum characterized OZ as a real place, an alternative dimension, invisible to the human eye. Ruled by female sorceresses and good witches, OZ could be seen as a kind of a feminist utopia. In all aspects, geographical and sociological, OZ should be seen in relation to the United States. (2) “All the magic isn’t in fairyland,” he [the Shaggy Man] said gravely. “There’s lots of magic in all Nature, and you may see it as well in the United States, where you [Betsy] and I once lived, as you can here.” L. Frank Baum, Tik Tok of OZ, 1914, p.161; Books of Wonder, Harper Collins Publishers, New York, NY ---------- (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_of_Oz (2) “Schematically, Oz is much like the United States, with the Emerald City taking the place of Chicago: to the East, mixed forest and farmland; to the West, treeless plains and fields of wheat; to the South, warmth and lush growth, and red earth.”