The fascination is not so surprising: there were healers in my family, and my grandfather, my mother tells me quite calmly, used to perform exorcisms.Īs an adult, settled back in the UK, I eventually found my feet as a journalist and travel writer. In truth, the bewitching, beguiling Other ‘out there’ – what some might call spirit, the numinous, an animating presence, the ancestors – has always been my companion, my secret lodestar. Now, in hindsight it seems perfectly natural that I, an outdoors lover, would end up being drawn to the Other in the landscape – really, I was seeking friends and kin. The question “Where are you from?” has always induced a big intake of breath. This article was first published by Resurgence & Ecologist magazine. The colour of your skin inevitably makes you Other in the West, to some degree. I have also always been seen as Other, the perennial square peg in a round hole – British born, parents of Indian descent, from South Africa. These things seemed perfectly normal to me. I was into witches and spells, and one of our first homes in Canada, in rural Quebec – where I’d moved from my birth land, England, at the age of seven – was haunted. I was the child longing for a magic carpet ride, or a Narnia beyond my wardrobe. The Other has always loomed large in my life.
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