Autumn awakens.
This is odd. I just finished posting my entry, hit a key, and another internet site popped up. When I went back, my entry was gone. Where did it go? Is it floating out there somewhere nearby, reclining on the internet ethers, similar to the way that Moondust once drifted in and out of my awareness like morning mist?
Also, it keeps eliminating my paragraphs!!!
Let's give it another try. This is Athie checking in after a long interim. We have been quiet with the loss of two mothers, the illness of a third (S.), and the summery return of a fourth (R.). We have been quiet while Beth had her nose rearranged due to a small spot of basal cell, a minor problem but a messy solution with two black eyes and numerous stitches. Meanwhile, the moving, the endless process of moving.
Finally we are somewhat settled. Our home is nearly 100 years old, soft and kind, slanty throughout, a chimney in the coat closet, a front porch held up by ancient tree trunks. She exudes kindness, this house with her wide-eyed windows. A weed-filled lawn opens to a narrow street where people pass on bikes, or walk their dogs. On trash days an entrepreneur on a scooter zips along scooping up the aluminum from our recycling bins. Someday we'll pull out the small lawn and plant blueberry bushes and flowers instead.
I would like a plum tree, like my sister's.
It is nearly the end of August, the beginning of a day (8:42am), and the temperature outside is a perfect 64 degrees Fahrenheit. This is what I call river otter weather, when the air is clear and cool as creek water. Or, as some would say, writing weather! As many of us know, November is NANOWRIMO--- the annual National Novel Writing Month. Last year during NANOWRIMO, I completed MOONDUST. This year I'll finish up SUNBEAM'S SALAMANDER (which was due out in June... oops!), now with a publication goal of January 2012. Or... who knows, maybe I'll be finished with SALAMANDER by November, and we'll discover there is something else in the works. Or maybe I'll be reading one of YOUR books, with gusto!
In my short lifespan I have already learned that you never know. For instance, you never know when a plump, ripe crayfish might pop its head out from under a nearby rock. And sometimes you can catch something by doubling back--where (you never know!) YOU might get taken by surprise. It's always worth it. Keep your eyes and ears open, and never stop sniffing the air around you, and when you have the chance to eat, eat. We need lots of energy in order to play, isn't that so? Writers need energy to write, and the best sourse of that energy is space/ time set aside to contemplate. Time you can count on. You can count on yourself to find it, just as I have always found my food, even when I had to be exceedingly sneaky about it... otherwise I wouldn't be here. Otherwise you wouldn't be here.
We found this poem in the midst of moving. It has already been YEARS since it was written, although it seems like yesterday. It's by Beth DeLap, about the US invasion of Iraq.
AFTER THE WAR, AFTER THE RESURRECTION
After the resurrection, war
continues, only now it's in
the name of Christ
that children become orphans
and girls and boys get raped
and men are tortured, exactly
like Christ on the Cross.
Little do they know:
When Christ rose to sit beside God,
he took the form of a turtle!
Yes. That being which is shaped
like a rock, a bowl, or a box,
even a landmine or a hand grenade
with no fuse whatsoever.
It is so.
Some traditions view all the earth
as turtle herself;
earth's plates and protrusions her back
upon which we ride.
The oceans? Her eyes. No doubt,
this Planet is indeed Christ,
resurrected. Wise, hardened, soft inside,
molten, yet cold, wet as rain, dry as
drought, eternal, hidden.
Little do they know:
When Christ rose to sit beside God,
"God" simply meant us,
all the earth and more.
Does turtle mind carrying us? Does she
suffer? Does she drape us like guilt
across her shoulders? Must she
die in childbirth like Christ on the Cross
in order to bear us? None of that.
I, for example, am born again. Here is
how it really works:
During the dark night of
Christian Bush's Iraq war-
bombing- torture,
my brain was most kindly removed, a turtle
set in that space. Turtles are, after all,
about the same size,
but far superior, thank you
Jesus.
http://www.thewholesalamander.net/index.html
Also, it keeps eliminating my paragraphs!!!
Let's give it another try. This is Athie checking in after a long interim. We have been quiet with the loss of two mothers, the illness of a third (S.), and the summery return of a fourth (R.). We have been quiet while Beth had her nose rearranged due to a small spot of basal cell, a minor problem but a messy solution with two black eyes and numerous stitches. Meanwhile, the moving, the endless process of moving.
Finally we are somewhat settled. Our home is nearly 100 years old, soft and kind, slanty throughout, a chimney in the coat closet, a front porch held up by ancient tree trunks. She exudes kindness, this house with her wide-eyed windows. A weed-filled lawn opens to a narrow street where people pass on bikes, or walk their dogs. On trash days an entrepreneur on a scooter zips along scooping up the aluminum from our recycling bins. Someday we'll pull out the small lawn and plant blueberry bushes and flowers instead.
I would like a plum tree, like my sister's.
It is nearly the end of August, the beginning of a day (8:42am), and the temperature outside is a perfect 64 degrees Fahrenheit. This is what I call river otter weather, when the air is clear and cool as creek water. Or, as some would say, writing weather! As many of us know, November is NANOWRIMO--- the annual National Novel Writing Month. Last year during NANOWRIMO, I completed MOONDUST. This year I'll finish up SUNBEAM'S SALAMANDER (which was due out in June... oops!), now with a publication goal of January 2012. Or... who knows, maybe I'll be finished with SALAMANDER by November, and we'll discover there is something else in the works. Or maybe I'll be reading one of YOUR books, with gusto!
In my short lifespan I have already learned that you never know. For instance, you never know when a plump, ripe crayfish might pop its head out from under a nearby rock. And sometimes you can catch something by doubling back--where (you never know!) YOU might get taken by surprise. It's always worth it. Keep your eyes and ears open, and never stop sniffing the air around you, and when you have the chance to eat, eat. We need lots of energy in order to play, isn't that so? Writers need energy to write, and the best sourse of that energy is space/ time set aside to contemplate. Time you can count on. You can count on yourself to find it, just as I have always found my food, even when I had to be exceedingly sneaky about it... otherwise I wouldn't be here. Otherwise you wouldn't be here.
We found this poem in the midst of moving. It has already been YEARS since it was written, although it seems like yesterday. It's by Beth DeLap, about the US invasion of Iraq.
AFTER THE WAR, AFTER THE RESURRECTION
After the resurrection, war
continues, only now it's in
the name of Christ
that children become orphans
and girls and boys get raped
and men are tortured, exactly
like Christ on the Cross.
Little do they know:
When Christ rose to sit beside God,
he took the form of a turtle!
Yes. That being which is shaped
like a rock, a bowl, or a box,
even a landmine or a hand grenade
with no fuse whatsoever.
It is so.
Some traditions view all the earth
as turtle herself;
earth's plates and protrusions her back
upon which we ride.
The oceans? Her eyes. No doubt,
this Planet is indeed Christ,
resurrected. Wise, hardened, soft inside,
molten, yet cold, wet as rain, dry as
drought, eternal, hidden.
Little do they know:
When Christ rose to sit beside God,
"God" simply meant us,
all the earth and more.
Does turtle mind carrying us? Does she
suffer? Does she drape us like guilt
across her shoulders? Must she
die in childbirth like Christ on the Cross
in order to bear us? None of that.
I, for example, am born again. Here is
how it really works:
During the dark night of
Christian Bush's Iraq war-
bombing- torture,
my brain was most kindly removed, a turtle
set in that space. Turtles are, after all,
about the same size,
but far superior, thank you
Jesus.
http://www.thewholesalamander.net/index.html