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Blog started in Jan 2005: 1st entries for Write in Every Genre. Then the REAL ME begins |
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It Hurts When I Stop Talking Sometime in Fall of 1998, when a visit from Dad was infrequent, and primarily at the mercy of his 88 Toyota making the 50 mile journey, I was being treated to lunch. The restaurant was my choice, I think. Sisley Italian Kitchen at the Town Center mall was somewhere my dad had not yet tried, so that was my pick. Either I was being treated to the luxury of lunch and adult conversation without my husband and 5 year old son in tow, or that's just how the moment has lodged in my memory. The more I think about it, they probably were there, but enjoying the Italian food too much to bother interrupting. Daddy and his lady friend at the time, Anne, came up together and made a day of it with me and the family. We were eating together and talking about some of my scripts, stories, coverages, poems and other creative attempts that really were not seeing the light of day. I think I'd just finished a group reading of The Artist's Way and was in a terribly frenetic mood over my writing. I think I'd just given them an entire rundown on a speculative Star Trek script. My Dad asked me point blank, “Why don’t you write it?? Anne agreed. It sure sounded like I wanted to write it. Why wasn't I writing seriously? It's what I'd set out to do when earning my college degree in Broadcasting many years earlier. Heck, I should, I agreed non-verbally. “I will.” But, I didn’t. Blogs can be wild, unpredictable storehouses of moments, tangents, creative dervishes, if you will. I'm getting a firmer handle on my creative cycle. My mental compost heap (which is a catch phrase from Natalie Goldman or Julia Cameron - I can't think which, right now) finally seems to be allowing a fairly regular seepage of by-products. That may be a gross analogy, but I give myself credit to categorize my work in raw terms. It proves that I'm not so much the procrastinating perfectionist that I once was. Still, I always seem to need prompts and motivation. Being a self-starter is the next step. My attempt to keep up in the Write in Every Genre Contest at the beginning of the year seemed like a perfect point to launch the blog. |
| Little Things like asking the right questions... I finally have a better insight into what causes my daughter discomfort in public situations. She's always asked me to tone down my speaking voice in a store; it's the attention it draws. I knew this on a practical level, but never thought about it from an emotional level. This time she explained in detail when I asked what made it uncomfortable for her. (I don't think I ever asked before). She and I talked after a miscalculation at the register buying groceries had she and I center stage in a public place tonight -- lengthy, uncomfortable, but financially necessary to correct. The details of the explanation are not important to go over here, but that I know -- that's the eye-opener. |
| I bulldoze my mornings. Heaven help the neighbors (in my head), as my mind is not required by City ordinance to keep quiet until a decent hour -- 6:45-7:15am is the norm. By habit, I do, even while trying to remind myself to "be still and know" first off. This means I already have headphones on and find myself listening to a third piece on Billy Joel's You Tube Channel before I realize that my prayer time got lost somewhere between letting the dogs out and several stanzas into Honesty. That's alright, my spiritual practice is adaptable. I recognize God as the beat of the piano keys, and all human need in the words from the songwriter is in harmony with that Divine tune. I know my day already unfolds effortlessly, and that in the midst of its beauty, its honesty, my activity in it is productive, relaxing, perhaps includes new discoveries for me and those around me. For all this and more, I am grateful. I ADMIT the enjoyment of the music keeps me from going deep, but it reminds me that there is an ever-present law at work that always says "yes." Due to this, it is all that much easier to release any further handling to God, and know it is done. |
| My prayer this morning pulled together like surface debris from a tsunami wave; remnants of a late snatch of dream before I rose at 6:15. It was none the less capped by powerful insight. I put this all forth as prelude to explain why my topic is jumbled as it is. How to join together two divergent, morning thoughts: How did stripes come into fashion originally? (A story research detail), and Am I the first to think of God as "the ghost in the machine" of my own body? Last point first...Yes, my morning prayer proposed that God, as the center of my being, the master control technician recording all thought and action at a personal scope, not just "out there," is truly here. God as the hero inside the Japanese mech suit that is my body -- the fact that that storyline of man in the machine has been so popular throughout my lifetime tells me I couldn't possibly be the first to conceptualize the parallel with God and man. But it is still a very interesting connection to make. I have enjoyed the anime shows that have teams or whole armadas battling in giant robot fashion, but I'm sure at the time it was a cursory level of enjoyment. Reintroduced to the phrase, "give up the ghost" on Good Friday, the connection with "ghost in the machine" occurred today. (Also an interesting insight to my personal processing speed -- I must be an older model). As I write about it, I also can frame an idea of being a broadcast repeating station. I'm not going to delve into that thought further, just note it for later. Which brings me to my research detail, which I think really doesn't fit with my loftier idea, and so just gets a mention for later retrieval. The Breton stripe was worn by French sailors per a late Nineteenth-Century decree, and was popularized first in Victorian era children's clothing, swimwear, and later, men's and women's fashion. |
| In the sepulcher of the soul In this dark environ, In all that I am... I am whole, prepared in the holy womb. I journeyed away on the Father's silver coin. The prodigal Son, now returned. I am born. An act beyond synchronous beat Tumbled the stone for this Spirit to emerge. Joy greatly o'erflows past the garden boundaries. A place I've laid, grace now repaid. |
| What place does the contemplative person serve in the world? Are we those fringes at every edge of the mystical tapestry? On accepting communion, I imagine myself part of the woven center. See me, now -- a thread that cannot slide free thanks to the close embrace of others. |
| This is built from the late chapter in Metanoia -- a transformational journey (DeVorss 1980) to complete a Good Friday service touching upon the last seven words of Jesus. I have synthesized it with much of my own thought and words, but still acknowledge the framework that is the quoted words from that chapter in Metanoia -- a transformational journey by Mary O. Davis. How does our life finally transform in the manner of Christ Jesus? Poet John O’Donohue inspired me with the idea that if you can view yourself through acceptance, you will know the most intimate and forgiving compassion. And this is the word and the action taken by Jesus at the end: ACCEPTANCE "Acceptance means a complete letting go and letting God." (pg.98) It is momentous as related in the bible, and it often in life seems the most difficult task. However, with this final act of commitment, Jesus the man accepted the Christ consciousness, which all along was the will and the message of the Father. We must hear an important distinction in what word we are talking about, ACCEPTANCE, and that there is a great "difference between acceptance and resignation." (pg.98) Acceptance is positive, an affirmation of the creative power. Resignation would be barren of the life-affirming principle that we know is the Christ consciousness. To resign himself to his fate as the Son of God, would be to focus on the daunting circumstances of his ministry in an unfavorable political climate, in the questions at the Temple left unanswered from when he was a child, in all that could not be done. It would have created a bleak, wary creature believing "in a vast unknowable creation." (pg.98) This is not the Jesus we read about, however, is it? Through acceptance, there are miracles. All who believe can step away from the pain of ridicule, rise from the dead, be healed of blindness. Acceptance absolves the body of resistance. This one, final act removes the suffering. As long as a situation is resisted, the pain of it hangs with us. An acceptance says, “I trust the good will and the love of God.” (pg. 99) The power of creation is allowed to man through the example of Jesus’ acceptance. Nothing is left to make sense of when a situation is turned over to the consciousness that is the Christ consciousness. When Jesus spoke the last word, "He Gave up the ghost, and further, that moment reads like this: The veil of the temple was rent in two from the top to the bottom." (pg. 100) The curtain hanging in Soloman’s Temple physically blocked worshipers from seeing past it to the holy place beyond.Relinquishing belief in material reality is acceptance of the pure Christ consciousness. So, with freedom and confidence, all people are able to see past what was once believed. When we make the final act of giving up all personal ambitions and aims, the soul enters into the glory beyond. In the awakening to the Light of Spirit, and speaking these few final words, Jesus illuminated for us the last seven steps that we must take to finally overcome. |
| Awareness of a rock -- I think I want to write a lesson about knowing oneself like a rock deep in the Earth might know itself. It will be interesting to see if I can explain this. So, think of how a person feels about their appearance at whatever age that is most awkward. We can compare our outward appearance from what we see all around us, whether that is perceived as I am so different, or I am in a big boring sea of sameness. I can imagine the rock perceiving itself in one of these ways. The rock can only see rocky geode exterior, and might occasionally see the cracked open interior -- completely different, crystalline, shining, colorful, complex. Have to revisit. |
| I'm copying one of my favorite NFU (Notes from the Universe) off my desk to preserve it. Jill, when you move, I move. When you reach, I reach. And when you go the extra mile, I clear the way. But not a moment sooner. Which is why, before you move, reach, and go, things sometimes look so scary. Just like that, The Universe Jill, "I do" if "you do." Settled? I now pronounce us unstoppable attributed to Mike Dooley TUT |
| How does one survive being a writer? Just as painters rarely fetch huge commissions while their works are cranked out in a lifetime, it amazes me how little help a writer can get when the ink is still fresh. I experience a rush when something is first written (especially if it is completed). I also get a rush at a variety of times, from when it is re-written, polished, re-read, personally despised and stuck away, when it is rediscovered, re-written, polished... I'm not saying I am my biggest fan, but I am proud of my accomplishments. I just wish there was a way to dictate when others would read it or desire it. (is this the real purpose of sequels?) |
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