The Hearthstone

Setting sail on a boat built just for me. She's a wooden hull, based on a Chesapeake Bay skipjack, with a low cabin and a single sail rigged forward.She's just the right size for two, with a large bow cabin below decks and a galley amidships.

Her name is Freedom. She is my haven, my peace, my escape and my sanity. She is almost everything a good lover should be. Being with her brings a lasting sense of tranquility that remains for days after I leave her. She is a comfort and a joy.

She is worth each and every penny that is spent on her, and like any boat she is an expensive mistress.

"Oh, for a ship and the open sea, and a star to sail her by" ~ (I don't know the author)

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Animal Companions

Have you ever noticed how many sci-fi and fantasy novels involve telepathic links with animals? Highly intelligent animals, some the equal of humans in an alien way, but animals by our standards? Have you ever wondered why?

I think it's because we have this dream on never being alone. Part of each of us has that desire to always have ONE companion who will love us without reservation, who's aware of our dreams and desires, our needs... and can answer them. But we're too afraid of one another to open ourselves that much to another person.... so we dream of bonds with another species, instead.

Anne McCaffery's dragons and fire lizards. Randall Garrett and Viki Anne Heydron's Sha'um. Jennifer Roberson's lir. So many others, but these stand out in my mind. Each of these gives their human partner a source of unconditional love and support, and in the case of the lir, wisdom and advice.

Why do YOU think we create these ideals for ourselves?

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Cattails in the Fall

In the blue night frost haze gleams silver on the cattails. Firm solid brown cylinders, they are content to dream the autumn days. They wait, sleeping, for the spring when in an ecstatic rush they will burst open, freeing the seeds held safe within. For now, though, they dream. Perhaps they dream of summer, recalling warm sun and long drowsy afternoons. Perhaps they recall small peeper frogs that rested upon their stems, calling in a furious serenade. Perhaps, they recall the different birds who nested between them, and the babies who first learnt to fly within their clumps of safety. They rustle, and shift, sighing leaf against leaf. Perhaps they dream of fear, as the big tractor sweeps nearby. Or do they dream instead of the adventures of baby raccoons on their first trip among the roots? I can only wonder, as I watch the frosted mist rise.

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Childhood's Treasures

These are the things I saved from childhood, the treasures memories that I have clung to as the possessions vanished, one by one. A moment, snatched out of time. I couldn't sleep- I don't recall why. I was quite small, and slept in footie pj's. It was late summer, early fall-cool at night but the days were still warm. I crept from my room to go sit on the porch and listen to the night. I did this whenever i couldn't sleep, and often I fell asleep in the chair, to be discovered hours later, soaked with dew and sleeping like the dead. Sometimes my grandfather or great grandmother would find me before I fell asleep, and I would fall asleep in a warm familiar lap, to the soft sound of a loved voice. Grandad told stories (made up on the spot), and Dan sang. I remember drifting off to sleep to everything from amazing Grace to The Old Rugged Cross. Dan was a preacher's wife and had a gift for gospel music. Her voice was thin and reedy with age, but I didn't care. To me she sang like an angel. Dan's hair was long and white. It was always in a braid neatly wrapped around her head in daytime and loosely braided at night. I braided it for her when her hands hurt too badly.

Dan taught me to catch the little chameleon lizards without hurting them, how to herd chickens, how to stop an ant bite from hurting. she also taught me to HOP if she told me to do something!

Some nights, when I couldn't sleep, Dan would hold me in her lap and read aloud to me, from Aesop's Fables, Just So Stories, and the Jungle Book. Her soft voice and softer lap lulled me gently into sleep.

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Childlike Wonder

I never grew up in that respect.... my GRANDFATHER was that way until he died, at 89, so why should I be any different? There's so much in the world that leaves me open-jawed in wonder.... and so much worth the time it takes to notice it.

When I was very small, my grandfather took me outside, pointed at the moon, and told me "there's men walking around up there right now. Isn't it amazing?" We'd watch sunrises and sunsets together, simply sitting in silent wonder as the colors danced and faded... those were moments too deep for words, for us both.

I think my grandfather's way of raising me, to appreciate the joy and wonder of every little thing, is what helped me when I first started discovering paganism.... not that he'd ever have admitted it!

I remember being taken on walks around the farm, and Grandaddy pointing out everything.... tiny mushrooms or baby ferns, the frog's eggs at the shore of the pond and tracks where a mouse ate a grasshopper. I learned early that the big things aren't all there is... and have never forgotten.

Today I live near a good-sized lake, and I still go for walks around the water, looking at the tracks, watching the eagles above.... I use my telescope not for watching the stars but for watching the osprey raising their fledglings. I still look for the tiny ferns growing in the crevices of an oak tree's bark, and the mushrooms and faerie rings at their roots.

Life is beautiful. Thank you, Grandad. I miss you.

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Have You Ever

Have you ever stepped outside to go check the mail in a summer rainstorm, and DANCED on your way to the mailbox?

Have you ever danced on the beach to the rhythm of the raindrops during a lightning storm? Raced the wind along the sands? Felt the thunder of a horse bareback beneath your thighs?

Have you ever laid on your belly in the grass and stared into the heart of a dandelion? Watched a parade of ants and wondered where they've come from? Chased minnows in a mountain lake?

Have you ever sat outside on a summer evening, and listened to the frogs sing in a nearby pond? Ever wonder what they're saying?

Have you laid on your back in a open field, and lost yourself in the stars? Watched a barn owl hunt? Dreamed you could fly, yourself?

Have you ever wondered what really is at the end of the rainbow? Watched a sunset in silent awe?

Do you remember what it's like to see the world through the eyes of a child?

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Hope

Hope is what gets me out of bed in the morning, and helps me sleep at night. It's the one thing I can always count on not to abandon me or forget me.... it's in the cold heart of winter and the tyrannical heat of summer. It's in the new green shoots of a tentative spring, and even in the last falling leaf of autumn.

Hope is what I cling to when all else is gone, in the depths of the seemingly endless nights. Hope is the light that gets me through the darkness of my despair, and hope is what never lets me forget that there is good in the world. Hope keeps the breath in my lungs and the beat in my heart.

Hope is why I continue to risk loving, even when I feel doomed to fail.

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I Will Never Forget

I will always remember those rescue workers who died going UP the stairs, some a 2nd or 3rd time, into the Holocaust that was the World Trade Center on 9/11. They were heroes, not because they were just doing their jobs, but because of the jobs they chose to do.

They chose to stand on a line, to become the wall between us and harm. There's a quote from "A Few Good Men": "Because they stand on a wall and say nothing is going to hurt you tonight, not on MY watch"..... except they don't stand on a wall, they ARE the wall. They place themselves, their bodies, their lives, between America and those who wold cause her harm.

I started this post thinking of the WTC and other rescue workers, but I think it applies to ALL who serve in and out of uniform. There are rescue workers, SAR volunteers in the Rockies who get no pay.... and they all deserve to be remembered. By all of us, each and every day, not just when the news reminds us of them.

And for their courage, their sacrifices, I salute, support, and remember them. Forever.

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Memories

One of my earliest vivid memories was one one of the moonwalks. I don't recall which ONE, but it was in '72-74 ish. My grandfather took me outside after we watched the landing on television, and pointed to the full moon, and told me, men are walking there right now. Isn't it incredible?" I'll always remember that moment. Something inside me said "Someday, I'll be out there too" Of course as I grew older the dream faded, and now I'm an overweight middle aged houseGF... but my mind still travels to the stars.

Another event is 9/11... everybody knows that one, and in so many ways it scarred us as a nation. I mostly remember my PRIDE, as we all came together, and spoke with one voice for once.... and then the slow fade as the war has been mismanaged by politicians.... who see our warriors as simply pawns in a political arena.

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Night Mysteries

There is a mystery in the night, a warm temptation to step out of the light. Something about the darkness calls the spirit to come, leave the civilized world behind and dance naked in the moonlight.Step away from the rush run hurry of the manmade world, and enter a more primitive age. Remember when the night was a time of worship and spirits walked the land. Dance to an ancient melody, recalled in bone and muscle. The rush of blood and the heart's beating guide the body through forgotten steps. Come, caper in time to the song of the spheres, be sung to by the universe itself! Sink deep into the power of mystery.

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Pirate Treasure

When I was young (around 10 or so) I found a piece of pottery on the beach. It was white with bits of a blue flowery pattern, and the once sharp edges were worn quite smooth. I told myself I'd found a bit of Spanish treasure, part of the Captain's fancy tea set. It was broken and tossed overboard by fierce pirates, swallowed by a shark, spit out, and finally washed ashore for me to find. I carried that shard with me for years, even after I noticed "Made in Taiwan" printed in tiny letters in one corner. I didn't care, it was still pirate treasure in my heart.

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Random Thoughts

"What sort of society could humans achieve if we put our minds to it? What role would government play in that society, if any? "

If we could somehow get over this Taker mindset we've got, I think humanity could establish a more or less peaceful (no world wide wars, etc) agrarian society... but right now most of the race is infected with Taker thought processes. Yes, even me, though I work hard not to.

Government.... is necessary at some level but has grown to become a parasite in its own right. The sort of society Quinn envisions has a minimalistic government... almost on a tribal level. I'm not sure how that would work in a modern society, but it sure worked for the tribal peoples for a long time, until the Takers came along.

What is this Taker mindset I speak of, you ask? May I direct your attention to three books by Daniel Quinn: Ishmael, My Ishmael, and The Story of B. These three books explain it in a way I never could if I tried a hundred years. I've found them actually very.... brainbending.

I'm currently rereading Earth, by David Brin... and I think, perhaps, he may be a little off in his predictions. I don't see humanity pulling together overall the way he projects. We hate each other, and fear each other, too much, which is a truly sad state of affairs.

However his view of the horrific damages we're doing to our world, I'm afraid may be right on target. Perhaps a bit exaggerated in how fast they'll come to a head, perhaps not. But I do fear for our Only Home. The sweet green hills of Earth are rapidly becoming no more.

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Random Thoughts from Late at Night

So I was laying awake at 2 AM, unable to sleep, and I started thinking about the nature of happiness.

It seems to me that happiness isn't meant to last. I don't mean what people call "happiness", which is that warm glow of contentment we feel when all is right with our world, but those transcendent, incandescent moments of pure happiness. Those brief moments in time that pierce us, heart and soul, with their beauty and wonder.

Those moments aren't meant to last. I think, perhaps, they are meant to give us something to strive for, something to look forward to, and to remember in the inevitable dark times, to give us hope. I mean, can the human mind and heart even sustain happiness in it's purest form?

All I know, and I don't have all the answers here, is that those times, be they minutes, hours or days, those instants of harmony and love that simply.... are beyond words, far beyond description, even for me. So I began to question it... not the reality of it, but why it doesn't last.

We watched the Outsiders last night, and there was a Robert Frost poem that Ponyboy quoted, and it makes sense here as well. "Nothing gold can stay".

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

-- Robert Frost

If happiness, is just another of nature's golds, like the dawn... well, doesn't it make sense?

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Things You Can Trust

These are the things you can trust. The sun will rise and set, the weather will change, the seasons will turn one into the next. Leaves will fall, flowers will bloom, babies will be born. Santa will remember hundreds of good little boys and girls, and the Easter bunny will visit. Some rain will fall, some sun will shine and the grass will always need to be cut. If you wash and wax your car it will probably rain especially if it is a clear sunny day. Cats will shed, dogs will bark. Everything will change but everything will somehow stay the same. Families will argue, make up, fall apart. Nothing is perfect. It's the road that counts, not the destination. Something new will be learnt. Something will be forgotten. The world will go on, regardless.

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What Is Art?

In response to What is Art... by Depth_of_Field:

What is art to me?

Art is being in love with the work. Not a "work of art", but a lust for the process. Art is tasty provisions you can't live without. If the work is there, you can feel it. The fine arts, art in general, is a lot of me. Not in some stark gallery, black turtleneck, on sale price tags, its hot, critiqued champagne kind of way. But art how it really is, tangible, organic as your breath, more like "arts and crafts". Melted wax, rough paper, black ink like blood, grit, charcoal stench, good intentions through whiskey kind of a way. Sure we all have to feed our babies, but galleries amount to ego and commerce. You would never see Bunuel, Pollock or Bukowski all dolled up in a gallery, sipping a mojito and plugging their cross-media podcast. They all would be at home, working, finding truth in grime under their fingernails. That's what art is to me, the dirty hands of creation.

Not just dirty hands..... the blood, the pain of giving birth.... the hearts blood poured onto your canvas, whether it's a poem, or a painting..... the sheer visceral power of tearing out a part of your soul, and making it live apart from you for all time...

Art is about giving life. Giving birth. Making something new out of your own guts and tears. If you don't love it enough to pour yourself into it, to enjoy the gritty feeling of grease and dirty hands, of the sheer sweaty grime of creation.... well, it ain't art. Not to me.

In order to be real, art must be organic, like Depth says. It also has to live and grow in its own right. A work must inspire, whether to create another work, or thought, or action that isn't artistic but that carries its own passion. Art is power, and pain. It is agony, and extacy, and everything in between that can be imagined, expressed, and experienced by anyone desiring to create.

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What Is Patriotism?

Is it waving a flag? Joining the military or other service and putting your body between danger and your country? Is it sending a letter to a lonely soldier?

After 9/11, we all seemed to know what it meant, but in the years since... especially during the long years of this endless Iraqi conflict, we've forgotten. I don't think it's about any of these things, and at the same time, all of them.

Being a patriot is about loving your country, loving what it stands for, remembering what it was meant to be. Even if we have learned, like me, to fear what it's becoming.

That's what it's about to me. How about you, dear readers?

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What Is Poetry?

I just finished watching Dead Poets' Society and this is my gut reaction to the essay written in the front of the textbook that Mr. Keating has the students destroy.

What IS Poetry?

Poetry is the language of one soul reaching out to another. Many souls may touch, across a span of years, simply by reading and understanding the words of a poet. Never personally knowing each other, these souls may still connect.... through the power of the poem itself. This is because a poem is built not of words, but of images and ideas. Concepts of which the words merely cast a pale, sometimes awkward, reflection of.

Poetry is what speaks to the heart, whether it be a great sonnet by the Bard himself, or 4 lines of doggerel written by a child. The language is what's important, be it simple or complex, because it's the reader's gut response that counts most in the end.

Poetry is the art of taking the colors of the soul and creating a masterpiece. Poetry dances, it cries, it sings. It is joy, and sorrow, rage, and celebration.It is all the tapestry of life, in all its complexity and simplicity, flung forth in ecstacy for all the souls of the world to share.

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When Do We Really Die?

People always talk like there's only one kind of death, but the medical professionals will tell you there's several kinds. Brain death, when the body continues to function but the brain is gone, then there's when the body stops but the brain keeps kicking for a few seconds before it realizes there's no support left.

Personally, I think there's another kind. A death that leaves the brain and body intact, but... dead. A zombie, if you will. Not a horror-movie zombie, oh no, a functioning, "normal" zombie.

What's this, you say? I say this is when we stop asking "Why?". when we lose out sense of wonder, of curiosity. When we stop learning, or WANTING to learn and are willing to just blindly accept "What appears to be" as "what IS".

Losing our ability to see, to accept, and to enjoy the AWE of living. The joy of a colorful sunset, the flutter of a butterfly's wings, the AWWWWWW of watching a litter of kittens at play. The day we forget these things, the day we lose them in our souls, is the day we die. Even if we're still going to work and paying the bills.

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Why?

Why those who want a deeply meaningful, emotional/spiritual relationship have such a hard time finding them. I'm paraphrasing but this is essentially what he asked. This is what I think:

Some of us are too choosy. We look for the perfect relationship, and turn down those with potential because it isn't perfect immediately. We refuse to give the imperfect a chance to grow and become right. We forget that things need time to mature. Nothing beautiful starts OUT that way, except flowers.... and that beauty fades quickly. The beauty that lasts, has to grow into itself, like an oak tree or a horse. It takes time, attention, and care to grow a relationship like what you describe, as you've said... and too many people want it to happen at once, like magic.

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