Laid down the weapons of self-destruction
words lost in confused emotions
all meaningless in an act of surrender
the last victory over old doubts and fears
as awareness evolves into reality
alone in a crowded room
the eyes watch and ears listen
as tears release the freedom
of coming home
on the bed more reading material
defining future possibilities
too many choices for one destiny
each a crossroads on the journey of life
but there is no rush now
all the lights have turned to green.
The idea of the challenge is to use any one or more of the given prompts to create a piece of flash fiction (100-500 words) or a poem. For the weekend I am going to give four prompts that can be used individually or together depending on how the creative juices flow. There will be a single word with its definition, a word bank, three phrases and a photograph – all are random so may not connect in anyway but as is the way of randomness they may connect in the creative thought – you never can tell!
This week’s prompts are:
Photograph: Black Panther by Sue Demetriou
Black Panther by Sue Demetriou
Word: pervicacious Pronunciation: (puhr-vi-KAY-shuhs) Meaning: adjective: Very stubborn.
Phrases:
voice of quiet
It was happening. It was real. It was tonight.
boundaries of experience
Word bank: craftsmanship; whopper; norm; mastermind; yardstick.
For the letter T the choice for me is obvious, the Welsh
god and patron of poets, Taliesin. I am not going retell his story as it is all
over the internet for those who wish to read it.
I have reread the stories I have of Taliesin in preparation
for this piece and it has been an amazing enlightening experience. I am on a
personal journey of life changing proportions and I have been struggling to
come to terms with it on a spiritual level. Throughout his writing Taliesin
talks of changing, often on a grand scale, but taking away the epic proportions
that storytellers employ he is talking of going with the way his life is
flowing rather than against the current. Four short lines really sum it all up
for me and they are:
Then I was for nine months
In the womb of the hag Caridwen;
I was originally little Gwion,
And at length I am Taliesin.
I was born the child of my parents
and they raised me to the best of their ability. In doing so they influenced my
thinking and placed expectations of adulthood on me. However adulthood is when
we are evolving into our own being, no longer the child of our parents and it
is when that own being is not in agreement with the expectations we were raised
with the internal warfare hits. I am no longer the child of my parents, I am my
own individual self and that is how it is meant to be. It is not going make the
journey any easier but I think it is going to be easier to live with it now.
This is the reason I see Taliesin as my patron god as when I need it most his
words speak to me so clearly, whether it is to confirm I am doing the right
thing or to kick my ass, often both. Once again he has come through when I need
it most – Thank you Taliesin!
Be true to self for the truth of
self cannot be denied.
Nothing confirms the turning of annual cycle of life and
nature more than the vibrancy of Autumn. It makes it a time of accepting the
changes that have occurred/are occurring in my life over the last year and I
find it empowering to take stock and see just how far I have come over 12
months. It also means my favourite time of year, Winter, is not so far away. So
while many may mourn the passing of the hot summer days I celebrate it. Who
knows we may even get snow this year – I can hope so at least.
The idea of the challenge is to use any one or
more of the given prompts to create a piece of flash fiction (100-500 words) or
a poem. The challenge today offers three quotations to inspire the Muse to create, using one, two or all three of the given quotes.
This week’s quotes are:
We are all what we pretend to be, but, we had better be very careful what we pretend – Kurt Vonnegut Jr
Mental fight means thinking against the current, not with it. It is our business to puncture gas bags and discover the seeds of truth – Virginia Woolf
The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while – Albert Einstein
The idea of the challenge is to use the given prompts to create a piece of flash fiction (100-500 words) or
a poem. The prompt is a piece of music, the idea being to share where the music takes you. This week’s piece is: Warriors from Lord of the Dance
Alone
as the world hurried by
lost in its own normality
prompted by words in newspapers
degrading his existence
while setting the public opinion
the standards of decency
in false morality
labelling his kind as freaks
while a child hid his differences
beneath layers of self-loathing
unable to feel love
as his fear became his saline tears
and truth was lost in an artificial smile
so none could know his shame
hidden by his performance of existence
upon the stage of his life
with no applause or academy awards
as he rehearsed in the bathroom
to face the world of questioning glances
amid his nonsensical fears of them seeing
the actor is failing
unable to hold the pretence in the limelight
his own truth must be heard
to champion his own right to be
in the final soliloquy
that is destiny
Gaze upon her static ecstatic face
Her beauty held within eternal grace
While stony smiles deliver empty cheer
So silky smooth it brings a sensual death
As feelings shed another marble tear
For all that’s gone into memories past
Of times when she would dance a lover’s dream
When suitors stood in line before they asked
To be the one to set her world agleam
But now as destiny has surely cast
She dances in heavenly realms supreme
And all we have are the memories here
Beside silken white stone where we embrace
Her kiss that chills the soul with icy breath
Texte: Doubt whom you will, but never yourself – Christian Nevell Bovee
The distant dream of all that might have been
Before the doubts destroyed the thoughts of trust
And love declined to see another day
As to its end love drifted as it must
Before the light of day could fall in sin
Beliefs inside that love will find away
Hide fears denied by truth within the heart
While haunting dreams that come from long ago
To plant the seeds of doubt where they start
The thought of trust have nothing left to say
But self-esteem must learn to live and grow
With faith in self to do the thing that’s right
A sense of worth within the outer skin
For truth of self will lead the soul to light
Revealing secrets the heart needs to know
As a poet I read a lot of poetry and some more on top. I also find one line taken out of context can lead to a whole new dimension of creativity. The idea of this challenge therefore is to create what comes to mind from lines of poetry.
This week’s lines of poetry are:
and I know she would not like that – At Emily's in Amherst by David Ray
And lust of fame was but a dream – The Old Stoic by Emily Bronte
that never fit into the distant waves – Puzzle Dust by Dorianne Laux
In one whimsical moment,
a moment caught within a day dream,
just briefly, I see the beauty of you.
Your smile,
your eyes,
your face;
as I stop in time and space.
I am the whimsy
amusing myself in a day dream
and loving you in a thought
so sure I can feel your lips
brush fleetingly on my cheek
and I smile.
For years I believed in all those endless lies
of how I should feel and where my heart belonged
and who I could love and worse who I could not
I believed it all.
Those written words that set down the rules that say
with no reason why I could never belong
and why my true loving was always a crime
as I chose to be.
I hid from the voices taunting innuendos
obscure double meanings in degrading names
shame tarnished emotions without compassion
I knew no one cared.
Then Sappho spoke silently in fragments of
verse gently taking my hand to walk proudly
in her path with my head held high no tears left
but still I could cry.
They who denied me love could not understand
my desires to feel love that’s right for my heart
instead of the lies that imprison the soul
now I understand.
How can my love be thought as unnatural
when it was created before I was born
my Sapphic heart pulsed free in my mother’s womb
so I could know love.
How could I tell them the truth deep within me
and break their dreams of tradition, a daughter
insecure in her womanhood feeling lost
in society.
Restrained in the bondage of gender
a binary so unnatural, so wrong
I could not, maybe should not even exist
they called my mind – sick.
But I am not ill but the social dictate
that breeds hatred for what I am born to be
is plagued by a disease of unwholesome spite
and is mankind’s shame.
Too often I’ve fallen, tripped over the baited wire
ensnared by senses numbed
by the bitter pain of making do
like a discarded t-shirt from a second-hand store
used, recycled and used some more
each mistake an entangled vine
forming a bondage of self-destruction
until the inevitable split breaks away
breaking, the heart breaking again
breaking away from the effrontery they dare call love
they who have no grasp on love
yet claim it as if it is their right
that I should love them
they who do nothing but hurt me and call it love
but I know love
it is the glorious light at the end of the dark tunnel
guiding me forward in her positive footprints
to bloom like an opening lily in her glow.
For the weekend I am going to give four prompts that can be used individually or together depending on how the creative juices flow. There will be a single word with its definition, a word bank, three phrases and a photograph – all are random so may not connect in anyway but as is the way of randomness they may connect in the creative thought – you never can tell!
This week’s prompts are:
Photograph: Light on the Mountain by Andrea Visca
Word: obambulate
Pronunciation: (o-BAM-byuh-layt)
Meaning: verb intr.: To walk about.
Phrases:
primed to proceed
opening a closed door
circling the wagons
Word bank: incinerate; detail; sweet; trickle; eager.
The challenge today offers three quotations to inspire the Muse to create, using one, two or all three of the given quotes.
This week’s quotes are:
The word user is the word used by the computer professional when they mean idiot – Dave Barry
One of life's greatest mysteries is how the boy who wasn't good enough to marry your daughter can be the father of the smartest grandchild in the world – Jewish Proverb
Success is never final. Failure is never fatal – Joe Paterno
As a poet I read a lot of poetry and some more on top. I also find one line taken out of context can lead to a whole new dimension of creativity. The idea of this challenge therefore is to create what comes to mind from lines of poetry.
This week’s lines of poetry are:
A sliding shape has stirred them like a breath – Atavism by Elinor Wylie
In their green zone they sang my name – Morning Swim by Maxine Kumin
conjoined at the exquisitely right time – After a Brubeck Concert by Miller Williams
Today in 1878 the Italian composer Vincenzo Tommasini was born
The clip features Tommasini’s Il Carnevale di Venezia, Variazioni alla Paganini performed by Orchestra Sinfonica dell'Emilia-Romagna under the baton of Massimo De Bernart
I want to know love
to feel it stir
my senses into awareness
without the whispers saying it is wrong
leaving me in despair
wishing I could disappear
into the boxes that are right
yet I do not belong
I do not want to fight to know desire
or the freedom of equal rights
to dance with such liberty
while singing of justice
where hate is the real disgrace
and love is embraced for its beauty
I want the world to change
not just in one or two places
for equality can only exist
when liberty and freedom is for all
In darkness I sought the light
the bright flare on that distant horizon line
believing in hope
a faith succoured by trust
then the light burned brighter
exploding into infernos of pain
as hope crumbled to dust
and truth became a betrayal of trust
A cake for chocoholics with its soft chocolaty sponge topped with a rich chocolate truffle
2¾oz/75g/⅓ cup butter
2¾oz/75g/⅓ cup caster (superfine) sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2¾oz/75g/⅔ cup self-raising flour
½ tsp baking powder
1oz/25g/¼ cup cocoa
1¾oz/50g ground almonds
For the Truffle Topping:
12oz/350g dark chocolate
3½oz/100g butter
½pt/300ml/1¼ cups double (heavy) cream
2¾oz/75g/1¼ cups plain cake crumbs
3 tbsp dark rum
To Decorate:
Cape gooseberries
1¾oz/50g dark chocolate, melted
Lightly grease an 8 inch/20cm round springform tin (pan) and line the base. Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Gradually add the eggs, beating well after each addition.
Sieve (strain) the flour, baking powder and cocoa together and fold into the mixture along with the ground almonds. Pour into the prepared tin (pan) and bake in a preheated oven, 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4, for 20-25 minutes or until springy to the touch. Leave to cool slightly in the tin (pan), and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Wash and dry the tin (pan) and return the cooled cake to the tin (pan).
To make the topping, heat the chocolate, butter and cream in a heavy-based pan over a low heat and stir until smooth. Cool, then chill for 30 minutes. Beat well with a wooden spoon and chill for a further 30 minutes. Beat the mixture again, then add the cake crumbs and rum. Spoon over the sponge base and chill for 3 hours.
Meanwhile, dip the gooseberries in the melted chocolate until partially covered. Leave to set on baking parchment. Transfer the cake to aserving plate; decorate with the gooseberries.
I thought accepting my gender identity was a tough nut. It was, but not as tough as the scrutiny I feel I am under now. Everything I do, say and think is being microscopically analysed. Not by other people, but by myself. I keep checking myself – is what I am wearing male enough, is the book I am reading too feminine, is the level of my voice deep enough or is the way I walk too much of a girly wiggle rather than a manly strut?
I was expecting it from others and, as I am my own worst critic, a bit from myself – but not to this extent. It is not that I doubt what I am doing is right; I know this transition is right for me and I got to get on and face it. I have known my gender identity since I was a little kid and have buried it since then too. I know the major part of transition is self-acceptance and although I have been aware of it since I was a child I am only just coming to terms with my identity. I have got to be patient with myself.
Transsexuality or gender dysphoria is a lonely place. Yes there are support groups, yes I have wonderful supportive family and friends – and I really do appreciate all of them. However, they cannot make the decisions for me. Transition is self-realization and finding my own identity rather than the one I built to hide myself. Denying self has been the easier option and frankly still is but it is not the healthy one.
I suppose I am habitually applying that same inner critique that buried my male awareness to present as female to my identity now but in reverse. I look at the list of what may be to come and it looks terrifying but to go back is even more so and I do not want to go back so it is not an option anyway. Transition is very much cross each bridge as it is needed to be crossed and I know that is the only way that I can do it.
Another conversation in the darkness of night
when no words were heard
or even uttered
yet so many questions posed hooking for an answer
between the sunset and starlight
the mind crawls around
yet doesn’t notice a passing thought
with its own intentions
while it searches for a neurological resonance
because it is vital, it is energy
and living is more vital than dreaming of what if’s
and if only’s are discarded with the trash
casually forgotten like a one-night fuck
a thought hungry for dignity
but there is no dignity in making do
a touch without love is nothing much
meaningless moments sating greed
forgotten too easy in the graspings of lust
that built the cage to contain the thought
but it would not be silenced
until the mind dared to listen to that one silent sound
Ancient archaeological evidence has been found throughout Europe that points to shamanic activity. It is more than likely the shaman played an important role in ancient tribal life even if the belief systems of our Palaeolithic and Mesolithic ancestors were not entirely shamanic.
A shaman is a spiritual leader within a tribal society fulfilling numerous functions within the tribe. The roles of the shaman include:
Priest;
Mystic;
Counsellor;
Interpreter of spirits;
Healer;
Magician
A shaman oversees the rites of passage from birth through death and may also foresee the future.
The ways of a shaman are secretive, therefore the gods of the shaman are not always generally known to the community. These gods are often totemic taking the forms found in nature such as stones, plants, animals, humans and spirits. The powers of the shaman are elemental and are those of the earth, air, water and fire.
Shamans also gather secret and magical knowledge from the hidden realms of their familiar spirits. Using ecstatic practices the shaman can transport to these magical otherworlds where they encounter the powerful energies of spiritual forces that reside there.
Ecstasy is an altered state of awareness where the individual often feels they transcend themselves. Carl Jung states that it is the realization that ‘he is of the same essence as the universe, and his own mid-point is its centre’.
The calling to a shamanic path often results from deep transformative experiences such as:
Understanding the underlying spiritual energies in nature;
Intuitive messages;
Causing change through unseen or magical means.
We all have elements of the shaman as that is what has called us to whatever path we follow. Indeed the characteristics often cross over. It is quite clear a close relationship with nature would also involve an understanding of nature’s spiritual energies and harnessing them for healing and even magical purposes.
Old Tom is sitting on the river bank
His eyes watching the line where the hook sank
While I stumbled in tying the simplest knot
His patient fingers then showed me again
As we talked of things I learned a lot
When we just sat there quiet setting bait
And I’d watch his grace when making a cast
Another tea while in silence we wait
Our eyes fixated on floats bobbing fast
As the willowy trees whispered ‘It’s late
The time for fishing here has long gone past
Now I sit alone on the river bank
To hear the trees repeating Tom’s refrain
My memories here have never forgot
.png)
.jpg)
