Mythopoeia

I was lurking around, looking at some of my old poetry from the previous years... and came across this.  It's mine.  I know it's mine, but I don't remember writing it!!  How weird is that?!   I find that I like it, the more I read it.  The most glowing words I've ever written have always come in brief flashes that are bright and brief.   

A silver knife edge leaning against the darkness

Of soul

Calibrated to the core temperature of white

Hot fiery anger smolders under dead ashes of a year that might

Meet my eyes

Without blinking and I will take you for what you aren’t

Doing in the

Shuddering flames on a blanket of yellow silk takes all the fun out of

Forgetting to shave my legs so I had wear my pants to work again when

Mom and grandma worry about me and my pants

Too much

Iniquity

Smacks of lacking prosperity as I

Smoke a toke and crack jokes with your father in the smoked glass sunlight Because

No one needs to know

That

Just between you and me

It was fun

"But how could you have expected to travel that path in thought alone; how to expect to measure the moon by the fish?  No, my neighbors, never think that path is a short one; you must have lions' hearts to go by that way; it is not short and its seas are deep; you will walk it long in wonder, sometimes smiling, sometimes weeping."  - Attar, Parliament of the Birds (from Little, BIG)

 

"Are you, or are you not?  Have you the taste of your existence, or do you not?  Are you within the country, or on the border?  Are you mortal or immortal?" - Parliament of the Birds (from Little, BIG)

So school's back in session for this slacker extraordinaire.  Thank goodness for Muse and his support, or I would have run off a cliff in grand fashion about a semester ago.  Some people are just special in keeping us from losing what little we have left of our minds.  ;)   

I'm going to survive this, apparently.  (Not for lack of trying.)  I have much to look forward to, so I'm going to set my eyes there and try not to trip over my own feet! 

In honor of my loss of freedom, I downloaded a pile of new fonts from dafont.com.  I'm going to find some time to write this semester, dammit!  I have already begun a piece going over a section from our d20 Modern Moreau campaign.  Thanks to Sphinxy I've had this sequence stuck in my head along with the Evanescence song "Going Under".  Hmnmm... Maybe I'll post it when I'm done. 

Hears to time and the lack thereof!  I will survive!   

Thanks to Muse I've found some great icons to use!  If you've ever heard of Ozy and Millie, you'll find this amusing.  If not  - go to www.ozyandmillie.com and start reading!!!  According to Muse, he's the Ozy to my Millie.  In honor of this delightful, and strangely frightening, statement I have uploaded a bunch of Millie icons to use on LJ.  My default green avatar will remain, but I couldn't resist a whole bunch of awesome little Millie pics! 

Yes, I am like Millie in a lot of ways.  Believe it or not, I wasn't when I was a kid.  I think I've grown more cynical.  "I'm with stupid."

I got my Agathos Daimon picture up! It took some work and the resolution could certainly be better, but I'm just happy to have something of my own for a representation. The Agathos Daimon is a Greek guardian spirit, often for a household or person. No, it's not a demon, so don't even make that comparision! *grins* Though I know that some people will compare me with such. The words are related, but daimon is full of much more complex meanings than just plain old demon. It's good to have my guardian up and watching over my page...

Finally.  This stomach virus (according to the doc) has earned the special award as one of those rare illnesses that actually made me throw up.  Trust me, that's a big deal in my book.  It also means that I will run screaming at the sight of this illness again!  That was the night before last when I was up until three debating on the grand philosophy of life: "to barf, or not to barf?"  Well, since that miserable night I have been getting steadily better.  Which means I have gotten a little done on the dragon book.  Only a very little, but it's a start.  Here's a clip that got me started:

The nursery Mothers say that I have a natural gift for the Change.  Even though I can do little else with my dragonmagic, Changing has always come easily to me.  I love trying out new forms, even though I always see how my first-shape is reflected in them.  Once I tried to take the shape of a little brown mouse I saw scurrying among the eggs.  I got the mouse-shape perfect on my first try – down to the fuzzy tail.  But I wasn’t brown.  I was a dark red mouse with black claws and yellow eyes.  I had been able to Change for months and always my first-shape affected my new-shape.  When I finally gained the courage to asked Mother Fuerteng why I couldn’t be brown like the mouse I was trying to emulate, she laughed. 

          “Little dragonet, you are still very young and only the oldest of the Changers are able to hide their true nature.  The Grand Matron, your mother’s mother’s mother could take a shape that reflected none of her first-shape.  But remember her mistake, she did this too many times and forgot her first-shape.  She died as a human woman with only the memory of flight and no way to get her wings back.”  She brushed her wing over my horns reassuringly.  “But you have many season of Changing before you could ever do that.  Isn’t a new shape, with a different size and different senses enough to satisfy you?” she asked me, laughing. 

          I nodded, but I wasn’t certain if it would ever be enough.  I wanted to try on all the Shapes of the world, just to see if any fit better than my first-shape. 

         

It's a start.  And that's what I really needed.  We'll see where it goes from here.  I want to experiment with the idea of shape-change and first-shape (obviously enough).  The most important interaction will come when the young dragon arrives at a human city for the first time and starts to learn how their society works.  Plot, plot, plot... I'm still working on all the details and such.  It will come in time, but I hate having to be patient! 

 

So, how about this?  Go try on a new shape for the day.  See how it fits.  Hee. 

Yeah, so I was all ready to go to work on this new dragon tale, when my stomach exploded.  Stupid stomach.  I won't give out details; they're too disgusting.  Suffice it to say that the toilet is my new best friend.  Thankfully after sleeping for 12+ hours (with intermittent trips to the porcelain throne) I am feeling a lot better.  I think it was something I ate, but as long as I never eat it again, I don't care.  I actually managed to eat some soup earlier.  Funny how something simple like the act of eating and keeping it down becomes a major accomplishment when you're sick.  So if you're eating while you're reading this, geez, I'm sorry to be gross, but at least you can eat!  Be grateful for those little things 'cause you never know when they're going away into the realm of OhMyGodsIcan'tmovewithoutextremepainsandfarting... ;)

On a brighter note (or at least a less disgusting one), I'm tracking several ideas for a dragon story.  But I can't seem to settle.  It will be YA, so there will be a coming-of-age.  I want to use a dragon's point of view.  That is such a rare thing and difficult to do well, but I like challenges.  Now here's where I'm getting stuck - do I want to create a new world to use, use a historical period, or take on modern times?  The dragon in modern times has been done by one fantasy author already (Makdammit if I can remember the guy's name), but it was an adult series set firmly in the adult section.  Right now a totally new world sounds very inviting.  Less research, more creation.  Any one of them is a lot of work in regards to background, but creation of a new world means that no one gets to correct me if I'm wrong.  *grins* Hmmm.... the wheels are turning.... I think I'm going to get off LJ and start into a new Word Document.  If my stomach doesn't have a relapse, maybe I can actually get something done!  

Well, the day after New Years Day and I'm already ready for another holiday!  No I didn't stay up 'till all hours drinking myself silly.  But I had a lovely evening with my darling mother and sweet boyfriend (musegryph ) to end the old and bring in the new.  

 

So my Brian Froud "Goblins" calendar says that yesterday is New Fears Day where all the goblins get together and check out the contraptions that will be used to make the human population's lives miserable in the next year.  Hmmm... goblins really aren't very capable.  They remind of me of kobolds - the smart ones are too lazy to waste their time and the dumb ones are too dumb to really have any effect.  So anywho, they already got a start on my friends Jen and Heather who came to visit yesterday.  Heather attempted to make a plum pudding.  As it sat on the stove for 3+ hours, I subjected them to episodes of "Firefly" and eventually finishing with the grand finale of "Serenity".  (If you haven't seen either the show or the movie stop reading this right now and don't do anything else until you have.)  Well, the plum pudding cooked and cooked and cooked.... and when Heather opened it to see if it was done.... it wasn't.  It was goo.  Really funky-lookin' not-cooked goo.  I blame the goblins.  They're easy targets.

 

*grins*  I'm following Sphinxy's (laughing_sphinx ) example a little here in my talk of the goblins that make our lives miserable.  But the Sphinx is much more involved in the life of her trouble-making kobolds.  I love her posts about them!  They make me feel better about my psychopathic little dog.  (Whom I am certain the goblins have trained to do all the naughty things he does when I'm not around). 

 

My Agathos Daimon pictures are nearing completion.  For now I'll have one pose with several colors until I have time (ha!) to create new poses.  They're cute little buggers though. 

 

I'm off to see if I can fill a niche in the teen literature market.  Since the only books about dragons either share space with the children’s' books or are named "Eragon", I have decided to write a decent teen book about dragons.  I may not have time to finish it this year with school and all, but if I never start it will positively never happen.  At least I have a chance!  I'm off to do some world-building! 

 

Happy New Year!

So I'm going to follow musegryph's example and post about the new community blog we're setting up with two of our library buddies.  laughing_sphinx and Ms. A (who doesn't have an LJ yet!).  We get to discuss, rant, ramble, and generally babble about our library (no names attached, of course).  The Kangar** strikes again!  If you don't get the Kangar** joke, I can't help you.  But Muse has a link up to the little bitty something that is our inspiration....

I'm hard at work on my agathos_daimon (or guardian spirit).  The picture is going to the dramatic stages of being scanned and copied and re-copied.  Who knew drawing a picture could be so complicated?  Well, Sphinxy does, but she's special like that.  I'm looking forward to getting that picture up and maybe making a few more before school gets its claws into me!  Huzzah!  

And I haven't had any for months now! But I'm back to try again. Since Muse and our latest LJ addition Laughing Sphinx have both been active I'm feeling left out. *pouts* Hmmm... I need to create an icon for my LJ from my own work. Sphinxy has been inspiring me and since Muse got me an awesome drawing book for X-mas, I'll have to plug into it. While I have the time before classes start again. I declare that 2006 will be the year of the School. Stupid school. But graduation is drawing nigh and I am waiting breathlessly for it.

Aha!  I do still exist, regardless of the darkness of my last entry.  (And some of you thought you had gotten rid of me!)   I will admit that things are much better now than they were on my last entry.  I am feeling much more at peace with myself and the world.  We must all do our best to survive the hard stuff and revel in the fun stuff.   I seem to have come out of a particularly bad spot now.  I haven’t been online in several weeks as I have been steadily trying to clear out my head. 

 

I have been playing a complex little table-top RPG, through the d20 Modern system, with numerous friends, old and new for the past few months.  Though I haven’t mentioned it before, it is most certainly becoming more and more an event I thoroughly look forward to coming to.   My character, Aurelia, is a hard-ass fallen angel (or aasmir) with a superiority complex and a British accent.  Weirdly enough, I swear she wasn’t this evil when we started.  Then again, my companions - particularly Marcus (icon_piscis ) and Bubba (aryante ) - might disagree with me.  As a writer, it has been as absolute joy to try to figure out Aurelia as a character in a first person venue that is unlike anything else.  It’s like being an actor without any script.  Instead, you must decide how your character would act and do so.  I’ve done and said things as Aurelia that I wouldn’t even consider doing as myself.  The added elements of uncertainty, (like when our GM (musegryph ) decided that Aurelia’s once-dead, tiefling necromancer ex-boyfriend was going to kidnap her), force you into the character’s head, because you have little time to think through things.  When you’re writing you can go back and change what has been said, when you game, you have to just keep going.  This has also been a lot of fun for someone who has dabbled in acting and loves the high of doing improv.

 

Much fun! 

Things are looking up.

 It’s so frustrating to know that your own mouth can be the cause of so much irritation.  I have a reactive, explosive personality.  I react now and think later.  My brother is the same way – I’ve never really realized how much we were alike.  I’ve been so busy not trying to be the frozen asshole that is my father that I managed to come around to the other side of dipshittedness.  (I don’t think that’s a word, but it still sounds good). 

 

All the (prescription) drugs in my system aside, I don’t deal well.  So for any or all who have suffered at the mouth of the dragon, I’m sorry.  I’m fucked up and I fucked up.  I can’t make any promises that I will be better, because I know I’ll mess up again and hurt someone else’s feelings.  In hope that I’m not a complete screw-up, at least I can stop (eventually) and look back at my own actions and feel like a dipshit.  Not everyone gets that far, I suppose. 

 

Hears to putting up with dipshits... may we all learn more patience in the process. 

“Life is without meaning.

You bring meaning to it.

 

The meaning of life is

whatever you ascribe it to be.

 

Being alive is the meaning.”

-Joseph Campbell Reflections on the Art of Living

 

 

Freewrite:

I verge on the edge of creations and write write, that hole in my head is filled by swirls of diamonds.  Let the spellcheck rest; that all comes later anyways.  No more can I sleep without dreams of being.  Take me home and I will sleep on the floor, holding the floorboards close to my chest.  Went forward and into the realms of unlivable music.  It was like another dream where there is no way out, but you really don’t want out so why not stay?  Can I have a floorboard to keep me company?  Unfortunate?  No.  Not really.  I like dreaming, it reminds me to live.  That I will die someday but not today.  Not yet.  Yet is the absolute in all things.  This isn’t it, yet.  Does that make the yeti a powerful beast?  A powerful creature, indeed!  We are all yetis.

            Windows open up upon my conscious mind and my unconsciousness resents it.  It wants time to live to breathe to be.  It is, but it cannot be unless I let it out more often.  Let your unconscious mind roam in the fields of yetis and other creatures of age and thought.  It will wander far and return with tales of things your conscious has never, will never, know. 

            My inner universe is here to stay.  Can it listen?  I listen.  Speak in Russian couplets and I listen. Let me listen.  That is all I ask.  Music rolls over and overwhelms the soul like all the aches and salves in the world all together bruising and cleansing as it reaches into your center.  The center of you the center of us all is waiting.  Waiting for music that reaches into the center.  Stand alone and listen.  It is waiting.  I want to sing with my parched voice and shaking hands raised.  Nothing can stop me.  Nothing can block us from the center except our own parallel boundaries.  The opposites must be allows to meet meet in the center of all things and listen to the music. 

 

 

 

I feel better now.

“Dawn”

The aching break of light and sun skitters across the length of night.

Who holds each shimmering crackle of heat in one hand

And clasps the slivers of moon in the other?

See them shiver and sing to each other.

The world should hear the crystallization of the final hour of the night

Pulsing and quickening as it quivers in its throes. -ltm

 

Still trying to get the hang of posting without having odd occurrences, like two sizes of fonts.  I’ll have to ask for more help, but at least muse_gryph helped me figure out what was going on with my comments.  It’s really nice having a genius as a boyfriend.  (Just don’t let it go to your head, Dylan!)  

 

I finished Artemis Fowl: the Opal Deception today and have recommitted myself to writing again.  Heh.  That happens when I read something I like.  There just isn’t enough time to write!  Then again... as much as I hate to admit it, time is what you make of it.  My current book (200+ pages) is floundering some under sheer weight of its own world.  It will always be my baby in terms of writing projects, but I think I will work on something else for a time.  Erin (a co-worker) put a hold on a Celtic mythology book for me without telling me.  So I ended up checking out a book I hadn’t meant to.  That’s the best part about working at the library – so many books!!  But anyways, I think I will work on the mythology side for a while again and let my own mythology rest.  It’s time for something new.  And I have had my share of new experiences in the past few weeks.  *grins*  Writing hasn’t exactly been the foremost thing on my mind. 

 

Hears to stumbling, bumbling beginnings and present prospects!  Cheers!        

Can't sleep.  Too restless, too sick.  So I write and write and write.  Here is a poem I wrote in the fall when I was feeling very... heretical...

 

"Heretic"

 

Bible school is so far from

Rune stones

Beaten copper masks

Rotted planks from the elders’ longships

 

I step away

Onto razor thin ice

Cutting blood from my bare feet

 

The deep crimson trail followed by

The Hunters of God

Hounding me to see the Light

 

Nearby Forests offer sanctuary

Thin sheets on shelves

Where God and god live

Side by side

 

A fox wading downstream

I slip from page to page

Hoping to throw the hunters off the scent

Of old blood

Flowing raw and fierce in new veins

 

I climb up

Treeing my self in the sagas

And settle comfortably

Into the far darkness

Of the past

 

 

Here's another one... It even has a brief homage to Emily Dickinson in it.  It is, perhaps, what we all feel like while trying to get through tough times:

 

Imps

cling

to the neck

Climbing

over each other

to pull the hairs

curling near them

Tickling

the sides of cheeks

with silver claws

as they murmur the words of fright

that display the gaps

Between

knowing and unknowing

being and unbeing

 

Imps

that are nothing

until they cradle the jaw

and stroke away reason

from the Borders of the brain

Chuckling

as they dine on fresh chunks of despair

And

drink the dregs of hope

that linger in the bottoms of their fiendish glasses

Snickering

pointing out disparities

as the stoic shudders

beneath the

Imps

 

 

Go get some sleep, since I can't.

*wanders off to look for more asprin*

I had to make changes to this journal – I was having problems finding my comments from other people on the original setup.  Plus, I felt like having a green background.  I like green....

 

Nothing much for me to say today.  I got sick.  Stupid sickness.  Grrrr... Nobody likes to get sick.  Especially not me. 

 

I think I shall go and read and attempt to expand my brain (or put it to sleep).  Since I’m making little sense right now.  Sweet dreams and all that... 

Okies.  I just felt like blabbing today.  Oh, wait.  That’s what I always do here! 

 

So in honor of our first d20 Modern campaign (graciously GMed by muse_gryph), I had a thought....  yes, laugh if you want, but I did have a thought.  When you play a game like this does the character you chose reflect you in any way?  *grins* No pressure here.  One of the teens I work with loves to play evil characters.  Now this kid certainly isn’t the evil type in everyday life.  Goofily (and jokingly) malevolent at times, but not evil.  Chalk it up to the desire to play the one thing he really can’t be in real life. 

 

So what am I?  Oooo.  Good question.  Depends on the day of the week.  (Or the time of the month.  Heh.)  According to some random survey I took (for D&D), I am supposed to be a halfing sorceress.  Okay.  I like that.  But I also like running in and being able to kick butt.  So I guess any halfing sorceress I play will have a violent streak a mile wide.  Wow.  Stay out of her way!  Er, my way?  Anyhoo.  For the record, I am chaotic good.  Period.  Haven’t figured it out yet, but for some reason I am completely incapable of being a good evil character.  I know that comes as a shock to those of you who have been around me a lot.  *cough* muse_gryph *cough*   So for the record.  I’m not really evil, I’m just chaotic.  (Even when I'm a bitch).   ;-p 

 

So what is your nature according to the game?  Are you an evil psycho just waiting for an outlet?  Or are you really a paladin in disguise?  Well, whatever you are, happy gaming!  Go have fun using you imagination!  Wheeeeeeeeee!!!!!         

“The truth is that even big collections of ordinary books distort space, as can readily be proved by anyone who has been around a really old-fashioned secondhand bookshop, one of those that look as though they were designed by M. Escher on a bad day and has more staircases that storys and those rows of shelves which end in little doors taht are surely too small for a full-sized human to enter.  The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.” – Terry Pratchett, Guards!  Guards!

 

Go to the library.  Go to a bookstore.  Bend space and time.  That is all there is to say.

 

“The small grove was dark, filled with the silences of the stillness that never left this place.  The shrine in the center of the grove was enveloped in moss, with only small spots of gray stone showing through the filaments of green.  Dwarfed by the trees, the shrine was covered in living shadows that flickered as the sun tried to penetrate the deep canopy above it.

            The little outpost had been built for a small secret purpose, but that time had long passed, eaten by the progress of green growth.  It had been a gathering place; where beings came together to listen.  Listen to each other, to the world, or to the silence.  It was so thoroughly enmeshed in the embrace of the forest that from a distance it seemed to be part of the land.” – Shrine –1/3/05

 

 

It is amazing to me the power that silence and music can have.  There is a hole of peace waiting to be filled in places.  You just have to look for it.  The right person, the right sounds, the right time -- the simplicity of the moment.  Just don’t waste your time waiting for it to come to you.  It’s right there, just within your reach.

 

Hmmm... I’ve gone and tried to wax poetic again.  What is my world coming to?  *smiles*  Actually, I’m almost always in a contemplative or reflective state when I write.  It takes a sense of peace for me to clear my head and let the words come.

 

The writing above (“Shrine”) is from earlier this year when I sat down in search of peace.  It’s something that can be found in the most unexpected places.  I’ve recently found it through the sweetness of another person.  I’ve lacked such confidence in myself that it has taken the eyes of another for me to see what I can be.  I’m grateful for new things and for the nervousness that makes us all take new chances.  Without new chances we would never find what we’re looking for. 

 

I really am feeling reflective today!  I guess being an idealist makes you think fantastic thoughts.  (I’d be bored if I didn’t.) 

 

On a light note, I’ve been researching origins of certain symbolisms.  The latest was birds, especially magpies.  I had an unusual experience last year at school.  I was sitting outside, reading my book, when a fat magpie perched two feet away on the stones and struck up a conversation.  I’m not certain if he was talking to me or just muttering to himself, but it was fascinating to listen to.  He squeaked and chirped and burbled all at the same time.  He didn’t mind my presence in the least; in fact, I think he enjoyed the attention.  Since then, I have been curious as to the magpie’s place in the world.  The magpie is a bad omen in Western society, but in China it is called the “bird of joy”.  They are a symbol of peace and prosperity.  So I suppose any symbolism my magpie might have had was only in the mind of his beholder.  Personally, he brought me a special joy that has made me stop and appreciate my world.  Sounds cheesy, I know.  But honestly, if you stop... and look... and listen...and pay attention.... you can see.  The tiny hidden buds that peer out even as winter tries to hold on.  The way tall grass shivers in the wind.  The brown smell of trees in the rain.  The stray cloud caught on the mountains.  The squeals of children as they watch ducks waddling across the grass.  The small chill that you feel when standing on the river bank as the wind blows spray to you.  A tree without leaves, stretching out its branches into a web above your head. 

 

So much. 

 

Be at peace.  Seek the things that calm you and help your mind see better.  Friendship, nature, music, home, love...

“But how could you have expected to travel that path in thought alone; how to expect to measure the moon by the fish?  No, my neighbors, never think that path is a short one; you must have lions’ hearts to go by that way; it is not short and its seas are deep; you will walk it long in wonder, sometimes smiling, sometimes weeping.” --Attar, Parliament of the Birds (from Little, BIG)

 

Living is such a complicated business.  And when you speculate on the nature of society, suddenly things are a lot more complicated.  I’ve been taking a class called “History of Literary Criticism” this semester.  Bluntly, it's philosophy thinly disguised as an English course.  But it is interesting, (most of the time). 

Lately we’ve been working on Marxist and Post-Marxist criticism.  It’s VERY depressing stuff.  In the realm of Post-Marxism we had to read a fellow named Baudrillard.  I was so discouraged by the discussion of his writing that I started to take ‘train of thought’ notes.  Basically I wrote down phrases the professor said that reflected what Baudrillard seemed to be talking about (and a few of my own thoughts). 

Here’s a taste of it:  “post-modern paralysis filled with speculations, collective desire, collective suicide, rather dark reading, confronted with the other, alienation, (alien nation), we’re all aliens now, everyone is a statistic, just a statistic, devolution, widespread apathy, 'opinions' of the polled, manipulating public opinion, squashing and denying our individuality, numbers and the contemporary reality, anti-human....”

Depressing stuff, huh?  Baudrillard is telling us that we are being manipulated by polls and the media into a world that doesn’t reflect human opinion.  Of course, it’s pretty much impossible to reflect human opinion because we hardly even know what our own opinions are half the time!  The sad thing is that he doesn’t offer any solution.  He just thinks we’re going to destroy ourselves.  Someone needs to take his Prozac.  ;p

 

After finishing Baudrillard, we moved on to a new and very different concept.  Ferdiand de Saussure, the father of modern linguistics, brought up the idea that our reality is determined by our language.  I rather like this.  It’s called Structuralism.  The limits of our reality are the limits of our language.  There are things out there we don’t have words for.  Also, speakers of other languages live in a different realities from English.  Chinese speakers don’t see the same world as Spanish speakers – because they have different words for different things.  For example, Eskimos have 40+ words for snow.  English speakers have 4 or so.  If we were to travel to the north pole we would just see... snow.  But an Eskimo would see much, much more.  Wild! 

 

“The limits of our language are the limits of our world.” – Wittgeustein

 

So go out and learn some new words.  Expand your reality.  Take the path from where you are and see what you can find out.  It won’t always be easy.  But it’s probably worth it...

 

Happy travels.