Dear Gaia Friends ~

Following is an outline of the story I will be working on this year during the month of November for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month.) I wrote this to post at Diving Deeper where there is a wonderful support group of Gaia Writers, getting ready to do NaNoWriMo together. I decided that I wanted to share this here on my Blog as well, as I did the other two years I participated in NaNoWriMo.  I was brand new to Zaadz in October of 2006 when Samme talked me into doing NaNaWriMo. It was one of the best bits of coercion in my life! Samme, and many others, stuck with me all the way through that first year and helped make it an experience to remember. It really made an incredible difference in my life, by letting me know that I COULD write prose. Good, bad or indifferent, at least I knew that I could do it. Thank you Samme! You will always be my hero. Thank you everyone else who read my ramblings and encouraged me.

I want to send a huge “thank you” to Sandra who has built something so tremendous here at Gaia by bringing her ‘Diving Deeper’ work here. A “Thank You” as well to all my new friends at Diving Deeper - my “Writing Buddies” - who are already giving positive feedback and encouragement.

This story is dedicated to my Gaia daughter Elisa. We will pretend that you are six, sitting on my lap and I am telling you this story. You will like it! There will be Faeries, Dryads, ROMance! Secrets and a Wicked Angel. This story is also for Jena, who - along with Granny - has watched over me every moment with healing love and who knows the way through all the Glistening Gates. For MamaKat, my twinish sister and the original Katja. For Jami, for letting me share Kat and allowing me to witness sister-love in action, and for being a true Lioness.  For Katherine Estelle Eveningstar, my Wonderous-Wyld-Sister, guiding star and favorite author. For Starseed who is so full of spirit and positive energy it can probably be felt on the other side of the universe, I know it can be felt on the other side of the country. Selfless love in action that is a beauty to behold. .For Siona for everything she does to make this dream called Gaia a reality, to keep it ever fresh and new, but still always stable and trustworthy at the hearts core. This can’t be an easy task and she does it with graciousness and grace.. For my fellow water snake Martha for many things, particularly for bringing me through panic and terror into a safe, sweet dream at the heart of green, the feeling of which is the basis for this story. For Joybringer, for constantly doing/being just that. For Sprite for teaching me the importanc of wings. For Amber for sharing smiles. For Leaf - Sarabi - whose spirit of the green has helped me feel what I need to feel to begin this work. The painting I did for her showed me my woods, my Dryads and a Glistening Gate waiting to be crossed. Everyone should read her Elfhood’s Vision .  For Mary, who listened when I desperately needed to talk, and for Mary’s Frog just because he’s great. For my friend Femke who made my Little Owl’s Eyes famous. For my Raven, Megan, who has been with me for years, still loving me - just as I love her -  through thick & thin, up & down and everywhere in between. I also wish to dedicated this story to my wonderful PLAY-POD MOD-SQUAD (We were MOD before MOD was cool!)  Thank you for helping me bring PLAY alive here at Gaia. I find all kinds of Play going on all over the place now and I am so delighted by it. We will get those cob swept out one of these days, do a bit or rewrangling and we’ll be back in business.

And then, for being there, even when I wasn’t, for remembering me when I was here and when I was gone, this story is dedicated to: Alluvja, Mila, Meenakshi, Islefaye, Kimmergy, Laurie, Mimi, Joy, debyemm, Silly Old Bear, Fastdart, Zephyr, Diane, Resurrected1, Ohmsmon, Teenie-Dakini, Nicola, Ayla, Pookietooth, Otter, Nicole, Time to Share, Shanti, Sol, Jeannie-Tink, Victoria, Kes, Jaguar Peaceful Warrior. Soccermom & Fiesty Cherub. It is also dedicated to everyone that I forgot because I am really no good at keeping track of things. I’m a lot better writer than I am a Keeper-Track-of-er, so to anyone I forgot, I dedicate and apologize at the same time. Finally (FINALLY!! Yeah!) This story is dedicated to Archimedes, who supplied me with the finest of Premium Writer’s Fuel (‘Fill ‘her up with Premium’) . . . the best tea on the earth. I’ve saved the last part of my package for months so I would have it for November. It will warm my soul as well as my fingers, my tummy and all my vast Creative Processes which, as everyone knows, are powdered by tea.  

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In my previous NaNoWriMo years, I did my ‘book’ without any kind of outline or previous plot ideas, just writing away and following where it took me. Right now I have three books of a series, with a lot of good stuff in them, but with plots that have never wanted to behave and just keep boinging off into something new. This year I’m trying something different. I have done some character sketches and I’ve loosely outlined the plot. I’m a little worried about trying to write inside of the structure. I tried this once before. When my characters started going off in ways that had nothing to do with the plot I had made for them, it freaked me and I stopped writing. That was a long time ago, however. This plot is looser and I am now very used to characters who want to do just what they want to do. I’m not sure I can make them behave and do what I want, but at least it won’t freak me if they take off on a tangent. [;-) Tangatizing!] It will be interesting to see how I feel about it in December.

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I have written several short stories and a couple of ballads that are set in the Derbane Dales which circled the mysterious Mountain of Wyrd hundreds of years ago. Some of you may even have read some of these. Raven Megan, if you are out there, one of these is the ballad I wrote for you, “Dancing With the Sidhe.” The protagonist of these stories and ballads is the Lady Annaelizia Rhiannon Danica Derbane ~ Duchesses of the Demesne of Derbane; Lady of Wineriver Manner; Keeper of the Estate of Dryadia; Guardian of the Dryadwood.  Every Spring Annaelizia mysteriously disappears, leaving her Overseers to take care of her vast holdings which include acres of farmland, a massive vineyard as well as the Dryadwood, which is so large that no one really knows it’s extent. The Duchy of Derbane also technically includes inside it’s borders the Mountain of Wyrd. Lady Annaelizia is wise enough to know that no one owns that mountain, so she does not “claim” it. The reason that The Lady Annaelizia disappears each Spring is because she is, in truth, half Dryad. During part of the year her blood runs as red as every other human and she stays home like a good Lady of the Manor. In the Spring, however, the sap rises in the trees and the veins behind her wrists turn green. She is called by a force she can’t fight, out from behind her safe, solid walls into the wide world . . .  into the Dryad Wood. There she travels as simply Elizia, a Poet and a Bard, with nothing but a small pack and a harp at her back. She has some interesting adventures, I suspect she will keep having them.

The story I will be writing in November moves the Mountain of Wyrd into the present. It is still mysterious, arcane and covered with mist. Parts of it routinely disappear, as do parts of what remains of the Dryadwood. The mountain is called Wyrdwood now, except by those who don’t want to admit it is there at all. Modern people are very good at looking right at something and declaring that it doesn’t exist. Here, then, is my rather lengthy outline - I tried to cut it and it got longer. Typical. My heroine this time is a fourteen year old girl named Katja, my hero the Wicked Angel who is NOT her imaginary friend. Before I launch, I bring you Elizia . . .  you see her in the painting above . . .“The Dryad Wood Calls.”  At the beginning of the next entry, you'll see another painting of her - the explanation of which is at the bottom of the next entry. Confusing! I can't make the pictures go where I want them.  They only want to let me have one picture. Do you think it is because I write so much?

Where were we? Ah! The Lore. In the area of this remarkable mountain there is nothing so important as keeping stories. The stories become legends, the legends becomes lore, the lore becomes mythology and mythology becomes religion. If you are lucky, the original stories are still there. To these people, from time eternal, nothing is more important than The Lore. It is preserved meticulously both by writing and by trained Bards. There are great rituals involved in having a story committed to “The Lore” - including having it written in the authors blood before the original is stored in a vault in the capital city of Winterhome. Every year there is a great convention where all the Bards of the land come to The Grove of Living Lore to learn all the new stories that were entered into the vault that year. They work terrifically hard learning and then they party terrifically hard, telling. When the stories are gifted to the people there is an entire week of Festival, Faire, Storytelling and Songs. The people know that story contains everything . . . all truth, all meaning, what is real, what is not . . . inside the remembrance of a culture’s stories is kept that which makes us who we are, that which makes us human . . . even if we are part Dryad. Does any of this remain in the present day where Katja lives? Any of this feeling of reverence and veneration for The Lore?  Maybe we will know by December.

And so . . . as the Dryad in charge of this story, I ask Elizia to step forward and speak a blessing on the Lore. She will reach her hands into the air and draw a rune there. Where her fingers trace, the air will be painted with a glittering light that will hang in the air while she speaks the blessing and then it will fall, running like sparkling gold dust to the ground.

 DRYAD’S NANOWRIMO - NOVEMBER 2009 - Currently w/o Title

Julian is an angel. A wicked angel. Mind you, that doesn’t mean evil. In general ‘wicked’ and ‘evil’ are synonyms, but not in the case of this particular Angel. Julian is definitely an Angel of Light and he is truthfully as virtuous, kind and chivalrous as they come. He doesn’t like to get caught being good, however, and he considers it a major fox-paw if someone tries to point it out. He is very proud of his leather wings, his flowing black cape and his faux-villainy in general. Being an angel is secondary and incidental, of course, to Julian’s calling in life.  He might have been a jaguar, a faerie, a tree, a harp . . . even a peanut. He could have been anything. What Julian is, is not the important thing. It is what he does that is important.

According to the Powers That Be, “if a child continues to insist that her Imaginary Friend is real, after the age of six, it is time to get psychiatric help.” Katja has had her share of psychiatric help, and though she is long past six, this particular edict doesn’t bother her a bit. When she read this choice little bit of information, it took her less than six seconds to see the glorious, gaping loop hole.  The sentence said: “if a child continues to insist that HER Imaginary Friend is real . . . ” It could have been ‘HIS Imaginary Friend” or gender neutral “THEIR Imaginary Friend” it didn’t matter. Julian is not HER Imaginary Friend, no matter how you look at it. He belongs to someone else. As far as Katja is concerned that leaves her front and center in the clear. Besides, Julian is so much more interesting than anyone else and he needs her. He is marooned in the Concrete World and though he can still cross the Glistening Gate back into his own world, he is doing it by stealth and he knows that it isn’t strictly legal and it certainly isn’t right. Even though he can get through the Gate, he can’t stay. After a certain amount of time, and he never knows how much, he automatically finds himself right on his bumpus back on the concrete of the Concrete World.  And, he is running out of time.

Katja, meanwhile, finds that her problematic life just keeps acquiring more problems. Very much like Julian, it seems that she is constantly caught between worlds. For the last year Katja has walked all the way from Woodhall to Owens rather than ride the bus. The Middle School, on the outskirts of Owens, is bad enough, but next fall she will have to ride the hated bus all the way to the High School in Vickersville. She hasn’t managed come up with anyway out of it. 

The people from Owens and Vickersville sometimes drive over to Woodhall, to stare at the ‘bizarre’ inhabitants; the laughing, barefoot children climbing trees and playing out in the sun rather than spending their time at the Country Club pool or playing video games; musicians and artists who sit out under the trees playing or painting, not seeming to care how they look and obviously not interested in the important things in life. They live is strange little houses spread along the winding roads, back in the trees. Houses painted with strange colors or often just made of plain gleaming wood; houses with no cars in front of them, no satellite dishes in the side yards, no tennis courts or swimming pools. There are stories that some of the people walking around the weaving streets of Woodhall are not even human. It is said they come from “elsewhere” through gates in the woods or in the mist of the mountain. Who knows what they are up to, but the people from Owens and Vickersville figure that if there were ‘aliens’ walking around, they would probably blend in perfectly with the weirdos who live in Woodhall.

None of them really believe these stories, of course. They are not the kind of people who believe. They still like to come to Woodhall and gawk. Maybe they will catch a glimpse of the mountain or of the mysterious and arcane Wood Hall, which is said to be full of staircases that go nowhere, and doors that open on to secrets deeper than the Thickwood. The country government, backed up by the state, insists that Wood Hall does not exist and maybe it doesn’t. The people from Owens and Vickersville very seldom see the Hall, that is a certainty. But then, the mists are thick and the roads twist in and out of the Thickwood in a way that makes it very easy to get lost. They come to Woodhall in their big, gas guzzling cars looking for the Wyrd without having any idea what they are looking for or at. They laugh and they point, but they never stop their expensive cars and get out.

On the county maps the ancient, mist covered Wyrdwood Mountain is listed as “Owens Peak” and the winding, bewooded village of Woodhall that circles the mountain’s feet is merely “Owens Rural Route.” As if by taking it’s name away, they can turn Wyrdwood Mountain into something like “Owens Peak.” Call it what they will, the mists still occasionally lift the mountain right off of the ground and parts of it routinely disappear. No matter what they call them, there are woods that sometimes are and sometimes are not. Calling Woodhall “Owens Rural Route” doesn’t change the things that are sometimes in the wood or the miles of twisting roads that sometimes lead no where. It doesn’t lessen the legends, change a single tradition, or make The Lore non existent.

Now that Julian and Katja have finally found each other again, they are sure that they can solve all their problems . . . if they can just stop tangentizing . . . and devising ‘Whatifs’ and then stuffing them through the mirror until they answer themselves. If they would stop waltzing across the Gate into Everall, after spelling themselves to look like two burley bears or a couple of flamingos. Julian still knows all the pass-songs so they can easily get into Childhood and quick-flitch ‘time’ so that it never gets past twilight when they are playing “No Bears Are Out Tonight.” Before any mothers can start calling anyone to come in and take a bath, it just quick-flitch’s back to morning and they get to eat breakfast again. They can go to The Dream Forge where they build the most delicious dreams and then eat them with Sleepspoons until they are so full that they have to roll home. If they would stop running off to sky-slide and then having sticky or sloppy cloud-ball fights, building cloud-men and cloud forts until they are both so covered with cloud that they look like twin cotton balls. If they just didn’t spend so much time climbing the mountain, exploring the woods and looking for Wood Hall . . . they were sure they could solve any problem.

“Really,” said Julian, sighing, “it’s the Word Games where we spend all our time. But words are so deluxe to play with! Really, they are by far the best toys and we are so exceptionally GOOD at inventing phantasmagoric word games.”
“We are both decidedly intelligent,” Katja said firmly. “We OUGHT to be able to solve all the problems and do everything else besides.”
“Yes,” said Julian, “if only our smarts were not so . . . slippery.”
Katja considered for a moment. “It’s true,” she finally announced. “Our intellect is often slick . . . sliding and slithery.”
“Lubricious,” said Julian.
“Oooooooh!” moaned Katja, “I LOVE lubricious. Lubricious. LUBricioussssssss. Lub! Lub! Where are you going with the hose?”
“It was all the slippery, slick, slithery, lubriciousness,” said Julian. “It made me want to SSSLIDE.”
“And where are you planning to ssslide?”
“That loophole in the sentence. You know, that absurd sentence about Psychobrutilizing some poor child for Believing?” He shook his head sadly. “Sometimes, Princess, the world on this side of the Glistening Gate is very ugly.”
Katja just looked at him. He knew that she knew about the ugliness, and about being brutalized for Belief. Her eyes moved and she stood looking out the window at the mountain rising mysterious and green from the soft, white mist.
“Ummm,” she said softly, “ugly? Yes, sometimes. And sometimes this world is inexpressively beautiful. Inexpressive - even for me.”
Julian smiled. He kissed the tips of his fingers and pressed them to the air in front of her third eye. She jumped, blinked hard and then smiled an extremely beautiful smile.
“At any rate,” said Julian. “I think if we get it quite incredibly wet and we run really fast down the first part of the sentence, we can jump into that loophole and go for a super slide. We might even fly right off the paper and out of the book!”
“And land where?” asked Katja looking intrigued.
“I haven’t got a clue!” said Julian happily. “Common! Let’s go!”

©Edwina Peterson Cross


At the top there, you will see the other painting of Elizia which is the flip side of “The Dryad Wood Calls” is the picture of Elizia coming home in the early fall. This one is titled, “Elizia Comes Home to the Immanent Grove.” This is her favorite place on earth - as it is one of mine. The background for the painting is actually the Sycamore Grove in Lithia Park, here in Ashland. I named the Sycamore Grove after a place at the school for Wizards (30 years before Harry Potter) in Ursula Le Guin’s “A Wizard of Earthsea.” Part of the Wizards training takes place in the “Immanent Grove,” a grove of exceptionally beautiful and sentient  trees that has the habit of moving around. It is finally explained to Ged, LeGuin’s protagonist, that the Immanent Grove doesn’t really move. It is the center of the earth, and it is everything else that moves around it. Our Immanent Grove seems to move too, and like LeGuin’s, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it turns out that it is really the center of the earth. When I have hugged my final tree, rather than a big slab of Granite in a cemetery, I am going to have a beautiful marble bench in the Immanent Grove of Lithia Park.

I drive an automatic.  It is amazing how often I forget that such things as gears even exist. This usually happens half way up a steep hill when the vehicle gets sluggy and sometimes threatens to stall . . . "Oh!" I'll suddenly think . . ."gears!"  The metaphor actually works quite well. You are undoubtably better off with gears - to be able to make up your own mind when they need shifting, rather than waiting for the "set" shift to happen. When I was young I drove nothing but a standard transmition. I wanted to ability to shift and go when I wanted to shift and go, to get up those hills and, yes, probably to make squeeling noises when I pulled out. I was braver then. I'm not so brave now, and undoubtadly lazier. It's easier to let the vehicle shift. I'm not sure I could even work a clutch anymore.

I will never forget, however, that when my Daddy was teaching me to drive he told me that I would begin to know when the gears needed to be shifted. "You learn. Partly you hear it in the engine, and partly you just feel it from the car." At first it boggled me, but it really wasn't long before not only did I "feel" when it was time to shift, but my body automatically put down the clutch while my hands shifted the gears. I really quite loved the feeling of being one with the machine - that automatic knowledge when it was time to shift. Now that something shifts for me, I take the whole process for granted.

I remember the feeling, when riding a bike, that I wasn't going to make it up the hill, then shifting gears and finding that together, the bike and I were quite equal to that hill.

This is a great question - it has made me think. I don't shift gears in my life often enough either. I very often keep going, with every running sluggish and slow, feeling that I can't get up the hills. I need to remember that in my life, if not my car, I have the ability to shift gears and when things get difficult - shifting gears may be just exactly what I need to do.

Dear Incredible People,

I am full of awe, surprise, amazement, happiness and a flood of tears.  I did not expect to find anything here for my birthday. I came over to send a message to ask someone something and look what I found!! I have been absent more than present during the last year. It is wonderful to know that you have not forgotten me. There is no gathering of souls anywhere, that has the special kind of giving care that is found here at Gaia. I still - always - think of it as my home.

As this (no doubt) will be a little long, I’m going to put it at my Blog as well. I can’t seem to ever find anything worth Bloging about, but this definitely qualifies.

I’ve had a very difficult year in all the aspects of person-hood - physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual and the fluff that keeps getting in my ear. There are so many things at Gaia I would love to participate in - first and foremost would be get the cobwebs out of PLAY POD. It may still happen, who knows. I don’t seem to be getting past just survival many days. I am writing quite a bit and have been doing a little painting. At some point there will be a self-pressed poetry book and a web site of my paintings. In the works . . . someday I hope to have some part of “the works” come to completion.

My personal life is in a state of limbo and I’m not sure what happens there next either. I suspect this is not particularly a strange thing to be happening at my age. One of the things I love about Gaia, is that it has taught me that I am not alone in my feelings. I may be very different than Jane Q. Public, but with a group where my dynamics are very similar - they are many things I can learn from what others have experienced.

My eldest daughter leaves me TOMORROW. After four years working as a Literary Specialist and Dramaturg at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, she is going to the University of Washington in Seattle to teach Shakespeare and finish her PhD. She goes from “Stage” to “Page” a bit of a jump, but she is very dedicated to bringing theatre to the next generation and this seems to her like a good way to proceed from here. She already has a cute little apartment in one of Seattle’s “Neighborhoods” and is very excited. I’ve been a little west of devastated - as this was the last of my children and they were all to be “quite gone.” While she was away at college and in England doing the Masters and PhD prep, I still had one at home.  That one is a rising Junior at the University of Oregon. At the last moment he announced that he wasn’t going back to school this year. He is at the point where he must declare a major and get ready to do what he is going to do and he hasn’t got a clue what that may be. So he is taking a year off. He will work and read a lot - possibly travel if he lands a job in which he can make some bank. I am frozen with conflicted emotions. I know a break part way through can be a good thing. I should have done it myself. Yet . . . I also know a lot of folks who went away and didn’t go back. I want him in college, but something inside me is relieved and so happy to know he will be here. They won’t all be gone after all. I know this is just postponing the inevitable, but . . .

I had another major-type surgery earlier this month and ended up getting an infection that won’t go away. It takes everything out of you and I didn’t have that much to take! I AM still hopeful that when I get this cleared up I can begin working toward more mobility. I’m not ready for the Boston Marathon, but I am at a point where I play a mean game of Pooh Sticks!

Thank you, everyone . . . Thank you so much. Especially you, Starseed my dear, who never forgets me and is a blessing to my life. You ALL will never know how much this means to me.

Much Love ~

Dryad 

Following William

Questing far and deep
I come to the poets
To artists and dreamers of thought who
‘Soar on wings above the earth.
Sometimes to dive and touch the mire
But only to graze, never to be caught’ *

I come here listening
Eternally a learner, ceaselessly a seeker
Made largely of wonder
I search for cloud trails where these feathers have flown
I follow their soaring, tumbling flight, reaching with stretched fingers,
Brushing celestial wings
“Was it thus for you? Indeed? And it is THUS for me!
How same, how different, how changing, how fascinating, don’t you think? . . .”
William cannot answer me,
Not Shakespeare, Blake, Carlos Williams,
Wordsworth or Yeats,
They fly before me
Into a radiant sun split infinity
I can only
Follow

I know how little I know
I know that understanding is a process
Knowledge not a destination
 
My universe dances in circles of changing chaos
The more I seek, the more I find
The more I find, the more I seek
The more I sense, the more I search
The more I search, the more I recognize
There is relevance in everything
Relationships everywhere

Sorrow, singing, shadows, self
My sacred wind that smelled of stars
Synchronicity . . .
Syzygy . . .
Soul

Unboxed
Unbroken
Unbound

Neither Wordsworth, nor Yeats, Blake nor Carlos Williams
Not even
Shakespeare
Ever had his finger on the pulse of God
They questioned, queried, wondered
Dreamed . . .
In flurry of free-thinking feathers
They fly before me

I can only
Follow


©Edwina Peterson Cross


* From “A Dream Play” by August Strindgerg. Translated by Jerry Turner

Indra’s Daughter speaks to the Poet:
You, child of man, you dreamer
You, skald, who best know how to live,
Soaring on wings above the earth,
Sometimes to dive and touch the mire
But only to graze, never to be caught.”

~
No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.
(William Blake)


The Birds

The world begins again!
Not wholly insufflated
the blackbirds in the rain
upon the dead topbranches
of the living tree,
stuck fast to the low clouds,
notate the dawn.
Their shrill cries sound
announcing appetite
and drop among the bending roses
and the dripping grass.

(William Carlos Williams)




To the Cuckoo

O blithe newcomer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice:
O Cuckoo! shall I call thee bird,
Or but a wandering Voice?

Though babbling only to the vale
Of sunshine and of flowers,
Thou bringest unto me a tale
Of visionary hours.

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!
Even yet thou art to me
No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery;

O blessed birth! the earth we pace
Again appears to be
An unsubstantial, fairy place,
That is fit home for Thee!

(William Wordsworth)


The White Birds
 
I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea:
We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can pass by and flee;
And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky,
Has awaked in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that never may die.
 
A weariness comes from those dreamers, dew-dabbled, the lily and rose,      
Ah, dream not of them, my beloved, the flame of the meteor that goes,
Or the flame of the blue star that lingers hung low in the fall of the dew:
For I would we were changed to white birds on the wandering foam—I and you.
 
I am haunted by numberless islands, and many a Danaan shore,
Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come near us no more:      
Soon far from the rose and the lily, the fret of the flames, would we be,
Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of the sea.

(William Butler Yeats)


Southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.
(William Shakespeare,  Hamlet: II, ii )

Happy Birthday with wings of Joy, Dear Anna!

There is a quiet miracle going on in the Gaia Group  “Passing.”  The description of the group reads, in part: "For those who have experienced the passing of loved ones from this planet. Looking death in the face. Journeying together. Death as initiation." There are marvelous things being shared there and a great deal of Gaia’ish support. I’m sure that Gaia’ish is a word, even if I just coined it.

Last night, a remarkable tribute by Soccermom left me with tears and without words. I am still amazed to find that there is another part of my brain that will still function when the language section has shut down and the words have disappeared. Even more amazing - to me - are the fingers that do what the brain tells them to. (More or less.)

Miracles are every where, folks. Some of them are even happening in my brain which is a miracle inside of a miracle, inside of another miracle . . .swirled around like a poached egg, only it's my brain and it is poached in a miracle or an old fashioned Top where the string that you pull is the miracle or a Dervish - do you know they don't spot their head's? how do they keep from getting dizzy? I'm quite fascinated with Dervishs, I also like Tops with strings and poached eggs, not to mention brains poached in swirling miracles . . . Do you remember putting crepe paper around the spokes of your bicycle? It went around in a very pleasing way, especially if the crepe paper was pink . . .

Are you confused yet? If you aren’t confused, it would be a miracle.

This is the painting I did for Soccermom last night. It is titled, “Carla’s Rose.”

This new painting is for my fellow Water Snake Martha. I have titled the painting with the title Martha uses for herself - one I have always loved - "Wildly Gentle."  Here, you see, if you hang around the tree long enough, you start getting ensnared in the Green Stuff.  The Dryad isn't always Wildly Gentle, but this one is.  Love you, Martha.

There is a bright half-moon floating up above the mountain this morning. It is listing low in the rich, black velvet sea where it sails. It dances smoothly over the myriad of tiny holes that have been snipped in the fabric of night which covers the sky. Through those little snippets the sharp, sweet light of eternity keeps piercing into the deep darkness below. It looks as though, once again,  one day has melted into another. That keeps happening with astounding regularity. Again and again, the sun drifts down behind the mountains to do whatever it is that he does over there and the perfect half of Lady Moon embarks again, a craft with no sail bobbing in a sea of sweet salt stars. I am a day late for Beltane greetings; yesterday was a round, soft, full grey day. I walked in the park, empty of tourists and joggers. It was just me, pillows of pearl colored mist, sixty five million shades of green and the ghost of William Shakespeare. We figured some things out. I hope he remembers, because I don’t.

I walked in the park for nearly two hours, got a little damp, but it was utterly worth it. Do you know, in some ways, a pink dogwood tree in full blossom ought to be against the law? Lithia Park is full of them. Heart broken by pink dogwoods in bloom. Only the strong survive.

At our house Beltane and May Day mean lilacs. Unbelievably, it has been more than ten years since both little girls were here delivering more than 60 bundles of flowers all over town. The last couple of years of the adventure they couldn’t get them all done before sunrise and were lucky to be done in time to go to school. It’s been a cold spring and the lilacs are sparse and skimpy this year. Maybe they are just hesitant and being over cautious. I suspect one good day of sun might bring them all out. The lilacs in my memory, however, are prolific and rich. I can see them just as clearly as I see the little girls who gifted them so joyously to the world.

Joyous Beltane all . . .
Love, Laughter and Lilacs . . .

Edwina

It was perspective that I was thinking of when The Grinch first turned up in my painting. I hadn’t been expecting him, to say the least, but there he was and the perspective was, indeed, kind of interesting. Perspective wandered away fairly quickly, however, and I began to wonder if Mr. Grinch was Surreal or Abstract, Something-Else or None-of-the-Above. This isn’t something I usually care about one way or the other, but, upon reflection, I realized that there are currently all kinds of “Art Words” floating around in my head like Jacob Marley.

Of course, I only wanted to know Mr. Grinch’s particulars so that I would be able to file him in the correct place. That last sentence is beyond sounding like I am haunted. It doesn’t sound like me at all. I have spent the past week beginning the rather daunting process of cataloguing my paintings, something I have never really done before. Up until now, they have been in a glorious, creative state of . . .  I was looking for a positive word for chaos. I guess the word ‘chaos’ itself is as close as I’m going to get; the synonyms are all definitely on the negative side. There really is something creative and innovative about chaos. However, the time has come, the walrus said, and some kind of order is going to have to join the chaos of creation. I have reached a place in my life where I need my paintings and being able to find them is the first step. I am also attempting to classify them, at least roughly. Which ones are best? What is the subject matter? What category does each fall into? Roughly. Very roughly. Many of them are in the same situation as Mr. Grinch.  Is it Abstract Art? Is it Surrealism? Or is it just someone with a screw loose?

While trying to get a hold on what certain art terms really mean, I came across something so delicious. It was like finding a raspberry truffle tucked in the middle of a box of sugar-free peppermint life-savors.

Exquisite Corpse.

I am very fond of the whole idea of  ‘Exquisite Corpse’ (or cadavre exquis. SEE BELOW.)  I LOVE the name. This is a GAME that I have played with children (and other screwy adults) many times. I got a huge kick out of learning that the Surrealists played it together as well. It certainly makes sense. As a group, they were not exactly conservative and staid.

Play Pod has been very quiet for some time while I was busy being very sick. We may have gotten a handle on what is going on with me physically. I hope so. I am feeling better and hope to be Playing again soon. I send many thanks to the dedicated “Mod Squad” who held things together without me. I’m going to be sending a mailing to the whole Pod after the Holidays. I couldn’t help myself, however, I went ahead and set Exquisite Corpse up at Play Pod, if anyone wants to start playing, it’s HERE.

It was a good time to do it since I have 592 other things that I have to finish before next week. I seem to always get really gung-ho about doing things when I already have so much to do that there is no way I will ever finish it. I’m sure there is a psychological name for this behavior. Maybe I’ll spend a couple of hours trying to find it this afternoon . . .

The notes below come from my friends at Artcyclopedia. A great resource. They didn’t answer the questions I came with, but they made me wonder about a lot of new things and ask a lot of new questions. I’m sure these behaviors are related. It is possibly a new form of derangement featuring corporate words like “Google” and psycho buzz words like “obsession” or “mania.” 
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/scripts/glossary-art-a.html

ABSTRACT ART:  abstraction and abstract art - Imagery which departs from representational accuracy, to a variable range of possible degrees, for some reason other than verisimilitude. Abstract artists select and then exaggerate or simplify the forms suggested by the world around them. The paintings of Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973) and Georges Braque (French, 1882-1963) as well as the sculptures of Henry Moore (English, 1898-1987), Barbara Hepworth (English, 1903-1975), and Jacques Lipchitz (Russian-American, 1891-1973) are examples of abstract art. Wassily Kandinsky, (Russian, 1866-1944), was one of the first creators of pure abstraction in modern painting. After successful avant-garde exhibitions, he founded the influential Munich group Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider; 1911-1914), when his paintings became completely abstract. His forms evolved from fluid and organic to geometric and, finally, to pictographic.

exquisite corpse or cadavre exquis - Aleatoric techniques for producing either visual or literary art devised by surrealists in which several people collaborate in creating a text or an image. This activity is often called a game, and the product of this activity are also called an exquisite corpse or, in the original French, cadavre exquis. This game is based upon an old parlor game in which players take turns writing on a sheet of paper folded it to conceal part of the writing, and then pass it to the next player for another contribution.

The surrealists' version of the game acquired its name from the results of the first use of the technique. This was a sentence in French: "Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau," meaning "the exquisite corpse will drink the young wine." The first works were sentences, and were first produced in the mid-1920s. Later literary works were typically poetry. These bizarre compositions were explained by Nicolas Calas as revealing the "unconscious reality in the personality of the group."

Surrealism was embraced by practicioners of many arts, and so it was inevitable that visual artists would take it up, first to produce drawings and collages. The first such efforts, reminiscent of children's books that allow the making of pictures with multiple pages divided at various levels, involved assigning a section of a body to each player. Most resulted in images that only vaguely resembled the human form. Some of the participants in early exquisite corpses were Yves Tanguy (French, 1900-1955), Joan Miró (Spanish, 1893-1983), and Man Ray (American, 1890-1977). Later adaptations have involved using other means of passing the work around, such as sending it through the mail; or using other media, resulting in sculpture, film, digital, etc.

It is the revelations of the "unconscious reality in the personality of the group,” that I find fascinating as far as playing at Play Pod and with members of Gaia. There are two different forms of the game set up right now, both of them involving drawing. When the quiet of January descends, I’m hoping to get different forms of the Game set up using words and poetry. We start out very simple with the old game of Head, Tummy and Legs. Imagine, however, any other form of art that has been done by several different Gaian’s revealing the “unconscious reality in the personality of the group.” The possibilities are endless and tremendously exciting.

Come and check it out! It might just be the diversion you need to help you forget the 326 things you have to finish before Sunday.


©Edwĭna Peterson Cross