Also, tomorrow I will be cross-posting the latest interview (with Craig Lancaster) from/by Inside the Writers’ Studio, so check back then. It’s interesting in a bunch of different ways.

And have    [Continue reading]]]> …Just in case you missed this. Enjoy! (No, I’m not one of the singers here — but I sure wish I had been!)

Also, tomorrow I will be cross-posting the latest interview (with Craig Lancaster) from/by Inside the Writers’ Studio, so check back then. It’s interesting in a bunch of different ways.

And have a nice week-end, ya’ll!

Well, yeah…

I belong to a women’s group that meets monthly on the Tuesday night    [Continue reading]]]>
The Creativity Workshop is coming to an official end – and this is where those graduation speech sentiments come into play: the end of something meaningful, but more importantly, the launch pad for something newer, more exciting, bigger. blah blah blah.

Well, yeah…

I belong to a women’s group that meets monthly on the Tuesday night closest to the full moon. Last night we did one of those rituals where you pull a seemingly random card out of a deck, read what the accompanying guidebook says about the card, and make connections to your own life.

We used The Celtic Tree Oracle: A System of Divination. The cards themselves are beautifully rendered – each depicting a different tree that represents a certain mythic concept described more fully in the text.

Sometimes I’m pretty prosaic, so my first thought was, “Oh, good, trees. I’ve been writing about trees.” My first Creativity Workshop story turned out to be a love story – between a house and a tree. My last CW story, Timbre – the one I’m working on right now – focuses on people cutting down trees in a suburban neighborhood. It’s a hate story, I suppose.

I pulled the Ash card. In Celtic cosmology, the Cosmic Ash “connects the three circles of existence… which can be variously interpreted as past, present and future, or as confusion, balance and creative force.”

I’m not so sure yet about balance, but I’ve certainly moved from confusion to creative force – and back again – with my writing in general, and through the challenges of this workshop in particular.

“The Ash can be seen as spanning both microcosm and macrocosm, the little world and the great world… Since the Ash itself carries ‘keys’ (winged fruits), choosing this card is a key to a more universal comprehension of how all things are linked, everything being connected; earthly and spiritual; yourself and the cosmos; lowest and highest. Your deeds form part of a far greater, even endless, chain of events, and your own inner pathways have their reaction in the outer world.”

This resonates with my belief in and respect for the interdependent web of all existence so I’m nodding and smiling while reading/typing the above quote.

But the prosaic kicks in again, and these words stand out in flashing lights for me: Deeds ==> chain of events. Inner pathways ==> reaction in the outer world.

I suppose these are obvious to everyone else, but right here and right now, they are the focusing guideposts I need for completing Timbre and moving forward. What can cutting down a backyard tree set in motion? What can refusing to cut a backyard tree set in motion? Who is affected, and how? How can I entice you, the reader, to care about it?

I see a more nuanced, original story evolving from a fallen tree as part of a cosmic chain of events that reverberates through the universe — or at least through the cul de sac. The story is getting deeper, richer and I can see roots (sorry!) of a larger, interconnected web of — what? deception, possibly, nastiness, most definitely — growing beneath the surface.

So, yes, I will finish this final CW story. And, yes, I will move forward with a tangle of ideas that wiil, I hope, weave themselves into a larger narrative, a bigger universe. NaNoWriMo 2010, can you hear me?

I just looked back at my original intent for this final segment of the Creativity Workshop:

Taking the mythic journey through the heart of darkness, er, suburbia.

I am so there.

::w00t::

[And another shout-out for the fabulous Merrilee Faber for getting this whole inspirational writing workshop rolling. Thank you, and thanks to everyone who slogged along for the journey. It’s been real. ]

The yoga babes connect and head for the 10:15 ferry, which is currently at the “yellow” threat level, according to TSA. Given how peaceful it is here on the water, I’m inclined to think that refers to the yellow-green pollen, which is coating    [Continue reading]]]> Here’s my Sunday world, in about 25 miles and five hours.

The yoga babes connect and head for the 10:15 ferry, which is currently at the “yellow” threat level, according to TSA. Given how peaceful it is here on the water, I’m inclined to think that refers to the yellow-green pollen, which is coating houses, cars, and the interior of nasal passages with irritating chartreuse dust. We are at the chartreuse threat level. It’s one of the few complaints I have about spring.

White herons stalk and work the shoreline for fish as the ferry pulls out. The birds pay us no mind, acting as if the ferry zips to and from the island on a regular basis. Which it does. Cormorants sit on the channel markers and watch us head off the tip of the island. Later they’ll disappear under the water for way too long, popping back above the surface nowhere near where they dove down. I worry about them down there, but they don’t seem to care. They dive anyway, again and again.

Screaming seagulls follow the ferry, jockeying for thrown food and good camera angles. (Note to tourists: If God had intended seagulls to eat Wonder Bread, the ocean itself would produce that crap. Just don’t do it. Please.)

From the ferry landing, it’s a pretty straight shot: You take the main road (might be the only road) out of town until you come to the “Worms & Coffee” sign (I am not joking) at the little gas station, and turn down the side road there.

Mobile homes, brick ranches with dog pens out back, long dusty driveways. We drive a couple of miles. We pass the Antioch Baptist Church, whose sign warns: “You can spurn the Lord for only so long.”

Soon we pass the Praise the Lord Beauty Salon, a Pentecostal church, and the Midway Gun and ATV Club.

A curve in the road, a “Visitors Welcome” sign and we’re there, at the Thai Buddhist Monastery, Wat Carolina.

It’s Songkran, the Thai New Year’s Water Festival. There are dances, chanting, a dharma talk. I watch; I listen. I don’t understand a word of the various ceremonies that appear to be taking place simultaneously. I eat wonderful food – hot, aromatic, and much of it unrecognizable to me.

I don’t understand a word, but I feel positive energy everywhere around me. We march around the outside of the temple, and I can figure out how and when to shout and clap with the others. I am splashed with water for good luck and prosperity in the new year. Lots of water.

We sit again inside the temple and a man with a huge ball of twine wraps it around us all. I am on the inside of the circle, and for a while I feel like I belong here. I suppose I am a sightseer, a tourist, but I don’t feel like one. I am peaceful. I feel part of this circle. The man unwraps the twine, but I am still part of the circle. Later the monks will wrap prayers into the twine and people will tie the prayer-filled twine around their wrists.

Soon it’s time to leave, and we make our way back to the ferry. We drive, a little too fast the last few miles, and our car is the last one to make it on the ferry before it leaves. We are grateful.

The TSA sign still says the threat level is “elevated.”

Somehow I don’t believe it just now.