Grace Independent

I think I am getting ready to do a clothing purge again. I have noticed that I really only wear certain things and as my life seems to be going through a process of streamlining again - it seems about time. I fell into the habit of having "enough" to sort of squeak by for a while without having to do laundry and then suddenly, there was this enormous, stinky bag. But I have been so busy of late that what I have been doing is just grabbing a weeks worth and washing them on the run and it is surprisingly less disruptive. Not to mention I have never been a "Whites-with-whites-cool-cycle-for-delicate-things" kind of gal. No matter how much laundry there was it all went in one load. Note, I said one load. So typically half the stuff never really gets clean, the other half rarely is dried, and I wind up with the Ozarks in my living room as I am hanging cloths of make shift lines.

So...trim it down again.

I am adjusting to not having the Internet in my house, which is quite a feat when you consider that most of my money work takes place on the Internet. That whole process is getting streamlined as well.

All for the sake of clearing space in my head and my house to really be able to focus on my two main writing projects: 'the city of love' and 'blood, soul and purpose.' BSP is what the rewrite of 'Eat not the Heart' has turned into and I am still in the planning stages with that one. But 'the city' has chugged along and come right up on a section that I need as much space as possible to begin to craft.

At this point in the story, Issand (God) has been asked by the Ocean (through his sister the Waves) to make a physical man so he (the Ocean) can approach Sadima (War, the woman on the beach who cannot remember a thing) because he has fallen in love with her.

Issand, chastened by the disaster that occurred when he made human kind out of sand and clay, decides to use different materials. He goes into the Garden of Lost Things and weaves a man together out of the memories that people have lost. The name of this man is Sangar, who is also known as the Hero.

Issand sets him on a raft and the Ocean draws Sangar close enough to Sadima so the two may speak. During their encounter, Sadima recognizes that the Hero was woven from the memories that she lost, and she takes them back, leaving Sangar lifeless on the beach.

Now...this part if I write it well could be interesting and well done. But, if I craft it well, it can become a thing of painful beauty. I think, I think I started spinning my wheels for a few weeks and then launched into all these changes because I recognized that it would be hard to write Sangar/Sadima with all this noise around me.

Sangar/Sadima hold the dreams we all have about what life and love should be like. The feelings we touch again in the newness of romance or in the moment of self-less charity.
Dreams that, like Sadima, we tend to lose sight of or dismiss during the course of life.

In the poem, Sadima gets the chance to choose whether she will continue on in life as she has become or, will she "start over" in a sense, and use what she has learned to protect and nurture these dreams within her.

I think its funny that my writing group, for me, is also turning into a performing group. I will be recording the poem as I go to make it easier for them to critique and expect to get feedback on the actual performance as well. This should be interesting and I am looking forward to it.

Quietness has a way of filling itself, you know? When you begin to clear out the "chatter," I think you would be surprised to find out what is there. But many people fear being alone with themselves. There are the ones who must fill every waking moment with something else - games, chat, TV, music etc; but there are also the ones who retreat from being with themselves by closing themselves off through meditation and other such "quieting" techniques. We can quiet ourselves so much it is as if we do not even exist. It can quickly become another form of avoidance or self. For when you can avoid the self you never have to take the responsibility for who you are, who you are becoming, and any change that needs to take place.

It's the holiday season again. A slightly bigger one than thanksgiving and one that is even more charged for people. Starting tomorrow and running through January 2nd, as a means to help myself get through the holidays and help others, I am going to start releasing short cinchcasts through Grace Independent. A cinchcast is a short audio recording that is the distributed on the cinchcast site or through the updates on twitter (GraceIWCC). In the recordings I will either be reading inspirational messages, filling you in on what is going on around me, reading short poems, telling bad jokes, talking about the mad kitten - anything to create a few "islands" during the day that we all can find to just - touch base with something other than what we may be dealing with. They will be short enough (under 3 minutes) that most cell phones with web access will be able to play the audio when you click on the link in the tweet.

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