the making & blessing of my dreamcatcher

 Even though I'm an atheist - I'm attracted to the aesthetics and the idea of a dreamcatcher.

I made one for myself using a grapevine wreath & hemp twine.

In the North for Earth are buttons:

In the West for Water are shells:

In the East for Air is a leaf. (I preserved it using Mod Podge.) The picture doesn't do it justice because it is actually red:

In the middle is a pendant. The pendant is a copper piece I bought to hold a fortune from a fortune cookie that I got some time ago. The fortune reads: Any rough times are behind you.

In the South for Fire are three buttons with astrological fire signs painted on them using hot spices.

My talented daughter Liz painted the buttons for me.

Go here to read about Aries being the spark, Leo being the hearth and Sagittarius being the shooting star.

Deborah Blake's book Circle, Coven & Grove contains a Tool Consecration and Blessing. I'm adapting that to bless my dreamcatcher.

It would be disrespectful and maybe illegal to quote the blessing here. The book is worth buying if you're interested.

This whole experience felt like home for me. I only have one ancestor who isn't celtic. The rest are all celts. I have cell memories of so many practices which are today labeled Wicca.

Incidentally - Deborah is a fiction novelist also. I highly recommend her Baba Yaga series:

Prequel Novella; Wickedly Magical     Book 1; Wickedly Dangerous

 and the spinoff Riders series:

Book 1; Dangerously Charming

Our Changing Earth anthology

I received my copies of these beautiful anthologies today.

I have a 5 line tanka poem in Volume 2.

They are available on Amazon here.

 

Works In Progress

 I have several things in progress.

Submitted to possible publishers:

A long poem - persuasion story - titled After the Funeral - is with defenestationism.net 

A contemporary gothic romance novel titled Hungry Ghosts was sent to Florida Coast writers for possible publication

I have poems out several places.

I have a short story out to One Story.

Still being written:

Chosen Poets contemporary gothic romance trilogy is far from finished.

I am working on organizing my poetry and submitting 10 poems to somewhere - I have lost the org they need to go to. 

Excited about:

I made a pinterest board here for a persuasion story I am writing about the woke culture. If I finish it in time I may submit it to Mudroom Magazine - deadline 1/25/2023.

I'm gonna write.

Leaving you with this - which has nothing to do with anything but lately it's an earworm. (I refuse to polarize and am listening even though the amazing Juliette Lewis is a sy...in...toe...low...gist.)

Come To My Window by Melissa Etheridge

Tadeusz Deregowski On Writing

 

My new friend and fellow author, Tad Deregowski* has kindly given me some tips to improve my writing.

I sought out tips from him because we are in agreement that:

“…writing is a form of persuasion.” T.D.

I sensed that he could teach me more effective methods of persuasion.

TIP:

“I think successful persuasion comes from a position of empathy.” T.D. He talks about catching more flies with honey.

"So, to successfully persuade one should  try to consider four elements with something approaching empathy- yourself (the author), the reader, the hero and any adversaries the hero might have. If you write in the first person you can reduce that to three." T.D.

There are people I have a hard time empathizing with. My instincts tell me that focusing more on empathy will improve my work.

OBSERVATION:

"I suspect you may have a somewhat black-white view of society in general. I don`t think that is bad in itself- if we came from a position of neutrality we`d be very boring.” T.D.

I admit currently fear has led me to black and white thinking in some areas. I do not want my country, USA, to sponsor the next genocidal dictator and there is potential for that happening.  

 TIP:

 “But, unless you can step aside from that while writing you will probably just be producing pieces whose main end is your own catharsis or end up simply preaching to the converted." T.D.

This resonates completely. I have felt this for some time now.

OBSERVATION:

(If I continue to write angry, moralistic diatribes)

“You`ll also lose humour, surprise and contradiction. And, as you aren`t humourless (by any means) the reader will miss a good part of what`s fun about you." T.D.

Again, this completely resonates. Writing is my happy place. While I want to contribute to making the world a better place, I want to enjoy the process.

CHALLENGE:

"...it would be  great if you tried to produce something where you create an ambiguous character, who has positions that you find simultaneously agreeable and obnoxious." T.D.

So I wrote a piece using these tips. It’s flawed but humorous and, in my opinion, effective – and I enjoyed the words flowing out my fingers onto the screen.

 

My takeaway from these tips and observations is:

I have a new style of writing informed by but not a direct copy of – Tad’s style.

There is an in-between style that I discovered on my own when writing the poem Uninhabitable which I will still use sometimes.

And though there are those who need to read and write angry diatribes, I won’t say never but it’s highly unlikely that I will write that way anymore because it is not effective and there is potential for increasing societies polarization.

Thank you, Tad!

*Other places to see Tad's work: instagram facebook   

 

It Appears

 I took the last post down because - 

it appears some of my arguments are not sound

it appears I need to do more research

it appears another clarification / revision will happen once I research

Meanwhile - let's have fun!

Put on your dancing shoes, or not, complete nudity might be more fun for you - and turn on Madonna's song Ray of Light. I've decided to make it my song for the year.