A Reprise

1789 Gervaise was the first one to enter Delphinia's bedchamber. Golden light spread through a crack in the white curtains, throwing a lacey pattern onto the silk-shrouded bed. Delphinia lay in the finest guest bedchamber in the castle. It had been converted from the room of the dowager Markgrafin upon her death. Though Gervaise's entrance was not quiet, there was no stirring in the midst of the great bed. Gently Gervaise laid down the tray of chocolate and great cinnamon rolls and approached the bed, pushing aside the curtain to view the prone figure there. Delphinia lay in a contorted state, her limbs drawn up against her protectively, looking like a frightened child, though she was in the depths of sleep. Her hair, dark-colored, the finer strands gilded and curling around her face and brow, was mangled, freed from its pins without a combing. She wore a loose white shift, no nightgown. Gervaise was not offended by disorder or carelessness, but Delphinia's disarray gave he...

Can I turn off this mind that's always figuring Can I quit being interested in every word that's spoken, every bit, every piece, every clue about every human being Can I stop being obsessed with what it all means What this part means and this part It has gotten to the point where I can't be offended by anything anymore because I'm caught up in the cultural ramifications I can't be interested in anything because I am obsessed with why I am interested Asking me to fill out an about me and I can just put a <3 Actually that's not true, I am just going through this change This deep figuring I thought about deleting this blog weeks ago and all of a sudden I can't stop posting I am interested in plenty of stuff I am obsessed with YouTube people Blogging people Etsy people An artist, a musician I have no idea who famous people are any more Screen name people are a common subject at my dinner table I read an interesting article about Gen Y, actually it grouped me ...

I thought it would be fun to experiment a little bit since I can't get really involved in any big writing before NaNoWriMo. In the past, Delphinia really idolizes the idea of Oriente and is positive they will be soul sisters if they meet. In the present, in their modern incarnations, they meet. But I thought, would Oriente really be this impressed with Delphinia? I began detailing her character and my imagination went off. She is really, really different than my past characters. I can recognize that I created something new here. My characters have often stayed innocent instead of intelligent, but Oriente uses her mind to the utmost. She's a little cynical. Buried beneath this coolness is a great deal of pain her visit to the castle will unlock in her past-life memories. She may have a second chance with her ill-fated love, and she and Delphinia have a chance to change each other in what will really not be a lovey dovey friendship after all.

When I was eight and nine years old, I started to think a lot about death. There was one summer, when I realized that I would be dead one day, with absolute certainty, that my mind would no longer form thoughts, my senses would no longer receive information from the world around me. I would no longer exist. At night I would lay awake and think of the nothingness, and I felt an absolute despair. I felt like life was meaningless if there was death. My belief system didn't allow me to resolve these feelings, because the only thing I learned was that one day I would die and go to Heaven, which was no consolation to me at all. Today I was thinking about it and realized why that wasn't a consolation. Because "Heaven" is a static entity. "Death" is a static entity. "Life" is ever-changing, and this is what my spirit desires. I believe in reincarnation, and I have always believed in reincarnation. I never felt the need to resolve this belief with the idea ...

Oriente handled an old silk dress carefully in white cotton gloves, the disposable kind that fitted loosely over her fingers. Her heavy round glasses were perched on the end of her nose, her hair carefully wound to the top of her head to prevent escaping strands, though half had fallen hours ago and she had not been at liberty to attend it in the midst of her project. The silk dress was a shade of peach-pink, the kind of color she could never wear-- she stuck to black, gray and occasionally white-- and she placed it in 1789. The shape, loosely gathered at the sides with a shortened hem meant to display the pointed-toe slippers of the time, was in the pastoral style, and the yellowed and degraded fichu was to drape over decollete. The Brussels lace was fine. It was clearly the gown of a noblewoman, a gown for taking afternoon tea. The other dress in the trunk was completely destroyed and would not be an appropriate museum piece. She hoped her director would not dispose of it. It clearly...

Fire depts. showed up , a photo by ladyhildegarde on Flickr. The fire depts. from Crowley, Rendon and Everman came. Even though it may look like the deep country here, I'm glad it's not. City services here are good. They used the hydrant outside our home, stayed all afternoon. There was even a police car and ambulance. At the beginning though watching the fire trucks drive right into the flames was terrifying. I realized how dangerous it really is. They did not hold back and hose it down. They jumped off the truck and went right into it. It was more stressful than I even realized at the time, still trying to take in all I saw yesterday. The only casualty was Nathan's tractor. The policeman said if we put new tires and belts on it it would probably be fine. It will be a while till he does anything with it, but I think he will go back to it in a while when the drought is over.

In studying generational theory and the turning-over of eras, and the repetition of eras, I feel like I can see this pattern in my own life, but it's not completely clear. Often I feel like I've entered a time when I am just like I was at a certain age. I can see it in my actions, words and preferences. I can also characterize my eras by discoveries of art, culture or entertainment that have made an astounding change in me that starts radiating outward. I can also think of eras when I have not had a reference art/culture to inspire me, and I have struggled artistically and otherwise. I normally don't recognize the discovery at first. It will bother my mind as something "strange" bother me more and more until I turn it over and reconcile it. It is always frightening to reconcile this new thing into my character. I tend to be drawn to things that I know other people will think are strange, so there will be a time of resistance and questioning as I ask myself who...

I can't believe it, there's going to be a NaNoWriMo chapter in my immediate area for all of our little small towns. I'm so excited, I have to go to an event now, finally. I have written three wrimo novels -- the only novels I ever complete now will probably be through this challenge. If I finally go to an event I may meet the Other Unicorns. They may even live around me. My god, who knows??? I am so excited about what I'm writing this year. It is everything I am and everything I need to say right now. It's about my reading, my ideas, my spirit, and the way I've become this person now. I can't wait for November. I am still trying to decide if I'm going to put it online or not. Right now I'm saying yes, but not right away so I can have some breathing room, say what I need to say all the way without worrying about putting it out there. But I will be posting my daily word counts here. The NaNoWriMo site crashes or is really slow in November (when peop...

When I stepped outside this morning the first thing I felt was the wind, loving me. I breathed deeply and leaned into his embrace. He said, you're not alone, you're as un-alone as can be, I'm here. I went to be outside at lunch-time. There were sunflowers blooming, and I was so happy to see them there despite the drought. The sun shone intermittently and made me feel alive. The wind blew, troubling me, but I reminded myself that it was alive, and that it was change. The summer is nearly over, and this spirit is transforming the earth.

What does it mean to look not with the eyes but with the heart? I didn't really know what that meant. It's not as sappy as it sounds. I've been talking a lot about the astral plane without knowing what that really means, but I guess I read enough from Doreen Valiente and Dion Fortune to take my own definition. As above, so below, for every physical entity, there is a spiritual entity. Additionally, remembering past lives is achived through spiritual memory, not physical memory. For me, the world around me is my teacher. I can see myself, conflicts and challenges that come up, sometimes completely unexpectedly, exposing my vulnerabilities and unsoundness. I see it through my spiritual eyes, I see this map of my life like some kind of thermo-topographical map with red areas and blue areas, and I can figure out what I need to know by looking at the map. To an extent that makes tarot irrelevant, doesn't it? But sometimes I can't always see, and the tarot has so far ...

Confirmation Christmas Party , a photo by ladyhildegarde on Flickr. always I have had one foot in dark waters... one day perhaps I will really jump in.

Here's my first ecto post... we'll see how this goes. I have been trying to find an offline editor for ages since I got the Mac. Well I read another interesting thing in The Fourth Turning : apparently what our vision of the future can define our generation. The book goes back over the kinds of futuristic movies that were made at the turn of the century all the way up to now. Sometimes these movies present a marvelous space-age world, and sometimes a dystopic post-apocalyptic wasteland. I think it's fascinating that our vision of the future hundreds of years from now actually reflects the way we feel about our present world. Till I thought about things this way I did not really see the literary value in science fiction. Now it makes science fiction seem really important to me. The Age of the Confessional Self. This is our present literary age which began in the early 60's when the first Gen-X'er's were born. I have been reflecting in my reading, that even ...

The way the air feels today is the way your face feels when the breeze cools your tears, when you've finally cried, after a long, dry time of suffering.

I am overwhelmed with feelings and thoughts that have nowhere to go, they chase me and really destroy me and I write, clumsily, more to help myself than to write something good, and I wonder if this means I really am going to be a real writer one day, that the underlying emotions, the sense of life lived completely, is what matters, not the style, history or subject matter. I feel lately like I have opened a door and found another room, sort of like being in a small house and unexpectedly opening the door to a vast ballroom, suddenly I have so much more territory to explore. There is a sense of deep darkness about it, a sense that if someone else really knew how deep and how far my mind travels into this shadowed place they would have me get therapy quickly, there is the sense, like exploring an abandoned building, that I am now trespassing, I am living on borrowed time now. After standing at the fence and staring while I got my nerve up, I finally decided to climb over, half-imagini...

I didn't know the world would be this way some day, so close and yet so far away. I feel bewildered, it's decentralized, I see truth in different schools of thought, but no one truth by which I can live my life. That makes life difficult, doesn't it?

"Delphi... Delphi, look at me. Are you hurt, are you ill?" Adelia clasped her fingers gently over Delphinia's pallid arm. Delphinia continued to lean against the window frame. She closed her eyes, still able to feel the touch of her friend's fiance's lips. "Please, I'm fine, I'm just not myself. I will be all right soon." Adelia shook her head. "You've been this way for days. You stay to yourself." As if to prove her point, Delphinia cowered her face marginally further against the curtain, though her head was pressed as far as it would go. She couldn't think of anything but him. She didn't know she could be this way, so broken-hearted, so obsessive. She had taken up a new, shameful hobby and as soon as Adelia left the room, she was going to do it again. She realized, with a stirring of interest, that she must act fine and convince Adelia to leave so she could do it again. "At least look at me. Please." Th...

The pewter cup is dimly visible, I take it between my hands. It is empty, empty. My thirst leaves me weak, my body useless. I check the cup every day. Every several days or so, there is a little water in the cup. The water sustains me, keeps me alive. I have learned sometimes to live without water. Then water deluges me, shocking my senses with its chill, leaving me breathless as I realize I never lived before, and I drown, and I drink. Suddenly my dimly lit cell is empty again. There's no water. My shuddering senses can't bear it, but somehow I'm still alive. I'm not relieved from misery. Every day there's a little water in my cup. Just a few drops, how cold, how sweet. They keep me alive. I'm barely alive now. I realize this is how much water I will ever get. I realize that this water is not water, it's mercy, it's keeping me alive because I cannot keep myself alive.