White Wolf, White Lady

It was the cold pressure of wet snow on my cheek that finally woke me. I was still bundled in Ma’s old patchwork quilt and my red coat and white scarf tucked around my throat but the sleigh was nowhere to be seen. My side was a little tender from a bruise where I must have fallen. Sitting up I looked all around me. Moonight glittered on the soft white snow all around me and evergreens stretched black spear-like sillouettes in the forest all around me. I struggled out of my blanket looking down in both directions of a set of fine sleigh-tracks rutted through the freshly fallen snow. It was a clear calm night and I could see stars shining in the black sky beyond the white puffs of my breath. A gentle breeze blew and cold began creeping in where the blankets had loostened around my shoulders. 

I must have fallen asleep once we’d snuggly been bundled into the sleigh after Uncle Martin’s party and being closest to the door prefering to huddle deep among the hay on the floor of the large sleigh it wasn’t unbelievable that I had tumbled out. My eight-year-old mind figured that out fast enough.

Despite the tracks I knew I was lost. I’d sat very still for a long moment holding my breath in hopes I could hear the faint jingle of bells in the distance but only the rustle of evergreen bows and silence of a great big world did I hear. I had no idea which way the sleigh had come from and therefore no idea which way to follow to reach home. 

It had been a good hour ride to Uncle Martins and I had no idea where we were in the way back. I got to my feet knowing there was nothing for it but try one way or the other. The chill creeping down my throat and into my sleeves already stung in my cheeks.

Pulling the blanket around me tightly I walked in the direction of the moon following the sleigh-tracks. Silence left no marker for the passage of time and I walked for what seemed to be years. Nothing changed except one patch of solider like pines with quirked branches and icicles dripping from long black bows changed to a different patch of equally intimidating branches.

My feet grew numb and my knees ached. Every so often I tugged hard at the quilt to pull it loose from a pile of soft snow. It dragged on the ground behind me and collected the loose fresh snow until it became an added burden to my little endeavor. I struggled over the cold white carpet and tiny beads of sweat formed on my face despite the involuntary shiver that started in my shoulders and went through my mouth.

A howl of wolf sounded near me and I bit my quaking lip to listen. I stood still and listened hard over the rat-a-tat of my heart. I wasn’t afraid exactly though a queasy feeling squirmed through the pit of my stomach and my whole body trembled. If I had known this would happen I could have imagined so many things I probably would have thought but none of them went through my head in that moment.

Was I going to see my first wolf? I wondered. Again the sound pierced the silence and it was—there. Before my eyes in a flash of white and shining silver in the moonlight stood a great white wolf. I was frozen in awe or terror or both and we blinked at each other. I knew that he saw me as clearly as I saw him for his face was turned in my direction. Like the look of a king on peasant’s obtrusion into his court his gaze glanced over me. He appeared at the crest of a small hill  to the left of the sleigh-tracks. The long hair of his winter coat glittered with snow. His wide wild face was dark grey fur outlining a snout and patches around his luminous golden eyes that were white. 

The wolf flicked his tail, swiveled his head to look in the direction he’d come and trotted away into a brush of pines. My weak legs crumpled beneath me and I lay on the wet snow unheading. I had seen a wolf survived! Alone in the great wilderness of my home I could die of happiness even now, despite the misery of my little body.

A lump rose in my throat. I was far away from home, no one knew I was gone and I might die tonight. Frozen like little ice sculpture they would find me— tears blurred my vision and froze on my cheeks. My numb hands were too clumsy to wipe them away and I realized in a panic I had to keep moving. 

Stumbling to my feet I could barely see through my tears and perhaps what happened next was only an illusion of my crazed state. 

A tall white figure appeared where the wolf had just been. A girl garbed in flowing sliver garb billowing gently about her lithe frame in the soft breeze moved towards my in silken movements. In to strides she was at my side and kneeling. I sobbed and hiccupped and tried to blink away more tears so I could better see in her face. Great eyes with long golden lashes; a soft curving cheek dimpled with a softer smile on pale white lips was all I saw. I uttered a cry of relief and joy and flung myself into the beautiful ladies arms. I felt her warmth more suddenly than was possible in such winter night but thought nothing except relief.

 Soft hands and velvet pressed in around me and I my aching feet left the ground. 

Words I didn’t understand floated around me like a lullaby and the voice that sang them softly in my ear was more sweet and ariel than any human tones I’d ever heard. There was a lighter more windy quality to the voice that made it seem capable of greater warmth and coldness than anything from human lungs. 

I yawned into her velvet sleeve and pressed my cheek upon her arm. All the ache and cold and shiver went out of my body and soon a deep drowsyness overcame me.

“Mera! Oh dear God have mercy!” a woman’s piercing cry woke me. Flickering light from several lanterns and the call of men to each other surrounded me.

“Mama?” I said, yawning and looking up around me to see where she was.

“She’s safe.” The sonorous voice of my father said and it sounded like he’d just heaved a mountain off his shoulders.

I was sleepy and cold was once again creeping in under the quilt where I lay on the wet snow by the sleigh tracks. The sleigh was nowhere to be seen but my house was a dark shadow with lit windows not a dozen yards away. Five men gathered around us each carrying a lantern as my mother knelt by my side and drew me up into her arms. 

“Oh Mera,” she said, rocking back onto her heels, “I thought—we thought—” I felt her sobs shake us both as she held me close.

“What a lass, asleep under a birch while we’ve all been searching high an low for her.” My father sounded amused and relieved.

I was carried into the house and the men gathered around the fire with mugs of coffee to talk in hushed voices while they warmed themselves by our kitchen stove. 

Mother helped me undress behind the privacy of the great quilt hung across one corner of the two room cabin where I slept in a bed shared with my sister. Into bed I went and mother tucked me in with special care and an extra little prayer of thanks. She kissed my forehead stroking my with an extra gentle hand and then slipped behind the quilt.

Sister was already asleep with her little pressed into the big white pillow we shared and her thumb slipping idly out of her parted lips. The low murmur of the men’s voices and clatter of cups made me drowsy again. When I was almost asleep I heard a sound so faint it could only be heard at a lull in the conversation beyond the quilt. It was the high moan of a wolf in the distance.

I was wide awake, my heart pounding again. I stared at the log wall and wondered. In the warmth of my own bed, my toes still thawing from the cold it all seemed like a dream. Had I really seen the beautiful lady?

Again the wolf bayed and I smiled to myself. Questions could wait till the morning, but beyond all doubt I knew one thing for certain. I was lost in the woods and someone had saved me from certain death. Most of all, somehow I knew without knowning how, that that somone wanted no one but myself to know what she did. My eyes drifted closed and I hugged my pillow close. I was fine with that.

One-O-Clock Rambles

The world has it all backwards. It's not who you are. It's not what surrounds you, shapes you, tests you. It's not what you can drag out from inside of yourself. It's not even who you desire to become.

It's who you are called.

It's all centralized on the one who created you. When a trumpet was made, it wasn't anything but a piece of brass shaped in a funnel with buttons on it until the creator took it up, set lips to it and breathed the life of meaning into it. Purpose and destiny cannot be derived from within ourselves any more than a clay pot can know the purpose it was shaped.

I ask the question, "What's the purpose? What's the drive? Why..."

Looking at fantasy, fiction, writing, life it brings me back to this fundamental question. It quivers at the edge of my brain like a droplet forms on the edge of a cliff before the beginning of a waterfall. Like an illusive itch beneath the surface of brain that needs the perfect though to reveal it.

How intricately we were formed, that I could even try to grapple with grand scheme ideas. This is what sets us apart from the animals and this is what sets us apart to look up into the heavens and face God in our sinfulness to his holiness so only redemption can bridge the gap and return us to a destiny filled purpose.

Why are we so drawn to fantasy? Why does Thor, Spiderman, Narnia, and Lord of the Rings tug at our soul strings so irresistibly? Because deep down inside us is a desire that lies untouched. Like a sleeping dragon, a caged tiger unready to be unleashed yet straining at the bars and snarling for freedom is our yearning. The yearning to do what we were created to do.

We have an enemy who constantly tries to distract us from our goal by all the bells and whistles of the circus but still we know that steel bars await us once the show is over and in the silence of the pre-dawn hour the longing like a wanderlust is stirred in our wild hearts again. A silent breeze steels in through the open windows of our souls and we breathe deeply. Inhaling the wild intoxicating scents of destiny that lies beyond the locked door of our subliminal caged life. Deep down inside we all know that caged tigers are unnatural and we were born to be greater than what we are.

Yet all of this is not derived from ourselves as if we had some innate goodness that only needed to be tapped to find the inner paradise for which we seek. No indeed! It is from an outward source we can find all goodness and truth, love and hope, virtue and destiny. It's not even that this source is limited like a well in a parched desert-land or the soup kitchens of an angular bustling city. There is no privileged. No cut-off point where they say, "One more and no further. That's all there is for today."

It is God who holds this all! This infinite goodness! It is our goal (those of us gifted with delightful revelation and entrance into this marvelous all too wonderful truth) to portray exactly that: This is a great commodity that will not only last but it is the only thing in the entire universe that is not too good to be true.

My Little Bird, Fly for Me.

I’ve always believed when a wing gets crippled the best thing for it is to be stretched and exercised. I once had a little blue bird because I found it laying on my window seal with a broken wing. I gave a small cry. The poor thing was so still I was certain it was dead, but as I lifted it tenderly in my small hands it fluttered it’s one good wing slightly. I pressed my fingers to it’s white speckled breast and felt the faint swift flutter of its heartbeat.

My father, Adi, is king of a great land I have never really seen. It stretches far beyond the palace windows and I can never journey far because of my lame foot. I don't know if I could perhaps travel much more if I weren't a princess, but certainly I could if I didn't have a weak twisted ankle.

Eli, my bold sister, scoffed when I bandaged it’s wound and fed it.  She didn’t think it was worth saving but then she is free to go wherever she likes with an entourage of only one soldier. It took several weeks and Adi brought me a beautiful gilded cage with gemstones in the door and silver perch. One wall was solid silver with several perches of various sizes and at different heights. The silver was carved with bluejays and peacocks. It was a beautiful little home,with plenty of food and water, but the bluejay was hopping around restlessly the moment it was strong enough to be on it’s feet. It sang all day long, chattering at the air and to me. Sometimes I thought it sounded bold and cheerful as if it was determined to be grateful. On other days, however, I could hear the pleading in it’s voice and it broke my heart. 

It was on it’s feet in a couple days but it was nearly two weeks before I was able to take the bandage off. That day it started flying about it’s cage. First it flew softly, testing the strength of its wing, then with more speed, twisting and plunging to keep from striking against the silver bars. 

That night I lay in bed staring at the shadowed corner where the cage was. My heart beat like the wings of my little blu jay. I could hear the gentle rustle and thrum of his flight around the large cage. For hours Iay still in my bed, wide awake, my heart as restless as my little bird. I couldn’t let him go! He was my one delight and link to the world beyond my window! Perhaps the gods had sent him to me to be my companion.

Then another thought struck. Perhaps the gods had sent him to me as a test. The stories did say they tested mortals in all manner of disquises. Perhaps, it was a test to see if I was willing to sacrifice my joy for another’s freedom and then maybe, perhaps…I didn’t let my mind turn there. I looked hard at the shadowed corner. Then tossing my head away I rolled away from it and stared at the curtain and open window. 

The moon hung high in the sky like the glowing silver fingernail of some great god pointing to the south. Stars winked all around it like plotting diamonds in the skies murky depths. A cool breeze slid in over the windowsill and wound it’s way over my bead and through my black hair. I caught the sticky sweet smell of hyssop and chrysanthemum from the gardens below. 

A nightingale’s song came with that breeze. So soft it most have been a long ways away, at the end of the gardens or beyond in the forest. These reminders of the great world softened my aching heart. No, I thought, If I let my blue jay go it would not be for any fear of the gods or hope of what they might give me. It would be for my sake alone. I would send a little piece of my heart with him, charging him to carry it far, far away to somewhere wonderful and breathtaking.

In a moment I had slipped out of my bed and tiptoed, as best I could dragging my foot a little, over to the shadowed corner. 

“Come my little bird,” I cooed through the bars in a gentle whisper. “I won’t keep you caged any longer than you must. I suppose you can make it alright out there. Now that you’re well. ”

 My throat constricted as I busied myself with lifting the large cage off it’s hook hanging from the ceiling. Adi had had it hung at a perfect height for me to stand or sit by it and watch my little blue jay but the whole cage was only a little smaller than I was and I couldn’t reach the latch. My lame foot began to hurt and I gave up that idea. I fumbled with the little door’s latch and it swung silently open on well oiled hinges. 

In a rush the bird was perched on the hand I stretched into the cage as he always had been when he wasn’t able to fly. I cupped a hand over his wings to prevent him from flying before I got to the window. I couldn’t stand the thought of him getting lost in my big room or flying further into the palace and never finding his way to the wide world. I knew every inch of this palace. For a little bird to wander through it was far too dangerous for him.

There was no way I wanted him taking a part of me anywhere in here, trapped in his terrified little body. What if he had a family in the forest? His wings fluttered under my hands. I wanted to get him to the window before he struggled out of my grasp.

“Wait,” I whispered, “Wait! You’ll be free in a minute.”

I had to walk slowly both because of my leg and the focus it took to keep hold of him without crushing him or injuring his wing again. He was still a very small bird but my tiny hands were almost too small for him. 

To console myself of my loss I began to talk to him.“Go for me my little bird. Go far away somewhere. Take me with you through my dreams. Go safely, get there. Make sure it’s somewhere wonderful, where you will be happy to fly about among the trees and flowers and whatever else the world may hold.”

By this time I had reached the window sill and stood staring out over the fields. I raised my hands into the wind and hesitated. The lonely bay of wolf came from the direction of the setting moon and I shivered. Would my little bird even be safe out there? The wild came with it’s dangerous perils and many a sacrifice and price to pay for such freedom. No food except what he could hunt up for himself. The wet and the cold and the heat all came and went with seasons. Winter was coming. How could he survive all alone? 

I felt his tiny beak pressing between my fingers. He pecked at my finger gently. This bird knew the price he had to pay and was willing to die for it once. There is no life in a gilded cage. I only gave him a second chance to live and freedom was the only way for a bird.

I shut my eyes and opened my hands. A soft flutter, a sudden jubilent birdsong and the bracing chill of an autumnal wind.

“Be free,” I whispered.

I thought of my little bird many times that winter. Any time I looked out of my bedroom window or saw the empty hook in the corner. Adi had the cage moved into the palace gardens awaiting a special occupant and I was glad not to see it any more. It was only a reminder of my own condition. My heart was the bird and this body was my gilded cage. But I still have hope from my little bird. Maybe he outwitted that wolf and found his home in a glen by a mighty waterfall. That is where I would live if I were free. Among the trees always surrounded by the thundering sound of the water. There power courted beauty and time married sound and life is a living melody. That is where I dream my little bird is.

"Jesse, come here, I want to show you something." A father beckoned for his son to come over to where he knelt in the freshly plowed soil. The tawny haired five-year-old with dimpled elbows and a round, yet babyish face ran to his father's side and stared at his dad's open hand with blue-eyed amazement.
 "Yes, daddy?"
"Do you see this seed?" The father drew his hand up for closer inspection for his son. It was a large brown seed smooth and glossy in the spring sunlight.
The boy bobbed his head seriously.
"And you remember when you told me you wanted to have your own pears?"
The boy grew excited. "Yes, Daddy!"
"I'm giving you this pear seed and this plot of ground. If you take care of it and help it grow, doing everything I tell you to, one day you will have many pears and they will all be your own."
"oh..."Jesse's face fell a little he looked confused. "How long until I have my own pears?"
"It'll take time. A couple years, but until then you can have some of my pears." The father added to encourage his young son.
"Ok, Daddy."
"First thing you must do is plant this seed."
With his father's help the little boy planted and covered the seed. Then his father instructed him on how to properly water the patch and when to do it. He remembered as well as he could and his father promised to help him.

Every day after breakfast the little boy would follow his father to their orchard and take out the little watering pale to the pump, fill it up and water the marked plot where his seed was. When he was done he would play among the trees and watch the birds fly among the branches helping his father with little things like scaring the birds away from ripe pears and finding deadly caterpillars among the  leaves of the bushes.

His tree started out as a tiny shoot and he was very excited when it first began to poke it's green tendrils above the ground.

He didn't notice but every time there were weeds around his plot his father would root them up and fertilize the ground with a skilled hand.
After several weeks his father called him over to the plot after he had finished watering the ground.
"It's time you learn to do a little more," he said, "Let me show you how to weed from around your tree."

With this pattern the son learned all the different aspects necessary to make a flourishing tree. Years passed and there were days the son forgot or was too tired to take care of his tree properly and it didn't grow as well as it did at first. His father told him, he could always ask for help and he would be there, but the son didn't think his father had enough time to look after his one tree when there were so many he was always working on.

So he grew a little lazy and discouraged by the state of his sorry looking tree. His father saw it and was sad also, knowing the first harvest of pears would be a poor one for the boy. Yet he left him to do the work and waited for his son to ask for his help.

One day a caterpillar started eating all the leaves and the boy went at his old job of finding them and pulling them from the branches but it wasn't enough! There were to many. He was almost dispairing his tree would die when he realized he should ask his father. Going to the man he asked for help with his tree...

"Happy Birthday!"

My roommate just made my day and blessed my socks off! As I pound away on my homework for tomorrow she shifts from her sleep at 11:59 and wishes me a Happy Birthday!

"You didn't have to wake up to tell me! You could have waited till morning." I said, but it made me so warm and comfortable inside.

She said, "It's my family tradition." Her Sister in Japan had done it on her birthday while she was here, and that's what they do. They set an alarm for the minute before midnight and send a happy birthday message exactly on the hour.

I love traditions. 

Homework successfully done. 

Birthday successfully begun. 

God is good and I'm off to bed.

The Man

I met the man. The eyes he had have seen the unseeable and looked into me. He never spoke a word of greeting but I saw his every word written across his face--etched there in lines I know are more ancient than my own handiwork. A well written story I had no desire to read.

"Abirl," he said to me, "You will never live. Not this way."

He meant, "Pride will be your death. In life you have nothing to gain."

It wasn't even a fact. If it was a fact I could have refuted it. I could have descried it. Understood it. Unraveled it to a nothingness where it would not have power to sting the immortal. My heart--if I have one--was outraged. It thundered within me like a horse on cobbled streets. {These things have nothing to do with me, yet I make use of them for your understanding.} It was a question.

I hate that man. If I can hate. If I can feel at all he is the only thing I feel anything about. No, I won't explain how I knew--knew what he meant; it's painful enough to just put this into words. I have never met someone who can see me. I often wondered what it would be like to be seen. (Now I know. It is the worst terror in creation.)

Not ordinarily seen like a sunbeam or scarlet thread against white cotton. That is only glimpsed, observed. I observe very little now, it is so--so uninteresting. I look. When a man passes me on the street he sees merely what I am--a boy with two eyes, a nose, a pair of arms and lanky legs studded with brown feet jutting far out from my rough jean pants. Even all this he will not really notice, though he might think he knows much more about me.

He, of course, knows nothing. For I see him. I see not what covers him and keeps him himself and obscure but the very depths and complexities of his inner existence. His soul, as people say.

The man saw me and I could not see him. He stood from his lofty purpose with every grain of pretense and power hanging over my impudent little head and I knew he could crush me if he wanted. He knew I knew. Still, he stared on, unfolding his power around us but never touching me. Not even a flake of the snow he shot around us in white torrents.

I wanted him to crush me. I wanted it to be over--this torture of my untouchable being, but he wouldn't relent nor would he release me to return to my existence. He looked at me with that disgusting weakness in his eyes that I scorn beyond any other weakness of the world and would find thousands of weak men who follow me in contempt. Some of your kind call it beneficence, others call it pity, and yet the closest your pitiable words get to it's reality is mercy.

Kill me! I growled without opening my mouth. it would be better if you did. I was defying him. I would grind his words into the ground.

He shook his head slowly lowering his head. My revulsion for him grew by the parsec. I couldn't see his terrible eyes but not seeing them, I dreaded what they might be withholding from me. I, who knew everything. Me. And for the first time since the beginning I had no thought for understanding--no comprehension of what he might be thinking.

"Abril." The very sound of his voice was grading enough to make me vibrate and shrink back. "There is still room for you in this universe. I have time to wait."

"Time to waste." I spat. It was the first time I had spoken. In that moment I vowed I would never hear my voice next to his. The unmeasurable distance between the two shocked even me. I had the greatest voice of all and it sounded like withered apples in a dry riverbed next to his. He deserved every minute of my unending loathing.

I know my words are incompetent--don't even try to reconcile these fragmented thoughts to each other--and I cannot have you understand. I am in the greatest--the only--upheaval I have felt in an age and an age.

Scratched on a ripped and burned parchment by ink pen in candle-light. I couldn't bring myself to the 21 age this hour.

~Abril

Night-time Words

I'm weak. Weaker, perhaps, than I used to be, or perhaps, only knowing more about myself now than I did then. It flip-flopped in my mind as I lay on my bed. The whir of air-con and fan brushing against my senses unconsciously.

I'm thoroughly addicted to media. I tried going on a semi-fast and was too weak to manage it very well. Now that it's over I've gone at it like a child knowing his mother's upstairs hits the cookie jar. I take one bite, nibbling a gooey chocolate chip and chewy cookie, then it's all up with me. I want more and more and more. More until I forget my better intentions to have a productive, light and joy filled evening writing and dreaming.

It's a terrible thing.

I want my peace! I want to be that Christ-like girly without gulping down luke-warm indulgence, and gnawing at stale bread-of-idleness. God help me, (and I mean that very literally) I want to be a joyful thing. I want to cook and clean with all the viggor I sometimes feel.

I need you God.

I want you. I want your help.

Make me willing, make me humble, help this disease.

Break my addictions.

P.S. My other blog is starlikeyes.wordpress.com if you'd like to read more often posts.

To Be an Anne Again

I screamed into the darkness. Take me away... Far away. I wanted to go to the lands of my eyes mind--lands of green hollows, daring adventures, swordplay and horseback riding. somewhere I would be alive and living to save, living to protect. A place where animals could talk and elves roamed the great forests making them fairer than the trees, light, and water of our world.

I wanted to live again. Breathe again.

Take my chains and turn them light. Give me joy from the depth of my soul. I want to take delight and a child-like joy in everything I see. The trees, the flowers. I want to be an Anne after my own kind! Someone with eyes for a beauty, seeing romantic things ever. Watching for fairies and deepening my imagination. Feeding it and growing it until it surpasses my worries and doubts.

Would I have to give up any progress I've made on being responsible? I hope not...Anne didn't.

I lay stretched out on my bed in the darkness of an unlit room. The sky must be completely overcast as little light filters through my thin blue-flowered curtains. It's only late afternoon, and rain torrents fall in a soothing clamor outside my window. Ah, it's lovely today. In a completely wasteful way.

I need to work on being more...more...what's the word? Disciplined, that's it.

Well, it's an interlude, I must get back to writing on the Colombia book! It must be written!

Introduction: Abril

Life is a strange experience. Something so small and finite, yet over centuries the greatest of humanity have struggled to understand it. Struggled to grasp and comprehend it so they may be masters of it. Foolishness. If only they knew that mastery is not pleasure and understanding no joy. It is the freedom in dependancy that I know not. That is what they should rejoice in. There is the secret to joy that I will never experience.

But instead they want freedom from their ignorance. What a fickle race they are. Ignorance is bliss, is that not one of their many expressions? When will they learn that the greatest joy is in what they cannot experience with their five senses. Only through the soul can true life be found. But most of them are dead in their souls. Many claim to know the way to life but are blind. How could they understand life when they've never been touched by it? No, it's breathing, tasting, the silent solitude in a single moment, that they do not know.

When they learn the secret to full attention, then perhaps they will live.

Life is now.

Enough about my philosophy--as you call it--you need to know who I am. At least, a little about me. Then you may begin to comprehend, if indeed that's what it is. You want a name perhaps? My name. No, I haven't one yet. You must understand, from where I come there are no names. We remain nameless except when we have discovered who we truly are.

I have not had the great fortune of discovering that yet. For now, if you must have a name, call me Abril. Simple. Uncomplex. So very little like my life. I have a world to show you. One you will never have seen before. Yes, smile and find these words trite. They are hardly enough, but they will have to do.

It is the way you communicate here, isn't it? In my world we have no need of words. My lack, therefore, in words you must pardon. I will do my best to express clearly what I have to show you.

Do you dare experience the world through my eyes?

~Abril~

Defeat a.k.a. Lessons for Success

I can't help but feel a little broken. That's all I've been asking to become, actually. I'm praying for a broken and contrite spirit. I need God's help to live and breathe again. I didn't get a lot done yesterday, because I wasted the day. Now I want to try again see what reasons I have to keep going.

I'm learning something new now. The truth is, I've discovered that it's only through a lot of failure and defeat that you make it to success. If you don't get up again after you fail you'll never fail again, that's true, but you'll never succeed either. Every day that I find it really difficult to write on this book, I am stretching my inner muscles. My discipline muscles. The more I stretch them, and the more continuously I use them the stronger they'll get.

So I'm going to keep pressing on. I can't give up now, I've only just begun. The other day when I was praying with my mom she saw a vision about this. It's really encouraging, because in it I was running a race with hurtles. At first I toppled several over and almost wanted to stop, but God was saying to not worry about them.

"There are plenty more hurtles ahead. Don't worry when you miss a few!" He said.

So I kept going and then was distracted by the forest. It was beautiful and mysterious--enticing me to go have a look at it. God warned me not to go off but keep running on the path. I came to more hurtles and they were much higher. This time they had wine glasses on them and I skimmed over the tops without spilling any of the water. There were people also cheering me on all the time, despite the fact I was running this race alone.

I made it to the end and all the rest is for another time.

WIP WordCount: 15,122

Trial

Does this work?

Start with a Hook, End with a Bang?

Sounds like a crazy old man who goes fishing with a revolver. Once he gets a bite, reels it in and pulls it into the boat he shoots the wriggling fish to kill it. Sure, this makes certain it won't jump out of the boat but it also ruins the fish. Oh, I can see him on the pond now. Yeah that wasn't the best idea. The boat's sinking.

Ah well, we shall turn away from such a foolish idea. We are not old crazy men. No. We are young insane writers is that not true? and our hook and bang serve a much better purpose then spoiling and despoiling fish.

In the Twilight It's so Hard to See, What's wrong for Me...

I suppose I should write on you more often. My poor neglected blog, you grow dusty and sad without my seasoned words to perk you up. Not that my words are particularly tasty morssels. My current struggle has perhaps quelled my desire to write. These things are not good. I am losing vocabulary and not strengthening my writing abilities.

My struggle has all to do with that terribly popular series Twilight. I'm so confused about it! I can still vaguely remember the days when I first heard about it and was adamently against it. Slowly over time I changed. When I went to stay with some friends (very wonderful people) the girl is a huge fan of twilight. She showed me a trailer and out of curiosity I asked her about the books.

It seems that my progression has been slow and jerky but in the wrong direction. Stealthily my resolve not to see the first movie was overrun and I watched it. Feeling rather bad about it for a while because I was very unsure if it was the kind of thing I should watch. Then, continuing with my resolution not to have anything to do with the books a year passed smoothly.

Now my brother has read the books, the brother I so admire. He is still in the process of reading them. It shook my resolve somewhat and made me reconsider taking a took at the books. The second movie began to be advertized and I watched the first trailer they released. It looked rather interesting. The second trailer had me wanting to watch it very much. But when I saw the third trailer (which gives a little more of a view of the Volturie--or however you spell it) I was much more hesitant about watching it and decided I wouldn't.

This being still several months before it came out, everything I constantly heard about it began to eat away at my reserved choice. Now that I've seen the third movie I'm all in a fuddle trying to figure out what I should feel if not what I do feel. I enjoyed it. Pure and simple it fed on my girlish heart's Hopelessly romantic state. The Vampires in the Volturie--though disturbing--didn't bother me as much as they should. I felt myself overlooking many of the problems in the movie.

I'm sure someday I will look at this and be ashamed of the way I have behaved in these past several months. Not so much because of what I have written here but because of all that I have not written here. Things that used to be certain in my mind are now questionable. If I don't stop and ask those questions who knows where I'll end up.

So here I am, stopping to ask myself questions in an effort to get to the bottom of this. Is there anything wrong with enjoying these movies or books? I don't feel guilty about it but is that any excuse? The bible talks about thinking on things that are pure, lovely, noble etc.--Is twilight pure? No. Is it Noble? Only in a twisted way.. As for Lovely...well not in the way that God spoke of in the bible.

The greatest danger here, is not so much that I fall in love with Twilight and all the books but more all that comes attached to doing that. My heart and soul will have compromised for entertainment once again. Is it really worth it? I've started across the line I previously determined I'd not cross just as I did before I set that line in place. My descent down this slippery slope could be very rapid if I don't stop and think, clinging to an overhanging branch from the tree of life on the plain above this slope.

But how do I convince myself that Twilight is bad? I am impressionable. I am just a Teen--a teenage girl no less. (emphasis because that is the target of these books.) I haven't even gone into all the problems with the content of the movies and books. The unredeemable state of the characters, the flippancy with which the main character treats her soul, the obsession of the main character with the Vampire. The list could go on and on.

In Fact not only the list but the blogpost. I could continue on my confusion and indecision and all the reasons I shouldn't read or watch anything to do with Twilight. (Indeed my con list is far longer than the short and superficial frivolous pro list.) So, I will end it now as I have run out of time. Do you want to know what conclusion I have come to? Well here it is.

Putting all that I talked with my mom about and all that I've thought and/or written here, I've decided it's best to keep all Vamp-ed ideas on the backburner of my life and focus on more edifying and equally entertaining sources. All I'd ask of you is to think and ponder your decisions before you make them. This is what I'll be trying to do and I hope I've shed a little light on this subject if not nearly enough.

Goodbye!

Longg time no write..

This is the third milkshake I've made in two days. I want to get good at it. Right now I'm listening to Lilith, by George MacDonald. It's verry interesting.

I haven't written in a while because of many things. I've been preocupied and attentive to a slightly different blog I'm afraid...Here's the link if you have any desire to read it.

http://starlikeyes.wordpress.com/

This seems to be my more real life, what's going through my head, blog. The other one has a lot of imagination to fuel it.

Whatever was on my mind..

I feel a bit like one of those animals from an unwritten asope fable. I constantly want to be trying on new skins to find which one best fits me and can't seem to just settle down and be content. I can almost see the entire tale forming itself to be about an unpropitious elephant. At least that's why the elephant is called so.

At times I feel my mind is filled with beautiful shining thoughts that should be displayed on paper. My mind I picture as a long stemming plant with dewdrops of fanciful thought suspended off the ends of delicate leaves just about to take leap. The only problem with this image is the flattened version of the dewy lovelyness once it has let go of it's safe perch. They don't shine with golden light shooting through them when they lay as dark splattered spots of wetness on cold cement.

So often I don't know what to write. Yet I must write. I must go on and press forward seeking betterment in my craft. I only must also pray every day for the help to accomplish that. Speaking of which..I should be off now.

Amy

P.S. Sorry for abandoning you temporarily for another skin. I've come home like a prodigal but don't count on me not running off again. I'm rather like an impish sprite when it comes to putting thought into word.

Scraps and Pieces

I remember the summons. The trumpet call per say. It sounded over my life and left me quivering in the wind like a banner with a sudden realization of new abounding purpose.

My words are powerful. The weight behind what they say could be the unravellings of my dreams. But I won't let it be. I don't know what makes up the composition of a good writer. What people find so delicious about their vivid prose. I find there are some books where each sentence is a mouthwatering morsel to the mind.

At the same time I read books that make me need to fight simply to read through the next page. If they are of edifying quality I do persevere towards the end. If not, well I close them, set them aside and wait for a more benevolent mood to pervade my consciousness before I try again.

The only problem is I have yet to realize what makes the difference between the former and the latter. I am determined to find out even if it takes me my entire life. It seems that one of the few things that has been hugely on my mind lately is writing. I suppose there's no surprise there considering what I am about to undertake.

From the 1 of November until the 30th of that month I have determined to undertake the challenge of so many others. I will write 50,000 words within that time all on the same book. Yep you read it right. I'll just end this postnow to give you time to get over the shock of it ;).

Make of It What You Will...

Every day I fight with that demon that tries to control me. My struggle shows progress from the days when he did have me under his crushing influence. I now have help, but that is a long story I don’t think you would--actually, I think you should hear it. It may be a strange tale but it happened to me. Make of it what you will but this is something I cannot withhold without denying you the greatest experience of my life. The tale of how I first learned to live.

It is the demon that tells me I am worthless. The one who comes to me, drags me to the bottom and after silent screaming tells me no one can hear me. No one would care anyway. That I'm not worth the air I breath. It would have been better never to have existed because then I wouldn't have taken up space.

I take his thoughts and images and ideas shoved down my throat and swallow it all. I take it as fact, a solid reality of what the rest of the world must think. I see from the inside of this dark cone. This existance that defies acceptance and cries out for an end. I take it and want to give up. This is the edge of depression. This is the edge of darkness.

I turn around and look through eyes covered by his lies. Everywhere I see the things that reinforce the power of his bond over me. I forget about his existance. It is only me. Alone I stand faced with the truth that there is no reason to fight. Truth has the greatest power is that not what I've always been told.

I am still and silent. No more hope throbs through my mind like the blood beating through my veins. I am a disgrace of the race I was created to be a part of. Nothing I do or have ever done is worth anything and all I am is a dead weight to the world. I should just give up. No one would care if I simply disappeared. Simply existed no longer. Life would go on.


But there is a side I cannot see from here. I am blind to it's existance. He stands just beyond where I sit. In thunderous anger and panic and tears he pounds with all his mighty force upon the prison of my lies. Sweat turns to blood on his forehead from the excruciating amount of his agony. What does he suffer for so completely? Me.

His voice is hoarse from roaring at the heavens over me. His clothes are in shreds from his prodigious torment over my chains. The mountains tremble with the power of is emotion. Earthquakes and catastrophes cover the land that is empty and without life. He will not give up. In his endurance his passionate fury and vociferations for me he lasts for days in a violent battle for my life.

With dogged tenacity and awe-striking willpower he turns to the last resort to defeat the devil that holds me in its grasp. He stretches out and turns to take the final blow that was meant to end my life. The uproar of the elements, of thunder and oceans in turmoil and lighting and the wrending of the earth, there was a sudden silence. Time stood still, if in this place it existed at all. Nothing stirred for an eternity that lasted three days. The fires and storms ravaging the earth continued in their paths of destruction.

If this were a story this would be the point where everything ended. This would be the point that you throw the book against the wall and have your own little tantrum of the unfairness of it all. But I am here writing this am I not? Had that been the end I would not be alive. He who died was my loving Jealous Guardian. He who died had power to subdue the whole earth. He who died had power to give life and bring distruction.

He who died, died wholly. But then the miraculous happened. The only being in greater athourity than he raised him from his death. In his death he had gone to a place of infernal feriocity. Through fire and brimstone he went to the place too terrible to write about, the place of no return.

He went to the demon who had power over me and fought those three days for me. He took what was given to me. That which I had handed over to it. He took it back to himself. It was life. When once his task was accomplished the one who's athority was greater than his raised him from that death into life once again and put him above all else. His name held the greatest power and authority for he was the one who had battled and fought death and conquered with life.

I was utterly unaware of what raged beyond my silent depression. In the stifling thick darkness I was ready to give up. I longed for an end and reached out to give myself release. But before that darkest deed could be done a dot, a tiny light, distracted my attention. For a moment I had something real to focus on something other than myself.

As I looked through bleary eyes without hope at that small fragment of light it grew. I had become so adjusted to the darkness my eyes began to sear with pain. The pain made me blink and groan reaching up to try and block out the horrible light. The pain began to rouse me, I wanted something. I desperately wanted something for the first time since the beginning. The beginning of what? I didn't know. I wanted that light to go away. I wanted the pain to stop. I wanted to scream but still I was not awake enough for even that.

I rolled and writhed on the ground trying to block out the light. But it grew brighter. It surrounded me. I forgot where I was and only focused on the pain. Then suddenly a voice like rolling thunder sent a shock like a lightning bolt through my being.

"Awaken. Come to me. Come. Wake up, you have been asleep for far too long."

It was soft and gentle but to my ears that had been deaf to noise for so long it was too loud. A new pain sourced in my ears began throbbing through me. I finally dared open my eyes again. I forced myself to focus through the pain and slowly it began to ease. My eyes began to focus. As they did I saw a man. He was dressed entirely in white and shining like the sun.

He must be where all this light is coming from. I would have asked him to go away if I had been able to think but I couldn't speak. My eyes adjusted more and I realized he was no ordinary man. If I had been fully myself he would have taken my breath away. As I was I lay there forgetting the pain that still throbbed through my head and stared dazedly at this divine being.

He was human, I could see that, but somehow so much more than just human. Words escaped my muddled confused mind to describe him then but still there are no words to express his awesome existance. Like a wave of electric current flowing out in a pure untamed form I was struck by his presence. It flowed through me, radiated from me and utterly surrounded me. I felt more alive then it seemed possible, as if at any moment I might explode from the amount of life surging through me.

To simply be alive in the same world as this being made me want to jump and shout and sing and cry and laugh and...live. Tears blurred my vision and I shook with the powerful emotion that struggled to find its way into expression. I lived again. I was awake. I drew breath for what seemed like the first time. The air set my lungs on fire and again there was pain but I could bare it now. I was alive and he was here beside me. Nothing could stand in our way.

He knelt beside me and gently drew me into his embrace. The sweet rich scent of earth and sky, flowers and fruit and even sound such as that of a mighty waterfall and a cooing dove, filled my lungs and I rested.

After a long while he lifted me in his strong arms and put me on my feet. Looking into his eyes I knew he had a purpose for my life. I knew that I was not worthless to him. He made me want to live, to love, to exist.

"Will you come walk with me?" he asked.

My eyes brightened and I nodded breathlessly. He took my arm in his and turned towards the world.

"I have so much to show you."

I could sense the excitement in his voice and I felt it flood me as well. We took a step in unison and I began to truly live for the first time.

Rubber Band

I'm glad God made me a little like a rubber band. You can stretch me out, twist me around something several times, drop me, or step on me and I'll still bounce back to the way I was originally. If you pull me back but then let me go I'll go flying where you send me. Sometimes I might hurt people without knowing it but I try and help hold things together.

For some reason I'm such a flobient(made up word) person. I will fly sky high with joy and turn around and fall into a deep pit. Thankfully I redily climb out of that pit quickly. Perhaps I feel a little like David. He was a very expressive person. Because his heart and life was so tightly aligned with God, his emotions were tied deeply into that relationship. When he did something that didn't please God he was thrown into the depths of despair until it showed in his physical health.

In my relationship with God purity is key. When I sin I feel like a stone is put on my heart and weighs it down heavily. When I do something that isn't quite sinning but not in alignment with God's will the same feeling comes. I try to hide away from the facts and say to Him and myself,

"No, no. That's not what I mean."

He knows best but I still haven't been able to trust him completely. A lot of that is my fault. I haven't taken the proper amount of time to get to know him. I don't separate a time to spend with him everyday even though I should. I'm in the least busy part of my life and if I can't be with him every day during this time then when will I ever?

So I'm a rubber band in the hands of God. I just haven't let myself be stretched as much as I can be. Instead I'd rather be left hanging on a door handle.

I need to read His Word enter His World and get to know who he is.

Jealousy

Here I am like a long lost relative showing up to drop off a cake like I never was gone. (That's my newest form of an apology for not writing.)

Now onto the topic that is given you in the title. It's a feeling I haven't had frequently over the course of my life. This makes me unequipped to deal with it when it does come to grace me with it's ugly face. I hate how powerless I feel against it. I want to be able to anticipate the green vermin at the door before it makes it's way into my heart.

I have no idea if it is something that should flatter him/her who it is directed at but I know it certainly does nothing to help bring people closer in friendship. There is an unexplainable bitterness that comes into the voice and mannerisms of a person suffering from this slimy creatures presence. Nothing that the victim of a jealous person has done would have triggered it necessarily caused it. Sometimes bragging or any other slightly annoying trait might have lead to it but often the person had little to do with causing it.

When in some amount of success or 'good luck'* the person reaches a goal that said jealous person has dreamed of there is the possibility of such envious thoughts. From personal experience, I have discovered that one of the best way to help loosen the grip of this green demon is by encouraging the jealous person in the area you might figure out that their jealously came from.

Anyway I'd best actually wrap this up and post it. Even if the thought isn't complete.

Amy