Faeries

When I began the summer from school, I wanted to delve more deeply into the world of the elementals. I vowed to read about them and to spend more time in "nature" and open myself up. Life has intervened in the form of eye surgeries etc. as well as a short-term job assisting a business manager, as far from the realm of faerie as you might want to roam. Now, coming close to the end of the summer, panic strikes. Another summer flowing by without projects completed.

I went to the Library to pick up some picture books (lots of Francis books, Zelda & Ivy, etc) for the two little girls from the family who are visiting. And I picked up a Patricia McKillip book, Winter Rose, that I thought I had read, but I had not. And now I am being seduced into the rather dangerous world of Faerie once again. I realized that I had never followed who Patirica McKillip is, only wanting to read her books and perhaps enter her world (when I am courageous.)

This quote was in Faces of Fantasy (by Patti Perret):

I write fantasy because it's there. I have no other excuse for sitting down for several hours a day indulging my imagination. Daydreaming. Thinking up imaginary people, impossible places. Imagination is the golden-eyed monster that never sleeps. It must be fed; it cannot be ignored. Making it tell the same tale over and over again makes it thin and whining; its scales begin to fall off; its fiery breath becomes a trickle of smoke. It is best fed by reality, an odd diet for something nonexistent; there are few details of daily life and its broad range of emotional context that can't be transformed into food for the imagination. It must be visited constantly, or else it begins to become restless and emit strange bellows at embarrassing moments; ignoring it only makes it grow larger and noisier. Content, it dreams awake, and spins the fabric of tales. There is really nothing to be done with such imagery except to use it: in writing, in art. Those who fear the imagination condemn it: something childish, they say, something monsterish, misbegotten. Not all of us dream awake. But those of us who do have no choice.

I found this online.

Now I am restless again and want to wear only green and silver and brown flowing garments. And I have found that Brian Froud no longer frightens me the way he used to do.

A Year Gone By

I have just recently finished reading the book Julie/Julia and suddenly realized that I have not written in my own blog for a very long time. When I returned, I saw that the last entry was on the 6th anniversary of Bartholomew's "crossing the threshold" last year. On Sunday in two days is the 7th anniversary.

It is even now too private to write about very much except that there a memories that are very painful and poignant as well as those which remind me how proud I am of Bartzy.As long as I can keep thinking of him in the Spirit World and not plague myself with regrets, I can keep going.

Now two days have gone by, and it is the anniversary. I have talked with Bart's brother and sister - this day is in some ways no different than any other. I think we all think about him, miss him, deeply, but it is an underground stream that emerges onto the surface here and there at unexpected times.

I did not find a plant like I did before - the nursery I went to was unexpectedly closed. So, at the other nursery, Ricardo bought a peach tree and I bought a stinging nettle. A stinging nettle may hurt you, but it is supposedly outstandingly healthy. Well, maybe that is appropriate.