Later mid-morning and you find yourself sitting at the Beachwood Family Medical Building lot, looking west at the east entrance of Beachwood Place about a hundred yards south of Cedar. This is the same intersection where you almost witnessed a two-car collision and found yourself scrutinizing the moments of the aftermath and thirty minute clean up. – Amorella
No one appeared hurt too bad, though one driver was transported to the hospital, I assume for observation. The setting is more refreshing that sitting within the middle of a lot of cars. The trees are gaining blossoms and the yellow of the tulips are rising forth from green – there are small purple flowers surrounded by the yellows of a spring flower I should know but don’t. The sky, blue yesterday is covered today with what appears to have been once fog now risen to about 1000 feet of a light gray otherwise nondescript cloud mass. So much for the present the-busy-traffic-is-moving setting – nothing to write home about.
Why are you doing so then? – Amorella
I was just thinking thoughts and the fingers dance the keyboard with seeming automaticity. Basically, the writing is a habit. Just thoughts. I have nothing else.
What about the elemental characteristics of souls? – Amorella
I pretty much know them as far as the Merlyn books are concerned. Merlyn’s soul is immortal and has a sort of elasticity in which they hold Merlyn’s heartanmind – the other day I was thinking of an egg with two yokes, as an example for my self-consideration, except the shell doesn’t have any elasticity. Wait. The heartanmind don’t have any physical properties either so there is no reason for the elasticity to begin with. Before fully awake this morning to take Owen off to daycare I did have a word pop into mind – “puddlesticks”. I don’t know what conjured the non-word to mind but it did. I forgot about “puddlesticks”.
It was a funny word and I began thinking of sticks or some sort of stick construction that was built out of puddles (‘puddle-wonderful’ from the poem, “The Balloon Man”) then – all I could think of was water puddles and how much fun they are for a cute little kid like Owen – who woke up in between Grandma and me this morning. Who knows when he came over to our room during the early morning?
There is a short video on YouTube that Kim took from her iPhone last fall when Owen was out playing in a puddle and decided to sit in it. Why little boys are prone to do things like this I don’t know. I don’t remember Kim sitting in a puddle but perhaps she did. I don’t think I ever intentionally sat in one though I remember creating dams to hold the water back in the gutters of West Walnut Street in Westerville when I was four or five. I cannot imagine I would have just sat in a puddle like Owen did. What would have been the point other than the discomfort of having to change clothes and being told I shouldn’t be playing on the street.
Upon a quick re-reading you divided the long paragraph into three parts. – Amorella
Ha! Back to Caesar and his Commentaries. That is a very special book to me. I was forced to read it in the original Latin. I felt much closer to Caesar doing so. He was a wonderful military strategist and observer in my mind. There’s Kim’s ring. Time to swing around and pick them up.
You are at K&P’s confronting a new problem, water in the southeast corner of the basement from the heavy rain last night. The plumber was called and he will come by tomorrow afternoon. Wet carpet about two feet out from the corner walls – life always provides something to deal with, no exceptions. Kim is feeding Brennan after a quick stop at the Apple Store. Kim is buying a new iPad for Paul, Owen and herself, if not today, the first of next week. You’ll be out to lunch shortly. Post. – Amorella
Mid-afternoon. Lunch at the Olive Garden, as it was Kim’s request. I have never seen her finish lunch before us. It was like she was eating for two people, unbelievable. We are now to Carter’s off Mayfield to return merchandise. Perhaps a stop at the Apple Store on the way home, that is unless the kid needs fed, then it’s home instead. Such is the daily life. I can’t remember where I was going with this.
You weren’t. I began the first two words of the last paragraph and you swept in and took over. – Amorella
I lost connection. I am tired from eating too much all at once. We had bread, salad, lunch lasagna and we divided a tiramisu for dessert. It feels like I just had a Thanksgiving dinner plus two desserts. I need a nap. Last night we had take out from the Happy Buddha on Green Street. I switched to something with less calories, chicken fried rice and an egg roll. That was really filling too, even more so than a ‘burrito bowl’ at Chipotle – too much food quantity at one meal. I need to cut down. It is making me uncomfortable – unbelievable to even have such a thought. – We are K&P’s house. I’m going to bed.
Almost twenty-one hundred hours. You had a long nap and lite supper then you finally did your exercises, thirty-two minutes worth.
Earlier today I was thinking about “puddlesticks” and what if anything it might mean in relationship to soul architecture since that is what has been rolling in my mind. It doesn’t really make sense – maybe that is the problem – soul architecture doesn’t make sense – but in context how can the soul hold or cover Merlyn’s heartansoul unless like when the Dead are embarrassed or ashamed and will themselves back into their private abodes. They just disappear from the scene they are in and find themselves in their ‘shell of personal avoidance’ -- an instant ‘heavenly escape’ from their present situation.
Avoidance is not Merlyn’s path, orndorff. He is working to connect the Living with the Dead. You are thinking a “flight or fight” pattern that is unseen in HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither. That is, unless the ‘fight’ is within the individual and, alas, in that case there is no “flight” from self-consciousness. – Amorella
The marsupial-humanoid language has a word that sounds similar to “puddlesticks” that does have a meaning that is not within a human vocabulary. This is because of early living in a pouch environment, “muttellikks” is the word and it has to do with being nurtured within the pouch.
I had to reinforce my thinking on the subject and used Wikipedia as usual.
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Marsupials:
An infant marsupial is known as a joey. Marsupials have an extremely short gestation period (about 4–5 weeks), and the joey is 'born' essentially in a fetal state. The blind, furless, miniature newborn, the size of a jelly bean, crawls across its mother's fur to make its way into the pouch, where it latches onto a teat for food. It will not re-emerge for several months, during which time it develops fully. After this period, the joey begins to spend increasing lengths of time out of the pouch, feeding and learning survival skills. However, it returns to the pouch to sleep, and if danger threatens it will seek refuge in its mother's pouch for safety.
Joey in a Pouch
Joeys stay in the pouch for up to a year in some species, or until the next joey is born. A marsupial joey is unable to regulate its own body temperature, and thus relies upon an external heat source. Until the joey is well-furred and old enough to leave the pouch, a pouch temperature between 30–32 °C (86–90 °F) must be constantly maintained.
Reproductive system
Marsupials' reproductive systems differ markedly from those of placental mammals (Placentalia). Females have two lateral vaginas, which lead to separate uteri but both open externally through the same orifice. A third canal, the median vagina, is used for birth. This canal can be transitory or permanent. The males generally have a two-pronged penis, which corresponds to the females' two vaginas. The penis is used only for discharging semen into females, while a urogenital sac stores waste before expulsion.
Pregnant females develop something similar to a yolk sac in their wombs, which delivers nutrients to the embryo. Marsupials give birth at a very early stage of development (about 4–5 weeks); after birth, newborn marsupials crawl up the bodies of their mothers and attach themselves to a nipple, which is located on the underside of the mother either inside a pouch called the marsupium or open to the environment. To crawl to the nipple and attach to it, the marsupial must have well developed forelimbs and facial structures. This is accomplished by accelerating forelimb and facial development in marsupials compared to placental mammals. As a result, there is decelerated development of such structures as the hindlimb and brain. There they remain for a number of weeks, attached to the nipple. The offspring are eventually able to leave the marsupium for short periods, returning to it for warmth, protection and nourishment.
Characteristics
Marsupials are characterized by giving birth to relatively undeveloped young. They lack a complex placenta to protect the embryo from its mother's immune system. They have a front pouch containing multiple nipples for protection and sustenance of the young.
From: Wikipedia: marsupials
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The above is mostly about kangaroos but my aliens are humanoid also so I didn’t follow their biology to the order of the letter above. And, male marsupial-humanoids have a penis that is a bit of nothing when not aroused (which is most of the time). Mostly one would have to dig through their pubic hair to find it. This is very funny to the female marsupials, which are the aggressive ones sexually. A male erection usually lasts two or three seconds and the erect penis is about a foot long with the thickness of a soda straw. Female marsupials see a real joke when they see earth videos of women with a soda straw in or near their mouths. Anyway, most of the males are engineer types and have greater joy in creating machinery that is smaller and better built and more efficient than machinery of the previous generations. This is what comes to mind. I had a great time coming up with their social system. Actually, the “Ship” in the Merlyn books has a skin that is as an iPad without a screen the ‘engine’ and ‘mechanics’ of Ship is in its skin for the most part (I think. I don’t really remember and it is not important here anyway.)
Returning to before your interruption; “muttellikks” is being nurtured by one’s own initial free will. The ‘Joey’ humanoid-marsupial has to find its food supply to survive. The human survives because mother (or a substitute) feeds herorhim. Muttellikks is initial freedom for the little fellow to join the social group via the pouch. In a sense you ’crawl’ to the pouch to survive and later you run to survive. That is the way their biological-social system is built. Taken as a analogy (in the books) the Godofamily is a female and the universe is her pouch. To leave the pouch is to go to the Great Beyond. By the way the photo of the Joey is not akin to a photo of a humanoid-marsupial (who has more developed human-like characteristics in a similar circumstance – they are covered with a fine hair and their hands and feet have longer nails to crawl through the mother’s pubic hair with).
That has nothing to do with the soul and the heartanmind, Amorella.
The only thing ‘puddlesticks’ is relevant to in the books is in its sound, which is like ‘muttellikks’ in the marsupial-humanoid language. This is something for you to think about. Perhaps you can invent a connection with the soul and heartanmind. Post. - Amorella
Everyone was to McDonalds for a late breakfast, then an errand to the post office with a package for Sharon and Cory McKean-Rapp and Mia and the new baby arriving on Monday, I assume as Kim and Sharon are first cousins their children would ‘cousins’ in the more general sense of the word.
You are stumbling for words, boy. You are at the Cleveland City Park in Shaker Heights (a mile or so south of Owen’s First Baptist Church Daycare on Fairmount), a beautiful natural setting with a huge old stone three floored, five chimney, slate roofed manor house styled home staring out between the large still bare trees with a variety of green hues sprouting bushes below.
Shaker Heights is a classier community than Indian Hill in Cincinnati; the emphasis here is on ‘community’. Indian Hill has a beautiful natural setting also (without the public parks) but the homes have larger acreage than in Shaker and thus it has more of an estate setting than community setting. That’s my opinion. To each their own. We could never afford to live in either one, nor would we want to I think – too much house and too much care for a house. I would settle for a condo with the master bedroom on the first floor if we ever move, but I doubt Carol will – she wants a one floor. As they are all over at the pond I could be working on scene eight.
Scene eight focuses more on Merlyn explaining how the world is from his perspective, so we can get right to it. – Amorella
Scene 8 (working draft 350+ words)
Merlyn continued responding to Arthur’s many questions as to his perspective and early scenes viewed by following several analogies and narratives the reader has observed throughout The Rebellion.
“I see the overview,” noted Arthur, “but the circumstances within us who are Dead and less so obvious among the Living, appears to be more important than even the tree that roots the vast universes seemingly beyond my imagination. I can consider the numbers, the analogous mathematics and dimensions involved but my mind cannot absorb what my heart cannot experience.”
“Experience is a dimension unto itself, Arthur. A dream experience is a reality. Those who deny such have not been effected by a dream. The greater, common reality is witnessed in the effect. The wordy braided DNA dreams on how I arrived from my death in the European seventh century to make my way up to the twenty-first century through the crisscrossing of many heartsansoulsanminds of over the two-thousand year mixed genealogy of twins who married twins. In the mid-twentieth century Robert and Richard Graystone married their genealogically connected counterparts, Connie and Cindy Bleacher.
Even today they do not realize their special connection to the heartansoulanmind with me – Merlyn, the once seventh century Scottish Bard and Celtic Druid. I traveled heartsansoulsanminds through the letters so that others might see how it is to be the Shaman of this six part series. Now in the pages an entrance through my dreams to the Rebellion of the First Ten Thousand Dead in Elysium’s setting of the eighth century before Christ to our present circumstantial setting, here and now in our seventh century set on the Isle of our Celtic Dead, Avalon.
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Later, and about time for supper (Paul is cooking steaks on the grill). Post, we can work on this later this warm spring-like evening. - Amorella
