Notes

            Late Sunday morning. Up from your nap and you are sitting in the parking lot at Heinen’s on Green Street waiting for Carol. Read part of the Cleveland Plain Dealer early while having a make-shift breakfast of peanut butter on two pieces of small round, thin cut Italian loaf. Then playing and watching Owen for an hour or so.

         I want to know why it doesn’t rain? And, how many cultures are going to be represented ‘on the River’?  I like the idea (I think) but what is the river really? Greeks think it is the Styx and the Egyptian think it is the Nile Immortal or something to that effect. Islanders are going to assume or just accept that they are surrounded by an ocean being dead of life. Being on the river is certainly a form of paradise in those days even if they can’t drink the water, it allows for them to assume bounty and a good wholesome place for survival. Here, of course, I am assuming, just as the character’s are assuming and accepting. I am not accepting without an explanation. Reason has always been the bottom line in these books so I will feel better understanding how it really is. Or, even how the shamans find these separate cultural ‘Places of the Dead’ around eight hundred BCE. Each culture will have its own ‘story (myth) answers’ for their present condition and how the stories connect to their own Living descendants/culture on Earth. Mother must know something. Mothers always know things their children do not and perhaps cannot know because Mother will do her best to not allow certain ‘things’ to be known – just because ‘I said so.’

         Time to stop with the paragraph, orndorff. These questions will be answered in due time, at least those I feel you need to know consciously. You have this tendency to want to explain everything because of all those lectures which you so enjoyed presenting to your classes. You once divided the Earth into twelve cultures back in 1988. For consistency let’s use those twelve.

         I remember scribbling those things out in a rush of inner enthusiastic exploitation but I don’t remember what the cultures were; except India was the first, the mother culture. And, if I remember I was dividing the cultures up in today’s world not back in 800 BCE. I divided them up by basic cultural language I remember that. For instance, Great Britain, Canada, the United States and Australia were one culture bound by a basic mother language. And, I assume the Latin languages bound Italy, France, Spain, Portugal and Latin America including Mexico and Central America also. Then, I had the tribes around the Arctic as one culture and I believe I had the mountain people of the Andes and the Himalayas as one culture also, based on similar clothing and mountain culture. It was just a concept to see if I could master it in my mind some way. I need a rational order to exist (mentally) so I make one up, I’m similar in that way to the original story-tellers I suppose, but they were helping their tribes and cultures cope with the inevitable while I am helping myself (I suppose that is the reason for these Merlyn stories to begin with).

         When anyone is attempting to help herorhimself cope with life as it is, sheorhe is also helping herorhis friends and family who have to live with them everyday, orndorff. That’s the way I see it. Without the ability to write these books you would be off the wall for something to keep your heartansoulanmind busy. Post, and in the meantime, take a look at the world cultures of those earlier days and we will come up with a magic twelve for those times around Homer's wonderful stories. – Amorella.

         Mid-afternoon. A very good lunch/dinner at Trattoria’s On the Hill in Little Italy. Home, and you are ready for a nap. Later, dude.

         Very light supper, national news and Sixty Minutes. Kitchen policing, and watching Owen while Kim and Paul are visiting a neighbor and taking them food as they did the same for them when Owen was born. You are ready to look for those early cultures so let’s get to it.

         This has taken a while to put down but here is what I have gathered from Din-Timelines online. 1. Egypt; 2. Greece; 3. Israel; 4. Babylonia; 5. Japan; 6. India; 7. Indo-European; 8. China; 9. Peru; 10. Assyria; 11. Phoenicians; and 12. Olmecs. And, I forgot to include ancient Japan.

         Chose between the Cimmerians and the Chaldeans. Look them up.

         The Cimmerians lived near the Black Sea and Russia but later were overtaken by the Indo-Europeans (at least in my mind) whereas the Chaldeans were southern Babylonians and the Code of Hammurabi was far early so I am going with Babylonians and drop them both.

         Let’s put them in alphabetical order and not get into who was first and last. It will make no difference among these twelve shamans. – Amorella.

         I like that. History, politics, and religion – I would just as soon stay clear of this among the Dead. It is the cultures that are important here. Minor cultures are no doubt being left out, but this is fiction anyway and this first rebellion a fable of sorts. All the human Dead hit the basics and would integrate into the culture they felt most at home in just as Mother and Panagiotakis did.

         Here is the list of the selected early cultures in alphabetical order: 1, Assyria; 2, Babylonia; 3, China; 4, Egypt; 5, Greece; 6, India; 7, Indo-Europe (Arian); 8, Israel; 9, Japan; 10, Olmec; 11, Peru; and 12, Phoenicia.

         Enough for tonight. Tomorrow you can gather a paragraph or so about each from Wikipedia as background. It will be enough to separate the cultures for this scene. Also, you will need to construct names for these shamans, four of whom will be women.

         Why only four women?

         Because I said so, orndorff. – Amorella.