Early afternoon. First, family lunch earlier at Smokey Bones. Now you are parked near the OshKosh B’gosh children’s clothing store on the south side of the road across from Polaris proper. You are happy that Owen remembers you and Carol.
This morning you thought you having doubts about how time works in the story as mentioned in the last couple of blogs. Mostly, you don’t believe the concepts, as the books are fiction just as you are. That’s how you see it.
I know BS and most of this blog wordage has to be taken with a grain of salt. The real purpose is internalizing, psyching myself up to tell the next story whatever it may be. Tree roots that string to the Big Bang, I’m sure an interesting case (to me) can be made. Of course I don’t believe it. As long as the story stays mythanscience-like I can deal with it. No fantasy though. No pretty maidens, magic sorcerers, witches, faeries, unicorns, rainbows and/or dragons.
Late afternoon and you are home. While driving you were thinking about the difference between believing and hoping.
I don’t want to get into this, Amorella. People will hope and believe what they want. In the books I want to focus on hope and faith not belief or believing something, anything. Hope and faith are enough for me so that’s okay in the books. Believing something is true or morally right would use up too much mental energy in my case. Hope (in something) and faith (in something – even as an agnostic) don’t take nearly so much mental energy (for me). As far as the books are concerned hope and faith can be reasonably deconstructed in my mind. Beliefs the characters have are much less likely to be deconstructable to the likes of me.
Take a break, boy. Relax. The scene is making you uncomfortable already. Post. – Amorella.
After twenty-one hundred hours and you edited and added to the draft. Post it here.
Scene 5
Mother approached Grandfather Takis on his own turf near the bank of the Styx and found him sitting cross-legged under an old tree staring out across the forever long and winding river. She watched his eyes glance her way but he did not otherwise move from his seated position. Mother found herself smiling and replicating his sitting position to his right. “Grandfather,” she said child-like. Tell me a story I have not heard before.”
He smiled reflectively causing his ruddy cheeks to rise and his eyelids to narrow. Above the eye gleams his thick bushy dark brows arched almost to the common white turban wrap on top of his head. He turned towards his granddaughter and said, “Gloama, I have just the story for you.” With that he moved cat quickly, shifting his position to fully face his granddaughter. “This tree we find ourselves sitting under has a story neither of us have ever heard. This is the story I will tell.”
A flash of unrehearsed thought lit Mother’s mind.
> Grandfather Takis points to a not so bright star in the night sky and declares, “We are from there,” then he points to the soil beneath their feet, “to here.”
I, Gloama, turn in this same moment and ask, “How can we be here and there at the same time?”
I, Gloama, am the first human being who died and did not die at the same time. Grandfather knows I am reading his thoughts, grinned Gloama in delight.
A Voice: “Gloama. Look at your Grandpa’s eyes as you look deep down into yourself child. I am Grandma Earth and I was once your nature inside and out.”
The white in Grandma Earth’s eyes reflected in her Grandfather’s eyes showing her Earth’s dark pupils were disappearing inside her Grandfather and herself. Grandma Earth’s Voice asserted, “I got me a chant to take us from a story in the past to a story in the future. I’m the board on which the Shamans dance.” <
An unrealized kernel in Mother’s mind absorbed the flash of unrehearsed thought, thus leaving room for:
Grandfather Panagiotakis’s
“The Styx Bank Tree’s Story”
***
Now you are ready for the story. Surprised, aren’t you.
Mother’s flash to Grandma’s Story in book one is indeed a surprise. She reads Grandma Earth’s story, at least part, from her perspective. I am sure she is enlightened that Grandma Earth still exists in her grandfather in one form or another. Basically though, Mother is gaining insight from book one whether she realizes she is in book four or not. This can then pass for a transcendental state?
You began your last sentence as a declarative but changed it to an interrogative half way through, why?
Basically, I have my own intuitive flash. The books as a series show more meaning than the books separately or in volumes. There is something in this I cannot quite grasp.
Good. You are feeling as Mother does as the story begins. Post. – Amorella.
***
For reference here is "Grandma's Story 1" from book one:
From two ancient hearts by soul made one
For reference here is "Grandma's Story 1" from book one:
Grandma’s Story - One
I, Grandma Earth, have been summoned by Merlyn to show fragmented stories from the tailbone up through the human mind. Captain Leo Lamar, tugging freedom across the Ohio to the Underground Railroad delivers the stories to the Living. Richard is the author or conductor on the railroad if you will. You are welcome to come along as long as you keep on the tracks.
I have an old story for you, nodded Grandma, a man is in worldly trouble long ago. Merlyn has a mind to listen in, and thus, so do you.
It is the beginning of dawn and my shoulders shiver. This is the way it is in here. I hear the crickets and other small creatures around the swamp. I am inside a hole in the wall and there is no way out. I am stuck. This is the way it is. I cannot get out. Let me out. Let me out.
It is the beginning of dawn and my forearms shiver. This is the way it is. I hear the crickets and the other small creatures. I am in a hole in the wall and there is no way out. This is the way it is. I cannot get out.
My fingers are cold and full of ice. It is winter in spring. It is dawn. The birds sing. I am no bird. It is cold, and I am ice forming on the river. I am floating and cold. The river is not what I am. I am continuity, a common ground in icy hands.
I had a dream last night, and it was a whopper. It was about these people who live way out among the stars, and how it is when they are stuck too.
I will work in this block of ice and let you know how it is. I will tap out my message from in here as people caught in a cave do. As long as I have icy cold fingers, the living Dead move me. I have all the time in the world. That is how it is in my cold dawn of almost eighteen thousand years ago. I am stuck frozen and flat across the cold circle of stone that surrounds our pond of stars in the heavens. I am here and they are both at once. I am a shaman dancing on the board between mind and spirit. Where are you?
The old shaman, pointed to a not so bright star in the night sky and said, “We are from there,” then he pointed to the soil beneath their feet, “to here.” That is all he said. Nobody in the group slept that night.
One of the listeners tossed and turned and suddenly unexpectedly, she thought, ‘How can we be here and there at the same time?’
If I remember right, she was the first human being who died and did not die at the same time. The woman asked others the same question in the morning. Eventually they concluded as to how it was possible to be in two places at once. Later in life, she died and found herself waiting for members of her group to join her once they died and did not die too. This was a time people began respecting the Dead and burying them with rites and passages to help accommodate both the Living and the Dead.
The Living were afraid the Dead were going to forget them. That is the way Grandma remembers it. Simple thinking really, but the story traveled. The Living were made conscious of being in two places at once, and they hoped the Dead would remain conscious of those still Living.
*
This particular shaman, long dead, knows you are reading his thoughts, smiled old Grandma, who appears Aunt Jemima black in the richest soil on the planet. Her white teeth gleaned as paper unsoiled with ink or paint. She looked down on her young listeners. Child, she said, you ain’t got a clue on what words are when they come out of the blue. I’m gonna sit on this here stump and hope it won’t stain my pretty blue and white dress that likes to float in a gentle breeze. You look up at Grandma as you look deep down into yourself child. I am your nature inside and out. The kerchief on my head ain’t nothin' but the stars. You keep that in mind, if you got a mind for it. Freedom stories ain’t for everyone.
Grandma glanced up beyond the dark sky above her head. The white in her eyes could tell you her dark pupils were disappearing inside. I got me a chant to take us from a story in the past to a story in the future. I’m the board on which the Shamans dance. Merlyn and lover in a dead man’s dream to a future together his old mind streams --
Return this story to where passions have begun
A well known druidess and druid will do
The same spirited bodies that make up you.
Along the corridor where stirring memories are made
Vivien and Merlyn now consciously laid.
And from old Grandma's toothy gums
A narrative oddly familiar this way comes.
***
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