Mid-morning. You are not looking forward to the grass mowing even as Carol is mowing the hilly regions.
No, I am not. So much rain, the grass has no choice but to grow and it is my job to level the field. It is thick so it clumps which means I have to rake. I could put the grass catcher on but it would fill in a minute. It is easier to rake. It is not such a big deal as I like to make it in my head. Time to get to it. Later, Amorella.
Sounds familiar. You are picking up some of my traits.
Well, if I live long enough perhaps we will murge into a single writing personality. Then again, perhaps not. It is a green jungle out the window. The honeysuckle and tree limbs are marching to the front window. Primeval southwest Ohio. I think this is how it was in the book when the humans and marsupial-humanoids came upon the excavation of the ancient artifact on ThreePlanetsOne.
You want to find the spot but you don’t know which book it is in and cannot think of a keyword to find it easily. You might mow a bit, at least on the southwest side of the driveway before Carol returns from breakfast with her fellow retired Blue Ash teacher friends. Post. – Amorella.
You mowed and got more done than you thought you would, in fact, you were ready to go ahead and finish all the relatively flat part of the yard but the rains began and the grass was beginning to clog the mower. Just before you started the mower a brainstorm hit and you pried open the grass shoot to make it higher with a piece of wood. The grass shoots further and no clumping until the wetness.
I think of such thoughts as minor miracles in that sometimes a thought pops out that saves me a lot of time, all it took was a piece of wood between the metal spring and plastic shoot and the mower casing itself. Why I didn’t think of it a couple of mowing ago I don’t know, but hey, better now than never.
You say a lot more than you think, orndorff. One of the reasons you are good for this Merlyn event, as it were. – Amorella.
Oh, such a reminder. The Event was good last night, but alas, not so many viewers so they are dropping it before we know what the ‘event’ is. Very dissatisfying, but next week is the season final and final. I’ll watch it anyway and come up with my own ending. It’s not about the program first, it’s about making money. That’s the way the system is. Money is number one. Not much you can do about it. In the middle ages the Church was number one (or it was supposed to be). Cathedrals were built as a testament to the spirituality of humankind but honestly I think it is and was about power. There’s the rub. Rub two sticks of power together and soon you have a fire. Simple as that.
Enough pontificating, orndorff.
Pontificating is in our nature too. We just are what we are. Dissatisfying.
Post. – Amorella.
Home from lunch with old Mason teachers. Ann, the retired Spanish teacher just returned home from a trip the Buenos Aires and Rio so you both had a good time talking about like places she and you had been, such as Iguassu Falls.
It was fun for both of us. Shared geographical experiences even at different times usually warms the heart and memories.
This is true for the Dead also. Being an earthling alone is a shared bonding experience no matter when the person lived.
I hadn’t thought about such, that along with actually being consciously physically dead would even add a dimension or so of bondability.
Indeed.
I am thinking about the weighing on the heart and mind and soul. This could be complicated. An event, a friendship, a decision – each may be measured separately. The heart for a friendship would not mean the mind views the friendship on the same scale, or the soul either for that matter. In fact, as time moves on the weight of the friendship may move on also – even, alas, stock market like. It is as a kaleidoscope between emotion and reason as well as between passion and indifference. This would appear to be true for the Living as well as the Dead.
Human or marsupial-humanoid, it makes no difference. – Amorella.
I looked up the ‘artifact’ that I thought of earlier today. The key word was StoneHouse and it is really the myth of how things began for the marsupial-humanoids. Here it is for my own recollection. This is from Chapter Ten, Pouch Text, Running Through, the second book. I cannot believe I wrote those three books. They are filled with so much material – where it all came from I’ll never know.
** **
Below: A selection, including the marsupial myth on StoneHouse, from Running Through.
One more event happened some days later, but few know about it. The event is a new birth. A little girl was born to Sloenshine the Reasonable and Milantrex the Miser. Sloenshine gave birth to a crawlbabe who has no brain as such. A clump of matter on top and to the right side of her spinal column is of little use but it seems to be enough to keep her body functioning. The medical technicians have no idea what to do with the babe but to keep her alive because both Philosophy and Science demand it.
Beyond this near brainless baby, of course, are the wishes of the birth mother. She realizes what the baby may symbolize the reincarnation of an ancient legend and she wants to be in charge, behind the scenes, of the return mission to earth command post on Satellite University being set up by Director Kembel.
The crawlbabe has yet to be named, but her predecessor is found in a story around since the beginning of recorded time. The crawlbabe’s predecessor, Elderfelder, was the marsupials first Prophet, their Buddha or Abraham as it were.
The ancient story speaks of Elderfelder, the dancing messiah of the marsupials. The marsupials chose to capitalize her name but not her occupation. She became the symbol of the first living witness to Godofamily. In those days no alphabet existed as such, but sounds were distinct and carried meaning, especially when sung. In case of fact, the sounds are (as marsupials who understand English believe) very similar to the sounds of Beowulf chanted in the Old English vernacular.
This was another one of those strange coincidences between higher conscious life on Earth and HomePlanets. Another was a modern Celtic-like lilt of their primitive accents. Tradition says Elderfelder was born without any of the ordinary five senses. She was eventually abandoned by her frantic mother who could not care for her alone.
Elderfelder survived with the help of the small, kind squirrel-like rodents who would bring her berries and nuts. A series of other animals also helped Elderfelder gained enough strength to eventually raise herself up and stand tall. She learned to dance all by herself. Some say the animals taught her by a secret language only known to them. Then one of the elderly, a wise old woman who discovered the naked babe running in the woods, said, ‘No, it was not the animals. She was taught to dance by the SingleParent, the Invisible One who raised her and helped her to survive because she was on her own without any parents or helpers whatsoever.’
People liked that story better because they were already in touch with the animals themselves, but no one, as far as anyone knew, had thought of a way to bring SingleParent to a level they could all understand. Some didn’t like the idea that a marsupial man thought up this idea because, well, women were first, everyone knew that, including the men. Later, this had a ripple effect and eventually this unknown woman was given credit for the beginning of equal rights for both women and men, but it took thousands of years for this to take place.
Elderfelder was found in the river forest by some villagers who thanked the animals by leaving them food in a particular spot. This was where Elderfelder directed the StoneHouse to be built. No one had built a house of stone before as far as anyone knew. Later StoneHouse also took on the name SpiritHouse because Elderfelder had directed its building. In a vision once, she claimed that this was the very spot the last Angel left their world after it was built by the Creator of All Things and Beyond. An Angel was a Workwoman first, said Elderfelder, because a woman has to come before a man. That was the beginning. That was ancient history.
Now you need to know here. History to the marsupials meant early stories. Some were based on truths, some were made up to tell truths that could not be told any other way at the time. So, you didn’t have to believe history, you just had to listen to it. Again, this was before the written word had been invented. Elderfelder was the first miracle. She was the First with a capital letter beginning her name. She was the First in a lot of ways. In fact even today the letter, similar to the letter E, begins the alphabet used by the marsupials. She was one dancing lady, and she didn’t have a brain in her head to work with. No one ever forgot the story of Elderfelder.
Civilization was built around her and the building of StoneHouse. When it was complete, it was the last place she danced. She died dancing. The marsupials were overwhelmed. She was buried under the floor, that is according to the oral tradition that was later scribed.
No one has checked because StoneHouse was lost long ago. So long ago, that most people who really did love the story, did not really believe it was true. Maybe she had half a brain they reasoned, but no one has ever been born without a brain who lived. ‘No one until now of all times,’ whispered the few who knew. ‘And born to two of the most unlikely and inconsiderate people that most of the Thirty-Six knew first hand.’ Why? The father, known mostly behind his back as ‘the Miser’ was the first son of the previous Director, and Sloenshine was the first daughter of the Director before that. The ‘Reasonable’ attachment was pure sarcastic wit. To this day she has never understood its meaning.
** **
This was a fun re-read for me. I had forgotten all about StoneHouse and Elderfelder. If I remember right a ‘Presence’ was thought to be under StoneHouse but I don’t know what it was. That’s in book three I think. I don’t know. It is not that important now but at the time of the writing it seemed to be.
You are home from running errands. The rain has stopped but it is too wet to continue mowing. You have been wondering how it is that in three years you wrote those three books, all with notes and research where possible for plausibility. You wrote them full of passion, orndorff, passion for the humanity in both the marsupials and the humans. You re-read this short selection and it was like you were re-living it, like it really happened and you recorded it. That’s how it is in your head. You have an image of StoneHouse and of Elderfelder dancing. How could she do that without a brain? You ask the same questions that the marsupials asked.
I realize I wasn’t there, Amorella, but in many ways the trance-in-writing reminds me of what a real enchantment must have been like for those who have experienced one. In writing those books I was as a shaman who becomes (in her or his mind) what he is. No hope in the process, no belief either. It is a hypnotic-like state, an alternate reality of mental ‘being’. I do feel like I lived what I wrote. I can remember one of the marsupials rubbing his feet on the floor of grass in Ship and while I was typing I could feel the grass on my feet but in reality they were resting on carpet not grass.
If someone were to ask, “Were you in an enchantment when you wrote the books?” I would have to answer, “Yes, I feel I was in an enchantment.” What else could I say without fudging the honesty factor?
The problem that might arise with such a question and response deals with the definition of enchantment. Look it up, boy. – Amorella.
** **
Enchantment: noun (13th century). 1a: the act or art of enchanting; b: the quality or state of being enchanted; 2: something that enchants (from Merriam-Webster, 11th Collegiate)
Using a word to define itself; this is not a good sign.
No, it is not.
Web definitions: 1: captivation: a feeling of great liking for something wonderful and unusual; 2: a psychological state induced by (or as if induced by) a magical incantation; 3: a magical spell.
(From: wordnetweb.princeton.edu)
** **
I will go with number two from Princeton: “a psychological state as if induced by a magical incantation.”
But I am not a magical incantation. – Amorella.
Then, I would say, “It was by an enchantment, a psychological state created within a self-induced hypnotic trance.”
This is a more correctly honest response. Post. – Amorella.
After twenty-one hundred hours and I am beginning to see that those first three books were not really in a publishing format. Typos fly up right and left and me, a teacher of English. I should have waited. I should have paid some former students to proofread the work for me. I felt the need to publish one book a year. I don’t know why. Looking back they were certainly not written for any other audience than myself. Now I find myself re-reading selections and wondering what I thought it was all about. Now I can see it was and is about knowing myself. I can live with that. The writings do help me know more about myself. Publishing them in a near final draft was okay. I wanted to see them bound. I wanted to show myself I could write a book or two as it had been a long time dream to do so. Self-testing. What else is a good existentialist to do but self-test when not otherwise being tested?
You are embarrassed for your uncaught grammar errors. I am not. I wanted them bound so that you can see them bound. A present to yourself if you will. Paid for by your own savings, not the family money. The irony of being embarrassed should remind you of how it was for many of your students to see those red marks, circles and lines. Some learned from those mistakes as you have and will. Poetic justice in a way. Worth the smile, orndorff – give it up. Post. Amorella.
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