Late afternoon. You both walked this
morning. You have one and eight tens miles so far today with a mile and
two-tenths at the park itself. Thirty minutes for that exercise each day, the
rest of the iPhone mileage accumulates with errands and chores about the day
with the phone in your pocket. – Amorella
1641
hours. I am about to do my stats for chapter ten and realize that I have to cut
167 words out because I went over with the additional added poetry. I’ll delete
what is needed and finish the stats to drop in today’s post – no big deal.
Last night you read more on how to set up
and work the Comics app and to further simplify the Merlyn books with humor and
wit – a graphic comic novel approach – as something with less thought involved –
just as an entertainment. The reason behind this is that comic graphics gives
you a new laid back format about something you already have a background. –
Amorella
1651 hours. I would mind doing
something else, that is a vehicle where I can express concepts similar to those
in the books, that is, the vastness of the galaxy and visible and invisible
natural connections between the Living and the Dead of us and an alien species.
I like to explore this kind of stuff.
It will take some time to work up to this.
For practice, why don’t you set up a narrative where you visit the Dead,
nothing literary like Virgil (Aeneid) and Dante (The Divine Comedy). – Amorella
1710 hours. You mean I invent a sort
of time machine apparatus that allows me to visit the dead.
Why not, it’s a comic book. – Amorella
1711 hours. It brings a smile. I’m
conjuring up something that puts me in a two-dimensional state where I can
partially visit but not the deeper one-dimensional state. That sounds like fun.
It’ll give you time to learn and practice
some comic graphic skills. Create a fun comic caricature of yourself from a
photograph or two. – Amorella
1716 hours. It is not much trouble making fun of myself – I have plenty of weaknesses.
2228
hours. I have the stats for chapter ten.
** **
Ch. 10 – Roundabout Reel
Words - 3089
Sentences - 239
Words per Sentence – 12.0
Sentences/Paragraph – 2.2
Passive Sentences – 2%
Flesh Reading Ease - 100.0
Flesh-Kincaid
Grade Level – 0.8
**
**
You also made some minor changes, which will
have to be shown on the iCloud Page format. After a Subway lunch you and Carol later
had a snack supper while watching NBC News, “Bones”, a “Modern Family” and “Mysteries
of Laura”. Carol is up reading and you are about ready for bed yourself. – Amorella
2236 hours. It does feel good to have
chapter ten out of the road for the time being. I am ready to kick in with
chapter eleven. The Stats help. Grammar errors are found and corrected or
sometimes ignored. I like that the Flesh Reading Ease is 100 percent. I am
still not sure that the Flesh-Kincaid Grade Level is helpful. I know that the
challenge, or one of them anyway, is that the reader has to correlate the four
segments in each chapter, plus continue this correlation through all the
chapters if she or he wants to ‘feel’ the dream segments as Merlyn sees them. I
think it must be easier for Merlyn to do this being dead. I don’t know that
anyone Living might reasonably dream like this. For me though, this reading comprehension
challenge to the novels has an authenticity to it. I like to stretch minds, my
own included. I would never ask readers or students to do something I myself
cannot do. The minds that understand these books have to grow into them. That’s
the point. They are a human being’s dreams. A human being can put the human
puzzle together if she or he works on it.
Here is the revised and corrected for now now Chapter Ten.
** **
TEN ©2015, rho, GMG.2
Roundabout Reel
The Supervisor has a little saying:
Ring-a-ring
o'rosies
A
pocket full of posies
"A-tishoo!
A-tishoo!"
We
all fall down!
We
rise from clay
On
judgment day
Be
we dead or still alive.
The Dead 10
Wing-dancing spritely across leafy
forest
Feather
bright birds sing along in a chorus,
Dead
trees' gray fingers will leaf out quite soon
Under
misty full light of magic May Moon.
.
Merlyn lies comfortably as a stone sarcophagus on the
top of the granite-like mountain separating him from the Earthling Dead. There
is a difference up here in my sanctuary from down by my hut and stream, he
thinks. There is a residual effect, an echo of sorts from life that may stay
awhile in one or more of the person’s most intimate surroundings. It is a place
that most of the Living at one time or another get the tincture of a haunting
when the ghostly spirit as it were, is no longer there or perhaps never was
there consciously. That’s my observation that has no more validity than I do.
Such a lace of humor to drape me this side of the River; a dark humor that
forever sparks my humanity to survive beyond physical death. Humor, to my
spirit, is everywhere, a delight like a spring valley of fresh flowerings. All
one has to do on either side of the River is to observe one’s surroundings.
With this, Merlyn flashes above his sleepy stone-like head to the Supervisor’s saying in
parchment-woven heartanmind:
Ring-a-ring o'rosies
A
pocket full of posies
"A-tishoo!
A-tishoo!"
We
all fall down!
We
rise from clay
On
judgment day
Be
we dead or still alive.
These
are the first words from the other side, and from our Supervisor’s gleaned
intelligence, no less. No tunnel or flash of light for me; nothing more than
the presence of words hanging in the dark – “We rise from clay, this judgment
day.” And, the surrounding dark strangely resounds in a chorus every so
quietly, “Be we dead and still alive.” The words haunt as an apparition might
flow among the Living – an invisible sheet of an undiscoverable yet understood
reality. We are born already dead, that’s how I see it. I do not know the
words, the vocabulary to grasp the sense. Life is but a moment where we have
need of great calculation. I see this now. Without time, the closet of the open
soul speaks:
.
-
I, an open soul, am a fully immersed constant observing out three hundred and
sixty degrees Up and Down and All Around. I am a poetic breath without the air.
Open mouthed, I forage with kindness for a mutually beneficial sustenance
searching to shelter an unprotected heartanmind that I might learn more
examples of what life is. –
Turn.
Turn. Turn and Turn again.
-
Merlyn’s soul, Foretoken, asks, why
are you here?
- The once open soul, Venerable, answers, to learn. –
-
What else can be digested from Merlyn’s heartanmind? –
- Venerable replies, a
weakness needs shoring up.
Another
Turn sets open and then it is closed for the better.
.
Merlyn
grumbles. What is this that moves my soul away from this place to another as
another soul flies down to nest – Here. I feel a surrounding movement where
there is none. I feel as a chess piece picked up and dropped on an adjacent
square. I am the same Druid piece I was and not a Bishop. I appear alone on
this Board but I know better. The Supervisor
is about. I am who I am – Merlyn a Master Druid and once Scottish Bard. I lie
on the top of Granite Mountain in my own sanctuary. I look down to the Dead and
up to the Living. Stone of the Spirit is my architecture. I am a common
heartansoulanmind. I am free to defy, as are all other human-like spirits. I
lie here in balance with Up, Down, and All Around. I am and I am not, both at
once.
Silence.
Humbly,
I exist without being. I have no voice, no sound, no spiritual sense at all
other than an invisible crosshair. Being without being. There is no beginning
or end to it. Naked, and consciously aware, I defy my very self’s center to
remember what a Master Druid is.
.
Beware Earthly air, whirling winds deceive
Beware
the claw-ripped Souls of Beltane's Eve.
The Brothers 10
Tonight
come the birds dressed wild and black
So
keep close your Soul, they'll be wanting to hack
.
Richard sits in his favorite stuffed jungle print
green chair staring out the front window at the naked trees. A dusting of snow
coats the ground but the crevices and crannies where the major limbs jutted out
from the tree trunks. We are comfortably retired. Writing takes up a good
amount of my time. I share my work with my brother and friends. I am content
with that. I have no regrets. He smiles, ‘If I knew I were going to die
tomorrow, tonight I would order a large Papa John pizza with the works.’
.
The next afternoon Connie and Cindy are each reading a different Dick
Francis novel, drinking green tea and having a homemade scone hot out of the
oven. Connie leans back in her chair, opened the basement door and shouts,
“What’s going on down there?”
“Nothing,” answers Richard still laughing, “We were taking about logical
fallacies.”
“Come on up, we just took some scones from the oven.”
The laughter subsided as the twins climb the steps. “What kind?”
“Blueberry.”
“They’re pretty good,” comments Cyndi. “I haven’t made these before.”
“Rob, what was so funny,” asks Connie.
“Richie has this crazy idea about his book. In order to keep it honest
he lets Merlyn come into the dream.”
“What dream is that?” questions Cyndi.
“She doesn’t read the books,” says Richard with a smile.
“I
don’t read your books either,” says Connie. In unison the comment, “We like our
mysteries.”
“Merlyn’s
dreaming four lucid dreams at the same time,” notes Robert eager to see where
the conversation will go.
“I
have had one or two lucid dream in my life,” says Cyndi. “They are in color
aren’t they?”
Richard
notes, “The focus of the dream is realistically detailed and the dreamer
realizing he is dreaming, enters the dream and attempts to control it.”
“You
can’t control your dreams. What would be the point of that?” questions Connie.
“We
were in one together once. We both had the same dream,” says Cyndi, “Don’t you
remember?”
“We
both dreamed we were fishing with Grandma in his boat and we both caught the
same fish.”
“It
was a four pound small mouth bass,” says Cindy.
Watching
Robert shrugging his shoulders, Richard comments, “I didn’t know that. Why
didn’t you ever tell us? That’s pretty cool.”
“How
old were you?” says Robert.
“I
was thirteen and she was fourteen.”
The
four laugh.
“If
Merlyn is dreaming the stories and you take Merlyn out, then you can’t have the
dreams. You have to have a dreamer to have a dream,” suggests Cyndi
matter-of-factly.
“I
know that,” snips Richard.
“Then
you have to leave Merlyn in,” responds Connie. “He’s in the first book too,
isn’t he?” Connie glances at Robert’s I-told-you-so look and adds, “If Merlyn
performs mental surgery to get into the dream, what is wrong with that? He must
have felt compelled to enter his dream. If I were going to enter a dream of my
own, I would want to do or change something. What are you having Merlyn do or
change?”
Richard
sits amazed afraid to smile, shake his head or even glance at Robert.
“And,
how does Merlyn get back out after he goes in?” asks Cyndi. “You have to give
the reader a reason as to why people do what they do. Otherwise, why put Merlyn
in the story in the first place?”
Connie
spies Richard’s wry grimace and comments, “We caught the fish. When we were in
our dreams we each caught a fish. We were in the twin dream to catch a fish.”
Cyndi
smiles in delight, saying, “It just happened to be the same one – the same
fish, the small mouth bass.”
Taking
advantage of the humor being presented, Connie adds, “We can be independent
when we are together, just like you two.”
“We
know,” comment Robert and Richard.
“And,
we are not even twins.”
“Really,
who would have guessed,” says her husband quickly while rolling his eyes up at
his brother.
.
A
little later when they are in the living room, Richard asks, “I didn’t know how
to dance around that conversation. What was it about?”
“I
think we were confused,” gleans Robert.
“What
did Merlyn having a lucid dream have to do with fish?”
“They
don’t care to know your books, Richie.”
“It’s
just as well.”
“Connie
brought up a good question though. Why would Merlyn want to change a dream?
Which chapter? Which segment?”
Richard
sits perplexed. “I wanted him to change something for the drama of it.”
“Dreams
should be what they are. If you consciously change them they are fraudulent.”
“Your
right, Rob. We have to keep this honest.”
.
And fly it to Mounds where years
seem a day
Across the far green where Fairy
lands lay.
Grandma 10
Be strong like the Oak near Celtic
crossed stone
Think deep
in Druid’s sleep so Spirits can roam,
.
It is the afternoon of Mid-Summer’s Eve in 1307.
Mark’s mother, Lady Nelleke and Moira’s mother, Lady Anne are out pleasure
riding their Icelandic horses, a chestnut and a grey leaving their children
with the pretty maid servant, Margaret.
Fifteen
year old Mark Thomas Greystone is sitting on a veranda eyeing Margaret on her
hands and knees playing with seven year Moira of Kenilworth who is pretending
to be the faery queen.
“Put
Moira on the black colt,” suggests Mark.
“Why
bother,” replies Margaret. “Moira is afraid of horses. She had a fall once. The
pony is here to remind her that horses can be gentle.
While
radiating her young charm Moira, notes, “We are looking for a four-leaf clover.
Mark, do come and help us look.”
Mark
smiles, shakes his head sideways, and blows her a kiss.
Moira
sharply comments, “Margaret, Mark Thomas will not come help.”
“I
can get him to come down here,” winks Margaret.
“What
are you going to say?” asks Moira somewhat more innocently than she feels.
“Master
Mark,” declares Margaret teasingly, “Come down and help and if you find us a
four-leaf, we will each give you a kiss on the cheek.”
Moira
stands up with the four-leaf clover she had been eyeing for sometime. “I found
the magic clover,” she pronounces, “and she runs and gave it to surprised Mark
Thomas. “This is for you to choose who you would rather kiss, me or Margaret.”
Without
hesitation, Mark stood unthinkingly, then bent down and replies, “I choose to
kiss your hand, my Lady Moira.”
“Margaret,”
calls Mark Thomas with a wink at young Moira, “Would you care to join Lady
Moira, myself, and a my treasured four-leaf clover by walking the beautiful
black pony?”
“I
would, m’Lord,” grins Margaret, “should Lady Moira agree.”
With
all the smiles and warmth of the summer afternoon, what else could young Moira
do but please her pretending Lord Mark Thomas one more time?
Merlyn stirred mid-dream on Grandma’s hand,
The dead man’s mind was flatland scanned,
I remember, Merlyn thought, such a time as this,
A time in childhood in a young druid’s bliss.
...
We
are in the last week of June 1307, says Grandma. This narrative settles around
a private conversation between forty-four year old Lord David Montarran of
Stonebridge and his lovely wife, Lady Diana de Laque, who is all of sixteen.
This is his second marriage. His first wife, Lady Julia, died with child. Here
is a heartfelt conversation from
“You
have ancient sympathies for Scotland, Lord David, and so do I. We French and
Scots have remained close,” says Lady Diana.
“Aye,”
speaks David, “Longshanks will do them in. King Robert was excommunicated for
murder in a church. The kings should not be meddling in the Church’s affairs.
Both are corrupt.”
Lady
Diana smiles warmly.
“It
is old Celtic ways at work,” continues Lord David.
“The
Bishop says it is not good to doubt the faith, m’Lord,” scolds Diana.
Lord
David laughs, “I have my doubts.”
“M’Lord,”
inquires Lady Diana, “You are here. I have no doubts on that whatsoever.”
“You
are good for my soul, m’Lady,” answers old Lord David. “To have no doubts and
to be honest about it at the same time is a sure sign of youth.”
“Is
it the learning you have acquired in your lifetime that brings the doubts?”
“By
the sweet saints, no, my lovely Diana. It is the errors.”
“The
Bishop says doubting is the Devil.”
“Errors
are not sins, m’Lady.”
“I
know the seven deadly sins, m’Lord David,” she notes.
“I’ll
put a king’s coin wager on it,” laughs Lord David, “but you have to balance
them with the seven virtues alongside.”
“Gambling.
You love your lighthearted gambling,” she chuckles.
He
rises from his chair and whispers, “You do my heart good, and I love you as I
have only loved one other.”
“You
do my young heart well too, m’Lord.”
Lord
David bends down saying aloud; “My heart is so entwined with yours that I
cannot tell your heart from my own.”
Grandma
grins. Lord David loves his second wife as much as he did his first. Such as it
is with two hearts exchange.
.
Love torn into equal pieces would seem a disaster,
Yet it makes the heart stronger and pumps the blood
faster.
.
Bring Souls together, yet remain
afar,
Make fiery
bright op’ning of the Oracle’s jar
Diplomatic
Pouch 10
Beware Earthly air, whirling winds
deceive,
Beware the claw-ripped Souls of
Beltane's Eve.
On aid-Spring night where great
stones lay rounded
In Fairy
light from damp bark re-bounded.
.
Blake
Williams sits uncomfortably in an easy chair in the small workstation at the
StoneHouse site waiting for Friendly to return to the secret dig with medical
information about Pyl and Justin. Blake’s mind ruminates on the event an hour
earlier. Pyl and Justin were at the bottom of the ten-foot deep, three foot
wide ditch between the ancient foundation and the thin outer safety wall at the
northwest corner of StoneHouse dig when a black and red squirrel-like animal
jumped into the dig landing on Justin’s right shoulder, and when Justin
attempted to knock the rodent off, it bit him on the forearm. The panicked
rodent’s back claws dug into Justin’s wrist as it jumped at Pyl who quickly
turned to knock the animal to the dirt floor. The small furry animal also bit
her on the forearm before falling. The rodent running along the ditch floor was
startled to see Friendly appear ahead. She drew a small instrument from her
left sleeve side pocket and fired which stunned the forest creature.
Blake
conjectures; those little rodents were trying to protect the purity and
sanctity of Elderfelder from us Earthlings, that’s what these marsupial
humanoids are going to say. The quick and furry little creatures remind me of
chipmunks. This will add to reinforce the myth that these vermin helped
Elderfelder survive. No one knew the facts in those ancient days. Surely people today know this
Elderfelder was mostly a story that it can be very much appreciated as such,
but there is a can of worms in opening the story into a possible modern truth
because now StoneHouse does indeed exist. How does this fit with we humans
being a part of this archeological find? Why does Friendly want us here? It
would be better if we were not in any way associated with this StoneHouse
discovery.
With
an easy though interruptive gait Friendly walks into the room. “Pyl and Justin
will be fine. They just need rest for a couple of days. They can better privately
rest on Ship.”
Still
sitting Blake replies, “This puts my mind to ease.” He quickly adds, “Why did
you want us to be a part of this archeological dig in the first place? It seems
to me it would have been better if we were not involved in recreating your
ancient mythology concerning Elderfelder.”
Indifferently,
Friendly states, “Elderfelder is a complicated legend. Many people who would
otherwise know better choose to believe it.” She smiles and raises her arms
out. “Ship and Onesixanzero feel it is in our interest to have Earthlings
connected as a sort of ‘good luck’ – bringing a positive reinforcement for your
visit. The problem is that now we may have a real Elderfelder, a babe being
kept alive even though she has little brain matter. This in itself may raise
the probability in peoples’ minds that the legend really was true, at least
parts of it, the Elderfelder was indeed a real person. Most people are raised
enjoying the legend as a story not as a fact. Things are further complicated
with the reality of two Earthlings being attacked by those damn rodents. Do you
see the problem?”
“I
can certainly foresee one, possibly two or three,” states Blake, who suddenly
feels the need to stand. After a few minutes, he notes, “Thank you for telling
me the truth straightforward.” He lets loose with a nervous laugh, “You people
are no different than us. Twenty thousand years further along – but you are set
up for an all too natural human dilemma. How do you bring the past up to the
present so you can better deal with the future?”
Friendly
replies, “We can provide facts. At least the facts we have a present – about
you Earthlings, StoneHouse and a young girl who is like Elderfelder was once
described more than twenty-five thousand years ago, but people relate better to
stories than to facts.”
“People
will draw connections, even the facts will become stories on their own,”
suggests Blake. “I have no idea what is best.”
Friendly
comments coolly, “I was not asking you what is best for us, Dr. Williams. I am
explaining our situation.”
Friendly’s
tone whispers into Blake's consciousness as the somber dance of now silent
Scottish bagpipers in a fog-laden valley. I have an uneasy feeling here, thinks
Blake, and he opens his Earth calendar to see the date back home – 31 October
2015.
.
Ghostly priestess and priest on
Celtic cross stand
Midst
Fire and Water in Sky and on Land
...
** **
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