TRUTH

"Aeneas carried his aged father on his back from the ruins of Troy and so do we all, whether we like it or not, perhaps even if we have never known them." 

  

                         — Angela Carter

Beowulf, Basilisks, Dragons and Serpents

 Not much time for writing here as I have offline writing to do, but these are some of the books I am reading for research. I wanted to post them while I did my brief social media this morning. I slept in and now I need to catch up. Laughing. I have four editions of Beowulf, but I really like Swinton's version as it has side by side translation and I needed that. I wanted to read Tolkien's version just because it's Tolkien and the other work is on monsters and dragons and basilisks and serpents of the Classical and Early medieval eras. 

Junip - Line of Fire

Howl fan art

It's strange what a novel can do sometimes, or where it might lead. For example, lots of fan art. This one is from Howl's Moving Castle. I am a big fan of Howl's Moving Castle and of Howl and Sophie. I also like bird people, which is a very old fantasy of mine.

          art by Dani López

Re-enchantment

“The essential ingredient in a temenos is the perimeter that marks out the space, whether by a wall, a fence, a hedge of flowers and bushes, or some rocks that only imply the full perimeter. Having crossed the border, we find ourselves in a special place where certain things happen, and other things do not.” 

 — Thomas Moore, The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life

SYML - "Wildfire" [Official Music Video]

Of Monsters And Men - Wolves Without Teeth (Official Lyric Video)

Open my chest and colour my spine
I'm giving you all
I'm giving you all
Swallow my breath
And take what is mine
I'm giving you all
I'm giving you all

I'll be the blood
If you'll be the bones
I'm giving you all
I'm giving you all
So lift up my body
And lose all control
I'm giving you all
I'm giving you all

You hover like a hummingbird
Haunt me in my sleep
You'll sailing from another world
Sinking in my sea, oh
You're feeding on my energy
I'm letting go of it
She wants it

And I run from wolves, ooh
Breathing heavily
At my feet
And I run from wolves, ooh
Tearing into me
Without teeth

I can see through you
We are the same
It's perfectly strange
You run in my veins
How can I keep you
Inside my lungs
I breathe what is yours
You breathe what is mine

You hover like a hummingbird
Haunt me in my sleep
You'll sailing from another world
Sinking in my sea, oh
You're feeding on my energy
I'm letting go of it
He wants it

And I run from wolves, ooh
Breathing heavily
At my feet
And I run from wolves, ooh
Tearing into me
Without teeth

And you can follow
You can follow me
You can follow
You can follow me

You hover like a hummingbird
Haunt me in my sleep
You're sailing from another world
Sinking in my sea, oh
"You're feeding on my energy
I'm letting go of it" she once said

And I run from wolves, ooh
Breathing heavily
At my feet
And I run from wolves, ooh
Tearing into me
Without teeth

And you can follow
You can follow me and
You can follow
You can follow me and
And you can follow
You can follow me
You can follow
You can follow me

Juvenilia

(Something I wrote as a teenager, a very young teenager, around thirteen or fourteen years old.)


Poe In Allegory

Amid the cool dark of endless space
A single crimsom flame does race.
Behind it across an ocean of blue
A haunting shape does pursue.
This shape gains speed with the light of day.
In the cool of night it loses its way.
While it moves across the sky,
The shape falters and asks itself why
It pursues a thing it will never possess,
And why it does not pause forever to rest;
Yet, always in the light of day
The shadow moves faster along its way!

Alas! Night is a time for stars and dreams.
Life is not what it is or what it seems.
There is no shadow, only the glow of the moon,
And the warmth that it brings never too soon.

                                     Copyright © 2024  Madly Jane

Kissing

"...Praise the deep lustrous kiss that lasts minutes, blossoms into what feels like days, fields of tulips glossy with dew, low purple clouds piling in beneath the distant arch of a bridge.... Let the tongue, in its wisdom, release its stores, let the mouth,tired of talking, relax into its shapes of give and receive, its plush swelling, its slick round reveling, its primal reminiscence that knows only the one robust world."

Kissing Again Dorianne Laux

A reminder

I am going to be rather hard-nosed and say that if you have to find devices to coax yourself to stay focused on writing, perhaps you should not be writing what you’re writing. And, if this lack of motivation is a constant problem, perhaps writing is not your forte. I mean, what is the problem? If writing bores you, that is pretty fatal. If that is not the case, but you find that it is hard going and it just doesn’t flow, well, what did you expect? It is work; art is work. Nobody ever said it was easy. What they said is: "Life is short, art is long." 

Ursula K. Le Guin

Of Monsters And Men - Soothsayer (Lyrics)

 

Cool it down

The mind is a riddle you cannot solve

Cool it down

The body's a landscape of wildflower

Stay here, stay here

Stay here, I want you

And I know this can't be wasted love

Stay here, I want you

Stay here, stay here

Stay here, I need you

Please don't tell me that it's wasted love

Stay here, I need you

Sleep, I know

You haven't been dreaming, you overflow

And I still feel you around

You've become a tempo that my heart knows

Stay here, stay here

Stay here, I want you

And I know this can't be wasted love

Stay here, I want you

Stay here, stay here

Stay here, I need you

Please don't tell me that it's wasted love

Stay here, I need you

Will you see me, love

Who am I in your temple

Will you see me, love

Who am I in your temple

Stay here, stay here

Will you see me, love

Who am I in your temple

Stay here, I want you

Stay here, stay here

Will you see me, love

Who am I in your temple

Stay here, I need you

Iona by John Duncan

 

Iona by John Duncan. Symbolism and one of the pieces of art that always inspires me. Especially Duncan's use of color and expression. In a certain story I've read, Iona is the protagonist in a myth about a young girl who fell in love with a god. When I heard her story I thought I'd like to fall in love with a god. Of course the more I read and understood, this was a perilous path to choose. What would it be like to be human in presence of the divine. Any divine. Despite Iona's tragic circumstances, this was a topic that I love. It haunts me. 

Backstory: Around the age of 10, I started writing little notes about another girl who has had various names over the years. A young girl, ordinary in all ways but very clever who falls in love with a god, who finds her annoying most of the time. This was my fantasy. My dream.  Part of my paracosm. While my friends wanted to be Cinderella or Snow White or some heroine of a TV show, I wanted to struggle with a god and make a life. Some of this might have been my early, much too early, understanding and knowledge of death and how it shadowed my early life.

I was only seven years old when I realized that all  gods, whatever, were probably the fantasized needs of human beings. I was crushed at the time to know this. By age eight I had relaxed into this philosophy, but it wasn't like I could have a conversation about it with my friends or my parents, although I tried to explain it to my mother several times. I did explain it to my third grade teacher, which led to some unintentional consequences for me and yes, a new understanding of myself. I was never the same. This teacher influenced me greatly and was a wonderful mentor in early life. I always thought of her when I thought of gods and mortals. I still think of her.

Love is forbidden between gods and mortals. This theme is told over and over in literature. Why? That is one of the things I wanted to know, too.