Corona

The fire danced in the desert evening, sending sparks high into the sky. Above, the night sky filled the eyes of a young boy and an ancient crow. They sat next to each other upon rocks worn smooth by lifetimes of children who came before to speak reverently to the aged creature. Grandfather Crow wrapped himself more tightly in his blanket, and looked at the young boy. One day, like so many before him, this boy would become a great warrior. Grandfather Crow knew this, and treated the boy with respect.

"Grandfather Crow, why do you chase the Grandmother Moon every night? You are so small to her, she mustn't even notice."

"Child, I may be small, but when she is full and bright, my shadow covers much land. When she shines upon me, I am not small. "

"But Grandfather Crow, if Grandmother Moon hasn't noticed you by now, why do you think she ever will? She does not stop, nor look towards you... "

"Child," the creature smiled patiently at the boy, "ask me again when you are in my shadow."

-

Many years later, the Great Chief sat alone in front of a fire, warming his bones beneath a sky deep with stars. He turned his eyes upward to see a crow's shadow pass in front of the full moon. The old man grinned, and knew deep in his heart that it must have been a very large shadow... at least three nations wide.

"Grandfather Crow, I see you wrapped in the arms of Grandmother Moon. You are not small at all."


The Great Chief sat, smiling, as he watched the night sky for a very long time.

Uchi

I decided when I got my own place to begin a tradition. In Japan, when one returns home from being out, the word 'Tadaima' is uttered upon entering the home again. The response, said by anyone home, is 'Okaerinasai'. Literally, they mean "I'm Home" and "Welcome Home" respectively. I like that. I like the formality of announcing your arrival back home, and being greeted by loved ones in return. It made me happy the first time I saw it in a Japanese video, and I always wanted to have that as part of my life. 

Now I do. 

I really do love the idea of being greeted when returning home. It's warming and sweet, and reminds me that no matter where we've been, our presence is appreciated at the places we call home. It's nice to be appreciated. And it's just as wonderful to greet a loved one with a smile, a happy face, and a word that acknowledges their presence in the home.  

So I'm here, waiting to acknowledge you when you come home, which of course, is 'Uchi'.

Gina

Today is Gina's birthday. So as I have done before, and will again, I present to you the ABC's of Gina:

Giddy and Gorgeous, Gleefully sweet
Interosculant and Illustrative, she may Illapse into her seat
Napaean at heart, Nyctanthous and fine
Acatalectic, Artistic, an Aubade divine

Happy Birthday, my sweet.

Enjoy your day.

Wagons East

"So there we were. Heavy weather, low on fuel..."
                            - Scott R.


     It was a dark and stormy night when we set off from California. Glendale vanished into a bright spot on the horizon of the night sky in our rear-view, and the open road beckoned.  Okay, not really, but it might as well have been.  On Tuesday, March 20th, 2012, Two cats, Gina Marie Terzino, and I set off on the road trip of a lifetime. We were driving from Beautiful Downtown Glendale, California to the Eastern shores of our continent. We were moving her back home to her beloved Rhode Island. For those of you who might not know, nor care to look at a map of the United States, Rhode Island is NOT a suburb of New York, nor is it part of Massachusetts. It's the armpit of America, nestled in New England, and it's NOT Sunny California. But it is home.

     So we set off about 5:00pm, just to make sure we hit as much California traffic as we could (I suppose it was an unconscious effort to get the complete CA experience). We broke free of the 210, hit the gas, and moved like a guppy towards the great open expanse of the 15, searching for the 40, the lower of the two coast-to-coast interstates. The little blue Saturn Ion, stuffed to the gills with meowing furballs and musical instruments (not that the cats could not be considered musical at this point) sipped her fuel and moved with grace through the western part of Arizona, on into the night and early morning of the 21st.

     With Runs-with-Scissors at the wheel, sometime in the late 1:00AM hour, a sudden misfire began to slow our course through the chilly AZ evening. I didn't panic, nor did I even wake the sleeping Gina. I simply stared at the rhythmically flashing 'check engine' light, and hoped it would cease. Soon. Please. Anytime would be great. No?  Hm... So I took the first exit I saw, dove onto the connecting road, and swooped gracefully into the gas station. Gina woke up, blinked, and asked where we were, to which I responded " Arizona. And we have a problem."  There's a lot to this story, including a VERY cold night trying to sleep while covered with a TOWEL (blankets? Who needs 'em...), an attempted parking lot fix the next morning, not one, but TWO mechanics, Getting lost thanks to Google Nav (and wait... what do you mean there's no damned phone signal?), an overnight stay in WINSLOW, AZ (YES! I know it's in an Eagles song), sneaking cats into the hotel, Gina's wrenched ankle (What DID you trip on, woman?), and a wonderful phone call to the mechanic that ended like this, "The car needs an engine. Okay. So when could you get one? No, next Tuesday or Wednesday won't work. Put it back together, we're coming to pick it up. Can you leave the injector to the bad cylinder disconnected? No? Okay." We picked up the car, I disconnected the injector to cylinder #1, and we hit the road, cats and all.  Three Cylinder Sally was moving again, and as long as we kept it above 2500RPM, we were good.

     Arizona disappeared behind us, New Mexico was a blur... then onto Texas (Dark AND Flat) and Oklahoma through the night. It was light out when we hit Arkansas, which was long, but smelled better than TX and OK. Other than the (I'm STILL giggling here) written warning for speeding and a brake light, it was all pretty uneventful. Welcome signs passed by, we took pictures, and it was pretty smooth. Three Cylinder Sally chugged along, giving me a couple good scares when trying to start after refueling, but finally shuddering to life.  And I gotta say that I love Denny's, but I'm pretty much all set with Grand Slam Burgers at this point in my life. Then came Tennessee.  The Longest State EVAR!!! It went on for what felt like days, and on... and on... and on... and just on.  It was fairly green, except for the blurbs of the big cities that went by.  Yes, I know, we should have stopped in Memphis, and Nashville, but honestly we weren't stopping anywhere except a gas station.  It was somewhere in the night that we went through Knoxville, and the leg North finally began. Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, then finally Rhode Island all appeared in our windshield, and we watched the changes fly by us flanking the highway corridor. The car performed admirably considering the mechanical state of it, and there were no other real issues.  We managed to get somewhere between 26 and 30 mpg as well!

     Would I drive across this beautiful country again? You bet. But I would have a much different plan of action, one that did not include traveling with cats. As a sidebar, the cats were marvelous. They settled in, decided it wasn't so bad, and Gina was wonderful in her care of them.  Bix didn't much care for the tractor trailers, I guess they were just too large to be comfortable around, and Sophie could really care less about anything other than getting back in her crate.  Win one for relaxed cats, I suppose.  If you've never driven coast to coast, it's worth trying. It's a beautiful land we live in, and I'm not sure we Americans truly appreciate the breathtaking grandeur of it all.

But there is no place like home, close to the hearts we love.

M

Dream of the Raven's Gate XIII

Three women in white marched in step over beautiful grassy plains and down shaded, tree-lined paths. Each taking turns to drag their fingers over the bars of the ever-present iron fence, it's aging black bars reaching towards the sky.  They traveled in near silence, calling to the wind with wry smiles, and humming tunes that could best be described as rhythmic.  Each woman stepping lightly, but with a purpose held in thier footfalls. no dust soiled their shoes, no speck adorned their dresses.  No indication that they were real at all, other than thier presence in one's vision.

They stepped on.


The tormented creature, wrapped in his black shroud, waited for the calling and the madness again. He felt the shift as the Great Old One opened his eyes and gazed, at last, upon the green fields that were ready to receive Him. The depths of the tomb were irrelevant, and the time between blinks an eternity.  This was His time, His place. He would not again be turned back from owning the Dreamlands. Not ever again. The Key was here, ready to be taken, and that mortal creature would give it willingly.  In the pits, the hellish green glow began to writhe and glisten. It's tendrils working throughout the lush world just beyond . . . Chaos would rise and the world of men would be next.

The body of a man floated in the abyss, cradled by the luminous green flesh. His black eyes, unseeing in the darkness, stared. His snow-white hair lay streaming in all directions. The Great Silver Key lie within his hollow soul, and The Ancient One was drilling deep into his being to grasp it.  A whisper came out of the black, and fell upon his deaf ears as a clear peal of a tiny bell. "Remember" it sang. One word, nearly silent, but repeated... "Remember". The light ignited behind the man's eyes and he felt the struggle begin anew. He saw the Key flash bright, shudder, then cower behind his nearly-shattered psyche. It was almost time to lose, the man understood. It was almost time to give forever to the Chaos...

Three women stepped brightly into the blackened rays of a distant sun. Karasu knelt silently and waited for his Master to begin His ascent. The storms in the real world were roiled with Leviathanic fury and the seas churned with His power. "Husband..." Karasu's horrified eyes snapped open at the sound of the woman's voice.
"Husband," it repeated.
"Father." Another voice, similar, but younger.
"Grandfather" A third. Then all in unison, "Karasu".  He could not resist any longer. The punishment would forever mark his very form, but he could not resist. He rose, the cloak spreading like a death shroud around his form. "You are here without the boy. Why? how is this possible?"

"Oh, Husband..." The oldest woman wrapped her arms around Karasu, he melted into her as generations of misery throttled his black heart. He wept. He'd kissed this woman in her casket so long ago. She should not be here, not now, not without the help of the Key's Master...
The middle woman threw her arms around the creature. "Father!" He turned his face to her, stared into her eyes, and saw... something... unexpected.  Malice. He saw another reason for the presence. He turned quickly to the woman he called wife. He saw it there as well. Then he cast a glance at the youngest... And was taken to the ground by it. He was bound, and left helpless by these beautiful woman in white. He was unable to rise, unable to shift from this plane to another. He was held captive by the treachery of these women . And he realized too late that his fate had been manipulated so very long ago.

"Margaret... You?"
"Fool of a man. You had to have hope for the boy, didn't you? You couldn't simply do your job as the Great Old One commanded? Of course not. The fatherless boy, grown into a man, then given to the Ancient One as a gift by his Priestess. Did you think you were drawn to us that day by chance? Did you not know that we needed you to see the boy's eyes? You must remember when you saw us all together? When that useless hack gave his sanity to channel you?  You do. You remember. And you remembered your great-grandson's eyes.  You had to. You needed to know his eyes.  Have you seen them now? I have. They look a lot like yours. And he STILL won't give the Ancient One that damned Key.  YOU TOLD HIM HOW TO HIDE IT, DIDN'T YOU?" She screamed, fury in her voice.  Black ochre pouring through her veins and darkening her alabaster white skin like hellish roots from her collarbone upwards towards her face. "YOU WILL MAKE HIM GIVE IT TO US"

Karasu felt sickened for the first time in ages. His wife, Priestess of the Ancient One. his Daughter, and his Granddaughter, too. The Cult had found them, had given them power. His wife kept the secret and raised his daughter to carry the traditions on, and she had. The Cult had made them masters of men. He realized this all too late to save himself, it seemed. He slid away, shrinking into the womb of his cloak. The bindings kept him there, on the stone threshold, but he shrunk away, searching for the child he loved... those eyes must not ever be his own.  His Grandson. .  . The one he left screaming at the hands of his Master.

The betrayal wounded the Creature beyond his own comprehension. He was a pawn.

And he was broken.



Continued

Blue Dream

Deeper and deeper
     I spiral, becoming one with the murky depths
          Flesh pressed against bone as the pressure rises
               My heartbeat slows with every passing moment
                    I close my eyes against the rising darkness
                         Fathoms beneath the rolling waves
                    Where it is calm
               Where it is cold
         Where the black wraps me in comfort
     The stillness and the silence
Gripping my existence
     Calling me down.....
          Down...
               Down...
                    To where songbirds are not heard
                         To where my racing mind becomes untroubled
                    Serene in the deathlike cloak
               Of the home I fall into
          Again and again
     Deeper
Until
     I am
          A stone in the sea...
               Without resistance I tumble
                    And twist
                         Until I come to rest
                    Without light
               Or sound
          Or companionship
     I am alone
In the deep blue sea
     And it is pacific
          In it's serenity...

More.

  It's who I am trying to be. I was not this before. I might have had it inside of me, but I wasn't it. I can feel all of it, I can feel the world just under my skin, and I WANT to let it free... but the real world encroaches and stifles. It drags its claws over my art, through my dreams. It rends the hope I try to keep close to me useless at times.

     The real world sucks the art out of a body, and injects it with morbid fascination. It creates desires for the common, and numbs the spirit. It clamps our wings closed and makes us earthbound, with only a memory of the sky in the fleeting corner of out imagination.

     Who do you want to be? It's getting late, as Derek Dick once sang, for scribbling and scratching on the paper.  It's time to grab the tail of a star, hold it close to your heart, and fly. It's time to resist the gravity of the everyday. It's time to see the sky under you, time to know the feeling of freedom, and not just the ordinary freedom of escaping from the bland, shriveled existence most of us eek out. It's time to know freedom as the rushing wind tearing past the tender skin on your face, seeing the ground come towards you as you reach terminal velocity.  Feeling the sky, itself, pulling at your shirt tails begging you to slow your descent, but throwing a hand behind and loosening its grasp.


     I am the Sun, Chasing his Mistress Moon.
     I am Whispering Willows caressing Faery Skin.
     I am the Servant.
     I am the Master.
     I am Powerful.
     I am Loved, and Lover.
     I am Light and Darkness.

     I am Wicked.

     I Am Artist.