Switching Gears

October 24, 2022October 24, 2022 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 17 Comments

Another week has started in the farms/small towns in southeast Wisconsin. Nature, in her ever moving glory, has dumped most of her glorious hair on the ground to eventually turn into mush and mulch and hiding places for various little things until spring.

Today is the last warm day — the so-called Indian Summer — trying to coax us out of the house and go walking or biking or fetching the dogs one more day before it invites the colder air to come and visit.

Do you, as artists, change your routines when the weather changes?

I know my friends down Australia way are going through the lovely growth of Spring, thinking about picnics and boat rides and art fairs and dinners on the patio with friends.

Their counterparts up here in the U.S. for the most part are waving goodbye to the hot, melting vibrations of sunlight, settling instead for a weak, yet still bright, effort from the sun.

Many of you are artists — even if you don’t acknowledge yourself as one. You arrange gardens, build patios and put up swing sets, paint in watercolors and oils, cut up pieces of magazines and cloth and broken glass and make the most glorious collages.

We all do something with our spare time — how can we not?

But cold weather does put a damper on outdoor activities. Perhaps not a damper, per se — you can still enjoy outdoor activities, walk in the snow and make snow angels — but cold weather does tend to keep one insider a lot more.

Do you do the same activities you did in the blazing hot summer?

Technically I suppose I could do many of the same things inside as outside. Keep my plants growing, paint rocks at the kitchen table, ride an exercise bike rather than a purple 10 speed down the road. But some of it’s not the same without the grandkids or warm weather.

I am fortunate — writing is a year round project. I wish I was as versatile as the sport allowed (short stories, novels, poems, essays, opinion pieces, blogging, research papers, sonnets, tweets). I like to stick to the blogging and novel writing end of the pool.

In the winter time, when you’re stuck inside, blowing, tearing wind and snow and ice and nothing but a cabinet full of popcorn and ice cream, you would think your concentration focuses even finer.

It’s not even winter time and I find myself dissatisfied with everything.

Is this another passing phase? Should I find something new to write? Some new type of art to dig into?

Or should I just enjoy the popcorn and ice cream and take a break for a while?

What do you do?

The Passing of Indian Summer

November 3, 2020November 3, 2020 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 5 Comments

I love Indian Summers.

For those who live in a perpetual warm climate year round, an Indian Summer is a period of unseasonably warm, dry weather that sometimes occurs in autumn in temperate regions of the northern hemisphere during September to November.

It’s a beautiful time.

The days are warm and often sunny, the nights chilly and clear. The air seems to sparkle with highlights that still linger from hot summer days.

Of course, here in the Midwest, the trees shine in glory with their pageant of the year, turning colors of gold and bronze and red and a warm, soft orange. They remind us that nothing lasts forever … beauty, vitality, all are in a moment’s glory. That as much as we wish it to be otherwise, life turns and twists and goes on.

Today is the madness of the election for the president of the United Sstates. Never in my 67 years have I seen such chaos, hatred, and ignorance from both sides. If there is a true heart that beats for the wellfare of the people, it is well hidden under layers of misunderstanding, frustration, and sensationalism.

Perhaps it is in the folds of warm November days and cold November nights we can find solace, one way or another.

The U.S. Sun wrote an article shares the origin of the phrase “Indian Summer”:

It’s claimed the term was first coined by the Native Americans, and it was used there in the late 18th century. The first reported use of the word was recorded in Letters from an American Farmer in 1778 by American soldier turned farmer J. H. St. John de Crèvecoeur.

“Then a severe frost succeeds which prepares it to receive the voluminous coat of snow which is soon to follow; though it is often preceded by a short interval of smoke and mildness, called the Indian Summer,” he wrote.

The world has been observing this second warming of the land ever since the pilgrims settled in America; since Europe started building castles, since the Chinese started building dynasties. It may skip a year or two; it may be hot as sin one day and snow the next.

Nature is wonderful in its beauty and ebb and flow.

The waves of politics will always ebb and flow, too. All we can do is hold on, seize the day, and continue doing what we were brought onto this Earth for.

Continue to live — to live and love and walk with the sun on our faces and the breeze in our hair. To find the good in each other and nurture that feeling so it flows as easily as fall to winter or day to night.

Let the good moments surround you and become a part of you.

Like Indian Summers.

Rain and Boredom

September 28, 2020September 28, 2020 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 7 Comments

Another rainy Fall day. Makes me want to take a nap.

In the meantime, I’ve been looking around for my energy. I KNOW it was here someplace. It’s been deteriorating steadily the last few years. You know — a chip off here, a dent there. But it was always there for me when I needed it.

Now with the rain and clouds it wants to play hide and seek. Good thing I’ve cleaned up and out a lot of clutter in my house in the last eight months.

But, like a lot of others I’ve talked to (or read from), there are a number of us who are losing our energy — creative, kinetic, spiritual, or otherwise.

Easy to blame Covid19. Why not? I blame it for ruining what social life I had. Not exercising? That’s my own fault. Upside sleep schedule? You can’t blame the man who’s bringing home the bacon. Weather? I love the cool days and evenings.

I’ve been taking the easy way out for my lack of energy. I’ve been finding such great artists for my blog. But life is more than an art blog, isn’t it?

I’ve often thought of getting a part time job. Stimulate my energy and my mind. But not much is available when I’m available. And, anyway, I worked 50 years to be able to enjoy my time off.

I’ve been reading a lot every day. This time around it’s Shōgun . Love it. But reading is a quiet sport and it doesn’t take long for me to start jumbling up the Japanese words. I have been going through others’ blogs and reading their contributions — that’s been fun. I’ve even started going through every Twitter account I follow (only about 400) and reading and liking what they post.

Somehow this feels and sounds desperate, though.

I need a new idea for a short story. Or a novel. Or a set of novels. I think I’m only really happy when I write.

I have about a dozen starts in my Unfinished Folder that could use a jump start. Looking for the Unicorn (writing about dementia from the patient’s point of view), Grandfather’s Room (story about my daughter-in-law’s grandfather moving to assisted living), Of Elves and Madness (unhappy girl runs into sexy elf in woods and goes with him to his world), The Rock (another unhappy wife jogging through the woods — who knows what was supposed to be next?), The World is All An Illusion (wonder if that was the start of an ethereal blog way back when?), Speaking With Aliens (goofy factory worker talks to aliens through his TV), She Looked Out the Back Window (another disgruntled female getting ready to go for a walk in the rain… is there a pattern here?), Fairy Circle (little girl calls up a naughty fairy and years later it comes back to haunt her), Game, Set, Match (sharp, sexy girl meets man in bar .. I’m sure he’s a magical something…), Three Faeries Doing Faerie Things (read this outline and it doesn’t feel familiar. Was it someone else’s idea? A dream? Good and bad faeries fighting.)

A lot of starts, not enough finishes. Food for thought, perhaps. What do you think?

Maybe it’s time for that nap ….

Changing Seasons

September 8, 2020 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 18 Comments

A touch of Fall in the air today. Cloudy day, cool breeze, cold rain.

My kind of morning.

I know the dark and moody weather is on its way. These days it seems to match many of our moods. There is sunshine deep inside every one of us, but as the days shorten it seems to hang around with its friend Cloudy more and more often.

This weather tends to encourage more contemplation, more introspection, more struggling for inspiration. I know it’s the cycle of life, and we all go through it, but the older I get the more interesting this cycle gets.

I think our bodies automatically shift gears in fall, storing nuts and fat and ideas for the days when we are hiding behind three feet of snow. Memories of family and friends and those we have lost seem to hang around a little longer. We can snuggle more with our pets without breaking out in a hot sweat.

As I contemplate this snuggling, reflective mode, I think of my fellow writer and poet Ivor. A wonderful writer and human being, he lives “down under” and is probably looking out his window hoping the temperatures soon warm up so he can walk around in short sleeves again. Funny how all of us can be on the same reflective wavelength yet our weather be so different.

Do you make plans for each season? Do you have projects that work better in one season than another? Books you want to read that you’ve left until under-blanket-time? A short story or crocheting you’ve been mulling around in your head that can’t come out until the temperature drops below 30 degrees?

I do love this time of year. I have a few projects that don’t take a lot of energy or sunshine to carry out. I want to try to draw one of those pictures full of designs and lines like my last Sunday Evening Art Gallery artist (Rachael Pease). I have wind swirls I want to make for art fairs next year (if they ever come back), I’m even planning on rereading Shogun again (1,192 pages). I also have started taking long walks in the gray, listening to my creaking bones along with the birds and wind (the creaky bones are loudest).

What are your plans for the next season?

October is for Dreams

October 3, 2016October 7, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ Leave a comment

I admit it. I love Fall.

Not just because I am at the end of my hot flash phase. But the smells, the sights, the feel of warm afternoons and cool evenings, gorgeous sunsets, cuddling under blankets, and since I love the night time, earlier sunset times so I have more snuggle writing time.

Lately my world feels like its drifting in and out of the dream world. My dreams, others dreams, the magic and absurdity of our subconscious as it dances at the edge of twilight, gives me the sensation when I wake that I just had the most incredible adventure.

If I could only remember it.

So throughout the month of October, I’m going to hang around the dream world, bringing you poetry from other dreamers, pictures, stories, tales and myths. That way you can pull your blanket up a little closer to your face and hide when you must, play along if you want.

Four years ago today I wrote a blog about dreams. How perfect to start the month off getting lost in the shadows. Hope you enjoy.

To Dream or Not To Dream…That Is The Question

One of the yin-yangs of hormone fluctuation is sleep, or lack of it. Between hot flashes and finding a comfortable position, my REM’s make rare visits, leaving my consciousness floating in the bubbles of semi-sleep through the world of dreams. Now, many people say they don’t dream; others leave a notepad on their nightstand so they can record the ching chang jumble that comes out in the middle of the night. I believe we all dream, but length, depth and retaining capacity is what makes everyone’s claim different.

Scientists and talk show hosts tell us our lives are influenced by anything and everything, and our dreams are one way of dealing with all of it. Dreams, and their alter ego, nightmares, can result from everything from eating pizza before bed to an argument earlier in the day. Dreams can be triggered by stress, anticipation, having too much time on your hands or, more likely, not enough. Scary movies, sappy movies, long distance phone calls — everything can leave a chip in your mind that can explode into a myriad of dreamy scenarios.

The great thing about this flight through those shadowed clouds, though, is the variety of experiences it presents. I doubt my conscious mind could make up half the things my subconscious does. And if it could, would it be as fun? In my dreams I interact with bosses from 20 years ago and talk to family members who are no longer with me. I wander the halls of my grade school, look out on Lake Michigan from a high-rise balcony, and walk through castles of long ago. I have driven off cliffs and been chased by unseen dragony/monster things. I have stood in a shadowy alley talking to Edward Norton and had coffee with Kiefer Sutherland. I have run from building to building to building, either looking for something or trying to get somewhere, and have jumped and bounced and flown my way across the landscape.

Where in Jove’s name do we get these ideas from?

Being a writer, I often bring some of the unearthliness of my subconscious and put it into forms that entertain me and others. Without analyzing every laugh and tear, I try to bring these esoteric beings into my writing. The more nonsensical, the better. Other people transform their dreams into paintings, gardens, photography, and card making. So why not writing?

Of course, the down side of dreams is that they don’t always give you a direct answer to your cosmic questions. It is fairly obvious that when I dream of my son as a toddler rather than a college kid, I am searching for the olden days connection we had when I was omnipotent and he was subservient. When I am wandering through corridors and cross loading docks and down long hallways filled with shops and warehouses and theaters I am lost in more ways than I care to admit. But instead of interpreting these dreams as portents of bad things to come, I would rather see them as insights to the possibilities that lie ahead. We have the ability to choose which meanings we take to heart and which we toss out. We can choose to see rain in the clouds or we can just see clouds.

The best course is always to choose a little of both. Don’t ignore the clouds that are thunderheads, and don’t step out of a plane to bounce on their springy tops. But let those clouds be dragons or snakes or ships. Notice the thread of reality that runs through the middle, then make what you will of the rest. Don’t worry what others think your dreams mean, or if you can’t remember their endings. The old adage that it’s the journey that counts, not the destination, makes as much sense to your unconscious state of mind as your conscious one. Take that journey and run with it.

As for me, I’m looking forward to tonight. I told Kiefer I’d meet him at the coffee shop sometime around eleven. Maybe I’ll even ride my dragon there.

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Colors

February 15, 2015February 23, 2015 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 7 Comments

Alas, writers always write faster than they think. And here it is, Sunday evening, and I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.

I so want to open an additional page on this website to highlight all the extraordinary images of Art I have come across through my travels. Images that add to the Sunday evening blogs I’ve been creating for you. But I’ve been dissatisfied with my progress, my ideas, my inability to put my thoughts onto the page in just the right way so that I can share them with you.

Like all of you creative muses out there know, you can’t put something out there until it feels right. Yes, there will always be something that needs to be tweaked; thank goodness there is no such thing as perfection. But it it doesn’t feel right *here* you shouldn’t put it out *there*. You need to take your time. You need to get it right.

So instead, I am going to offer some my own photographs on my Sunday Evening Art Gallery blog…photographs I took. I am in love with color, so that is what this gallery is called. Colors. I hope you enjoy them.

Sundy Evening Art Gallery — Trees

October 27, 2014February 23, 2015 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 3 Comments

The beauty of Fall brings trees into the spotlight. The glory of golds and reds and browns dazzle the eye and the heart. But there are other incredible sights that we call trees.