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Rolling clouds of blankness obscures the past, parting sporatically, seemingly without rhyme or reason
{although Freud would dispute that}
to reveal images blurred by shadows of regret, loss, or yearning.
But those vistas shape the inner landscape of our soul and of our mind.
Angels of lightning and storm,
these memories fly from our past to sweep over our heads and under our radar to propel us along paths we only partially understand.
We dream, awake, and forget.
But not so our unconscious mind.
It remembers, murmuring to take this road and not another.
We think we choose rationally.
But do we?
What is illusion, what is sure in the actions we take?
Doubts sleep, love burns, and fears howl. There is no refuge for the storms in our soul.
We hear in the voices of the wind the lost dreams of childhood.
If we are fortunate, those voices lead us back onto the path we only thought we had lost.
If we are brave, we will walk it anew with wiser heads.
All of which leads me back to those bleak Detroit winter days as my mother opened a world of wonder as I lay shivering under my blankets,
the coughing from my double pneumonia growing worse and worse.
I think I know why I wrote down those tales she told me, filtered through my own memories and imagination.
It is my kiss to the winds to her spirit and to her love.
But I believe it is also my desire to spin my own tales told in the darkness of the written page, to open the healing world of wonder to some other soul in the cold.
I wrote THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS to be read aloud, so it is fitting that it is now an audio book.
Here are the first few words of my tale:
THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS
CHAPTER ONE
THE TURQUOISE WOMAN
"Keep me away from the wisdom that does not cry,
the philosophy that does not laugh, and the greatness
that does not bow before children."
- Kahlil Gibran.
The face of shadows gazed down upon the young bear from a bright full moon. Hers was a face that few had seen and fewer still had lived to describe.
THE TURQUOISE WOMAN
"Keep me away from the wisdom that does not cry,
the philosophy that does not laugh, and the greatness
that does not bow before children."
- Kahlil Gibran.
The face of shadows gazed down upon the young bear from a bright full moon. Hers was a face that few had seen and fewer still had lived to describe.
Her ghostly features were terrible and beautiful beyond any singing of them. A haunted melancholy clung to them.
Like a windmill, her memory slowly turned through the fleeting lives that had been born upon her shores to walk prayer-soft across her grass only to fade away into the blood-rimmed eye of the sunset.
And now Hibbs has a voice for all to hear!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Alex:
ReplyDeleteYes, Hibbs has a voice to speak to the wondering child in us all. :-)
I can't wait to hear this!!!
ReplyDeleteI need to reread it first....can we vote for three day weekends? i need the time!
Best of luck with The audio version of Bear with Two Shadows!
ReplyDeleteWhat wonder these tales must have brought to you as a sick little boy, and what an intuitive woman your mother was, to create a fantasy world for you. If these stories are based on native legends, so much the better.
Words Crafter:
ReplyDeleteI seem to always work the 3 day weekends. Sigh. :-) I need the time, too -- to heal and to write! Thanks for wanting to hear the adventures of Hibbs and his friends.
D.G.:
Yes, with my fever-dimmed eyes, I could swear that I saw the hulking form of Hibbs at the foot of my bed in the dark. My shivering was not a thing to be feared but was merely the embrace of the chill arms of The Turquoise Woman hugging me close.
My coughing which hurt so bad was bringing me magical friends, and so I accepted it as the price for their company and the tales of their adventures.
Mother weaved a tale of Lakota legends, teaching tales, and Celtic myths, taking a bit from each to make a world of wonder and magic for me to focus on and to keep her own mind away from the fear that I would not make it.
Perhaps, the love of a mother and the fevered imagination of an ill boy sparked Hibbs, the Turquoise Woman, and the others into a life where they now stand at my shoulder. :-)
And now, I have taken the memories of them, added my own imagination and spun those tales, continuing them in a way I think she would like.