"YOU want FREE," sighs THE TURQUOISE WOMAN

For a LIMITED TIME ...

    THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS is FREE!
http://www.amazon.com/BEAR-TWO-SHADOWS-ebook/dp/B004MDLWD0/

In a land just beyond your mirror lies a realm few discover.

It is a magical, dangerous dimension. There lurks your darkest nightmares and your fondest hopes.

And the mysterious Hibbs, the bear with two shadows, who walks in the shadow of the dreaded Turquoise Woman.




You two-leggeds ...

Always you search for that which is FREE.

Do you not know?  Have you not heard?

Your very EXISTENCE was FREE.

Free yet fragile.

Nothing makes you more aware of the fragility

of existence than a son nfinished.

Here is a secret:

We are all songs unfinished.

We start with names. But what illusions are names.

Some call me Turquoise Woman.

Others call me Gaia. I call all of you temporary ...

Some I call cherished.

Others of you are but a fleeting rash upon my surface.

Irritating, viral, and in the end, self-destructive.

Sadly, your race is like a tick that will gorge itself until it bursts.

Bemused, I watch you scurry along my skin, moaning you are bringing an end to me.

I would laugh if it were not so pathetic.

You are merely bringing an end to yourselves.

I count the moments. You make my scalp itch.

You think you know what life is. Sad. Do you know what life is?

A firefly's flicker in the night,

the breath of a buffalo in winter,

a cloud shadow that races across the green grass to lose itself in the blood-red of the sunset.

Do not try to understand me.

I look, not only down upon you,

but out across the vast glittering sea of eternal night.

The colors of my thoughts are the Northern Lights

and the reach of them is from horizon to horizon and unto the vastness of the stars.

The electro-magnetic field of my body gave birth to my consciousness

long before there were human hands to chisel stone into mute, blind idols

or to brush your world in paint upon cave walls.

Your only true contribution to me was your language.

Before you crafted words into being, my consciousness was unfocused.

I listened with wonder as you spoke to one another,

slowly piecing the concept of language together in my thoughts.

Through the prism of your languages, my awareness crystalized.

I became aware.

Now, I know a haunted melancholy. Like a windmill's blades, my thoughts dip into my memories.

In misty after-images, I see your fleeting lives walking soft like prayers across my green fields only to fade into the inflamed oblivion of the sunset.

My son, Elu, will survive.

Hibbs, the bear with two shadows, I have spirited safely away into a sister dimension.

But Samuel, my sad-eyed, adopted son, will soon die I think.

Not at the hands of his life-long enemy, DayStar. But by the two-edged sword of his love for his wife, Meilori.

And that trickster scamp, Victor Standish, he, too, will die. I will miss him, for he, also, will be "consumed" by his love for the unnatural creature called Alice.

You are wondering why I am talking to you?

You are close to my heart as well, for all of you craft with words.

So I have come to say seven words to you:

"Live well. Soon I will miss you."
***
For more of THE TURQUOISE WOMAN:

THE LAST SHAMAN  (Just 99 cents plus audiobook then only $1.99!)
http://www.amazon.com/THE-LAST-SHAMAN-ebook/dp/B00534OEL4/

GYPSY, ghost cat VS ALIEN!

{Courtesy Dave Melvin}

 

“When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.”
― Gypsy, Ghost Cat

 

 

So there I was watching the rolling credits to ALIEN, thinking what a great human Ripley was for going back for her cat.

 

I was curled up in Food Guy's favorite chair.  He wasn't using it.  He was out on one of those blood runs of his.

 

Why do I still call him Food Guy when I can't eat?  He still puts out food for me to knock around the kitchen floor.

 

I coulda won the World Cup for America if they just accepted ghost cats.

 

I went cold as I heard hollow laughter.  Aw, mouse turds.  That DayStar Guy. 

 

Why couldn't he pick on someone his own size -- like the Statue of Liberty?

 

It came from the kitchen.  I padded all ninja-like to peek around the corner.  Aw, jeez.  An honest-to-acid blood Alien.

 

And it was drooling all over my food!

 

I charged it, hissing.  It hissed back.  I hissed louder, bucking my back to boot. 

 

"Lay off my food, Drool Lips!"

 

Its inner teeth shot out at me, and I dodged.

 

"Hey, no French Kissing on the first date!"

 

It lunged for me.  I twisted and ran into the front room.  It followed. 

 

I stopped in front of the mirror, spun around, and wiggled my rear in its face.

 

"Hey, Ugly!  I wear mine on the right end!"

 

Like I figured, the Alien darted for me.

 

I yelled out, "Elu, don't fail me now!!"

 

Elu? 

 

He lives in what he calls the Mirror World.  I saved his life once from the Sphinx of Thebes, and the Apache Shaman owes me.

 

I hoped he wouldn't welch on the debt.

 

Elu didn't. 

 

The alien slid right THROUGH the mirror.  I followed.  Maybe I could convince the Dildo-Headed Alien to be pals. 

 

Hey, it could happen!

 

{Courtesy Dave Melvin}

 

“Why isn’t the word “phonetically”

spelled with an “f”?”

 

―     Gypsy, Ghost Cat

GHOST OF A CHANCE is THE CAT'S MEOW.

http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-of-a-Chance/dp/B00LV7YBOM/

 

 

Despite being a supernatural thriller, there are some light-hearted fanciful moments to it. 

 

And Mark Kamish pulls them off famously (pun intended)



{"Now, that's entertainment!"
- Vlad the Impaler.}

{Samuel Clemens, ghost here.

Roland took refuge in the fictional world his Lakota blood made real, giving his cat, Gypsy, to Marlene Dietrich for safekeeping.

I could have told the boy:

never trust a beautiful blonde.

She dumped the poor critter with the mysterious Elu in his Mirror World.

This is Gypsy's story in the critter's own words.} :


That blonde alley cat hadn't fooled me. She hadn't dumped me here in Mirror World for my safety.

She wanted Food Guy all to herself. I was going to find him ... and her. Then, I'd set that two-legged cat straight.

But first I had a situation to take care of.

Slit eyes the size of windows glared at me. I glared back. After all, I was Gypsy, warrior princess, granddaughter of Bast herself.

So what if the Sphinx of Thebes outweighed me by a ton or two? I had her on agility. And good looks.

If she didn't let go of that human ... what was his name? Oh, yes, Elu.

If that Sphinx didn't let go of Elu, I was going to get all Sith on her ample rump.

He glared at me, too. What was his problem?

"It's all your fault, you furry rat," he snapped at me.

"What? My fault? So I unflipped the carrier latch. Big furry deal. I haven't been to the outskirts of Hell in ages.

So I took my chance. It's not my fault you let Fang-Face sneak up on you?"

I wrinkled my muzzle. "Some fearsome Apache you are. Just how do let two tons of Ugly sneak up on you anyway?"

The Sphinx narrowed her eyes and rumbled, "Did you just call me Ugly?"

"Yeah, Mammary Girl, I did."

I was making fun of her so she didn't catch on to the fact that she scared the ever-loving piss out of me.

I looked up at the towering bulk of her. I smiled wide, freezing it into place from sheer terror.

She was a sphinx. An honest to Egypt sphinx. The simple sentence doesn't do her justice.

The leathery rustle of her wings. The hellsky striking fire from her fangs.

Me sceaming like a little kitten at the sight of her. That would do her justice. Not that I screamed mind you.

I have my reputation to think of.

I tried to think of a worse fix I had been in and couldn't. A living, breathing, fang-bearing, claw-extending sphinx was towering over me.

Her huge body, though the size of an elephant, looked like a lion's. Except for the giant eagle wings.

She held a struggling Elu in one clenched paw. She sneered down at him with the head of a woman the size of a small boulder. But her teeth weren't those of a woman's.

They were like a lion's, long and sharp as the comfort of politicians. I watched gloomily as the muscles rippled under her golden fur like knotted ropes under a living canvas.

Her claws oozed out longer and dug into the black sands as if in anticipation of ripping away my flesh.

"You dare call me Mammary Girl?," the Sphinx husked.

I forced a yawn. "You see any other mammaries dragging the sand?"

"My breasts are not! They are round and firm!"

"What century are we talking about, toots?"
With a roar of rage, she lunged at me. She was as agile as a boulder and about as bright. I raced forward and ducked under her stomach.

There. Right under her belly button.

I wasn't thinking damage. I was thinking tickle. Which I did. She curled up laughing in an uncontrollable fit of giggles.

Ever hear a ten ton Sphinx giggle?

Nightmare time believe me.

Elu was still clutched in her now tightening fist. Well, so much for that plan. His dried apricot face was turning all kinds of neat shades of blue.

"What was your strategy in that?," he gasped.

I faked surprise. "Strategy - smatagedy. I'm just having fun."

"I'll show you fun, rat," roared the Sphinx, spinning around to lunge at me.

Two could play that game. Angelina Jolie was doddering compared to my moves.

I scrambled up the sloping face of the boulder to my right, sparks flying from my claws. I leapt onto the broad back of the screaming Sphinx.

"Ride 'em, CowCat," I yowled.

She bucked me off before I could take another breath. I flipped in the air and landed all Jedi-like on the sands in front of her.

"That was fun! Want to do it again?"

Her slit eyes narrowed. "Who do you think you are to talk to me like that?"

"The granddaughter of Bast actually, Sag-Breasts."
The Sphinx roared to the hellsky of the mirror world, then husked, "I laugh at Ba---"

Lightning sliced the insane sky and rasping thunder actually shook the sands beneath my paws.

"Ah, Sand-Ho, I'd cool it on any badmouthing ancient Egyptian forces of nature, were I you."

The Sphinx looked uneasily at the darkening skies, then turned back to me. "If you would have this human unharmed, you must first answer my riddle."

"Hey, not so fast there, Two Ton. You have to earn the right to ask the granddaughter of Bast a riddle by answering one yourself."

Thunder rolled like an angry chorus of bulls above us, and the Sphinx sighed, "And if I fail to answer your riddle?"

I shrugged lazily. "Then, you hand me the human unharmed and leap off the cliff."

The Sphinx roared so that my ears rang, and I made a face. "Too much, huh?"

"All right, then you just leap off the cliff."

"What?," shouted both Elu and the Sphinx.

"Just joking," I snickered.

The Sphinx growled, "Fool of a cat, there isn't even a cliff."

I nodded to the new fixture of landscape. "There wasn't until you cracked smart about Grandmother. She takes things like that personal."

(Which is what I'd been hoping.)
I nodded to Elu. "You can't answer, you just give me the human unharmed. Deal?"

She looked like she wanted to eat the lips off my beautiful, furry face but instead grumbled, "Agreed. Ask your riddle. And be fast with it. The aroma of your flesh hungers my belly."

And it must have. I heard her stomach rumble.

To stall for time to think of a decent, hell, even an indecent riddle, I clapped my two front paws together, "Oh, goody. A command performance."

"Riddle or die!"

I blew out my cheeks, thought, and thought some more. The Sphinx began to growl and a riddle Grandmother used to ask me at breakfast time came to me, and I purred :

"In marble walls as white as milk,

Lined with a skin of softest silk,

Within a fountain crystal clear,

A golden apple does appear,

No doors are there to this stronghold,

But Man breaks in to steal the gold."


I flashed the Sphinx a smile. "What is it?

"What is what?," she shrilled like a granite wall shearing in two.

"What am I describing in my riddle?"

"You spoke nonsense words!"

"This coming from a riddle-asking fool? Shame on you."

"There is no answer. Your flesh and this human's are mine!"

"An egg, flesh-breath. An egg. Yeah, not so easy on the receiving end of a riddle is it?"

"You cheated! And so you --"

She started to lunge when sand-stinging winds swirled all around her and thunder rumbled loud and long. The Sphinx screamed, her claws cutting ruts in the stone beneath her.

But the winds still bore her along like a scrap of paper. She struggled for all the good it did her. She was forced along by the fury of the winds.

Right over the cliff.

"Elu!"

I heard a chuckle from where the Sphinx had dropped him in her efforts to stop herself being pushed over the cliff's edge.

"So you were worried about me, cat."

"Yeah, well don't let it get out. I have my reputation to uphold."

I padded to the cliff's edge and looked over. Ugggh. I made a face.

"No more lasagna for me."

I looked over to Elu. "Speaking of which ... I wonder how Food Guy is doing?"
********************

IN A FRAGILE WORLD, SOME THINGS ARE ETERNAL

*

Siv, D.G., and Sia all commented on my prior post that they choose to live in a world without measurement or limits to curiosity or hope or love or the surprising nature of human nature.

I agree.

D.G. liked my response, so just in case some do not read my comments here it is:

Siv:
I, too, believe there are no limits to certain things but those that we place on them ourselves.

But there is a limit to the lifespan of those we love. That those lives are limited makes them more precious due to their transitory, fragile nature.

Our own lives have an expiration date. There is a foreclosure notice in the mails for each of our lives. Soon or late, the postman will come whether we want him to or not.

To be aware of that is to savor each moment, to make life more not less.

I have counseled many whose last words to a family member were hurtful. They said them, not realizing that person's shelf life was nearly up.

D.G.:
Jorge Luis Borges is one of the founding fathers to what is called Magical Realism. And I pray each day to keep a child-like sense of wonder and surprise of life. :-)

Sia:
Yes, indeed, scents and touch can trigger so many latent memories. I believe Jorge was trying to remind us not to take anyone or anything for granted. All flesh is grass and no bloom remains forever.

But there are other limits denied that saddened me:

Childhood has an end. Yet some parents try to keep their children dependent all their days, crippling them.

Some look in the mirror and see wrinkles as dreaded signs of the end of youth. They deny with bo-tox or surgery. They do not realize those wrinkles are signs of things lost, prices paid, and the eyes around which they lie are the wiser and kinder for the loss ... and the gain.

Passion has an end. Men race to another woman to regain it. That passion too ends.

Their lives become futile chasing after illusion. The men do not realize that though passion ends, something deeper more lasting, more rich evolves from the slumbering passion into the love of two souls grown into one.

I believe that limits guide us. They do not diminish us. They are signposts to better paths.

"The free, exploring mind is one of the most valuable things in the world," John Steinbeck.

Franklin Roosevelt wrote, "To reach a port, we must sail ... sail not drift. We must measure our course by stars we will never be able to touch."

We are limited by the finite grasp of our mind. To be aware of that fact is to enlarge the grasp of our minds not diminish them.

T.S. Elliot wrote: "We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

The journey is one of loss ... loss of innocence, loss of our arrogance, loss of our rigidity in our "rightness."

Andre Breton said, " Perhaps I am doomed to retrace my steps under the illusion that I am exploring, doomed to try and learn what I should simply recognize, learning a mere fraction of what I have forgotten."

Limits forge who we are in our thinking.

What you choose to focus your mind on is critical because you will become what you think about most of the time.

No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed.

No stream or gas drives anything until it is confined.

No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled.

No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined, limited.

The first rule of focus is this: "Wherever you are, be there."

The second rule of focus: "What we focus on expands."

Mark Twain's rule of foucs : "If you chase two rabbits, both will escape."

The fourth rule of focus: "Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus."

So to be be aware of limits is to extend, not shorten, the reach of our mind and our lives. To make them burn as flames. The ghost of Mark Twain urges me to ask you to focus so that your life does not escape you.

Elu smiles at his white friend and merely says, "We do not change as we grow older; we merely become more clearly ourselves."

Once Hibbs, the cub with no clue, asked The Turquoise Woman, ""How does one become a butterfly?"

She answered softly, "You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar."

*Pietro Daverio: "Eternity".

Allegorical caryatid from the Monument to Charles Borromeo in the apse of the Cathedral in Milan (1611).

The statue holds in her hand the ouroboros (the snake eating its own tail), a symbol of eternity. Picture by Giovanni Dall'Orto, July 14 2007.

The copyright holder of this file allows anyone to use it for any purpose, provided that the copyright holder is properly attributed. Redistribution, derivative work, commercial use, and all other use is permitted.

E is for ELU__Names Are Dangerous Things

The Native American shamans will tell you that there is power in the use of names --

and death if you use the wrong ones.

Laughing Wolf, a cyber friend, asked what Elu meant.

He told me that in Estonian it means life. I hadn't known that. I did know that in several Native American languages it means "full of grace."

But Elu is only half-Apache {a name meaning 'enemy'}. His mother is the Turquoise Woman, who was called Gaia by the ancient Greeks.

So I was very careful in selecting the name Elu, for there is more to him than even Samuel knows.

Elu in ancient Chaldean encompasses in its Semitic essence, the concept of surpassing might, immense power, and unlimited strength. There is more to Elu than what his surface would suggest.

Here is Victor Standish's first meeting with Elu:

I glanced at the reflection in the store window beside my new friend. I went a little cold. A tall Indian dressed in buckskins was reflected, not Captain Sam. His dried-apricot face looked my way. I tried to swallow and couldn't.

There was fresh war paint on the Indian's face. He shook his head in silent reproach. Lightning split the angry skies above me. Did he cause that?

In a voice of distant thunder , Sam said, "Elu's not happy about this, partner."

“W-Who’s Elu?”

“My Apache blood brother. Because of me he’s trapped in the Mirror World.”

“The what?”

Sam didn’t get a chance to answer because the ghost reflection of Elu grunted, “Not your fault. Our fault. But this boy’s death will be your fault if you bring him into the Crossroads of Worlds.”

“The what?,” I frowned.

“Meilori’s,” the two of them said together like two old friends who’ve traveled so long side by side that they think and talk alike.

“Don’t be mad at him, E-Elu. Captain Sam thinks I need to go there to live.”

The Apache glared at me. "Boy, you need to breathe, eat, and sleep. The rest is negotiable."

“The name’s Victor Standish, sir. I used your right name. Use mine.”

He pursed his lips like an old woman and disappeared in billowing mists. Sam shook his head.

“Elu’s a mite touchy, son. Best to walk light around him.”

I grunted, “We were never going to be best buds, sir."
***

"YOU TWO-LEGGEDS," sighs THE TURQUOISE WOMAN

You two-leggeds ...

You think you know. But you do not know.

How could you? You can know only what you have experienced. And your experience is so stunted.

I look out from my consciousness surrounding the world that is my body, and my horizon spans the the swimming bodies of my sisters

who wheel in their sweeping dance of gravity about our Father Sun.

Roland, he whom I call Little Lakota, talked of me yesterday ...

with respect and with the knowledge that his grasp of me was limited.

So I honor that respect by telling you what little your limited minds can understand of my existence. Your minds are much like a song unfinished.

And nothing makes you more aware of the fragility

of existence than a song unfinished.

Here is a secret :

We are all songs unfinished.

We start with names. But what illusions are names.

Some call me Turquoise Woman.

Others call me Gaia. I call all of you temporary ...

Some I call cherished.

Others of you are but a fleeting rash upon my surface.

Irritating, viral, and in the end, self-destructive.

Sadly, your race is like a tick that will gorge itself until it bursts.

Bemused, I watch you scurry along my skin, moaning you are bringing an end to me.

I would laugh if it were not so pathetic.

You are merely bringing an end to yourselves.

I count the moments. You make my scalp itch.

You think you know what life is. Sad.

Do you know what life is?

A firefly's flicker in the night,

the breath of a buffalo in winter,

a cloud shadow that races across the green grass to lose itself in the blood-red of the sunset.

Do not try to understand me.

I look, not only down upon you,

but out across the vast glittering sea of eternal night.

The colors of my thoughts are the Northern Lights

and the reach of them is from horizon to horizon and unto the vastness of the stars.

The electro-magnetic field of my body gave birth to my consciousness

long before there were human hands to chisel stone into mute, blind idols

or to brush your world in blood on cave walls.

Your only true contribution to me was your language.

Before you crafted words into being, my consciousness was unfocused.

I listened with wonder as you spoke to one another,

slowly piecing the concept of language together in my thoughts.

Through the prism of your languages, my awareness crystalized.

I became aware.

Now, I know a haunted melancholy. Like a windmill's blades, my thoughts dip into my memories.

In misty after-images, I see your fleeting lives walking soft like prayers across my green fields only to fade into the inflamed oblivion of the sunset.

My son, Elu, will survive.

Hibbs, the bear with two shadows, I have spirited safely away into a sister dimension.

But Samuel, my sad-eyed, adopted son, will soon die I think.

Not at the hands of his life-long enemy, DayStar. But by the two-edged sword of his love for his wife, Meilori.

And that trickster scamp, Victor Standish, he, too, will die. I will miss him, for he, also, will be "consumed" by his love for the unnatural creature called Alice.

You are wondering why I am talking to you?

You are close to my heart as well, for all of you craft with words.

So I have come to say seven words to you :

"Live well. Soon I will miss you." ***

ONLY I AM LEFT TO TELL THE TALE_SHOW VERSUS TELL BLOGFEST entry

This is my TELL entry for Misty Waters' SHOW VERSUS TELL BLOGFEST :

http://mistydawnwaters.blogspot.com/2010/12/um-so-yeah-im-doing-blogfest.html#comment-form

{Scroll down for the SHOW entry} :

TELL :

I am Elu, Apache diyi. And I only am left to tell the tale of Man, for I exist only in mirrors. If the White man had just been content to destroy himself, I would be glad.

But it is the White Man's way to destroy all he touches -- even his entire world.

Where to begin?

Do I begin with the madman who tainted ice cream he gave for free to the children on the streets of Detroit? The poisoned dessert that turned those children into the walking dead?

No. Instead I will begin with the seven year old Victor Standish. Abandoned by his mother, the Angel of Death, he sat in a swing in a Detroit playground, misunderstanding completely why she had left him.

As Death, she was Allwheres, Alltimes at once. She could no longer take him with her lest she destroy his sanity.

Being Death's son, Victor unknowingly drew the undead children to him. Showing the largeness of heart that would one day be his undoing, he saved the white girl beside him.

His mother's touch was already removing most of the memories of his wanderings. But though he could not place the face or form of his centaur teacher, Chiron, Victor remembered his teachings.

When surrounded by enemies, seize your sword, thrust up your shield, and find the high ground.

And this Victor did, taking the white girl, Becky, with him, though taunting and herding her. He found his sword, a fallen baseball bat. He picked up his shield, a discarded garbage can lid.

In the towering child's slide and swing bars, Victor found his high ground. He found his first teacher in free running, the black boy, LeRoy. He found his rage against his deserting mother. He channeled it to fend off the undead horde.

But they were too many.

His rage exploded. Tapping into the power of his mother's blood, Victor screamed for the undead to die. And since he was his mother's son, they did just that.

Above Victor, safe from his death-scream, Becky lowered her slingshot, looking at Victor in wonder. LeRoy pushed the three unmoving, undead children from the top of the slide. The small white girl in glasses began to shiver from shock.

The enemy was defeated ... for the moment.

Standing a layer of life from Victor, his mother, Death, cried black tears. Her son had proven he could survive without her.

She decided to cast him only on the deadliest streets. Then, though he would never again be by her side, he would always be in her heart and in her sight.

Still, there were other undead children than the ones killed in the playground.

The end of Man had begun.
***