SOME CALL ME THE TURQUOISE WOMAN

My entry into ABNA is

THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS,

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004MDLWD0/ref=docs-os-doi_0


It is based on the tales my half-Lakota mother told me as a child,
while we were trapped in our basement apartment by an ice storm,

while I was desperately ill with pneumonia. So ill she felt I would die. And she did not want me to die in fear but in wonder and awe.

A major character in it wants to talk to you :

Some call me The Turquoise Woman.

Others call me Gaia.

I call you temporary ... a fleeting rash upon my surface. Irritating, viral, and in the end, self-destructive.

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 color 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 prayer-soft 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 :

"Goodbye. Die well.

I will miss you."
***
What could be The Turquoise Woman's song to Hibbs, the bear with 2 shadows ... or to some of us :

WHAT DO OUR EYES TEACH US?

Autonomy.

A "headache word" I used to call it whenever my mother used it as she took me out on our walks through the park near our basement apartment.

In the same manner her Lakota grandmother taught her, she taught me -- with common sights.

The lesson of the rooster weathervane. "Poor Mr. Rooster," she would cluck her tongue, "slave to whatever winds blow, never able to stand his ground.

"Wise Mrs. Willow Tree who sinks her roots deep in good soil, standing her ground, yet bending with the wind and not snapping in two like proud and foolish Mr. Pine."


She would ruffle my hair and say, "From the willow tree you must learn autonomy." I pressed my lips together hard.

I couldn't even say that "headache word," much less know what it meant. But if you wanted an untweaked nose, there were just some things better left unsaid.

We writers many times are like mimes playing to a world of the blind. Not that we are in any way better because we see beneath the surface and many others do not.

We were taught to do so, by mentors or by example. But the fate of the one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind is usually not a happy one.

The wiser of us know that going in. The more foolish of us learn it eventually. The fate is the same.

Yet, it is the journey we must savor as artists.

Enjoy telling the tale for the thrill of reaching even one soul with our efforts. Push back the darkness, if only for the moment. Touch that one hurting heart.

As in that Zen teaching tale :

should we find ourselves clinging to a cliff face, bandits above shooting arrows at us, a hungry tiger waiting to feast on us should we fall,

take in the crisp Spring breeze. Watch the grace of a swooping eagle in the bright blue sky.

And should there be a strawberry bush growing on that cliff face, reach out and taste a strawberry, savoring its flavor with our last breaths.

I wrote THE BEAR WITH 2 SHADOWS in tribute to my mother's stories.

http://www.amazon.com/BEAR-TWO-SHADOWS-ebook/dp/B004MDLWD0/ref=pd_rhf_dp_p_t_1

Tales told me as I lay coughing in our basement apartment without power during that terrible winter blackout that lasted for days.

In it is a story of Hibbs, the bear with two shadows, when he was but a cub. And it relates to what I've been saying :


It was the "Warming Season When The Geese Returns" in the Valley of the Shadow. Sometimes Estanatlehi would walk beside him, sometimes not.

Even as a young bear, Hibbs had known that The Turquoise Woman ranged the whole wide world. But in this season of her second coming, she always returned in the flesh.

It was something that Hibbs had thought would last forever. Such was the foolishness of young bears.

One morning, he had emerged from his comfortable den and wandered to the edge of the Snaking River. Sitting by its edge, he had looked down into its sparkling blue surface. He hushed in a breath.

A face appeared below him. A look of shock was on its furry face. He frowned. It frowned back.

He snarled at being mocked. It snarled back.

He sat back on his haunches and laughed.

The face was but a reflection of his own. He laughed again and looked down. His river-face laughed back. He stuck out a tongue. And a tongue snaked out from his reflected face. Hibbs amused himself with this game all morning.

Hibbs had finally wandered off for more exploring. But the next morning found him at the river's edge again.

The wind of an approaching storm ruffled the image of himself so that he could not see it clear. His mood darkened along with the skies, and Hibbs had been in a foul mood the rest of the day.

The weather of the third morning was still bruised and dark from the storm of the day before. Hibbs' mood was equally sour. It worsened when he found his reflection was merely a shadow.

The day had been ruined, along with the young cub's spirits.

The fourth day found dark clouds over Hibbs' head, but they were no darker than the cub's mood. The river-face below him was dim and angry. In a fit of temper, Hibbs hit the offending reflection with his open paw. Cold water splashed him back in the face. It was the last straw.

"Oooh, River-Face," he growled. "You're going to get yours!"

Like a rippling brook given life, icy laughter sounded behind the young cub, "Oh, Little One, you are a walking parable."

Hibbs turned around so swiftly, the water was slung from the fur of his face in a tiny rain. "GrandMother!"

The happy discovery of Estanatlehi's return masked her words from his understanding. The meaning of her words arrived a moment later, like thunder rolling after the flash of lightning.

Or rather their almost-meaning. Hibbs frowned. He scratched his head.


"A walking what?"

Estanatlehi's face suddenly saddened. "A way of teaching, Hibbs."

"D-Did I just make you sad?"

Hair of living lightning became a shaking display of Northern Lights. "No, Little One. The race called Whyte did that long, long ago when they killed one who meant much to me. He loved to use parables."

"GrandMother, I - I don't understand."

Estanatlehi ruffled the soft hair atop his head gently. "You will. All too soon, you will."

She forced a smile. "But for now ... these different reflections of you that are such a torment ...."

She hesitated, and Hibbs whispered, "Yes?"

Turquoise eyes peered into his questioning brown ones, and a ripple of true happiness swam beneath the pain.

"They are only different because of the wind, the rain, and the storm clouds. They are only fluff, mere changes in the external. The internal is eternal."

"I - I do not understand."

She tweaked his wrinkling nose. "You must try very, very hard to do so."

Hibbs earnestly nodded his head like a bobbing apple. "I will try. I promise."

At the sight, Estanatlehi sniffed back her tears and hugged him. "I know you will. I will help."

She stepped back, caressing his left cheek. "Reflections are but that. Reflections."

Hibbs had nodded as if he understood, which, of course, he did not. "Reflections. Yes."

Estanatlehi looked as if her heart were breaking. "Little One, did you feel pain when you slapped your river-face?"

"N-No."

"That is because it was not you, merely a reflection. And reflections of you will change as you meet one being after another. Reflections that change because of their surface, not your core self."

"Core?"

A smile born of pain and love murmured the words, "As apples have cores, so do Two-Leggeds, the seeds of who they truly are."

"S-So I have a core?"

His wrinkling nose was tweaked again.

"Yes, Little One. You have a core. And if you know who you are, you will know your core. But if you do not, you will know only the reflection of yourself that others will give you. And as they change swiftly from one to the other, you will feel all the frustration and anger you just felt at your river-faces."

"So if I know who I am, I can laugh at all the not-core reflections others reflect to me, right?"

Estanatlehi's face looked near to tears as she hugged Hibbs' tiny head. "It always comes back to laughter with you, doesn't it, Little One?"

"It has to come back to something, doesn't it, GrandMother? Why not laughter?"

Estanatlehi wet eyes squinted as if she were looking far into the distance as she murmured, "I do not have the heart to answer, Little One."
**********************
I am giving 100% of the profits for ALL MY BOOKS to the SALVATION ARMY :

E is for EXISTENCE sighs THE TURQUOISE WOMAN

You two-leggeds ...

Always you need some challenge.

Today's for some of you it is what E evokes in you.

It evokes in me the word EXISTENCE.

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 paint 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." ***

GHOST OF A CHANCE_CHAPTER 37_DEATH FROM ABOVE

{Turquoise Woman again. The rippling tides of Man's affairs are tedious to me.

You struggle to no avail. In the end, you all die. But your words are fascinating.

I have been reading DreamSinger's strange journal. In a vain effort to rescue my adopted son, Samuel McCord,

from the Hell to which he had written him, DreamSinger has traveled there himself. Once there,

though he has given himself the gift of absorbing the speed, strength, and toughness of all he met, he was soon surrounded by doomed, angry souls.

Death, astride the fading unicorn, Epona, has saved him for the moment with her fatal scream. Let DreamSinger's journal take us from there ...}


I said low, "That was ... impressive."

"Hush! Attack is coming from the skies."

I looked up, and my jaw dropped. She wasn't joking. Attack was putting it mild.

I was being flanked from above. From the West came a flying swirl of seven strange women, their short white hair fluttering in the wind of their soaring.

Brilliant green dresses parted as they flew, showing long alabaster legs. Their gray cloaks flapped violently like fabric wings.

Red eyes flashed as they spotted us. They erupted in a terrible wailing that seemed to me like an ear-piercing combination of a goose's screech, a wolf's mournful howl, and the utter hopelessness of an abandoned child's cry.

As they swept down from above, the leader stiffened and waved back her sisters. "No! This one hast healed a unicorn. We are the Mna' Sige. We do not war on such a one as this. Come, sisters!"

The Mna' Sige closest to the leader pointed with a long, scragly finger to the East. "It is too late. We must stay to sing his Death Song. Look hence, the Klage-Weib."

I turned towards where the apparition pointed. Even Epona gasped in horror. My scalp prickled.

When I'd used up all my fingers and toes, I stopped counting the Klage-Weib. But their numbers were the least of my worries; the worst of them was the creatures' size.

Three stories high and the width of two Mac trucks, they seemed to blot out the flame-boiling skies. The Klage-Weib wore rotted grave clothes with hair the color of sin and moon-white skulls for faces.

Epona stumbled and nearly fell. She was past her limits. Her over-taxed heart was going to burst.

Death whispered in my ear, "It is no coincidence I chose her to ride."

"No!," I cried.

I placed my palm on her quivering flesh and spoke as a storyteller of Lakota myth, "And so to spare Epona's life, he poured all his borrowed speed, strength, and endurance into his friend."

A drain seemed to open within me, leeching me of most of my strength. Epona surged forward with a gasp of pure joy and relief.

Death murmured in my ear, "Icicupi {'sacrifice' in Lakota.} If you choose to live like a Lakota warrior, then you will die like one."
***

SOME CALL ME TURQUOISE WOMAN_THEY'RE PEOPLE, TOO BLOGFEST

For Tessa's THEY'RE PEOPLE TOO BLOGFEST

http://tessasblurb.blogspot.com/2010/08/theyre-people-too-blogfest.html

Some call me Turquoise Woman.

Others call me Gaia.

I call you temporary ... a fleeting rash upon my surface. Irritating, viral, and in the end, self-destructive.

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 for you?

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 color 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 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 :

"Goodbye. Die well.

I will miss you."
***

CHRISTI'S 106 FOLLOWERS CONTEST/EYES OF DEATH AND LOVE

The ever-funny and intelligent, Christi Goddard, has a 106 FOLLOWERS CONTEST. The link is here :

http://christigoddard.blogspot.com/2010/05/106-followers-contest.html

The Rules:

She hate rules. Therefore, hers are simple.

1. Blog about it. Why? Advertising rocks. Anything extra you'd like to do is appreciated mucho.

2. Be a follower. Why? It's the polite thing to do.

3. Short story, roughly 500 words. Why roughly? Because she won't disqualify for over or under, so long as it's a complete story. She'd enjoy it if it's 1000. She'd be disappointed if it's 100. It can be any genre.She'd prefer funny or incredibly tragic. She's like that.

4. Email it to christigoddard@gmail.com because she wants to consider them privately, not as posts. If you want to post on your blog, that's cool, but still email her.

5. The deadline is July 4th.

The prizes, you ask? Capitalism rears its head. This is also simple. It's up to you.


1st Prize: $40.00
2nd Prize: $30.00
3rd Prize: $20.00
4th Prize: $10.00
Honorable Mention: $6.00.

Why? Because it's the 106 followers contest, so she's giving out $106.00. She's not foolish enough to send cash in the mail, so these will be in the form of gift certificates to anything you choose.

Doesn't that sound cool?

{Now, before we go to my entry, there is a brave, loving woman, Karen, who is struggling with her school in Africa. Now, who says that the good are boring? Visit her blog, why don't you?
http://mylifeinafrica222.blogspot.com/ }

Now, for my entry in Christi's contest entitled, "Eyes of Death and Love." It's from my Native American/Celtic fable for kids at heart everywhere, THE BEAR WITH 2 SHADOWS :

Estanatlehi, The Turquoise Woman, studied Hibbs who had stopped walking beside her. As so often with the bear, his present had been swallowed up by his past. No longer was he in Eire nor even a grown bear. And instead of the wet smell of spring, the crisp chill of Autumn tickled his wrinkling nose. But he was still walking beside a long-striding Estanatlehi.

It was his first week in the Valley of the Shadow -- long before he knew it well enough to be cautious of what lay within its dark corners. And he wasn't exactly walking beside GrandMother.

Rather he was bouncing all around her, filled with the energy and wonder of all young cubs.

The Turquoise Woman was frowning at him as he skipped and leapt in a circle around her. "I hate to see you so sad."

"Oh, GrandMother," giggled Hibbs. "You're so funny."

Estanatlehi smiled faint. "I do believe that you are the first to say that of me."

"Truly? Wheee! I'm the first. The very first. I bet I'm the first bear to explore this wonderful valley, too."

A thin arch of lightning rose skeptically over one turquoise eye. "Wonderful? I do believe that once again you are the first to call this valley that as well."

Hibbs did a hand-stand as he bounced around The Turquoise Woman. "What a day of firsts! It's great to be an explorer, isn't it?"

Estanatlehi sighed, "True, there is something to be said for heading into unexplored territory --- Uffff!"

Hibbs had collided into her side as he miscalculated his next hand-stand. She stopped suddenly and gestured. The young cub froze upside down in mid-air. Twin turquoise eyes narrowed as she bent and placed her face right next to the face of the frightened bear.

"But there is also something to be said for knowing where you are going."

"Wanunhecun, (mistake in Lakota)," muttered Hibbs out of a dust dry throat.

Turquoise eyes narrowed further, and Hibbs managed to get out the one word, "S-Sorry."

Snow suddenly started to swirl around the upside-down cub. "Better."

Hibbs let out a sigh of relief. Of course, he had misunderstood her as he so often did. And The Turquoise Woman reached out and sharply tweaked his nose.

"N-Not better?"

Estanatlehi murmured in words of winter, "No. Not 'sorry.' But 'better.'"

Hibbs' eyes widened. "Oh, you mean -- don't be sorry. Be better."

Long ivory fingers gestrued gracefully, and the cub landed on his head. Hard. But Hibbs merely giggled and rolled to his feet, hugging the startled Turquoise Woman.

"Got it right that time, didn't I, GrandMother?"

And feeling the warmth of the young cub's trusting embrace about her legs, Estanatlehi lost all her former anger. She reached down and gently ruffled the top of Hibbs's furry head. All the tension left her voice as she spoke.

"Yes."

Her eyes sparkled with something that rarely touched them -- amusement. "And no."

Hibbs looked up with such nose-wrinkling puzzlement that Estanatlehi had to laugh. "How can it be both 'yes' and 'no' at the same time, GrandMother?"

This time her fingers were gentle as she tweaked his nose. "Oh, Little One, sometimes it appears that your whole life is both 'Yes' and 'No.'"

"Truly?"

"Truly."

She reached down and gently tugged on his small right ear. "Come, and I will show you."

Though he felt like he would burst from just simply plodding along, Hibbs forced himself to walk beside GrandMother. His steps were so small compared to her long strides though that he happily found it was necessary to skip to keep up. Estanatlehi shook her head in wry amusement.

"This path is much different in summer than it is now in Autumn. These gentle slopes, so pleasant to walk upon in summer, turn slippery and dangerous with winter snows."

Hibbs squinted this way and that as he tried to imagine the trees and grass about him covered with the magic of first snowfall. The brittle leaves of Autumn tickled the bottom of his bare feet, and he fought a giggle. A hawk cawed high overhead, and the young cub strained to make it out. But it flew high into the clouds too quickly for him to pick it out against the utter blue of the sky.

Estanatlehi tugged a bit sharper on his ear to snare his ever-wandering attention. "Yet in winter, we could safely walk over this very spot where in summer rattlesnakes love to hide."

"Yikes!," squealed Hibbs, slamming hard into Estanatlehi's left leg as he leapt in fright from the imagined attack of slumbering rattlesnakes rudely awakened by scampering bear feet.

The Turquoise Woman sharply gestured with long ivory fingers, whose tips sizzled with sparks of black death. Yelping in fear and surprise, Hibbs was lifted bodily high in the air by the threads of Life until his eyes stared unhappily straight into eyes which had blasted the very flesh from the bones of Lakota warriors foolish enough to anger her.

"Does the air feel like summer to you?"

"I know it is Autumn, but --"

Turquoise eyes narrowed dangerously. "Autumn. Not summer. So by my very words, you know you are safe."

Hibbs swallowed hard and managed to get out, "You wouldn't say that if you were on my side of your eyes."

Estanatlehi stiffened, then laughed long and deep. "Oh, Little One, whatever did I do before you?"

As he was lowered gently to the dry leaves, Hibbs rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. "Probably walked without getting your feet stepped on."

Her head cocked slightly, and long, cold fingers gently ruffled the fur on the top of his head. "But I never laughed. Never. I believe a bruised toe or two is a small price for me to pay."

She tugged sharp on his right ear. "Now, what have you learned from all this?"

Hibbs looked up lovingly into her face and wanted so hard not to see it grow cold again. He thought and thought and thought. The obvious answer would only raise storm clouds again. An eyebrow of living lightning rose slowly.

Snakes in summer. Slippery tumbles in winter. The same path. His furry brow wrinkled as his tiny eyes squinted in hard thought. His eyes suddenly widened, and he smiled big.

"Different seasons make for different paths, even on the same spot."

The eyebrow of lightning kept rising, and Hibbs stuttered, "U-Uh, and -- and --- I guess that means that no one walks the same path twice even though it is the same road."

Hibbs heaved a sigh of relief as Estanatlehi's full lips slowly smiled. "I believe the end of the world must be near."

"Wh-What?"

Full lips struggled to be sober and lost. "It is written : there shall be plagues, floods, and famines. Little Hibbs will actually learn a lesson. Then shall the End come."

"Oh, GrandMother, you scared me."

She gently stroked the top of his head. "It is a natural talent."

Hibbs couldn't think of anything to say to that which wouldn't end up with him becoming even more scared, so he just hugged GrandMother's legs. Icy fingers patted his cheek. Hibbs smiled wide. For once, he had chosen the right path.

And abruptly, Hibbs was back in the present. And yes, he was still smiling but it was a sad smile, nonetheless, with echoes of loss and beckoning darkness. He looked to GrandMother and saw her lips twisting up in the same smile.

"The right path," he whispered.

Estanatlehi's hair of living lightning shivered as she nodded. "So you still remember?"

"I remember each of our walks, GrandMother."

And the air was heavy with the haunting song of memory and the dark call of Destiny.

**************

Well, Christi, that's hardly two pages. Sorry. But I tried. Have a healing week, everyone. Gypsy is demanding her chicken finger. I buy her one all for herself. Her paw just went to my leg. I have a princess to feed.

***********************************

My mother told me my totems were the bear and the wolf. She was wiser than I. Who am I to say different :

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

It's Mother's Day. My own mother's spirit has long since traveled to that Land which knows no shadow. I know she waits for me there with Sooner, the wolf-dog that once roamed the hills with Mother when she was a young girl.

When Mother visited the harsh home from which she had been taken to spend years in an orphanage, she was surprised her beloved Sooner was still alive. No other human could approach her.

But when Mother kneeled in front of her, Sooner laid her big head in Mother's lap. The wolf-dog finally felt the soft fingers stroke her that she had waited years to feel again. Sooner let out a long, slow sigh. And then, she died.

In my worldview, Sooner went to where she sat in that Land Of No Shadows with wagging tail until Mother walked up to her to kneel once again and hug that big head.

Yes, it is Mother's Day. What do I give? And to whom? I am a story teller. And so I give to all of you a story Mother told me as my double pneumonia grew worse, and the winter shadows deepened in our basement apartment without power. It comes from my Native American/Celtic fantasy THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS. But the teaching tale is my mother's.


The adult Hibbs looked at the pond beside which Estanatlehi, the Turquoise Woman stood. She looked at him expectantly. What was she waiting for?

And then, Hibbs smiled. He knew that look. She expected him to remember. And with that very thought, he did. Time once again reached out from his mind and drew the bear back into his wondrous, seemingly endless, days as an innocent, ever curious, cub.

In the crisp memory, whose embrace swallowed him whole, he was kneeling on the sandy bank of the Snaking River, deep within the deadly wilderness of the Valley of the Shadow. And once again he was staring into the reflection of his river face and wondering if it lived its own life deep underneath the silver glass of the still waters.

Suddenly, a rock was tossed into the middle of the river-face, blurring it in spreading ripples which pushed out one after another, and Hibbs heard the soft voice of GrandMother.

“Always in circles. Never in squares.”

The startled cub bounded to his furry feet and turned around, happiness quickly replaced by nose-wrinkling puzzlement. “What?”

Tall, regal, Estanatlehi walked with the grace of the wind itself given form right up to Hibbs. “The ripples, Little One. You have never seen a square one, nor will you ever. Why do you think that is?”

Hibbs’ nose wiggled in hard thought until, right shoulder hunched up a bit, just in case he was guessing wrong, said, “B-Because that is the nature of ripples?”

Estanatlehi sighed, “The story of your life, O Slow of Thought.”

“Huh?”

She laughed soft. “You are both right and wrong. The nature of Life itself is a circle, Little One.”

Hibbs’ mouth dropped. “Truly?”

Long, icy fingers ruffled the fur atop his small head as whisper-soft laughter swept along above him by the breath of the winds themselves. “Truly.”

“Look up to Giizi, the sun. And remember my moon? See younder the rainbow, half hid by the tree-filled horizon. And think back on our trip to the StarMountain Olympus, where you saw my world in all its beauty and majesty. All are round, like the great hurricane you rode over in my arms last moon.”

Hibbs shivered at the memory. “S-So the circle is the way of Life?”

Slender fingers tweaked his nose gently. “Wiser than you know. From childhood to childhood are the days of all Two-Leggeds. The winter flows from spring to summer to autumn back to winter once more. As my world is a circle, so is all Life.”

Cold lips kissed the top of his little head. “Mystery explained.”

Once more back in the present, Hibbs sighed deep, his muzzle wrinkled in a smile of happy remembrance. "Mystery explained."

Estanatlehi stiffened, her own eyes going back into the mists of the past, finding both solace and loss in the journey.

*********************************************

May all of you find solace in your memories today and in the days to come.

Roland, a grateful son.

LAST LINES BLOGFEST

Once again it is blogfest time. This time Lilah Pierce's LAST LINES blogfest. http://lilahpierce.blogspot.com/2010/04/my-first-blogfest.html
I'm having to leave for the graveyard shift for the blood center for which I work. {No pun intended.} Anyway, I'll be out flying down the dark rural roads until late, late into the evening, so I'm going to enter the LAST LINES blogfest a bit early.

In the manner of Southwest Louisiana, I am even going to give you a bit of Lagniappe {a little extra.}

Most editors want to compare your first image to your last image to see if there is a definite change or a poetic, lyrical symmetry to them.

So I thought I would give you my first lines as lagniappe, then give you my final lines to my short story THE COLOR OF HER THOUGHTS. It concerns the last Lakota Medicine Person {shaman is a white man's term}, Sugmanitu Hota {Wolf Howl} in our present day. Here goes ...

First Lines :

{When she was thunder in the distance, I awoke. When her laughter was lightning above me, I knew fear. When both front tires to the bus blew, I saw her face in the night.

The Turquoise Woman was angry. At the White Man. Again. Lucky thing I was not a White Man. Or not so lucky.

I was on the bus.}

Last Lines :

I fought another sigh. Abby died from the Mossad's last lie : that the Turquoise Woman was a projection of my will. I shook my head sadly. I never killed the young, while they comprised the majority of GrandMother's victims. To say that she and I held different views of life was an understatement.

GrandMother sounded puzzled. "You knew the young girl was one of the Mossad team all along?"

I nodded. "The color of her thoughts was always death. Always."

From the heart of the dark woods, Bu, the Owl, cried in the voice of the recent dead.

{FINIS}

And now, a bit of music and wisdom from the voices of Native Americans :

FRIENDSHIP

Friendship.

Anais Nin, the enigmatic French author famous for her journals spanning 60 fascinating years, wrote : "Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world dawns."

It would be hard to say whether King Solomon was made more alone by his many wives or by the prison of his throne. Nonetheless, King Solomon wrote : "Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up."

Friendship. It is what is so very lacking in today's cyber-society where everyone is twittering, but no one is listening. Or giving a damn. They are hunched over their blackberries, waiting impatiently for the message to end so they can jump in with, what is essentially, a "Listen to me!"

Because so few of us have it, friendship and its portrayal are what will bring us back to a novel over and over again. I know that it is the case for me. And for the friends I talk to.

Frodo and Sam. Sherlock Holmes and Watson. Spencer and Hawk (from the always entertaining Robert B. Parker series.) Elvis Cole and Joe Pike (from the Robert Crais fascinating detective series.) Bill and Ted. Calvin and Hobbes.

Family is a crap shoot. Love cools. But friendship endures.

Friendship is one of the cornerstones of my surreal Noir, FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE. Two friends : Samuel McCord, agnostic undead Texas Ranger. Renfield, haunted revenant priest. They have known one another since Istanbul was Constantinople and honor still had meaning.

Both love mysterious, beautiful, deadly women. McCord would say all beautiful women are both mysterious and deadly. His love is Meilori, a being from another plane of existence. "Born of stardust and the sea" as she once told him.

And Father Renfield loves Sister Magda, the nun who serves with him in his church. Of course, there is a unique back story there. But I'll let Sam tell it :

{At this point in the novel, Sam is helping Renfield clean up his church after Katrina, musing on his past relations with the Vatican} :


I'd had a pretty good relationship with the last Pope. I'd fought Nazi's with him back when he was studying in that underground seminary in Poland. I smiled thinking of how he posed as a priest while only a seminarian. And how he gave false baptismal records to fleeing Jews in the underground. He called it his elective course in the humanities. I sighed as my chest grew heavy. He was gone. Another friend was gone. It seemed just when I started liking somebody, they left me.

A shout of dismay brought me out of my musings. One of the statues in the main sanctuary was toppling over. And a nun was directly underneath it. Cursing under my breath despite the surroundings, I raced as fast as my bad right knee would let me. But I made it in time. Barely.

I grunted as I caught the marble statue of Jesus struggling under the cross with a bit of a struggle myself. But I managed. Being careful not to crack it, I shoved it back into its ornate niche.

Now, I was kind of unsure if he was who he said he was. And on top of that, it was only a representation of him, mind you. Still I knew my strange luck. If I handled the statue carelessly, it would turn out he was the real deal. And I was kind of uncertain how He would feel about some of the trails I had blundered down in my life. Best to err on the side of respectful caution. I looked down at the nun.

"Magda, you've got to be more careful."

Sister Romani looked up at me with deep eyes of summer seas from out of the kind of face that had saints embezzeling from orphanages and pacifists starting wars. Her thick, silky black hair cascaded through the modern habit that had been brushed back on her head by my shoving her out of harm's way. There was a single one inch wide streak of moon-silver along the right side close by her temple -- a gift of sorts from Estanatlehi, whom the ancient Greeks had named Gaia and whom I now called 'Mother.'

Magda tapped the worn leather pouch of nails hanging from her rope belt. "He would never have harm coming to me from His statue."

I arched an eyebrow. "You stole those nails from that centurion over two thousand years ago. You think He has that long a memory?"

"Of course."

"That's what I was afraid of," I muttered.

I studied her intently. She'd been there. I felt a weight ease off my chest. I could ask her.

"Magda, did you see --"

Her face grew sad. "Him emerge from the tomb? No, Samuel, I was on the run from the Romans at the time and for some time afterwards. I just take it that He truly did rise since I am still alive some two thousands years later."

I bit back the words from my tongue and kept from telling her that her still living came from Estanatlehi. In love with language as much as she was, she had been fascinated with the parables of Jesus. And she took Magda's theft kindly and had rewarded her. I sighed. Still no answers. It was getting to be a frustrating tradition with me.

"Magda!," panted Renfield as he rushed up to her, out of breath more from fear than running, especially since he didn't breathe anymore.

He took both of her hands in his. "You must be more careful."

"You men, oh, foo on the two of you," she laughed, squeezing his hands lightly and not letting go.

"'Fu' is Mandarin for 'Good Luck' you know," I smiled at the two of them.

She made a face at me. "And you with that musty Jesuit education of yours."

"Well, they weren't exactly Jesuits."

She snorted, "Nor would I guess that you were exactly the best of students either."

"Reckon you got me there."

But she wasn't looking at me anymore. She and Renfield only had eyes for one another. Their fingers were still entwined as were their hearts. Long before they had become priest and nun, they had been man and wife. Each had entered the Vatican's service in response to my worst enemy's first demand to end their son's misery and curse. His second demand was for Renfield to assume that curse -- to become the vampire he still was.

DayStar, my worst enemy, being what he was, had still found a way to take their son from them anyway. But both Magda and Renfield were as good as their word. They remained true to both of their vows that they had taken -- though it took some doing to reconcile the two into a working system. But the pair had found a way, filled with hunger and hope, mind you. But isn't that much like life for the rest of us? The street people in the church were still and silent. They knew the story. And me? I felt hot tears blur my vision. I had failed my best friend.

I should have been smarter, should have figured out some way to defeat DayStar, found some method to save my friend's son, and to end the curse which tormented him hourly. He deserved a better friend than me. And me? I didn't deserve for him to call me 'friend.' I deserved to be called the monster I was. And you know what they did to monsters.



*****************************************************

I'll let Mark Twain have the last word on friendship : "Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of joy you must have somebody to divide it with."
****************************

At the moment, I am listening to "Into the Dark" by Jesse Cook. He is a Toronto-based Nuevo Flamenco guitarist, born in Paris to Canadian parents. It spins the mind. He was raised in the region in southern France known as the Camargue, growing up with the sounds and influences of Gypsy music {probably why my cat loves his music.} Check out his site on myspace : www.myspace.com/jessecook. I especially like the second youtube video on Jesse's page. Hey, c'mon, check it out. You don't want a gypsy curse, do you?

WHAT DO OUR EYES TEACH US?

Autonomy.

A "headache word" I used to call it whenever my mother used it as she took me out on our walks through the park near our basement apartment. In the same manner her Lakota grandmother taught her, she taught me -- with common sights. The lesson of the rooster weathervane. "Poor Mr. Rooster," she would cluck her tongue, "slave to whatever winds blow, never able to stand his ground. "Wise Mrs. Willow Tree who sinks her roots deep in good soil, standing her ground, yet bending with the wind and not snapping in two like proud and foolish Mr. Pine."

She would ruffle my hair and say, "From the willow tree you must learn autonomy." I pressed my lips together hard. I couldn't even say that "headache word," much less know what it meant. But if you wanted an untweaked nose, there were just some things better left unsaid.

We writers many times are like mimes playing to a world of the blind. Not that we are in any way better because we see beneath the surface and many others do not. We were taught to do so, by mentors or by example. But the fate of the one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind is usually not a happy one. The wiser of us know that going in. The more foolish of us learn it eventually. The fate is the same.

Yet, it is the journey we must savor as artists. Enjoy telling the tale for the thrill of reaching even one soul with our efforts. Push back the darkness, if only for the moment. Touch that one hurting heart.

As in that Zen teaching tale : should we find ourselves clinging to a cliff face, bandits above shooting arrows at us, a hungry tiger waiting to feast on us should we fall, take in the crisp Spring breeze. Watch the grace of a swooping eagle in the bright blue sky. And should there be a strawberry bush growing on that cliff face, reach out and taste a strawberry, savoring its flavor with our last breaths.

I wrote THE BEAR WITH 2 SHADOWS in tribute to my mother's stories. Tales told me as I lay coughing in our basement apartment without power during that terrible winter blackout that lasted for days. In it is a story of Hibbs, the bear with two shadows, when he was but a cub. And it relates to what I've been saying :



It was the "Warming Season When The Geese Returns" in the Valley of the Shadow. Sometimes Estanatlehi would walk beside him, sometimes not. Even as a young bear, Hibbs had known that The Turquoise Woman ranged the whole wide world. But in this season of her second coming, she always returned in the flesh. It was something that Hibbs had thought would last forever. Such was the foolishness of young bears.


One morning, he had emerged from his comfortable den and wandered to the edge of the Snaking River. Sitting by its edge, he had looked down into its sparkling blue surface. He hushed in a breath.


A face appeared below him. A look of shock was on its furry face. He frowned. It frowned back. He snarled at being mocked. It snarled back.


He sat back on his haunches and laughed. The face was but a reflection of his own. He laughed again and looked down. His river-face laughed back. He stuck out a tongue. And a tongue snaked out from his reflected face. Hibbs amused himself with this game all morning.


Hibbs had finally wandered off for more exploring. But the next morning found him at the river's edge again. The wind of an approaching storm ruffled the image of himself so that he could not see it clear. His mood darkened along with the skies, and Hibbs had been in a foul mood the rest of the day.


The weather of the third morning was still bruised and dark from the storm of the day before. Hibbs' mood was equally sour. It worsened when he found his reflection was merely a shadow. The day had been ruined, along with the young cub's spirits.


The fourth day found dark clouds over Hibbs' head, but they were no darker than the cub's mood. The river-face below him was dim and angry. In a fit of temper, Hibbs hit the offending reflection with his open paw. Cold water splashed him back in the face. It was the last straw.


"Oooh, River-Face," he growled. "You're going to get yours!"


Like a rippling brook given life, icy laughter sounded behind the young cub, "Oh, Little One, you are a walking parable."


Hibbs turned around so swiftly, the water was slung from the fur of his face in a tiny rain. "GrandMother!"


The happy discovery of Estanatlehi's return masked her words from his understanding. The meaning of her words arrived a moment later, like thunder rolling after the flash of lightning. Or rather their almost-meaning. Hibbs frowned. He scratched his head.


"A walking what?"


Estanatlehi's face suddenly saddened. "A way of teaching, Hibbs."


"D-Did I just make you sad?"


Hair of living lightning became a shaking display of Northern Lights. "No, Little One. The race called Whyte did that long, long ago when they killed one who meant much to me. He loved to use parables."


"GrandMother, I - I don't understand."


Estanatlehi ruffled the soft hair atop his head gently. "You will. All too soon, you will."


She forced a smile. "But for now ... these different reflections of you that are such a torment ...."


She hesitated, and Hibbs whispered, "Yes?"


Turquoise eyes peered into his questioning brown ones, and a ripple of true happiness swam beneath the pain. "They are only different because of the wind, the rain, and the storm clouds. They are only fluff, mere changes in the external. The internal is eternal."


"I - I do not understand."


She tweaked his wrinkling nose. "You must try very, very hard to do so."


Hibbs earnestly nodded his head like a bobbing apple. "I will try. I promise."


At the sight, Estanatlehi sniffed back her tears and hugged him. "I know you will. I will help."


She stepped back, caressing his left cheek. "Reflections are but that. Reflections."


Hibbs had nodded as if he understood, which, of course, he did not. "Reflections. Yes."


Estanatlehi looked as if her heart were breaking. "Little One, did you feel pain when you slapped your river-face?"


"N-No."


"That is because it was not you, merely a reflection. And reflections of you will change as you meet one being after another. Reflections that change because of their surface, not your core self."


"Core?"


A smile born of pain and love murmured the words, "As apples have cores, so do Two-Leggeds, the seeds of who they truly are."


"S-So I have a core?"


His wrinkling nose was tweaked again. "Yes, Little One. You have a core. And if you know who you are, you will know your core. But if you do not, you will know only the reflection of yourself that others will give you. And as they change swiftly from one to the other, you will feel all the frustration and anger you just felt at your river-faces."


"So if I know who I am, I can laugh at all the not-core reflections others reflect to me, right?"


Estanatlehi's face looked near to tears as she hugged Hibbs' tiny head. "It always comes back to laughter with you, doesn't it, Little One?"



"It has to come back to something, doesn't it, GrandMother? Why not laughter?"



Estanatlehi wet eyes squinted as if she were looking far into the distance as she murmured, "I do not have the heart to answer, Little One."



**********************


I hope you enjoyed this bit of THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS. I spotted a wolf as I drove this twilight along a wilderness trail. In thanks to the Great Mystery for that, I thought I would share this with all of you :