The Dance

Picture an enormous hall or valley, where a massive consciousness festival is taking place. Many dances are happening at once in a thousand different styles. You are dancing, dear reader, and so am I. Some are caught up in the thick of the movement. Some are watching our dance, while others remain engrossed in other performances. Some stay only briefly, before moving on, and even we are watching other dancers from the corners of our eyes. As we perform, as we become our different and very individual perfomances, but are we really separate from other styles, other movements. Someone watching from above would see the various styles interacting with each other, creating a pattern together that is not visible to individual performers. It's all related.. it happens on large scale and small scale, what you see is what happens where-ever you choose to look.

This is life, my friend, the beautiful, terrifyingly magical game of life...

The enigma of togetherness:

Together we have something that is not at first apparent. How do you explain connection to a loner? Someone who has never witnessed the process of a jigsaw puzzle being completed, would never know or understand the function or purpose of one single puzzle piece, if he saw it on its own, out of context. He might look at the fragment of the picture and wonder about the oddly irregular shape of its edges and never guess the mystery of what it truly is. (t.y.m.)

Fairy tales and mind games

Years ago, I read 'The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales' by Bruno Bettelheim, a book that discusses and illustrates at length the necessity of grotesque and violent elements in children's fairy tales, and the role of their psychological truths in understanding emotions. More recently, 'Mirrormask' by Neil Gaiman, brought those theories to mind. Mirrormask, while not being one of those ancient fairy tales, functions in a similar way. It's unsettling, because its scenery is exaggerated and symbolic. As if to make a point about this inner landscape being off the map, there are no page numbers. Its characters behave like archetypes in dreams. They express fears and hopes that don't make sense in the real world, because they don't belong to the world of the senses, but rather to the untouchable theatre where emotions play out their eternal battles for supremacy.

Sitting on a Wall (Playing with Meditation Part One)

Wanna participate in a quick work-out for your imagination? Here goes: Picture yourself sitting on a wall. Okay, it's uncomfortable, but as a kid, you never noticed this, because from such a unique vantage point, you could see for miles and miles around. Now go back to being that eager little person who didn't mind sacrificing a bit of discomfort to gain an awe-inspriting new viewpoint... go back to the times when the state of your clothing (or what you wore) was someone else's worry. Sit there, feel the warm sun-drenched stones under your rear end, your legs swinging free, one on each side of the barrier and open your mind's eye real wide.

So what's on the left side of the wall? Green pastures, with farm animals grazing peacefully, or a beach party at sunset with the music blaring and lots of beautiful eye candy, parading their sexy grooves for your benefit. Hey, it could be a concert or a fireworks display. Just keep watching inside and let your mind surprise you. The longer you keep at it, the easier it gets. After all, your mind needed no lessons in learning how to dream at night. When you were young, it was very easy to turn a living room chair into a pony, so why did you stop staging your wishes within the arena of your eternally watchful soul?

Right side of the wall? Let me tell you what I found when I did this. A train station. Yes! And there was a train about to leave, and where it was heading.... I'll leave that one up to you. Trains go anywhere, when your thoughts lay down the tracks - over the ocean, through mountains, through the fiery and fearsome center of the earth. Once you teach your mind to travel, there are no limitations in where you can go.

Hope you indulged in a few moments of dreamy fun and feel invigorated by something too real to dismiss, something that happened nowhere except in the sanctuary of your own mind, and who's to say it didn't happen...

With a nod and a bow to my imaginary friend and accomplice.... (t.y.m.)

Persepolis

I liked the idea of 'Persepolis' long before I ever got the chance to read it. If you are unfamiliar with this amazing graphic novel, in brief it is the autobiography of Marjane Satrapi, chronicling her memories of growing up within the narrow restrictions of the Iranian Revolution. She shares her experiences in short, themed segments,inserting a lot of wry humor to soften the confusion of political turmoil, the emotional toll of exile and the hardship of homelessness in a foreign country. There is the absurdity of studying life drawing with a fully veiled model and the nerve-racking obstacle course of dating without attracting the notice of the
Guardians of the Revolution. This book opens a door to a secret world and through a highly expressive style, renders it easily accessible to the rest of the globe.

Audiences

A few weeks ago, I ran into someone I used to know from my days of playing in an all-girl metal band, and after we exchanged updates on musical activity or non-activity, gossiped a little about who made it, who didn't and why, I asked how he defines success. His answer: 'Success is an audience." Do I agree? Well, by that definition, nearly everybody should all be hugely successful, because thanks to social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter, we do all have our audience, whenever we want it. Some of us do not even realize how watched we really are. But, celebrity culture can be the most fickle of beasts. It does not like things to stay static. There has to be movement. Whatever is up there, must come down to keep its entertainment value. And the fallen still attract the ferociously hungry attention of all manner of vultures. So I amend. In my opinion, success is applause. At least I hope it is. And I hope that, whoever you are, if you are reading this, you may know the warmth of a few moments of genuinely heartfelt applause.

(And thank you Sean Mercer, for the thoughts you shared and the thoughts you ignited. It was good to see you again.)

Writer's Resource - A history of violence

Writers and aspirant writers are often advised to 'write what they know'. This could however become a little problematic, when a detailed and hands-on study of the subject matter could land you in a lot of trouble. I am talking, of course, about violence, which features with alaming frequency in literature, movies and television, but (thankfully, perhaps) not so much in the average author's life. While writers can organize access to cops, medical professionals, etc, who may become useful resources in terms of modern violence, the finer points of more archaic ways of separating human beings from their mortal remains can be a little harder to obtain. One place to look would be this website I discovered by chance. There are various articles dealing with specific historical forms of violence, as well as links to book resources that go into more depth. While the content is far from complete, and in some cases, very brief, it still makes a good starting point for authors.

And like I said, don't practice this at home...

Unconquered Territories - the worlds of Geoff Ryman

My awe for Geoff Ryman is enormous, largely for his ability to capture and distill depths of human emotion in unlooked for places and insert it in its truest form in the traditionally soulless medium of science fiction. If you believe maternal love to belong exclusively within the domain of biological life forms, track down his short story 'Warmth', if only to see if your prejudice will really remain standing against the challenge of a young man seeking to be reunited with the robot nanny that raised him. Any author should attempt to explore his novel created exclusively for the internet, '253', a classic excercise in viewpoint. He takes an 8 carriage underground train and gives you a glimpse inside the mind of every one of its occupants, including the driver. 'Air' turns human consciousness into a battleground, when a small, primitive community comes under the sudden assault of instantaneous and total immersion in the vast world of the virtual, by way of an airborne virus. But I've left my first introduction to this gifted author til last. 'The Unconquered Country', an award-winning novella appears as deceptively simple and short as a children's book, but its backdrop is the stark reality of war in Cambodia and its impact upon the soft targets - women and children. But the message is very powerful. Whatever shackles our bodies, within the boundless freedom of our minds and our souls we can find the inner resources to remain unconquered territory.