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To honor the darkness of this bird's wing, we turn to our own hidden interior, the parts of our own past marked with shadows of unhealed wounds and unexpressed emotions. The Raven is the symbol of our own Soul. This is the side of ourselves that, according to Thomas Moore, is nostalgic, melancholy, lost in memories and dreams, rooted in the past, resisting change and seeking stability. The side of us that doesn't want to go to the meeting in the first place and would rather stay home and rest. The Raven symbolizes the home of our ancestors, our personal stories and body memories. It is distinctly earthy, and feminine.
Me??? A quick bio of me? Which me, I must ask? Are we talking about the child me, the mischevious child whose brain never shut up? The lonely teenager who began to put her words on paper, because that was the only time she could finish a sentence. Perhaps the young woman, whose ideals blinded her to too much truth. Maybe the young bride, who lavished her husband with care. How about the maturing woman, whose home was known as ‘the place to go to feel better’.
Those were but signposts, a map of from-there-to-here in the cycles of my life. Although they all still live within me, they are not all that I am.
My ‘new life’ began in September 2003, when I called my mother from Oregon, and begged to come home. There were no possibilities or future for me in Oregon. So, heavily burdened and sore wounded of mind, heart and spirit, I returned to Arizona.
Not long after that I discovered that wonder of the technical worlds, the Internet! By Spring 2004 I joined Soul Food Café, and I want to remain here for as long as they’ll let me.
Imagine the shock, and wonder to find people that not only let me finish my sentences, they listened, and liked what they read. Not only was I given voice, and heeded, I was home! Home in a way I had dreamed of for forever.
I am among creative minds, passionate spirits, there are others like me. I am not some freak, doomed to alone-ness for all of my life. My daily fare is encouragement, trust, honesty and courage.
All of these wonderful, talented, beautiful people also had their own personal crucibles they were being purified in. All of the crucibles glow constantly, yet they do not flare simultaneously. There are these supernovae if passion, thought, and creativity all over the world. There is never a time devoid of the voices of our sisters and brothers. Inspiration is but an URL away, and the “Welcome!” you hear when you sign on to the Internet becomes a portent of wonders to come.
The people reach out from their crucibles and contact one another with gossamer words spun across the globe; the words bounce joyously from country to continent, gathering friends as they circle. This creative micro/macrocosm is a small mirror of the Universe, and like a mirror, their light is reflected and refracted to fill the emptinesses between spirits.
In the time that I have walked the worlds of Soul Food Café I have been fortunate enough to have created some characters and themes that spoke in my best-me voice.
One of the ones most liked by the Ravens of Lemuria is One-Eyed Red, a fearless, multi-talented veteran, someone who has seen the best and worst of the worlds, and loves all of it. She is the deepest of my characters, a fount of both knowledge and wisdom, she rolls with the waves, and revels in the roar and spray of the wildest storms.
To be honest, I am not sure if I created, or ‘channelled’ Red. She speaks from a position of authority, and always knows what she is talking about. Her advice is sound, and her word is her duty to keep.
You may not find her mindlessly swilling grog, but you will find her where she needs to be, happily helping someone, somewhere.
I never know when she’ll hop into my dinghy and tell me where to steer to , with her pipe in hand, and long dark auburn hair braided and wrapped around her head like a corona of embers not yet ready to slumber.
There are multiple piercings on her ears, the earrings reflect some of the places she has been, and celtic tribal tattoos in a deep, brilliant purple on her arms and face. Almost every finger is adorned with rings of solid gold, and stones both faceted and cabochon set in all of them. She wears a medicine bag of pure white buffalo hide, with fascinating lumps and bumps, gold chains with pendants and a sold gold torque, decorated by ankhs, crosses, triskeles, shelagh-na-gigs, fleurs-de-lis and pentacles, with words in Celtic and French incised along their length; the ends of the torque are gleaming golden balls, wrought to appear to be the clawed toes of a dragon gripping globes.
For dress she prefers long, extra-extra billowy skirts, with comfortable cotton pantaloons under them, she will wear a simple shirt in a colour to complement the brightly patterned skirts and comfortable juaraches stiff with salt and time, shaping to her feet and the second sole is cut with diagonal slits for greater traction on wet decks.
You’ll find her on board the Calabar Felonway, in places like :
Chat on the Foredeck
Skeleton Crew
Red's On Her Soap Box
Back Aboard Home
Greeting a New Pirate to Be
Be Warned Lads
Opening the Galley
One of my favourite holidays is Halloween, Samhain for the Witches; and I have delighted in the Halloween blog every year since 2004, always wanting to do much more than I contribute. This year, especially, the Halloween blog was shortchanged two more Halloween-themed photomontage videos due to spastic uploads. But, there are posts for every year that I was especially fond of. The ones that worked, and one where the comments of others added so much to the tale.
Halloween
A Halloween Tale
Hadley Happenings
The Haunted Pool
A Local Urban Legend
Return to Red Death
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