Poem found on Terri Windling’s website

Phyllis Holliday said…
Bridges

More than once kind friends
Make bridges in the air – They are
Artists, writers, actors, muses,
They keep all the secret trolls
Alive and watchful and necessary.

These trolls I know are of course
Secretly kinder than we think.
Who else could hide under stones
On wet weeds and mud, to call out
“Who goes there?” Who indeed?

Artists, writers, actors, children and
Also jugglers; all on the edge of
The stories we cherish, for children
And any seeker on a quest; road
Stops and becomes the bridge.

Do you not in dreams, search
Among good and evil, and find
The something in between, Troll
Who puzzled you, and as trickster
Gives you riddles and tales.

In green country, with stone bridges
And fairy gifts are nearby, we see
Where we need to go. But first
Meet the Troll, Change into who
You never knew who you could be.

The Daily Blog experiment- hard study

I’m halfway through the generative writing workshop Season of the Wolf, with Carina Bissett and her Storied Imaginarium.

We workshopped last Friday, so it’s reading week this week. Carina always provides LOTS of reading. Call it reading, study, fueling the genius loci who lives in the walls.

I’m ensconced on the couch, iPad in hand, following links to read stories for the module on The Robber Bridegroom and Medical Bias.

ThirtiesPerson has chosen to sit near me. While I valiantly try to concentrate on The Maiden Thief by Melissa Mall, TP is trying to crack my finger knuckles. They don’t crack easily. I don’t crack them habitually, having been told as a teen that I’d get arthritis if I kept doing it. TP loves cracking their joints, and knows I’ll make a grimacing fuss when they do it.

They’re bored, as evidenced by them sitting downstairs with me. They’ve done the dishes, taken out the recycling, even put MY laundry on. It seems there’s no support worker coming today to take them for a walk.

I’ve asked them if they want to go out. No. That would interfere with being publicly bored.

So, while I study, I get the mostly fruitless effort of them trying to crack my finger joints.

I suspect this is not the ideal study vibe. I’ve read half of the story. Do I know what’s happening? No.

However, I get little enough interaction with TP, so I’ll take what I can get.

Story quote

Against the window of Christopher’s room, as against all the windows in the house, was the wall of trees, crushing themselves hard against the glass. “I wonder if that’s why they made this house out of stone?” Christopher asked the cat. “So the trees wouldn’t push it down?”

Shirley Jackson.

Satya note: Have you never seen weeds push up through stones, stubborn seeds take root on old lava, bamboo disrupt a bricked path, the wild overtake an old mill?

The Daily Blog – papers, and knick knacks and journals, oh my!

It was on my To Do list and was scheduled for today. Clean my desk. Declutter it. Sort stuff out, make it a good working space again. Cluttered desk = squirrelly mind = crazy Satya.

It’s the Labour Day holiday here in Victoria, celebrating the efforts of the labour union movement, and the victory of the eight hour work day.

Now, I didn’t count on stupidly hot weather these past couple of days, making me good only for sitting on my bed in the air conditioning, and reading, but I made myself go to my desk in the front room, and contemplate the rubbish dump there.

I’m now back on my bed, armed with about 8 journals, and a whole lot of loose papers. All this needs to be gone through, and relevancies typed up. So far, I’ve found 3 poems worth keeping, and the notes from ThirtiesPerson’s astrology reading for their Saturn return last year.

I have a fair way to go before all the paperwork is dealt with, but honestly, what else am I doing with my day? A WILD WINTER SWAN by Gregory Maguire can wait.

I’ve also assembled my little totems for this year: a cardboard image of the Pokemon Ponyta, and a small dragon for Year of the Dragon. Now the small owl image I modelled out of Play-doh can be retired. Buried in the garden to return to the earth. That was 2023 energy. I’m 3 months into 2024, and am only just getting to washing the orange cloth I keep under my computer, and wiping down the table top. I use a yoga bolster under my feet. It’s probably about time it was dry cleaned, and popped out in the sun, after being sprayed thoroughly with Florida Water.

I told myself and the universe that this year would be:

Feb-May: take part in The Storied Imaginarium’s Season of the Wolf writing workshop.

June-September: work on a second draft of my dance memoir, once I’ve had a reader’s report from Carina Bissett, and followed her recommendations.

October-mid December: work on a collection of science fiction poems(I have about 40 first drafts).

So far, I’m about 3 weeks into Season of the Wolf, and still diddling about. The hyperfixation on burlesque dance isn’t helping the writing cause, but ADHD. What can I say. I’m getting dopamine from the dance classes, so I may as well run with the classes until the dopamine runs out. At least I can write and read on the tram to and from classes (50 minutes either way).

Well, enough of catching up on my daily blog entry. Back to the clutter mines.

The Daily Blog experiment – creativity

I’ve always said that I don’t want to do a Masters or Ph.D. in anything, and especially not my own creativity, because I’d rather not know how the magic works, in case analysis renders it sticks and ashes.

What brings me to this subject? Recently, I’ve started a year-long experiment of posting a poem a week on TikTok. A video of me reading the poem. However, 7 days between posts is a long time for the attention span of a TikTokker. I apparently may as well be consigning myself to the rubbish heap 2 days after each post.

To that end, LadyDraven(acting as my social media manager) and I have devised some occasional in-between content. Ugh, I hate calling it content. Stuff? Performances? Other pieces to the jigsaw puzzle of me?

Yesterday, she filmed me mind-mapping the word ‘wolf’ and all the associations it had for me, in the hope that something would spark off an idea.

This isn’t a common way for me to work. Usually, all the connection happen subconsciously in my head. But that’s not filmable, so we went with mind mapping.

Yes, I did spark an idea.

Today, I took myself to a cafe, and armed with chai, opened up my small shoulder bag notebook.

First attempt flopped around performing tricks, but at least I thought I knew what I was trying to say. I had a cup of chai and went at it again on a fresh page. Yes..ye-es..er..okay..ye-wtf..no.

My creative self was outraged at this non-organic way of working. My poems usually spring out of nowhere, with only a peculiar itch inside the back of my skull to warn me that ‘something is coming’.

This artificial mind-map forcing was wrong. How dare I dictate when and how and what.

In other words, I can put wolves, and werewolves, and Yellowstone, and girls wearing red, and Grandmas on the page all I like, but unless it’s an organic sprouting from inner compost, I will have nothing but wooden words on the page.

So, I closed my notebook, put away my wonderful Quirky Cup Collective pen, and instead watched a paper bag blowing around in the wind.

I feel that my muse, or genius loci, or creative self still has more to say on all the things mentioned above, but I’ll just have to wait until she’s ready.

The Daily Blog experiment – TikTok

LadyDraven popped over this afternoon to film me brainstorming ideas for a new poem. All in the cause of @helenreadsherpoems. That’s my TikTok handle where I’m found reading out one of my own poems every week.

Now, this all started as a ‘why not?’ idea put forward by my astrologer Stella Starwoman. Next minute, I have a stand and a ring light, and I’m filming myself reading out poems.

And then “hey, we could film me making a mind map to brainstorm a new poem”.

Hence LadyDraven, her phone camera, and me placing my chicken scrawl writing on a sheet of paper.

Something did come of that mapping, and I have an inkling of a new poem, the third in the same Red Riding Hood theme.

And I did ‘create a vibe’ by sticking on some bracelets and rings.

Still, it all feels odd, as though I’m kind of sitting in the middle of a shopping centre in my underwear, loudly clearing my throat and saying “Look at me.”

Ultimately, getting views on TikTok might lead to something, or it might not, and I can’t get hung up on it either way. It’s an experiment, like this daily blog.

Ah, gone are the days of interaction, where people left comments. Now it’s all passive viewing/reading, and moving on to the next thing. I’m as guilty of this as the next person.

But if everyone is in a circus ring, performing their tricks, who’s left to be an appreciator?

Sorry about the irrelevant pic. I clicked the wrong thing and now it won’t leave. This is why LadyDraven manages my social media stuff. I’m a tech twit.

Season of the Wolf – module 1 notes

Season of the Wolf – generative writing workshop run by Carina Bissett

Fairy tales discussed: Little Red Riding Hood; The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids; The Three Little Pigs; The Wonderful Musician.

Aesop’s fables containing wolves: The Wolf and the Horse; The House Dog and the Wolf; The Wolf and the Lion; The Shepherd and the Wolf; The Lamb and the Wolf; The Wolf and the Sheep; The Wolf and the Skull; The Wolf and the Crane.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf.

Quotes from short stories – lines that grabbed me.

CONVERSATIONS WITH WOLVES – Lauren Davis (Fantasy Magazine)

The gap between wolf and dog widens every year by breeding.

Humans saw a cognitive kindred spirit, one who could understand their most basic communications.

A wolf can be trained to understand, but it’s not her nature to pay attention.

They want to pass quietly by.

IN THE COMPANY OF WOLVES – Angela Carter (THE BLOODY CHAMBER)

The pupils of their eyes fatten on darkness.

Teaming perils of the night.

Wolves have a way of arriving at your own hearthside.

All alive-oh.

A witch from up the valley once turned an entire wedding party into wolves because the groom had settled on another girl.

As if the beasts would love to be less beastly if only they knew how.

The hinge of the year when things do not fit together.

There’s an ointment the Devil gives you that turns you into a wolf.

Seven years is a werewolf’s natural span.

The burden of her years is crushing her to death.

She stands and moves within the invisible pentacle of her own virginity.

Cuniform slots of rabbits.

The needle of the compass.

He has been snacking on his catch.

We keep the wolves outside by living well.

Saucers full of Greek fire.

Took off her scarlet shawl, the colour of poppies, the colour of sacrifices.

THE LEAVINGS OF THE WOLF – Elizabeth Bear (Apex Magazine)

There are nights like gifts.

It is only metal, she is flesh and will.

Look at you. When was the last time you got off your ass?

The wearing of the sea.

The crows come at dawn, bright-eyed.

You must make a sacrifice to a grief to end it.

The Fenris Wolf. Tyr.

It doesn’t pay to be stingy with wolves.

I didn’t know it was a wolf. I thought it was a marriage.

WHAT YOU ARE AND THE WOLF – Jae Steinbacher (LightSpeed Magazine)

I know you’re not what they think you rae.

They were walking with the wolf.

DAUGHTERS WITH BLOODY TEETH - Marike Bailey (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)

The sun fell in love.

Ate her right up.

I’ve always wondered what it felt like to be eaten.

Sweet bone, strange bone.

Blood speaks.

Blood remembers.

Soft belly human.

She who holds the pillars of the earth.

Rivers of the stars.

Sky sharp claws.

TOOTHSOME THINGS – Chimedum Oheegbhu (Strange Horizons)

Was it not sinister for one so young as yourself?

Who would believe her?

The left path is sinister.

The hemlock she’d given him could kill wolves.

Sliced into his side.

So many of us in this body.

THE WOLF AND THE TOWER UNWOVEN – Kelly Sandoval (Uncanny Magazine)

I’m no one’s pack.

Lone wolves are trouble.

What do birds mean?

We played at tearing holes in the fabric of the world.

I liked being a tough old woman.