and another thing

Ok, I've put down my broom for a moment (really! I was sweeping, not flying) to say this - just because I'm a mother doesn't mean I'm everybody's mother.

I've noticed lately that not only do lots of people relate to me as though I have nothing better to do than look after children - mine, theirs, them (whatever age they are) but my life is common property. What else could explain the sudden appearance of extra children, requests for unpaid taxi-drives to airports, shopping etc and the unsolicited running commentary on how I do everything from cleaning the skirting boards to running my finances?

Yes, I'm having a whinge, I do feel very much like a mummy-machine right now (why can't I have the blissful-pregnancy-and-breastfeeding hormones NOW, because I really need them since the novelty of helping out a new mother has worn of for most people)

November must have been 'Tell Dan What She's Doing Wrong Month' and no one told me.

Of course no one told me. But what they did tell me was that I doubt myself too much, I don't clean the house enough, I need to 'do something' with my life (and stop having babies), that every time I get close to success I 'get myself pregnant' (all by myself - imagine that!?) and that I'm not setting a very good example for my daughters with my disastrous relationship choices. Apparently I'm not strong enough (that's from the baby's father who tells me I need to get used to being alone), not driven enough, not flexible enough (oh that's from the father of my other four, who changes his access weekends without telling me, let alone asking), not using my brain enough and have low self esteem (from my Dad, who also commented on my skirting boards) and from one friend - not selfish enough. Three people told me I should have my tubes tied.

Added to that, just when I announced to everyone 'this is the month I'm finally writing that book' and kindly requested that all my loving people give me support to do so - life became more hectic, less supportive and 'opportunities' (aka distractions) to do all sorts of things popped up out of nowhere.

For example, my lovely sister and her daughter moved to town with her daughter and needed somewhere to stay until her house and furniture situation settled. OK, a couple of extras in the house should be easy enough to accommodate, right? Er, wrong. Writing my 1600 pages each day got a bit lost in the big production dinners every night (I planned on cheese toasties and fruit salad, and variations on the theme for the entire month) and extra housework. Lots of deep breathing, mediating arguments between daughters who'd swapped beds and vigilance around the morning bathroom routine. Days I had set aside to pound out my dazzling best seller became comedies of error involving flying sofas on freeways (don't ask). Exhausting.

I'm so glad they are here, but December would have been better for me.

Determined not to let life circumstances become excuses for failure, I pushed on with my novel, getting big chunks written and feeling exhilarated, working through the usual writerly challenges. That was a good week. My target of fifty thousand words started to look ambitious but I felt I could still turn a trickle into a steady stream and let the river flow.

Mid month the 'business opportunities' started, then my oldest daughters school teachers wanted to speak to me about problems she'd developed for the first time ever (why now? why why why???), while the other daughters of mine suddenly had awards ceremonies, class productions and the like that demanded my attention. Play dates that were owed were suddenly called in.

Friends from Uni who 'hadn't heard from me' for a while (duh - that would be because, guys, as I told you in October, I'm writing my book!) came over unannounced right when conditions seemed perfect for getting a chapter on the page, settling in for tea and sympathy and ignoring my subtle and often not-so-subtle hints that now really isn't a good time.

Oh, that's not all, but you get the gist.

So, here I am, on the last day of November - the month that should have been a triumph over my past crappy decisions and one in which all the good things I have accomplished acknowledged via cups of tea, supportive silence and the help of my family finally come home to roost.

Should have been, but wasn't - and I realise something - that asking for help and support and telling people what I need just isn't enough. People will assume that because I'm a mother I am also a martyr and will sacrifice my own needs for theirs.

And, I now realise, that if I have the nerve to try to break out of my little pumpkin shell and be something other than the victim-martyr-mother then I am open to criticism and I need to have a much thicker skin. In fact I need spikes, armour and a big fence around my house.

I really have had enough. Because its all true - all of the well-meaning advice, including some stern words about getting myself out of the deep hole I apparently have fallen into financially (all of the not-so-well-meaning advice too, but about whom, I ask you?).

I really have sacrificed my own needs for those of my children, for the needs of the fathers of those children. And I rescheduled my life-saving creative urges for the sake of relatives, friends and even strangers. Not to do so is to be called a witch, a bitch, a bully. Not to do so is to go against consensus and to cause stress, which is not conducive to creativity and success either. So my book is not written, my skirting boards are spotless, my children are all taken care of, I have no money, satisfied friends, and a whole lot of decisions to make.

So, for December I am declaring 'Dan is No Martyr, Keep Your Darn Opinions to Your Self Month'.

Now, where's that broom?

shadow mother

I'm not sure how I got so sidetracked but my original intentions for this blog seem to have gone to seed.

I was reminded this morning when I ran into a local woman pushing her two babies in a pram - sweet little blue-eyed cherubs covered head to toe in texta-coloured scribbles. We talked about how children love to draw on themselves and I mentioned a book I'd read that talked about adornment and the development of self esteem in girls.

Only five minutes before I'd been sitting with my coffee writing my morning pages and asking myself what my purpose is - why is my life where it is today and what direction is it taking?

It was good to talk about these things and it pulled me back into myself and my passion for archetype, ritual and culture - in particular about the mother archetype and its shadow 'the witch'.

It also reminded me that four years ago I wanted to write a book about motherhood, about raising girls in particular - and not just because I had four of them of my own at the time.

A series of events and circumstances had shown me something I'd previously pushed aside - something I refused to see. I'd found myself in a trap, caught in the complex seduction of ideas and illusions surrounding relationships, marriage and lifestyle.

It wasn't just that I woke up one day and discovered that I was a woman in my thirties with four young children with a man (at the risk of sounding spiteful I do use that term very loosely) who appeared to refuse to take any of the responsibility for the work of our relationship.

It wasn't just that I just couldn't stand pretending to be a 'happy family' anymore - that I felt like nothing more than an unpaid babysitter for a man who would take all the credit for the beautiful home, the beautiful children and the beautiful life we supposedly made together.

It wasn't just that when I left - packing the children up in the car my mother had bought me for the purpose of having some independence from my 'beautiful husband', leaving behind all the 'beautiful things' that I was now told didn't belong to me - I found that none of my 'couple friends' wanted to know me.

And it wasn't just that I didn't have a better excuse, a solid sense of my own self-worth or any idea of how important the work that I do raising my daughters is. I wasn't depressed, although my doctor would have me believe so (I later found out I'd had glandular fever). My sense of alienation was never from my girls, or from my own strength, or from men and fathers.

I just knew - and still do believe - that without a doubt there is an undercurrent of anger surrounding motherhood, mothering and mothers in general. And its not just overworked, unappreciated and undervalued mothers who are perpetuating it.

I set out to find out why it is that the world hates mothers.

You may now ask me 'what do you mean the world hates mothers?' What a load of rubbish! The world loves mothers, we idealise them if anything. Mothers are essential - without them the human race would be extinct. Raising children is the most important job there is, right?

Er, yes. That's all true too - on the surface.

Maybe I only feel it - this undercurrent of anger and hatred - because I'm a single mother - and even though there are a damned lot of us women raising children alone, we aren't exactly part of the ideal.

Being without a partner or husband means not being 'legitimate' and it means that you find out in no uncertain terms just how much value the work of a mother has in this world. You find out, not just in dollars and cents, but also how much of what you do as a mother is tied up with the currency of being a wife - and how much you 'contribute' to the macro and micro economies of society,community and household.

The first man I dated after leaving my husband was a social worker for the department of family services - he's the guy who extracts kids from homes where there's domestic violence and abuse of all kinds. He told me he found my approach to parenting unique;

him; wow, you're great at this - you should work with children.
me; I do work with children, I have four of them
him; no, I mean you should do it as a career
me; I do - this is a career
him; No, I mean you should get paid for it
me; I do get paid for it, its not all that much, but I get paid.
him; no, I mean it should be a proper job.
me; (withering glare) right.

Even a social worker, a professional in the 'caring' field doesn't see that mother-work is actual work that warrants status as a 'career'. He gave daily witness to the direct manifestation of the anger of and against women and children and couldn't be educated to my point of view. We didn't date for very long.

So, anyway, four years ago I set out to answer The Question and then write a book about it. Along the way I found my answers, and a whole lot of other questions - the subject is HUGE. I began to feel like it was all too much, and that I was too small, not qualified enough, not opinionated enough, just not enough - to even begin to write a book about it.

I went to some of the most highly qualified people I knew - my professors at university, all women, all mothers, and they didn't know where to begin either (and they had no time as they were winding up the Gender Studies department and heading to Canberra to lobby for better pay and conditions for childcare and aged care workers, ironically).

I read books and articles and scoured the internet. I talked to other women. I got my big Answer and I felt defeated.

I still do. I have five daughters now, and two men telling me I don't deserve any child support. The children are my choice, I'm told. Suck it up.

I'm getting fired up again.

Speaking with my father yesterday, he tells me that forty percent of Australia's children are being raised by single mothers. Forty percent! Alarm bells are ringing but the fire brigade aren't coming.

So, I have something to say to the world about the work of being a mother - and a renewed sense of purpose beyond blogging fiction and treading water until my children grow up and I can be a woman again (yes, there is a difference between being a woman and being a mother).

Its time to start placing a great deal more value on what we do, raising children. Its time to let go of the victim-martyr and 'not enough' mentality that takes over when it gets rough. What's not enough is to say 'the world hates mothers' and 'I'm angry about it' and leave it at that - its time to do something about it.

Starting with me, here and now.

five reasons to smile

apologies

i am experiencing technical difficulties...

sing in me...

Muse..

The Un-Named One leans into the shallow pool toward the reflection of fruit hanging overhead from branches of a Pomegranate tree. His knobby brown hand dips into the water and scoops from it one perfect ripe red globe, splitting it off its stem and opening its waxy skin to reveal its flesh.

“Ah, fruit of the underworld.." he coos, stroking it lovingly. "So very misunderstood..hm?"

"Humans are just too literal.” He declares in his best Pompous Narrator's voice, and laughs. Always a performance, even if only for a pomegranate.

Lowering his mouth to its open wound he sucks theatrically at its sweet pink pearls, groaning with pleasure. As he eats he admires his reflection – dark almonds for eyes above wide cheekbones and an almost-too-large nose. A goatee and moustache outline full - rude- lips and black unkempt hair flops across his forehead hiding horn buds. His naked body is oiled and loose after his night of preparations.

“so goddarn beautiful.” He says to himself, turning his head this way and that, enjoying the full irony of the compliment along with his reflection in the pool. He allows his attention to drop below his waist;

“what a shame to have to let these go” he drawls to no one in particular, nodding toward his goat legs and hoofs and sighing at the inefficiency of human feet, “but this time I’ll have to walk”.

Discarding the husk of his little feast, The Un-Named One spends a moment in serious contemplation of his task. One hand drifts up to tug on the tuft of hair between his lower lip and his chin, eyes narrowed in concentration.

The story needs to be told but he’s aware of the danger of planning it out in his mind before it even begins – for him doing things that way is never as good. A quick fuck, over before he knows it and not worth revisiting. No, this has to unfold as it must.

“and she needs me” he tells himself, brightening considerably.

Standing now, the Un-Named One stretches out in his new human form, getting the feel of his legs. With a grin he reaches between his legs to assess the condition of his manly parts.

“Ha!. Not so like a mortal after all!” He shouts, laughing and delighted.

He looks back down at the pool and sees her standing by and open window, the dark red curtain of her hair lifting slightly in the breeze revealing one white shoulder. He watches her watching something in the street outside and waits for her to notice his eyes on her skin. Slowly she turns away from the window toward the mirror, green eyes opening wider, lips parting as she takes a sharp breath in –

“You!” she whispers.

So it begins.

trickster direct

I'm back! I won't go into the saga of what happened to this site, but it was horrible, involved days of wandering lost and alone in the desert of cyberspace, many emails (before they, too, went missing in action) to tech support staff who all seemed to be from another planet, or on their way back there. Enough said.

*sigh* its so good to be home again.

trickster

"Chance and chance alone has a message for us. Everything that occurs out of necessity, everything expected, repeated day in and day out, is mute. Only chance can speak to us. We read its messages much as gypsies read the images made by coffee grounds at the bottom of a cup."

- Milan Kundera

message

Dreams take her deep into the sea.

Hava swims, the water sliding like a lover's hand over her skin and she breathes it in painlessly as air. There's no light except for one bright shape above her and she pushes toward it with a flicker of thought to her legs that are no longer just legs.

She breaks the surface of the ocean to stand naked on the moon's reflection, a silver trail over a rippling field. She follows the lunar path to shore, and lies down to rest.

Sand against her cheek and a bright yellow haze of daylight tells her its time to move. Standing now, the wind forms little whirls of gold that become dancing figures around her feet, calling her name, urging her forward. There is no other sound.

As she walks strangers approach and cover her nakedness; first with cloth, then with metal and gems. Hava doesn't know what these things are called but feels their weight on her body, her wrists, ankles and brow and accepts them as gifts.

She arrives at a gathering of men in the shade of a temple and knows she is not in her own time. They speak a language Hava can almost remember but for now understanding eludes her. One of the men hisses something at her so that Hava recoils as she passes him and comes to stand before the King.

The man who is King turns to Hava radiating with so much love Hava is overcome with emotion and falls to her knees. She finds herself weeping and kissing his feet, wiping her tears away with her hair. There's an aching familiarity about this scene, these men, this sandy place, this King, these feet, her kisses, her tears.

The King places his hand on Hava's head and tells her, without words, to stand. His face glows and he smiles at her, pressing a hand against her heart. It contains a great Mystery, he tells Hava. It is entrusted to her alone. She must take it back with her and guard it well.

He leans in to her and kisses her mouth gently, then looks into her eyes. In their reflection he sees the depths of the cosmos, an endless darkness punched through with stars. Hava finds herself floating, swimming in those depths, stars passing her faster and faster until she is blanketed in white....

no sentimental ending

...she blinks, shakes her head to clear her vision. If this is heaven then why is everything so dark? Maybe this is the other option, which means that this guy is...

"Hava, no. You're very much alive, and we -" the godlike man with the bell-like voice gestures towards other, equally beautiful beings - "are your friends and family.
"I'm your brother, Gabe. I'll let the others introduce themselves in their own time. Don't try to speak, I can explain everything. But first I must tell you a story."

Hava is slightly hypnotised by his voice - and stunned by his words. She couldn't have uttered a word if she wanted to. A brother?

Gabe moves to sit by Hava, taking her hand.

"I'm not one for sentimental endings. Not this time. Sentiment is a luxury we cannot afford while the future of the realm and our way of life is at stake. Listen carefully Hava, this is about you too.

"First, you will have heard of the myths of earth which involve marriages between humans and divine creatures. Many of them told of ruling families falling in love with water spirits - mermaids, if you like.

"A modern version retells the Christ-Magdelene story, with the 'water' changed into blood. It involves a royal line nonethess and names the Merovingian family as descendants of this union.

"In truth the Merovingian legend involves a Mer-maid - yes I can see that you make the connection between the word 'mermaid' and the name 'Mary'. You're right, they mean the same thing, more or less - 'of the sea' - and the two stories are related, although not as you might think.

"The history of the Merovingian line is a case in point though - their power came from their divine roots, but they died out when they forgot what was owed in return. In a bizarre irony it was the Christian influence which turned those kings away from soul.

"I say 'soul' because that is precisely what earthly magic is - the soul of the world. Each divine creature embodies part of the world soul, and in humans its the female who is guardian of Her.

"We don't have time to go into gender politics right now, but suffice to say that Earth has been in trouble for some time due to the imbalance - and so has our realm - Eloah - which exists in parallel.

"But before all this trouble started there were other troubles - some of these are written in the old texts of earth, the sacred texts that hardly anyone can understand anymore. There is a common thread through all of these, however much they are misinterpreted and distorted.

"All the stories involve an exceptional female who is paired with a ruler of some sort and gives birth 'without stain' to a royal or divine heir. Or two. All the way back to the first woman.

"The first woman, Hava."

Gabe pauses, sighs, and carefully places Hava's hand to rest on her other one. She's drifting off to sleep, the journey taking its toll. The story will have to wait a little longer.

What is one more day after a thousand years?

irresistable

adopt your own virtual pet!

renewal

She wakes.

Hava can hear voices but can't figure out what they're saying. A dull ache at the base of her skull tells her that something's up, but memory eludes her. In fact, Hava can't remember anything except her name, which she now recognises as the voices become clearer and louder.

"Hava? Can you hear me?" A bell-like voice asks.
"Hava? Can you hear me?" an echo returns.

Hava tries to open her eyes. A strangled groan comes from two different directions at once and Hava is shocked to realise that the noise is coming from deep in her own throat. She tastes something strange and salty, like week old sushi, and breathes deeply as nausea rises in response.

"help me with her!" The bell whispers.

Hava heaves and rolls sideways as gentle hands steady her, holding her across her upper body as she retches and relieves her stomach of its contents. More hands apply a warm wet cloth to her face, wiping away traces of brackish odour.

The world comes into focus.

She sees that she's inside a vast hall or pavillion - every surface of glassy black stone, and that its night.

Taking an inventory of herself, feeling for injury, Hava moves to dislodge the heaviness from her arms and legs. Smooth fabric against her skin tells her she isn't wearing much clothing, but that she's covered in a way that preserves her dignity.

"Where am I?" The words burn a trail from her belly to her lips. Hava gasps at the pain, sending another rip through her body.

"Calm. Heal." another voice washes over Hava, sending a wave of warmth through her. The burning fades.

Breathing carefully through her nose now, she turns her head in the direction of movement and sound. The room tilts slightly and rights itself as Hava battles her disorientation and wins.

"Hava, you're home again" comes from the bell voice, drawing Hava's attention to rest on a face so perfect she wonders for a moment if she has died and is now in the presence of god.

lavender blue

..lavender's blue, dilly dilly..." She puts down her pen and looks up out of the window. How does it go again? "Lavender's blue, dilly dilly, rosemary's green...mm" Hava hums the tune a bit and lowers her head to continue her work.


"When you are king, dilly dilly..." Lucy sings over the top of her drawing table and pops her head up to grin at Hava. "I love that old nursery rhyme!"

"Yes, but I think its really a folk song" Hava says, flashing back a grin of her own. Her slavic accent slightly trips over the word 'folk' - an in-joke in the small design company they own and run.

"Ha! Well Hava darling you are the fokk expert" Lucy replies, ducking as a ball of paper whizzes by her head.


They can laugh because everyone knows it isn't true. Hava couldn't be more conservative or shy when it comes to relationships - and no one has ever been able to engage her in a real discussion about her life outside the studio.

Though maddeningly closed on the subject most young women love best, on design she prattles for hours, expounding the virtues of new techniques or a cutting edge movement or the works of well known artists and architects.

As expected, Hava blushes bright scarlet and hunches down over her work, hiding her smile. One of these days she'll have something to tell them.

That tune, though, continues in a loop, nagging her and pulling her attention towards something she can't quite remember. A dream? A memory? It's giving her a headache.


In the bathroom Hava splashes her face with cold water, grimacing at the shock of it and her reflection - pale and pasty, with uncharacteristic dark circles under eyes. It's been a while since she felt refreshed in the mornings. It's as though she's been living a whole other life in her dreams, waking exhausted and feeling as if she's gone horseriding all night.

"ridiculous" she mutteres to herself, "maybe I need to see a doctor?"

"a shrink might help! talking to yourself isn't a good sign.." came from a stall behind Hava, startling her out of her reverie.


"who's there?" Hava asks, surprised, just as the flushing lavatory drowns her words. The cubicle door swings open and a young man steps forward toward her. No. Not a young man, an angel, a demi god. This is the single most beautiful creature Hava has ever seen. She blinks twice, not believing her eyes.

"Would you believe I'm a genie from a bottle?" he asks with one perfect eyebrow raised. "No? You're right, there's no such thing."

He passes her on his way to the sink, trailing a scent she can't identify but which leaves her almost breathless with longing....Hava suddenly feels dizzy.

"I've come to talk to you about the king, Your majesty" The angel-man turns toward Hava just in time to catch her as she starts to fall.

And the world goes black.

lachesis

I saw your name
just your name
and felt a bloom
of heat
right here
so I know
what my mind
has put aside
my body
remembers
and all week
while waiting
i've woven
loose threads
into a web
in which i
lie pretending
to be horrified
but secretly
in thrall
to the sting
and wonder
of who you are now
and an instinct
to unravel
our lives
and spin us
and time
into one
strand
then i hear
your voice
at last
telling me how
you died and
were retrieved
three times
how your
brokeness
changed you
and god
i can't
bear this
but I watch
our souls
stretch
behind us
to that place
we just know
our destinies
won't fit
until we do
so with fate
urging you
to admit
i was
a mystery
so strange
you couldn't
lean my way
except for
that one
time when
innocence
was lost
to us
i want to
climb into
that small space
you made for me
sit watching
your mouth
and weave
new memories
holding them
to me like
a child
we never had
safe
enough
to take
into my heart

what i've got to believe...

my love is the only love I need

a sordid past?

I can't do it. I can't tell you about anyone's past - I just can't make that judgement. Even if its only in my imagination I haven't got it in me to give details about anything anyone has done, sordid or otherwise. Its not right.

Please believe me I had no idea that it would come to this. I had no idea that she was once involved in so much, well, so much activity. No I will not tell you what kind of activity - lets just leave it at that.

After all, when one is young one is prone to all kinds of nonsense. Its easy to fall in with the wrong sort of people, particularly if one has lost parents and friends in some tragedy or other. Vulnerable, you understand. Its not as if the girl was born bad, oh no, she was perfectly innocent. At first.

Its inexplicable, this horrible event now. After all, we've come to trust her. We know she isn't capable of it. She can't be. No - she told me everything, all the dark details of her whole life. Why would she do that if she was planning to betray us?

There's nothing more to be done - we must ask her ourselves - confront her. Surely even one with such a history as hers is incapable of a bald-faced lie. She wouldn't dare, not to me. Not after everything I've done for her, taking her in, giving her a home, a name, a new identity. I taught her everything I know about living among decent, civilised society.

Yes, ask her yourself. Let her tell you her secrets, her shame. Let her speak for herself, and you can make up your own mind. But I won't say another word against her.

My lips are sealed.

cookies

oh
no,
biscuits
where I live
although I know that
those are scones in other places.

on sundays my name is....

...my name is... my name is..

I don't know anymore.

Who am I?

I renamed myself,
but its not enough,
I found the name
before I knew
what it meant.

Its not my name.

If I stand here
and look
at myself
in the mirror,
I see what you see,
but do I see me
as I really am?

Tell me,
and I'll look
through your eyes
and know
what my name really is.

Is it written somewhere?

If I stand here
in front of you
and say
you are tall,
and have dark hair
and a strong,
lean body;
you are funny
and sexy and cool
and I love you,
am I saying it to you,
or is it me I see?

Aren't you my perfect mirror?

What is my name?
What do you call me??




Oh - who cares anyway??

I'm not my name.

my god, phobia

"I'm moved by another intention: to warn. And warning, too, belongs to the negredo, for it speaks with the voice of the raven, foretelling dire happenings that may result from the seduction of black."

(James Hillman)

Phobia is described by most dictionaries as any kind of fear or dread, sometimes irrational, but as mostly implying strong aversion and morbid hatred. Its a dark idea, as far as ordinary human emotion goes, but if we have it, then we need it.

A cursory glance into the etymology of the word - and I can't claim to understand any concept without knowing its origins and essence - reveals its roots, or rather wings, in phobos - flight.

This, to my mind, points towards a mythical and therefore primordial style of fear - something that defies simple rationality and goes further and higher into the realm of the Gods. Its not just 'being afraid of spiders' its a deep-seated primal and polar postion against the very 'spiderness' of life itself.

In a pantheistic world view Phobia is an archetype and part of the larger story we're all subject to in our mortal human lives. More than that, the particular form or manifestation that phobia takes brings definition and becomes a pre-condition for action, behaviour and event. Phobia is an identity or role to be played out.

Suffice to say that if Phobia is true to its own shape, then to say that someone has a phobia is allopathic and untidy - its truer to say phobia has that someone. One is phobic.

So, this archetype, this force, Phobia - a character in its own right - is lived into experience in epic journeys and returns and battles in varied ways. Perhaps as a 'shadow' persona or villain that must be violently overcome; an anti-hero who's pain has entered, like all things divine, via a wound or trauma; a beautiful but divided soul to be healed and integrated; a healer; an outcast, lone-wolf or hermit. Or as the unclaimed parts of hero's, saviours, kings and queens. Encounters with giant insects, reptilian devouring creatures, vile odours, dark green creeping decay. Episodes of falling into dangerous hidden places, being buried and confined or abandoned to the dangers of nature.

Its ancestry in flight also places phobia in the realm of air - pneuma - and comes cawing and circling from above; birds of prey; carrion scavengers; open exposure to vast empty spaces; searing light and blindness. Its pneumatic nature calls attention to its language and ability to create out of its images; warlocks and witches and their winged messengers appear; uncanny abilities of mind-reading and control; repetitive destructive thoughts and voices calling and singing for death.

Just as phobia serves the narrative, phobia is served by the narrative - the story of phobia keeps the archetype in power. A strange irony (poetry?)- while phobia is defined and contained, it breaks free, provokes adrenaline-surged slow motion corridor runnning and lung-burning screams, and no escape. It will always fly faster.

lost in space

I can hardly believe its been a week without blogging! After last weekend's frenzy of social activity (including a party here on Saturday night and my daughter's fifth birthday party on Sunday) I fell in a bit of a heap early in the week. Then someone gave me a Sci-fi novel - let me tell you that Space Opera is like a narcotic for me - so when not busy with the children or attempting to push through with The Artist's Way, I was pretty much in a fiction induced stupor on the couch.

But now I'm Back!

a first...

I missed fiction friday because I couldn't squeeze the effort out to finish my story - and I blame the distraction of a visit from my sister (she lives interstate) and her daughter! Its great having them here and we always have lots to talk about and come up with great ideas for creative projects.

And so... fanfare... drum roll... I left the baby with my sister last night and went out for drinks with friends - for the first time in over a year!

Yay!