A Day at the Fair..

African Dreams

It's official! My piece African Dreams will be on exhibit at the Del Mar County Fair. This is the first time I've entered anything in the Del Mar Fair... so I am a little excited about it. This is a collage, applied to handmade paper from Africa. I had fun playing on the surface of this paper. It's rich with texture, and sturdy enough to layer other elements. 

The fair is open from June 8th until 4th. I have two exhibitor passes, so I guess this means I'm going! I haven't been to the fair for almost a million years. Too many people, too many lines, and the traffic is insane. But I shall go just to support myself and the other artists...

Happy First Day of National Poetry Month!!

I invite you all (whoever happens to stumble upon my blog...) to post a favorite poem, or talk about a favorite poet . Share how you celebrate poetry month.

Ways to Celebrate

Celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day: Select a poem  you love, carry it with you , then share it with co-workers, family and friends. Read a book of poetry: "Poetry is a response to the daily necessity of getting the world right." Memorize a poem Put poetry in an unexpected place Take a poem out to lunch: adding a poem to lunch puts some poetry in your day and gives you something great to read while you eat.

Eostre's Eggs

... and the Legend of the Easter Bunny 

 The Anglo-Saxons hailed Eostre as the Goddess of Spring, the Greening  Earth, and Fertility. Her name means "moving with the waxing sun."  Around the time of her festival, when light and dark are equal, the animals began giving birth or going into their sexually receptive cycles, named "esturs periods" after the goddess. The woodland animals-who also worshipped and loved Eostre- would play in the warmth of spring light and feast on the new vegetation Eostre provided. 

One of Eostre's devotees was a small hare who wished to give a gift to his goddess, but he didn't know what he could possibly offer that would be of any value to her. One day while foraging, the hare came across a fresh egg, a very prized commodity.The little hare wanted very badly to eat the egg, as it had been a long time since he'd feasted on anything finer than dry grasses. Before he could take a bite of his prize, he realized this egg might make the perfect gift for Eostre. But, he thought that Eostre could have all the eggs she wanted. She was a goddess, a creator of Life itself. Giving her just any egg would never do. How could he make this egg a fit offering for his goddess? 

The little hare took the egg home and pondered how to make it as beautiful and new as Eostre made the world each spring. He began to decorate the egg. He painted it in the hues of Eostre's spring woods and placed upon the shell symbols sacred to Eostre. When he felt he could not make the egg any more beautiful, he took it to Eostre and offered it to her. Eostre was so pleased by the little hare's sacrifice of his egg to her, and by the manner in which he decorated it for her, that she wanted everyone-especially children, who are themselves symbols of new life- to enjoy these representations of her bounty. 

Since that Ostara day long ago, the descendants of that hare have taken up the task of delivering decorated eggs to the world's children at spring. They are called Eostre's Bunnies or, more commonly, the Easter Bunny.

trapped inside a flying brick....

Heading into the next prompt. Gonna be short and sweet. 

Being trapped in a confined environment can turn an ordinary experience into a powder keg. Write about a thing that happened to you while you were using transportation: 

"A Cessna is a flying brick", the instructor announced to the class. Okay.... my 12 year old son can learn to fly a brick... he finished ground school, and now he was having his first flying lesson. It was a 4 seater, so I got to ride along. Didn't really feel trapped in the plane, I felt more trapped with the headphones wrapped around my skull. Such a claustrophobic ... But the air, the view, the freedom. I wasn't even afraid to look down. The airport shrunk, the sky exploded. I reached across the empty seat and pushed the sealed window, fingers spread open. Felt the plane lean and moonwalk across the airy blue. Next time, maybe we can fly into the sunset....

telling stories...

I just joined this project today and I am looking forward to the journey. I encourage writers of all types to join in. I may not be able to respond daily to each prompt, as I am a bit of a tedious writer...but I can certainly toss these ideas around in my head everyday, and have fun going at the creative moment with new eyes. 

I chose the following prompt for today. Well, actually its yesterday's, but I need some catch up time and I like this prompt. a fun challenge....

Tell the story about something interesting that happened to you, but tell it in the form of an instruction manual ...

1. gather these items for your toolbox: newspaper, latex gloves, garden trowel, cornmeal and tobacco, sage, matches. carefully place items in a Steve Madden shoe box. 
2. put Steve Madden shoe box containing items in the car, the trunk is fine. If you don't have a trunk, on the floor in the back is good.
3. get in car, merge onto freeway. this is the most common place to spot the fallen messengers,usually found fused to the asphalt.
4. when you see the rust-striped wing flapping like a fancy-dancers headress,you will need to safely pull over on the side of the freeway.
5. get your toolbox, and carefully get out of car and walk slowly toward the body and don't worry about your boyfriend calling because his neighbor saw your car on the side of the freeway and told him you were stranded.
6. reassure your boyfriend that you're simply collecting roadkill and you aren't broken down on the freeway. and you are being careful.
7. while kneeling next to the body, open the shoe box, put on latex gloves,lay out the newspaper, trowel, cornmeal and tobacco.
8. carefully lift the body from the asphalt and put on the newspaper. you might have to do some scraping with the shovel. allow the flesh beetles to drop from the frayed edges. 
9. dust the decaying raptor with cornmeal and tobacco and wrap with the newspaper like a shroud, then rest inside the shoe box, put the lid on, and get back into car.
10. drive to the country, away from traffic, people, negative energy. you're looking for a quiet peaceful final resting place on a dry California hillside.
11. once you have a spot picked out, get your shoebox, and don't forget the sage and matches this time. ceremony is key here.
12. dig a hole deep enough to bury the shoe box. With pure intention of the heart, offer prayer, song, gentle words.
13. fill hole with the red dirt, stack rocks, add greenery, and erase any signs of footprints, or humanity.
14. beneath the unforgiving shade of yarrow and sagebrush, wipe the grieving sweat from your eyes, and light your sage.
15. embrace the beauty, the silence and let the spirit finish the journey.

Springin' forward to voicemail poems.....

While I was sitting here, protesting the time change (cause this is the one I really hate) , I made a fun discovery, Voicemail poems. A must try for all of you shy poets out there! It's as simple as calling the number, and reading a poem. Even if it isn't your poem, as long as you give credit to the poet. So, this morning, I practiced my piece night-bed. I dialed, I introduced myself, I read my poem. It's important to email them as well, to add a blog site, web site, AND the text for the poem, as the google voice  morphs the poems into some very interesting found poems! Here is the piece I shared, written about a steamy camping trip in the meadow.

night-bed

come close,
let me splatter you 
with my primal perfume.

bodies fuse together,
the taste soaks into
your dripping chocolate skin.

our echoes arouse
the sleeping meadow,
ears perk from their night-beds.

sticky embraces smolder
into dreaming.

www.voicemailpoems.org

poetry month is almost here, so, it got me to thinking...

...about my favorite poets and writers. Pablo Neruda, Sherman Alexie, and Maggie Estep to name a few. Great writers can express the daily chore of living with new eyes, they take me to places that I have never been.

Pablo Neruda can make an onion sound erotic, delicious, embracing the simplicities of a peasant. Sherman Alexie gives the world insight to life on the rez in raw, uncensored terms. Maggie Epston transforms every woman into a sex goddess. 

Good writing makes me want more. I post favorites in the Poetry section. 

Who's writing makes you want more? Please share!!

I will share a poem by Pablo Neruda, one I just discovered. enjoy..

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

Always

I am not jealous
of what came before me.

Come with a man
on your shoulders,
come with a hundred men in your hair
come with a thousand men between your breasts and your feet,
come like a river
full of drowned men
which flows down to the wild sea,
to the eternal surf, to Time!

Bring them all 
to where I am waiting for you;
we shall always be alone,
we shall always be you and I
alone earth,
to start our life!

       Pablo Neruda