Welcome To the Cedar Grove

There is an island in the sea, and on that island is a grove of trees which has never felt the sting of an axe. There within that grove a chariot is kept, veiled carefully with sacred weavings. Sometimes the priest who tends the grove becomes aware of the presence of the goddess. There is much rejoicing then, for it means she wishes to visit her children. Cows draw her chariot forth from the island, and there is much merry-making wherever she goes. Arms are left aside, and even iron knives are locked away, for there must be no war when she is abroad. Peace descends upon the world until the goddess has enough of us and, believe it if you will, retreats again to that secret island far away.

--Roman Author Tacitus Germania

She is indeed always among us. She is still with us. Even when we do not acknowledge the goddess, even when she is hidden from us, she is alive within the world.

There are time I feel her presence almost as a physical touch. The warmth of arms around my wandering soul. There are times I feel her breath flowing through me as the air that empowers me, gives me life, and voice, and energy. There are times I taste the sweetness of her upon my lips; her love within my heart, and stirring the passions of my body - and my mind.

And there are times when her face is turned from me, the moon dark above my head; her blood coursing from an empty chambered womb - spirit raised in righteous, strong anger against injustice... intollerance, against malevolence; wrongdoing.

For each breath of peace the Lady brings, there is the balance, the opposite, the call to action, and I feel each part of her - the innocence and passion of the Maiden, the love of the mother, and the gathering-in of the crone. Each face has its place within my heart and in my soul.

Even the hidden fourth face... that which is everything and nothing, life and death, peace and violence both together.

That which is

Standing on the riverbank
the sun goddess asked for a sword.
It was the length of ten hands
and it hung by the side of her brother,
the god of stormy weather.
He handed it to her, and she
broke it apart. It fell into jewels
in her hands, jewels which she washed
in a secred well, rinsing them clean
as they sand to her. Then she ate them.
She chewed them up and spat them out
and from the jewels which had been a sword
came a miracle: three lovely children

--Kojiki, Japanese scriptures.

Free to imagine herself as anything she desires, she is unfettered and full of hope. We have each within us such a being, a girl who never dies despite our age. As winter moves toward spring, let us find her within us again.

For me, that little girl is my creativity, and I sure need to find her again. My hopes and dream stalled in the middle of last years NaNoWriMo for moving here, and I have never truly found her again. So if I could have anything... if I could have my dream, what would it be?

I don't want to necessarily be famous, I just want the novels written and selling modestly well. I mean the dream if we're talking real dreams... you know, the kind that never come true, I'd get an agent and publisher that would move me lock stock and barrel to be able to write in NC - option the movie or tv show to be filmed in Wilmington or something... but I'm grown up enough to know that's pie-in-the-sky.

So yes - my little girl wants to get Use'ara published, wants to get Awakening published, wants to write more. On the tail of that, there's the business idea... to run writers' workshops in schools, combine the two things I do that I love. I wish I could have gotten that off the ground before I left for Cairo, then maybe I wouldn't have come at all. I wish I could get it off the ground now... though I don't know how from so far - then maybe I could return to familiar, secure grounds.

Practically, if I'm to return from Egypt, I need to find work - work that's going to allow me to be away for a month in the middle of October - and I know that's a pretty all ask. Subbing gives the flexibility, but not the certainty - and when I came out here there just wasn't the work around. But if I'm brutally honest - and I've promised to be - emotionally, I don't know if I can survive out here for another year. I haven't truly been well since I got here, Mir assertion of you're always sick has turned into a truism, and part of it, yes, is that I'm not in a good way emotionally, part of it is the air quality too, I'm sure, but that little girl inside me is curled up in a corner somewhere feeling like a kicked puppy trying to deal with the incluturation and settling still, even after 3 months... not as brave as I thought, certainly a kick in the teeth that. Yeah, feel really good about myself just now.