Welcome To the Cedar Grove

 The title says it all. After two days of not meeting my quota I was DETERMINED to get the Mind Map for Harm finished, and... finally, I did.

 Set a modest target. Write for 3 hours in each day of spring break. Monday, maybe 2 hours if I'm lucky, and not all in one chunk as intended. Not even in hour chunks or half hour, nope... tiny bit here, there... lots of chores done though.

Must be a better way!

 I joined a challenge on Habitica.  Here is the answer for my first day

 So Saturday, it happened. The "Blue Screen of Death" - yep. My computer's hard drive failed, and had I backed anything up? Of course I hadn't. By sheer luck, because I have been trying to write on my lunch break at work the only file I wasn't certain of that I really really need, I had transferred to my flash drive. Other stuff I had been working on in Google Docs. That was a relief, but still... my poor computer. I am hoping for a data recovery, but I'm not going to hold my breath. The most frustrating thing, aside from feeling stupid that it hadn't been backed up in forever, is that now I will yet again fall behind in my meditation game, Playne. There's nothing I can do about it, the other computers in the house are not 'new'/powerful enough to play it. For some reason the graphics card requirement for the game are humongous. So yeah... that was upsetting. I'm still managing to meditate without the program, since I've gotten into the habit already, just... I wanted to see the flowers that were the next promised upgrade. They won't even start working on my computer until Wednesday.

I've started trying to blog at least three times each week - anything else is a bonus - and the post on Friday will revolve around writing the current WIP, which is called Use'Ara's Harm. Today's post is about the characters E'fframe and Kolya. You can read it here.

Has it really been since December that I last posted.  That's bad.  That's life though, been very busy with unwriterly things, working with an awesome team at a local elementary school to assist a deaf student (and learning ASL in the process)... taking care of another EC kid after school two days a week; minding a church nursery on Sundays - means I've been busy, but I've still been chipping away at writing things, and have a few exciting things to bring to light.

First of all, have had a major overhaul of the two websites I keep bringing them up to date. Please take the time to take a look. The first one is eirianhoupe.com.



And then there is the cedarfiction.net website here:



That's the easy part.  After that it gets a bit more complicated.

I recently made an announcement on Fanfiction.net that I was going to start pulling down the stories from the virtual season of Stargate Atlantis that I had been writing. No, I've not fallen out of love with SGA, but the thing is, I want to use the elements of those fics that were original thoughts - my own work, research and creation, and bring them into the current science fiction project I have underway, where they would be very much at home.  So, regrettably the SGA:VS5 has to go.  It wasn't an easy decision by any means, but I feel that it's the right one, especially in light of the whole spamdexing fiasco that went on recently over at fanfiction.net. So that'll be happening starting any time now, and please note if you go looking back through this journal, the links to the stories here won't work.  They're already gone from the cedarfiction website during the overhaul, replaced by links back to them on Fanfiction.net. So if you feel like a last minute read, head on over to the Worlds and Works of Eirian Houpe Atlantis Gallery.

Lastly, for now at least, I'm kind of excited at this one. In order to help support the creation of the Use'ara series, I joined Patreon. rather than me trying to explain the ins and outs of the site, head on over to see what they themselves say it's all about, and who knows, maybe you'll find a new artist, or musician, or even writer you like and help support their work.  You can find my profile by clicking the image below.



But wait!  I almost forgot, I also updated my WORDPRESS site too. That's where  you can find more specific (and different) snippets of information about Use'ara, Butterfly Raven, and Life After: Awakening.

The first time I felt this way, and had the very same thought, I was standing in the shower watching the snow fall down outside the frosted glass of the bathroom window; the second also in the shower, though this time the sun was shining - or trying to shine - outside. This third time I am once again in the shower, but this time it is dark, the temperature of the shower is far too high, and rather than watching the distorted world through the bathroom window's frosted glass, I am watching the steam obscuring my view, the condensation settling on the window, shrouding the frosted glass and the symbolism of it finally penetrates my brain as the question surfaces again: Why have I not been blogging? Why do I not post my status on Facebook? Do I truly have nothing to say?

Oh, certainly, I might share a whole bunch of photographs or inspirational quotations from other pages that I find meaningful or poignant, and sometimes I might even do more than just hit the share button, and post a word or two about why I have shared them, but little more.

I've known for some time I've been censoring myself; editing myself so that the frames come together to tell the story in another way, because... well.. frankly it's just easier that way - far less conflict.

Except inside myself.

So I said, on several occasions, that I wasn't going to do it any more, and yet here I am still doing it... and frustrating myself in that. I have ended up feeling like I have (or worse yet, should have) no voice, no opinion and certainly no feelings. The upshot of which has further hampered any sense of creativity and life that was all but stifled - as if with a pillow over the face - by a year long sojourn in Egypt.

Happily I'm out of that situation now. Still not where I truly want to be, but... what can I say? Some countries and some of her peoples are certainly backwards in their own sense of egality and in following the literal, and the meaning in spirit, of their own founding principles. So much so, that they shroud any route toward said egality in so much thorny red tape that even their own citizens do not know and cannot understand all the ins and outs of navigating it in order to gain admittance. I hate politics... and that's one thing you probably won't find me blogging about any time soon, (more than I have done just here anyway).

So what's to say, and what's to do, and definitely what's to write when all that was creative in my soul has been somehow deadened to the point where, yes - I will latch on to anything that is in the remotest bit a resuscitation, a work around, or even a leg up and over the dreaded wall of 'writer's block' that has been plaguing me for the last eighteen months or so?

The Use'ara cycle was coming along nicely, getting the Nano treatment but then was interrupted by the move to Cairo. Similarly the Life After series ground to an unceremonious halt. I turned to fandom to keep some shred of creativity alive, and managed at least to finish the 13th story of a series I had been working on before the block caught up even there.

But I digress...

As far as Facebook is concerned, I feel... uncomfortable, that's a nice gentle word, let's use that one, posting about what's going on and how I feel about it. I know I shouldn't, but sometimes, some of the posts I read on my news feed seem so much like people just airing their dirty linen in public, as it were. Do I really want to do that? Maybe it's just my overly conservative (note the small c) British nature that causes that. Should I adopt a more bolshy, forthright approach like other world citizens and just... tell it like it is, warts and all? Maybe I should try it for a while and see or feel the results for myself.

As for blogging, well, I find that the trouble with a lot of blogging is that in many cases, it tends toward political comments. I've already stated I don't really do politics. Oh, I live with them, like everyone has to because they're a sad fact of life. I have an opinion on political matters too, but in most cases that is my own and not for sharing. The trouble with political blogging is that, at least to me, it seems always to be hateful and angry. There is much to be said for exercising the option not to say anything at all, and to allow that to speak for your opinion and feelings on a matter. Is that not the basis of the advice your mother always told you: If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all? Other types of blogging require... well... something to happen to inspire it. Stuck in my little hamster-wheel I usually end up feeling like the most boring person on the face of the planet. Who wants to read over and over again about the traffic on my way to wherever, and the kids (Whether hellions or angels) that I meet and work with?

Oh, I know there's more to it than that, and yes, I'm probably making excuses because - as happened very recently - when I do open my yap about something or another, it rarely ends up with me feeling any better about things and/or myself. But, since discourse is generally thought of as good, and because I have to do something to unlock this door, or take a wrecking ball to the wall that is standing between me and the creativity, which I know has to be on the other side of the wall, let this be a public affirmation of the permission to at least try... and feel free to poke me - but gently - with reminders to comply with my own wishes.

(A/N: As an demonstration of what I mean through all of this - it has taken me 3 months to write this.)

The forest is beyond my strength.
My rose is hidden far from me.
If the wood were less in length
My rose would be less far from me.

If I could have my precious rose,
I'd live in love forever.
If I knew what Shekinah knows
My exile would be shorter.

--Song of Rabbi Isaac of Laig

Like the rose-windows that shone in medieval cathedrals, the rose shines forth from spiritual poetry, embodying profound spiritual meaning.

I've always been attracted to roses, though not necessarily as a symbol of wisdom. I like the aesthetic shape of them, their scent... to think of them as a symbol of wisdom and to link them with spiritual poetry - that's new for me.

I suppose it shouldn't be, though I don't know why.

It may be because my experience of writing poetry has always been more of an emotional one than a 'spiritual' one. I've only written one with a specific spiritual bent, and that was a prose poem that I'm sure I've posted onto LJ before at some point... concerning the creation of life and the world through the love of the Lord and Lady of life. The rest of the time the poetry I've written has been an outlet for my emotions, and usually at a time when those emotions were stormy or intense

That is what feels 'normal' to me for the writing of poetry.. so am I sitting here now thinking that I should be writing poetry of a more spiritual bent? No, I don't think so. I just find it curious that I should have gone down this avenue of thought when beginning at the rose.

Taking the rose as a symbol of wisdom... deconstructing that symbol through meditation has been interesting - with the outer petals that are the simple, easy to access and understand wisdoms of every day life. They are soft, they are beautiful and we can smell the fragrance of the rose, but know instinctively that the greater scent and deeper wisdoms are coming from within... so we look harder, and we breath deeper, and the closer, more tightly budded petals of the mid and inner parts of the rose are revealed, slowy as the outer open to us, fall away for us to see - to understand the inner. This is the process by which we acquire our wisdom, through patience, watching and waiting, and living beyond the unfolded softness of those outer petals of the world.

We listen to... we see and seek, and breath the inner core of the rose.

The goddess draped reself in clouds adn flew
across her many islands to the great mountain
where the Muses lived, renowned Parnassus,
and spoke to them directly: "I have heard," she said,
"that water rises here, a new spring kicked to life
by that strange offspring of Medusa, the horse
with wings and lightning hooves." Urania nodded.
"We rejoice you found a reason for this visit," she said,
"for you are ever present with us, in our hearts."
And then she took the goddess to a dark wood
filled with caverns and dappled with meadows
where spring blossoms flourished. And the goddess
stayed awhile there, happy in the company
of memory's sweet daughters, marvelling
at sweet water rising from hard rock like
inspiration that comes after a long drought, like
the heart that loves again after brutal loss.

-Ovid, Metamorphoses

There she sees the miraculous spring called Castalia, the source of all genius, which the great winged horse Pegausu opened in the rock with one strike of his flinty hooves.

And is this not the miracle we each perform every time we create something new and original...?

The reality of creativity, at least for me, is that it is very linked with the element of water... so it is very tied in with the emotional side of me. This isn't necessarily very good for a writer in some respects.

As an amateur, I suppose it's not so problematic that 'not being in the mood' to write, or being 'too upset' to write well, or of course the reverse, (though few writers seem to complain about being too happy to write), sometimes gets in the way of the process of writing, but if I'm to do so in any professional, or even semi-professional way, I need to push past that and write because that's what I want to do.

The current reality has been though that I have allowed my emotions to come between me and the writing that I want to do. (And you can tell when you're missing Stargate: Atlantis when... *no prizes for thinking of the quote that came floating into my head when I was typing the above confession*). So now I need to act like Pegasus and strike with my fliny hoof to crack the shell that's hardened around my creativity and allow the waters of the wellspring to bubble through.

It's a beautiful image for meditating upon... to feel myself transformed, even momentarily, into the magnificent winged horse, free from earthly constraints, taking flight only to return to ground and strike with a hoof, to crack the dark shell that shrouds the waters of my creativity, to feel the cool waters of it to bubble through and bathe the burning of my desires to write, to slake my thirst for words upon the page; upon the screen - within my heart.

But the analytical side of my brain also demands the question why? Why is it that I cannot write when agitated, upset, lonely, depressed... that I cannot write when overly excited, too happy to settle to it - surely these would be the best times to harness the energies of the water rushing just beneath the surface of my worlds.

How does the goddess clothe herself?
Her handmaidens have woven her a cloak
from all the flowers of springtime:
Larkspur and crocus, violets and rose,
narcissus sweet as honey, nectar lilies.
She needs no perfume, for her robes
are as fragrant as her very self.
When we inhale the springtime,
we are breathing in her beauty.

--The Cyprian Lays, Greek, eighth century BCE

We are part of this world. Energies rise within us, too. We may put these to creative use, or we may find new energies within relationships.

I have been feeling restless today... yes. A certain restlessness to use the creative energies that have been given to me as a gift, and have been supported by my loved ones, my wonderful guy.

At least in part I know that this has actually been there for some time, this rise in creativity in me, and yes, quite possibly with the returning energies of springtime too, but was blocked by the way I was feeling and the inherent negativity that I had cocooned around me. But hey, now I'm feeling it, I'm really feeling it.

I want to embrace those energies, now and get writing again, and I know I've said this a million times, but get some stuff out there too. The mind abounds with possibilities, there are so many things I can do. I could make a list of all of the projects in the pipe and there are about five things that spring to mind right from the top of my head, and that's without digging around in all the shadowy half thoughts of, that would make a good story.

I also really need my photo editing software. I know it's not brilliant, but it's what I know, and learning a new one I'll confess to being unsure that wouldn't frustrate me. I'm just being honest there. But there are images I need to play with. Okay this part I will confess has been rekindled by some - at least in my opinion - outstanding digital artwork that Mir has made recently for her FB page and her web page and all. She has such skill in these things, is very artistic and creative. There are times when I am in awe of her. Also though, if I finish the latest SGA story I'm doing, I'm going to need to make the banners for the next ones. An nteresting problem to find a solution for. How to get all of the things I need that I left behind in England without a) it costing a fortune, and b) them getting lost in the mail, like just about everything else here. I'm thinking maybe Fedex might be my friend.

And still very much want to do a photography course. Mir and I were talking about that a lot recently, checking out some of the courses there.. It will be good to be able to do at some point. Take those pictures I want to take. I remember the walk we went on, Mir and I, just along the road, to take pictures of what we could see in nature, and the amazing pictures that Mir took for me then... and the amazing ones she's taken of the rats, and of snowy benches at Biltmore, and... and... and... She's very good. I'd like to be that good, even half of that. I see the ideas in my head, so I want to be able to take the kind of shots I want.

I know I'm rambling... guess I'm feeling that spring energy more than I realised, and perhaps that's the cause of the restlessness. That and the desire to create, to write, that and knowing I have a weekend coming where I can start to do some of that, to embrace and reconnect with the goddess' creative energies inside of myself.