Tuesday February 01, 2005: the thing with feathers
It sometimes works like this:
Driving, in my car, CD playing loudly, thinking about character motivations, holding conversations in my head that I'll write down later. My shoulders ache because I've been throwing myself at physical challenges lately, and my head is full of story that I can't wait to write down.
I am tired, but it's a good tired. The fatigue of passion, the sweet ache of a well-used muscle. If I'm up late these days it's because I'm working on writing, not because I'm wandering insomniac hallways. Or because I have someone I love with me and I don't want to let any time be wasted in sleep.
That's how it seems to work, really. At least, lately.
What more is there to say? I finished my book (almost 300,000 words) and I'm about to start on the next one. I spend much of my spare time writing and thinking about photography, and I'm switching my office and my bedroom at home in order to make more space for the things that are really important in my life. My loves are still wonderful both to and for me, my family is still calm and stable, and I seem to have completely lost the desire to write about myself.
My health is mostly doing well, I had a roommate for five weeks this winter and that was as all right as I could have imagined it being, and plans are being made for the future. I'm running again after a writing-induced hiatus, and I've changed my work hours to accommodate my running schedule.
I love and am loved.
Honestly, I'm not sure what to say beyond that.
imrama na anam
Kneel at the first gate.
Taste the stories of those who
have gone before, the names
of the remembered and forgotten.
Carry two coins for Charon,
a silver dagger for Scathach,
a length of linen and a handful of resin for Isis.
A blindfold, lest you come upon Orpheus.
A cloth for Loki's fevered brow.
Take the hand of the oak-crowned king
and lead him down into the darkness.
The staircase is long, and the man
is withered; patience is required
to pass through all of the gates.
Your living heart is the only thing
that flutters here, in the realm
where you walk in the shadows of bones
ancient and strange. The second gate
is the gate of remembering, and the third gate
the gate of forgetting.
Past the third gate, there is a dark river.
Pay the boatman, move on.
The fourth gate is leavetaking.
The fifth is breath; the sixth is absence.
Tell the man who walks slowly beside you,
it won't be long now.
Mean it, though it is untrue.
At the seventh gate, there are things
dark and bright that mutter with bladed voices
to the missing moon. Fear them, but walk past anyway.
The eighth gate holds something sleeping.
Walk quietly, lest it come awake.
There is a boy at the ninth gate.
He has a knife in his hand.
Wait. The confrontation is swift and fatal.
The ninth gate is a choice; forward, or back?
Forward and like Kore you may never return.
Back and like Osiris you may discover
what you have left behind.
But if you turn your back on perfection
and walk upwards, retracing your steps
with a holly-crowned boy at your side,
you will begin to hear once more:
the thin wind in high places
the thousands of stories that have gone before
the turning world relit with candles
the slumbering heartbeat of the world.
Driving, in my car, CD playing loudly, thinking about character motivations, holding conversations in my head that I'll write down later. My shoulders ache because I've been throwing myself at physical challenges lately, and my head is full of story that I can't wait to write down.
I am tired, but it's a good tired. The fatigue of passion, the sweet ache of a well-used muscle. If I'm up late these days it's because I'm working on writing, not because I'm wandering insomniac hallways. Or because I have someone I love with me and I don't want to let any time be wasted in sleep.
That's how it seems to work, really. At least, lately.
What more is there to say? I finished my book (almost 300,000 words) and I'm about to start on the next one. I spend much of my spare time writing and thinking about photography, and I'm switching my office and my bedroom at home in order to make more space for the things that are really important in my life. My loves are still wonderful both to and for me, my family is still calm and stable, and I seem to have completely lost the desire to write about myself.
My health is mostly doing well, I had a roommate for five weeks this winter and that was as all right as I could have imagined it being, and plans are being made for the future. I'm running again after a writing-induced hiatus, and I've changed my work hours to accommodate my running schedule.
I love and am loved.
Honestly, I'm not sure what to say beyond that.
imrama na anam
Kneel at the first gate.
Taste the stories of those who
have gone before, the names
of the remembered and forgotten.
Carry two coins for Charon,
a silver dagger for Scathach,
a length of linen and a handful of resin for Isis.
A blindfold, lest you come upon Orpheus.
A cloth for Loki's fevered brow.
Take the hand of the oak-crowned king
and lead him down into the darkness.
The staircase is long, and the man
is withered; patience is required
to pass through all of the gates.
Your living heart is the only thing
that flutters here, in the realm
where you walk in the shadows of bones
ancient and strange. The second gate
is the gate of remembering, and the third gate
the gate of forgetting.
Past the third gate, there is a dark river.
Pay the boatman, move on.
The fourth gate is leavetaking.
The fifth is breath; the sixth is absence.
Tell the man who walks slowly beside you,
it won't be long now.
Mean it, though it is untrue.
At the seventh gate, there are things
dark and bright that mutter with bladed voices
to the missing moon. Fear them, but walk past anyway.
The eighth gate holds something sleeping.
Walk quietly, lest it come awake.
There is a boy at the ninth gate.
He has a knife in his hand.
Wait. The confrontation is swift and fatal.
The ninth gate is a choice; forward, or back?
Forward and like Kore you may never return.
Back and like Osiris you may discover
what you have left behind.
But if you turn your back on perfection
and walk upwards, retracing your steps
with a holly-crowned boy at your side,
you will begin to hear once more:
the thin wind in high places
the thousands of stories that have gone before
the turning world relit with candles
the slumbering heartbeat of the world.
