Pegasus Dan and the Little Owl

 

I would like to announce the publication of Pegasus Dan and the Little Owl, my first book on Amazon through CreateSpace. I have had the great privileged to collaborate with illustrator Robert Joy on this project. It’s the story of Pegasus Dan helping a little owl even though he has been taught not to trust the nocturnal animals of the forest.  This book is particularly important to me as the storyline emphasizes overcoming fear. During the last few years I have come to the realization that it is imperative to do whatever I can to increase the amount of trust and compassion in the world.

A few years ago, I attended a session at a Kansas Library Association conference which was about literature geared toward LGBTQIA awareness. There are so few books for children that deal with this topic, that I felt a great urgency to create literature centered upon the theme of acceptance. While my story is not necessarily about orientation, it is about compassion, of which there can never be enough.

I also felt the need to write about this topic very strongly as I helped my mother after the passing my uncle. During his life, his parents were not able to understand his orientation, and I feel that impacted him in a negative way. If we can find acceptance within ourselves, we can create a more peaceful and harmonious world together. We are not alone in life, and it’s a good thing because we need one another. We need each other to form communities. We need each other to sustain our bodies. We need each other to understand ourselves.

I am continually grateful for the friendships in my life as they inform and teach me about myself. I am grateful for understanding that difference does not mean isolation, but rather provides a chance to learn and understand. Writing stories something I can do to increase the amount of compassion and help make the world a better place. In addition, I have decided to donate a portion of the proceeds to organizations that support the LGBTQIA community. Please stay tuned for upcoming announcements about book signings, where you will have the opportunity to meet me and illustrator Robert Joy.

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Disappear

Some days she felt invisible, transparent, a whisper, a skeletonized leaf. The wind could take her anywhere. Into the blue. Clouds, they move fast, but time on the land moves slowly.

A cough racked her slight frame. How was it she’d been so sick this year? Every burden, a doorway through which some virus found purchase. Then she’d forget her fragility until it became unavoidably apparent. These are your limitations. You’re different. But then again, there is no normal.

Little fairy child, living in the forest shade. It’s no wonder the world of men is so odd to you, whose first language was the wind in the trees. Water over rocks. The conversation between the yellow petals and the bees they attract. The luminosity of a butterfly wing against the transparency of the endless cerulean sky. It is no wonder you fail when you try, in this place that lacks all of what created you.

via Disappear

Tide

Somewhere above, life is rushing fast, everyone to work then home again in an endless cycle. The wind is roaring. The lightning strikes. Clap of thunder, now muffled. Bend beneath the waves. Down here the sea grass is moving slowly, and perhaps you are watching the mating rituals of seahorses. You are the sea sand. You are the granules that drift lightly to and from each small dune.

via Tide

Thwart

The pirate was baffled to find the bulwarks embattled. Fuming, frothing horses stood and waited for an attack, but none came. Veins stood out. Bridles held tight. A star shot across the night. “Hey,” someone said… and no one replied. Then they turned and fled, down a muddy bank or across a thudding bridge (you choose which). “This conundrum is a mess. This is the last stand,” I say. We should run, gallop back to the ship. Take the booty that is our lives and get the heck outa here. Back to the start, an old friend nodding in the dark. Hike in the moonlight, grip tight and then let go, check the phone every minute or so. Kill the end rhyme.  Take it out back and let the trailer park lady have at it… you know the one. Howl at the moon. Swim. Dunk. Dive. Wear a suit and get the tooled leather shoes you’re dreaming of. Look for god somewhere. Find a little peace somehow. “I know the way,” they all say. Rip the timber down trying to be trendy. Run out of energy. Say you’re not ready. Lie, sigh, say you’re fine.

via Thwart

Foreign

I sense my own foreignness today. This body– experienced like some sort of space craft I have been asked to drive.

Words open doors in us, diminishing the distance.

Sanding. Pressure over time. Slowly back and forth. We hardly even notice we are gently wearing away each day.

Drawers painted white. A project finished.

Standing in the light.

The distance between us. Two figures face away from each other. Between them lines are drawn. Defining pain sometimes lessens it.

via Foreign

Patience

I will sit and watch the elm trees sway, their round buds opening. The birds sing.

I’ll take out the recycling. I’ll pet the cat and feed her things. This is spring. This is spring.

I’ll contemplate the redundancy of rhyming. I’ll feed myself a boiled egg and then tea. I’ll look at growing things. Search the grey sky for a break. Do the laundry. Imagine moving.

This is spring. This is spring.

Greens of the Saffron crocus wintered over. Now daffodils come up to meet them.

I think about changing things. I’m gonna sort my clothing. This is spring. This is spring.

I’ll make a film this fall and soon I’ll get my book all done. This is spring. This is spring.

I’m gonna dance and sing.

 

via Patience

Wonder

She gazed at the sky. Contentment, it takes away the emptiness. The blue exempts another otherness. Sound of birds sweeps the trees. Clouds leapt across the sky. The Mourning Dove cooing.

Remembering– when each object traced a trajectory back to part of a heart, and there it lingered and tore itself a home.

How to create beauty with this. The calamity of life sounding. I try to confide, be calm– operate with awareness, but everywhere is inaction. The Mourning Dove cooing, a sensation of peace so fleeting.

Impertinent impediment, where are you sustained?

Take these trappings, free me.

Give me wonder.

via Wonder

Sunshine Blogger Award

Thanks to Megha Bhartiya creator of insoakedsoul for nominating me for the Sunshine Blogger Award! Check out some great poetry and images to boot on that happening blog.

RULES:

1. Thank the person who nominated you.

2. Answer the questions from the person who has nominated you.

3. Nominate other bloggers for the award.

4. Write the same amount of questions for the bloggers you have nominated.

5. Notify the bloggers you have nominated.

Blogs I am nominating for the award:

Blogs I am nominating:

1.https://noceilingnowalls.wordpress.com/

2.https://myvaliantsoulsblog.wordpress.com/

3.http://www.thinkwriteinspire.com

4.http://myyearwithoutcomplaining.com

QUESTIONS FOR MY NOMINATIONS:

1. What is one of the most exciting things that has happened to you?
2. Who is one of your favorite authors?
3. What advice would you give your younger self?
4. Do you like to use the Oxford Comma?
5. Should vampires sparkle?
6. Are unicorns real? (If not, why?)
7. Do fairies exist? (If not, why?)
8. Describe the most elaborate dessert you have ever eaten.
9. If you could have dinner with anyone alive or dead, who would it be?
10. What is the most appealing shade of purple? (If you dislike purple, please explain why.)
11. Describe your favorite sweater.

 

Answers to the questions I received when nominated:

1.Favourite book and its favourite quote?

I’m not entirely sure about my favorite… there are so many. I recently read “The Lost Art of Good Conversation: A Mindful Way to Enrich Life and Connect with Others” by Sakyong Mipham, which I received via bloggingforbooks (book review coming soon). This book is crammed with quotable passages. For example “By strengthening confidence in our own worthiness, we engender confidence in the worthiness of humanity itself.” (p.39) I am currently reading “Heartless” by Marissa Meyer. I’d like to share a quote during a game of croquet involving hedgehogs and flamingos, “‘It’s not who wins or Loses!” Margaret Shrieked. “It’s how one stays the same!”‘ (p120)

2.Favourite flavour ?

Sour. I like sour more than sweet. Lemons, pickles… I used to eat the green apples off of the tree as a child.

3.Favourite TV show?

I will reply with three: I liked the Peaky Blinders, the Santa Clarita Diet, and must admit that I watched all of New Girl.

4.What’s your pet-peeve?

Hypocrisy.

5.Describe the most hilarious or the weirdest dream you ever had.

Flying low over the Rio Grande river near the town of Pilar. It was magical.

6.Favourite song and artist?

I am partial to Iron and Wine. Like the song “Sacred Vision.”

7.What’s your idea of an ideal vacation?

If I can learn something, make connections with some locals, or be involved in creating art, it doesn’t really matter where I am traveling. I enjoy visiting botanical gardens (or nature of any sort) and art museums. I loved Vancouver, Canada.

8.Are you the ‘forgive-forget’ type or the ‘remember-revenge’ type and why?

Forgive and forget. Life is long. What’s the point of being vengeful? It only makes you miserable.

9.When was the last time you laughed and why?

I recently was at a wedding where a building was described as a doughnut. The person next to me was like, “Actually, it’s more of a doughnut hole.” (Which was very accurate!)

10.Choose a movie title to describe yourself.

I imagine I’m in the movie Moonstruck, but actually would fit in better in that Avatar world. I’d be just fine hopping free tree to tree and riding the ikran (flying dragon creatures).

11.What is the one thing about yourself that you greatly admire?

I have a voracious mind and the capacity for compassion.

 

If Death Were a Spice

Is death a flavor, a spice to living? If it is a spice, it is one that comes with a sense of fear, chili perhaps. It is the spice that inspires us to do the things we want to do–before it is too late. Have the big art show. Write the novel. Sail around the world. Go to Burning Man.

I see the fear. I see the goal. Do not let the fear consume the goal. Do not let the fear consume.

If death is a spice, what does its bottle look like? Dark? Dusty, skull and bones? Or filled with light brighter than the eye can see. Angel of deliverance. Angel of deliverance. Suffering’s end.

Where do we go? My uncle died and visited my father. They talked for hours. “How are you here?” my father asked.

“I am everywhere,” my uncle replied.

He is now particles, dispersed–everything suspended in the dust that blows around the earth. Free from suffering. Free form existence.

Distracted, my eye wanders to the bubbles in the glass, levitating to their death. The short life of a bubble in a carbonated beverage.

Somewhere someone is allergic to wheat. Someone’s a gravedigger in a small town. Someone young has leukemia. Someone is dying, their particles beginning to disperse. Quickly, we must remember why we are here. Before it’s too late. Before we go somewhere, nowhere, anywhere.

I don’t mind talking about death–however, staying there may be too much for too long.

How do we keep death at bay? We sing. We dance. We create to combat its unmaking. We must make, make merry.

The star that won’t be dimmed.

What are we?

Part bone, part hair, part flesh, part soul, part laugh, part cry, part stone, part ocean, part mountain, part sky.

 

Simplify

Take these thoughts and transform them into gold. Rumpelstiltskin them. Spin this grey day into silver. Gather weariness into a diaphanous strand of longing. Take these desires and spin a gossamer gown. From this dullness, weave a pair of wings. I’d like to wear a mask. I’d like to dance. I’d like to fly.

via Simplify