Only Endless Memory

Monday, September 22, 2008

Salem and a Writing Exercise

I went to Salem, Massachusetts on Saturday and spent the day walking (painfully) around town and doing some shopping at the pagan shops. In the evening, we went to a Mabon ritual held by Temple of the Nine Wells in town there. I was there with friends from the pagan group that we have running at our church, and we all seemed to have a good time. I had the money to spend on one of my pastimes of collecting tarot decks.

Yes, I do collect tarot decks. I have 44 separate tarot decks not counting the various other sets of divination cards or tools (i.e. The Visual I Ching, Throwing of the Bones, Rune Cards and Runes, Medicine Cards, Animal Cards, etc). If you are also wondering whether or not I do tarot readings, I do. I do not use all of my decks for readings. Some of them are only for art and I would not be at all comfortable doing readings with them. I use various decks depending on intent or the person I am reading for. I have been sticking with one deck more then another recently as I have found that I am working towards reading in a different manner then I used to (which was always using the cheat sheet that came with the deck). I am now working on reading cards intuitively mostly by what I see or feel from the cards.

I also mentioned a writing exercise in the title. It has been a while since I have posted a writing exercise, at least partially to the fact that I have not been writing as much as I had been. Well, in the effort to get into writing more, I am also working on writing more in general again, so it is time to do a writing exercise. I am not sure who, if anyone reads my posts regularly, or even irregularly, but if there is something they would like as a writing exercise or suggestion, I would be happy to take suggestions. Until then, I will stick with my old methods.

For my inspiration for this story, I used the Speculative Fiction Muse.
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On the Dangers of Dune Migration

Todd looked out across the sand. Well, there was not much to look at but sand. Some of the sand dunes were rather impressive, but it was still sand. There was also the sun, but Todd preferred not to think too much about that cause it made him think about things like being thirsty and how nice a glass of iced tea would be on a nice sunny day and how unlikely that would be about now out here with all the sand.

Instead he thought about sand dunes. Sand dunes were, on the whole, unappreciated by most people. They would think that a sand dune was a sand dune was a sand dune. There actually was more to a sand dune then just being a sand dune though. There were actually types of sand dunes. Sand dunes could be tranverse, linear, or star dunes and could be simple, compound or complex. Then there were whalebacks and, of course, the often misconstrued quicksand. He knew a lot about sand dunes alright.

He walked some as he thought about sand dunes and their migration patterns, starting to think of his own movement in a similar way. Being pushed by the wind until it was eventually forced over by the weight of time or some other outside force to then become the lower edge of a dune and continue the migration pattern. He was not sure his migration would go much further other then to become part of the dunes, which would not be an altogether bad thing in the big picture he supposed.

A light flashed off to his left and he turned to see more sand. What would cause a flash of light out here? Reflections of the sun off from some object. Some object that was not sand. Could he have a hope that it was water? He altered his course slightly, and headed off to the left. That would be the west, toward the setting sun. If the sun ever set around here. Of course the sun set around here. Another flash of light caused him to hurry his step slightly, and he stumbled. The first flash of light had not been his imagination.

Gathering himself, he continued on. Forcing himself to keep from trying to rush too much and waste his already waning strength. He still saw no real signs of actual water, just those brief flashes. None of the signs of trees or other plant life that generally surround an oasis, but perhaps it is one of the springs that comes to ground during certain times of the year. This would in ways be better then seeing the picture perfect oasis then he might start think he was seeing things. Even better when the flash came again, it was much closer.

He made his last push up the windward face of one of the larger dunes and that is when he saw Skye. He sat down and stared at the uncomprehending face staring back at him. "What? What are you doing out here all alone?" he cried out in confusion.

"I could ask you the same thing," her voice answered in return, sounding rather husky from emotion.

"I came out here to study sand dunes, and things were going so well, so I, well, anyways, I got caught in a sandstorm and lost my equipment and my bearings. I figured if I kept heading north, I would find something, I may have miscalculated. Who are you?"

"I'm Skye. I got lost, too. I figured I was going to die here all alone in this wasteland with nothing but sand for miles, but now you are here."

"I'm Todd." He looked around. He had not found an oasis or water. He had found another person who was lost. What were the chances of that? His mind was trying to come up with the rather astronomical odds when she spoke again.

"You don't know a way for us to get out of here either do you?"

Todd shook his head sadly, numbers still spinning in his head.

"It is better then being alone though. Will you stay though, Todd? I don't think I have the strength to keep walking on forever through the sands. Even if I count all the different types of dunes or sand flats."

"Yes, I can stay here with you, Skye. I don't want to be alone either. After all the walking I did, I think the think I was most afraid of was that I would die here alone in the sand and be forgotten by all but the sand.

Skye smiled, "I was feeling the same way. I did not want to die alone out here, but now we are together, and it won't be so bad. You will have more then just the sand to remember you. You will have Skye."

And so Skye and Todd was not alone when death claimed them in the cold of night. In the morning, the winds blew, already forming a new dune over Todd and the mirror he held in his lap.

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Thursday, September 18, 2008

"Back" into Writing

Yes, I keep saying I have to get back into writing regularly, and I have been doing a poor job of it. I really, really hate September. I generally have a lot of depression in September and it slows me down a lot from doing many things. Writing just happens to be on of the things that I am not doing. I have been spending a lot of time sleeping. I also started playing a different computer game and that has my mind off on other things. My sleep has been all messed up due a few different things, the depression being the main one.

The other thing that has been effecting me a great deal is my back. I decided that I wanted to carry the air conditioner from the old apartment down to the basement for storage over the winter. It was part of the things I still needed to do around the apartment since moving in. Well, when I lifted up from the floor, I felt something do this sort of slide and pop in my back. It did not immediately hurt, but as I made my way across the floor and then down the steps to the basement, it got worse and worse.

I managed to get the air conditioner properly placed on the its' shelf, and then tried to sit down and the pain really started. I made an appointment that evening with my doctors' office and had one of my friends come over to pick me up and take me there. It seems I have managed to get a sacroiliac joint injury. This is basically, the place where the hip connects to the spine and has very minimal motion. I caused it to move more then it really should move and have been paying for it since then.

Between depression and pain and pain meds, I have spent a lot of time asleep and a lot of time just trying to distract myself from the fact that I am in a great deal of pain. It is definitely better then it was on Friday, but it is still hurting a great deal. So, that is my excuse for not writing recently. September Sucks.

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Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Another Day in my Life

So, as you see, I have not gotten back into the habit of writing daily into the blog. I am mostly settled down into the new apartment, I do have a few scattered boxes to unpack still, and the place is still a lot messier then I would like it to be. I have just not been feeling very motivated to do much since the first large unpacking spree. I have had a bit of depression and that has just making it hard to get anything anything done.

Outside of that, I went to Voc Rehab today and had my Voc Assessment. The person I saw seems to be supporting me going to school, and was very nice at least. I did generally well on the tests if a bit slow on some of the timed parts, but I was also accurate on them. So, she gets to point out that I am anal retentive, but not necessarily in those words.

Last night was a meeting with the Pagan Circle for us to discuss the Samhain circle. Things are progressing nicely for it. I am writing up most of the ritual for it. We are doing the normal casting the circle, and invoking the Goddess and God, then we are having a memorial for the dead. After that we are doing a blessing for a ritual broom and will have a story that goes with that. We will also offer apples to people and have a brief story about what the apples represent. Michelle is writing up the part about the apples, and Susan is doing the write up about the broom, with me helping out if needed. We will then have a reading of one of my poems, a time to share our experiences, then open the circle.

I have the memorial, casting, invocation and dismissals written up. I need to write up a description of the holiday, and I think that is basically it. I also need to buy some ribbon to wrap the broom with. I might post some of it a bit later. I just wanted to make sure I posted something today, because it has been so long. I spent the past hour on Ventrilo talking to my brother.

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Tuesday, September 2, 2008

It's Been Forever

Well, like the title says, it has been forever since I have written. I was very busy with the whole packing and moving thing, and being depressed that my apartment was not my home anymore. Then the big move came and with it my internet came down and was not up in my new apartment like it was supposed to be. It just finally came up today after several days with arguing with my isp provider. It was made even more fun by the fact that my phone is VoIP, so all my calls to Verizon were made either at the pay phone a block away or on cell phones that I borrowed from various friends. (Yes, I am one of those people who live back in medieval ages without a cell phone).

I am happy to be online again, even if all I did today was kill my brain cells by reading http://icanhascheezburger.com/, reading my email, listening to all 15 of my voice mail, and chatting with my brother on Ventrilo. That is actually what I am still doing now, we are talking about possibly having me take a trip to Washington DC and maybe catching some of the Nerdfighting Tour in Virginia. My brother is planning out a vacation for me if his wife allows him to. I would love to see some of the tour, I know. Nerdfighter Vacation!!

I need to call my doctor in the morning as I seem to have developed an infection on my thumb from an ingrown nail that does not want to go away. I am so not looking forward to getting it poked and prodded, but I really need to do something with it, cause I can't do normal things like sign checks without pain. luckily most of typing I can do.Moving has been pretty nasty, cause just the pressure of lifting and moving things has been making it open and do unpleasant things.

Okay, my brain is completely not on straight right now, so I am going to head out and maybe later I can think in at least somewhat cohesive sentences and paragraphs without getting distracted.. Oh Shiny!!

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