RICIMER - TANGLED TIMES

A little boy, aware of his Destiny, sure of his determination to fulfill it …

a youngling lad, far from home so that he can master the knowledge and skills he will need in order to succeed, surrounded always by those from whom and with whom he is taught, yet alone always, alone with the demands of his Destiny …

a young man developing ties which will further his career, ties that will prove vital as the motion of his Destiny carries him ever onward along that path …

a man grown, gathering into his own fists the lines of control, sure of his direction, confident in the strength of those ties and of the lines of authority which carry the strength to his own hands …

a man, solitary, whose supports are one by one by one knocked from beneath him until when finally, in death, he can say the words “We did it” most of the companions, the ‘WE’ to which he refers, have gone on ahead of him into death.

They say we all die alone … but … maybe not.

One man.

One Destiny.

Not to rule but to break forever the power of ‘Comply or Die’.

Not to force his own will, but to force the Peoples of Europe to find, forge, fight for, and follow their Own Will.

One man.

One Destiny.

A continent at his command.

Hear the command of Ricimer:

‘Think or Sink!’

‘Fight or Fall!’

‘If not now, when? If not you, who?’

One man.

One Destiny.

Ricimer opens the maw of the smelter – and some call it hell – whose fire already burns, shoves in the raw ore, works the bellows, and steps away.

‘Think or Sink!’

‘Fight or Fall!’

‘Choose or Lose!’

‘Freedom belongs to you. Where now your Faith? Who cares for your Family but you? Choose wisely your Friends lest they become your foes. You hold in your hands, today, the Future of generations not yet even conceived.’

Such is the message of Ricimer to all of the Peoples he encounters.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Again.

He tells the Peoples until his throat is raw, his voice hoarse.

‘You have now, today, the Freedom to Choose,’ he tells them. ‘Find the Will to do so.’

The maw is open.

‘Now CHOOSE!’ he shouts.

And shoves the Peoples of Europe into the gaping maw of the smelter from which will emerge the Iron Will of the Peoples.

One man.

One Destiny.

A mother weeps for her son, who must do what no other can or will, no matter what.

Ullin of Iona counts, again, the Tears of Anna.

Getting back into RICIMER mode ... BUT MEANWHILE ...

Let it be a challenge to me.

We left him at age 12 with almost the whole of his very active life ahead of him.

He's got places to go, things to do, people to see.

Protege of Aetius, along with Majorian and Aegidius, Ricimer's Destiny is not going to be an easy one.

In between us abandoning Ricimer in the days of his youth, Our Characters have taken the bit in their collective teeth and skipped ahead to when they journey to America in the year 1600. Two of the AINE Books are written and in print (and on Kindle). Then we skip ahead yet again to meet the lot of them in the 1800s - in America's Wild West. That they bring their own Wild Ways with them is a given since the Young Ones show up (Colum, Saorsa, Marra, and Mamm the Younger). IF you've met them already, you don't need to wonder that the American West might be just about to get a little more wild than it already was.

This is the painting I used for the cover of the 'Go West!' book that has Our Characters moving from western Kansas into eastern Colorado, and then preparing for their next western move - to the Colorado Rockies.

So ... it's going to be a toss-up between RICIMER and these Characters of the American West (along with finishing the rest of the AINE Books) as to which will manage to get done in what order.

Stay tuned.

CATCHING UP WITH ARTWORK

These three were painted for the 2019 Las Animas Art Show in conjunction with the annual Santa Fe Trail Day Celebration. The 2019 theme was TRAILBLAZERS AND STARGAZERS.

Titled 'Go West!' this depicts an early morning leave-taking by a small group of covered wagons. 

The piece is 2' x 2', acrylic on fabric.

I titled this one simply 'Grandad', used a photo of my grandfather riding a bronc, 

paired it with a background of an early spring morning,

and used acrylic and texturing on really rough canvas.

aka 'Trailblazer'

Here is the 'Stargazer' part of things. 

The 'ghostly silhouette' effect is because this is the back of the original.

I messed up the front sky & couldn't fix it, so flipped it.

Acrylic on fabric.

So those are the pieces for that art show.

Going back a bit further:

Someone from Denver commissioned two pieces, both fairly large.

Here's the mock-up for one of them:

Acrylic on rough canvas, this little piece is probably about a foot by a foot and a half.

Here's the finished piece sized 5' x 2':

It's resized her to 30% of the original photo size.

Here's the reverse of it, just because ... 

The 'because' is that we wanted this one to be able to be back-lit.

Used very lightweight fabric stretched very tight so the pigments would bleed through.

This back view of the piece has an abstract look to it. 

The foreground is Not overlaid onto the background.

The other commissioned piece turned out to be two back-to-back on the same piece of fabric (the same lightweight tightly stretched as the above piece, only with many layers of paint); one side textured, the other side not ... same essential scene but very different looks. The story behind that is that the front (textured) side had me so frustrated that I needed a break from it. So I flipped it and let the flip side relax me enough to re-tackle the front. 

When I get time I'll do a post in my artwork blog about the process of getting this 6' x 3' piece developed. For now, here's the front:

It's an early morning dawning from up on a mountain,

looking south toward another range.

Here's the 'other side':

Same view, different mood.

And again a bit further back - these next two are from 2018 December - about five feet by two-and-a-half or so.

ASPEN QUEEN (one of the variations) acrylic on cotton; designed to be back-lit.

Don't mind the shadows - these photos were taken hurriedly 

as they were being loaded into someone's vehicle.

This one has a tri-color base coat: 

cobalt blue top; off-white center; dark lower.

Then over-painted.

You want more?

Okay, we can do that.

Here's one I did just for the fun of it - on that rough canvas:

Texture with acrylic.

Coming back to the present, here's a set of hand-painted note cards. I painted a lot of them outside up in the mountains. Parked my vehicle on a pull-over along Phantom Canyon in the Colorado Rockies, pulled out my ancient little card table and newer camp-chair, unpacked my artwork 'go-kit', and ... just painted ... Others were done in my sister's cottage-studio, wood-fire keeping it toasty.

These next couple are waiting for over-lay.

There are a bunch more similar to these in various colors/combinations, so I've got some over-laying to get done! I may use paint; I may use ink ... we shall see what we shall see !! I'm just grateful to have this time up here to spend on this.

Does it feel a mite odd to be going from big paintings to little ones?

Yes.

You've already seen one of the texture/acrylic pieces on 100 year old cedar shake - there are more of them, and more plain acrylic on plain wooden plaques - but their photos aren't going to get added today!

artwork on 100 year old cedar shakes

One of my favorites:

It's acrylics and texturing on the cedar shake that came off the roof of my old house.

2019 SANTA FE TRAIL DAY LAS ANIMAS COLORADO

This year's theme was TRAILBLAZERS & STARGAZERS

For 85 years this has been an annual celebration on the last weekend of April in this little town on the Arkansas River in Colorado.

Celebrating the cultures of the area makes for a fun day. Indigenous Folk, Spanish/Mexican, Mestizo, Black, Traders, Homesteaders, Ranchers, Farmers, Town Folk ... and somehow it all just worked.

If you take a drive in this area now, you'll see cattle of all types, goats, sheep, llama, horses, lots of dogs, some cats, hog operations south of town, crops of corn, wheat, oats, sorghum, melons, onions, peppers, alfalfa, beans, and who knows what all else, people who represent all of the above list and some new-comers, plenty of churches, folks who open doors for one another and say "How ya doin'?" to all and sundry ... and watch out for each other. 

The emergency response teams are top of the line. We had a fire east of town recently that started in the river bottom of the Purgatoire River (called the Picketwire locally) and burned its way south to the Arkansas River bottom and then east along it. Took about 600 acres and would have been so much worse had it not been for all the area firefighters coming to help, and the National Guard's helicopters dumping water on it in strategic spots. When push comes to shove True Colorado Folk stick together and get the job done.

Our family's ranch was run by my grandparents; before that our great-grandparents homesteaded down south of town too, east of where Grandma and Grandad ranched. Before that, there were a couple of generations in west Kansas. Our lineage came to America in the 1600s (Quakers) and followed what has come to be known as the Traditional American Westward Trek. We had to stop going west when we got to Alaska and Hawaii.

Las Animas has been 'home' to us for six generations now. Most of us have gone in all the directions of the compass from here - but we know our way home.

Here are a few photos of the parade - there were many many horses and riders, too! 

For a Small Town USA event, it was mighty fine! 

"We have seen His Star and come to worship Him"

A homestead couple

This group later danced in the intersection

Bent's Old Fort was first a trading post

A man and his horse

Just a few of the MANY riders in this parade

Gotta love the Hereford cattle !! 

Saturday, April 20, 2019

On this day my soul is quiet.

It’s maybe a special kind of peace, perhaps a little unexpected. Because this is the day to remember the battle that raged a couple of thousand years ago as the Holy Trinity fought to bring Balance to a world that had need of it.

How to put into words what that means?

I don’t think anyone has ever been able to find those words. It’s more something a person intuits than explains. That makes it real at a depth that goes beyond words, or even feelings. It just IS. It’s affirmation of the power of I AM and you either get that or you don’t. Either way, with or without our being able to understand it, the result is the same.

God is Love really does mean something.

And so, today, the memory of who we are rises unbidden. Today, because of the battle that was fought and won all those long years ago, my soul can be quiet, remembering the meaning of the word Love.

It is not a day to spend in worry or tears. We already know that battle has been won.

What battle, you ask?

Well, yesterday was what we call Good Friday, when the Son finished one sort of battle on our behalf. Today is the day He fought and won an even more significant battle on our behalf. See, the thing is that it’s fairly easy for us to identify with the humanity of the Son, which is why He came in the first place. What’s harder for us to wrap our heads around is that we did not truly lose the Light when the Son of the Trinity left his human body behind on that cross and the world went dark for a time. He wasn’t lost at all. He knew exactly where He was and what He was doing. He was/is as much the Holy Trinity as always, keeping the Balance of our world intact. Physically, in a way that we can intellectually understand – spiritually in a way that our souls recognize.

The Light of the World took on the Darkness and won, keeping the Balance.

And so our own personal trinities (body, mind, spirit) are brought to Balance. That is what this day, the day between death and life, is all about I think. A day to remind us all that our time here is a gift; and the Son came to show us how to make the most of that gift. Birth, a life to live, death, and life again. How we choose to spend the life we have been given to live is up to us.

That there will be battles for each and all of us to face is a given. Body, mind, and spirit … all kinds of battles have to be fought and won. This day, the day between life and death and life, is a day to remember that the Holy Trinity keeps all in Balance. Our battles come and they go, same as we do. Some we will win; some we will lose (because we are not the Son) but in the end the War is Already Won.

Maybe that’s why my soul rests easy today.

In a world seemingly filled with hatred, spite, cruelty, and darkness working overtime, the Light still shines. Bright as bright can be, or in little flickers that mock the darkness and destroy its power, the Light shines on.

Because God is Love, not hate. The Holy Trinity rules all, has no need for aggression, no reason to inflict harm, no desire to diminish any person, place, or thing in a world so carefully and intricately wrought. That is darkness which hates aggressively, inflicts harm, and tries to diminish what has been set into place by the Almighty. That is darkness, and has already been defeated.

Tomorrow will bring again its own battles.

For today, my soul is quiet.

Remembering.

Knowing.

Gonna Get M'self Into Hot Water Yet

Although this post probably isn't going to do that LOL !!

It's gonna be a short one, relatively speaking.

There's a lot of rhetoric flying around every which way from Tuesday just lately, even more than usual it seems.

A hefty hunk of it seems to revolve around people demanding justification for building barriers along our southern border at vulnerable locations.

My 'hot water question' is the reverse.

I would like to hear someone's justification for NOT building it.

Don't need it?

So?

[Some folks think we need it - surely you aren't dismissing their needs as worthless? Surely not.]

Can't afford it?

Really?

[We can afford to spend almost three times the requested funds to build houses in AFGHANISTAN! Don't give me that 'we can't afford it' baloney.]

Won't work?

So?

[Nothing works 100 percent effectively 100 percent of the time. Making a difference is a good goal.]

They'll find other ways?

So?

[They'll find at least one of their ways a bit more difficult.]

What.

Ever.

None of those 'arguments' are worth a hill of beans.

What is worth a hill of beans is that a significant percentage of the population of the United States of America just has a hankering to have barriers along our southern border.

What is the big deal about denying them that?

Is it going to hurt anybody for those barriers to be there?

No.

Nobody is required to justify anything to anybody when it comes to wanting barriers at our southern border - or along our northern one when it comes to that.

If you can justify to my why you DON'T want it, please feel free to have at trying.

My point here is that it is ENOUGH 'Justification', all the 'justification' anybody needs, that a really big proportion of Americans WANTS IT.

So what if you or I or anyone else doesn't? It's not gonna do us any harm for it to be there, is it?

No.

Frankly, I'd consider it money better spent to make a whole bunch of my fellow Americans happy than to build houses in Afghanistan, especially when it's no skin off my nose anyway.

If it helps with security, that's a bonus.

It would help ease people's minds without affecting anyone who's mind hasn't been worried - big gain, no loss on that count alone.

Those barriers would just be a-settin' there not doin' harm to a single solitary soul in this world.

So what the heck. They're steel, for cryin' out loud. If the time ever comes we need some steel should we run out or some such thing, there's a ready supply stockpiled right there. Comes to that, it would benefit our forges.

Just sayin'.

Unless somebody can prove to me that they are going to be personally harmed somehow by having barriers in a place they're unlikely to ever even get close to, I say what the heck.

Build 'em and be done with it.

PAINTINGS AND HISTORY

These two things are on my mind today.

First ... I have two rather large paintings to get done for somebody. One of them already has a small mock-up done enough so that I'm relatively sure what course to take for the bigger piece. The other one has only a vision in my mind, a written description of sorts, and a very large very blank prepped surface staring me in the face. It's two yards of what has turned out to be an amazingly versatile fabric, incredibly lightweight with a sort of linen weave. Which is sort of beside the point as it now has a coat of white paint on it, waiting for the next coat of paint, and the next, and the next and the next as the painting gets 'built' from distance to foreground.

The thing is that I have to try to get what I can envision, what I can describe, to translate into something that can be literally seen by the eyes of someone else.

Here's the description:

"I close my eyes and see a soft but powerful skyscape - like you see if you look at the 'other side' of a really vibrant sunrise or sunset (i.e. the west-looking view of a brilliant sunrise), seeing it from sitting just inside the edge of an aspen stand and looking out.over a shadowed and sort of indistinct valley filled with morning fog - with the aspen kind of veering out  and spilling down the sides of the slopes from where I sit, their pale green spring dresses against the darker evergreens, and in the far distance the peaks catching that magical golden pale pink lavender refracted from the sunrise to the east of them, not directly behind them or in front of them. And that big wide open sky itself changing by the second in all those colors with varying degrees of intensity and softness ... It would be kind of like sitting on the side of Squaw Mountain at the edge of Victor early on a spring morning, only more impressionistic? Not sure how to explain what I 'see' and don't know that I can 'make it real' but I can try. IF I can catch that fog, the different lights and darknesses of it, there are our greys; dark bare earth tones and stones in browns with orange where a bit of sunlight pops it out against a burnt umber, so there are our pops of orange and gold. Going impressionistic, that teal makes for great shadows and also highlights, and upper sky (pale) and lower sky (darker) that's right behind those far peaks, with the sunrise colors between, as it can be toned down or given a lighter note. There's a gold, almost a shimmer but not quite, to the morning spring greens - I think it's probably because the dew catches bits of sunlight. So the tone I'm feeling is soft and dreamy but I'm also sitting on and seeing some real hard rocks at the same time. Not sure how that translates LOL"

Let it be a challenge to me.

The good news on that front is that as I stare back at the big blank rectangle of white that's staring me in the face, the image in my mind begins to imprint itself onto that blank space - so although it's 'not really there' yet I can see that it might very well actually 'get there'. I just have to give it the 'incubation' time it needs to settle itself into details.

Meanwhile ...

The history part of what's on my mind has to do with our Characters rather abruptly up and deciding that no they are not going to wait around in Europe/UK while I finish writing RICIMER, and then the Sass Books, and then the Caileen Books, but are heading with Aine OUT of there right NOW.

It's the year 1600 and they're not putting it off any longer. Period end of that discussion in no uncertain terms. It's time and they're going, which means you and I are going with them.

Whatever has been going on over there has been building for decades, if not centuries, already and our folk have apparently come to the conclusion that they're not going to stick around to see what comes next. This particular branch of the now-widely-scattered family has been centered in Branxton, inland from Berwick on Tweed and Lindisfarne, for a very long time while other branches are all over the place. The Border Troubles have been on their doorstep for quite a while, which is no doubt a contributing factor; but the sense is that there's something else behind their sudden decision, something that threatens either the Circles of Dunnottar or their commitment to serving the Holy Trinity - or both.

A refresher:

The Circles of Dunnottar are Faith, Family, Friends, Freedom, Future -

The Song of the Holy Trinity includes the following Voices (concepts)
Choice
Spiral of Creation, Life, Death, Eternity
Peace
Faith
Healing
Future
Love
Unity

Now I've had a general sort of idea about what's what in England, Scotland, France, Spain in the 1500s so am not overly shocked. I've known for a long time that our folk would be leaving - but this unexpected urgency has me wondering.

Doing my homework regarding any of the times our fictional family carries us to is kind of a given. I've been focusing on what our Characters will find when they get to America in preparation for their arrival here. Then it dawned on me ... generalities aside, whatever spurred them into an immediate exit has to be addressed. Our folk are going to want to talk about it. I can hardly write dialogue for a topic I only have a sort of general idea of.

So.

Something Happened in the 1500s over there that has got our Characters feeling so - hemmed in? threatened? - that they're leaving an area that has been home to this branch of the family for more than a thousand years.

It is the tail end of the reign of Elizabeth the First; her father Henry VIII was of course before her but between the two of them had come Edward the short-lived, and Mary known to history as Bloody Mary, another relatively short-lived reign. And then there's the 'other Mary' - Queen of Scotland (and, briefly, France).

Some of our Characters are old enough to have lived through much of it, and our folk of course know full well the recent history of their own time and place (which I do not - yet -  their memories and educations far surpass mine). I have homework to do.

Henry VIII's discord with the pope in the 1500s has exacerbated what has already long been a delicate balancing act on the part of our folk. Embracing the Son as an equal part of the Holy Trinity a millennia and a half ago put targets on their backs. When Rome took over what then became known as Christianity, they refused to relinquish either their own personal Freedom of Choice or the Mother as an equal to the Son and the Father - so they were the 'wrong kind' of Christian. They weren't going to agree with the politicization, weaponization, and militarization of their Faith, which is all about Peace. The irony of having to fight for Peace has not escaped them.

At any rate, the 1500s ushered in the Reformation, which might have been good news for our folk IF they'd been willing (or able) to agree to half of their population still being - *minimized* is an inadequate word but it kind of works - which wasn't exactly a viable option for them. Henry VIII's Church of England was just as demanding and demeaning as Rome's was. Knox up in Scotland was no better. Luther and Calvin likewise. Despite the growing diversity in Christianity, our folk still had no place to fit themselves into - and everyone else damned them for it. The Quakers weren't on the scene yet, but the folks who would become Quakers had always been there. Some, like our particular folk, left before George Fox had even been born.

So there's that. Tied into the differences in political/religious views were the various monarchs of the time. I would likely be even more taken aback at the intolerance of that time if our own time hadn't proven itself just as intolerant - different in some ways but the principle is the same.

Be that as it may, it's time to do a mock-up of that big painting as the gist of how to make it 'real' has been maturing while I've been focusing on something else!