A Bit About Our Characters

The fictional Characters of SONG are the cultural and intellectual forerunners of the freedom-loving Peoples of today.

These interlocked circles represent the Legacy they inherited, the Legacy they have passed on to us generation after generation after generation.

Writing about this fictional family as it grows, getting to know the Characters, it's impossible to not realize the connection between those generations and our own. All around me, every day, I run into people I've never met before and often blink and say to myself, "Here is an Alianora," or "That's a Danann if ever I met one," or "What the heck, there's a Sass!" I have met in the flesh many of the current generations of the Characters of SONG. Which makes me smile because we are living proof that they succeeded in protecting and preserving for us that Legacy.

They lived, fought, and died protecting OUR freedoms, because we are their Future.

Now it's our turn.

As an American I know full well where this story line is taking me - but never EVER do I forget, as the lineages first spread out and then reunite, where those lineages began, where they have gone, what other lineages have added their strengths along the way, and where all of those lineages now are ... which is not solely America by a long shot.

Every freedom-loving person in our world who is ready, willing, and able to plant their feet, take their stand, and hold their line shares something with the Characters of SONG. 

Faith

Family

Friendship

Freedom

Future

If you recognize what those words mean, you are a Keeper of the Legacy.

What you Choose to do about that is entirely your Choice.

A Rambling Meander (yes I know it's redundant)

2016  12  26  random thoughts

Got home from work this morning at about 0830 or so and slept for almost eight hours straight, a change for me from the fragments I’ve been able to manage lately (as in for the past eight months or more) so I’m amazed to find myself both awake and halfway alert. It’s also a bit of a surprise to find myself inexplicably ‘tuning in’ to things that generally are reserved for the times I’m going into that ‘universal’ mode thing, whatever you want to call it.

Par for my course, my first thoughts are of my family and friends up north – they’ve got serious Winter coming down on them and I’m grateful that they’re all both smart and experienced enough to keep themselves safe.

Next on my mind comes the situation of my nation and the world in which we live in.

Then the Characters, having allowed me to think about all that other stuff for a while, come to the fore.

After that comes, briefly, a bit about mine own situation.

Stories for younglings are likely to be on our agenda, along with a bunch of short stories about whatever anyone happens to come up with.

You see, my daughter has an email account for my littlest grandling, and I get to send stories and such to her. Of course she can’t read yet as she’s only nine months old, but one day she might want to read them – and there they will be just sitting there waiting for her.

Onward.

Per the Winter that’s settled in up north – we did pray for something other than one of those ‘winters that don’t show up’ years this year, to get the outsiders to go home – and so Winter obliged. Now the prayers are for an early, cool, long, slow Spring – to minimize flooding and get all that water soaking into Earth where it can do some good.

Onward.

As for the world in which we live in – my thoughts are both hopeful and a bit worried. The thing is that I can never be quite all the way sure that my ‘thoughts’ are entirely mine own or if I’m picking up on something that’s kind of ‘free-floating’ in the air around me.

No, I’m not delusional; I’ve gotten stuck with an INFJ/P personality type, which I certainly didn’t ask for and would have most assuredly chosen a different, more ordinary one, if I HAD been given the choice.

I also have this cast of fictional Characters for whom everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING, is grist for the mill of fiction. Hence my view of the world in which I live in is always perhaps more geared toward seeing it in a context that’s quite a bit bigger than my own little bit of personal energy …

I suppose, for all practical purposes, it doesn’t really matter much does it?

Whether mine own or whatever else might be contributing, there are ‘thoughts’ that refuse to be polite enough to not come where they’re not invited.

That Hope is by far the first to come to mind, and the strongest, is a real big encouragement, I have to say. 

There are those who are in despair, which is understandable, and some of those I honestly do know and love … and hope to high heaven that they will soon pick up on the Hope part of the equation. Whether it’s mine own or our world in general, a person would have to look askance at me when I say it’s at the top of the list and dominates, but it’s definitely right there, and it is definitely dominating.

Maybe it has something to do with Hope springing eternal and all that, but for the past months, probably for the past year or more actually, it’s been powerful and growing. In the midst of it have been (thankfully brief) times of sheer and utter horror, but overall has been that sense of a swelling Light.

It’s impossible to explain but it is very much *there*.

And that, my friend, is Hope come calling in no uncertain terms. It’s associated with Healing, which is a tremendous relief; and Faith; and Peace, another huge relief although perhaps a bit puzzling given the circumstances; and its primary source seems to be something to do with the Balancing of the Spiral.

Yeah, I know that sounds kind of mystic maybe, esoteric no doubt, and probably about as unrealistic as a person can imagine.

But there you have it.

It is what it is.

Despite those who seem bound and determined to make of Earth a battleground, still the vast majority of what I’m *getting* is NOT all about fighting, or conflict, or any of the uglies that are besetting us and will continue to beset us. By far there seems to me a sense of growing determination that we (humanity) are going to find our balance and that the uglies are not going to be able to unseat it. Not permanently.

Because there are lots and lots of folks (with very loud Voices) who want it to be otherwise, mine own little Voice is going to get no attention and I’m all right with that. Because, you see, this little Voice is but a very small indicator of something that’s one heck of a lot bigger and stronger. So I’m not going to fret myself about coming across as a lunatic.

Yes there are worries – there have to be else we’d not be able to deal with what we’re going to have to deal with. The worries poke at us and keep us from falling back to sleep.

Will the United States, Russia, Israel, China, Argentina (where did that one come from – what the heck), Australia, Scandinavia, Canada, UK, India (???), and France (???) … do what? … I don’t know … do what has to be done on behalf of everyone who wants Peace?

And what will be the price of that Peace?

Again, I do not know.

What I do know is that what I have felt rising is not diminishing in either nature or intensity – and that’s good news.

Maybe it’s the Buddhists and the old Indian understandings of Peace and Unity that have been (at last) reconnecting themselves to the positive flows and exerting some of their old influence?

Maybe it’s partly a reawakening of our own North American Elder Folk’s spirit, the one that goes back to before fighting became the ‘norm’, which is a long way back indeed considering the tribes have been at war with one another for millennia.

Maybe it’s got something to do with the political situation finally prodding folk all over the world into actually paying attention to what they perhaps had come to take for granted. Asserting their own Faith in opposition to something being used for the harming of others … and I’m talking about the kind of Faith that rides deep inside, not associated with any one creed or dogma or definition.

Me being me, and our Characters being themselves, putting it in terms of the Justice, Mercy, and Peace of the Mother coming into play tends to make the most sense to me.

In other terms, there’s an inherent Balance that’s the fundamental Law of the entirety of our world, the one that stretches from infinity to infinity – the one whose fractals are part and parcel of every aspect of the whole thing, the triangles of which are immutably woven into spirals at every level, all of them moving and moving and moving from infinity to infinity in constant unremitting motion. That would be Energy, at times taking on form as Matter.

And that’s a scientific train of thought that nobody wants to follow any more than anybody wants to follow the esoteric one that is actually the exact same train of thought.

What, people want to know, can we expect in the coming Time?

Warfare, for starters.

Not what anyone wants to hear, is it?

What happened to that whole big Peace thing? What about all that Hope that’s supposedly infusing the atmosphere of our world?

Well, those things are what are behind the warfare, as always.

To get to one, you generally have to get through the other – Peace will not come on its own without conflict because there is some powerful opposition to Peace.

Otherwise, Balance would never become.

Can’t have one without the other, and that’s just the fact of the matter.

People can try to deny it, they can try to avoid it, they can try to say it doesn’t have to be that way – until the cows come home they can try to convince themselves and everyone else that there’s a different way (and I for one would dearly love to believe them) – but Pi in the Sky wishes have zero chance against PHI in the Sky reality.

Warfare is what’s coming?

Warfare is ALWAYS coming, in one form or another.

But I write fiction; I’m not a prophetess, so don’t take my word for it. I just have a hunch that what’s ahead for us isn’t going to be all that different from what’s behind us, that’s all.

We can (and we do) try to make our reality fit into the frame of what we want it to be – and that’s fine because that ability and that instinct is a gift to us and we’re obliged to use it whether we would will it or not – and so we can, for millennia on end, use that gift to help us get through what we have to get through, to do what we have to do when we have to do it, and to ultimately survive for as long as our species is going to remain viable in our world. It is not a vain pursuit but one of a more vital importance than even the most dedicated of us realize.

It is a source, for good or for ill, of the Balance which will be kept no matter what.

So yeah, to say that it’s important is something of a massive understatement. Our universe is going to continue to unfold as it should, something folks have been aware of for a lot longer than we might imagine or that many of us want to believe.

And that’s okay.

Infinity is eternal, remember.

We aren’t going to be able to wrap our heads around that concept and we don’t have to.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t the reality in which we live in.

Anyway, warfare is pretty much going to be a given – until we’ve almost destroyed this very world in which we live in, or at least our little bit of it (which is of vital importance to us because it’s the ONLY bit of it that we DO live in).

Eventually, hopefully, we’ll figure out how to exist without overt warfare.

Don’t go holding your breath on that, because it’s liable to be a long time coming and carry a price tag that we, of our time, are not going to be willing to pay.

But the time will likely come that the conflicting ideologies will indeed come to agree to disagree and warfare will just stop.

How?

Well, the only thing that comes into my fiction-oriented mind is what the most idealistic of us (including me) will not even consider. That is that the fighting will stop when Earth is divided fairly equally among the ideologies that wish to dominate the whole.

Sooner or later everyone is going to reach the conclusion that there’s no way any single choice of belief systems is going to ever be able to dominate the whole. Humankind is flat out not designed to accept any such thing.

And so the division will come, likely after a couple of things happen.

One is a no-brainer – warfare that will come to within a hair’s breadth of utterly demolishing a very hefty hunk of Earth herself.

The other is a more natural thing, and when the two come together, at the same time, there won’t be so very many of us left to come to the conclusion I just mentioned (that ‘peaceful cohabitation’ of conflicting factions is not going to happen).

And the survivors will agree to separate and to keep themselves to themselves – to develop their own ways independently of the others.

Fictionally speaking, this concept is where the world of DANANN comes from – that’s one of the books of SONG – where the Quadrants are each self-supporting and closed to the others.

We haven’t gotten into what it is exactly that each of the Quadrants is like that makes them so different from one another but I suspect it has to do with both politics and religion since those seem to be kind of the things that divide folks. Not skin color or intelligence quotients or anything else, at least not that I can think of.

People tend to fight about both territorialism and expansionism, for both political and religious reasons.

So in the end (temporarily at least, relatively speaking) it will come down to eliminating both of those concepts by giving each a ‘safe place’ in which to do whatever it is that they want to do, so long as it doesn’t interfere with or harm any of the others.

So what are the divisions going to be?

Elephino.

As I said, I write fiction; I’m not a prophetess.

My best guess would be that Northwest would be for the people who, at the time of the division, are in favor of theocracy.

Northeast might be set aside for those who are ready, willing, and able to blend many diverse cultures into one.

Southwest could provide for those who wish to live simply with Earth and with one another.

Southeast could well be where the ‘spiritual-minded’ can live unfettered as they choose, to follow whatever paths they want without being judged by anyone, so long as they do no harm.

And so the divisions are defined, borders are laid out, resources of each quadrant are assessed to be sure everyone has plenty of what they need to be self-sufficient, and the quadrants are fine with leaving everyone else alone and being left alone in return.

And so there is Peace.

There’s no trade, but no trade is necessary.

There’s no interaction or communication, but no interaction or communication are wanted.

There’s no travel between the quadrants and little within them (except for those too independent-minded to have been able to choose any of the four options and so they are assigned all of the islands of Earth for their own), but ‘no travel between quadrants’ is part of the solution that eliminates territorialism and expansionism.

Politics and religion take a little longer to deal with but they eventually end up irrelevant because there’s no real purpose in ‘preaching to the choir’.

So things change and it doesn’t really take all that many generations before the quadrants are the norm that nobody bothers to question or even wonder about.

Part of the ‘ease’ by which this whole thing is accomplished stems from the fact that, at the time, technology has begun to reign supreme.

There are no books, for one thing. What few are left by the time the near-destruction of Earth is complete are gotten rid of while everyone’s focusing on survival. Books were a big part of what caused all the trouble in the first place, or so it is perceived, so nobody wants them anyway; they’re reminders of what the survivors of humankind want to leave behind.

Technological communication is all there is, and it is naturally edited to eliminate references to anything to with the things the people of Earth so desperately want to leave behind that they agree to ‘the quadrant option’ in the first place. When the time comes that knowledge of the Histories of Earth is completely deleted from the technological system by which Earth has come to be governed, nobody even notices.

Meanwhile, technology has come up with solutions to most, if not all, of the physical and psychological ailments of humankind. They’ve all become things of the past, too – and nobody wants them back any more than they want the books back, or to be reminded of ‘the bad old days’ in any way, shape, or form. In less time than a person would expect, nobody even realizes that there ever even had been ‘before times’.

Do I think any such thing is really going to happen?

How would I know?

But I’m not going to bet against it.

Take away the reasons for conflict and give everyone what they want while replacing their need for self-governance with a set of computer-generated ‘laws’ that apply to everyone … and spend several generations ruthlessly enforcing said ‘laws’ by way of technology and electronics (so that actual people are not involved in the enforcement), with the assent of the survivors of humankind … and you’re gonna end up with Peace.

Everybody’s living in their own utopia; nothing left to fight about.

With nobody to try to convince, it won’t be long before the religions of the world won’t even have to be outlawed; they’ll die natural deaths as their followers won’t have anyone to argue with about anything and the folk will turn their minds gradually toward survival and development of the resources at their disposal within their relative quadrants.

Politics likewise. With no opposition, there’s no point.

So.

In the wake of the *theoretically inevitable catastrophe* of humankind-created all-out war (and other man-made factors) in a deadly fatal combination with to-be-expected natural events (let’s go with an impact, earthquakes, volcanic activity, climate change, tectonic plates shifting, etc.) just exactly WHO is going to come up with this ‘reasonable alternative’?

My guess would be the atheists, scientists, futurists, techs, and the Dalai Lama.

They’re probably the only ones that anybody is going to be ready, willing, and able to listen to.

Why?

Because they’ll be basically the only ‘neutral’ folks on Earth at the time, with no bones to really pick with anybody. They’re apolitical and non-religious. All they care about is having the resources they want to develop the knowledge they want, with the Dalai Lama thrown in to represent a spiritual aspect (which by that time the rest of them will have long since acknowledged as an inherent part of the whole PHI thing). They’re also the best prepared to ride out a catastrophe.

Plus, by then they’ll have developed the technology to be able to provide the neutral enforcement of the only real ‘law’ everyone has to go by: Harm None.

And they’ll succeed. For a time, they’ll have their Peace.

Yep.

And then the whole thing is going to start all over again, because it has to. That’s the deal. Balance is what makes the world go ‘round.

You know the Norse legends? Ragnarok and all that? The basic story line is, I think, probably dead on. People being people, there have to be ‘characters’ that folks can relate to and be interested enough in to keep the Story alive, but the point is always the bottom line cyclic nature of the whole.

I have a feeling that none of the story lines of our ancient myths and legends are linear as opposed to cyclic in nature.

Just as we will never be able to wrap our heads around the concept of there being no literal ‘In the Beginning’ we also cannot wrap our heads around the concept of there being no literal ‘The End’.

And really, we don’t have to wrap our heads around any such thing. I doubt much, if any, of all this stuff is going to be happening any time soon, probably not in the lifetimes of anyone who is now alive at least.

Each and all of our individual lives do have a Beginning and an End. Each and all of us are made up of energy, waves and particles, and it’s up to each and all of us to Choose to contribute the energy that belongs to us, however temporarily, to whichever ‘side’ of the Balance of all the energies of our world we want to support.

Keep in mind that both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ have to be equally represented, if that makes any sense. Keep in mind that apparently ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are relative terms. I think that the whole concept of PHI is based on opposition being a requirement for Balance. ‘Good’ and ‘bad’ don’t actually come into play at all – only ‘opposite’.

Back to politics for a moment here, can anybody be truly surprised at the response in the United States by a long-quiet (and apparently presumed dormant) population? As long as there was a relative Balance going on, said population had no reason to assert itself. When there came a threat to that relative Balance, with overt ‘we’re going to dominate and you can’t stop us’ behaviors … well … guess what.

For me, the fascinating part of this whole scenario is that we all seem to be functioning instinctively. Ask us to explain and we’re liable to come up with all kinds of ‘reasons’ for why people are as they are. They make sense only up to a point, because most of the factors have been a part of the equation for a real long time. So why NOW have those factors all of a sudden become issues?

I think it’s not so very different from any of the cycles of power our world has been through.

It’s kind of like physics, right?

Actions produce equal and opposite reactions and the chain of events spirals ‘round and ‘round ad infinitum.

Instinct kicks in on some level that we as individuals aren’t even aware of.

Aggression triggers retaliation, no matter on what scale.

If I could believe for one instant that what’s coming could be prevented or avoided, I’d be first in line to try to figure out how to do it.

But I think the best we can hope for is that, when all is said and done, the survivors will recognize the requirement for Balance, and put their energies into keeping that Balance not by the cycle of aggression and retaliation but by focusing on maintaining Balance by refusing to try to tip it.

No, I don’t see that happening, which is a sadness to me because it would be really nice to be able to believe such a thing might be possible.

Bottom line?

Because apparently there are plenty of people who are bound and determined to be aggressive, there are going to be just as many who are bound and determined to take the opposite position. Neither side is going to ‘win’. On the other hand, neither side is going to ‘lose’ either.

The cycle might, for a time, seem to favor one or the other but no matter how much jockeying for position goes on the result is going to be Balance. Even if these particular ‘sides’ annihilate one another, more will pop onto the screen and keep the cycle spinning. Even if, somewhere along the line, a time comes that Balance is kept by maintaining a fragile Peace, it ain’t gonna last. Somebody will choose aggression; retaliation will be the answer, and …

Man.

What a kind of depressing sort of thing to be thinking about, huh?

*laughing*

Depressing only because I haven’t included the multitudes of wonders and joys and beautiful times that, honestly, really do make up the bulk of what I’m *getting* from every direction.

Because, think about it, what is GOING to be the response to this deep darkness that seems to be threatening the world in which we live in?

THAT is what seems to be in its ascendency right now – that response to darkness, which is Light.

Threatened by aggressive Hatred, what is the retaliatory response going to be?

Yeah.

That wheel, it does indeed go ‘round and ‘round, doesn’t it?

For my part, the getting to Choose thing is a no-brainer.

Choosing to go with the Light when threatened by the Dark?

No-brainer, like I said.

It’s recognizing what’s coming at us, and focusing with everything we’ve got in us on the antithesis of that darkness that seems to be at work here, and it’s that focus that makes our lives truly a journey of love and peace and joy and all of the things of the Light.

The best part of the whole of it is that Light-filled journey so very many of us are sharing, whether many of us are aware of it or not.

One thing that the Dark will never understand, never ever ever, is that the harder it pushes, the stronger becomes the Light. You’d think that too would be a no-brainer, but (being as I happen to like the Light I can say this without compunction) nobody has ever accused the Dark of having the wit to figure it out.

Maybe that too is part of why the Dark seems to always want to be the aggressor, who knows? Maybe that part of the whole has just enough wit to have figured out that the Light has something the Dark is missing, and so is constantly trying to take what would be so freely shared. I reckon maybe there’s half a wit involved in that.

Did I just call half of the energies of the world half-witted?

Yes, I do believe I did.

Since everything has to balance, I suppose that means the energies of Light are blessed with having a wit and a half.

Whew.

That’s a relief.

Justice comes in all sorts of ways that may or may not make any sense to us; so does Mercy. Peace is something we all might be able to understand, but we have to go through the first two before we get there.

Justice is the Balancing. Mercy is Survival. Then (maybe) comes Peace, with or without a price tag but probably with one.

And that’s kind of a view of the world in which we live in from the unique perspective/s of our Characters.

Onward.

Mine own situation is that there are challenges but I’m managing to make it through them one by one. The losses of this past year have broken me in some ways but yammering about those losses isn't going to do the least bit of good. Better to focus on what is left to me.

Reinventing the Wheel

Think about your own self for a minute. Now think through your family, friends, associates, co-workers, folks you meet on the street regularly enough to say hello to, folks you don’t know as well, people you know on line but not in person, people you might know something about via media … basically, everybody you know or know of.

You’ve just defined your own interpersonal spiral. It begins with you and spirals out from you to include all of the others. Because your spiral now has a definition, it has just become a cognitively recognized part of you and cannot ‘un-become’. It is now a permanent part of your memory. At odd moments for the rest of your life it will pop into your consciousness.

Each and all of us have these interpersonal spirals, all of which flow out from us as individuals to intersect and interlock with those of everyone else. This too is going to pop into your mind at odd moments for the rest of your life. The interactions of each can and do affect all.

Since it’s on your mind at this moment, think about the good, the bad, and the ugly that each of the above persons has in them, beginning with your own self. There’s some of each in all and well you know it.

Now that the thought is right here, so to speak, let’s reinvent the wheel.

You’ve no doubt got your individuals pegged into categories. That’s because we do that automatically. We like orderliness and will arrange patterns instinctively. When you think ‘good’, or ‘bad’, or ‘ugly’ a certain subset of individuals will come into your mind. Although you know full well that each of those individuals also has each of the other characteristics, the way you view them based on your experience is going to define their identity on your spiral.

You’ve just defined the spokes of your own interpersonal wheel, the one of which you are the hub. The strengths and weaknesses of all of the individuals included in your interpersonal spiral have designated their place on one of the spokes of said wheel.

And that wheel goes ‘round and ‘round, your life being the path on which it turns.

‘But,’ you say, ‘I don’t want some of those people to be a part of my spiral, or my wheel.’

Too bad.

They are there and there they will remain. You can try to remove them all you want; they will not leave you. Ever. Once included, they cannot be excluded. Ever. Once someone or something has become a part of your cognitive recognition, you cannot un-recognize them or it.

Sorry.

That’s just the way we’re designed.

On the plus side of this whole thing is that the negatives do play a vital role. Accepting that will help you reconcile their presence in your spiral, your wheel.

You see, not only do we seek and find patterns because it is instinctive to us, we also MUST have balance. That’s probably the most basic law of all of creation.

And so, as the wheel of your own individual spiral traverses the path of your life, each of those spokes in turn hits the ground. The impact travels up that spoke straight to you at the hub. The wheel is balanced, and balanced it must be – all the time. Each of those spokes is exactly as important as all of the others. Trying to get rid of any of them is a lesson in futility. We are absolutely unable to do it.

Your individual spiral and wheel are of the most importance to you; mine are most important to me; everyone else’s are most important to them. That’s the way it’s designed.

However, our individual spirals do indeed intersect, interact, and interlock with those of everyone else. The scale expands from us as individuals on outward to include our families, friends, associates, co-workers, folks we meet on the street regularly enough to say hello to, folks we don’t know as well, people we know on line but not in person, people we might know something about via media … basically, everybody we know or know of.

Because the individual spirals of all those others also intersect, interact, and interlock with those of everyone else’s, the spiral keeps expanding and growing. Our uniquely individual spirals are part of a much bigger one.

The pattern is set, immutable.

Science calls it PHI, the Golden Mean, Perfect Balance, whatever. Folks of Faith know it as God’s Plan. Either way, it cannot be changed. It is Law and we are governed by it. From the enormity of the Universes to the tiniest sub-particles we are able to identify, our world is governed by the spiral, the balance of energy that literally cannot be altered.

So when you, just like me and everyone else, would really love to just get rid of the ‘uglies’, remember that we flat cannot do it. That’s not much consolation, is it?

What we CAN do is try to fill our own spirals, our spokes with as many of the ‘good’ folk as we possibly can manage. By doing so, we may be able to collectively bind our own positive spirals more closely together which would force the negatives onto fewer spokes, so to speak.  Overall, there will still be the same number of positives and negatives, but maybe, just maybe, we can minimize how often our negative spokes hit the paths of our lives by focusing on developing the number of positive ones … which would have the effect of concentrating the negatives into a few powerful spokes rather than spreading them out into more, but less high-impact, ones.

Again, small consolation, eh?

We cannot change the Law. Balance will prevail, no matter what.

Choosing to throw the power of our collective energy in on the positive side of the equation, however, might just make more of a difference in our individual lives than we think it could.

The ugly is always going to be with us in equal proportion to the good. That’s kind of a given.

But we don’t have to be any more a part of it than we absolutely have to on an individual basis.

Choose to seek, find, and nurture the good that is all around you. Focus on the beautiful, the kind, the gentle, the strength of the good, because it is powerful indeed.

At the same time, do not neglect to recognize that the ugly is with us, as all around us as the good is. What good we choose to seek, find, and nurture will be our defense against the ugly.

So as you’re thinking about your interpersonal spiral and the wheel that rolls along the path of your life, think about how you can strengthen the positive spokes so that when the negative ones hit that path they will have less of an impact on you at the hub. By strengthening your own spiral, your own wheel, you are strengthening those of the folk whose spirals most closely intersect, interact, and interweave with yours. That bigger spiral too becomes stronger, and spreads faster and further than you can imagine.

It’s a bit of an irony, isn’t it, that the bigger and stronger the negative becomes, the more likely it is that the positive will react by coming to the fore to counter it. But so it is. So it has to be. Balance will prevail.

We can, each and all of us, choose whether to put our personal energy into the equation for good or for ill. It is already a part of the bigger spiral, but we really do get to pick which direction we are going to send the power of our individual energy.

I get to choose; so do you.

An Angel Story

I have a number of 'Angel Stories' but for today my focus is on a point that needs to be made about one of them in particular. The whole story will come in another post; for now the abbreviated version will make the point.

A recent topic of conversation was about angels; it reminded me of the reluctant angel I met when my vehicle overheated on I-25 between Pueblo and Colorado Springs, the one who drove a red corvette convertible. 

I needed help and he helped me, confused as all get-out because, as he told me, he just didn’t do stuff like help people because all people are inherently bad, hateful, and generally mean. Nevertheless he helped me in more ways than one and was on the receiving end of a blessing of his own.

He drove into the Springs to get the part my poor little beat-up S10 Blazer needed, leaving me with my vehicle because otherwise it probably wouldn't be there when we got back, and I was to stay IN the vehicle (doors locked and windows up). 

While he was gone, people pulled off of I-25 from both directions to check on me. I’m not even kidding you a little bit here. I started writing down plate numbers on the back of an envelope but stopped when I ran out of room and lost count. More than FORTY vehicles pulled into that little area, some of the folk choosing to stick around until my ‘angel’ got back with the part, which took better than an hour.

The point I want to make here is not so much that there are indeed an abundance of ‘angels among us’ (although that’s most certainly true and I’m here to tell you so) but ... 

Those angels showed up from all socio-economic backgrounds (going by their vehicles and clothes) and from all the ethnic-cultural backgrounds that the Front Range is home to, they were of all ages and both genders – and not a one of them gave any of the others so much as a sideways look, I’ll have you know. 

Each and all of them had pulled off of that highway urged by the exact same impulse, to help someone, and they all knew it. Grins and waves from each to the other and they were back on their own paths for the day. 

Few of them would have known how MANY they were a part of on that day, but I knew and so did a couple of the early stoppers who stayed to ‘stand guard’.

So it wasn’t just me who was blessed on that day, nor just my reluctant angel (who was shocked enough to find a group of folks waiting with me when he got back, let alone when we told him how MANY more had stopped), but also all those folk who took the time out of their days and made the effort to check on the well-being of a total stranger.

Do not ask me to explain because I flat out cannot do it. 

Such a thing may never have happened before and may not have happened since and may never happen again – but on that day it did I tell you true.

In today’s world we could have and would likely have recorded the whole thing and it would have gone viral on line. As it is, the memory makes me smile and having had the experience makes me believe very strongly in just the opposite of what my reluctant angel told me about people on that day.

Score one for the good folk!

From all walks of life, from all ages, from all ethnicities, from all cultures, male and female they stepped up to the plate and offered aid, support, good wishes, protection, and many a smile and/or hug as well. 

That I am still so impacted by that one short time speaks on behalf of everyone who was there on that day. 

I couldn’t tell you the name of a single one of them except that I remember Ric was the name of the reluctant angel. 

But I will never ever in my life forget the message they brought with them, each and all independently of everyone else. 

‘I care,’ they said. ‘I am here.’

*sentimental sigh*

I totally love remembering times like that.

MAMM SPEAKS - JUST THE STORY ...

These are the seven books that contain the STORY part of the Mamm Books. 

We had to make more than one book because for this version we went with the LARGE PRINT at the request of some of our readers. Makes for some almighty big books, let me tell you. These are 8 1/2 X 11 inches with a font size of 18. Only a couple of them are over a hundred pages so none of them are going to be bulky despite their larger dimensions. And their covers, as you can see, are simple and color-coded following the rainbow.

I have to admit it seems kind of strange to read the STORY without it being in the context of the Dunnottar Story Line ... without knowing what's right around the corner for Danann and Sidhelagh, and their family, at the end of this STORY ...

Frankly, I've been curious about how they would read when separated, the twined story lines of the Mamm Books.

You can read the 'History' part of it, as these books show, with no problem at all - it's a good STORY standing alone.

Such is not the case with the 'Today' part of the Story Line of the Mamm Books, however.

Again and again and again that Story Line refers back to the 'History' Line. If you don't have the 'History' part, the 'Today' Story Line is not going to read at all well. You aren't going to 'get it' - without knowing the back story upon which the whole is based.

Without the 'History', you won't have any idea what drives our Characters, what motivates them, what inspires them, what makes them entirely unwilling to relinquish what they hold most dear. You won't know what it is that guides them when the times come for them to draw their lines, to take their stands and to hold them against all odds.

You see, the STORY and what it means is an integral part of life for our Characters. They know what past generations of their family had to do in order for them to be able to pick up where those generations left off.

Today I realize that their lineage breeds true and it makes me quite very sentimentally proud to have 'gotten to know' both the Characters of SONG and the current Characters who also stand true to what the 'History' part of SONG is all about.

I tell you true.

Scotland does herself proud in so many ways, every day.

The world watches now, alert and wary, as Scotland takes to herself those on whom the world would turn its back. She is not unwary, believe that. She is plenty alert. That, my friend, is a part of the strength Scotland is showing to us right about now, once again taking the lead. Being alert and wary are, I think, a part of the nature of the Scots - with just cause.

Would it not make her doubters hoot and howl if the guests of Scotland turned against her, tried to do her harm? Yes. The world would shout, 'We told you so, we told you so!' But, should such a thing come to pass it would most likely be quite very short lived.

Even in the Mamm Books such ones came among our Characters. When they proved themselves 'incompatible', they were marched right on out of there in no uncertain terms, and delivered directly to those on whose behalf they had been trying to cause harm to the very people who had given them safety and offered them friendship.

Yes I write fiction, and yes its setting is a very long time ago. The 'bad guys', those who would do harm to others for whatever reasons they want to come up with, might wear different faces and names these days. That doesn't change who and what they are.

Today's 'History' Line isn't really all that different from the 'History' Line of the ancient days, you know.

When an entity threatened the Legacy of Faith, Family, Friends, Freedom, and Future our Characters of SONG were living, protecting, and preserving, said entity made great gains right up until it ran up against the People who would not give up and would not give in. Said People joined forces, pooled their resources, and an Empire bit the dust.

I'm not real sure what 'History' books our today's 'entity', our today's 'bad guys' have been reading, but they might maybe want to reconsider their interpretation of whatever they've been thinking was the outcome of their 'History' books.

At any rate, now I know that yes a 'History' Story Line can stand alone - but a 'Today' Story Line cannot. It is much too entwined with the 'History' Line to be able to stand without it.

We need to be thinking about that some, friends - and giving it some consideration when the time comes for us to have to make a Choice of our own.

You want to know how the STORY ends?

It doesn't.

It isn't going to end.

And the doubting world can watch all it wants, make dire predictions about this, that, and the other thing. Soon it will get bored, because success is never as interesting as conflict - and ain't that just a sad commentary on life in the world in which we live in. Success based on caution, alertness, wariness - built on compassion and a willingness to offer friendship - is quiet, you see.

The rampaging brats get plenty of attention; for every one of those there are many who are quietly going about just being nice. 

So, bottom line?

Be careful with your Choices.

Respect the 'History' of the Spiral and the need for balance.

If you're going to stand for something, let it be Peace.

Never EVER lose your Faith that good will come even out of bad.

Allow, nay encourage, the Healing that must come among us.

Know that against all odds it is Hope that will keep us all going.

Accept the fact that Love isn't always peaches and roses. Tough Love is harder to understand but understand it we must.

Above all, realize that Unity must prevail. It will strengthen us more than you think it could. A fragmented People is not a strong People. 

That little story about the sticks of kindling is Truth and Wisdom. 

You cannot break a bound bundle of kindling regardless of how easily individual sticks might be snapped in two. It doesn't matter if the sticks are of all different kinds of wood. If a stick of balsa is tucked into that bundle it is not going to get broken any more than will the sticks of oak, of pine, of elm, of cottonwood, of ash, of any of the kinds of sticks ... yet unbind them and you can break them at will. 

Yep.

And that's it for my bits of wisdom on this day I do believe.

Who Do You Think You Are!?

To those who ask this question, the answer lies in another question:

'Who' I am? What does that matter? Am I not, to you, 'who' you think I am, 'who' you see me as?

Who do you think you are?

Are we not all God's Children?

I am a Daughter of the Creator and the Holy Spirit, Sister to Jesus, as are you Daughter and Sister, or Son and Brother. The titles are ours by birthright, gifts of the Holy Trinity, whether we claim them or not.

Because part of the gift is also freedom to choose to accept or to reject the path we are given. Choosing Acceptance carries the responsibility of Being, to the best of our ability, Daughters and Sons of God - yet even Rejection can be reversed; therein lies Hope ... and Mercy ... 

See, the Creator knows who we are, has known us since before our births, each and all of us.

Heaven knows we are not perfect Beings. We're going to fall flat on our faces time and again, we're going to get tired and cranky and whiny, we're going to know fear and pain and loss, we're going to doubt ourselves and the Creator who made us, we're going to say, 'What, are You crazy? We can't do this! We don't want to do this. We're falling down exhausted, our feet hurt, our backs are killing us, our hearts and wills are broken ... You're nuts if you think we can just keep going the way we are!' 

And then, just when we're absolutely positive that we can't and won't carry on any further comes another breath, another bit of strength, a little more will ... and we take just one more step. And another. And another.

By that third step we might be coming to realize something.

We don't have to do this thing, whatever it may be, all alone.

For one thing, we have one another. When the time comes that each and all of us are about to go down in flames, we look around us and know that together we're going to make it through that next step, and the next, and the next. And so we do.

More importantly, when we've reached the end of our collective rope will come something we may have been too tired, too hurt, too disheartened to have thought much about. And within us something will stir; we'll find what it takes to get us the rest we need, the healing we need, the heart and the will that we need.

That, my friend, is a part of the gift as well.

Do you think the Spirit who dwells within us each and all doesn't know full well (having been a part of many more than just us from the dawn of Creation) that we're going to become tired and cranky and whiny, know fear and loss and doubt, fall flat on our faces? 

When those times are upon us we'll find that sure enough we aren't strong enough, we aren't smart enough, we aren't tough enough, we aren't anything enough.

We aren't.

We don't have to be.

Someone Else already is.

Someone already has our aching backs. And our hurting feet. And our broken hearts, our exhausted wills.

What we are given to do we will also be given the means to do.

When we realize that, something inside of us relaxes. The absence of tensions we weren't even aware of frees up our own internal resources - believe that because it's true. It also opens a door, or a window perhaps, or maybe even just a bit of a chink in our walls (it doesn't really take all that much) that Hope can walk through, or come in like a breeze, or sneak up on us unexpectedly.

Such a simple thing, but so very hard to find out how to do - yet all we have to do is do it.

We are given a Command: Fear Not

That's not just a suggestion, folks.

That's a Command.

And it's followed by a Promise: I am with you

In other words: Don't worry. I've got this.

All that's required of us is to do the best we can with what we have to work with at any given time. What we need will come when it is most needed.

We, each and all, are gifted before birth with everything we'll ever need. We are known, cherished, Children of the Creator. 

So really ... think about it ... 

Someone who created the universes tells us, 'Don't worry. I've got this,' and proves it time and time and time again - and we're still fretting and fussing?

Well yeah, we are. 

Not that it does us any good. 

We've been doing it since we were old enough to know what worry is, we're doing it now, and we'll continue to do it. Probably most of us will spend our entire grown up lives that way - because we tend to forget that we are Children, Daughters and Sons, Sisters and Brothers, of ... hmmm ... 

Do you remember the powerful arms of your father from when you were a very little child? The comforting ones of your mother? The hugs of a strong sibling? Not worrying about stuff like bills and fatigue and pain and all that?

Yep.

Guess what.

Confidence in yourself is not required. Strength of your own isn't mandatory.

And it doesn't really matter a whit 'who' you are or 'who' you are not in your own eyes or in the eyes of others. You are not just your own self. You have never been 'only' anything or anyone. There's no 'only' about you, never has been. God doesn't create us to be 'only'; we are created to be Daughters and Sons, Sisters and Brothers.

So:

Who Do You Think You Are!?

Joy - and Peace

When the world seems to have gone around the bend, when I look around me and know that there's so much I can't do, so much I don't have, so much that's wrong and I can't fix it ... it can get more than a little disheartening ... 

On the other hand, lots of the time I end up looking around me, and inside of me for something, anything, to give me hope. Lo and behold, there's always something there. Maybe not much of something, but still ... enough to make something.

That, my friend, brings Joy, and it brings Peace.

There are things I can't do physically, intellectually, spiritually ... lots and lots of them. There are things I don't have the money to tend to the way I would like, lots and lots of them. There are things I don't own and never will. There are times I'm hungry or cold or miserable. There are people I don't see enough of, and people I may never get to see, and people I will never see again in this life. There are places, as with people, I don't see, may never see, won't see again ... There's stuff going on in our great green world that will turn our green to dark if we don't watch out.

And yet ... sometimes when I'm feeling the most down there will come to me a warm embrace, like a strong hug from Someone who loves me despite all. Here is Peace, I seem to hear. Make something of it.

And yet ... in the darkest of dark a tiny flicker will catch my eye for an instant only. What was that? Was it real? Where did it go? Oh, there it is again. Here is Hope, I seem to hear. Make its light stronger.

And yet ... into the depth of my utter loneliness will come a Voice, perhaps from a far distance, perhaps from near to hand, and I am blessed with an unexpected gift. Here is Friendship, I seem to hear. Let it in.

And yet ... and yet ... and yet ... all of the Circles of Dunnottar come one by one, turn and turn about to bring their gifts: Faith, Family, Friends, Freedom, the Future ... just when they are most needed. They didn't spring from my imagination; they've been gifting me, and you for that matter, all along.

So too the Voices of SONG: Choice, the Spiral, Peace, Faith, Healing, Hope, Love ... they aren't just parts of the fiction I write - they are parts of the books because they have been first parts of each and all of us.

I write because it is in me to do so - and out it must come whether I would will it or no. Perhaps there may be only one person in the entirety of this world for whom the words are meant; perhaps that one person is yet unborn. That is not for me to know. What is for me is to do - to do the best I can with what I have to work with at any given time.

When despair is but a heartbeat away ... I look around me, and inside of me, and make a Choice. To make something or to not make something out of what I find, no matter how small or insignificant.

And comes Joy, comes Peace ... and all the rest of it.

It doesn't necessarily have to be 'good enough' for the rest of the world. It has only to be the best I can do, and that's good enough.

Spending Time vs Killing Time

One of the things I love most in this life is spending time with my daughters.

One of the things I love most about technology is that it can give us some 'together time' even when we're far apart. I thoroughly adore talking to them, getting pictures and videos, going 'shopping' with them, messaging on social media, even texting - these are communication tools no prior generations had and they are truly blessings for many of us who live too far from those we love.

The access to research on line, the ability to submit a file instead of snail-mailing a manuscript, the absolute convenience of being able to go in and change a word or add a paragraph without having to re-type an entire page or chapter - you bet it's handy! Being able to use computers for publishing purposes enables a lot of us to share in ways that would have been impossible not so very long ago.

Spending time with people I love, spending time doing my homework and doing my job ... these are what time is meant to be spent on.

Spending time is an investment that pays off always emotionally when it comes to my daughters, and many times financially as the investment pays off in royalties.

So I'm not knocking technology here, believe me!

On the other side of the coin, however, is another side to the story.

Right now, for example, I could (and should) be doing any number of things besides sitting at my keyboard.

All too often I find myself killing time - I don't play the games that many do on line, but hours can go by without my notice when I'm just browsing around the web. Unless it's daughter-time or research that will directly contribute to the content of my books, or using the web to reach out to others with what I want to share, those hours are but killing time. Those hours are dead, and once dead, time cannot be called back.

There's a big difference between spending time, investing it so to speak, and killing it.

Mea culpa. I have murdered many of my days, and forfeited more I could have spent on worthy investments, by killing time.

That's what's on my mind this day.

Pointing Fingers