Mamm Speaks

Mamm Speaks

I am old now, older than you can realize.  We are a long-lived people and I am ancient even by our standards.  

Before me, my mother and grandmothers were also long-lived.  

I tell their stories as well as my own when I speak of our under-bed storage chest.  It was made by my mother's mother's mother and is now in my keeping.

The years are many and many since that long-ago girl, yet they live so long as any one of us will tell the story of those years, and so long as any one will listen and remember and tell that story to another. Perhaps one day someone will need to hear it.

That long-ago girl chose wood from this very grove, where I rest myself now, to make her special chest. It has returned home after many travels.

I have tended this grove for most of my long life; Sidhelagh tended it; and now ... now it will fall to Merri should she so choose.  She loves it and tends it already - but she will be warrior as well; who can tell which path will be hers - perhaps both, as it was with me, and with Sidhelagh.  

Ah ... the lives we lead ... we do as we must when we must, whether we will it or not.  

Yet always the choice is our own to make.  No other can take that authority from us.

Each and all, we choose our own path.

Personalized Books

In this Younglings of Dunnottar story, Brann and Caileen get Mama Aine to join them for a picnic in the Forest, where they have an unexpected adventure.  

The cover of this personalized book has a color photo of 'Brann', (maybe we'll add  'Caileen' and 'Mama Aine').  

Other photos will go into the pages of the book, in greyscale (not color).  

When a purchaser contacts me (shiela.branson@yahoo.com) about a personalized book, s/he will be involved in the creation of the book.  I'll need photos and authorization (releases) to use them, and I'll need to know enough about the child (or whomever) to write a book that fits. And the purchaser will approve the final draft via email before it goes to print.  

These books are NOT for public sale; ONLY the original contact person will be able to buy them.  They can buy as many copies as they choose, but nobody else will have access to them unless that person so specifies and authorizes.  

Parents or grandparents might want to commemorate a special time for a child; a friend or relative might want to have a graduation book made, with anecdotal stories and photos from the school years; newlyweds might want their courtship/wedding story told; an anniversary might be celebrated with a book of the couple's life together.  

The possibilities are literally endless. 

Depending on how complicated they want their book to be, and how quickly they get good quality photos and information to me, it could take anywhere from a day to a week to get it put together. Then it's a matter of a couple of weeks to get the printing done and the books shipped.  

I would say that most would be in their hands within a month - but plenty of advance planning is always a good idea.  You never know if/when glitches will come up.

Again depending on the complexity of the project, prices will vary. My best guess would be that most would be somewhere in the neighborhood of ten dollars US but that's ONLY a guess.

Excited! Print copies of They Are My Song are on the way to me!

And the first book out of the box gets packaged right back up again to go to:  

Dunnottar/Stonehaven 

!!!!!!!!!

It's just absolutely RIGHT.  

Happy woman, me.

BRRRRRRRRR

They say that the high temperatures for this neck of the woods (not that we have any woods to speak of) come the weekend will be below zero, and the lows will be even further below zero.  

Well, it IS December in Dakota, after all.  

Me, I'm not planning on going outside.  

My plans consist of feeding my antique kitchen cook stove all the wood it wants, using said stove to cook all the food I want, making hot cocoa on said stove and drinking as much of THAT as I want, and finding out what happens next in Mamm's story of her heirloom under-bed storage chest.  

I never thought I'd see the day that I would say this, but I'm kind of looking forward to being trapped inside my own home by the weather.  

If it snows a lot, on the other hand, I am NOT looking forward to having to shovel my way out.  But maybe it won't snow that much.  

One can HOPE!  

In The Works and Racing Each Other For Completion!

Mamm and Home Sweet Home (temporary title) seem to be competing for time and attention, like siblings in rivalry.

Mamm is presently in the lead, but she had a head start and Home Sweet Home is already aggressive, so we'll see what happens!  

If you've read They Are My Song, you'll have already met Mamm.  

If not, let me introduce her.  

The character Mamm is the Elder of the group of our people on Dunnottar in 487 AD.  

She is old now, but in her youth she was a formidable warrior, so hopefully her account of the heirloom under-bed storage chest that's in her keeping will give us a glimpse of her own younger years.  

She begins her stories with one about the making of the heirloom and its earliest uses - several generations before the time of the Mamm we met on Dunnottar in 487.

Mamm is the second book of eight in the Song series, which carry on the stories of the characters we met in They Are My Song.

Home Sweet Home is a change of pace, sort of.  

It's poetry and photos and sketches based on a particular (ours) family's American development through the dozen (that we know of) generations we have been here.  

From east to west, from south to north, we the descendants of those original few have spread over this land.  

Ours is by no means a unique family history; there are many such and many Americans will no doubt recognize the progression as mirroring that of their own families across this land.

I Am So Far Behind Myself I'll Never Catch Up!

What an odd thought, huh?  The visual just doesn't quite compute, but the feeling is nevertheless urgent.  

There I am, my mind whirling on ahead to where I'm supposed to be getting to, where I ought to have been long since, and here I am, huffing and puffing along in my Little Old Gramma Lady self.  

*Laughing*  

What's a woman to do?  

Take it one step at a time, doofus.  

Well yeah, that's all I CAN do.  

Leaping buildings at a single bound is not in my repertoire, but I can maybe stretch these old legs out a bit and take longer strides.

If I put my mind to it.

Oh yeah, there's my mind - clear up there someplace ... 

I'm going to paint myself a great big spiral and hang it over my writing desk, that's what I'm going to do.  Just as a reminder that no I can NOT just skip over to where I want to be.  I have to go around and around these little curls first.  

Sigh.  

I think I liked it better when everything was just a dream.  

HA!

No way!  

This is far too much fun.  

I've got a job to go to for the next four days, so will plod my way through them.  

THEN I'll take another step along my own personal spiral.  

Yep.  

FIBONACCI - USEFUL IN SO MANY WAYS!

I'm snagging a post from one of my other blogs because it seems pertinent to where I'm at right now in the decision-making part of my ever-convoluting brain. 

I read a lot of informative posts on marketing and distribution for books, and it all makes sense to me, especially the parts about the importance of doing the MATH.  

In the process of sifting it around in my head I came to the conclusion that I don't think I'm ready for the big time quite yet.  

It's not that I don't have my dreams, and it's not that I don't believe that dreams become reality - because, at least for me, there have been too many dreams that ended up happening for me to doubt that possibility.  

And so I've let the idea of marketing percolate around in my brain here, right?  

Now, as it percolates around in there, it touches on any number of other bits of things that are also constantly percolating around in there.  

Like magnets, or maybe Velcro, bits connect and stick; sometimes seemingly unrelated bits end up stuck together.  

So as I was pondering how to go about this marketing thing, and whether I even really WANT to go about it, my brain threw out a reference to this FIBONACCI thing.  

Not quite sure what to make of THAT, it took me a bit to recognize it for what it was:  my mind telling me to look to the spiral for answers.

Sure that sounds somewhat mystic.  I'm of mostly Celt-related lineages, so it's allowed.  I'm also INFJ, so it's practically mandatory.  

At any rate, I recognize a spiral when I see one.  

And you know what?

They don't start on the outside (dream catchers excluded, but they're man made).

Fibonacci.  

Spiral.  

They begin in the center.

They spiral out from there in the most natural progression ever identified.  

And there's my answer.  

HERE IS MY ORIGINAL POST:

FIBONACCI  -  THE GOLDEN RATIO  -  THE GOLDEN MEAN

PHI  -  1.618…

You don’t have to be a mathematician to appreciate the beauty of a spiral. 

They’re everywhere.

Go to the grocery store and look at the bottom of a pineapple.  There it is.

Fibonacci.

Check out a seashell.  There it is again.

Fibonacci.

Pick up a pinecone and examine it carefully.  You’ll find it there, too.

 Fibonacci.

When the season’s right, head on out to a sunflower field and see what you can see in the pattern of the seeds.  Yep. 

Fibonacci.

Close your hand into a fist and look at it from the top, your thumb wrapped around your curled fingers.

Fibonacci.

The human body is amazing.  You know those drawings of a person where they’re all stretched out and there’s a circle around them and measurements?  Go on line and you’ll find what I’m talking about.

Hurricanes spiral.  Watch the weather channel for pictures of storm development.  Tornadoes spiral.

Fibonacci.

Galaxies spiral.

Fibonacci.

Our DNA is comprised of a double helix, which is … hmmm … countering interconnected spiraling strands.

Fibonacci?

Ocean waves when they curl into themselves do it in that same ratio. 

Fibonacci.

Make a dream-catcher.  You won’t notice it as you’re working on it, but when you’re done – there it is AGAIN.  You’re working on it from the outside in, but as soon as that center holds, you’ve got yourself PHI, which is a Greek letter they use to designate the ratio thing.  The letter Phi is a circle with a line through it from top to bottom.  Pronounce it 'fie'.

1.618…

Fibonacci.

People have been using spirals for probably longer than any other symbol. 

Artists use Phi.

Photographers use Phi.

Architects use Phi.

Our government was created by men who knew the value of Phi in a whole different way.

Coaches use Phi.  Believe it.  Game plans have to balance.

It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? 

Spirals are beautiful.  They are also vitally important.  They keep everything in balance, hold it all together.

In philosophy, the Golden Mean is the point of balance between too little and too much of whatever you’re discussing, whether it’s how much food to fix for dinner or the governing of a nation. 

It’s not just a physical phenomenon is what I’m saying here.

We use it every day in a thousand ways. 

Things have to balance. 

Remember the dream-catcher?

That center must hold or everything falls apart.

We have to find our own centering point.

When we’re walking, our center of balance keeps us from falling over. 

When we’re living our lives, both outer and inner, our centers are what hold us together.

Go out and pick up a few pinecones.  Get some old ones in there, ones that are beginning to come apart.  Guess where they start falling to pieces.  When they lose their center, it’s just a matter of time before they’re goners. 

Posture and body mechanics are (surprise!) important if we want to keep our physical health.  Why do you think ergonomics is such a big business?  We shouldn’t need anyone to tell us, or help us with special equipment, to stand, sit, walk, yada yada, in accordance with the way our bodies are designed, which is centered. 

Maintaining our personal centers is just as important; it’s not like we want to lose our internal balance any more than our physical balance.  We need both. 

So take a good long hard look inside yourself, find what centers you, and keep it strong. 

And all of this extrapolates into everything else in our world, from you and me to our families to our communities to our states to our regions to our nations to our global relationships clear out to the stars and whatever might be beyond them. 

Just sayin’.

Let’s not be any more unbalanced than necessary, okay?