Win a Book of Poetry!

From Dec. 7 - 14, 2011 the Poetic Muselings (six Muse Conference friends) are having a crazy contest at their web site http:poetic-muselings.net with a book of our poetry called Lifelines as the prize.

To win, you must provide us with the most awesome answer to a few questions:

-- Who is your favorite poet?

-- What is your favorite poem?

-- Why?

Now, a cool thing about this contest is that your favorite poem may be a stand-alone you discovered -- not necessarily by your favorite poet. And the answer to the question "Why?" is the critical piece. Why did you choose this poet? Why this particular poem? What is it that resonates with you, or just won't let go?

We anticipate serious arm-wrestling and shouting by the end, as we select the ONE set of responses we feel best captures the essence of why we write, what moves us, creates unforgettable imagery . . . and we'd like your help to drive us nuts in this process. The winner will receive a copy of Lifelines, mailed to your house.

And, if you have a blog or website and would be interested in connecting to us or spreading the word, please let us know. We're starting a blogroll.

So -- thank you for reading this, and we hope you will have some fun and enter our contest.

Soul Collage Blog Party

My two most recent cards followed by a slide show of cards on the Gulf of Mexico Crisis. Enjoy!

Summoning the Gray Fox Totem

I Dream of Dancing But Have Two Left Feet

Gulf of Mexico Crisis Slide Show

Slideshow made with Smilebox

Soul Collage for the Gulf Oil Crisis

I was moved to make 7 Soul Collage cards for the healing of the Gulf of Mexico, its animals, plant life, waters and people. OK, maybe I got a bit carried away, but I was moved by the Spirit. That and a stack of awesome National Geographics. May the Spirit of Healing be upon them all. I'll be posting a card a day till I have them all posted, so keep looking till you see the dolphin card- that's the earliest one.

Heal the Birds and the Marshlands

Heal the Whales and the Gulf People

Heal the Fishes and Plants

Heal the Birds and the Fishermen

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Heal the Turtles

Heal the Gulf People and the Coral

Heal the Dolphins

Vicious Verses and Reanimated Rhymes: Zombie Fare for the Mind!

I'm in print for the first time!

My Zombie poem "Amore, Zombie Style" is appearing in the anthology Vicious Verses and Reanimated Rhymes: Zany Zombie Poetry for the Undead Head, just released August 11th.

I am extremely excited to see my name in print and on real paper, dammit, for the first time. The anthology is stuffed with poems, so if you're into Zombies- or poetry- let your fingers walk on over to Amazon and pick up a couple of copies as a Halloween surprise for your best ghoul-friends.

Just a Dog

From Point A to Point B: Making Art Again

Thanks, Lacey!

I think my recently passed dog Lacey wants to see her Mama doing something she loves. I knew when I heard her ghostly dog tags mysteriously jingling that she was telling me "Get on with things you love- I know you haven't forgotten me".

It's still lonesome here in my computer room/quasi art studio because she always laid under my desk. Still I feel her presence strongly in here, and it keeps me good company, as my other dog Smokey is as quiet as a church mouse. He's feeling the loss too.

As far as getting from Point A to Point B, I joined a collage group seven weeks ago and make a collage a week. I also joined a mandala group a few weeks later. How on earth are those two things related? Well, both involve art, and both are ways I've been expressing my creative urges and my emotions. And recent events have brought the emotions to the forefront.

This week my collage was about art and the spirit it evokes in me, the urge to play. Our animals teach us about this important part of life every day but we often ignore it as silly or childish or foolish. But we really need it. It keeps us balanced and healthy. The animals know it but we forget. So the collage was called "The Point Is Play, Play, Play" and here it is:



I got some good feedback on it and was pleased with it. I had been playing with some new filters for my graphics program today so when I got a challenge to create a mandala with an Autumn feel to it, remembering Lacey and Smokey's past antics, I decided to play.

I got out the central image of the collage, the woman in orange, and used a new kaleidescope filter on it that had all kinds of settings to play with. I dialed away, moved sliders and just had fun, till I finally came up with this image.



I cropped it into a circle, and voila, instant flame medicine wheel. I wanted to do more though. I brought in a second image, a photo I took of some faded yellow Ixoras, seen here.



I cropped that to get the best bits of the flowers. Then I got brave enough to try making a mask with an alpha channel - my first ever - and was successful. I loaded in the flowers as partially transparent and moved them around to look the best with the medicine wheel, using the mask to get rid of the unwanted parts of the flowers.

Last I played with the color and added an edge and a drop shadow, as well as a background. One final cropping and I was done. Here it is, Autumn Medicine Wheel:



You'd never believe one picture would lead to another, would you?


It just goes to show, we have an innate need to play. So go outside (or inside) and do it!

Almost 14 Years of Love and Devotion

Lacey

1994-2008

I lost my sweet, beloved Sheltie Lacey to cancer today. Life had ceased to be a thing of joy and adventure and instead become full of lassitude and pain, so I elected to end her suffering and set her feet onto the Rainbow Bridge. I know she waits for me, happy and whole, and will be wondering what takes me so long.

She was my nurse dog, always first on the scene to investigate and treat any owies with a good licking and gentle nudging. For a long time she shared a pillow on my bed, keeping away nightmares, until arthritis made it too difficult to jump that high up. She was my intrepid adventurer, sneaking out of the fence on voyages of exploration, assisted by kind neighbors returning her home when they found my phone number on her collar. And she was my four-legged alarm system, alerting to any suspicious activity in a two-block area like it was her own personal front yard. Then too she would perform her duties as the welcome wagon at the vets as we waited our turn, going around the room to visit with everyone, two-legged or four.

She taught me patience, unconditional love, and the power of cheese. I will be lost without her. I have her collar in my purse and it will be going up around her picture- it still carries her scent. I got a few strands of her beautiful orange and white fur as a memento as well. But nothing takes the ache away, only time. This poem helps a bit, as well-

The Loss of a Heart-Dog

I stood by your bed last night,
I came to have a peep
I could see that you were crying,
you found it hard to sleep

I whined to you softly as
you brushed away a tear,
"it's me, I haven't left,
I'm well, I'm fine, I'm here"

I was close to you at breakfast,
I watched you pour the tea
You were thinking of the many times,
your hands reached down to me

I was with you at the shops today,
your arms were getting sore
I longed to take your parcels,
I wish you could do more

I was with you at my grave today,
you tend it with such care
I want to reassure you,
that I'm not lying there

I walked with you towards the house,
as you fumbled for your key
I gently put my paw on you,
I smiled and said "it's me"

You look so very tired,
and sank into a chair
I tried so hard to let you know,
that I was standing there

It's possible for me,
to be so near you everyday
To say to you with certainty,
"I never went away"

You sat there very quietly,
then smiled, I think you knew
In the stillness of that evening,
I was very close to you

The day is over,
I smile and watch you yawning
And say "goodnight, God bless,
I'll see you in the morning"

And when the time is right for you
to cross the brief divide,
I'll rush across to greet you
and we'll stand, side by side

I have so many things to show you,
there is so much for you to see
Be patient, live your journey out,
then come home to be with me.

- Author Unknown

That consoles me, that I will see her faithful soul running towards me again up there. It must be a wonderful place. Two things though I hope they got straight: dogs need to live as long as we humans do, and God needs to let dogs sit on the sofa in Heaven. It's much homier that way.

12 Foods You Should Alway Buy Organic

From Dr Weil: http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/ART02985/12-Foods-You-Should-Always-Buy-Organic.html

The Environmental Working Group (www.ewg.org)
is a nonprofit organization that advocates in Washington D.C., for policies that protect global and individual health. Among the many valuable services they provide is a Shoppers' Guide to Pesticides in Produce.

It is based on the results of nearly 43,000 pesticide tests performed on produce and collected by federal agencies between 2000 and 2004. Nearly all of the data used took into account how people typically wash and prepare produce - for example, apples were washed and bananas peeled before testing.

Of the 43 different fruit and vegetable categories tested, these had the highest pesticide load, making them the most important to buy organic versions - or to grow organically yourself:

• Peaches
• Apples
• Sweet bell peppers
• Celery
• Nectarines
• Strawberries
• Cherries
• Lettuce
• Grapes (imported)
• Pears
• Spinach
• Potatoes

Why should you care about pesticides? The EWG points out that there is a growing consensus in the scientific community that small doses of pesticides and other chemicals can have adverse effects on health, especially during vulnerable periods such as fetal development and childhood.

A few other notes from the EWG: Nectarines had the highest percentage of samples that tested positive for pesticides (97.3 percent) followed by peaches (96.6 percent) and apples (93.6 percent). Peaches had the
highest likelihood for multiple pesticides on a single sample: 86.6 percent had two or more pesticide residues.

Also keep in mind that maintaining your family's health is not the only reason to choose organic food. Pesticide and herbicide use contaminates groundwater, ruins soil structures and promotes erosion, and may be a contributor to "colony collapse disorder," the sudden and mysterious die-off of pollinating honeybees that threatens the American food supply. Buying or growing organic food is good for the health of the planet.

Failure-Smailure!

"A failure a day is success on the way!"
- Lin Neiswender



I came up with this meaningful quote yesterday, in a discussion about Redefining Failure at Coach Creative Space. Nick pointed out the vital necessity of frequent failures on the path to success, and that we should be seeking out failures, not running away from them, as they are getting us closer to our goals. That struck me as so profound, and whammo, the quote was born. Thank you for that Nick, and Dan for establishing the discussion.

I used the motivation from the quote to do my first collage - shown above - for an artists' collage group called Collage Play (info about it here) that I just joined. I was nervous about my virgin effort- what if it was awful? What if my style was nothing like anyone else's? In short, what if I sucked at this? But I did it anyway, printing off things I had made that I thought would go together with the required elements, changing some of the graphics, scaling them and altering the colors, playing.

And a funny thing happened. I started getting excited about the process, and started having fun. Isn't that what creativity is all about, the process? The fun? So even if the end product had been ugly, it still would have been OK. I would have had great pleasure making it. The piece is called the Queen of the Meadowlark Palace. And, paradoxically, I don't think it is ugly. Whew!

Well, got to go get busy now and seek out some new failures. Success is calling my name!

Take That Tiny Step

Here's a quote I ran across this afternoon in the lung health group I belong to, where they were talking about outliving their predicted mortality and mentioned this strategy: Do something about it. "If it's to be it's up to me."

Many times I find myself whining and complaining and then totally failing to take even one baby step to help myself. This makes all the whining and complaining for nothing, and irritates my friends and family to boot! Inertia is easy; it's the status quo, business as usual. It's when I decide to get off my duff and do something about my situation, however small the step, that magical things start to happen. The universe or God or my Higher Power sends things or people I need into my path, where it is then my responsibility to connect with them and or use them to move myself forward. Don't let depression or inertia or despair hold you back any longer. Take that tiny step today! And make your universe a brighter space.

Like Science Fiction and like to laugh? Download "Hal Spacejock" - Free!

"Fast, funny, quirky, enthralling comedy adventure" Tom Holt


Hal Spacejock Cover

The Hal Spacejock series is published by Fremantle Press & distributed by Penguin Australia

To celebrate the release of Simon Haynes's latest novel, Hal Spacejock: No Free Lunch, Fremantle Press is giving away free electronic copies of the first book in the series! Read this free novel on your PDA or computer screen, or print the whole manuscript off and read it on paper. Whichever you choose, you get the whole book exactly as published, completely free.

Even if you're not interested - what about sons, daughters, nephews, neighbours, nieces, grandkids, fellow workers, friends, enemies ... Give them all a treat!

Here's the link: http://www.spacejock.com.au/Hal1Download.html

We *Heart* You , Miss Snark

May 20th, 2008, marks the first anniversary of literary maven Miss Snark, the Literary Agent's final blog post. The woman- or was it a man?- made an impact on wannabe writers throughout the country, gathering a following of avid Snarklings who turned to her for writing advice, humor, and a reality check with every delicious post.

I made my goal of getting (anonomously) into the blog with the Killer Yap Sex Toy Contribution ("Killer Yap is not amused" http://misssnark.blogspot.com/2007_04_15_archive.html) and making Miss Snark almost shoot coffee out her nose. Sorry it couldn't have been for my literary genius, but I took what I could get. I was so saddened when it all came to an end a short time later. I miss her every day. But there is still plenty of writing gold to be mined there, so new writers, do check out the archives. You will be amazed. And amused.

Perhaps the Snarklings' dearest wish will someday come true and Miss Snark will come out of retirement, but then again, I have to respect her wishes if she doesn't want to write us a sequel. Two million plus visitors wore out the welcome mat. It would take George Clooney in red stiletto heels to lure her back out, and I don't think they make them in his size.

DreamLand Calls: New Discovery Health Series "In Your Wildest Dreams"

I caught about 45 minutes of a television program today that absolutely fascinated me called "In Your Wildest Dreams" on Discovery Health today, Saturday, 2 PM eastern. In it, three people whose recurring or frightening dreams were impacting their lives received help from professional dream interpreter Lauri Loewenberg in learning to recall, decipher, and ultimately control their dreams. It was eye-opening. If you get a chance to see it on repeat, check it out. I believe it is the start of a regular series. Loewenberg has a dream interpretation book but I haven't had a chance yet to check it out. Her interpretations were right on the money for these people.