Roswila's Dream & Poetry Realm

SEE ALSO: TRYING TO HOLD A BOX OF LIGHT (photos, realistic to abstract)

Thursday, June 22, 2006

ANOTHER ATTEMPT AT HAIGA

In an earlier post (FIRST ATTEMPTS AT HAIGA), I shared two haiga I'd found photos for on the internet and then added my own haiku to, while learning how to use Paintbox.

I've now attempted to use Paintbox to create my own picture to go with a minimialist haiku of mine that I share four versions of below.

I have also been working with oil pastels and colored pencils -- and may try some water color, as well -- to make a haiga with this particular haiku, but thought I'd share the process as it has evolved so far with Paintbox. Until I set up my scanner I won't be able to share the other sketches.

Using a mouse to do any sort of drawing is quite a challenge and I am fairly dextrous. As my roommate and I were commiserating over this sad fact, she mentioned that there's something called a "tablet" on which you can actually draw into the computer with a stylus/pen. Oh, boy, something else expensive for me to lust futilely after! :-) Though I'm not truly all that frustrated as it's been lovely to start doing some hand-drawing again. When I was a child I had been slated by my family to be a visual artist and I continued to draw and paint though not much in recent years. Maybe being on a fixed income and having this intense desire to make my own haiga will bring me back to that old love.

Of the four Paintbox versions below, I am most partial to the "full moon purple 9" as I think its simplicity echos the haiku's. Though loving colors as I do, it's almost a tie between #9 and #11. Any comments?


[full moon purple]



* * * *

[full moon purple 4]



* * * *

[full moon purple 9]



* * * *

[full moon purple 11]



* * * *

Resource: Haiga Gallery; also has haiku.

‘til next time, keep dreaming,

Roswila

[aka: Patricia Kelly]

****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****My other blog: ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

THE HUNGRY SYMBOL: A DREAM-BASED SHORT-SHORT STORY

The below story is an old one of mine, based on two even older dreams. The image in the first paragraph and the fish image in the last sentence are directly from the two separate dreams. I felt challenged back then, for what reason I don't remember, to make a connection between them. I also remember associating the closing image to a black-light poster of mine from my hippie years (yes, I’m an aging hippie :-D) of a huge lavender/blue fish swimming through the cosmos.

I used to really enjoy reading this story at open poetry readings – some readings welcome short-shorts, when there’s time. It was fun to “be” the woman, to sort of “hiss” as she does. I’d even bring one of my rattles with me and shake it at the appropriate times. (Who’s a ham? :-D)



The Hungry Symbol: A Story of Origins (Dream-Based)

She squats before the skull on a branch. The pupils of her gold eyes expand slowly like galaxies. Her long yellow hair hangs untended in hanks, dead flowers curled in its knots. She has come here to remember, to make the skull's brooding power pull the answers she seeks from their fitful sleep beneath her skin. Her black skin that glows ruddy even in the jungle shadows.

They had not counted on this. None of them. They had not been prepared for this life like an on-going sleep. It was getting more and more difficult to reconnect to true wakefulness. She, of all her tribe, was the only one who now remembered, ever made this trip to the heart of the jungle. And it was getting harder and harder to remember on her own, with none of her companions adding their strengths to hers until they bridged the stars, a rainbow of souls.

Even now, the Elders of the tribe would be telling the children long sunset stories of this new earth, giving its rocks and trees and animals, powers that were really The People's. Pouring the tribe's natural star-traveling talents into the hungry symbol of this young planet. She, alone among The People now, knew that even this ancient skull, with its long orange hair, had no power but what she gave it.

And the dreams, that silver pooling through which they dove when they landed here, exhausted after their long star journey. The dreams, too, were changing. Invaded more and more by what they could not, would not use in this simple world, the dreams were more like burial caves -- littered with the forgotten, the feared, the unwanted -- than the doorways they had once been.

She stares harder at the skull, and shakes a bone rattle. With her other hand she grasps a necklace of fangs that rests on her bare breast. Her belly swells and recedes as her breathing deepens. Her chant stirs the jungle clearing. The answers itch beneath her sweat slick skin. The moon white skull before her sways, the empty eye sockets expanding and sparkling like rising memory.

"Yes, yes," she hisses from between her blackened teeth, and shakes the rattle, her reed thin body perched tentatively like a house of sticks. The orange hair on the skull crackles like flame, as the jungle hums.

"Yes, yes," she hisses, they HAD known the connection might be drawn too thin by the abyss of space and their new homes of fleshly bodies. They HAD known. And now they were storing their star guides beneath their dreams, and their powers in the stones, in the things of this new earth, until these hybrid creatures they had become were ready.

"Yes, yes," she hisses, memory receding as the orange hair on the skull settles around the branch like a friendly embrace.

"Yes, yes," she hisses, collapsing at last onto the damp jungle earth into a dream of dancing iridescent fish returning to their home in the stars.

* * * *

Resource: Dream Image Collages, another way to honor and explore one's dreams is to make collages of them; there are also transcripts of dreams here.

‘til next time, keep dreaming,

Roswila

[aka: Patricia Kelly]

****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****My other blog: ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL.

Sunday, June 18, 2006

FATHER'S DAY, WITH A POEM

[Lily of the Valley photo from dreamtime.com, by Kinchik]

When looking for an appropriate image for this post I recalled one of my fondest childhood memories that is inextricably tied up with my father. I adored the Lily of Valley that grew in our backyard where we lived from when I was five to around eight years old. I clearly recall his smile of delight one time when he "caught" me staring lovingly at and carefully exploring the design of their flowers and leaves as I lolled around in the grass under the backyard tree. I was embarrassed at the time, but years later it became a precious memory: my father taking delight in my joy.

I don't have many memories of this sort of my father and treasure them. We had, for the most part, a very troubled relationship. However, today I want to remember what was good about us and the healing I have undertaken over the years since his death. The healing that has changed him from a scary dream figure to a fellow and helpful traveller. The transformation that has turned his voice in my mind from one of criticism, guilting and abuse, into care, advice, and comfort. This sea change that has allowed me to see the great gift he gave me: the example of his creative way of thinking about and approaching things, and then doing them, all with delight. I believe I inherited any artistic talent I may have from my blood mother, but it is from my father that I absorbed ways of applying it joyfully in the world.

Years ago, during the process of healing my relationship with my father after his death, I often felt I was in a dialogue -- in my journal, in dreams, in light trancework -- directly with his soul. I do not claim to know whether this is true or not. I only know the results are as real as if I had been in direct communication with him and I am grateful for the healing that resulted and the support "he" continues to offer.

Below is a poem based on a dream I had one night, several years ago, about my father.


The Dream

She swirls with her father
above a winter sea.
A welcome absence rests between them.
His smile, sad and open to the starlight.
His ghostly fingers barely brush
her back, her hands, as they glide
together through the silence.
Following her lead at last,
he asks no more of her than this,
this one sweet dance,
this accident
of grace.

* * * *

P.S. My Tarot blog post (link at end of this post) for today is about The Emperor card, often seen as the archetypal father.

Resource: PERFECT LOVE/IMPERFECT RELATIONSHIPS: Healing the Wounded Heart, by John Welwood; Shambala Publications, Inc.; 2006; ISBN 1-59030-262-1. I very recently read this book and can't recommend it highly enough. It is both poetic, and pragmatic (offering a series of exercises you can do). It is deeply moving and helped me see that my journey of these past several years has been even more healing than I had dared to imagine. It also made clear what my next steps need to be.

‘til next time, keep dreaming,

Roswila

[aka: Patricia Kelly]

****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****My other blog: ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL.