#305 - Desert Rose

Eared Vulture

The Papyrus of Ani

Listening to Desert Rose is to listen back to before the world really came to an end. Pre-9/11. Before that there was the possibility of things being different. The world was moving to a closer, more inclusive place. Yes, there were backlashes and there were serious issues - Chomsky was already preaching about the evils of the media, but the right-wing, that fringe of lunacy was just that - just a few isolated individuals. In a way, they saw the same issues I saw and their solution was just to blow everything up. It is hard to believe that in the 90s there was this window, and then everything evaporated. Everything went. Everything disappeared - into war, into accumulation... the rich became so rich after the 2007 financial crisis - when I say crisis, I mean the absolute carnage. Everything changed after that.

There was a chance in the 90s that things could have been different. Then 9/11 took place and everyone lost their minds. I lived through that. I saw it happening. Even then, it took its time. We tried to oppose it. We tried. But we were lone voices. This, Extinction Rebellion, it feels like a last stand. Whose narrative will win? As we are more connected to each other, when the possibilities of life to be more mixed, for solidarity to occur, this is another crossroad.

I'm reading Howl's Moving Castle - and I have to say that the anime is better. The realisation of it has made it far more imaginable. 

Anyhow...

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That magical moment, that point, when human beings became. Before the vessel, was the intention. This is the way all life is - how we exist. The intention and then the action. The invisible forces that act on us, the invisible hands which shape everything. Everything has been ordained before it has happened. Everything is known and nothing is known. That is all that matters. 

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I see an untouched beach. A place which has been made perfect through the passage of time. The waters are the bluest and warm. The sands are white and the trees lean out, over the waters, sheltering, a safe haven. I have been here a thousand times before... in all of my dreams and in my memories. I am standing in the waters that pull and push me at my legs. I am unsteady, but I am home. I am only ever home here, by the water's edge. 

Who knows when I began? Not even I have that memory. I was simply here. There was no before. This moment has been all that mattered. When I recall back, all the way back, to the furthest memory it begins, it ends here, by the edge of the waters. I am unafraid of the sea. It has always been my mother, my sister, my lover, my comforter. I have never felt alone when I was by the sea. Here I am complete.

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Sketches

I was running the other day and thinking about Lemuria and the beings that would inhabit it, and I decided they would not be human beings. They would be the creatures which we remember in myths. The centaurs, the mermaids, the harpies, the sirens. The cyclopes, the tritons. These were the higher beings which came to be in Lemuria. The cross between animal and human as we were refining ourselves into who we are. They had superpowers but were confined to their roles. These beings inhabited our world with our world. They had a consciousness but also an expertise with their environment. I need to start drawing again - these mythical beings. 

Why don't I begin where I have always wanted to begin? With the mermaids and centaurs. The sirens and the salamanders? My journey is now full circle. That is what I want to write about Lemuria. The wonderful half human, half animal, half divine creatures that inhabit it.

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All life is inhabited by an unseen consciousness. All matter is infused, birthed, held together by it. Anything which we see is not there until we look at it. Only when we look at it, when we hold it in our consciousness does it become fixed. When we look away, it changes. It becomes something else to someone else. 

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I need to settle on a story and write it. I know this: it about Lemuria. It has to have mythical creatures in it. It needs to have something about a new/old world. I am not sure if I am writing for adults or children, although my gut tells me I want to write for children I also see the possibilities of this being a story which is also about adults. I am really over thinking this. 

My inspirations are writers like Neil Gaiman, although I don't like his writing style. Borges. I love Atwood's style. Hyperrealism is not me at all. The gritty kitchen sink dramas, I am not interested in doing. But also not the Herculean struggles of Gods. 

The Last Mermaid

Maybe I'll go for a walk by the shore today for inspiration.