Where this blog's name comes from....

"The Gateway" by Alec Derwent Hope

Now the heart sings with all its thousand voices
To hear this city of cells, my body, sing.
The tree through the stiff clay at long last forces
Its thin strong roots and taps the secret spring.

And the sweet waters without intermission
Climb to the tips of its green tenement;
The breasts have borne the grace of their possession,
The lips have felt the pressure of content.

Here I come home: in this expected country
They know my name and speak it with delight.
I am the dream and you my gates of entry,
The means by which I waken into light.

Love, Love, Love

Your essential self is love. All the rest that is layered upon that is window dressing. They are simply the tools at your disposal for creating your life and living in it.
To return to that essential self is your ultimate goal. Therein lies the peace and love of God. At the center of your being, at the heart of you, is Love/Peace/God. These are simply words to describe something that is indescribable.
I think it's good, on Valentine's Eve, to keep this perspective. Valentine's Day is a great day for celebrating love, notwithstanding its being co-opted by the romantic version of itself.
Love is a verb. Love makes the world go around. Love is the only thing that is real. All you need is love.
All I am saying, is give love a chance. Love is a miracle, present every moment in our lives. It asks only that you open to it.

O Say, You Silly Savage

It's a good time for poetry about love. Here is one of my all-time favorites:
Shakespeare's Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Wild Is The Wind

Having had plenty of drama in my life, it is a revelation
to me, now that my life is quiet, that I so often mistook
drama for passion. Or maybe, I made do with drama,
when what I really wanted was passion. So, life as
it is drawn now, is relatively predictable, and therefore
not dominated by drama.
Now I can aim for the real thing. Now I can set my sights on
what is true. Now I get the idea. Now I know what I want.
PASSION.
I aspire to passion unfettered by worry.
To be wild like the wind.

Why can't I have more days like this??

I admit, I have been experiencing writer's block, so I am recounting a
vision I had several years ago.
There is a door, made of heavy old wood, set into a lush green hedge. The door opens,
and a being beckons me inside. I feel welcomed, and I see that I am entering a maze.
I am told I can go through the maze; to just follow it around every corner,
and I will come to a beautiful garden.
The being then hands me a book. I am told it is a book of
knowledge, and I can open the book anytime I need help.
Next I am handed a bowl, and told that I can put all my fears in the bowl,
and they will be washed away.
Finally, I am given a feather, and told that this symbolizes flight.
My Higher Self is now here. As always (s)he is full of Peace and Happiness.
We acknowledge each other, and promise to stay in better touch with each other.
Why can't I have more days like this? Don't answer, I already know.

The World Without Us

"The World Without Us" is a fascinating treatise on the ways the earth would take itself back, were humans to simply disappear in an instant. Also, it goes into some detail about how we humans have affected the earth over the course of time.
If you have the time and any interest in anthropology and/or the environment, I highly recommend it! (Actually, I borrowed the book on CD from the library, so I had it read to me, which was even better).
If you don't plan to read it, here is a nutshell summary:
1) The world, without us, will change, for the better, eventually.
2) We have done an incredible amount of mucking up the earth.
If you want to know just a tiny bit about the world without us, here is a link to one page of the author's website: http://www.worldwithoutus.com/did_you_know.html

Write Now?

I finally had the courage to read the novel I began to write in November. I decided it is awful, and not at all what I want to write. There are some good bits, but I don't think the plot is original enough. Certainly the writing borders on hackneyed, at least in my opinion.
Of course, we are our own worst critics. Still, I am going back to the drawing board with this one. I still think I want to write on the theme of memory, but I have to go in a different direction. This time, I will write an outline first. So:
#1) Establish a goal, e.g. a basic premise of the story: Foundation
#2) Draw up an outline of the major events of the story: Framework
#3) Add deliciously descriptive prose and interesting characters: Foof!
Yes, okay, I can do this.