Carpe Diem 7 Days before Christmas: Peace Within: A Senryu

Image by Maciej Szewczyk from Pixabay

to have peace within

heart and mind beneath the skin

the greatest of gifts

Heeding Haiku: First Snowfall

Image Source

outside my new home

the first snow begins to fall

melancholy hope

~Cie~

Carpe Diem #1781: Dead Leaves

the leaves falling down

colorless on the cold wind

my heart breaks like ice

~Cie~

Notes:

I guess I came close to following the traditional Haiku rules, but if not, you can tell me that I suck and should go die in a fire like the trash poet (and excuse for a human being) that I am. For me, the expression is always more important than the rules, and it's difficult to teach a very old and stupid dog new tricks.

About Cie Monday + Inspire Me Monday #241+ Promote Yourself Monday + Carpe Diem Acts of Devotion 2019: Adam's Peak

Image Source

I can only dream

of walking up Adam's Peak

body compromised

~Cie~

Notes:

Once we are fully moved into our new home, I would like to begin practicing remote viewing again. I will also be taking daily walks to the park and hope to increase my endurance enough to be able to walk from one end of the main street to the other. Grover is a very small town, so I don't want you-all thinking: "Wow, Cie, impressive goal walking twenty miles!" 

I would also like to rehabilitate myself to the point where I can walk up a set of stairs without having to pull myself up using the banister or to lean against an opposite wall to support myself. However, one thing I need to avoid is making this a shame-based goal, i.e. calling myself a loser because I need to support myself to climb stairs. We are taught from the time we are very young that it is shameful to be in a lesser state of physical ability than a competition class athlete, and I'm not being particularly hyperbolic when I say this. It's horrible.

Your physical abilities and disabilities are not a marker of success or worthiness. They are simply conditions that exist.

With physical therapy, I was able to bring my left arm back to a state of functionality where I'm not in constant debilitating pain. I still don't have the full range of motion in the arm. I am not a better person for having an arm that functions reasonably well than I was when I had an arm that I could barely use, and having an arm that was fully functional and had normal sensations would not make me a better person than I am now.

Physical ability is not a hallmark of greater worth, and physical disability is not something that people should be punished for.

Visit us at www.goodstufffromgrover.com. We're nearly there! The moving truck comes Friday!

Carpe Diem Field of Flowers: Honeysuckle

I can remember

the smell of honeysuckle

New Mexico night

~Cie~

Notes:

I recently completed and am about to submit my manuscript for the Insecure Writers' Support Group anthology contest. The genre is middle-grade historical fantasy/action.

I normally write for adults. I find writing for youth extremely challenging. I ended up opting to write a lightly fictionalized autobiography of myself between childhood and my pre-teen years which centered around my imagination and the fantastical fiction genres which inspired me. In writing about myself I ended up opening a lot of pockets of unresolved grief.

The place I lived between the ages of four and nine was a semi-rural pocket in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where people could have small farms and keep chickens and such. We had a very large yard, a half-acre. Unfortunately, the house was in rather a shoddy condition and cockroaches the size of school buses had a tendency to get inside. The bugs are huge in New Mexico, and I was not keen on that. But I did love the little skinks and horned toads and such. We also had many beautiful plants around such as the honeysuckle vines, and the cicadas would sing us to sleep.

I was a very shy child and did not have many friends. The characters I met in fantasy worlds were my friends, as were my pets and the animals in our yard.

Although I was born in the Western United States and raised in the Southwest for a number of years, my parents were both from New York. When certain relatives would visit, they would ridicule my accent. A New Mexico accent is a bit of an off-Texas drawl. To this day, I bristle whenever anyone askes the seemingly innocent question: "where are you from?" To me, that question is loaded.

Carpe Diem Field of Flowers: Yarrow

Image Source

like yellow yarrow

I am plain, scrubby, and rough

my beauty unseen

~Cie~

Carpe Diem Field of Flowers: Drooping Sunflower

Like a sunflower

Grown too heavy for its stalk

My weary head droops

~Cie~

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #84: What the Apple Blossoms Know

Apple Blossoms

(Photographer unknown)

Apple blossoms watch

I rush forward resisting

Time passes for all

~Cie~

Notes:

This meditation asks us to work Unduo (movement) into our piece. I believe I succeeded in this.

Insecure Writers' Support Group May 2019: Cie Plans Ahead

Image copyright Conger Design on Pixabay

As the sort of person who tends to fly by the seat of my pants, I like to instill some discipline into my program by participating in writing prompts. However, as I discovered this year when participating in Camp NaNoWriMo plus the NaPoWriMo and Poems in April prompts at the same time on my poetry blog, and the A to Z challenge over at Naughty Netherworld Press, too many prompts can feel more like a cluster flock than an inspiration.

Image copyright The Atlantic

This nightmare vision is a massive flock of starlings. I don't have a bird phobia, but I find this a bit unsettling. I don't like swarms of anything, and that includes people.

Camp NaNoWriMo is much more flexible than NaNoWriMo. I was using it as a tool to inspire me to pull together my first poetry book. I'm not sure it succeeded. 

NaPoWriMo's prompts are optional. One can participate in NaPoWriMo without ever using one of their prompts.

Poems in April's prompts are not flexible.

The A to Z blogging challenge doesn't have any hard and fast rules other than, you know, having your posts go in alphabetical order. The subject you choose is up to you. 

I used the A to Z challenge to introduce the bold and bawdy characters from Naughty Netherworld Press' Carnal Invasion series to the world. This was enjoyable but labor-intensive. I don't think it would be a bad thing to plan next year's A to Z Challenge this year and have at least a rough draft version of the posts ready to go for next year.

For the poetry project, I believe that next year I am going to go with Carpe Diem's Spring Kigo. This will work fine with NaPoWriMo and Camp NaNoWriMo, plus there is a feeling of continuity, and I can hone my Haiku. There are people who loathe Haiku. I am not among them.

If either the NaPoWriMo or Poems in April prompts strike my fancy, I can hammer out a bonus poem. My -666 fans will be thrilled!

I had planned to answer the Insecure Writers' Support Group question in this month's post, but I'm not going to--again. Maybe next time.

~Cie~

NaPoWriMo 2019: Day 26 + Poems in April 2019 Day 26: Creatures of Colorado

 Copyright Karin Gustafson

Surely there will be

Birds in north Colorado

Maybe some red ones

Copyright Karin Gustafson

Maybe there will be

Bears in north Colorado

I hope not too close

Copyright Karin Gustafson

Maybe a ghost will

Haunt northern Colorado

That ghost will be me

~Cie~

Notes:

Will wonders never cease, I think I actually fulfilled the criteria for both prompts.

The NaPoWriMo prompt asked for repetition.

The Poems in April asked for writing about rebirth.

If my son and I do move to the small town mentioned in the previous poem, it will be a rebirth.

You see, even stopped clock is right twice a day.

NaHaiWriMo 2018 #4: Picture of the Photographer

Notes:

Images copyright Cara Hartley/The Real Cie. I allow the use of my photographs in other creative blogs with credit to me. 

The person in the photograph is my 28-year-old son, Michael, who is taking photographs of some specimens at the Denver Botanic Gardens. Michael has overcome a lot of challenges in his life, and I am very proud of him. He has worked hard to manage depression and anxiety without medication, as the medications don't work for him. Although he still deals with these issues, he has developed excellent coping skills.

Psych meds work well for some people, but they don't work for everyone. In Michael's case, they don't work at all. In my case, they make me manic and psychotic, which I am usually not. 

People tend to want to "fix" those who have neurological and psychological differences. Instead of trying to "fix" us, which tends to make us become defensive and shuts down conversations, try instead to understand our perspective, which opens the doors to understanding and possibility.

~Cie~

30 Days of Haiga 2017: Day 11: End of Story

Background Image Copyright: tomertu / 123RF Stock Photo

Text manipulation by The Real Cie

Notes:

Without going into too much detail, which would detract from the viewing of the image, I have had a difficult year. I have changed jobs six times and eventually ended up changing careers entirely. 

There are aspects of my current job which I really appreciate, but it is not an easy job and I do not make as much money as I did in my previous profession, which there are several reasons I can't go back to, the biggest one being changes in my diabetes which lead to fatigue and weakness if I don't pace myself.

I feel like I have lost the things that made me who I am: my imagination and my ability to enter other worlds astrally and psychically. My heart is heavy and I feel broken. I feel that I am constantly being punished and that there is no need for external hells when all the hell I need is here in the loss of that which made me who I am.

Cross-posted to:

Crazy Creatives Cheerleading Camp

Dark Hearts Love Too

Dream About Me Sweet Brother

Encyclopedia Netherworld

Esoteric Escape

Fetch

Netherworld Writer's Guild

One Love

Starry Demons

Strands of Eternity