Queen of Swords

Only one image lingers from last night's dream. . .

I am sitting in the prow of my dad's 8' fiberglass boat, the one he owned for decades and which was a constant feature of our family's summer excursions. We are in the waters of Puget Sound, near my sacred island. Dad is in the back, his hand on the controls of the outboard motor. We're racing across the water, bouncing over the waves.

It is an image from my life, one repeated many times over the years, one of the special bonding activities my dad and I shared. On the water.

I remember the last time we did this in life, the last time the family went to the island for a vacation. I remember how it felt to be racing both across and with the water, the delight in the bouncing up and down with the wind in my face. It was a sensation of pure joy.

My subconscious seems to be settling down and getting with the program.

My subconscious is reminding me that I have been doing my father the same disservice I have been doing myself in characterizing him primarily as ruler of Swords. He is a life-long fisherman, a life-long boater, a man of deep and intense feeling, even though he has often kept it hidden by the rules of discretion that govern men of his class and generation.

My father is also a man of Water.

Seen on several LJ's:

( My life ten years ago and now. . .  )


14. What advice would you give your younger self?

That thesis you just wrote? Turn it into a book. Now. If you don’t do it now, it may never get done. If you’re not sure what to do, ask Prof. W for help. And that “twiddle” called Occupation that you’re playing with? Stop asking for the input of others, write from your gut, and finish it. If you don’t do it now, you may never get it done.


15. What would your younger self say to you?

You really think I should? You really think it would work? That anyone would be interested? That I have the right, the credentials, the talent?

And then I would grab Younger Self by her shoulders, shake her, and shout “You are your own worst enemy! Get out of your own way! You are good! For god’s sake, take a few risks! Put yourself out there! You have nothing to lose!”

16. Looking back, is your life in 2008 what you thought it would be in 1998?

Not one little bit.

I am reasonably certain that no one else on my Friends List has done (or experienced) these three things:

1. Died on stage with Ian McKellan

2. Led a rebellion and then been court martialed by Girl Scouts

3. Successfully started an urban legend


What three unique things have you done?

Comment on this post and I will choose seven interests from your profile and ask you to explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so that others can play along.


rebeccax asked me to explain the following interests:

9 Chickweed Lane is one of my all-time favorite comics, although I enjoyed it more in its original form. When it started, Edda was attending a Catholic high school run by nuns, and her mother Juliette was a professor of biology; Edda is now graduated and a professional ballerina in "the city". I saw a lot of my younger self in Edda, especially in her friendship with her geeky best friend Amos, who she is now romantically involved with -- but with an uncomfortable twist as of this morning. . . As I got older, I saw more of myself in Juliette, the highly intelligent divorced woman (although she remarried last year). One of my favorite elements is that both Edda and Juliette have rich fantasy lives as "Superlative Girl" and "Panther Woman."

Directing Some of the most satisfying achievements of my life have involved directing theatrical productions. Directing is a process that requires literary analysis, artistic ability, complex planning, great people management and coaching skills, and leadership. I also found that directing a rehearsal is an extremely erotic experience, as it is all about setting up and helping others create and maintain energetic connections. There's nothing quite like watching a live performance of a show I've directed.

Los Angeles I love mythic Los Angeles. When I was growing up, I had a clear-eyed awareness that it was not a truly golden city, and the "glamour" of Hollywood was mostly glitter and great lighting, but it was my "over the rainbow" place, the setting of a lot of fantasies that eventually worked their way into my real life.

Joan of Arc One of the great heroines of world history, combining both military exploits and intense spiritual experience. The questions about her can never be fully answered, and I love to read different versions of her life. Whether you believe she truly heard Voices or not, she had the courage of her convictions, and her faith was the fulcrum that changed the course of a war.

Stockholm Syndrome I learned about this in the early/mid seventies when Patty Hearst was in the news. It's a psychological adaptation that takes place in a hostage or other situation where one person is in the power of another and fears for his or her life. The powerless one starts to identify with and become emotionally attached to the powerful one as a way of trying to gain favor and be safe. I did not expect to get first hand experience, but after I graduated from college I became involved with an emotionally abusive man. His extreme temper and jealousy led to me being separated from family and friends and losing my job, eventually living in almost total isolation, dependent on him. And I remained his staunch supporter until there was an intervention that gave me the space to let my true feelings surface in a safe situation.

witchcraft I don't identify as a witch now, but I did for many years, and I still find the practice of witchcraft -- in its various forms -- fascinating. I love the power of the word, and the strong emotions it often elicits in others. I wouldn't mind being a witch myself, but that's just not my path.

Wonder Woman Another classic heroine -- although now that I'm doing this exercise, I realize I should probably remove her from my list, since she's no more important to me than a dozen others. Still, there's always been something compelling about her, given her mythic Greek origins, her independence, and her high principles that go with her great powers.

I'm not going to write about death tomorrow morning. Instead, I'm going to try to tell the story of how Lohain and I met. It's hard, because there are mysteries involved, and the backstory is complex. I simply won't be able to relate anything but the essence.

I used to write here about my daimon, the "masculine muse" and ideal lover. My daimon first began to appear in my fantasies when I was twelve, and although his original, more gentle form was eventually replaced by a warrior-prince, his spirit shone through every romantic hero in my personal mythic stories.

Behind the cut is a brief episode from that very first story. The prose was edited many times over the years, but basic actions and chemistry of the scene have never changed. I wrote this for the first time when I was perhaps fourteen years old, probably before I'd ever actually been kissed.

I'm posting it here now because it has everything to do with meeting Lohain for the first time.

( Adria is a seventeen year old girl who won a fan magazine contest and is guest starring in a popular television show. After a somewhat rocky rehearsal, she's about to shoot a scene in which her character kisses Richard, one of the stars, who she has a huge crush on. Richard was the first personification of my daimon and this was the first kiss I ever wrote. )

When I was in my junior year of college, I was surprised to have an acquaintance from the theater department come to my dorm room one evening and ask me for feedback on a poem he was preparing to perform for a class. We were friendly acquaintances, but had never had a one on one conversation before. I wish I could remember why he said he wanted my feedback. Maybe he and others were more aware of my spiritual questing than I'd realized. (This was a year or so after my existential crisis, and I was deeply engaged in figuring out what I did -- or did not -- believe.)

The poem he shared went straight to me heart. I don't think that I could now put words to all the feelings it aroused in me, but the desperate earnestness, awe and urgency with which Tom performed it was quite compelling. I'm not sure if it will translate here and now, but I thought of it while working on "The Lamp and the Mirror" and was able to find a copy online.


What Thomas Said in a Pub

I saw God! Do you doubt it?
Do you dare to doubt it?
I saw the Almighty Man! His hand
Was resting on a mountain! And
He looked upon the World, and all about it.
I saw Him plainer than you see me now
--You mustn't doubt it!

He was not satisfied!
His look was all dissatisfied!
His beard swung on a wind, far out of sight
Behind the world's curve! And there was light
Most fearful from His forehead! And He sighed--
--That star went always wrong, and from the start
I was dissatisfied!--

He lifted up His hand!
I say He heaved a dreadful hand
Over the spinning earth! Then I said, --Stay,
You must not strike it, God! I'm in the way!
And I will never move form where I stand!--
He said,--Dear child, I feared that you were dead,--
. . . And stayed His hand!


----James Stephens

Only a few folks are going to understand the significance of this, but it's important enough to me to capture here.

In the course of sorting through my files this afternoon, I found a paper I'd written for my Advanced Biology class during my senior year of high school. It was a major research paper (or what passed for one at that time) on wolves.

Why wolves? I can't remember now. Maybe we were supposed to do a paper on some kind of animal. Maybe the topic was open and this is what I chose. (Maybe Mr. T had suggested it?) I know that I didn't have any particular interest in wolves at that time.

The paper consists of 21 hand-written pages (plus illustrations and a small bibliography) still held firmly in a plastic binder. I paged through it, shaking my head slightly at the painstaking handwriting, the earnest juvenile scholarship. I didn't read much, but I did scan the last page. To my surprise, I found a description of a unique connection between wolves and ravens. I included a substantial quote from Barry Lopez's Of Wolves and Men:

The wolf apparently takes great pleasure in the company of ravens. The raven. . . commonly follows hunting wolves to feed on the remains of a kill. In winter, when tracks are visible from the air, ravens will follow the trail of a wolf pack in hopes of finding a carcass. They roost in neighboring trees or hop about eating bloody snow while the wolves eat, approaching the carcass when the wolves have finished. But the relationship between the two is deeper than this, as is revealed in the following incident. A travelling pack had stopped to rest and four or five ravens who were tagging along began to pester them. As Mech writes in The Wolf:

"The birds would dive at a wolf's head or tail and the wolf would duck and then leap at them. Sometimes the ravens chased the wolves, flying just above their heads, and once, a raven waddled to a resting wolf, pecked at its tail, and jumped aside as the wolf snapped at it. When the wolf retaliated by stalking the raven, the bird allowed it within a foot before arising. Then it landed a few feet beyond the wolf and repeated the prank.

"It appears that the wolf and the raven have reached an adjustment in their relationships such that each creature is rewarded in some way by the presence of the other, and each is fully aware of the other's capabilities. Both species are extremely social, so they must possess the psychological mechanisms necessary for forming social attachments. Perhaps in some way individuals of each species have included members of the other in their social group and formed bonds with them.

That was the end of my paper. There was no proper concluding paragraph, just this long quote about the unusal social relationship between wolves and ravens.

For some reason, when I was 18 years old, this caught my attention and merited special mention -- so much so that there didn't seem to be anything else left to say.

30 Years Ago I was in 7th grade, embarking on what was to be one of the best years of my life. This was the year of Star Wars, The Hardy Boys, the beginning of The Journeys, creating my secret code, and falling in love with CP, a senior in high school, my first great courtly love experience. I had read Enchantress from the Stars the previous spring, and had started devouring science fiction. My life revolved around my church, where I was in the bell choir, met before school on Wednesdays for Prayer Cell, and attending youth group on Wednesday night. I was caught up in passions of all sorts, with my first heartbreaks and hard wisdom yet before me.

25 Years Ago I was starting my senior year of high school, caught up in the college application process, my social life centering around The Golden Horde. I'd loved and broken up with my first boyfriend and was now dating his best friend. I was first chair in the band and my fight to keep it would cost me a best girlfriend for the second time. My boyfriend and I were debate partners and used "working on debate" as an excuse to spend long hours alone in his basement not working on debate -- and still managed to mow down most of the local competition. I was focused on graduating and getting out of town, not realizing that beneath the dreams and ambition was a lot of fear.

20 Years Ago I was starting my senior year of college (there had been a one-year leave after my freshman year). I was working on my thesis and felt that finally I had come into my own. I was respected as a stage manager, and had a nice sized circle of friends. This was after my existential crisis and I was still wrestling with the Void. In the spring, I would discover the Goddess and my spiritual life would be transformed yet again.

15 Years Ago I had been married for barely three months, and with my husband's support I had moved from a full-time to a part-time job and was taking religion classes at the U to prepare for applying for their MA program in Comparative Religion. We had bought a house together, where our gaming group would meet a couple of times a month. I wasn't comfortable in that neighborhood, however, so when he traveled on business, The Welshman would come over and spend the night (in the living room) as "Watch Beast." After so many years of living on my own, I hated being afraid of sleeping alone in the house. Gaming was my big passion, and I was deeply caught up in our stories, especially the Star Wars and Traveller story arcs.

10 Years Ago My daughter is almost two years old, and I've survived pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum depression. Thanks to the unfailing support of my parents (particularly my mother) in the area of childcare, I've returned to my MA program. I'm still gaming with my group, and the roleplaying helps me compensate for the ongoing struggle of being a mother when that was never part of my dreams.

5 Years Ago It's one year after the rocket company closed down. My now-ex husband and I are buying the duplex. I'm either working on a new entrepreneurial venture with my old rocket company boss, or have left that to get a job that doesn't have to be paid out of his own paycheck. It's the beginning of a time of struggle: my daughter is still very young, I'm struggling to find a steady job, and in a little while I'll discover that my basement leaks. I've not yet discovered my sense of vocation, don't yet know "what I want to be when I grow up." The gaming group has imploded, although I continue to meet with Hob and the Welshman as we try to recover what was best from the previous years and learn from our mistakes. This is also during the time that I was active in the Swedenborgian church and am basking in that community.

1 Year Ago L&L have just moved to town. I'm constantly surrounded by love and passion. Jeannie, the boss who I adored, has left the company so I'm reporting to an empty office. JW, my interim manager, is a great guy whose coaching pushes me to the first significant development I've done on the job in quite some time.

So Far This Year I opened the year with a series of posts on "Closed Issues" -- all of which, by the way, seem to be remaining truly closed. By June, both my partners were gone: one to death, and one to the transitions of life. I have a new boss who's just as wonderful as Jeannie and even more committed to my career development. I have hopes of finally getting a new position. I've moved out of The Basement into a beautiful townhouse. My daughter is marking her own growing-up transitions, which I've been observing (and trying to support) with a certain sense of awe.

Yesterday kateri_thinks and her Girlfriend came over, and they and my daughter and I went to the Lodge's movie room and watched Pirates of the Caribbean on the big screen while relaxing in upholstered recliners. I took the Daughter to her father's house so she can spend the rest of the the weekend with him, went grocery shopping, and tried to figure out what to do about my desk being too big for the space where I want it to go.

Tomorrow I go back to work, with a focus on trying to get my big project back under control.

1) Comment and ask to be tagged!
2) I will pick THREE of your interests and/or user pics I find odd or nifty!
3) You post, explaining in detail about the three I chose!
4) People comment on your post!

professor_mom asked about these three interests and icons.

Colliding Galaxies: At some point in my early teens, I needed to figure out why a pure thought energy alien would have a teenage girl from earth kidnapped and subjected to a crash course in heroine development, including living lifetimes in different galaxies. The justification I came up with was that those galaxies would one day collide, and that as star-faring systems which had no previous exposure to each other came into contact there would need to be a Link, a person known, respected, and trusted in each society/federation/republic who could serve as translator and mediator. When I came up with this plot device, I didn't take it seriously, because everything I'd ever heard about the universe indicated that stellar bodies were all expanding out and away from each other. It utterly boggled me when, in my late twenties, I saw a photograph (probably from Hubble) of colliding galaxies. "Colliding galaxies" is a multiple symbol to me: about possibilities beyond expectations, about being unexpectedly, stunningly right, and about the awesomeness of the universe.




Doors Into Other Worlds "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio. . ."
Reading first the Oz books and then the Narnia books as a child gave me a strong sense of wonder and possibility about escaping from ordinary life into Something Else (see "colliding galaxies"). Whether by means of tornado or wardrobe (or shipwrecks or magic rings or magic pictures or enchanted merry-go-rounds), there were always unexpected doors to lead out of Here and into There. When I got older, I discovered the possibility of life on other planets, and -- many years after that -- spiritual paths that took other worlds seriously and taught methods to access them. It feeds my sense of wonder and hope to believe in and cherish other worlds, whether of our material universe, of fantasy or spirit.

Gypsies I started focusing on gypsies last year during a quest for new meaningful archetypes. I was feeling frustrated that the ones I had been using for personal context didn't seem to fit anymore. I haven't adopted Gypsies on a deep level, but there is something attractive about the idea of their freedom, their outside-the-box existence (compared to ordinary society), combined with the overtones of magic and sensuality. I don't pretend that my image has anything to do with actual living gypsy peoples; it's a romantic archetype, not historical.



Cate Blanchett as the title character in Elizabeth, enjoying her favorite dance, the Volta. I love this image because she's a queen and a sensual woman enjoying herself. She is graceful and powerful. I tend to use this when I'm enjoying my own power.



This is a small piece of a larger image. I frequently refer to the "Pentacles" aspects of life, and that symbolism usually works well, but there's something about the cube shape that speaks to me of order and stability. I use it for posts about creating more order, usually in my home.



Kenneth Branagh and Alicia Silverstone in Branagh's Love's Labors Lost. This is from a fantasy dance scene that expresses the mistaken identity games in the text. It's very sensual. I don't use this image often. When I do, it tends to be about mystery and sexuality, or my daimon, or fantasy play.

Thanks for asking!

These questions were from kateri_thinks.

1. What is it about Elphie's story?
You know, I'm not sure I ever stopped to think about this before.
I like her raw courage.
I have done some things in my life that people have called courageous. In most of those cases, when I've heard that, my thought has been But there was nothing else I could have done! I see that in Elphie, especially at the end of Act I. Her song is full of bravery and defiance -- but I think she's not thinking "courage" she's thinking "there is nothing else left." But the fact is, it is a courageous act, a courageous choice. There were other choices: compliance, surrender. But to her they were literally unthinkable.

I like her loves, which are intense.

And the music certainly takes all the good things and ratchets them up several amps. Her story would have been compelling had it been just a book (and by that I mean the book of the story of the play, not the original novel, which I don't like at all), but that beautiful, powerful music makes the emotional impact even greater.


2. Design a deck of Tarot cards.
I tried this once, using people and events from my own writing, but the problem was -- and I was just talking to a_belletrist about this last week -- that they were too specific. They carried too much personal baggage for me. For me, tarot images need to be independent of me and my personal story if they are going to speak to me with room for Mystery and the sudden creation of new stories from the cards.

The other tarot deck I would "design" would be one made from cards pulled from decks where I only liked some of the images, but not all. I'd scan them and make them uniform in size and print them on cardstock so I couldn't tell which deck they came from when I was shuffling and drawing. Would I even have a complete deck? Or would there be an overabundance of some cards? Would I use the entire deck, or pull a complete standard deck from it? Or would I pull some at random and shuffle them into a standard deck for extra emphasis? (Hmmm, I like that last idea. . .)


3. Tell me about a song with which you deeply resonate, and also, what is a song that makes you GET UP AND DANCE or OPEN YOUR MOUTH AND SING every.damn.time?
Besides Defying Gravity?

Michael Ball has a live performance of Let the River Run which I find amazing and dynamic. Instead of dancing, I always imagine myself performing it in concert with two of my Journeys Companions and sing along -- usually during my morning commute.


4. What furnishes your ideal living space? (Choose a room or two if you want to answer in specifics and the answer would be too crazy!long for your sanity.)
In overall style, I like dark wood and thick, comfy upholstery in jewel tones. I like rooms that embrace me and cuddle me. I like fireplaces and windows with windowseats, and enough wall space to hang my pictures.

My bedroom has a big, raised, four-poster canopy bed with hangings, a fireplace, and a door to a hot tub that can be open to the outside. The carpet is thick and luxuriously soft. The library is a big room with a fireplace and window seats and big comfy chairs you can curl up and get lost in. There are also study desks with good light.


5. What is your first memory?
My first memory is relatively late.
It is some time during my preschool years, and I'm with a group of other children of the same age, and we are going down our residential street together on foot and tricycles, to visit the home of one of us. I can't remember the faces of any of the other children, just the street, and the group moving from house to house. Is there an adult with us, escorting us? We're very young. I don't know.