How to fathom...

From The Move, my current writing project...

How to fathom the poetic metaphors of our lives? Where does art come from? What layers of our being do images arise out of? And how do they reveal our lives in their unfolding, and in what ways are they prophetic? It seems as if we already know the truths of our interactions with each other, and she is not sure how that is.

Her life was an artwork where a collection of images had clung to her.

The Aviator blessed as Shefi, butterfly spirit...

A Mazahua Indian chief, "Margarito Sánchez Valdez, bathed the aviator in incense, wreathed his neck with marigolds and blessed him in the name of Shefi, a butterfly spirit, and Mysyohimi, the Mazahua's supreme deity."

The journey began "on Sept. 6, when Mr. Gutiérrez flew his ultralight, Papalotzin, an indigenous word for the monarch, over Niagara Falls with a cloud of butterflies beneath him."

From there he "traveled more than 4,375 miles from Montreal to Michoacán State, following the butterflies at low altitude. He logged more than 90 hours of flying over 72 days." Last Thursday, "Mr. Gutiérrez wheeled his ultralight plane painted like a monarch over the butterfly sanctuary...and brought it swooping in to land on a stretch of mountain highway."

His extraordinary journey made to publicize the plight of Monarch butterflies, who are vastly thinning in numbers, whose future as a species is precarious.



NYTimes Article: To Save Endangered Butterfly, Become a Butterfly, by James C. McKinley Jr.

Photos my daughter took today...

My daughter's into the digital camera (finally)... here's a merge of moi, from this afternoon, now how self indulgent is that? Nothing like those rich carpets of gold leaves... we are in an older neighbourhood with many beautiful trees, they are massive and wise and soothing, and often I reach out and touch their trunks, the knotted bark, and caress leaves as I pass by...

All images ©2005 Kyra Clews

A NaNoWriMo month...

If anyone doing NaNoWriMo this year would like one of these nifty counters for their website - I've put mine in my banner - go here: National Novel Writing Month Progress Meter. Last year I swear seeing the little pointer move incrementally around the dial kept me going until I jubilantly huffed across the finish line with 50,000 words on the last day... (this from a woman who's got many unfinished manuscripts littered about, pieces here and there, until, that is, NaNoWriMo, a marathon writing month when you join in with tens of thousands of other insane writers around the world and convince your muse to take the worded trek, and to travel with you, offering you ambrosia and nectar and good kicks in the butt when needed, writing a first draft of a book of novella length by the end of the month)...

Shadows On The Wall - photopoem

Our Doggie...

Our dog, Keesha, taken today by my daughter (who doesn't like digital cameras, prefering the SLR, but, oh, Keesha was so cute...)




























A writer's dog?... flaked out after a day of heavy writing? You can see our minimal conditions at present: yes, that is my desk, which is also my couch, and my bed (shhh, it's actually very comfortable).

Keesha is a purebred Springer Spaniel, not the show dog though, the one bred for hunters. She's very domesticated. Very cuddly, sleeps mostly, loves any kind of treat, dog treats, people treats, droppings from cats (where she keeps small children's sandboxes in the park clean to my discomfort), organic recycling bins, bones, and sticks are good to chew too. She never walks anywhere, but pulls whoever's walking her (usually me) like I was a toboggan and she was a sled dog. When she's off leash, which is mostly if we're not crossing too many roads, she races from house to house, or field to field, or bush to bush, sniffing and exploring. She's got it figured out in the park socially too, running over to the owners of other dogs to get a pat from them first, before playing with the dog, and usually even dogs that don't like other dogs like her. If a bunch of children come running or walking towards her she barks at them, mostly because they scare her. She'd never bite anyone, and wags her tail like she's auditioning for competing with windmills for making electricity when patted. She's been somewhat of a barker ever since Ralph in Grange Park though, Ralph was a barker, and Ralph's owner & I liked to talk, so we'd move away from them, and they'd keep happily barking for maybe an hour, and we'd laugh and chat ourselves (she was trying to get pregnant by her fireman ex-boyfriend at the time, who lived in another city and would arrive ready for the task, alas, she didn't beget). After she moved out West, Keesha kept barking, looking for another Ralph... which can be annoying, let me tell you. Lately she's abated a bit; maybe, finally, she's forgetting the fun she & Ralph had letting loose with their vocal chords. She's 5 years old. She has limited so many rental options for us, but we'd never give her up. Who else would there be to talk about stuff with? Any stuff, she doesn't mind. Who else is always there at 3 am when you're stressed and can't sleep and need a hug? She's smart enough to recognize a good number of words, follows me around like a loving toddler, is funny, sweet, adorable, and only occasionally irritating... she's actually taught me much about unconditional loving, holding still, being present. I couldn't imagine a life without animals...