New Civilization News - Category: Ideas, Creativity    
 Return to the Sun1 comment
12 Mar 2004 @ 14:00, by skookum. Ideas, Creativity
Return to the Sun

Waiting for the warm sun upon my eyelids.
That peaceful immobility of timeless moments
Has it been that long since it was basking time?
If you were here, I would see only summer.
If only…such lost, lonely, pitiful words.

Return to the sun, return to the fiery stars.
Where is the promised valley of green rivers?
It is so cold here, so cold, so impersonal.
Are you out there, waiting for our reunion?
Mind the calderas. Guard the steaming waters.

Wait for me.
I shall not be too long.
When compared with eternity.

Marissa A Spencer
© February 15, 2004  More >

 If I Could Find You1 comment
picture 8 Mar 2004 @ 20:36, by skookum. Ideas, Creativity
If I Could Find You

It comes in hushed, whispered breaths.
See the turnings of the spirit flounder,
and twist and beseech the unseen.
Is it the lives or the deaths,
that makes the sanity founder?
You discover you stand between.

No world in purity is solely yours.
Glimpses of other whens and wheres
take you to other tomorrows.
As you pass by endless glass doors,
and gaze up at ever spiraling stairs.
In the light you cast down your sorrows.

There is a yesterday to visit today.
A familiar face is seen in every door.
How did you get from then to when?
That whispering again, what does it say?
Now that whisper becomes a roar.
We are together briefly once again.

Sweet partings and joinings in flashes,
Memories are lost in the fading light.
Where are you in this time I live?
The focus, the dream now crashes,
no more sparks are left to ignite.
If I could find you…
how much would I give?

Marissa A. Spencer
© September 26, 2002  More >

 Digging0 comments
8 Mar 2004 @ 11:29, by raypows. Ideas, Creativity
DIGGING

Healing,
from culture,
from family,
from broken hearts,
unfulfilled dreams,

Can joy be more than a memory,
Tangible, present, real,
Soul remembers,
Yes, Soul remembers,
"Yes", I say, yes to love,
and then.... the mystery?,
How to stay soft, open when "its'" too hard.
The It, illusive, murky,
Undefined,
Possibly a shard left from a broken mirror,
Reflections,
Sometimes clear, some distorted,
I wipe the sleep from my eyes to see,
... unlimitedness, blossoming, mud soaked welcome mats,
and warm showers of delight,
On my hands and knees
digging in the soil of my heart,
Damp and fertile.

 Inn of the Wild Ass1 comment
picture7 Mar 2004 @ 15:52, by ida. Ideas, Creativity
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This post is part of the Roundtable #2 project, and
a chapter in the Shared Universe of Spindrift.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author(s): Quidnovi
Status: Last updated 30 March 2004
Message: The Inn of the Wild Ass (to be placed on the Map of Spindrift) is open to all. The ale is good and the company... Well, the company is up to you, isn't it? Feel free to visit any time (bring in some new character of your making), either right here on this post, in the comment section, or create a new post of your own (use the Rountable Chapter category.) Maybe Dusk or Garah will run into you, if they happen to be around where you are.


 More >

 What Change Would You Make7 comments
picture6 Mar 2004 @ 22:49, by nemue. Ideas, Creativity
If you were granted one wish that would enable you to do one thing that would result in a better world - what would that one thing be and why?

I have been thinking about this question today. One of my deep reflective moods I fear so I thought I would ask all of you what you would do....

There are so many things that I like to do but on thinking about it the one thing that I would be is - eliminate the financial/banking system and revert back to goods trading. This would be after everyone was distributed an even share of land, goods etc. Then no one would be disadvantaged at the onset and it would be up to each and every one us to work together.

Why, because money corrupts and we can't win the war unless we change the system.

 More >

 The Waiting Play1 comment
28 Feb 2004 @ 19:34, by skookum. Ideas, Creativity
The Waiting Play

The silent darkness hides a silver light
Supplicant steps to evening prayer
Voices rise and fall in soft cadence step
Figures glide down the path at night

Arise oh moon to light the gentle way
For candles flicker in the erratic breeze
Bring no doubt to the sacred stones
To disempower the waiting play

Universe brings forth thy power
Each creature of the world is one
Nurtured in the earth, wind and fire
To incubate in Phoenix’ bower.

Marissa A Spencer
© June 5, 2003  More >

 Tagliabue: Coming Up To Summing Up2 comments
picture26 Feb 2004 @ 01:21, by jazzolog. Ideas, Creativity
At that pond
the frog is growing old now---
among fallen leaves.

---Buson

How could there be any question of acquiring or possessing, when the one thing needful for a man is to become---to be at last, and to die in the fullness of his being?

---Antoine de Saint-Exupery

One day, while Nan-Ch'uan was living in a hut in the mountains, a strange monk visited him.
Nan-Ch'uan greeted him saying, "Please make yourself at home," and then left to work in the fields. He worked hard all day and came home hungry and tired.
The stranger had cooked a big meal for himself, threw out the leftover food and broke the utensils, and went to sleep. When Nan-Ch'uan stretched himself out to sleep, the monk got up and left.
Years later, Nan-Ch'uan told this story to his disciples, commenting, "He was such a good monk, I miss him even now."

---Zen koan

Celestial Beings Sing and Dance for the Holy Couple
Miniature Painting On Paper, Kangra School
Artist Kailash Raj

There is a slight difference in the latest sheaf of poems from John Tagliabue, my beloved mentor and friend from college days. Hard to believe we've known each other some 45 years---and have laughed and cavorted the whole way. The difference is an aura of summing up that pervades the poems and commentary. Well, that's a big difference right there: commentary. He not only tells us his references, but journals off into the people and places right there at the poem...or on the back of them really. He sometimes does that at his poetry readings, but not so much in letters. He knows I put some of them up on the Internet...and even though he refuses to get involved in computers, he likes what I'm doing.  More >

 Mask for Baby 44 comments
picture 20 Feb 2004 @ 08:57, by amara. Ideas, Creativity
When I started to get into my art I was surprised by two things. First, that I didn't know what anything I made meant until it was done. I just get a picture of something that wants to come out, then towards the end of making it, it has relevance -- usually on several levels (I guess metaphor works that way!).

The second thing that surprised me was how dark my work is and that I like that its dark (I'm a pretty positive and optimistic person, really)...

Take "Mask for Baby." I just started playing with the clay one day, while I was talking with someone. I didn't set out on some massive mask-making project. Picked a convenient size, then realized that I wanted it to be functional. Okay, it's a mask for a baby then. It hit me like a ton of bricks! "What does that mean? Why is that concept tweeking me out? Why would a baby need a mask? They're pure and perfect and innocent. Well, so are we. But it's perfectly acceptable for us to wear masks ..." Mask for Baby. How does it make you feel?

My friend Lillith from Hollywood who really wants to be pregnant totally got it. "You may as well put the mask on it sooner than later, the way this world is," she said. "It's doing to end up with one anyway!" She was actually upset by my art. That was very gratifying. (Another surprise.) --Amara  More >

 Creative People6 comments
picture 19 Feb 2004 @ 10:23, by ming. Ideas, Creativity
Carl Rogers, in an essay from "On becoming a person", titled "To Be That Self Which One Truly Is". Via The Obvious and Older and Growing.
Watching my clients, I have come to a much better understanding of creative people. El Greco, for example, must have realised as he looked at some of his early work, that "good artists do not paint like that." But somehow he trusted his own experiencing of life, the process of himself, sufficiently that he could go on expressing his own unique perceptions. It was as though he could say, "Good artists do not paint like this, but I paint like this." Or to move to another field, Ernest Hemingway was surely aware that "good writers do not write like this." But fortunately he move toward being Hemingway, being himself, rather than toward some one else’s conception of a good writer. Einstein seems to have been unusually oblivious to the fact that good physicists did not think his kind of thoughts. Rather than drawing back because of his inadequate academic preparation in physics, he simply moved toward being Einstein, toward thinking his own thoughts, toward being as truly and deeply himself as he could. This is not a phenomenon which occurs only in the artist or the genius. Time and again in my clients, I have seen simple people become significant and creative in their own spheres, as they have developed more trust of the processes going on within themselves, and have dared to feel their own feelings, live by values which they discover within, and express themselves in their own unique ways.
Great angle on things. If you only try to do what a good artist or a good writer or a good *something* does, you might well become good, but you probably won't become great, and you won't end up doing what you particularly are here to do. Rather it is about trusting your own process and finding what particularly it is that YOU do, and do that the very best you can.  More >

 The Calaman Stone1 comment
picture16 Feb 2004 @ 18:36, by skookum. Ideas, Creativity
http://www.tartans.com/mesgboard/viewtopic.php?t=3529 it is illustrated a bit here online.. or you can read it here.

The Calaman Stone

I wandered along a wooded lane
My mind empty of all but the crunch of leaves
And the scurry of creatures by the path
There came a whisper through the naked trees.

“It is I. Can you see me? Can you feel me?”
Truly I was imagining this soughing voice.
“Where are you?” I whispered, looking here and there.
“I am very near, very, very near.”

I felt a warm, soft feathery caress
Touching my cold, wind-sore face.
My heart bloomed within me
The fire inside scorching my chest

My feet took me to an ill-used path
That disappeared into a dark wood
Huge stones lined the lonely lane
And the wind whipped my thin coat

“Find me, find me.” The whispers beckon.
A silver shard of light cut into my eyes.
It limned a slight figure fluttering before me.
“There you are.” I thought aloud.

Seeming as if made of snowflakes.
She sparkled and shimmered, her eyes like ice
And appeared to change in feature and form
Whenever she moved or spoke.

I felt her hand in mine and it felt ethereal
It was almost if I took my eyes off her
She would disappear into the mist
Smiling she led me into the blue-white light

The sudden change to warmth left me blinking
In an instant springtime was around me
She changed to a faerie of verdant green
Her eyes now deep forest brown

She led me yet further and I saw the great waters
The streams, and falls and meandering rivers
The impossible green-ness of it all made me weep
“How is this possible?” I asked.

“Anything is possible.” I heard her whisper in my mind.
“There is more.” Then the world around spun into a blur.
Everything was blue, blue-green. I felt sand under my feet.
A water world was the next domain to see.

“I need you to find something for me.” She gazed at me.
“What? What power do I possess that you do not?”
“More than you know, kind Sir.” Her sad eyes now blue.
“I am trapped here, only your spirit is with me.”

“I cannot dwell with my kind, for I am a prisoner.”
I knew her eyes would be weeping, in spite of the water.
“Tell me what to do.” My own fate rested with this quest.
“You must find the Calaman stone, I am trapped within.”

“Where will I find this stone and what does it look like?”
“Look within to find the way, blue it is where it lay.
Before moonrise, or I shall die. Break it on the sacred eye”
She set a shell into my hand, and she was gone.

I stood where I had been, along the path alone.
For surely I had dreamed it all, in my own mind.
I felt an object in my hand, the shell I was given.
I knew then I had to search, for her faerie prison.

That night I dreamt wild, disturbing things
Weeping filled my ears, bringing my own tears
Sitting up suddenly, I saw a small blue light
I shook my head to clear it and the light was gone.

Hastily donning my clothes I went into the night.
The pounding of my heart, led me in desperation.
I ran to the woods to where she had led me.
No light led my way, but I remembered.

The crevice between the stones led to a cave.
The blackness was palpable and moistly clinging
I slipped and found myself in a deep water filled pool
It was freezing and I could barely move.

I saw down below me a faint blue glow.
Diving down to see it, I reached out my hand.
A hard object now glowed in my hand.
It was warm, in spite of the frigid water.

My lungs about to burst I hoped I was rising
Miraculously my lungs again could breathe.
Stone in my pocket I slowly arose from the pool
I fell to my face and slept, numb to the core.

Morning dawned, small edge of light into the cave
Stiffly rising, I stood shakily and went to the light
The red dawn mocked me in its faint promise of warmth
My wet clothes almost froze me as I stood.

I found a flat rock to sit on and took the stone out
It glimmered faintly, blue flashes here and there
I held it up to my eyes, and there she was.
Frozen, as if in mid-scream, my faerie lass.

How was I to free her? I had to act soon.
For it was to be a morning moon this day.
A sacred eye; where could that be?
I wilted ‘neath my frantic fears that filled me.

I walked back through the now wintry woods
Softly reddened by the sun, there a ring of tall black stones
An unknown place before this morn, they hulked around me
I gazed at them, watching the early mists dissipate slowly

Walking around them I muttered to myself
A voice in me shouted, “Stop!”
I gazed up at the stone beside me, and saw a face.
Carved faintly, ominous and unearthly

The eyes were but depressions in the stone
Sacred eye, sacred eye…I took the Calaman out
I heard soft drumming, chanting, and I threw the stone
The Calaman stone broke into blue-fired shards

The ground began to shake and I fell onto my back
I remember no more, as I fell into a deep, black sleep
Awakening, found me back in my bed.
My wet clothes and muddy shoes beside my bedside

Out the window I could see the rising moon.
I went back to sleep, and dreamt of fairyland
My fair blue maiden was dancing with her faerie folk
She smiled at me and kissed me, and then she was gone.

I wander those lonely paths most every morn
A sentimental hope I suppose of a lonely heart
For what mortal can surpass in hope and love
The magic that dwells within us all.

Marissa A Spencer
©January 11, 2004  More >



<< Newer entries  Page: 1 ... 25 26 27 28 29 ... 32   Older entries >>