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Sunday Reading List – Dreamer by Peter James
Published on Jan 31, 2012 - In: Update
I did not get as much reading as usual done this Sunday, as I worked half a day helping a friend out who is new to the Internet. Last week, of course, I was working on the new I am Pagan website, and Imbolc cards and articles which you can see in earlier posts on this blog. I plan on being very busy this week, too.
From the library, I brought home The Shadow of Your Smile by Mary Higgins Clark. I used to be a really big Mary Higgins Clark fan and would snatch her latest book up the minute it was out. The last few books, though, have not been up to her former standards. It almost seems to me like she is getting tired of her genre, but is locked in to it. When I can read up to the last few chapters, and then set the book aside for three days, I am not all that into whodunit. The book is written to make you think one strong personality did it, and then in the last few chapters all is neatly explained and tied up in a bow ala Agatha Christie denouement as the actions of a couple of people who were little more than names mentioned now and then. Yeah, they were the bad ones. Overall, I was disappointed – but only because I expect better of Mary Higgins Clark.
The surprise book of the week was Dreamer
Mr. James does such a great job of capturing the dream worlds, and that eerie moment when you are between dreams and sleep and waking when you are not sure what is and is not real, and creating some truly frightening scenes. This book took me a long time to read because I learned that I better not read it at bed time! I’m not kidding! It was giving ME bad dreams.
I am really glad I chose to keep and read this book from my vast mountain of TBR print books that I have been winnowing out and releasing. Mr. Peter James has many more recent books and I am looking forward to reading more of his work!
The National Geographic magazine is a huge addiction of mine, and I am unable to pass them up on the free magazine table. However, I have been trying to read and release. Sunday I read a February 1987 issue with a story on Iceland, another on Madagascar, and another on Herod’s city on the sea. I ended up putting it in the pile to keep as I would love to do some articles and drawings about Madagascar and their marvelous animals, and this description of Iceland would make a very dramatic backdrop for adventure novels or short stories. There’s also a photo of some old keys from the ancient city that I want to sketch.
My mind was buzzing madly by Sunday evening after helping my friend, so I settled in for a short visit with my old pals in Fellowship of the Ring before bed. It is still winter, and I haven’t made it quite all the way through the usual winter reading list. I have made a dent in the TBR pile and have hopes of emptying another box soon. Someday I’ll have all these boxes out of the living room and be down to books in the bookcase, a few on the desk and coffee table, no doubt, and books on the Kindle.
This has been a lovely visit, but I do need to get myself back to work. Lots to do this week, and a holiday in the middle of it. I’m trying to get all I can done in the knowledge that the first of the month is coming with all those errands and todos that take me off the computer for days at a time.
Blessedbe
Bridgid; Fairy, Goddess, or Saint?
Published on Jan 28, 2012 - In: Art|Greeting Cards|Greeting Cards|Pagan|Writing - books, novels, short stories, articles|Zazzle
Pagans will soon be celebrating Imbolc at the beginning of February. Christians will also be celebrating St. Brighid’s Day – at the same time. Many Neopagans celebrate Candlemas, which is the common name for the holiday.
Throughout all three religions, the rituals and celebrations are similar. This is an early spring fire ceremony to celebrate the return of warmth to the land, the first quickening of plant life, the quickening of life in the womb as the ewes and cattle begin to show obvious pregnancy and movements of the young inside the mother. This is why the holiday is also called Olmec – a Celtic word meaning “in the womb”.
How can it be that such diverse religions have come to venerate a female deity or holy person with similar names? She is called Brighid, Brigit, Brigid, Bridgid, and often Bride as well. The feast is also associated with Mary, as the Purification of the Virgin (after the birth of her son).
In the ancient world the land we know as Ireland was populated with two peoples. The human race, and the Sidhe – a race we now call Fairies. The Lady of the Sidhe was named Dana and she is said to be a queen or a Goddess of the Sidhe. The humans venerated her as well, who knew her as Brigid.
The Goddess Brighid was worshipped as a goddess of the springtime. She was associated with fire, the arts, poetry, and smith work. On her feast day she returned to the earth, quickening plants and animals with her fire and bringing with her the first hints of spring. Humans honored her by burning the greens saved from Winter solstice, as well as many white candles to bring the return of the light and warmth to the earth.
Brighid was sometimes depicted with a snake, or a snake headdress. It was said that on her day her snake came from beneath the mound and his behavior signified how many days it would be before spring. There are two reasons this story is important – it seems to be the harbinger of the Groundhog Day we celebrate today in many countries. In some countries the creature whose behavior is significant is that of the Hedgehog. The other is to establish the significance of the association of snakes with Brigid and with the pagan worshippers in Ireland.
Because, as we all know – St. Patrick was sent to Ireland to convert the heathens. And St. Patrick drove all the “snakes” from Ireland. It seems likely that he did not drive the actual reptiles out of Ireland (in fact, scientifically it seems that snakes never inhabited Ireland) but he did make it his life’s work to stamp out Paganism in Ireland.
Early Christian missionaries learned that many of the Goddesses, Fairies, and spirits of place were well loved by the people who worshipped them. Syncretism – the process of identifying a pagan deity with a Christian saint made conversion easier with the country people. I don’t think anyone was fooled – they still had the same celebration and ritual to the same beloved Goddess (in this case, Brigid), but I suppose it made the church fathers feel better.
However, there is a story of the life of Saint Bridgid. It begins with her birth around 453 and goes on through her consecration and eventually she becomes an abbess with an order of nuns based in Kildare. There are existent relics of Saint Bridgid, including her vestments and her head.
The miracles and stories about St. Bridgid, like in most cases of syncretism, are remarkably similar to the stories about Brigid, the Goddess. For instance, at her consecration ceremony, when Bridgid knelt upon the wooden platform, the boards burst into bloom and green leaves – a bit like Brigid bringing spring to the snow covered winter earth. Bridgid was dressed in vestments and cloak of white – Brigid, too is dressed in white like a bride.
In Lives of the Saints by Alban Butler her holy institute was described as “it fertilized every region fortunate enough to receive it’s waters, and caused it to put forth flowers and fruits with all the sweet perfume of evangelical fragrance”. Quite similar to the very events and powers that the Goddess Brigid brought back with her every spring.
But then, how is it that she has an approximate date of birth, date of death, and relics? My thoughts are that St. Brighid was quite likely a real woman. It would not have been an uncommon name for a girl child of the time. She may have even chosen the name herself, or encouraged by the church authorities, when she was consecrated. It would have been quite easy from there to see to it that she was credited with the proper sort of miracles to help her replace the Goddess she was named for. This does not take away from her own holiness in giving her life to God and service for the poor.
So, in conclusion, I believe it makes perfect sense to believe in all three, and to feel free to pray to or celebrate their feast day in whatever way pleases your heart.
For more information on celebrations and rituals for Imbolc click here
References:
Blessedbe
Webby Wednesday – aka Shameless Self Promotion and Life Update
Published on Jan 25, 2012 - In: Art|Demented-Pixie|Erotica|Friends and Fans|Greeting Cards|Greeting Cards|Hunters of Men Series|Kindle|Moving On|New blogs|New websites|Pagan|Update|Webby Wednesday|Webdesign|Writing - books, novels, short stories, articles|Zazzle
Today I get to unveil the project that has eaten up all my time lately. As usual, it all began with one little question in my mind – was Brighid a Goddess or a Saint? I’ve answered it to my satisfaction – but you’ll have to wait until Friday for the article!
Meanwhile, just to see if it would work I slapped my old I am Pagan website up on my webspace. It did work – well, mostly. So I got to tinkering with it. And in that process, I got to looking on Amazon for books about pagan holidays, or pagan sabbats, on the Kindle. There are none. Which got me thinking that I ought to gather up my pagan holiday webpages, reformat them, update and expand the articles a bit, and make a Kindle book out of them. Between tweaking, updating, and fixing up in general the old Pagan website to reflect changes on the web since it was created and updating the articles, and creating a bit of new clipart it turned into a massive project that has taken well over a week and isn’t really done yet. I did get the website to a “finished” point last night, by restricting myself to updating the coding and making the pages prettier. The only pagan sabbat page that has had the article and art completely updated is the page for Imbolc, the upcoming Brighid’s Day on Feb. 2nd or 1st or 3rd depending on who you read. I’ve made a deal with myself that I can expand and rewrite the other articles as we come up on those holidays – but for now I must move on to some other things. So – tada – Click here for the new improved I Am Pagan website.
Now for other things, like creating some new greeting cards for Imbolc or Brighid’s Day, which I haven’t yet gotten around to – but I did get to share the wonderful artistry of some other folks earlier this week in a post about Imbolc greeting cards. I have a bit of art almost ready and will undoubtedly be sharing some new Imbolc greeting cards later this week here.
By next week I should have another website ready to share – the Saints!
As far as the book of pagan holidays for Kindle – that has been set aside for a little later. It will be done, though! Speaking of Kindle books – yes, I know Moving On has some terrible formatting issues. When I downloaded and printed out Amazons guide to formatting for Kindle it says – self published authors “just put it in KDP and we’ll take care of it!” Wheee! We see how that worked out, right? ROFLMAO. So – I’m going to read through the rest of the guide, and see if I can’t disassemble some Kindle books on my computer and figure out how they are put together, etc. Which is to say not only will Moving On
I renewed two domains this week, Demented-Pixie.com, which is in the process of being recreated to someday be one of THE authoritative resources for all things fairy on the web and U-can-suck-my-dick.com which is a certified safe sex site – except right now it isn’t much of anything.
A brief explanation may be due to my newer friends here. In 2000 I began building a web empire. It expanded eventually to 12 blogs (several on the first page SERP for their keywords) and many websites, both adult and mainstream. When Bush started arresting Mom and Pops for running formerly perfectly legal porn sites (they changed the laws daily and grabbed you the next day) I pulled all my porn sites because my DH was terrified the guys in the black PJs were coming for me. Then we came to a point where he had been laid off, our lease was up, our business was concluded in Tulsa, and we hopped in the car and headed south and west looking for someplace we’d rather live.
We had some Internet, a laptop and wifi when we could find it – but I wasn’t truly running my web businesses. And then my long time host imploded and all my sites went down. When they came back up they were a shambles due to changes made at the server level. When I complained I was told to fuck off and tough shit. Love it when a web business changes hands, don’t you?
We fetched up in New Mexico eventually, but in a place way out in the country with only intermittent and poor Internet. For a while I concentrated on Squidoo since I only had to write an article or list stuff for sale. My husband moved from CKD to ESRD and we spent a crazy year getting him settled into dialysis, on disabilty and so forth. The Squidoo community was a great help and comfort to me then – but since the company has changed hands or at least management and policies (I mentioned I love it when a web business changes hands, right?) and now I’m trying to disassociate from them as quickly as I can.
The first of this year we moved into town, got great Internet, and life in general has stabilized enough that I’ve been working madly at recreating my old empire – only new and improved! I hope.
Through all of this I’ve learned somethings. One big thing I learned is I love residual income. Even though the sex sites haven’t even been on line in years, I still receive the occasional check from one of those sponsors from people who continue to renew their memberships. The same is true from various mainstream sponsors and though those checks may be tiny, they have often made the difference between having food or gas to get to the doctor or not.
I’ve learned that if at all possible, I am really happier running my own site than writing for someone else. I don’t play well with others – never did, never will. Since I code webpages by hand, I can also optimize them better for SEO than any second party website that has to have a lot of extra coding that makes it possible for writers to “just plug in the article or list”.
As you may have noticed, I think the KDP and the ebook publishing is totally awesome and the way to go for me. YMMV and that, too, comes back to my own issues and the fact I do not play well with others. My life has always gone better when I ran as much of it as possible myself.
In the last two years my Zazzle income has really increased. I’m not entirely sure why and I don’t think it is anything I’ve done – I think it is just perhaps that Zazzle is becoming more well known, more of a destination for shoppers. Which is cool, because I like making things for Zazzle. Amazon links, also, are doing much better for me even with less traffic and I think that, too, is because people are becoming more accustomed to shopping online, and because of the Kindle.
So the plan right now is to build up my websites until they are about at the point where I add a page here and there, blog several times a week on several blogs, and then I’ll be able to sit down and get back to some serious writing later this year.
If you’ve been waiting on the next book in the Hunters of Men series, I’m sorry the wait has been so long – but life has intervened! And to tell the truth – since the book sells the least of any of my titles, has almost no reviews from readers, etc. I’m beginning to doubt anyone gives a shit if the next book ever comes out. I have to tell you – these are long, hard books to research and write so I may conclude it isn’t worth it. If you’ve read Bloodline (Hunters of Men)
There has always been a lot of interest in my adult work – both stories and websites. Now that we no longer have to fear lengthy incarceration for a little erotica, expect to see more of my sex stories brought out on the Kindle. I have a large back catalog that I hold the copyrights to. I intend to get the sole surviving website, U-can-suck-my-dick.com to a new, improved, updated state and I already have one new adult domain to play with. No doubt I’ll be acquiring more.
Now there was a lengthy welcome to my life update! Oh wait -
I’ve been asked to illustrate another children’s book! I’m so excited – it’s a great book and I’ll share it with you very soon. I’ve also been asked to do a cover for another author. They are penciled in for next week and I’ll tell you more about them later.
I’m still going through our travel photos and photos from the last few years on the Jornada and creating Zazzle products from them, too.
My best blog right now is the Coloring Books for Adults – which has generated the most Amazon sales so far. In fact, one more sale this month and I go up to a higher commission! SOMEBODY BUY A COLORING BOOK! LOL. Besides, it is so much fun to do. The Jigsaw Puzzle of the Day blog is a lot of fun, too, but has only generated ONE sale so far 
well, that I know of – because I do plug some ebay and etsy vintage and collectible jigsaw puzzles and since I’m not an affiliate I don’t know if they got a sale.
Okay, that’s all of me anyone could possibly stand. This post is a mile long as it is, so I won’t inflict any outside websites on you today. Next week I’ll make sure I have some fun outside sites to share!
Blesssedbe
Summer Foovay