A Halloween Prayer

A Prayer for the Weird Ones
the ones who don’t fit
the ones who take comfort in being scared

Here’s a prayer for those fascinated by magic
the mystical
the liminality, those marginal places in-between

Here’s a prayer for the lonely–
those who identify with the goblins, the witches and trolls
the ones who want to be able to go up to strangers and demand hospitality

This is a prayer for all those who can find beauty in what others find ugly
the ones who are fascinated with the inner workings of bodies
or diseases, or want to study psychology
or fear, or loneliness, or liminality

Here’s a prayer for the kind of holiness that comes from being different
The kind of prophecy that comes from telling the truth
the kind of radicalness that comes from opening your doors to the mess on the street

What kind of holiday is All Hallow’s Eve?
Where we say, life is messy and ugly and beautiful and short?
Where we acknowledge all that is scary in the world,
and fill it with the laughter and joy of children?
Here’s a prayer to celebrating that kind of holiday

Here’s a prayer for the children–who always understand it first
Who confront death with a sharp honesty that is refreshing,
And help us to confront our fears with real questions,
and the worrying answers of “I don’t know.”

Here’s a prayer for All Hallow’s Eve, where we celebrate
the complexity of humans, humanity
and human life.

Halloween Blessings to all who need it.

Feel free to use/adapt/share with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

Image and Prints of this image can be bought Here: https://www.johnhendrix.com/prints/the-holy-ghost-holidays

Origin #Story or #mythic me

My Mythic Origin Story

(thanks to http://www.transmography.net/brainery/syllabus-schedule/science-fiction-fairy-tales-spring-2015/) class

Before she could even speak words
She listened
And before the word there were forms
and before that there was…something
Colossal collisions, implosions on the skin, bombarding, piercing the eyes and creeping into the ears.
Before she could even speak words, she started stringing things together. Understanding how the beads of space interacted.
Connection.
All things are connected, but how, and why. There must be meaning, even random events come together.
So she strove to name, first she named the things, then she strung those names with other things, but that wasn’t enough. Calling out a person’s name doesn’t tell anyone who they are. Names are just labels after all.
She knew here name was Katy, but after all, aren’t there millions of Katys in the universe? Being a Katy is good, but being her own unique version of Katy was more important.
Katy began to tell stories, to explain who she was is experiences and relationships, and then she discovered, by telling these stories, she was changing them. By trying to give names to things, the world itself is effected and changed.
Maybe that’s why our job is to name things, because the most effective way to influence the world is to tell the story of it, over and over again until we get it right. Whether it is naming the phenomena of the stars or struggling to name the hows and whats of an intricate relationship. Naming matters.
So she went forth, and Katy did talk, she talked and she talked and she talked to name as many things as possible.
And then she started listening, she listened to what others were naming–because when the naming spill into each other, thats when magic happens.

This year I will……

This year I will talk to dragons, I will spend the time I need to with fairies and fight off the bad guys with a sword.

I will flirt outrageously

I will laugh more than ever

I will be sure to build as many towers as I knock down, and remember that journeying to the castle is just as important as defeating the bad guy

I will improve my tea drinking ritual–because its more fun the more you do it

I will remember to sing loudly in the car, try new upsidedown and balancing thingies in yoga and throw more snowballs

I will wiggle more in my seat, draw more doodles and as a result become wiser than ever

I will pick the flowers

I will get my hopes too high on a regular basis, expect all  people I know to be brave & wise & good no matter what I might (or might not already) know about them and catch up on Dr. Who

I will exclaim over every baby that they are each the most beautiful baby in the universe—because every single one is, and spoil my cats while contemplating with my husband the fact that we’ve acquired a creature (baby or kitten) every year that we have been married.

I will make it my mission to make my job be more and more about people (and less about paperwork)

I will declare random vacations to go out and play in the sun

I will do silly things I’m not good at, I will play strategy games, draw, play music, etc. because those are the things I love

I will do something meaningful to support trans*/bi community

I will watch as many Disney movies as possible and get my haircut when I feel like it

I will remember never to eat the food in fairyland

I will let my kids be messy, allow them to have fun, and teach them to love people

I will play more practical jokes on my husband

I will enjoy God’s sense of humor!

I will get lost and have fun while I’m doing it

I will read many, many library books

I will chase rainbows…and sunsets….

I will go on as many adventures as I can cram in…

I will walk to nowhere

I will tell the stories that give my life meaning, and repeat them over and over again until they are true

I will be Katy 🙂

Talia: Chapter 4 #nanowriMo

“I don’t know if I’d call this a sword mother…it looks more like a…knife, a curvy-knife”

My mother shrugged, “All I know is its yours. Someone gave it to me about three years ago, you know, when everything……started, and it whispered your name…so I’m giving it to you” at this my mother grinned impishly, completely belying her age.

So I set off, trudging determinedly towards the unknown…

And it got pretty boring. I tried to spot pixies in the trees, but the glitter I caught was too fast to be identifiable. I walked a steady pace, but soon found it to be…..too quiet.

One day from home, and I already miss conversation, I’m not used to being quiet. My mother and I can talk as merrily as the day is long (as the poet says). Plus, I don’t limit my conversation to just my mother. The cat and I often have long in depth observations together….Ripp never says anything out loud, but of course I know better than to believe that she is not participating in the conversation…..in her own cat way.

Then of course there are the childlings, most of whom can outtalk me, but still the oft chatter of the young ones does fill the space around us pleasantly.

I think the real problem is I’m always talking. Its just sometimes I talking in my head, sometimes I’m talking to the text I am reading, and sometimes I’m talking out loud! But I’m always talking.

Towards the end of the day I find a brook, which, although it doesn’t talk, does burble loudly, with pink bubbles mysteriously rising out of the depths of the places where its almost still. This confuses me as I meditate on it, wouldn’t magic work like ripples or splashes off the stream? Conversely, does the very running of the water serve to break apart the magic…making it more likely to need a release in its more still areas.

Liking my completely unschooled opinion, I decide this must be it. I am nothing if not confident, true I didn’t have magical training, but I figure that common sense and the willingness to do hard work will serve in almost any situation, so I don’t tend to dither or worry the way other girls might. (Although, sometimes I wonder if the dithering is because a lot of girls can use it as an excuse to get a male opinion on something. How boring would that be to always have your opinion told to you!).

Moonrise comes (so to speak, as I said before the moon is no longer visible, but it doesn’t change the time of day it is, so we in my village at least, continue to call it moonrise). I decide that I have spent too many nights awake, and that I probably wouldn’t be able to sleep if stop anyway. So on I go.

Alone.

Book Review: The Gates of Sleep by Mercedes Lackey

Marina is sent away to live with her godparents as a baby–she doesn’t really know why, but she does know that when her parents die and she is forced to live with her aunt, something is wrong.

Review: I liked this book even more than the first one. . I think part of this may be because Lackey was able to further develop the world of elemental magic. It also may be because the love interest was still a minor note in the story but somehow it seemed to be more appropriately placed (I think the first one vacillated between wanting to give a fuller account of the romance and yet not giving me enough to stay interested).

Very enjoyable read, again with strong heroine and an interesting world.

Book Review: Written in Red by Anne Bishop

If you like stories about fragile females, who actually end up being not so fragile, with willing males to simulatenously take care of them even as they serve them, then Anne Bishop is your feminist.

The plotline is basically the same as her other 3 series (Black Jewels<–first and favorite, Belladonna and Bridge of Dreams<–not really a fan of this one).

Despite the plotline and characters getting to be (more than) predictable, Anne Bishop creates awesome worlds where magic is both feared and utilized in unexpected ways.

I like the plotline, so I don’t mind it being that repetitive, however I think that in her most developed world (Black Jewels) the books about side characters start to get away from the tired plotline, so its still my favorite. Plus this is not a common plotline elsewhere, so although its the same tune from Bishop over and over again I do recommend reading one of her series to get a taste of her style.

Be warned: Anne Bishop not only does explicit sex (which no one seems to worry about) but touches on real issues of abuse (self and other-inflicted), and the vulnerability of humanity to abuse and be abused–in fact a lot of the power dynamic within her books are about how powerful characters remain good. I think the fact that she deals so well with these issues are part of what makes her a good writer, but don’t expect a happy, squishy fantasy world…

I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in cool worlds, strong females and powerful issues…..

Review “The Cadet of Tildor” by Alex Liddell

The Cadet of Tildor

Synopsis: In contrast to some heroines who’s self-assurance manifests primarily as  vanity (cough, cough Throne of Glass), this heroine Renee is self-determined, independent and likable. She fights the cause of a Cadet (kind of a musketeer for the King) because she believes in fighting evil, and she strives to figure out whether the cadets are the way to do that….

Review: The mysterious rogue of a teacher (Savoy) is not as fascinating to me as I’d like, but overall the plot was well put together, the characters interacted well, and there was some growth in the main character (HOORAY). I think the sequel is fairly promising, and the main character def. makes this novel worth the read–esp. as a strong female character….

http://www.amazon.com/The-Cadet-Tildor-Alex-Lidell/dp/0803736819/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1360620478&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=Review+%22The+Cadet+of+Tildor%22+by+Alex+Liddell