Posts made in November, 2009

Attracting Butterflies

Posted by elizabeth on Nov 4, 2009 in Floromancy, Flowers, The Silver Casket | 4 comments

The other day when I was out taking pictures of the flowers, I saw several butterflies fluttering over the ageratum bed. I didn’t have time to set up a shot so I just held the camera out toward the flowers and clicked away a few times. A little cropping, and here’s what I ended up with:

As I worked with the picture, I thought, “Isn’t that just what I feel like? I’m the ageratum, partly fresh and richly colored, partly frazzled-y and gone to seed. But you know, the butterflies don’t care. They still flutter and light, like the strands of my new story, intrigue and death and passion, hovering just beyond my reach and then suddenly landing and connecting themselves to me.”

I suppose I’ve been particularly open to flowers-as-symbols lately, with my research into floromancy for The Silver Casket. Who would have thought I’d find it in my own back yard?

Micro-Walks

Posted by elizabeth on Nov 2, 2009 in Beagles, Creativity, Flowers, Writing Tricks | 2 comments

Need inspiration? Need motivation? Exercise is one of the best ways to kickstart one’s energy and creativity. (So are showers, but that’s another post.) Walking has been my exercise of choice ever since I adopted my first beagle Raffles, my much-loved companion and personal trainer for eleven years. Today I walk with Cressie and Boudin, and very inspiring and energizing it is, too.

However, sometimes my fingers hover over the keys with the next words tantalizingly close, and a long walk would actually be too much. That’s when I employ my new technique of the micro-walk—getting up from my desk and walking through the house for a minute or two, or going out into the back yard and smelling the roses (literally—our roses are blooming like crazy now that we’re having cooler weather). The trick is making the micro-walk just long enough to refresh my mind and shake my thoughts loose without being long enough to completely break my focus.

Sometimes less really is more.

Return to the World

Posted by elizabeth on Nov 1, 2009 in Life, Music | 2 comments

Yes, here I am again, after a month not only away from blogging but mostly away from being online at all. A lot’s been happening, some of it good, some of it sad and stressful, and nothing is really resolved. But then life is never really resolved, and I certainly can’t hide away in my hermitage forever.

Today is All Saints’ Day (which is, of course, why Halloween is called Halloween—it’s “All Hallows’ Eve,” or the Eve of All Saints), and one of my very favorite hymns is sung as the processional on All Saints Sunday. For All The Saints is rousing and wonderful and I usually cry while I’m singing it, especially when the sopranos soar into the descant on the final verse. It also has a rich 150-year history. Part of the lyrics:

And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,
Steals on the ear the distant triumph song,
And hearts are brave, again, and arms are strong…

All I can do, is all I can do. I need that brave heart and those strong arms. And here and there, a little time for writing.