Friday, August 9, 2024

Just | Breathe

 Just | Breathe


Let words fall far from Grace now,

In sorrow from on high.

Let silence reign kinetically,

Til the whispers pass us by.


Hold me in your quietude,

Within your perfect eyes.

Curled lashes-so divine

I choke on swallowed sighs.


I find I cannot breathe now!

Rescusitate me please!

Press your lips against me,

Give me breath lest I should cease!


From Waters Deep I felt you,

Like a restless evening gale,

I''d do it all again to gain,

Your breath, my lungs inhale.


Breathing in and breathing out,

You're born, you live, you die.

To and fro and to and fro,

The Waters Deep shall cry,

Until at last they claim your Soul,

And Spirit by and by. ---Christine Stevick

Tuesday, January 8, 2019

Ghost | Writer


I stare at the white page blankly. It peers back expectantly. "So, write, then." it seems to accuse. 

But what to say? It's so clean and its blue lines shy between the bleached wool clouds like summer strips of sky. My mind is too cluttered and dirty to do justice to such a noble creature. How could I possibly assert my thoughts upon something as pristine as this virgin sheet?

The dry air crackles silently, raising my hairs to vigilance. My skin stands at attention; uneven rows of pink soldiers.  I feel his breath on my neck, warm and sensual as a sun-filled room where dust motes play in the beams, whispering softly before swirling away when I turn my head.


I can almost feel his hand cover my own. I know it is fine, well-shaped, and manicured. His shirtsleeves are rolled halfway to his elbows. I look and see nothing but I know his hairs are soft and black.  How could I possibly be expected to write well or even poorly with such a sweet distraction radiating behind me?  This is no help at all and yet here I am, writing.

     "Very good. Keep going."
     "What? Who said?..."

Tuesday, June 5, 2018

Civilization: Selling the Lie

Civilization: Selling the Lie
Monday, August 20, 2012
12:06 AM

Sometimes I lose it.

Sometimes the ‘blameless dove’ in me gives way to the ‘cautious serpent’. Except in my case, when you poke the snake hard enough, he throws caution to the wind and becomes wrathful and destructive.

The part of me that’s attuned to logic and reason understands that few people have ever done anything to me that could possibly be deserving of such a spiteful, vindictive and vicious attitude toward them. That's civilization. The other part-the shadow part of emotions, lusts, passions, and anger-doesn't care about that. Reason has nothing to do with it. It's the instinctive animal part of the human psyche that thinks with a one-way intelligence: This person is a threat and a danger to me. This person is taking something that should be mine. We hates them, precious. We hates them forever.

No reason, rationality, or logic is involved or required from this Gollum-like part of the human psyche, which EVERY human being has. The suppression of that part, the refusal to even admit that it exists is called 'civilization'. It's called diplomacy.  Part of the lies are goodwill, forbearance, forgiveness, long suffering-basically, personal sacrifice above and beyond what any human should be expected to give-and other things like it, that make a society run smoothly. That’s not to say these qualities or virtues are outright lies all the time, or ingenuous, but there’s a threshold where it can turn into that. That threshold is when the person has crossed over into “Enough is enough and too much is too much” without realizing, all too often, until it’s too late.

Truth in civilization has manifested as passive aggression, subterfuge, intrigue, blame. For civilization to exist and run smoothly, the lie-which is the denial of expression of the animal self,-has to be the ‘truth.’ It doesn’t exist. Period. War is peace. Ignorance is strength. Freedom is slavery.(Orwell, 1984) Black is white. Unfortunately, this gives rise to neurosis, paranoia, schizophrenia, manic depression, borderline, depression, anxiety, denial, self hatred, suspicion, and a host of other 'social ills.' Civilization as we know it has taken the stance that people with these so-called social ills, and even those who function properly in society; those who know the difference between chicken poo and chicken salad, can’t be left to run around liberating others! Hence: Normal is sick “Let’s medicate them and make sure all the ‘sheep’ think the ones who can see are the one’s who are ‘not right.’ We’re running a business here! How can we sell toothpaste and deodorant if people realize that body odor is human? Or that body hair is something that grows on the human body and therefore is normal? We can’t sell lies if people run around telling the truth!

Someone might make the argument, “Well, why don’t they sell something that’s helpful and beneficial to mankind?” Answer: There’s not much profit in it; or at least not much easily gained profit in it. All the best things in life are free. You can brush your teeth just fine with water and maybe a little baking soda. Horses are cheaper than cars and people never needed to be in such a hurry to get places to begin with. We’ve cured childhood diseases, developed vaccines and other medicine so that people can live longer and healthier lives. Now what? What do they have to sell now? “Oh, hey! Let’s sell sickness! Let’s treat symptoms. Let’s sell convenience! Let’s develop medicines that make you pee less, make you have an erection for hours on end!. Lets invent something that makes people with thin lashes grow thicker ones! Never mind the side affects of high blood pressure, heart problems, possible death, increased vulnerability to infection for diabetics. 

And boy how the money rolls in

All of this because there’s nothing new under the sun. There are no frontiers. Holy moley! We’re all out of hemispheres! And now they want our internet freedom. The internet, which globally connects people and has been making us wake up and see. Two hemispheres weren’t enough for them to hoard. They require sleepy, sluggish, obedient slaves to do the work so that they can be the ones free and rich enough to indulge their own animal lusts, consequence free. Everyone else has to behave nicely and civilization must run in a smooth and orderly fashion so they have an unlimited pass to their own animal selves. In order to accomplish that end, they must deceive everyone else. And money is the currency used, the biggest civilized lie of all, to fool people into buying into what they have decided is ‘truth’ The man with the gold makes the rules.

Copyright Rosemary C. Stevick, 2012-2018

Wednesday, June 7, 2017

Camping!

I went camping from last Thursday til yesterday.  It wasn't RV style-we roughed it.  The fanciest things we had were the fold down back seat of the van to sleep on and a small, portable, Coleman stove.  There were no porta potties and no trash receptacles, we had to use trash bags to dispose of our trash.  It was pretty primitive as far as camping goes.  But aside from several backpackers on Saturday, it was nearly silent.  I would sit or lie and listen for the different bird calls.  There's a pair of crows that bicker back and forth and several I couldn't identify.  Truth be told, the crows were the only ones I identified.  Oh! And I saw a pair of small falcons too!

A short ways from the campsite is a beautiful creek going under a bridge and coming out of the other side to flow over huge stones that have been eroded for who knows how many thousands of years.  The erosion looks like tiny steps on the rocks slanted at an angle.  We played a game called stick races: you place a stick or leaf in a spot on the creek where it cannot be immediately swept away but which can eventually be swept into the stream.  I found myself mesmerized as I followed the progress of my little twig hoping it would get swept into the stream before my ex's did.  If it gets stuck for too long or permanently stuck... disqualified! 

And a little sunburn and a lot of bugs!  There were mosquitoes, small black ants, large black ants, noseeums, fireflies and bees of various sorts.  There was even a beetle with a metallic outer wing in orangish pinkish greenish blue.  Yeah, like that made sense.  I got bit up by bugs in spite of using skin so soft, or else the sun gave me a rash (like my ex claims), or both.  I think it's a mixture of bug bites and maybe contact dermatitis from a plant.  At least it didn't get on my butt!

There were short walks.  My ex knows those woods like the back of his hand so he took me into the woods to see where the small stream that comes out of the mountain meets up with the main creek.  Always always take a walking stick with you!  My ex has navigated steep inclines using two sticks (two-stickin it he says) like they were two extra legs.  I tried it once but you really have to have some strength anyhow.

Anyhow, we had a great time and it was so peaceful.  As long as it remains a little known secret, it will stay that way.

Sunday, May 21, 2017

Suffer In Silence

My ex surfs YouTube, seeking heart rending songs.
He finds a few.
I hear the tremble in his voice as he barely sings along-he stifles his passion to make it manageable.
I hear all this and remain silent.
I cry quietly, politely,
with my back turned so we don't have to acknowledge the obvious vulnerability that screams from our souls.
We suffer in silence because we fear the rain and the flood should one or both of us speak.

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

A Year To The Day

It's been a year to the day since Sage reached the clearing at the end of the path.  I miss him and Dusty so much.  I need them and I can't have them.

Monday, April 10, 2017

Swoopers and Bashers

I have a couple really bad writing habits.
One of them is editing as I go along and making too many changes as I go along.  Why risk the heartache of all that hard work being for naught if big chunks need to be edited out when the book is finished?

In my defense, Kurt Vonnegut said there are two types of writers: swoopers and bashers.  Swoopers go in like a storm and write the whole thing then make changes later.  Bashers hammer it out word by word, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, and chapter by chapter, and edit as they go along.

I guess that makes me a basher, like Kurt Vonnegut.  He said most men are bashers and most women are swoopers.  Maybe someone aught to look into that.  Anyhow, I've bashed out about 8 pages, but some good ideas are begining to surface. :-D