Shaman Sense...sational!

I see that I never shared the updates here. I've been on Facebook far more often than usual, posting updates, due to direct connection with family. But... Mom passed away on November 18. We held her memorial service last Saturday, and asked people ahead of time to consider getting up and sharing their memories. It was a wonderfully uplifting experience! Mom was clearly a positive influence on just about everyone she touched!

Here is my poem for her:

( My Mother's Heaven )

And here is the eulogy I wrote (and said aloud):

( Eulogy )


We also put together a very extensive selection of photos. Here are 2 that I had never seen before. (In the family photo, I'm the little one clinging to mom; this has suddenly become my favorite family photo ever!).

My mother had a stroke a few weeks ago and her condition has been slowly deteriorating. Hubby and I drove down to Pennsylvania Friday. There is no way of knowing how long she'll hold on. I'm not ruling out a miraculous recovery, though it's a very slim chance, and I can't help but think she deserves a chance to "go home" after years of stress of being my father's caretaker, and then the past few years of dealing with her own deteriorating health—including dementia.

She always loved swimming and would swim no matter how cold the water. Once at a hotel during an unusual frost, she dove through a thin sheet of ice that had formed on the surface of the pool--"thin" sheet means just that. Very thin. Not dangerous if you WANT to swim, but way too thin to even think about walking on it. Even a duck would break through that ice. But that's how much she loved swimming. She even swam in a fjord in Norway, when the Norwegian relatives she was visiting said it was too cold. That's how much she loved swimming. But this past summer, with my sister at her side, it quickly became clear she'd forgotten *how* to swim. Plus she was just plain too weak and unsteady to be able to.

I needed this trip to see my mom. I wish she'd been more responsive. I wish she would have squeezed my hand at least once. Maybe she didn't even to know I was there, but I like to think she did. It's also possible she didn't know who I was—I think this stroke may have accelerated the dementia. Last night she responded more to her sister via Skype than she has to us, her daughters.

Maybe my trip was more to benefit me and sis than my mom. Or maybe we all benefitted. It was hard, certainly. But it was also good. My 30 adult years with my mother, with me being more mother to her as years passed than she to me (role reversal), has me still feeling the need to take care of her, which I certainly can't do from Michigan. With this visit I was able to help, and offer my sister some additional guidance...and reconnect, since there's been a definite rift since the crisis that prompted uprooting my parents from their long time home to get them into assisted living.

Suffice it to say Friday and Saturday were highly emotional days with very little sleep Friday night. I was exhausted when I got back to the hotel last night. I'll admit though, I was impressed and a bit pleased to see a whole bunch of Marines in full dress uniform. I even joked with my husband about us being in about the safest place we could be. Little did I know the hotel was hosting a Marine Corps ball.

I don't begrudge those Marines a chance to party hard. You work hard, you deserve the chance to play hard.

I do, however, fault the hotel for taking my reservation knowing full well I was in town to visit my critically ill mother in the hospital, yet the hotel neither warned me about the ball, nor gave us a room as far away from the noise as possible. Instead, we were in a room as close to the noise as possible. As the night got later the music got louder. We could have danced the Macarena right along with those folks if we'd had the energy.

I was ready to go to sleep when they started their party in truth, around 8PM.  But when the room started vibrating  (yes, vibrating) sleep was impossible. When the music stopped around 11:15, I was too wound too sleep. I might have finally drifted off around 1am. But I woke up constantly. Yesterday morning we hit the road at sunrise.  2 hours later, my massive headache was finally starting to fade.

I read Steve Jobs' eulogy the other day, written by his sister. It is a wonderful, heartwarming and heart wrenching read. His last words were "Oh wow! Oh wow! Oh wow!" To me that means he was seeing something wonderful and amazing.

When my mother in law passed, my husband and his sister held a vigil with her. For hours she was completely unresponsive. Her breathing slowed, occasionally stopped for a few seconds...just like Steve Jobs' sister described. Then, suddenly, her eyes flew open, she sat straight up, she smiled and looked past my husband and his sister...and then she was gone. To me, that's a very clear sign that she, too, saw the 'light' that awaited her.

I hold to these experiences, knowing in my heart my mother will be excited to take a glorious journey. She has always been an adventurer, with a keen interest in the stars and space travel; but no rocket ship could ever take her on the journey she is preparing to take.

2 short stories from my other me dmkraft that are variants on a common, though somewhat different sort of theme...

How I Saved Humankind

And This Gives Life to Thee



This theme was also addressed in a Stargate ficlet I wrote years ago, which I shall post below. The SG ficlet was written in 2001. How I Saved Humankind was written in 2008. And This Gives Life to Thee was written this summer, originally as a Bonanza fic, a link for which I shall provide below also. ALL are based on a freaky dream I had years ago.

And This Give Life to Thee -- Bonanza fic

When a Tree Falls -- Stargate SG1 ficlet (click below"

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"Daniel? You okay?"

A moment passed before he finally threw her a quick glance. " Hm? Oh. Yeah. Fine."

He picked up his fork and poked at his food.

"You'd better eat up. We've got a long hike ahead of us on P3X-951."

The fork stopped its meandering journey as Daniel came back from his own wandering thoughts. He looked at his teammate, staring now with an intensity that caught Sam off guard.

Deciding against the bite she was about to take, Sam closed her mouth and let her hand fall back to the table, the piece of toast in her grip resting on her plate's edge.

"Sam, have you ever," Daniel looked away briefly, seeming to search for the right words before his eyes met hers once more. "Did you study philosophy?"

Taken further aback by the unexpected question, Sam hesitated. "Well, yeah. I had a class back in my freshman year."

Daniel smiled. "You know that old adage "if a tree falls in the forest and there's no one there to hear it, does it still make a noise?'"

Sam smiled back. "That's why I could never appreciate philosophy. I mean, come on! Just because no one hears something, doesn't mean there's no sound. Sound waves...."

"Yeah," Daniel interrupted her physics lesson. "Yeah, I know. But...." He fell back into his thoughts, his eyes distant once more. "I had the strangest dream."

Sam decided to give up on trying to eat. This conversation was a puzzle. And she had never been able to "walk away" when there was a puzzle to solve. She set her fork on the table and rested her chin in her hands, waiting for Daniel to continue.

"I was in a house somewhere, sitting at a table. I got dizzy or something, and lost my balance. Then I saw it wasn't just me. I looked around and noticed other things in the house were leaning in one direction. I stood up and went to the window, but every step was a struggle. Something seemed to be pulling at me. When I looked outside, every tree, every bush, _everything_ was leaning toward the end of this long, neighborhood street."

He looked at her. "You remember when the gate was linked to a black hole?"

Sam nodded. "Of course, that was P...."

"It was like that. Like we were being pulled into a black hole."

He looked away again. "I went outside, and everyone was running in the opposite direction, away from the... _event_. I knew it was useless, but I ran, too. Left the door to the house wide open, and just started running."

"Then there was this enormous flock of birds overhead. Big birds." He smiled, shaking his head as he remembered the bizarre image. "Very, _very_ big birds. Mostly geese and _giant_, white doves." He stretched his arms wide in an effort to show Sam the absurd size of the doves.

He shook his head again. The smile died away. He dropped his hands back to the table.

"They were flying _towards_ the pull, not away from it. I reached for one of the doves," his eyes focused upward, one hand rising as though the flock was still above him. "Somehow I knew why they were there. And they knew why I was there.

"I reached up to let the dove grab hold of me, and it took me to a place where I could state a case to save humanity. Imagine that. _I_ was humanity's lawyer." He shot Sam an embarrassed grin, then, sighing, continued his tale.

"I never saw the _entity_ I was speaking to. But I claimed that humanity was worth saving because of the beauty that would otherwise be eternally lost. I mentioned the music of Mozart and Beethoven, and the works of Shakespeare and other literature I can't quite remember now. Then I quoted from the sonnet,'shall I compare thee to a summer's day..." I repeated the last couplet several times, and woke up with those words still on my mind."

He cast his eyes upward once more, as he recited the couplet. " "So long as men can breathe and eyes can see, so long lives this and this gives life to thee'."

A prolonged moment of silence left Sam even more uncomfortable than Daniel's description of his dream. "Wow," she said trying to bridge the discomfort.

Another moment passed before Daniel recited the couplet again. " "So long as men can breathe and eyes can see, so long lives this and this gives life to thee'." He smiled at Sam. "I'm pretty sure that won my case."

"I don't understand."

"If humanity is lost, can God exist?"

"Well, if you're a religious person then yes, of course. According to the premise of most religions. I mean, religions tend to prophesize Armageddon, right? What you dreamed could be a version of Armageddon."

"That's where philosophy comes in. If the tree falls but there are no ears to hear it, can you still call what results a'sound'?" Daniel did not give Sam a chance to answer. "In that vein, art often exists as a means to define God, or a godlike entity. If suddenly the earth was destroyed, if humanity was lost and all its artwork vanished, then there would be nothing left to define that entity; so, in essence, having lost its definition that entity could also cease to exist. When I repeated that couplet in my dream, the entity judging me... judging *us*... knew I was right, that *it* too would cease to exist."

Sam shook her head. "I'm sorry, Daniel. But I just don't get your argument. A religious person would say God exists no matter what, even if this whole universe was lost. And to say a sound wouldn't exist if no one could hear it.... I mean, that's just ridiculous. That would be like saying...." She looked forlornly at her plate. "Like saying these eggs wouldn't be cold if I weren't here to notice."

Daniel's grin now was one of patient acceptance. Sam could talk with him for hours about history, archeology, anthropology or any number of his unique interests, but philosophy was one area she simply could not fathom. It was clear he was as aware of that fact as she was.

She smiled back, and shrugged. "I never did "get" philosophy. But that was some dream."

"Yeah."

"Don't try to analyze it too deeply, Daniel. Dreams are just your brain's way of calibrating itself."

"Yeah."

She wasn't reaching him. "Although sometimes they can also say something about your own beliefs, things you've given thought to, whether on a conscious or subconscious level."

"Sometimes." He nodded slowly in agreement.

"Hey, kids."

Sam started at the sound of the colonel's voice behind her.

"Time to suit up." He peered down at the full, untouched plates on the table. "It's a little late to be starting breakfast."

"Yes, Sir," Sam replied. "We were talking."

"Talking?"

"Talking." Daniel repeated.

"What about?" Jack motioned towards Sam's toast. He waited politely for her nod before snatching it up.

"Philosophy," Daniel offered at the same time as Sam's "Dreams'.

Jack studied them both curiously. Then, apparently not wanting to broach either subject, he cleared his throat. "Time to suit up," he said again, inclining his head towards the door. "Let's move out."

"Yes, Sir." Grateful for the rescue, Sam was quick to obey. She was half-way to the door when she heard the colonel speaking softly to Daniel.

"So, was Sam dreaming about me again?"

Fire rising to her cheeks, Sam had to remind herself Jack was her CO. Yet even that fact might not have mattered had General Hammond not happened by just then. This was neither the time nor the place for her to turn back and confront her teammates. She gave the general a cautious greeting, then picked up her pace and hurried from the room.

Later, as they moved toward the event horizon en route to P3X-951, Sam caught Daniel's eye, recognizing his unique, lonely smile. That dream was going to haunt him, yet there was nothing she could say to guide him past it. Nor could the colonel. Neither of them could think quite like Daniel Jackson when it came to things like that dream.

When Teal'c stepped between her and Daniel, Sam sighed in amazement. _ Teal'c _! That was who Daniel needed to speak with! How had she not considered him before?

Shaking her head in relief, she realized - not for the first time - how fortunate they were to have each other. SG-1 was comprised of four extremely unique individuals, each one uniquely qualified to help the others through difficult times. This might not exactly be a difficult time, but soundless crashes in the forest, giant, white doves and Shakespeare sonnets? She would be more than happy to let Teal'c field this one.

The End

Ramblings of a writer-ly mind....

I am always writing stories. Most never actually get "written" per se. They roll through my head like a meandering river, sometimes in a raging flood, sometimes a trickling stream on the way to become a dried out riverbed. Here are some examples….

1. I flushed the toilet one morning in July, only to discover the bowl filling with dark water. Concerned, I went to the sink and turned on the faucet. The water was gray. I tried other faucets in the house, all ran gray water. As the day progressed, the water got darker, not lighter. As it turned out, something happened with our well, contaminating the aquifer with silt. The well-drilling company said they've never seen a well go bad after nine years. So what happened? Did the earth shift? Did all the spring floods break away the ground beneath our feet?

---Or…as my sci-fi mind began to conjures more really bad story lines for the Sy-Fy Channel's B movie of the week…did some ancient creature come awake, swimming through the aquifer—and it's only a matter of time before it finds passage to the surface to wreak havoc on the world above? (By the way…we've bided our time with the well all summer, and the water has cleared. We're using the most absorbent filter on the market to filter out silt, and the resulting water has been tested clean enough to drink; and the unfiltered water in the tank is nowhere near as silty as it had been.)

2. Yesterday evening on a walk through Kensington Metropark we came upon a crowd of amateur astronomers setting up at the beach. We passed them twice, first heading up the path and then heading back down near the end of our walk. The sky was quite cloudy and threatening. And…my mind started to conjure a whole slew of story ideas—all geared toward the Sy-Fy Channel's bad movie of the week….

---A super-powerful-mega-storm kicks up sending, sending people scrambling for cover and smashing up all those expensive telescopes….
---A creature—or whole swarm of them—flies up out of the water to attack the folks on shore and smash up all those expensive telescopes….
---Aliens plow through the clouds….
---Aliens fly up out of the water….
---Killer mosquitoes (after all, they were really bad yesterday evening!!)
---Monster sized, killer dragonflies (I saw one glide past and into the misty fog that was kicking up)
---Creatures from another dimension ooze out of the misty fog that was beginning to kick up….

(ahem) See what I mean? This mind never stops thinking up stories. Most never make it to written form because frankly they don't deserve to see the light of day!!! But every now and then something 'profound' hits me from the same types of inspirations, and those I try to write as soon as I can, before they fade away, as they sometimes do, back into the mist….
 

 

I am sending this to all the lists I have access to, in an attempt to reach as many people as possible. Please forward to other lists and discussion boards as you see fit.

 

It is with great sadness that I report the loss of a longtime member of the science fiction and fantasy community. Co-founder of the Dorsai Irregulars with her first husband, author Robert Asprin, Anne Mather Brett passed from this world on Tuesday, August 9, 2011. In recent years, Anne and husband Lee Carroll frequented cons near her home in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to include Penguicon and Conclave, the con where she and Lee first met. Two years ago Anne and Lee were excited to also discover the World Steam Expo at Greenfield Village, and quickly added the new con to their list of annual activities.

 

A celebration of Anne's life is planned for Sunday, August 28, 2011, at the Muelig Funeral Chapel in Ann Arbor.

 

Information and a guest book are available online at the following link:
http://obits.dignitymemorial.com/dignity-memorial/obituary.aspx?n=Anne-Brett&lc=4117&pid=153058710&mid=4776556

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

What 50 years have taught me:

Life is less about finding answers than it is about seeking them.

An ideal life is not a steady, consistent progression. It involves 2 steps forward and anywhere from 1 to 3 steps back. It involves peaks and valleys. The peaks feed your soul and fuel your strength to endure the valleys. The valleys feed your heart and build your wisdom to appreciate the peaks.

Whatever ideal life I can envision with clarity will always remain elusive. The true ideal is one I cannot see. It will only be revealed to me in time, and it will only be revealed if I keep my eyes and my heart open enough to see it.

The only certainty in life is that it will be fraught with uncertainty.

Promises are not guarantees, and even guarantees can be voided by the uncertainties of life. Each promise that is fulfilled should be recognized for the gift it truly is.

If I limit my expectations to the unexpected, I will never regret what never comes to be.

I thrive on stories and dreams, the greatest of which highlight compassion, understanding and brotherhood, and serve as reminders that love and faith really can conquer all.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

So, I'm lazing on the sofa half watching TV and half on the laptop when I see a large, light colored shadow out of the corner of my eye swooping up from the trees toward the roof. And then I hear a thud on the roof--as though something large flew up and then landed on the roof.

I'm partially reminded of the 70s movie "Gargoyles" (which was campy but creepy nonetheless). A big white owl, perhaps? Or a very large hawk? Hmmmmm

As to the well.... I noticed the water was gray this morning. I noticed this AFTER I had my coffee and AFTER I took my shower. And then I noticed the water was getting darker gray with every use. Eventually, it was black in the toilets. 

big sigh

And that, my friends, is one of the problems of country living. Somethin's wrong with the well. We're getting sludge up with the water. We're cycling the tank now. Well guy comes tomorrow--after 24 hours of cycling. Then something about cleaning a screen and something else. If those things don't work, next step is to dig a new well.

When they drilled THIS well, it was the third try. Yep. They drilled three times before they got a good water supply. Not only that, our well is 160 feet deep, and goes right into bedrock. If they have to drill a new well, how many more times will they have to try? Our backyard will become a disaster zone. Our driveway will be ruined, due to the heavy trucks they'd have to bring up. The end cost would be absolutely astronomical!! Second mortgage? Third mortgage? Having hard enough time paying first mortgage! Bankruptcy might be a real possibility.

Pray oh pray they do not have to drill a new well!!!!

Or have the gargoyles do it......

BTW: My latest animal totem was not a turkey vulture after all. It was the real thing: wild turkeys. I just wasn't expecting to see wild turkeys, so in my mind I decided they were turkey vultures, but the more I looked, the more I realized they were turkeys. One male had to fan himself out to prove it. Trouble is, I haven't spotted one in a while now. So have they been replaced by whatever's landing on our roof?
 

So I dusted off an old -- as in 30 years old -- sketchbook from back in my early college days. I'm reminded of studying skeletons. One day I brought home a skeletal arm--with hand attached. Mom didn't know I had it. I snuck up behind her...and carefully draped the hand over her shoulder. Oh, did she jump! Cruel i know... ;-)

I'm also reminded of sitting at the Detroit Institute of Arts, sketchbook in my lap, sketching out pieces of paintings....

Ah....to be back there....no worries, except lack of sleep....lack of money....lack of time..... Um. What a sec. Sounds like now! I think I *am* back there.....

If you're interested, I took photos of the pages. Warning: they ARE sketches! Quick. Not frameable. Sketches.
entertainment.webshots.com/album/580178650enGEpE

I started chatting with my inner Blair because I was seeing “signs” around me and I was eager to understand what they meant. More importantly—or what is most notable about those chats has to do with what I wanted from them…from him…from within me. I didn’t want truth. I wanted “good.” I wanted to hear that all change is good, that all signs are positive and full of hope.

The first sign was a dream. A dream of snakes. Now, for the “old” me, the former me, a dream of snakes would have been better classified as a nightmare. I have never liked snakes, or anything else that slithers or creeps or crawls. Once, when I was teaching, a student brought his pet baby python into class. And, believe it or not, he got me to touch it. And believe it or not I was okay about touching it. My brain told me to stay away, but my heart and body did not recoil. The fear was not real. I touched it, and I was okay about it….

…Interesting. When I decided to start writing this, the memory of that day in class was nowhere near the surface. It was hidden behind years of other memories, more solid ones. In fact, it was almost as though I’d forgotten that day, that student and that snake until…two minutes ago, when I wrote the paragraph above this one…

 
…Perhaps that, too, was a sign, I just never knew it until now…

 
Now, the dream.

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When I was doing my archeological dig through cached pages to salvage whatever I could of the lost Bonanza World website, I found a page displaying all stories in the library featuring Joe. Why I didn't get all stories featuring Adam, or all stories featuring Hoss, I have no idea. Maybe the computer just "knows" I'm a Joe gal. (shrugs). Sadly, not all of these stories might ever be readable again. It depends on whether or not the author placed them in any other libraries on any other websites. Many of us are reposting to Bonanza Brand.

If you are an author of one of these stories, PLEASE COMMENT to let everyone know if they are or will be posted elsewhere!!!

If you are a reader, and you have found any of these stories elsewhere, PLEASE COMMENT to let us all know where you found them!

I will update this post with new information as it is made available.

 

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