Saturday, October 29, 2005

NaNoWriMo

 
Tuesday is November 1st, which corresponds with the beginning of National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo for short. I'm participating this year for the first time.

I decided to share a photo of my entire head with my friends from Zoetrope who will be dropping by to check on my progress. Yes, that's really me. Doc took that photo when we first met. He was doing a stint at Glamour Shots and the make-up girl had the hots for him. She knew he and I were seeing each other and she did a number on me -- screwed up my makeup and massacred my hair. That's okay; I still looked better than she did! And I ended up with the prize -- Doc!

It's one of my favorite photos because the expression is such a natural one. It's a total interaction between him and me. So, my Zoetroup friend, consider this a personal introduction. Hiya, I'm Ginger. Welcome to my blog. Posted by Picasa

Saturday, October 22, 2005

Chief Seattle's Letter

Below is Chief Seattle’s 1854 response to the President’s offer to buy a large area of Salish Indian land. The answer has been described as the most beautiful and profound statement on the environment ever made.


‘How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?

Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people. The sap which courses through the trees carries the memories of the red man.

The white man’s dead forget the country of their birth when they go to walk among the stars. Our dead never forget this beautiful earth, for it is the mother of the red man.

We are a part of the earth and it is a part of us.

The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man … all belong to the same family.

So, when the Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land, he asks much of us. The Great Chief sends word he will reserve us a place so that we can live comfortably to ourselves.

He will be our father and we can be his children. So we will consider your offer to buy our land. But it will not be easy. For this land is sacred to us.

This shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you land, you must remember that it is sacred and you must teach your children that it is sacred and that each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lake tells of events and memories in the life of my people.

The water’s murmur is the voice of my father’s father.

The rivers are our brothers, they quench our thirst. The rivers carry our canoes, and fed our children. If we sell you our land, you must remember, and teach your children, that the rivers are our brothers, and yours, and you must henceforth give the rivers the kindness you would give a brother.

We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs.

The earth is not his brother, but his enemy, and when he has conquered it he moves on. He leaves his father’s grave behind, and he does not care. He kidnaps the earth from his children, and he does not care.

His father’s grave, and his children’s birthright, are forgotten. He treats his mother, the earth, and his brother the sky, as things to be bought, plundered, sold like sheep or beads.

His appetite will devour the earth and leave behind only a desert.

I do not know. Our ways are different from your ways. The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man. But perhaps it is because the red man is a savage and does not understand.

There is no quiet place in the white man’s cities. No place to hear the unfurling of leaves in Spring, or the rustle of an insect’s wings.

But perhaps it is because I am a savage and do not understand.

The clatter only seems to insult the ears. And what is there to life if a man cannot hear the lonely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the frogs around a pond at night? I am a red man and do not understand.

The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of a pond, and the smell of the wind itself, cleaned by the midday rain, or scented with the pinon pine.

The air is precious to the red man, for all things share the same breath...the beast, the trees, the man, they all share the same breath.

The white man does not seem to notice the air he breathes. Like a man dying for many days, he is numb to the stench.

But if we sell you our land, you must be remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh.

And if we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where even the white man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow flowers.

So we will consider your offer to buy our land. If we decide to accept I will make one condition: the white man must treat the beasts of this land as his brothers. I am a savage and do not understand any other way.

I have seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie, left by the white man who shot them from a passing train. I am a savage and do not understand how the smoking horse can be more important than the buffalo that we kill only to stay alive.

What is man without the beasts?

If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of the spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts then happens to man. All things are connected.

You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of your grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin.

Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the earth is our mother.

Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves. This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. This we know.

All things are connected like the blood that which unites a family. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life: he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

Even the white man, whose God walks and talks with him as friend to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny.

We may be brothers after all.

We shall see.

One thing we know, which the white man may one discover … our God is the same God.

You may think you own Him as you wish to own our land; but you cannot. He is the God of man, and his compassion is equal for the red man and the white man.

The earth is precious to Him, and to hurt the earth is to heap contempt on its creator. The whites too will pass; perhaps sooner than all the other tribes. Contaminate your bed, and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.

But in your perishing you will shine brightly, fired by the strength of your God who brought you to this land and for some special purpose gave you dominion over this land and the red man.

That destiny is a mystery to us, for we do not understand when the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses are tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with the scent of men, and the view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires.

Where is the eagle? Gone. The end of living and the beginning of survival.’

The Best Is Yet To Come

I am a thunderhead on the near horizon
pregnant with potential.
You've felt my early raindrops
Gentle, tentative,
Whose storm has yet to come.

I am a fig tree in the back yard
heavy laden with fruit.
You've sampled from my low branches
Mellow, sweet,
Yet the honey richness waits above.

©2005 Ginger Hamilton Caudill

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

QUICTION ONLINE

A writer associate of mine has an ezine (electronic magazine) called Quiction Online which is earning some well-deserved buzz among readers and writers alike. The stories are flash fiction which, for those of you unfamiliar with the term, are brief stories -- in this ezine the stories are under 250 words long, so there's no excuse ("I don't have the time") for missing out on quality reading.

The stories are changed out once a week, and I think there are five or six in each weekly issue. Good reading, and a chance to click on the author's name to directly leave feedback. I've been impressed with the caliber of writing and invite each of you to spread the word. Quiction Online's focus is on readership rather than providing yet another venue for writers writing for other writers.

I think you'll like it. http://www.quictiononline.net/ Please drop the editor a line and let him know what you think. He cares!

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Favorite Line From A Television Show

One of my all-time favorites is:

"Andy, I swear, as God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." ~~ spoken by character Mr. Carlson [Gordon Jump], WKRP in Cincinnati

In case you aren't familiar with the episode, Mr. Carlson is radio station WKRP in Cincinnati's general manager. For a Thanksgiving promotion one year, he decides to give away free live turkeys. The station's helicopter hovers above a shopping center, and the turkeys are tossed over the side. Les Nessman, the nerdy OCD weatherman, does a running commentary on the fiasco (which is broadcast live on the air) that mirrors the Hindenburg disaster, including the line "Oh, the humanity!"

Johnny Fever (pothead D.J.) is broadcasting from the shopping center, and he says, "The Pinedale Shopping Center has been bombed by live turkeys -- film at eleven!"

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

For My Son James

That which cannot last forever
Does cause the heart to soar
A toddler’s smile, his cherub voice –
The cowboy hat he wore

He’s grown into a man’s body
His muscles thick and strong
The world is his to conquer now
And all his whole life long

One day he’ll gaze on his own son
And revel in the sight
So pure, so new, so precious too
Revealed late one dark night

Too soon the sun will overcome
The tiny baby’s bloom
The child will smile, then take a step
And shed his milk perfume

My son will see his own fair lad
Become a strapping man
He’ll wonder where the hours went
He’s done the best he can

But Time in all its acumen
Consumes all living things
We started out on bended knees
Yet leave with angel’s wings