Rhythm of Life – Water Drumming
Category Archives: blogging
Another Term of Story-Writing and Telling
This was how we ended our creative writing workshop this week.
My creative writing group surprised me with champagne and birthday cake last week. Thank you Judy Ward for baking the delicious coffee-chocolate and Orange cakes and thank you Isabel and fellow writers for the champagne and all the snacks. We also celebrated the end of another great term of work-shopping our stories. The eight-week long workshop ended on Tuesday. Many writers in the group have been attending this workshop at Kenmore, Queensland (Australia) for as long as five years. I have been part of the group for two years. Author Isabel D’Avila Winter is a beautifully crazy and an inspiring teacher. Below was the note I got in email before we had our last workshop.
“No reading for next week, because we’ll be too busy eating the leftover TimTams and madly workshopping our work. We’ll also be discussing the upcoming local writing competition, and brainstorming what kind of stories might be suitable to enter,” Isabel D’ Avila Winter.
Isabel is seated in front (left). Other participants included writers of memoir, rural romance, fantasy, sci-fi and crime fiction. We are not all females, we do have two male writers. Tom was not well this night and the other male writer, Bill, took this lovely picture. The group members have planned to enter the local writing competition in August.
I find that being part of this group was a major contributing factor in my story-telling; both in finding constant inspiration to write and sharing my work for an honest feedback. I also enjoy listening to each writer’s story.
The FourJs – Short Story
Little did they know when the photographer took their picture that they would find themselves trapped in a painting.
“Smile please” the photographer ordered with a devilish grin.
The FourJs, brothers Jim, John, Jack and Jonathan brushed themselves and stood proud. The camera flashed, before it went pitch black. For half hour, Jonathan, 17, the youngest of the FourJs Band, tried to move, shout and even blow his trumpet. Nothing came out. He reached for his oldest brother John, 25. John’s arm felt cold. Jim and Jack were frozen too. People passed them in the street, throwing coins into the tuba case. Traffic hummed. The woman with the funny smell passed quickly, her high heels clicking sharply on the footpath.
“Jonathan! Jonathan! Jo-na-than!”
“Yes!” Jonathan murmured and looked into John’s face.
He had one of those attacks again.
“You, to the doctor” John said, relieved his little brother was ok.
Marrying Words With Images in Stephen Doyle’s Style
“I make these things as an escape from the world of problem-solving.” Stephen Doyle said. His paper sculptures are exquisite.
I make things from paper myself and I am obsessed with paper. I was fascinated when recently I found this article about Stephen Doyle’s work. I wanted to share it in Cool Stuff.
Stephen Doyle’s vision unites words and images in unforgettable ways. The design firm of which he is a principal, Doyle Partners in New York, creates acclaimed identities and all means of conveying them (and he always gets the colors right). He’s also recognized for his visual contributions to the Op-Ed page of The New York Times. Here he talks about another artistic pursuit: creating astonishing paper sculptures. Read More on Impressions from the paper-obsessed
Villagers Buried Food and Water to Survive – After Cyclone
This is a nice ending to a horrible story last week about Cyclone Pam, a category 5 cyclone that swept across several Pacific Island countries before hitting Vanuatu. Lessons to learn from the Melanesian villagers.
Reuters reported that villagers in Vanuatu buried food and fresh water as one of the strongest storms on record bore down on them, fleeing to churches, schools and even coconut drying kilns as 300 kph winds and massive seas tore their flimsy houses to the ground.
Despite reports of utter devastation six days after Cyclone Pam pummelled the Pacific island nation, Vanuatu appears to be providing something of a lesson in how to survive a category 5 storm.
The United Nations says the official death toll is 11. Many officials anticipate that number will rise once they are able to more thoroughly inspect the outer islands of the scattered archipelago.
Still, the absence of a much higher toll has amazed aid workers and those who lived through it.
“It’s absolutely unbelievable the death toll is so low,” said Richard Barnes, 43, a property valuer from New Zealand who has lived near the capital Port Vila, on Efate island for seven years.
Two days ago, a helicopter flight over the north of Efate revealed scenes of total devastation with at least one coastal village destroyed and no sign of life.
When visited a day later, dozens of villagers were back rebuilding with what materials they could find and reporting only one injury, said Barnes, who was on Cayman Island in 2004 when Hurricane Ivan hit.
“The resilience is amazing … Everyone is just getting on with it, which was different from Cayman where everyone just sat around waiting for something to be done,” Barnes said.
Perched on the geologically active “Ring of Fire”, Vanuatu suffers from frequent earthquakes and tsunamis and has several active volcanoes, in addition to threats from storms and rising sea levels.
China joined in with Australia and New Zealand, pledging $4 Million to assist Vanuatu in the recovering process.
From ABC News, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has pledged long-term support for Vanuatu during a visit to the Pacific nation ravaged by Tropical Cyclone Pam.
Ms Bishop, who flew in on a Royal Australian Air Force flight, toured the command centre for cyclone relief efforts in the capital Port Vila, and visited a school and hospital being rebuilt with Australian assistance.
She also met with Vanuatu’s prime minister Joe Natuman and promised on-going support.
“Australia has responded quickly to requests from the government of Vanuatu, we have sent more than 11 military planes over with equipment, lifesaving supplies, humanitarian support personnel,” she said.
Thousands of people remain homeless in the stricken country, as Vanuatu’s government coordinates relief efforts to get immediate aid to more than 60 inhabited remote islands in the archipelago.
It has begun to send out food aid and seedlings to parts of the country hit hardest by Cyclone Pam after a week of assessments and planning.
Wandering Spirits of Restless Hearts
The universe has her own way. You never know when she will strike next – and whether it be for better or worse. Every day of living is a routine of heading for the ending. We must continue to believe in living for the moment. I believe we must also question each action we take and its consequences. In my culture, my grandma has taught me, after a soul leaves the body it moves to the resting place, but a restless spirit will always wander. Peace and forgiveness has to prevail before a dead man’s spirit can find the resting place.
In the past few days I heard of three deaths. Of the three deaths, two I knew and respected. Their news was very sad for me. One left me feeling winded, overwhelmed, surprised and it tugged at deeply buried emotions from cruelty and pain. unresolved living can change life. It was a timely beginning of the ending for me. I feel a new phase in my life. It was time to let go. In the hours after I received the news last night, strange things happened. It should not but the Universe has her own ways.
For what I know and believe in, I question, when those that are cruel to you die, where do their spirits go? Are the wandering spirits seeking forgiveness or are they playing on your mind. I pray for the former and I hope for a peaceful resolution – one of forgiveness, healing and moving on. I know one day this feeling shall pass.
( JLeahy Copyright)
Farewell Monster
He died, leaving behind
privately and securely,
a legacy few desire
Markings made by his hands
Unbeknownst to audiences
Secret exhibitions
Wounded, bruised and broken
A heap in doll repair shop
A thread shall patch
Gauze will cover
A wig shall alter
Like salt, familiar
each time memory stings
And, like animals, cowards,
we will cower as shadows lurk
It happened in the mind,
his father’s trade
That was how he started,
his father’s legacy.
Admittedly, one
he never admired
Only hope shall turn fate
I pray for his sons
Malcolm Fraser: Australia’s 22nd prime minister dies aged 84
I have personally met Malcolm Fraser in my reporting days in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. It was very sad this afternoon to hear of his passing.
ABC News reported former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser has been remembered as “a giant of Australian politics” and a “great moral compass” following his death early this morning at the age of 84.
“It is with deep sadness that we inform you that after a brief illness, John Malcolm Fraser died peacefully in the early hours of the morning of 20 March, 2015,” a statement released by his office said.
“We appreciate that this will be a shock to all who knew and loved him, but ask that the family be left in peace at this difficult time.”
Mr Fraser — Australia’s 22nd prime minister — was born into a wealthy pastoral family in 1930 and first entered Parliament in 1955 as its youngest MP.
An important and extended conversation between Phillip Adams and the late Mr Fraser, recorded fourteen years ago, in his office back in February 2001.
They discuss his heritage and early life, his decision to get into politics and his political legacy.
New Love
I turned 50 a few days ago and I got asked how I felt and what were my plans etc. I have had a good life so far. To be honest, I felt nothing different physically nor mentally. My present goal is to publish my memoir and a book of short stories. I also want my boys to complete university and do what they love.
When I look back at it, I have led a life that has not been ordinary and I am so grateful for many things. One thing worth mentioning is that I do know now as I have grown older, life is not complete without love. Every human craves love and nothing can replace love. I treasure the love in bonds I have with my sons and my family and friends. My belief in love came from those who loved me and the ones who continue to love me. Every human deserves to be loved.
I am a ‘closet poet’ that writes love poems sometimes. I was asked recently if I could write poetry (and I guess I can) and if I had any. I have never been taught, but I love to read poems and I have written a few as gifts over the past decades for friends and family. I believe poetry is one great way to express love. Lucky for those men I have loved and written free poems for, I hope they still appreciate the verses, even if they don’t want to remember…
Here is one such collection of lines which you may call poetry if you wish to. I am happy for my blogger friends and the real poets out there to critique me.
(JLeahy copyright)
New Love
A mess of feelings
Soft strings twisted and tangled
Intoxication
A lore to be unfold soon
Waiting, yearning the unknown
Once for-warned heart dazed
Consumed in immense chaos
Riddled with beauty
Warmed and rendered with lightness
Remains of Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, ‘identified in convent’
Spain says it has unearthed the apparent remains of the literary giant Miguel de Cervantes in a Madrid convent almost 400 years after his death.
In a Guardian report, Anthropologist Francisco Etxebarria said after a year-long search his team had positively identified “some fragments” of the Don Quixote author in an alcove in a convent crypt.
Though there is no genetic proof of the find at this stage, Etxebarria’s anthropologists and archaeologists said they were confident on the basis of the documentary research they carried out.
In January the team announced the discovery of part of a casket at Madrid’s Convent of the Barefoot Trinitarians during excavations aimed at solving the mystery of the writer’s final resting place.
Cervantes is recorded as having been buried at the convent’s chapel in the centre of the Spanish capital a day after his death on 22 April, 1616, but the exact whereabouts of his grave were unknown.
His bones went missing in 1673 when building work was done at the convent. They are known to have been taken to a different convent and were returned later.
In April 2014 Etxebarria’s team launched what was the first significant search for the remains of the greatest writer of the Spanish Golden Age.
Using infrared cameras, 3D scanners and ground-penetrating radar, they identified 33 alcoves where bones could be stored.
Cervantes, who was born near Madrid in 1547, has been called the father of the modern novel for The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, which was published in two parts in 1605 and 1615.
His influence on the Spanish language has been so great that it is often referred to as “the language of Cervantes”.
We Should All Be Feminists
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie a renowned Nigerian novelist was born in Nigeria in 1977. She grew up in the university town of Nsukka, Enugu State where she attended primary and secondary schools, and briefly studied Medicine and Pharmacy. She then moved to the United States to attend college, graduating summa cum laude from Eastern Connecticut State University with a major in Communication and a minor in Political Science. She holds a Masters degree in Creative Writing from Johns Hopkins and a Masters degree in African Studies from Yale University. She was a 2005-2006 Hodder Fellow at Princeton, where she taught introductory fiction. Chimamanda is the author of Half of a Yellow Sun, which won the 2007 Orange Prize For Fiction; and Purple Hibiscus, which won the 2005 Best First Book Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the 2004 Debut Fiction Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. In 2009, her collection of short stories, The Thing around Your Neck was published. She was named one of the twenty most important fiction writers today under 40 years old by The New Yorker and was recently the guest speaker at the 2012 annual commonwealth lecture. She featured in the April 2012 edition of Time Magazine, celebrated as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. She currently divides her time between the United States and Nigeria.
Tribalmystic Stories 