and Saturday is Saturday

just as it should be.


I woke up to the sounds of the Mad Kitten trying to open the front door. Which meant I immediately leaped out of bed to do it for her. Why would I not just roll over, ignore her and continue sleeping? Because she already knows how to open cabinets, the refrigerator and can unscrew jar lids. I really, really am starting to discourage her higher education because it is just getting to be too damn frightening.


This is a "ramble-post" I am in the midst of figuring out several things and today, am devoted to working on some o my projects to move them ahead some more so it may not make sense.


The city is living and breathing on its own. I have a week to bully the next part into shape for the writer's group. That snowflake method I never cease to rave about is really, really proving to be a help. I am finding that I can effortlessly spot inconsistencies and gaps with it and also, that the whole process of writing has finally returned to a kind of free form joy. Which is funny when you consider that it took 8 months of steady plotting and planning to get there. But it also does make sense, I don't have to try and keep track of where things are going, I already have a map. Now I can sink into the meat of the poem without fear that I am going to wander off into a confusing sunset.


Generally speaking, when I start blogging about relationships and society these days you can track my progress through the city. My entire outline includes an explanation of the symbol and metaphor for sections of the poem so what I may be writing and figuring out directly here, is woven into the poem there. Only with beautiful words and veiled meanings.


Hah! Here it is, this is a link to the snowflake method, I have adapted it a bit for myself in regards to poetry but I am on step 10, the part where you fly http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/snowflake.php


And then yesterday (which was long, slow and not painful so much as heavy) I had a challenge appear on my proverbial doorstep. I have been working for several weeks now with a series of groups on trying to develop an effective way of helping people move out from what has become known as "armchair-activism" and back into the world of doing things and we are getting closer, I think, to understanding how it can work. The world has greatly changed over the past 20 or so years, but even more so in the past 5. Trying to get a grasp on the new global culture and social mores that have arisen (mostly influenced by FB styled environments) has been a chore. The influence of virtual reality, which does not require 3-d viewing and feely suits but is any "reality" that exists within a cyberspace environ -- it could be text based but is defined by its lack of presence in the off-line world - lack of presence but paradoxically not its lack of influence, is an ongoing process.


Now, the challenge for all of us involved is to test our ideas by putting them into practice in our own lives first. Sounds simple enough, but, even if one exists in an awareness of the current passive nature of our culture and society and strives not to be passive - one has been influenced or contaminated by its far reaching influence. Finding out one's own "weak spots" can be taunting, disheartening and challenging on very deep level to one's perception and beliefs about one's self. Part of the challenge is not just to fine tune the process but to seek to develop a way to provide support to people when they hit the point where their very beliefs about who they are are so blatantly challenged. That's the tricky part.


Each of us, (there are 7) have identified the major areas in our life where we feel "called" to be activists and work for change and have examined it according to what our concept is of developing non-passive actions and found the part where we all, each and every one of us, have...skipped over a gap, and gone our merry way. Within that gap is the core to the problem that has come to afflict the modern society and now we test, how do you go back and step through it without becoming overwhelmed and giving up?


It is an interesting and somewhat frightening challenge. Especially when you get to the point when you are not doing anything yet, but sitting there in absolute awareness that you have skipped over something, avoided doing something, that by its very nature should be the very definitive action of what you so profess to believe and care about.


We will see how that goes.


:)



c.2010. Cassandra Tribe. All Rights Reserved.