With Photoshop, I can play with an image, adjusting the colour, lighting, adding and taking out bits, layering, and doing and undoing sequences at an alarming rate until I get something I can live with. The route is impossible to reproduce because it is full of possiblilites and wrong turns, undone histories, duplicated and deleted layers, filters pushed to 100% opacity or retracted to 25% transparency, and there's no master memory of the process. A single photopoem takes an average of 4-5 hours to produce, once the rough draft for the writing is composed. Those hours are spent trying this, and trying that, just to see. It's all exploration, there isn't a 'effect' I'm after; preferring, instead, to trust my aesthetic intuition. Sometimes I make notes of where I ended up in case I want to change something (as in the one on the left for A Dozen Cherry Trees), but that's rare.

The crucial point in the process is where I reduce the size and resolution to post. I have to do that on the original, and save a new .jpg version. If I forget to undo that re-sizing on the original, and inadverdently save it, I've lost something that can become a print. It's happened. How many times have I thought something was finished only to find myself still obsessively working on it, re-sizing and saving over and over until somehow the original gets lost. I'm trying to learn to save multiple copies as I go along, although that takes up a lot of disc space. What I've posted here is one of the earlier trajectories of the 2nd image I posted in the last post. It's just that one of the beams doesn't curve enough... and the lighting filter I used wouldn't let me bend it after I'd saved it, so another perhaps half a dozen versions happened as I attempted to bend the light...

Another day, if perhaps inspiration hits, I'll try again to reproduce the original, though probably it'll be fruitless hours spent on a task that can't be done. Thanks for the feedback, though!

The thing is, I sold Disappearing Into Each Other, and promised a print of this too. Only I took and played with lighting on the image last Summer when I was without a computer and didn't save the original, and large, version. Meaning I can't get a clear 7" x 5" print out of it. So I spent 3 hours today trying to duplicate the lighting, approaching it, but...

Not quite. Should I try again tomorrow, or is this good enough?


Older Version, popular, downloaded nearly 900 times at another site, but not enough resolution for a print










Newer Version, in a high enough resolution for a print

In response to the two comments from the last post on the muse:

Thank you, Laurieglynn, and MB. You've both enabled me to see that my concept of the muse is in need of drastic revision. For me, yes very definitely, my muse is connected deeply to the man I'm in love with. He's my connection to the world, I guess. I write for him, whoever he is, because if I didn't, I wouldn't write. Am I then chauvinistic? A female 'Picasso' sort? My relationships colour my writing, most certainly. But then, I am a lyrical poet, and I work best with the I/Thou structure. Perhaps I ought to work on freeing myself from this muse-addiction, and find deeper roots, as you so eloquently indicate MB, and a place alone from where I can write, as you say with such deep wisdom Laurieglynn.

Who we write for, besides ourselves, is a crucial topic for me and any insights you can offer are welcomed.

When there is no relationship I can dry up. Someone I talked to about this years ago said that when a man loves a woman he fertilizes her. That happens for me creatively.

Sometimes I need to take a break to catch up, but always it comes back to this.

Whoever I am in love with becomes a figure around which my dreams collect.

It might not even be an actual relationship, either. But more of an imaginary one. The smarter and more creative my 'muse,' the better my work. Perhaps it has to do with potential audience, who you're speaking to and at what level the discourse occurs. For me that figure is never generalized, but always particular. A specific 'thou,' a sacred someone.

Sometimes, because of the all too often rigid distinctions between the sexes culturally, and not receiving the kind of support that might happen in a less hegemonic world, I wonder if my muse were female if it would be any easier.

Many women have a female muse. Alas, I don't.

I love men. No way around it.

More discussion, please...

xo

A muse is important in a woman's creative life. He inspires her to do her best work, to produce her finest pieces. He is the embodiment of the man who she can love fully, openly and with complete trust. A woman is passionately open with her muse man. She'd write epics for him; fill books of lyrical poetry with him. She loves his sensitivity and his strength. She loves how he attracts her, makes her frenzed with desire. She is enamoured with how soft and gentle she becomes with him. He gives her total freedom to create, to think, to be. She only wants to adore him, fully, completely, without reservation. She'd like to be his muse too...

An experiment in informal writing...

Where are you gonna run to? Type and run. The word as bullet?

Screeching off into the distance... license plate just out of reach... oh, those words.

It's been a long time since I've thought of a particular metaphor for what words are.

Words are always reaching into what is disappearing.
Or perhaps are expelled at the last moment from the ultimate mystery.
I'm writing a poem, how about you? It's fair if we use our own words in other words but not each other's words...

They flirt, promise, offer, take you almost all the way there, and then slip off into silence, perfume left by the moment that just passed.

Words tumble, collide, roll, quiver, they never STOP.

They slide under the tongue, sweet as .............. oh, okay. You talk.

Later, we can retrieve them from this rough draft and polish them into bracelets that we can wear while we dance.

Reading of this poem (2:05min): Hi-fi (high speed internet); Lo-fi (dial-up).



click on the image to enlarge

Joining Tamar and Jean: this was fun!

1) Who is the last person you high-fived?
My dog; she shakes my paw whenever I ask and she’s good about high-fives too.

2) If you were drafted into a war, would you survive?
I’d never allow myself to be drafted into a war. If I joined the medical corps, I'd suffer hugely from PTSD, but that's the only area I'd go if absolutely forced. I don't think I'd do jail.

3) Do you sleep with the TV on?
I’ve never had a TV in my room. I need quietness and darkness to sleep, use earplugs actually.

4) Have you ever drunk milk straight out of the carton?
I may have once tried from a small carton; the milk on the edge of the waxed cardboard wasn’t very appetizing.

5) Have you ever won a spelling bee?
Never been in one; I’m not a great speller.

6) Have you ever been stung by a bee?
No.

7) How fast can you type?
Probably around 60 wpm – not fast (self-taught typist, lots of mistakes).

8) Are you afraid of the dark?
Never been afraid of the dark, that I can recall. I love being wrapped in darkness.

9) What colour are your eyes?
Blue. With brown flecks around the pupils, I'm told.

10) Have you ever made out at a drive-in?
I’m sure I have. But we're going back a ways...

11) When is the last time you chose a bath over a shower?
A few nights ago – bubble bath, tealight candles all around the edges of the bathtub, beautiful.

12) Do you knock on wood?
Yes. Wood feels so good under the knuckles, grounding, earthy, wise.

13) Do you floss daily?
Every single day. But then I have to.

14) Can you hula hoop?
Yes, and it’s still fun. When I was seven I was the Hula Hoop Champion of Lusaka, the capital of Zambia.

15) Are you good at keeping secrets?
Yes. I completely forget what someone’s told me in confidence until I’m talking to them again.

16) What do you want for Christmas?
That’s a long way away.

17) Do you know the Muffin Man?
No. I'm not much of a Muffin Woman either.

18) Do you talk in your sleep?
I think I utter obscure phrases now and then.

19) Who wrote the book of love?
Rumi, oh, but there is no other poet who comes close to Rumi’s vision of love.

20) Have you ever flown a kite?
When I was a kid and lived in England for a bit we’d go to parks and fly kites. Not in Canada though.

21) Do you wish on your fallen lashes?
That’s a new one.

22) Do you consider yourself successful?
Yes and no. On personal terms, yes, hugely; in societal terms, no. So I try not to think in those terms...

23) How many people are on your contact list of your mobile?
Before I let the battery completely and utterly die? Perhaps six dozen; don’t know. Now? A handful.

24) Have you ever asked for a pony?
Never.

25) Plans for tomorrow?
Busy with writing.

26) Can you juggle?
I’ve tried, can do 2 things at a time for short snatches.

27) Are you missing someone now?
Yes. My son, who turns 19 this weekend. He's living at his Dad's in another city.

28) When was the last time you told someone I Love You?
Today. This morning.

29) And truly meant it?
Wholly.

30) How often do you drink?
Not often enough. I used to go through one box of red wine a month, a quarter of a glass every night, oh how teeny and fairy-like, my thimbles of wine. But they don't sell wine that way in Ontario (unlike BC with its mountains and camping) and it takes me too long to finish a bottle -:)

31) How are you feeling today?
Pressured. Artistically pressured. To create anything, a poem, a photopoem, a drawing, a dance, anything... to write that paper I have to write... to submit some abstracts for an upcoming conference (oh, deadline's today)-

32) What do you say too much?
Really…

33) Have you ever been suspended or expelled from school?
Sigh, no. I haven't lived enough have I?

34) What are you looking forward to?
I’m not sure if there’s anything in particular. More unfolding.

35) Have you ever crawled through a window?
Yes, last Summer when I was locked out of the house. I used the ladder from next door, climbed onto the roof over the kitchen and in through a bedroom window. It was a hot, humid, melting day, but I got in. My dog barked frenetically throughout.

36) Have you ever eaten dog food?
Yes – a few crumbs once of home-baked gourmet peanut butter dog treats. The Ikea recipe (whole wheat flour, wheat germ). It tasted like biscuit without the sugar.

37) Can you handle the truth?
Yes, far more than I can handle dubious fabrications.

38) Do you like green eggs and ham?
Still haven’t figured out what this is!

39) Do you have any cool scars?
A smile-shaped scar on my right shin from running into a corner of corrugated metal roofing in Kafue National Game Park in Zambia at age four. We lived 200 hundred miles from the nearest town. So I didn’t get any stitches.

My friend Prudy had a most interesting dialogue at her site. She had her readers pick five words to describe themselves. And in the next post she responded to everyone's description, see here. Relationships in the blogging world can be as rich and complex as day-to-day connections!

My five words were hard. I wanted to describe my life at present, my state of mind. But qualities are more fixed, stones in the sweeping current, places where you can safely put your feet as you cross. The five words feel vague and, oh, here they are: responsible, careful, creative, compassionate, sensual.

Prudy's response: "I know this woman pretty well, as I've read her closely for about as long as I've been on here and I've talked with her several times. I was surprised by her description and she's the first one to do so. There isn't anything this woman can't write. I prefer her in first person but she is stubborn. And I know I'm supposed to pick five words and then shut up but this one is going to take some time. She gets the most generous commenter award, I think we'd all agree. I once told her I waited for her to tell me what I'd written. When I first read her she was writing poetry. I think it became more prose poetry. Rich is what I called it. Then she started a book. Then she started doing Podcasts of essays and some of her poetry. The minute her voice hit the words they became jewels. What I liked just as much were the extemporaneous preludes she charmed us with, her voice lilting, laughing. I don't know why but I was surprised by her keen intellect and academic prowess. I think she must have toned it down for me:)

All along she'd been painting. She does amazing work with vibrant color and with subjects to my taste as she is similarly spiritual and sensual. Okay. Lyrical, brave, open, compassionate, joyful."

MP3 recording of this poem: Hi-fi; Lo-fi.

Where your prayers are, hidden on the inside, invisible. Between you and your God, or the life force itself. Prayer is because of what continues. Prayer is not disruptive thought, fragmented living, but the song of it all. In the quietness of the intimacy of the holy.

devotionals
offerings
requests
a peace tree
where the wind moves
pieces of woven material
lanterns of love

And then I lifted myself, and it was bright.

And I saw them flutter
collected against a plum wall
a rainbow of ribbons, banners
prayer flags, lungta.

Weavings of spirit and meaning, desire and effort, care and consideration, and tears. Knot us, our dreams and hopes and those we love, together; please don't separate us...

Here is my prayer ribbon, gentle reminder to the great spiritual forces that I am here, needing too.

On trees all over the world, prayers for peace. I tie white prayer flags onto the trees out back. For all the wars, conflagrations, battles, arguments, violences.

I pray for inner peace.

To be knitted into my world; to be woven into the continuous strands of the sacred song that our prayers are.

Hold me tight.

click on image for a larger, readable size