To Spin, or Not to Spin …

Posted on May 28, 2019 by crispina kemp
Spider's Web

Dew encrusted spider web, by yours truly

‘Listen,’ Kerrid said. ‘When you spin fibres to make thread, you do the spinning and the fibres are spun.’

‘Wrong, Wise-Woman.’ Huat shook his head at her. ‘I don’t spin. If I could do spinning, I wouldn’t need you to teach me, would I? You don’t know much, do you? Not for a wise-woman.’

‘Let me say this another way,’ she said, her patience hard-held. ‘When I spin fibres to make a thread, I do the spinning and the fibres are spun.’

‘Then I won’t need wood-bast to spin into a trance?’

Excerpt from Lake of Dreams, book two of The Spinner’s Game quint, currently in preparation for e-publication.

92 words written for Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt

Posted in Mostly Micro, On Writing, The Spinner's Game | Tagged , , , | 39 Comments

What Pegman Saw: I Revere Thee

Posted on May 27, 2019 by crispina kemp
Buddha at Sarnath

Buddha in repose at Sarnath (Varanasi); photo by Anuj Kumar, taken from Google Maps

To leave a life of wealth and power
And enter a sea of suffering and pain
To wander, begging bowl in hand
While its cause and cure to find;
Enlightenment at last beneath a tree:
For these reasons I revere thee
And would have your wisdom guide me.

Suffering brought by material wants
Torments by our hidden dreams
But quiet the clamouring body and mind
And a shining inner peace we find.

Welcome all with compassionate heart
And to all be kind
Find detachment through meditation
And eschew extreme’s exhilaration.

The Eight-Fold Path indeed is noble
A recipe for peace that’s global.
May we all awake to Buddha

Wordcount: 109

Written for What Pegman Saw: Varanasi, India

Posted in Poems (Some Silly), Thoughts | Tagged , , | 44 Comments

Sunday Picture Post: Fluttering By

Posted on May 26, 2019 by crispina kemp

While I usually feature flowers, recently East Anglia has enjoyed what I call Butterfly Weather. See how they settle with wings outstretched to soak up the sun, an invitation to my camera.

Comma butterfly

The Comma: 16th May 2019

This little beastie inconveniently settled upside down. No problem. I rotated the image. But that leaf was bang-centre of a patch of nettles, so I couldn’t get close.

Speckled Wood butterfly

Speckled Wood butterfly: 23rd April 2019

The Speckled Wood has to be one of the best-camouflaged butterflies. I only spotted this one when it alighted upon the bright green leaf.

Posted in Photos | Tagged , | 28 Comments

A Light Amid Dark

Posted on May 25, 2019 by crispina kemp

“I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.”

Marilyn Monroe

“I devotedly believe that the essence of my being – my spirit – is not truly a part of the universe, it is a part of Chaos. My spirit is a fragment of the Hidden God beyond the nutshell we call the cosmos; thus being trapped in a human body is only a prison in my eyes.” 

Vexior 218

Vexior 218 is a Swedish writer of Old Norse religion and mythology; the dark goddesses (Gullveig, Lilith, Hecate); runology; and Chaos-Gnosticism.

Marilyn Munroe needs no explanation.

This post is in an answer to 3-2-1 Quote Me Challenge which was started at TeleportingWeena. I was tagged by Susan Zutautas at Susan’s Place to take part in this challenge.

Here’s how it works:

Thank the selector:  My thanks to you, Susan. I don’t often accept tags, but this one looked a fun challenge to do.

Post 2 quotes for the challenge of the day (above, A Light Amid Dark)

Select 3 bloggers to take part in this challenge.

My choices are:

Dale

Sammi Cox

Padre

Your mission if you choose to play along is listed above.

Posted in On Writing, Thoughts | Tagged , | 21 Comments

Where Shall I Sit?

Posted on May 25, 2019 by crispina kemp
Wacton Sedlila

Sedilia at All Saints church, Wacton: 17 April 2019

I’m claiming this photo for #2019picoftheweek challenge title: All in a Row which I’m sure you’ll agree qualifies.

[For details of #2019picoftheweek challenge see MariaAntonia]

But what, you ask, is sedilia?

It is what’s otherwise known as the Priests’ Bench or Priests’ Seats, and is where the officiating persons sat (when not needed) during Mass. The celebrant occupied the highest seat, nearest the altar, the deacon took the next and the sub-deacon the last. I find the sources tangle into confusion where there’s a fourth seat. That sould be that the fourth seat wasn’t a seat at all but, as here, was the piscina (or sacrarium if you’re RC). The piscina was the place for washing communion vessels; the sacrarium being the drain.

It was a particularly English feature (although it is also found in Europe) and flourished during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

If you look at that floor and fear for the priests’ hips, bent at such angles, I might just add that the floor of most chancels were raised to set it apart from the nave during all the back-and-forth ideas that erupted during the Reformation and beyond.

All Saints church, Wacton, lies just southwest of Long Stratton in Norfolk

Posted in History, Photos | Tagged , , , | 22 Comments

CCC#28: The Paint Job

Posted on May 23, 2019 by crispina kemp
Outbuildings at Hethel

Crimson’s Creative Challenge #28

Major Marjoram was a trifle discombobulated to find a young man in his garden with palette and easel.

‘And who the blinking blighty are you?’ he bellowed across the hen-pecked yard.

‘Me?’ the young man looked round to see who was calling. ‘I’m Danny. Daniel Crisp. Your wife commissioned me to paint the outhouses. I said I’d do it for free if you grant me permission to sell it on. Biscuit tins, jigsaws, greeting cards …’

‘Bah!’ the major choked on a stream of exclamations. ‘I wanted them painted, not PAINTED.’

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge, Mostly Micro | Tagged , , , | 36 Comments

Crimson’s Creative Challenge #28

Posted on May 22, 2019 by crispina kemp
Outbuildings at Hethel

CCC#28

Welcome to my weekly challenge—open to all—just for FUN, FUN, FUN

Here’s how it works:

Every Wednesday I post a photo (this week it’s that one above.)
You respond with something CREATIVE

Here are some suggestions:

  • An answering photo
  • A cartoon
  • A joke
  • A caption
  • An anecdote
  • A short story (flash fiction)
  • A poem
  • A newly minted proverb, adage or saying
  • An essay
  • A song—the lyrics or the performance

You have plenty of scope and only two criteria:

  • Your creative offering is indeed yours
  • Your writing is kept to 150 words or less

If you post a link in the comments section of this post I’ll be able to find it
If you include Crimson’s Creative Challenge as a heading, WP Search will find it (theory)
If you tag it #CCC others should be able to find it by ‘Searching’ in the WP Reader (fingers crossed)

Here’s wishing you inspirational explosions. And FUN.

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge, Photos | Tagged , | 45 Comments

God of the Zodiac

Posted on May 21, 2019 by crispina kemp

 

cimrm435 tweaked

Who is the god of the Zodiac?
Fleet-footed Mercury with his snake-twined caduceus
Or the ever-triumphant Sol Invictus?
Maybe it’s jovial Jupiter with his far reach?
Or hot-headed Mars first into the breach?
No, I’ll tell you, you heathens:
Mithras, beloved of legions

Image sourced from Catalogue of Monuments and Images of Mithras
See also my post from way-way back (2014): The Chap in the (Red) Cap

written for Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt

Posted in Poems (Some Silly) | Tagged , , , | 28 Comments

What Pegman Saw: Maureen Applegate’s Black Bastard

Posted on May 20, 2019 by crispina kemp
Selma Alabama

Taken from Google Maps

To see him stood like a sentinel beside his suitcase, a photo clutched to his chest, brought unstoppable tears to Maureen’s eyes.

‘That, my boy,’ his father had said, ‘is where we’re to live.’

‘Now you remember,’ Maureen told him. ‘You’re James Harris now.’

His father had officially adopted him. Maureen hadn’t realised it would remove her rights as his mother. ‘I can’t take him to Selma without it,’ he’d said.

And she was white and couldn’t go with them. She cursed that night they met at a dance on Mildenhall Air Base.

But this was best for the boy. Maureen Applegate’s black bastard—what else to expect from that family, the whole lot of them no-gooders, that’s what they said. No, James would do better there, amongst his own kind.

Wordcount: 131

Written for What Pegman Saw

Based on a true story. Maureen never again saw her boy. She died of cancer five years later.

Posted in Mostly Micro | Tagged , | 29 Comments

Sunday Picture Post: Honeysuckle

Posted on May 19, 2019 by crispina kemp

Woodbine, aka Honeysuckle aka Lonicera periclymenum opens its flowers … and I couldn’t decide which shot to use. All photos taken 16th May 2019

Honeysuckle

honeysuckle

 

Honeysuckle

 

Posted in Photos | Tagged , | 25 Comments