Cedarwolfsinger
Labour is blossoming or dancing where
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul.
Nor beauty born out of its own despair,
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?
~William Butler Yeats
(from: Among School Children)
How can we know the dancer from the dance? And how shall we separate the story from the storyteller? Both are impossible, for good reason. A creation remains a part of its creator, and vice versa. That's not to say that a single work defines the person who creates it, on the contrary; the work is defined, and enhanced, by all the passion and skill its creator possesses - and translates - into that work.
A poet that remains inseparable from her poetry, a storyteller inseparable from her stories, is our very own Cedarwolfsinger.
Kathy: Lets begin, Cedar, by telling the FLAMERS about yourself.
Cedar: OK. Hmmm... I have my BA in English Literature, I've been married for 20 years. No children (miscarriage in 2000). Live in NJ, am a Mary Kay Independent Beauty Consultant since May 2010. I live with my husband, my adopted brother, my adopted sister and her husband, a dog and two cats. I joined the Flame in the summer of 2008 -- just after I lost my job in corporate America. I am a deeply spiritual person, multi-faith, interfaith in persuasion, currently building community with the local Unitarian Universalists, where I sing Alto in the choir. I am an ordained minister in a church based on Native American principles. I love music, I do beadwork, and -- oh, by the way -- I write. I do want to finish the novel I started during NaNoWriMo 2008. I also want to build a successful Mary Kay business.
Kathy: (Good luck with the goals!) Music and spirituality have a significant place in your life. Do you think those go hand in hand with your creativity, or that once you made the discovery of them, your creativity was enhanced?
Cedar: Well, music feeds my soul. Much of the work I wrote for the Flame in the spring of 2009 came from the piece we were premiering at that time. When music gets to you, the resulting thoughts, feelings, responses have to go **SOMEWHERE** -- and frequently, for me, it's in writing. Often poetry. My spiritual practices include shamanism, and traveling in the Dreamtime... and some of my universes are places I have actually *been* in the Dreamtime. (Including the one in the piece I'm thinking of putting in the showcase) Which may or may not have answered the question...
Kathy: Definitely answered the question! Both seem to be of great inspiration to you. What piece are you going to let me feature?
Cedar: I can't remember a time when I didn't love music, and my spiritual journey has been a bit strange and certainly varied, but it is a very vital part of me.
Winds of Change (Written, August 2009.)
Kathy: *Applause!* When were you first inspired to write? Was your first work in poetry or fantasy?
Cedar: I don't really remember. Summer of 2009, we were cleaning out the attic, and I found poetry I wrote in grade school. I recently reconnected with a high school friend, and she said "You were always writing those stories about Dark Shadows and Star Trek. Are you still doing that?" So, clearly, I was writing fan-fic before I knew what to call it. I can't predict when I will be able to write poetry. With prompts for the Flame, I chew on the prompt for a day or two, then I let it sit, then I sit down and see what leaks out of the pen...
Kathy: Is that how a lot of your writing manifests? A sort of freewriting based on an idea or prompt? (O_o Dark Shadows? I'm not familiar with that.)
Cedar: Poetry usually happens when an idea gets hold of me and I just have to put down my reactions or I will explode. Sometimes a song lyric will connect with an idea that has been running around in my head -- and poetry often results. Fiction is different. Characters usually knock on the doors of my brain and say "Hi, this is me, write about me, now." Sometimes that is the result of a prompt. For example, the main character of the NaNo 2008 novel came out of a Flame prompt of Fuel. It was October and I decided I needed to do something different but Halloween-like. So I thought of a vampire that doesn't vamp blood but vamps energy that isn't needed -- and then I hit on a teacher who siphons off the chemicals that make kids be ADHD... they don't need it, and she doesn't hurt anyone -- and she's a good and caring teacher besides.
Kathy: Wow! That's a unique idea. Are you currently expanding on that for NaNo '10?
Cedar: No -- I'm not doing NaNo this year -- concentrating on the business. But the 2008 novel start explores that character. You see, I thought I was giving it away. Her name is Elissa Bains (bath in French) -- which for me was a clear Elizabeth Bathory reference. Only one person got that she was vamping in the story. When my husband read it (he knew because he gave me a short answer about what she would be vamping from ADHD kids) he said "Well, you didn't make it long enough." "I was writing a SHORT STORY not a novel... Oh...." so that's where that is going. I've actually explored pieces of her story for the Flame -- one in which she has been feeling ill because she was changing from a traditional vampire and didn't know it. The village people bring her to the green and tie her to a tree and are most surprised (as is she) when the sun rises and she does not die.
Kathy: I hope you get the time to devote to it soon! *takes the liberty of posting a teaser*
Excerpt of Night and Day - an original story created by Cedarwolfsinger, October 2008.
Elissa sensed that her weakness had worried her escorts. They had borne most of her weight during the mile-long walk from her cottage to the center of the town. They brought her a stool to sit on and bound her securely to the tree.
The hours that followed were a blur to Elissa. The leaders of the mob offered her both water and wine, and she remembered drinking some of each and feeling oddly refreshed. She heard the voices of the mob ebb and flow around her, as if a huge tidal wave had made the journey inland from the sea to surround the tree and drown them all. She knew she was tied to the tree, but she also saw faces of those she had loved and those she had nursed in the Crimea. She saw the piercing eyes of the Romanian Count Racozy, heard his devilish laughter again and again, as she relived her death and her change. She also heard the voice of the tree and the voice of her Father telling her to have courage. The memories were so painful, Elissa longed for the light of the sun. At least her release would be swift!
All of a sudden, Elissa came to herself and realized that the crowd had gone silent and still – as if this entire portion of the world was holding its breath. Slowly, the sky lightened in the East. The Chariot of Light sprang suddenly into the sky, full and bright. Elissa saw it, took a deep breath (how could she breathe?) – and remained whole! The mob gasped with one voice and unraveled into individuals who were horrified at the ordeal they had forced upon her.
Cedar: I have to finish it...I am writing it in honor of my Mother and a dear friend of mine who died in a freak fall from his roof in 2008 -- he was much too young. So I WILL finish, for Mom and for Morguhn. I want to get disciplined enough and the business building itself enough that I get a chance to write every day.
I will probably have more productive time soon, I just found out I have sleep apnea. I have a sleep study with the CPAP on Sunday -- and will probably have one of my own shortly. That should help me sleep better and be more awake during the day.
Kathy: Good inspirations for completing the novel! I hope the study goes well. I'm sure most of us can attest to the difference a night's sleep makes to the energy and concentration level available during the day!
Cedar: Well, I'm told there is an adjustment period that is made of fail, but it works out fine after a bit.
Kathy: Here's hoping the adjustment period is quick! When you were writing the early fan-fic for Star Trek and Dark Shadows (I'm not familiar with DS, so please fill me in on that!), were you attracted more so to the concepts of those original storylines, or to the characters?
Cedar: Dark Shadows was a soap-opera in the 1960s which had vampires and werewolves as the lead characters. Quite a cutting edge thought for that time. Barnabas Collins, one of the most erudite and elite vampires ever invented -- in my opinion. I think it is a balance of storyline and characters. Both series were "different" -- one supernatural on this planet in this time -- well, except for the storylines that followed the family in a different century, which they did several times; and one a sci-fi, the future as it should be, other planets -- but the characters are what make the settings real, I think. I care about Barnabas because he is Barnabas -- then I love the Old House because he built it for his wife. I wouldn't care about the story if I did not care about the character. Same with Trek -- the settings are fascinating, and they did some awesome things with makeup and the tech they had -- I cared about Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura, Sulu, Scotty, and that's why it mattered that they survived their encounters with hostile environments. And, come to think of it, I mostly write fantasy.
Kathy: I found Dark Shadows on You Tube!!
Cedar: I've never thought to do that.
Kathy: Very interested in seeing more of this! *ahem* Of the books you've read, which come to mind as having a great balance between storyline and characters you care about?
Cedar: The Lord of the Rings, the Chronicles of Narnia come to mind right offhand. Also my favorite fantasy writers -- Anne McCaffrey's Dragon novels; Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series. And Jane Austen and Louisa May Alcott and L.M. Montgomery. -- I care about the characters and therefore, I care about the stories.
Kathy: Nice choices! Do you have any books that you love to read over and over, or that have particularly inspired you to create?
Cedar: All of the above, actually. I started reading the Lord of the Rings in my Sophomore year of high school on the recomendation of a friend... I have read it at least twice a year since. I was 15 then, I'm 54 now -- you do the math -- OK, so at least 80 times. Discovered Narnia in college and have read it about once a year since -- so 30 or 40 times. Little Women and the books that follow it -- countless times since I was a little girl. Anne of Green Gables and the other Chronicles of Avonlea -- countless times since I was a little girl. Come to think of it -- all the books I mentioned above are books I read again and again.
One of the things I love about my new Android phone is that it can be used as a book reader -- and I've used it as such in two situations where carrying hardcover books would have been a pain.
*discussion of Awesome Phones ensues*
Kathy: What poems/poets are among your all time favorites?
Cedar: Gerard Manley Hopkins; William Butler Yeats. Hopkins: I can't remember the poem I like, I just remember the one line "With ah bright wings".
Kathy: *Googles*
THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.By Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). God's Grandeur. 1918. (Retrieved from ahbrightwings.com)
Cedar: Yeats -- Among School Children. I particularly like the final stanza in the Yeat's poem -- a thing is what it is and what it does... you can't take those things apart. "How can we know the dancer from the dance?"
Kathy: These are lovely. I'm inspired to use Yeats ...
Speaking of poetry! In closing, I would like to introduce the FLAMERS to one of your poems.
Cedar: OK, I'll send you the links [to choose from].
Definitions in Response to Disaster
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