dragons as princesses

How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.

-Rainer Marie Rilke


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I'm taking a wonderful workshop this fall that has to do with using fairy tales in psychotherapy and sandplay therapy. Yesterday we discussed the fairy tales we each selected at the beginning of the workshop - the one fairy tale that resonated with us at this point in our lives, or at any point.

My immediate thought was The Princess and the Pea. I discovered yesterday that my memory of the tale was very different than the actual tale. I had forgotten that the Prince was looking for a "real" princess, and that his mother, the Queen, had instituted the peas (not one, but three) beneath the stack of 20 mattresses and 20 feather beds as a test to find the true princess - the one sensitive enough to feel the peas.

I had forgotten that the real Princess shows up at the palace gate in the midst of a terrible thunderstorm, and that she is put to bed on top of the stack of mattresses and peas. When she awakens black and blue she is announced to be a Real Princess and marries the Prince.

Part of my work at hand is to discover the meaning of this fairy tale to me personally. Why did I immediately think of it when asked about a fairy tale?

I'm looking at the characters in the tale as aspects of my self. The Prince is the masculine energy and the princess feminine. The Queen mother is a sort of taskmaster and manipulator who devises tests and determines results.

I'm still working on it. I suspect the key has to do with the quest for something Real and the extreme sensitivity - how to transform that into power without turning black and blue in the process. The marriage would be the union of masculine and feminine into wholeness.

What is YOUR favorite fairy tale? Or the one that comes to mind first when you read this?

mystic-lit

Mystic-lit is a project I've been simmering for at least 6 months, and I'm really happy to announce that it's officially rolling as of this week, thanks in part to the energy and enthusiasm of a a very gifted writing colleague.

I'll be blogging on Wednesdays over there and I hope you'll take the time to come say hello. We've got a line-up of writers ready to talk craft and process and all things writerly.

Come join the conversation!

black and bay, sorrel and gray (you have to imagine little Rafer Johnson until January), and one painted little pony...

color

The colors this fall are stunning. My landscape photographer husband says drought makes for gorgeous fall color. Every time I drive the past week and a half, it takes a mammoth effort to keep my eyes on the road. They wander to the trees, like looking at a sweeping canvas, except no painting I've ever seen manages to capture the color of sunlight through autumn leaves.

Nevertheless, those of us who write and paint and photograph seem bent on trying.

This year there are two trees bordering the driveway that have made me happy every single day. My own private gallery showing. I've not managed to bring their vibrancy to this page, but the photo is in honor of all the trees.

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On other fronts: I am hovering at the 19k mark with my writing project, and hoping to get back to a routine this week.

I spent yesterday at a Pony Club clinic with my daughter and her pony, and Saturday was spent getting ready. Yesterday we were up at 5 a.m. and got home in the dark. After a really long day riding and wrapping pony legs and learning about things like horse deworming strategies, she unloaded her pony and the next thing I knew, she was riding him bareback in the pink haze of our lighted arena.

There isn't enough time in the day for all the horsey things.

Today I have Salina and Keil Bay to ride. Cody has a young woman coming over to ride him (her horse is on stall rest), and my daughter has a lesson on her pony. I'm thinking about taking the laptop out to the barn and writing in between all the riding.

A final note for today: assessing vs obsessing worked. I have a highly-regarded barefoot hoof practitioner coming in two weeks to consult about all the horse feet here. If you're not a horse person, you probably don't know that farriers and trimmers, the good ones, are hard to come by and often not taking new clients. So I'm relieved and thrilled to be on his schedule.

And - it's raining! And the tarp is off the shavings pile, so I have to run.

finding the flow

Monday my daily word count dropped to 800 words, which I was okay with, and yesterday was a total wash. Tuesdays are my busiest days and I got sidetracked after the farrier's visit. Keil Bay has mild thrush in his hind feet and this led to research and more research today. Apparently thrush is most common in horses with contracted heels, which can result from poor trimming or simply be the natural shape of the horse's foot. Either way, I need to assess this. The operative word here, for me, is ASSESS. AS opposed to OBSESS.

Writing-wise my goal for today is to find the flow again and get at least my daily quota. Generally what works is to re-read the entire piece and slide back into the rhythm of the writing.

Fortunately, today is much less structured and I have the time to do that.


UPDATE: I managed to get around 1k written yesterday and another 1k this morning (Thursday) and just topped 18k total - so I feel I'm back in business! I hope to go into the weekend with 20k. We'll see...