The eye of the storm is past, and as the tide begins to stir once more, the ocean plants its kiss upon her lips. Tentatively at first, now with vigor, the foam caresses her cheek. Were she to lift her head from this embrace she would find the dark pines standing witness. A towering fortress, struggling silently to hold back the first of morning's light. But she can not, or would not. This new sensation is welcome. She no longer feels the dull throb of her feet, bloodied and bruised from that terrible flight. There is no terror here.

A chilling scream reaches her ears from beyond the wall of pine, where shadows still hold fast against the coming dawn. The song of the sea alone reaches her ears. That death knell may as well have been all the angels of heaven rising in chorus, the forest may as well the impenetrable wall of sleep. Beyond that wall, a solitary light still dances behind the panes. What terror lives there is no more for her.

As the day dawns, as coast stirs to life, she will be found. Her body, bruised and bloodied though it may be, is not broken. Only the will is gone. She will find no joy in the rising of the sun, nor fear as night falls, in turn. The song of birds will reach her ears no longer. Only the endless rhythm of the waves. No mortal kiss will ever stir her heart. She has given that to the sea.

In life there was nothing but kindness for man. And in this, her death, she will teach man the only kindness man deserves.

...for you refuse to realize that you are the enemies of the goddesses."

-Kahlil Gibran

Would that it were not, but the time for excuses is long overdue.

Read into.

Read out.

Loud.

Keep your pride in check.

The lion wears the crown

But the lioness has the heart
of a warrior

He sits on his throne content. She stirs the herd from complacency.

It is in life's struggles we find our self. In death alone do we find truth, but may we never stop seeking.

Speaking.

I'm feeling scrappy today. So head on over to my scrapbook for a few tidbits. More to come and go.

--

On a completely unrelated note. Something happened last week that I am just now becoming able to process. It was one of those moments, so surreal, so completely terrifying, that even looking back on it, replaying it in my very own mind, still doesn't seem like it actually happened to me. It was nothing personal, nothing dangerous, nothing traumatizing or anything worrying like that. It has both rekindled my need to create, and temporarily robbed me of one of my greatest inspirations for doing so (that involves actually getting out of the house.) For the moment at least, it just doesn't seem possible to go for a pleasant stroll through the woods after finding something like that...

Ahh... I'm starting to feel more devious already. Nice to see this place again. In the next few weeks I will start branching out and seeing what everyone has been up to. For now I think I'll stay rooted here and, in the meantime, root out a few of the scattered bits of writing that may soon find their way shaping up for public dissemination. Pity the poor souls who end up absorbing all this petty, poetic propaganda >

Getting to the point, however, here are a few thoughts I've had on death recently...

Human sacrifice had long been a powerful tool of the state. The thirsty sun gods needed their daily draught and the greedy overlords needed their subservient population. These times are long gone, but when have their greedy gods ever gone unsated in the centuries since? Surely they've had their fair share of human suffering to feast upon... but how many have simply ceased to be in cowardly, unconscionable works of fire, and with their dissolution, so the life bestowing waters, the flesh bestowing flesh. How many linger yet in silence, in boxes pine and plastic? What image of the afterworld are we creating... what private hells? In our ever "sensitive" (read, fearful) approach to our final resting place, how many great cycles, unbroken since the dawn of this infant species, has our fear-minded meddling unhinged?

Death ceases to be one with life when flesh does not feed flesh.

War ceases to be war when blood is not payed for in blood.

Again, pardon these morbid meanderings... These things consume that do not find egress.

These thoughts rise with the dust

The cadence builds with these motes

These notes