We travelled to the Cliffs of Moher in northwestern Ireland, the tallest in Europe. Rugged and impressive, they remained formidable to drive up and to look down. The sheer audacity of Kinbane castle in Northern Ireland built down a very steep hill right on the promontory of the North Sea kept it impenetrable for years. Out near Kinvara and in the Burren were the Ailwee Caves, great underground caverns carved millennia ago by a subterranean river, fossils and minerals sparkling like the realm of Hades. Cool, pitch black except when they turned on the lights, and a den for extinct European brown bears, their might was in their endurance and solidity.

 

The Burren was as impressive in its way as the Giants Causeway. At some point in the ancient past a mountain or volcano erupted, spewing tons of flowing mud down mountain and hill. Eventually it solidified into grey rock but still has that look of a mud flow. Smooth in spots, rippled in others, there are dips that are treacherous to walk over but where wind and rain have blown deposits of soil over the centuries. There in those protected trenches are a myriad of plant life, some uniqe to that area.

 

The Burren butts up to a rugged shoreline near Kinvara, but on the higher hills it is barren stone, short shrubs and the tiny plants that grow in their coves. Everywhere through this area are stone walls and hill forts that were stacked by hand centuries ago. In fact the stone walls are abundant throughout Ireland but rule supreme in the Burren. The stones might be stacked on their edges, resting against each other, placed flat on top of each other, or made with their widest sides facing out. Some are mortared, and they are ageless. They could have been built a week ago or a thousand years ago. They were used as natural boundaries, pens for cattle and sheep and as fortifications. I’ve been told that they now work at protecting species of flora and fauna throughout the emerald isle, working as borders where invasive species don’t encroach.

 

Upon the Burren with its hard, alien looking surface, unable to really support any crop, somehow people eked out a life, for centuries. And topping it was Poulnabrone Dolmen, a passage tomb made of four giant slabs of stone with a fifth resting atop them like a table. You can look through beneath the table stone, from one world perhaps to the next. It has stood for over 5,000 years, a part of every person’s life who lived upon the Burren.

 

All lands have stone in one form or another. Rock is the foundation of our world from its magma core to the volcanic eruptions and tectonic shifts that show our planet is alive. From sand and pebble to rock and boulder, stones have always been there to support and shelter. The Irish reuse the stones from any old building torn down, reworking it into something new.

 

The strong sense of the history of the stones, from the monasteries and castles to the cemetery tombs and headstones, to the walls and hill forts, they all spoke of a true Irish intimacy with stone. There is history, life and death. There is art, utilitarian purpose and mystery. And most of all, there is community; thousand of years of life with each person using what had come before, the ruins or the dead not forgotten but integrated into continuing family rituals. Ireland truly taught me the endurance of time and of stories shown in its stone, its very foundation.

 

 

The picture at the top of my blog is taken from the top of Blarney castle

 

In October, 2007 I travelled to Ireland, a place I had wanted to visit for years. I’m not sure why exactly as there is no Irish in my blood and other countries have more and bigger castles. It was more the sense of rolling green hills and the land of faery, a romantic notion perhaps.

 

We circumnavigated Ireland in two weeks, going north, then west, then south and east, starting and ending in Dublin. There were some key sites we wanted to see but then let ourselves be guided by road signs and guide books.

 

This was a mostly outdoor expedition involving trips to old castles and monasteries and some cemeteries, as well as driving through the changing landscape. The history of the architecture and how it had changed over time was fascinating, small enclosures and Viking settlements built over with increasingly sophisticated fortifications or ecclesiastical buildings.

 

Newgrange and Knowth were amazing in that these structures were built over 5,000 years ago and are older than the pyramids of Egypt. Some of the passage tombs fell apart or were scavenged for stones for other buildings and roads. Many of the passage tombs have a corridor or an interior build with slabs of stone, then dirt is mound over. Barrow mounds gave rise to the tales of the homes of the sidhe and the Tuatha de Danan.

 

Other barrows were built over with time, dirt being added, and villages or cattle settling upon them. Some of their original use is a mystery but some contain bones or human ashes. Others may have been ceremonial or religious structures. Newgrange is the most impressive as it was built upon a hill and the outer wall lined with white quartz (this was rebuilt in more recent times and there is argument as to how it may actually have been placed), which would be striking in the bright sun and visible for miles around.

 

Giants Causeway on the north coat of Northern Ireland was a natural structure of basalt rock that had been rapidly heated and cooled millennia ago causing large octagonal pillars to form. They break apart in slabs, maintaining their structure and can be walked over like steps. Some form natural seats or chairs. There is a section called the organ because it looks like a giant pipe organ in the hill. There seems to only be that one area in Ireland that has such unique stones.

 

The castles and monasteries abounded as well as the very old cemetery of Monasterboice with the millennium old tower (imagine Rapunzel) that they believe was used for storage, sanctuary and watch for marauders. Some of the carvings on pillars still showed wonderful detail; leaves, faces both animal and human, various designs. Some of the blocks of stone seemed to have been placed with a sense of tone, dark and light stones alternating, or smaller pebbles placed in the mortar between larger stones.

 

Over the centuries many of these castles and churches fell into ruin but they were not abandoned. Tombs and graves pepper every place. The oldest monastery floors are nothing but tomb after tomb. There is nothing to do but walk over the bones of the past. Even walls have been taken over, a person interred into the very foundation and a plaque sealing them in. The oldest readable stones go to the 1700s. Older than that, the words become too worn away, by feet and weather. There are graves dating over a thousand years in some cases, right up to months of the current date.

 

Some graveyards have been held by the ruling families or clans and there might be dozens of McDonnells buried in one area such as Ballycastle. Other graves are family plots and in the more modern ones, configured by a low fence, a bar, about six inches from the ground. These more modern plots have pebbled glass or stone in different combinations of colour and some flowers, real or not. Some are very individual. Headstones often denote many generations entombed in the plot, going back a century or more. At one Benedictine monastery there was a family of four cleaning and smoothing the stones of their family’s plot on a sunny day.

 

Continued tomorrow

94stranger has replied with the following on my original post “The Muse”

hi Coleen,
I didn’t respond at once because I was - and am - thinking about it. It’s all making me feel slightly uncomfortable: because it’s well known, for example, that a scientist can worry about a problem to the nth degree and then get the solution in a dream: in fact the Naskapi Indians of Labrador, if my memory serves me correctly, used to use dreams systematically as direction-finders for hunting.
There’s no doubt that some poems, or sections of poems, ‘write themselves’ - in fact, I’ve written things which didn’t have any clear meaning for me and which, years later, I discovered what they had meant - yet my unconscious - or however you want to express this - knew what was going on all along.
I recently had a similar experience with the following poem: the first two lines came on their own; the next two almost at once, and the rest was a struggle to do something with what had arrived from ‘out there’. I don’t know what the references in those first lines are - but maybe one day I will.
http://94stranger.wordpress.com/2008/03/22/poem-camelot/

I don’t know if this conversation of ours is going to go on: are you O.K. with me re-publishing it on my blog? In my experience, this is a subject which greatly interests the writing fraternity. Over to you!

I’m not sure why you feel uncomfortable. Is it that you think that muse-driven works are misappropriation or that inspiration may not come from the muse, or something else? If the first, I believe that if the muse visits, one is a fool not to use what’s given. If the second, well…a rose by any other name.

The muse may just be detaching the logical linear brain and letting randomness enter. Dreams are sometimes a processing of the day’s events and thoughts. Though for me I find my dreams are rarely mundane and take in other worlds, literally. But is that the muse or just my imagination, or both? When I’m working on a story and stuck I will often take a nap, going to sleep thinking of the story to see if I can jog the plot or conflict to its conclusion. Sometimes it works; often I struggle.

The muse could be completely outside of oneself too. I do believe in divine energy (god, gods, sprites, insert preferred term); that which is greater than me but can sometimes be used in some small portion. The muse, generic, as opposed to the muse specific (Calliope, Terpsichore, etc.) can just be that divine energy funneled into someone and tempered by their own life, events and personality to be shaped into a particular form of art.

Except for that rare exception of “The Fishwife,” where it sprung, like Athena, mostly full formed from my head, I think there is a blend of conscious and subconscious, linear and nonlinear that comes to play with art and inspiration. The use of archetypes is so universal that our cosmic consciousness, as Jung presented, does in fact flow through our processes sometimes at the same rate. I could even be picking up other peoples’ evolution of ideas.

As for your poem, I didn’t paste all of it here as I haven’t asked first to do so but I can tell you what I thought upon reading, besides that I like it very much and the images are crystal clear. You said you weren’t sure what the references were to these lines:

I shall ride high to meet

the lords of barley;

I shall ride by and parley

with the lords of wheat

One thought was of John Barleycorn, from a 16th century ballad. It has various versions, including Robbie Burns’. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Barleycorn

But beyond that, in centuries past there were grain goddesses such as Demeter and Ceres, but there were grain gods too. Lugh brought Lughnasa or Lammas to the Celtic lands and even earlier were the Sumerian and Babylonian tales of Inanna and Dumuzi, or Tammuz and how she sacrifices him to Erishkigal when he doesn’t honor her on her return from the underworld. Coincidentally the sacrifice of Dumuzi corresponds to the grain harvest, as does Lammas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammuz_%28deity%29

To me your poem hearkens obviously to Arthurian but older elements of the grain god, and the sacrifice. By “lords” instead of lord, I see that as the wheat fields but the raising of an army, a contention of sorts between the mighty who too will be cut down and sown again. I see the narrator as someone there to appreciate, partake of the natural world before the mighty bring war or strife or blood to that realm. That’s a pretty simplified version as there is a lot of depth in this poem.

I think it’s very strong and visceral. Now, was the muse the calling of your ancestors, your spiritual roots, your imagination, experiences and self-searching; a grain god/Arthurian archetype working through you, or all of the above?

 

 

SF Canada is the professional writers group for Canada, for speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, horror, etc.) http://news.sfcanada.ca/ It is similar to but different from SFWA (Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America) which is the grand mal professional organization. SFWA has many more members and therefore money, clout and able to legally aid their members.

SF Canada allows membership to Canadian writers who have sold some works, but does not have as rigorous requirements as SFWA. Therefore, SFC represents Canadian speculative writers who may and may not yet have achieved a full professional status. It’s also there to foster community and support, as well as to promote the publishing and sale of works by members. It’s small, it’s Canadian.

The board of directors, like most boards is volunteer run. I have become the president as of Saturday. It’s not a lot of work but I’m hoping we can continue to foster community and bring more notice to our writers and our genre. We’ll see how that shapes up but with the World Fantasy Convention in Calgary this year, it’s a good opportunity to feature our local (Canadian) talent.

There has been discussion in the past that Canadian fiction of any genre has a different flavour than that of US authors. I don’t know if it’s true in speculative fiction but books have been written about how the landscape, in one way or another, features in many Canadian books and films. Perhaps there’ll be a larger discussion of whether aliens created by Canadians are more Canadian than alien. We’ll see.

Due for release in June, Warrior  Wisewoman features SF stories with strong women protagonists. An earlier review has been done of the book and is accessible here: http://thefix-online.com/reviews/warrior-wisewoman/

My story, “Ice Queen” is one of the twelve stories in this anthology and has received a favorable review. The cover if well designed. Norilana seems to be a fairly new publisher, at least to the speculatitve genre, but they’re doing some nice looking books, both anthologies and novels. I’m looking forward to receiving my copy.

Many people ask writers (and I presume, other artists), where do you get your ideas?

I think, though I’ve never done a study, that some people get their inspiration always the same way. But for the majority of mortals the muse may or may not come and our ideas flow from various sources. My ideas come from many sources. The least likely is that I see a call for submissions on a particular themed anthology, say, spotted flying pigs. If the idea really hits me, or I have something in the works, I’ll give it a go.

A fair number of my ideas begin with dreams. It might be a world, an image or a conflict. Dreams are tricky things, though. They follow their own logic. They make sense at the time but the scene changes are sudden and sometimes psychedelic. A story based on a dream often takes straightening out on the chronology, as well as adding a flow and logic that might be missing or too obfuscating. The novel I hope to work farther on this summer (a fantasy novel on a different and complex world) was based on a dream. It was very detailed, with conflict, hierarchy and politics. I couldn’t pass that up.

Often I will think a what-if. What if people breathed through their eyes? What if flowers grew underground? What if we were invaded, not by highly intelligent and technologized lifeforms, but by microbial life that changed us into creatures unfit for our world? A galaxy of what-ifs. They’re only the starting point, the basis of a setting. The conflict, personalizing (adding the characters) is always the hardest, for me anyways.

Sometimes stories start with a random image, a phrase, something someone says or does. I once had some day surgery, a laparoscopy, which involves several small incisions. Anything invasive takes the body time to heal. I had to wear loose clothing for a couple weeks and would experience some pain and discomfort. I said at one point, “It feels like I have a black hole in my stomach.” From that phrase I started working out a story, which started with, “Jenny has a black hole in her stomach.” I sold that story “Consuming Fear” very quickly to the Northern Frights anthology.

Once in a blue moon the muse truly hits. I’m not sure she’s truly taken over more than once. I was in the middle of a story, writing along when these phrases and images started pouring into my mind. I finally had to just put aside the story I was working on and write the other one. It flowed out in just a few days, in a lyrical style quite different than my style in other stories. “The Fishwife” sold to Descant, again on its second or third submission.

But most of the time we can’t wait for the muse. It’s no surprise though, that through history writers sought their muses in opium dens, drugs of various sorts and drugs. We look for things to inspire us, to move us beyond the norm, to fire our imagination with a story that should be told. I try to remember the muse moments and see if I can sometimes draw on those styles. But in the meantime, I look for ideas and sometimes plod through a story, one paragraph at a time.

I’ve already said that if the government is so worried about the funding for our health care, then part of the solution is preventative medicine. This means you can’t deny people services when they’re in an acute stage. The longer one waits for treatment, the more it costs the health system as the problem becomes chronic, sometimes with life lasting problems.

At the same time, each provincial government seems to have the impunity to whittle away our health care any way they want, without the federal government saying anything. In BC, we used to get 12 covered visits for chiropractic, physiotherapy and massage therapy each. I suffer from soft tissue problems which often take the combination of massage and chiropractic to stop my bones from being pulled out of alignment by my over-tight muscles. The BC government somehow didn’t believe that these therapies helped people so they took them away. Then you were allowed ten visits total and only if on subsidized medical.

Subsidized? But surely health care is free in Canada. Well, some provinces are freer than others. Alberta and BC pay a monthly premium (in which you are harassed, ignored and strong-armed into these payments–to be elucidated on later). BC residents pay $54 a month. Oh, and let’s see what we lost when the Liberal (liberal?!!) government decided to bleed us, but not for our health.

1. Premiums doubled (we’ve always had to pay)
2. Massage, physio and chiro went to no free visits (or only 10 combined if you were subsidized)
3. Podiatrists were dropped (what happens to people’s feet as they get older)
4. Optometrists were dropped (what happens to eyes as people get older)

Optometrists seem to be covered if you have a health problem but a check-up is not. Glasses and/or contacts have never been covered. Likewise, somehow dental health has never been covered. As someone who has no medical/dental plan, the cost of even the basic dental health is out of reach for many people. I’ll be paying out over $2000 for one crown and one root canal. Feet problems? Well I may have to put those off. Back problems. I suffer longer, use more painkillers which do not work and worry about the problems that become worse with time, where I must visit the doctor more often, get more prescriptions and seek more specialists.

Over the years of the mismanagement of MSP (Medical Services Plan) I have written letters and asked why we pay when other provinces do not. To this day I have never received any communication from MSP except for the automaton bills, which are erratic at best. I’ll devote a piece just to the unfair billing practises of MSP.

And now we’re looking at bill c-51 about to be passed where you and I will not be able to buy vitamin C, echinacea or anything else we want over the counter. We’ll need prescriptions and that will cost more. My last prescription: the drug was $6.50, the dispensing fee was $8.30. What will this mean? Pharmaceutical companies and drugstores will get richer, we’ll put greater strain on the health care system by either having to see our doctor for a prescription or by ignoring and taking no vitamins.

Granted there is a lot of self-medication and taking supplements that don’t do anything but really, will I need a doctor’s permission to take vitamin C and iron. Write your member of parliament if you’re concerned about any of this.

Although my family was fairly middle class, my siblings (as well as me) were avid readers. My older brother liked to read about the Napoleonic wars, Roman civilization and who knows what else. He later became a politician in Alberta. He also read science fiction and when he moved out I discovered various SF novels lying around, such as Frank Herbert’s Green Brain. There were other Herbert and Heinlein books and I devoured what I could.

But prior to those pure SF authors, I had fed on fairy tales and Norse myths at a younger age. I remember reading The Water Babies, and one book that illusrated the myths in vivid illustrations. I don’t have that book but I found one by the same author/artists (?–I will fill in the name later) a few years ago in the US and bought it. It was on Greek myths so I added it to my collection: another recovery of the magic from my childhood.

I also read many Nancy Drew mysteries, left by my older sister. My mother bought me new ones and I spent enough nights with the flashlight under the cover reading. There were a few Hardy Boys lying about and I read all of those too, plus some historical and/or romantic fiction that my mother had read.

The true transitional time from fairy tales and Aesop’s Fables to SF and fantasy was when I was about twelve. I had read some Edgar Allan Poe and then went on to Ray Bradbury, and from there straight on to SF & fantasy. I remember having to make a newspaper in grade 7 with other classmates. Our group’s had a decidedly speculative element and I wrote articles or drew pictures of aliens.

Today, my siblings still read voraciously. My older brother still reads about politics and SF, when he has time. My younger brother reads more fantasy. My sister reads true crime and mystery novels. I read SF, fantasy, mystery, historical and literary, from time to time. My mother reads mostly on politics when she reads. She falls asleep more now. I’m not sure what else they read but maybe I’ll poll them.

I guess my fascination with the worlds of what-if began at an early age.

As a child, I was shy. I also came from a middle class family with blue collar parents. I don’t recall my mother reading to me but now I begin to recall the Brer Bear, Brer Rabbit books and I think she might have read those to me and my younger brother.

We had this lovely set of hardcover books, which began in shades of green and moved through to deep blue. Twelve books, one to coincide with each year’s growth, and learning to read more complex stories. The first book(s) were filled with nursery rhymes and children’s poetry. They progressed through the most common fairytales; Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Cinderella, to Snow White and Rose Red, Paul Bunyan, various Arthurian tales, etc.

Each large book had a lovely picture on the cover of the book. These didn’t have slipcovers but a weave to the texture of the cover, and a picture applied in a frame, in colour. The inside of the book had beautiful line drawings in black and white. A pale orange or blue were the only colours that enhanced these pictures.

The were titled My Book House, with subtitles for each volume. I don’t remember reading all of these books but I do remember the early ones, before I discovered science fiction and fantasy novels. I loved them. In a home that was often filled with strife, these books represented beauty and imagination, and worlds with happy endings unlike the world I lived in. If any book made a significant impact on my early education, it was this collection. I never forgot them.

Years passed and I moved out. My older sister had a child and my mother gave the books to her. I’m not sure if she ever read them to my nephew but at one point it seems there was a house fire of some sort and the books were gone. I mourned those books, as I would mourn losing a limb.

One day I happened into a used bookstore and found four of the early volumes. Edited by Olive Beaupre-Miller in the 20s, she maintained standards of what a child could handle/read at that time. I don’t have the volumes in front of me at the moment but I have four of the first six. I still look through them because they have some of the earliest images I remember in a book. As well, since I still write fantasy, it’s nice to read them for ideas, discover a fairy tale I don’t remember reading, and read a version that hasn’t been Disneyfied.

My Book House still gives me joy and a warmth of wonder that was hard to always hang onto in my childhood.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_Beaupre_Miller

The BC government thinks they shouldn’t raise the rate for welfare recipients because it might equal the rate of the working poor. Notice that they’re not going to do anything with raising the minimum wage so there are fewer working poor or get rid of their contentious two-tier wage, where younger people can be paid a lower minimum wage.

In any system, whether just paying income tax, being on welfare, unemployment or being employed, there are people who cheat. In all cases, it’s a small number of people. For welfare, most of the people are on it, not because they’re lazy or bilking the system, but because they have to be.

I speak from both sides of the fence. In my twenties I was out of work and putting in fifty applications a month. I had finished high school, graduated from art college and still could not find a job. I lived in a house with two other people. At one point we were all unemployed. Rent was still cheaper than trying to move. With welfare for each of us, we still had to get food from the food bank because welfare barely covered the cost of rent. Any extra bills, and I had fewer then, were beyond the means.

Welfare is designed to belittle, humiliate and keep people impoverished. It used to be, decades ago, that a woman on welfare also had to answer for her social life, everything from who visited to what their boyfriends did, if they were even allowed to have a male visitor. More women than men are on welfare. If a marriage falls apart and the guy is  a deadbeat dad, then the woman is left with trying to get a job, plus raise children and provide childcare, and often childcare amounts to as much as she earns. So she ends up on welfare. Or as a prostitute.

Welfare punishes you if you get a job that doesn’t pay enough or isn’t full time. You’re given a base amount (if you’re single–$610/mo.) but should you make some money, you have to deduct it against the welfare amount. I’m not sure what this is. Navigating through the labyrinth of the BC government’s income assistance site does not net you this information, so I’m presuming it’s the same. If you’re on unemployment I believe you’re allowed to make $50/wk before the amount is deducted against your unemployment amounts. So let’s presume it’s something like this.

What then happens is a person isn’t encouraged to get a part time job, if they still must be on welfare. You end up working for the same amount you would get for not working. When I was in such a situation the only way I survived was by being hired by one company for two days a week. Yes, it was under the table so that I could actually survive on welfare. Eventually, they hired me full time and with great relief I said good bye to the humiliation of welfare.

Many years later I ended up in a situation where I had been freelancing for years, but had lost my clients at the same time. I couldn’t get unemployment because I was freelance. I was $300 short of rent one month as I was looking for more work. I didn’t know what to do so I appealed to welfare. At that point I had about $4,000 in RRSPs, my retirement income, in hopes that I won’t have to live under a bridge in my elder years. All I needed was $300 for one month. I would have even repaid it, but no, I was told I would have to exhaust my RRSPs first. I’m sure if I had owned a house they would have wanted me to sell it. They might have wanted me to sell the car I had but it wasn’t worth much and would have left me more stranded for work.

I found it particularly transparent of a government’s true attitude, where they were willing to bankrupt people completely and leave them destitute in the name of keeping them off welfare. I would have then been a full welfare recipient in my retirement with no resources to fall back on. Somehow, something came through last minute, saving me. But in my desperation I was seriously contemplating prostitution. That’s where the government welfare policies put many people.

And if you get only $610/mo and don’t have several roommates, and perhaps a couple of bill payments, well, then you might end up sleeping on the streets so you can eat and pay those bills. There are people, the working poor, who likewise live on the streets because they can’t afford housing. Eventually that hard living will cause more health problems and then the government will pay out more in health services to heal those people. But it’s much better to keep a person less than poor so that they can never get out of the perpetual welfare state.

I pray that with the cost of housing, heating and the rising price of food, that I don’t eventually retire into abject poverty. I wish I could say this was too far from the truth to consider, but it’s a reality that could just be around the corner. It’s too bad that supposedly progressive governments have such short vision and lack the perspective to take their thinking out of a welfare state.

http://www.policyalternatives.ca/News/2008/04/PressRelease1868/index.cfm?pa=BB736455

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080423.wxbcwelfare23/BNStory/National/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20080423.wxbcwelfare23

http://www.eia.gov.bc.ca/factsheets/2007/increase_table.htm

http://thetyee.ca/News/2008/04/22/Poverty/