STORYTIME TAPESTRY

April 16, 2005

I am so pleased that Storytime Tapestry is growing.  Apparently it was a wise move to migrate to Zinester as our mail server.  Since we moved to Zinester our membership has doubled.

Today we welcome another new writer for Storytime Tapestry.  Kennon Smith is writer # 199.  Please encourage Kennon to write more and more.

Now on to the good stuff..........

Animal awareness series endorsed by Shiloh and Hank our mascots; all stories must receive their approval.

On and On

Kathy Anne Harris

I am your friend, and your fur kin, always.

When I look at you with love

my expression is not bound by time.

That love goes on and on...



If you were to be separated from me,

that expression of love would I still radiate,

and others could see it.



That love for you may draw others to me,

for it is a love that runs beyond understanding.

But like a candle flame in the dark it beckons,

comforts, and warms.



Food, treats, and water, have sustained me,

but my love for you is what makes me thrive.

You couldn't be more loved, now or ever.



When you'd been gone and came home

I couldn't have been happier. So it will be

when our spirit-souls reunite.



I am gone from you but

you are not gone from me

I am there - you are with me.



I have slipped free of my earthly body,

just as you will, at a time, marked for you.

A time marked for me, too, as you cross the Bridge.



Ocean breezes lifted our spirits

the salty smell and tang we both enjoyed.

The sea is still there, as am I.



The smell of earth and grass

sweet clover, too, lingered on my paws

as I trod sunlit meadows by your side.

The meadow is still there, as am I.



On the loamy forest floor,

where we ran and laughed,

panting and loving the moment,

the two of us, together.

The forest is still there, as am I.



When at night we'd go to bed and snuggle into

the warmth of blankets, and close to each other--

so close we could feel each others sighs contented

and dream our dreams of the day.

That has not changed. I am beside you

and sometimes you dream of me

and I love it.

When thoughts of me sadden you

I am jumping and whining and circling round

sending strong thoughts of the many times

we were ecstatic with the pure joy of being

kin and friends.

In your waking hours, every sweet, happy,

and good memory you have of me is the

greatest expression of love you could give me.

You are caressing the heart of me.

As good as a snuggle, this side of the Bridge.

I am your friend, and your fur kin, always.

When I look at you with love

my expression is not bound by time.

That love goes on and on...

...and others may see it. Will you?

Copyright 2005 by Kathy Anne Harris

kathap @angelrays.biz

I live in central, sunny California, where I share my life with my husband and our furry family. I work full time for a living, and I write in order to live fully. My works have been featured in 2TheHeart, Storytime Tapestry, Starfish, Driftwood, CatTails, Petwarmers, Heartwarmers, Insight of the Day, Warm Fuzzy Stories, Gwen's Place Newsletter, Sir Froggie's Positive News Network, and Eternal Ink. I am also a weekly columnist for the publication "Frank Talk" which is distributed in six counties in Michigan, USA. I have four published novels, 3 fiction and 1 non-fiction, which can be ordered from Amazon.com and Barnes&Noble.com

Today's Queue Stories
~**~**~**~ 

The Front Porch
Kennon Smith

Drip, drip, drip, rain lazily hitting the tin roof. whip poor will, who chipped the white oak? .Katy did, Katy didn't, on a hot July night. these crowd into my memory when I think of the old front porch. That was a sanctuary where we could go when the day's work was done and there was hardly ever any traffic on the road to break the serenity. How pleasant to remember sitting out there after supper and just relaxing and talking. The sentences were slow and spoken quietly and no one was in a big hurry to answer. That allowed what had been said a chance to sink in.  Sometimes you would nearly go to sleep. This was an excellent place to discuss the world situation. The world usually extended about a hundred miles in each direction from our house. We were sitting on the front porch when we got the news of the beginning of the Korean War. I was small then and I remember worrying very much about it when I heard the grown ups discussing it. I was expecting to see the bombs start falling any minute.
     I vividly remember the hot summer nights when we would sleep out on the porch to keep cool. We didn't have air conditioning and the night would get oppressively hot and sultry in south Alabama when both temperature and humidity were high. Crime was not heard of much in those days so we were not afraid to sleep out like that. Many nights in the heat of the summer we would get off the bed and sleep on the floor but in the worse we would sometimes go out on the front porch. The road in front of the house was not heavily traveled at that times and sometimes a night would pass with only a handful of vehicles going by. The most sound would be from the cicadas in the pecan trees and they could really raise the roof. Sometimes an owl or whippoorwill would add to the chorus. Yes, sleeping on the front porch surely felt mighty good.
     Then there were the days for porch sitting. These were times when it rained and made conditions too wet to get into the fields and work. To say that though is a contradiction in terms because there is always work on a farm no matter what the conditions. We often found something useful to do with our hands while sitting on the porch but that didn't stop the conversation. We did lots of sitting and shelling peas or butter beans on that front porch. One could pass hours doing that on days when outside work was not possible. On the rainy days flies would also congregate on the porch to get out of the rain. The hornets would come out in force to catch the flies. I have watched many a fly meet his doom that way.
     My great grandmother whom we called Granny Dillard loved to sit on the porch and watch the sun go down in the evening. She lived with us since she was older and alone. This was a mutually beneficial arrangement because she added lots to our family. Granny would go out onto the porch late every afternoon and watch the sun when the weather was clear. It would become a bright red ball and then grow deeper and deeper red as it sank toward the horizon. The process seemed slow at first but then got faster and faster until the red ball sank out of sight. Then came the twilight and the night bird's song. That was my early mode of transcendental meditation.
I know that we all need to have a "front Porch" of our own even if it is only in our mind but I am afraid that those days are over but they are not lost. Any time I want to do it again all I have to do is close my eyes and I am there.

 Kennon Smith

w4tki @go.com

~**~**~

Hero Worship

Jack Ward

There is something going on in the world today that I don't think we've seen for some time.
There's an underground, and for the most part, I think, unconscious movement towards hero worship.
When I say that term, "Hero Worship" to someone, I often get a negative response, and I wonder why.
As a child, I know I was encouraged to discover heroes around me both in real life and in fiction. A hero is a role model that stands like Atlas holding up the sky- at least in my eyes.
And I never thought anything wrong with such an idea.

If you look at the tradition of Shambhala, heroism can never be understood without following the path of warriorship and that concept sometimes frightens people. However, Shambhala is, as Chogyam Trungpa describes, "The Sacred Path of the Warrior," and in the text he writes:
"Warriorship here does not refer to making war on others. Aggression is the source of our problems, not the
solution. Here the word "warrior" is taken from the Tibetan pawo, which literally means "one who is brave."
Warriorship in this context is the tradition of human bravery..."

Such traditions occur throughout our mythical histories. King David, King Arthur, Joan of Arc, Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King are examples.

My father, who personally has been, and always will be, MY hero, was cognizant of this powerful motivating factor in my life, and once I remember when making what obviously was a questionable decision, he sighed, (and there was more personal pain to be felt in my father's sighs than in any rebukes) and he said to me, "Would Jim Kirk have done things that way?"
I knew the answer instantly, and it was, of course, 'No.' I remember feeling shame at the decision, even though I can't remember the context of it.
But I grew up in a household of heroes, and the shame came from my reading and experiencing the uplifted spirit of heroic action. Whether you believe Captain Kirk is a hero or not, is meaningless to me. I did. I still do, whether I feel the same for William Shatner as an actor is a moot point. It was Captain Kirk, a revitalized Horatio Hornblower for my youth that gave me the courage to believe in things beyond myself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson explored this, and believed in literature's powerful message to raise our consciousness to higher ideals and heroic action. He called it "a wild courage, a stoicism not of the schools but of the blood..." He also said that "we need books of this tart cathartic virtue, more than books of political science, or of private economy."
And I would go further to suggest that political science, economy, English or history and all the other subjects can be taught- but you cannot teach heroism. You can learn the many forms and faces heroism takes, but the heroes path is as unique to the individual as their fingerprints.

We have not as a culture, encouraged, for the most part, heroes for many years.
If you look back around the time of World War II, North American culture was rife with heroes. There were cowboy heroes. G-men heroes and action heroes from classic fiction like Treasure Island or the books of Jules Verne. Comic book heroes broke out with the invention of Superman (a Canadian addition to heroic archetypes). Superman, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman, and a plethora of other heroes fought the good fight against the axis powers to stand for truth, justice, and coincidentally- the American way.
This continued pretty much unabated for some years after the war. All through the fifties heroic ideals continued, egged on by movie house Saturday serial cliff-hangers, and then later by television.
Then came the sixties. And all the old heroes seemed inappropriate somehow.
Heroes that kept the values of society were suspect. The war in Vietnam, and new information about corruption in the government started to tarnish the once Golden Age of hero worship.
By the time of seventies, a new "hero" appeared in the form of Dirty Harry. Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry was a new dynamic. A kind of murkier protagonist who didn't really portray heroic qualities like those in the past. No longer the purveyor of society, Dirty Harry was a gritty character who did what he thought needed to be done. With the possible exceptions of Christopher Reeve's "Superman" in 1978 and "Star Wars" in 1977, this hero without the traditional heroic code continued.
Because of Dirty Harry and characters like his, for nearly a quarter of a century now we have not as a society, believed in the true iconic hero.
But all that changed recently. With September 11th, we're seeing a come back of the mythic hero in epic proportions. I have noticed a recent surge of comic book heroes in movies. Last year the X-men was out in films, and just before that Blade. While they were modest hits, they never lit the imagination as heroes in movies today.
Look for example at the change of focus in army movies. In the seventies we saw movies like "Apocalypse Now" that described the absolute senselessness of war and the madness of those people within it. In the eighties, movies like "Platoon," Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket," and "Hamburger Hill" did not show heroism like previous John Wayne war flicks. Today, on the other hand, we are seeing movies from Hollywood like "Black Hawk Down," and "We Were Soldiers." Even Spielburg's "Saving Private Ryan" is a story about the heroism in war, as much as its about the horror within it.

Now I suggested that this has happened since September 11th. While I believe the enormous revival of heroism is more public after the terrorist attacks, it has been growing most recently. Beyond the change in war movies, other films such as Spider-man were also slated for release before the disaster. Our society appears to be changing again. World conflicts are more apparent now than ever before. Sides seem to be polarizing more. Here in Canada politics has most definitely become more conservative, and that is a sign that people find comfort in more traditional values. Knightly values like honour, civility, and order- a heroic code.
But since September 11th, we've seen the use of the "hero" come out of the woodwork. In the past, we had only a smattering of comic book hero movies from Hollywood. In the last fifteen years we've seen Barb Wire, Captain America, Flash Gordon, The Phantom, Judge Dredd, The Punisher, and Swamp Thing. Beyond Batman and Superman, all these movies were made with a relatively low budget and just as low box office and television returns.
Look at the movies slated for 2003 and 2004 release now.
The Incredible Hulk, the Fantastic Four, Iron First, Ghost Rider, Catwoman, Daredevil, as well as new movies for Batman, Superman, Spawn, X-men, and Blade. By my count, that's at least four more super hero movies expected in release within 24 months than there have been in almost as many years. So what is occurring here?
Is the idea of heroism something that is sparked and required during various times of human history? Or is it a propagandized tool used to prepare a people for the mindset of war? Or is it a new dedication to and recognition of heroic ideals?

What concerns me most, is that it seems that this iconic expression of heroism is threatened even as we see it resurging. After so many years of not believing in the classic hero, people have become unfamiliar with a heroic code. Instead we see newspapers and media attaching heroism to nearly any act of generosity or perseverance- even to victims.
I don't believe that simply being a Father or a Mother makes one a hero. Neither do I believe that being a Teacher, or a Fireman, a Soldier or a Lawyer makes one a hero. I certainly don't believe that being killed tragically makes one a hero.

Heroes are made, not through the circumstance of participating in war, nor through the virtue of serving the public in peace time.
It is not the mantle of a profession that defines a hero. It is not the circumstances they are thrust in.
It is the way in which they react to their world around them.
While heroes are not born of the battlefield, they can emerge there, as clearly as they can emerge in a beleaguered business, or a besieged community.
Heroes act while others stand by. They speak their conscience, and are guided by an inner compass as much as they are guided by the cries of the oppressed.
I'm reminded of Eleanor Roosevelt when I think of heroic intent. Mrs. Roosevelt said, "You MUST do, the thing you think you cannot."
We must, and yet many of us don't. Even today, in our attempts to give children the safest environment, we shield them from the dangers of the world. I'm not suggesting we place our children in danger. But when we draw a net of safety about them, we disallow children to come up with their own solutions to problems that are beyond their experience. Who will keep them safe, when we are no longer able to, if not themselves?
Within the fuzzy existence of our protective net, children don't really experience the world around them. It's unreal to them, like another television program. They cannot see misery and connect with it. They cannot feel a deep desire to change that which they do not experience.
The substance of our lives, the meaning in our collective human existences can be measured in how we shape the world and our beliefs, tightly around it.
More youth would rather play video games than get involved in politics. While volunteerism is on the rise because of cutbacks, the age of volunteers are steadily older than they've ever been, even though young people have more leisure time than ever before.

Here in our Church, as a community, substance is our primary focus. We are not interested strictly in the day to day grind that occurs outside of our Church walls. We are here to share our experiences of faith and be uplifted by them. We forge heroes in faith. While the world beckons us to wear the robes and roles of our professions, here we teach each other that underneath our clothes all of us are men and women in tights prepared to do battle against the forces of injustice and against the tyranny of unreason.
Joseph Campbell's book "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" is perhaps my favourite book of all time. It very clearly defines the path of the hero boiled down from every mythic tale.
Heroes are drawn out by one of two methods.
Adventure seeks them out. Or they seek out adventure.
In either case, they hear the call, and they must answer it. Answering the call to adventure is only the beginning. They have many trials and tribulations. They must step out of what is known, and go beyond into the undiscovered country to bring back the treasure of knowledge and transform their world.
One thing is certain. In this changing landscape of values and beliefs, the heroic path remains clear for each of us to discover. If we do not answer the call to adventure, we have ceased to become the heroes of our own lives.
Instead, we are victims- like every peripheral character in a heroic tale, we wait to be saved.
Now more than ever, is the time for heroes. Now more than ever, we need to remember what a heroes code means, and now more than ever, we need to dedicate ourselves to the path.
I would like to close with a quote that Dean handed to me through e-mail. I apologise to the author for not mentioning his or her name, but it was not appended.

"We may not agree on divinity, or what our final home will be, but we all admit to feeling uplifted when someone expands the definition of being human by making an unusual effort to serve others or advance a great cause."
Amen.

Jack Ward
jack.ward @wardtechinc.com

About Me:
Jack Ward lives and breathes in Halifax,
Nova Scotia.


He's a passionate advocate for
creativity, writing, political, social,
and spiritual issues. He is the founder
and head writer for the "Shadowlands
Theatre" troop, a solo artist
who composes and performs his own acoustic
contemporary music. Jack's acting career
spans two decades of stage, radio, and
television in community and national
exposure. In high school Jack's love of
story writing set him edit the collection
of short poetry and prose called "First
Footings." His articles and letters have
been published in magazines, and
broadcasted over national public radio.


Jack's ardent affair with the audio
landscape began when he was very young
and his parents bought him classics
pressed to vinyl. His previous radio shows
"Chapter and Verse" and "Guided Winds"
explored local and national writers,
literate themes, and philosophy.


Currently Jack is putting together a series
of children's stories for publication. He
is writing two screenplays, several more
radio drama episodes and television pilot
treatments.


Shadowlands has been a 10 year labour of
love. The great romances burn for a
lifetime.

~**~**~

White out or Sunshine

By Jan Verhoeff

While blizzards rip the northeastern coasts, freezing weather continues across much of Canada, and winter steeps most of us in the northern hemisphere in white fluffy stuff or at the very least a breezy cool night, the southern hemisphere is toasting warmly in the vestiges of a mid-summer sun.  Worldwide weather is cause for conversation.  Interesting tidbits of discussion reveal torrents of thoughts about why the weather patterns are changing, how the Tsunami has affected out weather, or how drastically the changes in the tilt of the earth will shift our rotation.

Whatever the weather in your community, it??™s a cinch that you are decidedly having some.  And most of us would rather be someplace warm than wherever we are at the moment, if our toes are cold and our ears are frostbitten.  But history again reveals that most people are simply not happy where they are currently and want to be someplace else.  So the question is where?  Where in the world would you want to be if you weren??™t right where you are now?

So, grab a sip of some appropriate drink, warm and comforting hot chocolate for those northerners, or cold and icy lemonade for those southerners, and think about where you??™d rather be.  Then consider the wonders of where you are right now.  It just might happen that you find, you are right where you always wanted to be.

Maybe that sounds a bit clich?© ??“ and maybe it is.  There is an advantage if we learn to bloom where we are planted, and be content to live in the moment while we strive to meet our life goals. We are able to find happiness in the moment wherever we are.

Jan Verhoeff

janverhoeff @yahoo.com

More recently, Jan's writing interest leans toward mystery and behavioral humor. Both are included in her latest endeavor due to be released in March 2005 "Out of the Box", a publication about the triumphs and joys of home based education, and the processes she's found that work best with her children and others.

Jan is the Editor/Publisher of Your Hometown News,email to:
your_hometown_news-subscribe@yahoogroups.com NEW ---------- Check out the new website http://windmill29.tripod.com/ Bid til October 31, 2004 on the Golden Lights Original Oil Painting by Southeastern Colorado artist Jan Verhoeff.
janverhoeff @yahoo.com

Writers Feedback 

HI Carol-- thanks for sharing "These Hands" the poem about your
grandmother. Very touching. 

Kay Seefeldt
"The better part of one's life consists of his friendships." -Abraham
Lincoln

Wow!  Carol you did it again with Lessons From My hands and the poem about your grandmother was so beautifully written and heartfelt.  Blessings, Sharlett

Carol, I really enjoyed your story about your hands and the poem, These Hands.  Your grandmother was a remarkable woman. 

Sandy Woodward

Carol I just knew you would enjoy Debra's work! Thank you for the laugh!
Dianna Doles Petry

Winterose  @videotron.ca