I know! I'm a bit "all over the place" currently. My goal was to post daily, starting with A and ending with Z. IN ORDER! That hasn't worked out. I will catch up but in the meantime, I'll be jumping out of order to do so.
The random word generator is throwing me some doozies.
"Cosmic terror appears as an ingredient of the earliest folklore of all races and is crystallized in the most archaic ballads, chronicles and sacred writings." H.P. Lovecraft
Not long ago, I volunteered to assist Shannon Lawrence in publicizing her new work entitled, Myth Stalker: Wendigo Nights (Hit the link, buy the book. Yay! Free pub!) and for my entry, I was asked to share a post concerning a cryptid or a figure of mythological folklore (I chose Mothman) and while researching the topic, I found myself becoming more interested in others that I had heard of but was not familiar with. Here are two.
Folklore, as defined by Marriam Webster is as follows:
1. Traditional customs, sayings, tales, dances, or art forms preserved among a people. 2. An often unsupported notion, story or saying that is widely circulated.
There are three main genres of folklore, material folklore (physical objects), verbal folklore (common sayings, expressions, stories and songs) and customary folklore (beliefs and the way of doing things).
Folklore is a broad topic, with several examples from a plethora of cultures, which have their own unique twist on the stories of the past, but what I found common in most is that they all have tales of mythological creatures, cryptids and gods.
The Wendigo (Of course I started here)
The Wendigo originated in Algonquin folklore and is said to be a malevolent spirit that possesses human beings, filling them with an insatiable hunger, driving them to eat other humans. Being possessed by a Wendigo indwells the unfortunate soul with a propensity to commit murder.
Basil H. Johnston described the Wendigo as such:
"The Wendigo was gaunt to the point of emaciation, its desiccated skin pulled tightly over its bones. With its bones pushing out against its skin, its complexion the ash-gray of death, and its eyes pushed back deep into their sockets, the Wendigo looked like a gaunt skeleton recently disinterred from the grave. What lips it had were tattered and bloody. Unclean and suffering from suppuration of the flesh, the Wendigo gave off a strange and eerie odor of decay and decomposition, of death and corruption."
Charming fellow, if I say so myself!
The Phoenix
The Phoenix is an immortal bird that cyclically regenerates, or is born again by rising from the ashes of it's predecessor. It has ties to several mythologies (Greek, Persian and Egyptian, too name a few) and it's origin is heavily debated. Today, the Phoenix signifies rebirth or the beginning of a new life. Being one that enjoys written work and poetry, I found the excerpt below interesting: (Precepts of Chiron, attributed to the Greek poet, Hesiod)
"A chattering crow lives now nine generations of aged men, but a stag's life is four time a crow's, and a raven's life makes three stags old, while the phoenix outlives nine ravens, but we, the rich haired Nymphs daughters of Zeus the aegis holder, outlive ten phoenixes." (I guess, if your in to math, would equal a lifetime of 972 times the span of a humans.)
Who's a pretty bird?
The myth of these creatures is entertaining, if nothing else. If you find that you are interested in mythology and cryptids, you should check out Wikipedia's link on the subject.
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Bad Moon Rising (Cuz, American Werewolf In London. Duh!)
"Necessity has been a priceless spur which has helped men to perform miracles against incredible odds." - Orison Swett Marden
The story, as it is told, is that David defeated Goliath, with a sling and a stone. Insurmountable odds. The strong against the "weak." A story of faith. Some choose to live without faith and I will not argue against your reasoning. Some read the Word, but don't live by it. I know a few. I will cast my lot with them. I will not preach here, but I will not hide behind the vail of this fallen world either. I teeter on the edge of faith and the lack thereof daily, but I also know that deep within my soul, faith resides. It was hand stitched into my being. My Goliath is well documented and I will not run from it.
I have recently started decluttering and clearing out old boxes that had been stored and happened upon an old notebook of sketches and scribbles from long ago. A buddy of mine (we will call him B) and I used to sit atop the roof of his rental and write whatever came to us. Back then, I had dedicated a decent amount of time to writing poetry. There was a freedom in putting pen to paper and it also aided in calming the restlessness of being a young adult, trying to navigate life. That old notebook would go with me where ever I went and when inspiration would hit, I'd jot down the thought and rehash it at a later date. At the time, I had no idea how these pieces, written so long ago and before I had experienced real struggle, would come back to meet me on the road that I am currently travelling.
"When you dance with the devil, the devil doesn't change. The devil changes you." - Amanda Hocking
A poem, written circa 1999.
The Dance
I lay my weary head upon a soft retreat.
The dance begins.
The devil gnashes his teeth atop my left shoulder,
while God rests patiently upon the right.
Sad man, tired man,
What is your plan?
To sleep me away
Until you wake again?
Your mind is water,
as you drown in the deep.
And you know, as well as I,
there is a means to an end
beneath where you sleep.
Pay no mind to his ramblings!
His words are no more than the blowing of a chilled wind.
I'm tired.
Rest child.
I drift into darkness,
but still hear his call.
Alone in a dream,
I rest but still fall.
We twist, we turn,
our thoughts intertwine,
trapped in slumber,
for brief moments in time.
We awake and prepare,
for the next day begins.
Only to dance,
upon the sunlight,
ending again.
How does a seemingly random thought, born approximately twenty-five years ago, hold so much weight today? I wrote this piece when life was simple and drama free. The only real pain I had experienced was the passing of my grandfather in 1992. It's odd, to me, how life comes full circle.
Allow me to introduce you to one of my favorite artists, Ren Gill.
As with most of my posts, I will leave you with a musical piece, but be warned, there is some vulgarity and the lyrical content is intense, in my opinion. I implore you to listen to the entire song, especially the last minute and a half. Ren speaks truth and does not hold his tongue. Keep "The devil on one shoulder and God on the other" in mind while taking this song in. It is worth your time and I do hope you enjoy. It fits perfectly with the subject matter.
PSA: I skipped the letter "C" because I am still working through it but will post when finished.
In society today, violence is all around us. We are inundated with it. We see it in the morning AND evening news. It is glorified in Hollywood and at times, we see it in front of our very eyes. We breathe it in like oxygen. The boundaries between information and fascination have blurred. It is big money and it has become a contest. Push the gore further, be more and more deranged. Make it stick in peoples crawl. Why is society in love with bloodshed and what affect does it have on our thinking?
"No society that feeds its children on tales of successful violence can expect them not to believe that violence in the end is rewarded." - Margaret Mead
1984. "One, two, Freddy's coming for you. Three, four, better lock your door. Five, six, grab your crucifix. Seven, eight, better stay up late. Nine, ten, never sleep again."
I was ten years old and the chant above was burned into my memory. My mind was processing information at an alarming rate but the entries were normal fodder for my age at the time. Every single image that I consumed was locked away and stored in my subconscious. I was innocent. I was protected and sheltered. I was safe. I did not know what violence was. Life revolved around Smurfs and Pound Puppies, Gleaming the Cube and racing BMX. Horror was reserved for late night viewing and for grownups only. "A Nightmare" was my introduction to horror and I didn't like it, but liked it at the same time. As the years passed, I had watched the classics and didn't mind but as the violence intensified and the realism evolved, I began to drift away from the genre, only catching pieces of a few here and there. My thought process went from "It's harmless viewing." to "How do people come up with these ideas?" and I concluded that I didn't want to know.
My penchant for obsessive thinking completely shifted this paradigm. Having intrusive thinking is difficult to navigate and while in the midst of a negative cycle, you have difficulty separating fiction from fact. The idea of physically harming someone makes me ill and when I obsessed about the possibility, it was gut wrenching. In my experience, time (too much of it) would pass and the symptoms subsided, but it didn't take much to trigger another response. Through trial (and a bunch of error) I realized that violence, in any form, was a trigger and needed to be removed completely.
"How do people come up with these ideas?"
I used to sigh in defiance when my father would express his opinion about the fall of society, but even in my small act of rebellion, I heard his words. I am unwilling to admit it, but I am starting to align myself with his believes and until people realize that drastic change is necessary, we will continue to witness violence and it will only escalate further as time passes. I do not have answers on what needs to be done but know that it will only get worse. Mass shootings, unheard of in my teens, are now commonplace and the media loves to drown us with the who's and why's. This only fuels the desire for those with evil intentions. It is no longer a question of if it will happen again, but when? Some will blame video games and others blame Hollywood but I place blame solely on the individuals that carry out the act. Mental illness is real and some hide behind it's vale. I was one of those types but there comes a time when you need to slip each leg into your jeans and work through the issue. It took the death of a loved one and the loss of another to make me realize that true happiness is hard work and just because your lot in life is difficult, there is no excuse to give up, commit criminal acts and God forbid, take another's life.
Music cures my restlessness and I incorporate it in life daily. I allow the words to wrap around my mind but it does not encourage what I do. It is an escape from the noise surrounding me. I like edgy and I gravitate toward musicians that are not afraid to admit and discuss struggle. I have an internal soundtrack of hundreds of thousands of songs and when I write, some of these pieces remind me of the subject matter.
Be warned, the song below is violent but I am sharing it because it fits the topic of this entry. I do not spew vulgarity on The Hobbit but the musical entries may.
