New Year Word Nerd :D

This last one, as a writer, I obviously took incredibly literally, wondering if they're supposing that I write a page a day ;)

 Happy New Year folkles :D

Word Nerd

Introduction to The Price of Man - pre-release

The concept of ‘The Price of Man’ came about as an idea for a prequel to the Star Series, the story of a girl living in a young Port Homeland as humankind leaves en masse for the New World and those left behind make what they can of life here on Earth. Chronologically the story is set much closer to the present day than originally intended, long before the founding of Port Homeland. As my awareness of Starhawk’s environmental and political movements increased, and as my involvement in student politics became a large part of my life, the emphasis for the novel shifted towards the grave economic, environmental and social issues faced by those who stay behind on Earth.

The first chapter, ‘Songs after midnight’, began entirely as a dream and started as an independent short story. It came to me during Price of Man’s very early development and I figured it fit in well with the back story of mankind leaving Earth for life in the stars, but uncertain of what they’ll find or what sort of life they’ll have. It very much plays on human fear of death or the unknown, starting a new life somewhere new and uncharted, and the story subtly blends both of these themes. The original plan for the opening of the story showed the excitement of the US space race, followed by the horror of the Challenger disaster (which did feature in the dream very prominently), but then remedied by the fact that exploration still continued (if not by the crew of Challenger – I took this as a metaphor for both the successes and dangers of space exploration.) Note also that ‘The Final Countdown’, the opening scene that depicts the above, came out early in 1986, the same time of the same year as the Challenger disaster. This occurred in the story by freak coincidence and I was blown away when I first noticed it.

The second chapter, Times of Hope and Chaos, was also based on a dream I had a few weeks after the first, and also initially intended to be an independent short story. The name came from a workshop ran by Starhawk, one of the main influences of the story, I attended in Glastonbury in May 2013, the bulk of which explored the environmental and political catastrophes we face and how to build successful, cooperative communities out of it. This second dream added a new layer to the story, presented to me in two parts; the first a woman and her children escaping from natural disaster, and the second part a man fleeing political persecution. I was able to incorporate this easily into my story and thus created the characters of Sam, Maggie and Lucas, the running back-story to Gloria’s main narrative, characters who didn’t feature at all in initial plans before the dream.

The quotes that are interspersed between chapters are from famous writers, political and religious leaders whose words I find inspiring and relevant to the message of the story. Each quote is meant to relate to the chapter it precedes, and sometimes it supports the behaviour and words of the characters within it, sometimes it goes against it. Either way, the quotes, like the rest of the book, is intended to present many different viewpoints to many different arguments. I hadn’t expected Martin Luther King Jr., a Christian and avid pacifist, to be the main advocate for the message of the story in these quotes, for a world where Christianity and organised religion have been largely abandoned for atheism and spirituality, and violence becomes seemingly the only option for uprising or even for defence. Martin Luther King Jr., though, envisioned an America free from racism, from war, from poverty and segregation and for all mankind to walk together as brothers and sisters, using his faith as his vehicle to spread the word of love and brotherhood.

As a work originating in MTS, the story draws heavily on music, more so than was originally intended for this book. The main musical influences were the ideologies of rebellion, anarchy and awareness of political corruption and social control from Green Day, and the sombre sense of hopelessness in a time of war, loneliness and loss of Brandon Flower’s solo album ‘Flamingo.’ Here the war is more metaphorical but carries with it frequent imagery of battle and loss in war.

As unreliable as Wikipedia may seem, it was an invaluable source of information for research on different political ideologies and economic systems, geographical information about the south-western states and cultural information about the US (for a US citizen, I was surprised by how much I didn’t know! (even though I’ve never lived there.)) Most of the ideas about permaculture and an alternative, earth-based, community-based lifestyle I drew from Starhawk’s non-fiction ‘The Earth Path’ and fiction ‘The Fifth Sacred Thing.’

The theme of the ‘Promised Land’ prevailed through many of the song lyrics and through Martin Luther King Jr.’s speeches. It’s presented many different ways, initially as the place of escape where only the richest can reach, somewhere barely imaginable for those left behind; as the story progresses, it becomes a vision of a hidden paradise here on Earth for young, idealistic Gloria, and for Sam it becomes a metaphor for the world after the revolution has been won. Like many themes of the story it’s left largely open ended until the very end, as it means different things to different people. Everyone Gloria encounters on her journey sees and interprets the world in different ways, to the point that she loses her firm sense of the world’s problems and how they should be dealt with, and a new worldview is built on what she’s seen and experienced.

The ‘end of days’ is something that’s represented in popular culture as a looming apocalypse over mankind for our various wrongdoings, religious, financial, social, environmental, economic in nature. ‘The Price of Man’ shows many of these financial collapses, social breakdown and natural disasters take place, with many more threatened at every turn. The title is intended not only to refer to the price paid for mankind’s love of and obsession with money, but also the impact that wrong decisions made now have on our future in terms of environmental awareness and social structure. I’ve chosen the ending I have not to dictate how I think everyone in the future should live – it’s not a path for everyone. Starhawk’s work can be controversial and often unpopular, but it’s a path I would choose for myself given the availability of the right community and infrastructure. Here I present it as a possible solution, one of many, and one that I hope will inspire others to consider this difficult to achieve yet wholly fulfilling lifestyle. Many of my themes and ideas represented will be controversial and raise debate, but precisely because these things are impossible to ignore! Enjoy, my friends. x

Well this Nano thing's all a bit daft, really

In principle it's a jolly good idea; in no other way can you motivate yourself to get so much down on paper in such little time. However one always seems to forget just what an enormous commitment it is, just how much time is spent chained to a computer each day, what great chunks of the month are spent staring at a screen and how desperately easy it is to fall behind. Like most years, I'm cheating a bit, even if I'm still aiming to physically write 50,000 words in a month (albeit not all part of the same work, not even all fiction - yes, you guessed it, this blog post along with all others written in November are going in the word count - call it unorthodox.) The first year I did Nano was the only year I did it properly and actually won (I began with a pretty solid outline for a story with 50,000 words of material in my noggin, and was at a time when I had only 10 hours a week of work on the agenda), and since then I've entered every year, cheating in various ways to claim my not-really earned prize. At the end of the notorious week 2, everyone seems to have run out of steam and are wondering what led them to pledge so much time and energy to such a seemingly fruitless cause (after all, if you're going to delete half of what you wrote because it's bullshit you spewed out while trying to reach a certain word count, why did you bother at all?). Admittedly this is not at all my style of writing, and I prefer to research thoroughly before putting pen to paper, and then I will literally put pen to paper before typing it up, taking a long time deliberating over exactly what to put. I get called a bad writer because I rarely scrap chunks of what I've written and my final draft generally ends up looking very much like the first, but I say if you take enough time to think about what you're writing, and you like what you've written, why write it in the first place if you're going to delete it later? A matter of hot debate among we creative writing types. I tried this though and continue to do it just to challenge my old-fashioned and ingrained approach.
The piece I'm working on for Nano alongside the Price of Man, The Mid Atlantic Express, is a means of loosely connecting a series of short stories that have been loitering in my creative writing notebook for some time, and this suits Nano pretty well, so don't think I'm about to give up. And in any case, by the time late October rolls round we've forgotten the hardships of the previous year and TGIO and think it's a grand idea to do it all over again, artistic license added to the rules becoming my new norm. I'm looking forward to 'winning' and having some decent work out of it at the end, but roll on next year!
x

Progress update and books

Well, I haven't done much with this mid-Atlantic express adventure (though I suppose I'll use it to supplement next year's work), but the Price of Man is in its final stages of writing and will soon be in production. :D I've had issues with Amazon's tax information what with being a US citizen but not actually living there (and never having lived there), so they decide to make life difficult for me and I'm not sure if I want to put it on sale when it's finished, but I will definitely order copies in and make them available for people who want to buy them from me (fret not, oh loyal fans.) Here's the cover and synopsis if you haven't seen it already:

Nanowrimo 2013

I'm cheating a little bit this year, but I'll always do it anyway to snatch up whatever offer Createspace has at the end! (which a lot of people don't seem to know about! Hey I'm glad I won my first year and actually did it properly - we all have to once ;)). I'm using this as impetus to finish The Price of Man which has dragged a bit since moving to Spain, but alas isn't far off the finish line so now's not the time to abandon it til next year. At the same time I'm starting a new work inspired by wanting to put a collection of short stories together but wanting to put it in some wider context. This, as you can see, is to Nano as a Eurovision entry is to Eurovision - it really doesn't take itself too seriously:

Having spent the summer sweating it out in a sea of political turmoil and social unrest with the Price of Man, I thought I'd go for something a little more light-hearted. Chronologically it'll be set somewhere in between Price of Man and the Star Series and will make vague references to both throughout, even though the story is very different. I don't suppose much will come from it but the whole idea of Nano is to get words on paper, so here goes!

The Star Series

The book, she publishes!

 

Full description:
'Empires will rise and conquer, then they will crumble and fall from the inside. War is an everlasting human attribute. It is the natural order of things. It is how life Is, Was and Ever shall be in every dominion of Man. That is the way of the Worlds.'

This four part series tells the tale of life long after we have left Earth, through the eyes of an ordinary young couple; their... personal trials and the struggles they face when man is pitted against man in a time of enormous political upheaval. What happens when all of Earth's resources have been plundered and a new world must be created, and yet greed, war and suffering endure? How is the fate of the human race to be decided? Are we doomed to repeat the same mistakes on a loop?
Bravery and courage can be found in the most unlikely of places and victory achieved in the smallest and yet most poignent of ways.

 

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CZ7IAKI

In defence of the pen

Writing by hand is outmoded, obsolete you say, and who would choose to do it when you have word processers and computers and ipads and tablets and *phew*, things that don't make you write?
"Not me!" cry the masses of students trailing out of exams cradling seized-up hands from hours of ilegible and frantic scribbling.
But I say yea to the humble yet glorious pen and paper. There's nothing quite like putting pen to a blank sheet and letting the ideas tumble out and flow freely. It worked for JK Rowling, and even in an age now where we're ruthlessly bombarded with adverts for gadgets that will type things for you in dull, uniform letters in a never-ending number of ways, writing by hand works just as well for me too. I say this just having completed a 50,000 word novel by hand (recieved by much rolling of eyes) and just having made the decision to write my next novel, The Price of Man, the same way. Sorry Microsoft Word, you just don't have the same magick.
I like to be able to scribble things in the margins, draw little doodles; as a very visual person I like to have the pages spread out in front of me rather than crammed onto a little screen. I'm always looking for new places to write that will inspire me, and it must be said, few of these inspirational places have plug sockets.
My new writing spot is the cafe side of the Grape and Olive restauant up the top of the Meridian tower in Swansea, and with a writing view like this, who's not to be inspired?

The Star Series

Drum roll please!
My new novel, 'The Star Series' will be available to buy on Kindle soon (and paperback if I can figure out how to do it.) I'll also be posting an audio version on here and on the Facebook page, chapter by chapter for free (as the quality won't be fantastic, but still worth a listen and accessible for those who are partially or non-sighted.) Check back for updates and a release date of the series. Happy listening!
:)

'Empires will rise and conquer, then they will crumble and fall from the inside. War is an everlasting human attribute. It is the natural order of things. It is how life Is, Was and Ever shall be in every dominion of Man. That is the wayof the Worlds.'

The Price of Man

Well, whadda you know, another whacky dream! Only in this dream I actually went to the cinema to see this as a film, and this film was so well-made I woke up and thought, how the hell will I begin to do justice to this in words? But what excellent timing as I was racking my brains for ideas on my creative writing assignment, and voila a kooky dreamt that's practically done it for me. I actually submitted this as homework. But I'm oh so clever, bring it on!

Silence, and the never-ending blue. Gently the waves rippled over the vast expanse of ocean as it stretched out, smooth as glass, for miles on end. The skies were clearer than they’d been for a long time, cyan on a deep azure blue, and a gentle sea breeze came from the South. A hot Sun beat down relentlessly, burning the seagulls who cried out as they realised they would fail to adapt to a life so far from land - real, solid land. For if you could have taken a helicopter and flown over the ocean just half a mile from this place, you would make out the rusty steel poking up out of the surface of the water, of the tops of the signs that crowded the length of the motorway which rose up over a hill that had been packed with cars from dawn ‘til dusk not twenty years earlier; signs that led to places that no longer existed, their names eroded and having long since sunk to the bottom of the sea. Five miles further north of the hill had been a city that was on ground high enough that you could still see the tops of skyscrapers, majestically rising out of the waters, murkier here, and with a thin film of green here and there. On the other side of the sunken city there had been a forest, at first having attempted to adapt but now drowning, and where only five years ago, the tallest of the pines would have been little islands of leafy green.  The once great mighty trunks now buckled under the weight and lay rotting on the surface or sunken to the depths of the ocean floor. All other trace of the millions of humans who had once lived on these few square miles had long since been washed away on the outgoing tide.

Welcome to the new world.

 

 

A mother and her two children stood huddled, bedraggled and exhausted.

“Lucas you know we can’t go home now don’t you?” his mother told him wearily. At the age of ten now he knew what a tsunami meant – the third in his lifetime had taught him that there was no going home. It was time to be grateful to be alive and start a new life on higher ground, always somewhere new, somewhere alien.

“Annika, are you ok?” the mother asked her other daughter. She nodded in melancholy, rubbing the too-tight plastic wristband that had been slapped on her by a man in big black boots with a gun over his shoulder.

“Honey don’t do that, these have to stay on at least until we get to the refugee camp.”

They trudged onwards up the dirt track in the searing heat towards a crowd of angry people trying to push their way through the barriers that lined the top of the hill.

“Calm down, calm down!” the voice of a woman tried to yell over the din. Loud gunshots sounded and the noise ceased instantaneously.

“Form an orderly queue. One at a time. Green wristbands on this side, blue on the right. Quickly now.”

When they reached the front the moment the mother was dreading had finally come.

“Please don’t make me leave my children.”

“Sorry ma’am, those are the rules. Your records have been checked. What was your skill?”

“I’m a doctor.”

“You were a doctor. Ok. You know green wristbands for the skilled, go to the left. But it’s ok. Everyone with blue wristbands will be given work. Even the unskilled can do cleaning jobs or factory work. Everyone is made to feel useful regardless of knowledge or background. Now please move along.”

Little Lucas looked down miserably at the blue wristband that clung to his arm like an angry leech.

“Mumma am I going to have to clean toilets forever?”

But his mother had already been wrenched into the swathes of doctors, lawyers, scientists and bankers with the green wristbands, already being led away. It was too late to ask where dad was. It was too late for everything.

 

 

 

 

The man picked up speed now, as the river opened out into a lake. He was getting closer. Even in the dead of night, he could feel how close he was now, he could smell it. The floods had blotted out the glaring orange lights that had filled the sky fifty years ago, and now clear, perfect starlight led the way. The raft he’d built had held out for the entire journey and now he paddled with more vigour than ever towards the far shore. They weren’t allowed to have lights on, he knew well, heavens forbid if the colony was discovered – but soon he could make out dark, distant shapes on the horizon and he knew he was in the right place. He was exhausted and hadn’t eaten for days, but if this was the right place, it would save his life.

The raft hit the bank with a soft bump, and the sound of crickets filled the warm night air. At first there seemed to be nobody there among the dark huts, but then there was movement; a boy appeared, edging carefully towards the man. He looked very anxious, disappeared, then came back a few minutes later with two more anxious looking men. But when they saw him, their features softened, almost into smiles, as they recognised the sodden, half starved and bedraggled traveller from a previous life.

“Welcome my friend. Welcome to the colony.”

They held out a hand and helped him to land.

“I’m looking for my wife and children. Please tell me they made it here. Please, please...”

“Come with us. But you’ll have to wait ‘til morning. Movement is restricted very much during the night. Facilities are basic here but you’ll find rest.”

The men lead him through narrow alleys between wooden buildings, where he could hear the gush of running water and an owl hooting in the dark shadows of trees beyond. They opened a wooden door and ushered him into a cabin with a simple bunk bed, desk and chair.

“We’ll see you in the morning. They’ll be pleased to meet you.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much. Bless you all.”

 

In the morning the man scoured every corner of the colony, searched through every file and scanned every notice board. They were not here. But at least he was and it was a start. He joined the queue of chattering voices, bustling bodies ready for the day’s work to collect a meal.

“Come with me, sir. You need a ration book first.”
“Oh...”

“I’m the leader of the colony, at your service. I recognise you. I can’t quite recall from where. But you’re clearly a one of us and you’re welcome here.”

“Thank you, thank you.”

“Our ideal is simple. Live from the land. Care for one another. Work hard. Play harder. Rejoice in life. And whatever you do, stay away from the watchful eye! They’re always looking for us, and if they find us, everything we’ve worked for here will be razed to the ground in an instant. Do you understand? Living here means you swear to secrecy.”
“Yes I understand,” he replied, gulping down a lump of discomfort in his throat.

“You’ve had a long journey, you needn’t start work until the morning. Have something to eat, then go back to your cabin to freshen up.”

 

Upon return to his cabin, the man looked around, taking the smell of fresh pine in, several deep breaths that rejuvenated him. He reached into his filthy jacket pocket, and there the stained, battered but blank diary remained dry and intact. He pulled the rickety chair out and placed the diary on the desk, racking his brains, how to begin to put it all into words? Where to start?
Then, after a moment’s pause, he grabbed the old fountain pen and began to write.

Sophie Horrocks, 2nd March 2013

Songs after midnight

Ok folks,
this one is a bit acid trippy so please bear with it. It's based on a dream I had in mid-November and I brushed it up and pieced it together a couple of weeks ago. Being a good deal more linear in plot than the average dream I thought it was worth writing down no matter how weird, so here you have it:

Songs after midnight

 

Some men have dreams too big to dream, desires too big to chase, ideas too wild to fulfil. But it’s a funny quirk of human nature, this will to push the boundaries of what’s accepted as the limits of what’s possible. There are those who dare to dream and have the drive to make that dream a reality. Seven crew members of a space shuttle believed just that; they asked the question, what lies in the great beyond? How do we reach it? How do we make use of it? What seeds of wild possibility can this plant for the future of mankind? The answer they came away with was not the answer to those questions but to another one entirely.

It happened in the cold depths of January, in an America filled to bursting with such expectation and wonder. Challenger was to be the vessel that would take mankind into a new world, to take it on and win. The astronauts had trained for many years, and friends and family waited with tears and trembling goodbyes as Challenger took them up and with an almighty roar, into the vast unknown on a voyage of limitless discovery.

There was blinding light, then carnage. Joy turned to horror as shrapnel fell down from the sky and the air exploded with debris. The soft, melancholy voice of a leader filtered out of television sets and radios to the ears of sobbing citizens. That day was a day for mourning and remembering, for those who had a hunger to explore the universe and discover its truths. They had a special grace, a special spirit that said, ‘give me a challenge and I’ll meet it with joy.’ The people would never forget them, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye, and slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God.

But the crew members were unaware of the fate that had befallen them, and ahead they charged, into the star-spangled darkness. So filled with wonder were they at what they saw that the loss of contact with Mission Control was ignored; they had lost sight of the Earth as if it had been swallowed up by the blackness but no-one had noticed; the Sun seemed so bright, the stars seemed to dance and the black became a vibrant, shining light that enfolded the crew members like a warm caress.  Brighter and brighter it grew, becoming so intense it made them dizzy just to keep their eyes open. All turned to blinding white, then all faded to black.

He woke up surrounded by the blinding white. He sat up and looked around but it only made his head spin. He was sure he was sitting on solid ground, and tapped it with the palm of his hand. A solid floor, yet it seemed to melt into everything around him. Then there in the distance he could make out a shape, something moving – a figure approaching. A figure of a man, and as he walked the four corners of a large room seemed to fall into place around his feet, faint at first, now becoming clearer and perfectly defined. The man was dressed all in white, barely visible against the blinding wall, but his face was smiling and had soft, warm features. He held out his hand. The man took it, and shakily, with a big of a wobble, he scrambled to his feet.

“Do you know what happens after you die?” said the man in white with a smile.

Terror and confusion coursed through the crewman’s veins.

“Err...”

“Do you?”

“No. I can’t say I do. I’m as ignorant as any other. I think that’s the right thing to say.”

“There is no right or wrong,” the stranger replied with a beaming smile and a shake of the head. “Come. Come with me.”

The man in white led the crewman through the white light towards a door, which he opened and invited the man to go through. Above him rose a metal staircase painted white, going up, up and up into the white mists beyond...

“Go up those stairs. When you reach the top you’ll come to the corridor. I want you to walk to the end of it and go through the door.”

Shaking now, the crewman did as he was told and began to ascend the stairs. He looked down and both the stranger and the door were gone. Down there was white; up there was white. All there was for it was to take one step at a time.

He heard voices up above; giggling voices, chatting, laughing, floating down on the air and echoing through the whiteness. Then there were people, hordes trampling down the stairs, two, three abreast. He tried to make eye contact, to ask for information, but they looked right through him and disappeared down the staircase, their shapes and their voices disappearing into the whiteness.

Up, up and up he continued to climb, until he could see the end of the metal staircase up above. All was silent; all was still. Up he went, and as he reached the top, there was the corridor. There were the doors. Panic rose once again in his chest as he approached the doors, then touched them – they were cold, so cold, but he took a deep breath, then another, then pushed on through.

The brightness instantly subsided. It took a while for his eyes to adjust, but to his shock, he was back on Challenger with his crewmates going about their daily business. There was something different, something not quite the same as before; the colours seemed a bit brighter, the smells a bit sharper, perhaps. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

“I’m glad you’re here. We drifted off-course,” his crewmate said to him, appearing in the doorway. “Completely off-course, we lost all contact, can’t figure out why, everything’s functioning as it should,” she continued with a shrug.

“We’ve regained sight of Earth and can’t go on without contact with Mission Control as you know, so we’re heading back. Mission aborted. Where were you by the way?”

“Err... I had a headache, I rested for a while,” he replied, the excuse sounding ridiculous in his mind yet somehow acceptable under the circumstances.

“Ok. We’ve set course back to Earth.”

“There’s something weird going on. Can you feel it? Have we had some kind of time lapse?” he asked.

“No... I don’t think so... are you ok?”

“Yes... yes let’s go home.”

The speed at which the planet was approaching made his stomach churn. There was no sign of the moon, surely not hiding behind the Earth for so long. As the Earth became bigger and bigger, it looked less and less how it should look; where greens and browns and whites flowed between deep blue seas, sprinkled in fluttering white clouds there was only grey, a dull, dank colour that encompassed the whole planet. Slowly the reality hit the crewman in the face; either something dreadful had happened, or this was not Home.

They approached the surface regardless, breaking through the planet’s atmosphere as the cabin filled with tension that turned to plain fear. On the planet’s surface there were dead, open plains surrounded by bodies of murky water. Down, down they went, as a weak sun shone over the lifeless planet. But there, in the distance... there was a platform of rock that rose out of the water, not very big, but filled with green. It was the only colour they’d seen and they made for it. The green was made up of basic plant life, some familiar, some less so... was it safe to land on it? Yes, it was worth the risk.

Softly, softly they touched down on what appeared to be grass. It was solid ground, so far so good. Around them the world was so quiet and still; no other signs of life were stirring. The outside seemed so enticing – there was something there, something through the grey. Voices, barely whispers to start with, gradually crescendoing into full song.

“Look over there!” a crewman cried. Off to the left a building rose out of the floodwaters – how had they not seen it before? And another behind it, and another off further to the left. Great structures of steel and glass, once grand, now falling into disrepair.

Louder the voices grew, until there in the window, shadowy faces began to appear. They weaved in and out of one another, sallow, sad faces that eventually began to take some kind of form. Still the song came, melancholy and sweet at the same time, penetrating the glass and ringing through the cabin. The forms seemed humanoid but still shadowy, neither present nor absent from the garden.

“Come,” they said, although they said nothing at all, and the song continued.

“Come outside and see.”

The song was alluring, intriguing, but the crewmen stood motionless.

“Come outside. It’s warm. It’s safe. Come into the garden.”

Bright flowers appeared in olive green shrubbery where before there had been none. The stone ledge filled with plant life and colour, teeming with reds and blues and oranges amid radiant greens. Slowly she stepped forward, slipped past and into the airlock.

“NO! God, no!”

The voices rose, the song reached its peak. One second she was out in the garden, looking around in wonder, the next they’d engulfed her in an icy grip, pushing her down to the ground. The crewmates leapt for the airlock but it was impassable.

“We want you to understand,” said the voices. “We don’t want humans to settle here ever again. You see those buildings? One, a school, the other, a hospital. The big one was housing for the thousands of people who first came here. They were not even here long, but look what they did. We chased them away, they found some other planet to destroy. Do not tell us that now you don’t understand.”

In an instant, they were gone, and she was gone. The buildings gleamed expectantly in the sunlight, abandoned, beginning to rust in the murky waters that lapped around their bases.

 

 

She found herself at the top of a metal staircase painted white, that went down, down into a white abyss. She followed it down, unsure why, singing a melancholy song that was ringing in her head, and laughing all the while.

 

Sophie Horrocks, 8th February 2013

In Fields of Barley

Howdy all,
in this week's assignment for my creative writing module we were asked to 'write a short story about where we come from.' My immediate thought was that there isn't a damn thing I could write about the achingly dull village where I grew up, so thoughts turned to Colchester and perhaps waffling on about soldiers or castles or whatnot. But then an idea popped into my head, a Lughnasad tradition I started a while ago that I've done every year, always being home around that time of year. Here goes....

She wakes up in the morning with a mission. The weather is perfect for it today, a red hot Sun rising and the sky a sea of piercing blue. She picks out a plain green dress and slips on some sandals, then ‘pat, pat, pat’ goes the sound of her feet as they skip over the carpet down the stairs. She takes from the dining room table a small paper bag she’s set aside for the occasion, then heads out the door.

It’s still fairly early in the morning but already the heat is rising. Today would be scorching. She lopes along the side of the road at a leisurely pace, closing her eyes to breathe in fresh, summer breeze with hints of lilac as it wafts over from a nearby garden. Joggers already exhausted from the heat squeeze past on the narrow pavement, followed by dog walkers and families out for a Sunday walk. The birds don’t know what to make of a heat wave and their songs float downwards, confused and frantic yet as sweet to her ears as any music.

She turns a corner and heads down a quieter road, the only noise now from the occasional passing car. Up ahead is the farm track, worn by tractors and weekend walkers yet ever on the brink of succumbing to nature’s grip of bursting green. She pushes through the bushes and her feet hit the track, rock hard and cracked by an unrelenting Sun. In the winter she’d be ankle deep in mud here. No rain for a week now. Thank goodness it’s harvest time, she ponders, else the crops might suffer. But to her right stands a sea of gold, tall and proud, and waving gently in a soft, warm breeze. She looks left, then right, then goes in.

She wades through an ocean of barley, bright golden yellow and ripe, treading carefully so as not to break any of the fragile stems as they swish past. Beyond are the wheat fields and the orchard, stretching into the distance in a haze of heat.  Finally she comes to the spot, a tree stump in the middle of the field, a small clearing where the crops cannot grow. And she just sits. She listens to the wind as it rushes through the barley, whispering news of more heat to come, no sign of rain, and of darkness beginning to close in as the nights grow longer. She feels a white hot Sun beating down on the crown of her head. She soaks in the energy, the warmth and life the Sun brings.

Carefully, she takes four stems of barley, bending and breaking them off near the root, and begins to weave a corn dolly. She becomes absorbed in her work, bending and weaving each sheaf around a small frame of stems. When it’s done, it isn’t perfect, or as symmetrical as she’d like it to look. It’s just a small square with barley heads sticking wonkily out at each corner, but when she holds it up to the sunlight it glows and radiates with heat and light.
Out of the corner of her eye she spots a small patch of grass that had not been there last year, with some daisies sprouting out of it. She plucks three daisies and arranges them haphazardly in the middle of the dolly, poking the green, fuzzy stems between lines of gold, then sets it down on the ground.

Strong gusts of wind begin to race over the tops of the crops, bringing the strong scent of earth and ripe grains. The barley heads nod and wave. She closes her eyes and listens, staying until the Sun has moved in the sky and thin, wispy clouds begin to roll over from the West and take the edge off the heat. She picks up the dolly, places it carefully in the paper bag and removes three hairs from her head, laying them on the ground. She turns and admires the view, gold bathed in gold, then turns, and begins to make her way back towards the farm track.

It is done.                                                                               

 Sophie Horrocks, 16th February 2013

Call to Prayer (first published on Grandchildren of Gaia, my sister blog)

Call to Prayer
I call to the hills and mountains
To the towns and to the cities
to the old and the young ones,
to the richest and the poorest.

I call to those by the river,
to those who live by the sea,
to those of every nation,
from all corners of our Earth.

I call to those in the forests,
to the ones who live out on the plains
I call you all to join as one
I call you all to prayer.

To those who have a god or gods,
I call to you to pray;
to those who do not pray, I ask
for action and reflection.

I call for all to join as one,
whatever you may believe.
I call to you to change this world,
to leave it better than we found it.

I call for en masse healing,
to heal both heart and mind.
If we can heal the earth around us,
so too are our hearts and bodies cleansed.

Clean the rivers and plant more trees,
learn to live in harmony,
Live with the land that nurtures us,
pray to make the change.

Don't bite the hand that feeds us,
Take care of what we have
Use wisely what is given to us,
Pray to make the change.

Let us join hands and rejoice in the earth,
let it fill us with its love and warmth
Let it cleanse us as we cleanse it
Pray to make the change.

I pray for healing of the body;
to mend broken bones and broken hearts;
to ward off illness and strife
to bring the flesh back to health.

I pray for healing of the mind;
to eliminate pain and end needless suffering
to restore peace and calm in the psyche
to bring a soul from the darkness to the light.

So I pray for healing of the earth;
Light a candle to brighten the way.
Stand on a hilltop and call to the winds
Cause a clamour and cause a stir
Rouse the people to take a stand
Pray to heal our home
Pray to make the change.

SH 8th February 2013

)O(

Prison without walls (2013 - first published on Grandchildren of Gaia, my sister blog)

 

Prison without walls

Marching they come, marching they go
Such busy lives, so much to do
So much to see and feel and hear
I see, I hear, but I feel nothing.

They rise in the morning with a plan in their heads
a bright, shining future, laid out and clear
round and round, to and fro they walk
Never stopping, too eager to move foward.

It's all very well to wake up in the morning
but why without reason or even a plan?
When day after day is all the same,
each week a counterpart of the next and the last.

The days roll by, no life, no colour
Each day a living death creeps closer and closer
a walking death is no life at all,
a life in flesh but a death in spirit.

Round and round with the others I walk,
a bright, shining future, clouded and dim,
such busy lives, I've so much to do.
Days of endless numbness, nights of coursing pain.

What is the purpose of a life,
if it remains a prison without walls?
How does one live the life of the others
from a cage of pain with invisible bars?

All in a day it begins to choke,
the bars wrap around and real pain claws through the numbness
It's time to get out, to escape
If there are no walls, who stops me from leaving?

I follow the coast down to a bridge
I cross the bridge and come to a town
Through the town I go, then through rolling hills
Til I find myself in the Glassy Isle.

Here there is healing
Here there is joy
Here there is friendship
Here there is trust.

I feel my heart begin to open
I feel my head begin to clear
The colours brighten, the sun shines brighter
I see a path open up before me.

I am home.

SH 7th February 2013

)O(

One Solstice Night (2012)

Asteroids rained down and forests burned,
yet few people seemed remotely concerned.
Floodwaters rose and thunderstorms churned,
But still the planet turned and turned.

"It's the end of the world!" some people cried,
"We told you so! Repent, run, hide!"
But I sat in my chair and sighed,
warm and snug on this Yuletide.

Every street of every town,
the whole land over, up and down,
was filled with shoppers running round,
To see how much they could grab for a pound.

"Stay indoors!" the reporter said,
as giant hailstones rained down on his head.
Well, I was snuggled in my bed,
warm and cosy and very well fed.

"It's Christmas, the world can't grind to a stop!"
came the uneasy voices from every shop,
as the people began to precariously hop
around burning rocks that would crackle and pop.

From the skies there came a breeze,
that made the land the world over freeze,
and what's this? It's raining mushy peas!
The repenters were down on their knees.

As earthquakes rocked the planet's crust,
And trees came down with one strong gust,
as buildings crumbled into dust,
where now were people to put their trust?

Well, good grief, it's very cold,
but you'd think the streets were paved with gold,
"Ignore the weather! Keep spending!" we're told,
as Christmas continues to be bought and sold.

Here is ending the shortest day,
the sunshine disappears, down to the last ray.
The shoppers barge each other out the way,
even though the darkness is here to stay.

So here has arrived the longest night,
I'll admit it's a most extraordinary sight,
this end of the world, but with all my might,
I wish for a returning of the light.

We waited and waited, through the dark,
now no noise save for a dog's bark,
what kind of legacy would this event mark?
The masses were gathering in the park.

But I was in my bed fast asleep,
I couldn't hear the scared people weep,
but then I saw sunshine, just a peep,
and out of my bed I sprang in a leap.

"Welcome to the new world," she said to me,
the smily newsreader on TV,
oh, what a beautiful thing to see!
A good slice of toast and a cup of tea!

Now the world was put to right,
the sun rising up, shining bright,
Mother nature went to these extremes? Well, quite,
to bring people together on solstice night.

Now the people began to understand,
as they gathered in the streets, hand in hand,
Forget the commercial! Gifts needn't be grand!
It took the end of the world to unite the land.

Merry Christmas, Yule, and Hannukah too,
or whatever celebration is best for you,
out with the old and in with the new,
May love and compassion be in all that you do.

)O(


Sophie Horrocks 18th December 2012

The Green life versus the Silver life (2011 - first published on Witchvox.com)

The ol’ Witch in the woods had a couple of beeswax candles, the Sun, Moon and stars and knowledge of the uses of herbs in her area to use in her practice. The modern Witch has the world at their fingertips at the click of a mouse button. Were things better in her time, without the cacophony of engine noise, the persistent hum of computers, and mobile phone signals that clog up the air? Or are we far better off out of the dark ages, living comfortable lifestyles without constant fear of persecution and with worldwide sharing of information?

I’ve always been a bit of a sci-fi geek, always fascinated with modern technology. I’m not a Mathematician or a Scientist – I’m a writer, and I spent my teen-hood making stories from ideas based upon Space exploration and travel. Most of the fiction I’ve ever written involves futuristic civilizations living in artificial cities built in Space, the ideas of which were researched through a lifelong fascination of ‘what’s out there’, and ‘where mankind will go with it all’. I’ve also always been a sucker for post- apocalyptic dramas and films; there’s nothing quite like the thrill of the sight of well- known cities like New York being mass flooded and frozen over as in The Day after Tomorrow, or deserted and left to nature to take over like in I am Legend, or even taken over by vicious aliens as in The War of the Worlds. In fact, any fiction where the planet freezes over or burns to a crisp or explodes will generally have me on the edge of my seat.

Like any young person, I wouldn’t be without my laptop, mobile and iPod, these things which make our day to day lives so much quicker, easier and more enjoyable. Find me a housewife who’d be without her prize washing machine or a businessman who’d function for a day without his Blackberry or iPhone. I’ve also always had a thrill for travel, particularly to far- flung, exotic places. It’s soggy and grey most of the year where I live, and like many Brits I’m a bit of a sun- seeker. How easy it is just to bulldoze normal life to one side, hop on a cheap flight and be transported into a sunnier, warmer, care- free world.

So you can see where we hit the snag.

Does the slow- paced, Earth- reverence lifestyle of Paganism not present the exact opposite sort of mentality? Pagans live in the here and now, grounded in the present, not worrying frantically about next week or mulling endlessly over a past loss or failure. The majority of us are focused mainly on environmental issues. (Would you let your backyard turn into a mini landfill site?) This is the reason so many Pagans pour so much effort into protecting the environment, everyone’s back yard, and many enjoy nothing more than a walk through sylvan parks, forests and alongside tinkling streams rather than in the pristine, perfectly geometric stone and metal cities of my imagination.

Air travel is of-course a big no-no, so that’s potentially struck off my ‘How to be a Perfect Pagan’ list, being the largest producer of Co2 as forms of transport go. Pagans who travel abroad often attempt to use trains or ferries unless no such alternative is available or practical for the journey being made. If all else fails, though, I’m told that planting a tree will cancel out the Carbon Dioxide produced by a medium- haul flight.

All the silver shiny things that make up our day to day lives, the computers that make us stay- indoorsy robots and the mobile phones that distract us for hours and hours on end from our natural surroundings, those things that make our lives easier and more enjoyable on the surface, but in the long term cause fatigue, depression and stress due to our over- busy lives and lack of communication with Earth's energies - how on Earth do we fit it into a modern Pagan lifestyle?

After all Pagans fulfill a variety of jobs and careers – there are Pagan IT technicians, plumbers, teachers, actors, writers… we wouldn’t be able to live in this age without technology. The answer is compromise, to combine the two. We can't progress without embracing modern technology. Without the wonders of the Internet this article wouldn't be reaching you. And ‘Progress’, when used to justify annihilating thousands of acres of rainforest, to deplete the world’s natural resources and to allow alarmingly and unnaturally rapid shift in the Earth’s climate, really makes me cringe.

It needn’t be like this. It’s industrial- age thinking. Progress as a species to me means developing sustainable ways of generating energy and living, while developing our technology without compromising our ozone layer or environment. This is of course easier said than done, but for me part of being a witch is always asking questions, always exploring new ideas and better and more eco- friendly ways of doing things.

The term 'Techno-Pagan' is becoming more and more widespread, to describe those who would use the Internet to network with other Pagans and bring together people and ideas. According to Wikipedia, the Techno-Pagans are also those who would use modern –day devices in ritual, such as a ‘disk of Shadows’ instead of a traditional book, using an oven for a hearth and a laser pointer instead of a wand. Some will go as far as to say that electrical devices have a soul or energy field of their own, and their use in ritual helps to bring together the spiritual and physical worlds. I will use music from my laptop to use in meditation, but generally speaking I like to keep the two separate.

There’s something magical about holding a book in your hands filled with carefully written- out pages, and using altar tools that you made yourself of things you found out in the park or in the garden. Though I’m sure many of us have the Internet to thank for the roots or development of our magickal education, or for networking with and maintaining contact with many more Pagans than otherwise would have crossed our paths.

But beside all this we can still make time to be one to one with nature, if we can only pause our hectic lifestyles for a brief time and take in the serenity of the Earth’s healing energies. I’m a great admirer of the Pagan author Starhawk, and her novel The Fifth Sacred Thing tells of a futuristic world where a bleak, totalitarian regime attempts relentlessly to invade a small green pocket of land where witches fight with their lives to protect diversity, freedom and the greenery of the planet. Here she combines my two favorite genres, and in the novel these two extremes are set to clash horribly. This isn’t the way it will be in my own life, though; getting the right balance is imperative to our wellbeing, and if we can reach for the silvery stars while keeping rooted in the green Earth, we will make great tracks indeed in our lives and in the lives of others.

---

Footnotes:
www.wikipedia.org
Starhawk, 'The Fifth Sacred Thing'

Modern Paganism in Spain (2011 - first published on Witchvox.com)

I’d like to share with you my memories of a daring leap I made last Litha, of my solo trip to a mountain retreat in the mountains of Gredos, Avila, in Spain to celebrate the solstice, and the subsequent research I carried out on modern Paganism in Spain to accompany what I’d learned from my experiences.

It began about two years ago, while pottering online and discovering what a powerful draw I felt to Starhawk's Reclaiming tradition of Wicca. Reclaiming focuses on combining Goddess spirituality with global and local political activism, and with its strong, happy network of people, an abundance of unique chants and songs, an ever-questioning attitude and gallant allegiance with the Wiccan Rede, I have yet to find anything at all I don't like about the Reclaiming tradition. I discovered that weeklong 'witchcamps' are run in several countries throughout the world, and I casually searched the European list, just in case, such is my love for the Spanish language, there might be one in Spain. When the camp in Gredos, Avila came up, I couldn't believe my luck. But nahh. Too far away. Too scary!

It wasn't until only a few short weeks ago, when gap year plans of going to the States to work before starting University fell through that I was in need of a rapid rethink. I revisited the Reclaiming Spain website in vague hopes of finding an upcoming event, and stumbled upon a most perfect 5 day retreat around the time of the solstice, with a ritual and herbal workshop. The catch? No one speaks a word of English. But that's ok! I speak A Level Spanish! Be coolly cool, Sophie!

HA. Anyways.

After multiple mad flaps trying to find various planes, trains (on which I was robbed on my first day) and elusive buses, I somehow miraculously managed to make it to the meeting point in the local town on time to be taken to the mountain camp. And what a beautiful place.... a little tipi haven shrouded in pine forests halfway up the mountain, with a crystal clear river gently trickling through. The first 24 hours I was there I was having less than a good time; there were fifteen of us, all of them were Spanish, most of them seemed to know each other and I began to feel increasingly like I was gate crashing a weekend jolly in the woods of Pagan friends.

The mental stamina required to think and speak in Spanish all day every day was gargantuan, and settling into this group was no easy task. But when workshop number 1 got under way I began to feel much more at home. We were divided into a women's workshop and a men’s workshop; the men disappeared up the mountainside and the women gathered in a circle to discuss our perceived life stage and what major changes were happening at this point in our lives, which I managed to cobble together in Spanish surprisingly successfully.

After this we went down to a particularly secluded spot by the river with a bowl and took turns to stand in the waterfall and cleanse ourselves of any negative crap that might be swirling around in our minds and bodies. I asked the Goddess to return to me in some way some of the money that was stolen from me (and that she did, about a week later, through a dozy cashier who gave me 47 Euros change for a salad paid for with a 10 euro note, and shooed me away before I could argue.) Following the cleansing, we partook in a 'feast of abundance', and set up the ritual space. There were separate altars for each Element in each quarter, all beautifully decorated. We began by raising a circle, and some of the young women adorned in greenery purified us individually with smudge sticks.

We invoked the Gods Helios and the Green Man, and the Goddesses Litha and Brigid, and invoked the Elements. We sang some traditional Reclaiming songs, and it wouldn't have been a proper Reclaiming ritual without the awesome Spiral dance that followed. We lit and jumped over a balefire and shared what summer means to us, and what we hope to nurture within ourselves (I went for safety on my travels) . What happened next was like a huge party; drumming and song and dance prevailed in the circle for many more hours, and I think the idea was to stay up all night and watch the Sun rise the next day but everyone hit the sack before then.

The next morning we welcomed the longest day with more drumming and singing. We then climbed to a clearing in the highest point in the camp, which had spectacular views, and completed the ritual with a dance around the maypole of abundance. I did wonder about the significance of having a maypole at Litha but figured that the symbolism of the merging of male and female energy at the height of power made just as much sense. The women dug a hole in the ground and decorated it with flowers, and the men carried the pole up the mountain and stuck it in the ground. We did a group meditation with more dance and drumming, followed by blessings and prayers. When dismissing the quarters at the end, I was surprised to find that they actually said 'Hail and farewell', and when I asked Morgaine the Priestess about this, she told me that she hadn't found an accurate Spanish translation for it and everyone was happy to use the English. But for 'so mote it be' they say 'que así sea'.

These people, I found, all want to go to England to visit the sacred sights and attend the rituals in Avebury, Stonehenge and Glastonbury, but I'll be frank, this ritual made the one of the Druids in Avebury seem quite dismal by comparison. I've attributed it to the party attitude the Spaniards have; the Spanish, like Pagans, will take any excuse for a festival, and I think this may be a major factor in the growth of Paganism in Spain today. Morgaine also told me that she thinks the land in Spain is very masculine, dry and dominated by mountains and pine forests, but loves visiting England because the land is so feminine, with hills and lakes, which gave me food for thought.

The next two days consisted of a workshop on the magical and medicinal uses of herbs which I really enjoyed, and had ensured that I'd learned as many of the Spanish names for herbs as I could before I went out there which proved invaluable. We had a theory lesson, then went down to the river to collect herbs, and I discovered that they had many of the same herbs as we do in Britain but the leaves were much thicker or a different shape, to adapt to the dry climate. I'd wondered why, on the first day, we'd collected so many mountains of St. John's wort from the mountainside only to discover in my very own Earth Pathways diary that this is exactly what one does at summer solstice to make oils and vinegars from it.

The next day we continued the workshop, the table strewn with all manner of herbs, fresh and dried, jars and oils and vinegars, and to my amusement, herbs that won't grow in the dry climate were purchased from Star Child in Glastonbury. I now have recipes and worksheets to translate, and never having had a full practical herbs lesson I was surprised how much I gained from this. On the final night, when I must've eaten something a bit dodgy and had an unhappy tummy, everyone leapt in to help; within 10 minutes I'd had Reiki done for me and a specially made mug of digestive tea shoved into my hands. All in all, once I got into it, a very enjoyable experience that I'd love to repeat someday (when my Spanish improves.)

One thing that was really reinforced in my mind during this witchcamp was the importance of intent in prayer and magick. These people wouldn't have fully understood my prayers and invocations, and I came to the conclusion that words are pretty much meaningless to Spirit. How could the people upstairs learn so many thousands of human languages? Many spells and invocations have rhyme with the intention of giving the conscious mind something to focus on while the subconscious gets to work. But something so simple as humming a single syllable is potentially equally as effective. I was reminded that if your spells were simply spoken words (which when in Spanish, when I wasn't fully awake, didn't mean much to me at all) , you wouldn’t get far at all. In our moments of silent prayer and meditation, I realized that while in different languages (not everyone had Spanish as their first language) , everyone's intent was heading in the same direction, which is what really makes all the difference.

When I returned home I began to research the background of what I’d seen and experienced; the information I’ve summarized here is of-course the briefest of outlines, so please feel free to suggest additions or amendments. In my research I discovered that there were a wealth of different deities beloved in the Iberian Peninsula, before the invasion of the Moors and then eventual Christianization, the goddesses mostly concerned with agriculture and the changing of the seasons, and the gods with weather, storms and war. With the invasion of the Roman Empire, it seems that many of the popular Iberian deities of the time were syncretised with those of the Roman pantheon who shared similar characteristics, for example the god of war, Cariociecus, overlaid by Mars, and the weather god Eacus blended into Jupiter. Most revered seem to be the goddess Ataegina, who ruled over Spring and seasonality, worshipped throughout Spain and Portugal, and Mari, a Basque goddess, also in charge of the weather, who lived in the mountains. Interestingly, it's the Basque region of Spain that seems to have retained its native culture and heritage the most, owing I think to the resilient and fiercely protective nature of the Basque peoples.

Ásastrú and Odinism are closely-linked Germanic-based Neopagan religions, following the teachings of Norse deities. These Pagan religions have been growing rapidly in Spain in the last 30 years, helped by the creation of the "Círculo Odinista Europeo" in 1981, an organization dedicated to the growth of Odinism in Spain and the rest of Europe. In 2007, the Spanish government recognized it as an official religion, and thus was able to perform 'legally binding civil ceremonies.' It has been the fourth Odinist/Asatru religious organization to be recognized with official status in the world, after Iceland, Norway and Denmark.

On December 23, 2007 the first legal Pagan wedding in Spain in 1, 500 years took place on the beach of Vilanova, Barcelona. Jordi and Francesca, members of Confession Odin-Asatru, united their lives under the Rite Odinist Continental led by Ernust, Godi of the COE. Pagans of all faiths in Spain, as well as members of the Pagan Federation attended the ceremony.

While I was at the witchcamp, I found two paths were followed side by side; the Reclaiming tradition of Wicca, with which I'm very familiar, and El Camino Rojo, which translates as 'the path of the red people', or more simply, 'the Red Road', an Iberian tradition of Native American origin. When I asked Vicente, the local tradition leader, what the differences were between El Camino Rojo and Shamanism, he replied adamantly that Shamanism was a Siberian word and that Native American belief and practices were very much different. The workshops he runs are in honor of the ancestors of the world and of the Father Sun and Sky and the Mother Earth, and include learning Native American invocations, songs and chants, making tobacco offerings, instruction of the use of sacred and medicinal plants, purification of the body and spirit in sweat lodges and the use of drumming for worship and to induce trance state. I admired his steadfast dedication to keeping alive the memory and teachings of the ancestors of the Iberian Peninsula.

As aforementioned, there isn't a huge amount for Pagans to do in Spain, I was told, and they all want to visit the sacred sites of England, as Morgaine called it, the 'Land of the Goddess.' But twice annually there is a Goddess conference in Madrid, founded by members of the tradition of Avalon and of Reclaiming. It's a four day event of songs, workshops and presentations with the aim, according to the website, of regaining lost knowledge of female deities, the cults and cultures associated with them, and facilitating that knowledge to Spanish and International society; to establish a virtual and physical sacred space to teach and practice together; and to work to promote and defend the rights and dignity of women and men through the visualization of a model of Divine Feminine denied for over three thousand years; working for the health of the planet as a physical manifestation of Divinity, and for multiculturalism and diversity, through work with goddesses from many times and places.

It's a great shame I missed this latest conference in July during my stay in Spain, as when I look through the pictures that come back I see faces filled with joy and the love and light of the Goddess. May this love continue to spread, and the work done by all the melissas, priests, priestesses and contributors bear fruit in the growth of this great phenomenon in Iberia, and throughout the world.

---

Footnotes:
www.wikipedia.org
www.reclaimingspain.org
www.conferenciadeladiosa.es