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Language: English "Shamanism is very much alive and well all around us. How do I know this? For one, by direct experience, but it is also true by simple definition. Let me explain. Shamanism, unlike brotherhoods and many of the mystery traditions, is not something you choose to join or can be invited to. Shamanism chooses you because it is a natural reflex of society rather than some kind of formal group or organization. In a word, shamans are by definition those individuals whose own internal psychological or spiritual experiences force them outside normal societal conventions and into a mental space not easily understood or accepted by that same society. The shaman stands outside convention by virtue of their own internal chemistry. One does not choose to be a shaman. The personal internal experience of the shaman push them beyond the pale of convention into a psychic or spiritual space where they literally must sink or swim, meaning: you either go kind of crazy or manage to stabilize yourself." Author: Michael Erlewine Article Link: The Shaman in Astrology

Destined to swoon, love that formed under the rays of the moon, but not before their fires of desires are consumed, but if you take this to be a love of less, I say at least this love gave its best, so then why are souls searching for eternal nest, when the stars themselves are destined to die, why did they try, to live a life in the nights sky, if for no other purpose than to look down from their heavenly perch, for they know that the eventual fall will hurt, but with mighty heights they still flirt, for feeling isn't worth feeling if not fully felt, yet how many hearts do you know that wont fully melt, all because love has left its welts, but I say a star that has shinned for a second is better than that that has never, pain is cousin to pleasure, so by what other rule should love measure, if not my one night at a time, in a midnight summers dream while the moon shines, where lovers love because love is not a crime!

May 2009Geomancy by F. Daniel Rzicznek The feathered saints of evening flit down through the wooded hills to construe salads of hailstones and leaf-wreckage, the thunder having sped east-northeast toward open water after leaving nothing altered in the major features below. The angle of river can always guide a dumb soul or two to welcoming fields where struggling plantlings yearn for breath to sweep their leaves, enter a rough, black portal at the thin roots. A young crop of beans: stationary ferry to a strange, coppery existence. A good dog can scout this scent for miles over mountain fog and village cookfires. The wind is a color she can deduce a million intimations from, unflinchingly. The same wind comes to the saints, as if they were abandoned boats on a wide bay when the clouds pass and the chop slows to a pulse, the shore a long mouth that hasn’t shifted expression in years. All things that find a death there take an invisible token of that freshwater pout: a bone is dragged into pines and oak, an organ ends up sailing around in the rain, the rest is dissected there on the sands. High song in high branches—a sane nothing that will happen until it ends.F. Daniel Rzicznek’s books include Divination Machine (Parlor Press, forthcoming in 2009), Neck of the World (Utah State University Press, 2007), and a chapbook, Cloud Tablets (Kent State University Press, 2006). He is co-editor of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry: Contemporary Poets in Discussion and Practice (Rose Metal Press, forthcoming in 2010) and teaches at Bowling Green State University. Poet’s Recommendations: The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth by Robert Graves Shape of the Journey by Jim Harrison

I wrote this today: Sacred A spring bud dipped in wax... put on the alter for meditation. Anticipating fruition daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. Time suspended yet moving along. I wait... living, learning, loving, lasting --listening-- My heart waits for the harvest of dreams.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103113483

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103261086

“Canvas of Creation” Beautiful beast of bark, stand as a shield. Shadows shower the creatures, that roam beneath. Dancing does echo, in a darkened field. Whispering winds kiss, the painted leaves they meet. Somber streams with hunger, beg to be fed. Curtains of gray soaked cotton, tarry with tears. Squeezed by the sky, soft emotions are shed. Pleasant pellets of passion, prance to the cheers. Nature tucks her sun, under a velvet sheet. Dusk brushes the day, with strokes of violet and red. The icy breath from a breeze, chases the heat. Seduction shines, as the moon steps softly from bed. Night drops down, bringing a blanket of mirrors. Ships of the purple heavens, stars sail without yield. Silence sings for the dark, a song for his ears. God sets forth a clear canvas, for this one is sealed. -Kirk David Finkbeiner-

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/books/review/Iyer-t.html?ref=global-home

A black tree stands out in the setting sun. A flash later a blaze erupted on the base of the lone tree. A man slowly enters the embers dieing wishes. With a swift slash with his left hand the embers are frozen on the spot. A man on a horse slowly approaches the figure from the behind; his pitch black cloak nipping at the toes of the boots and covered his godly blue eyes. "I see this act has awaken the environmentalist inside you, correct Philip?" said the man while slowly turning to face the man- Philip. "I simply do not understand why living things must die for our own amusement, Jacob" "Fool!" Jacob spits, "Do you truly believe that this is for my own amusement? Seeing another life sapped back to hell?" After a brief pause "Yes" Philup says slowly and quietly, as if to ward off the evil at hand. "Must I show you everything!?" With that Jacob turns to the frozenashes. He puts both of his hands togher as if to pray, mutters some unreconizabe words, and jams hes left hand contacting the ground and sends blue electrisity across the ground. When the blue electricity hits the frozen coals something inhuman happens, the bits of ice fall off and the ashes connect togher defying all laws of physics and slowly from facial features of a human. As the last bits of coal fit togher a bright flash of lightning shakes the ground and unlike natural lightning this appeared out of the ground itself, and was blue. The blue snaked around the humanoid and disappeared. Seconds passed by. Suddenly the figure screamed something ungodly and fell to the ground. It squirmed and continued to scream. As soon as Philip saw what happened he quickly flashed off his hood and landed on top of the squirming "man". A thin stream of blood appeared below his ear. Philip stared deep into the mans soul, seeing the horror he had gone through, and released his tortured soul, a thin blue wisp formed in his eyes and floated towards the sunset. As the wisp disappeared from view the sun set, enveloping the scene in darkness. And that's it, I personally like how it turned out. My favorite part is the ending. Questions? Comment? Creative comments?

http://www.conceptualfiction.com/

"All poems are language problems."From "When the Light Blinks On", an article by Eliot T. Jacobson in rec.arts.poems, message-ID <4437@>. Original author unknown. Consider programming languages. For example, you don't need to be a propeller-head to see the beauty in this below (written in Perl by the reigning Perl Poet, Sharon Hopkins): #!/usr/bin/perlAPPEAL:listen (please, please); open yourself, wide; join (you, me),connect (us,together),tell me.do something if distressed; @dawn, dance; @evening, sing; read (books,$poems,stories) until peaceful; study if able; write me if-you-please;sort your feelings, reset goals, seek (friends, family, anyone); do*not*die (like this) if sin abounds;keys (hidden), open (locks, doors), tell secrets;do not, I-beg-you, close them, yet. accept (yourself, changes), bind (grief, despair);require truth, goodness if-you-will, each moment;select (always), length(of-days)# listen (a perl poem)# Sharon Hopkins# rev. June 19, 1995 Lifted from http://docstore.mik.ua/orelly/perl/prog3/ch27_02.htm See more examples here: CAMELS AND NEEDLES: COMPUTER POETRY MEETS THE PERL PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE Or just Google: poem "Sharon Hopkins"

I joined this group because I wrote a story and this seemed like the group to show it to. I posted it week ago and have had only one comment from this group. I have noticed that I am not the only writer to be ignored. We need to support the writers out here with our comments. I know that I am thinking of expanding my story (The Final Round: A Story) and want/need feedback (good and bad). So please read and comment on the submissions of the writers out here..

Poetry, indeed, cannot be translated; and, therefore, it is the poets that preserve the languages; for we would not be at the trouble to learn a language if we could have all that is written in it just as well in a translation. But as the beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which it was originally written, we learn the language. -Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/books/13oz.html?_r=1&ref=world

http://www.common-place.org/

im really sorry to bother you guys about this, but does anyone have any tips on writing a book? im starting to write one, and i'd love to get some professional help, plz comment!

Is is possible to create a new type of poem, like instead of rhyming it is antonyms or synonyms? Or is that already created? I tried to make an example, but it failed; please use your imagination.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/weekinreview/05scott.html?_r=1

NIGHTMARE By: R. Christopher Jerked awake from disturbing dreams. Terror fills my invoiced screams. Another night of restless sleep with sweat-soaked covers all aheap. Breathe deep to calm my racing heart. Await the dawning day to start. Another day of fear and fright of what dreams may come tonight. Will they be dreams sharp and pointed, or imahes so dishointed. Freams in colors of violet-dread with flames and sparks of yellow-red. Or scenes of love turned to hate, disappointments that don’t abate. Worse—the loneliness dark as coal that eats away your very soul. The nightly tide of evv and flow the dreams retreat but do not go. They have always returned to me There is nowhere that I can flee. Some nights the dreams; they do not haunt, they do not scare, they do not taunt, but just hide away in the dark, and bide their time to make their mark. I pray this night I shall have peace. One night’s rest, one night’s release. A night without a dreams visit. It’s not too great a prayer—is it AND NOW FOR SOMETHIG COMPLETELY DIFFERENT... THE FUTURE BEHIND ME By: R. Christopher My past stretches out before me. The far ago blurs in the distance of years. Some memories are sharp and clear, for I’ve oft revisited those pleasant times. Some scream out their warning cries, telling me to avoid their painful remembrances. Nearer memories fresh and new. The recent past not wholly reconciled. Maybe to blaze in vivid clarity or fade to half-remembered obscurity. Time will sort them out, for I cannot. Over my shoulder the future becomes the past. Glimpsed out of the corner of my eye. The present rushes by so fast it can hardly be comprehended. Sometimes I fear I lag behind then run so fast that I trip. Time ignores my stumbling strides. He’s not known as one who’ll wait. Unknown and only darkly divined by examining the past’s vague hints, the future gallops on swift moving hooves, from behind where I cannot see. Furiously charging comes the time to be. Inexorable and incessant. Wrapped in a cloak of mystery he carries the unknown, and the unexpected. In his hand is the sword of fate that must one day fall on me bringing an end, and perhaps a beginning. PLEASE COMMENT. I WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU THINK (GOOD OR BAD). THANK YOU!