Tag: KM Huber

The Night Circus: A Review

Posted on by KM Huber in Beyond Time, ROW in 80 Days, Writing
amazon.com image

In The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern spins a tale that is magical in its prose and practical in its illusions. To me, it is as fine a debut novel as can be found.

Morgenstern’s prose is poetry mostly and not without wit. Her novel’s structure is a marvel, perhaps a study in magic itself for Le Cirque des Reves—the Circus of Dreams—arrives and departs without notice, opening only at midnight and closing at dawn.

The dream circus is a world of black and white with wafts of caramel weaving in and out of striped tents that offer moments of awe and acts unknown, swirling round an extraordinary love story, truly a circus for any rêveur.

There is the Wishing Tree where every wish is a light always lit; there is the illusionist who appears and disappears as if she were born to it;  there is the Labyrinth that will take you up and down, sideways, or to the top of your world.

If you are fortunate, perhaps chosen is a better word, you may receive a silver pass to the Circus of Dreams for the rest of your life. It is a tempting way to live for every tent tells a story within a story as “there are many kinds of magic,” seemingly unending.

The Night Circus opens in 1885, near the midnight of the 19th century and closes in 1903, just after the dawn of the 20th century. Anything and everything seems possible, as the planet is still more dream than reality so there are stories yet to tell, and what is more magical than a story in which so much seems to happen all on its own.

If you read The Night Circus, do pay attention to time and its relationship to permanence or endurance but if you lose track of time— and you probably will but you won’t mind—remember this:

“The whole of Le Cirque des Reves is formed by series of circles. Perhaps it is a tribute to the origin of the word “circus,” deriving from the Greek kirkos meaning circle, or ring. There are many such nods to the phenomenon of the circus in a historical sense, though it is hardly a traditional circus. Rather than a single tent with rings enclosed within, this circus contains clusters of tents like pyramids, some large and others quite small. They are set within circular paths, contained within a circular fence. Looping and continuous.”

As I have mentioned previously, Stephanie Carmichael, a fine writer, wrote a review of The Night Circus that captures its essence completely, and I hope you take a moment to read Stephanie’s review found here.

(All excerpts are from Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, Thorndike ME: Center Point Large Print edition by arrangement with Doubleday, 2011.)

 

 

ROW80 Wednesday Words

This ROW80 round is one of continuous goal revision for me yet challenge is growth, even if my vision is a bit cloudy at the moment. However, I am considering not writing fiction for I suspect I am a better reader and editor than a storyteller when it comes to fiction.

As for nonfiction, I do have a lifelong love affair with the essay and seem to pursue that form more than storytelling. It is not the first time I have met this issue but I do believe it is the first time I may have to choose. Yet, I write, which is what is important to me. My revised goals are:

Write 500 words per day, write a regular blog at least once a week, and complete the ROW80 check-ins on Sunday and Wednesday.

So far, the revision feels comfortable.

The Power of Story

Posted on by KM Huber in Lupus, Writing

Lupus is a creation of mine, its own story really, not one of which I am proud, as its writer, but I have been its source of life for the last 35 to 40 years, maybe even longer.

It is not possible to note the day my lupus gene switched to on nor is it possible to know why I have the gene or what activated it, if anything. It simply is. That part of the story has never mattered to me, even before I knew about the Tao or Zen.

It took me most of my life to understand I am not my lupus and that autoimmune disease is its own story, one steeped in imitation and deceit, usually disguised as flexibility and malleability. Separating what is the lupus story from all I am has been delicate and sometimes, seemingly impossible.

Through the Tao and Zen, I have come to believe my body is my soul having a physical experience, which gives me, a writer, the luxury of viewing lupus as story, a structure I do understand. In all the ways I have viewed lupus, it never occurred to me to view it as a story until very recently.

Lupus really does have plot points, conflict, a protagonist and an antagonist, all tools of my trade on my turf. I just may have the advantage here for the very first time.

In some ways, I have had a long life with lupus, if knowing lupus by other names counts. Lupus’ ability to mimic so many other illnesses along with my gullibility in believing one misdiagnosis after another are extraneous chapters but there is this: my heart never believed any of those labels.

In the lupus story, my heart is the protagonist and my brain or ego is the antagonist, the one that drives the conflict in every story, and all stories have an antagonist and a protagonist locked in a conflict box.

http://www.niams.nih.gov
Image Credit

As the lupus story opens, my immune system produces antinuclear antibodies to fight infection and viruses, just as it should, until we reach the first plot point: a normal immune system turns on itself and begins to attack the very body it defended for years, for no apparent reason.

This relentless war for the body continues for years under various guises–multiple sclerosis, migraines, mixed connective tissue disorder–until Sjogren’s wipes out the salivary glands to pave the way for lupus.

As we reach the midpoint of the lupus story, the brain discovers that it, too, is under attack and turns to the last bastion of hope, the open heart, the remaining connection to the spirit that animates the soul’s body.

I do know that in any story there is one more major plot point before the conclusion, and the lupus story is no different. I don’t know the last plot point nor do I know the conclusion but I have this: the structure of story has given me some of my first moments truly away from the physical battle, and I know I am so much more than the lupus story.

ROW80 Sunday Scheduling 

I finished reading The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and may write a review for an upcoming blog post; however a very fine writer, Stephanie Carmichael, wrote an excellent review that you may read here.  I cannot imagine what I could add to this review. The Night Circus is one of the best novels I have ever read and am considering purchasing it (I borrowed it from the library) as it is a book to read and re-read.

I continue to write at least 500 words a day, mostly nonfiction, and I reached my goal of scheduling blog posts so I am not writing to deadline on Sundays and Wednesdays. This next week will be the dismantling of my novel’s first draft, which I plan to have finished by April 22, 2012 as well as a rough outline of its scenes so I may begin “plotting” the novel’s major points. Unlike the lupus story, I actually do know how this story ends.

For the rest of this round, my goal is a weekly total of 2500 words, as I do not know how long it will take to plot the novel so I do not know when I will start the actual writing of the second draft. You may read more about my second Round of Words in 80 Days here.

 

What Abundance Knows

Posted on by KM Huber in Cooper and EmmaRose, Oneness

How do we live with our hearts open? How do we use what is within us to bring together all that divides us? How do we, like the fifth verse of the Tao Te Ching suggests, “…offer our treasures to everyone”?

And the Tao means everyone, not just those we love/like, for living with an open heart is all-encompassing. It is difficult to open ourselves to what a person feels when that person’s beliefs are so separate from ours yet abundance knows no separateness only wholeness.

Unconditional Love Experts

It requires a larger vision whose origin may be right in front of us.

Often I offer the thoughts of Mark Nepo and Wayne Dyer but honestly, when it comes to abundance and unconditional love, I turn to beagle Cooper James and EmmaRose, a grey-blue dilute kitty of 5.5 pounds whose one word name was decided by a paw-press on the “Enter” key.

The three of us are an illustration of what was separate that is now whole.

How we lived before does not define us nor does it measure who we are. Those are years separate from us, now. As a feline, EmmaRose is 44, canine Cooper is 57, and as the human, I am sixty; what we measure is what we are together, and in that, our differences are minute.

Blanket Mountains

Our one-bedroom apartment is all we need and in some ways, more than we ever had. EmmaRose moves about the apartment most, rearranging throw rugs, curling up in what have become known as the Blanket Mountains of the living room, playing pine cone shuffle with cones Cooper and I brought her from one of our fall outings. EmmaRose is not a traveler outside the apartment–she enjoys her solitude–Cooper and I provide her her time on a daily basis.

"Why now?"

We all share the bedroom—the adjustable, queen-sized bed supports canine and human arthritic joints—EmmaRose’s preferred spot is on the computer modem that rests on the round, wicker bedside table, darkening with age. The table provides EmmaRose the perfect distance to meow in my ear—at least a couple of hours before dawn–if she has seen her reflection in the bottom of her food dish in the dark.

"Yes, Dr. Mac?"

Like many canines, Cooper is food-motivated and as a beagle, he is indiscriminate in what he eats, resulting in a daily antacid prescribed by Dr. Mac.

When the three of us could still eat tacos without major digestive upset for the human and the canine, we each had our favorite ingredient: Cooper scarfed cheddar cheese shavings; EmmaRose preferred powdered corn tortilla bits; meat and lettuce were for the human.

EmmaRose has never noted the absence of our taco dinners but it has been hard on Cooper and me. About a month ago, we gave into our cravings and purchased one taco; Cooper wanted more, as always; EmmaRose was not in the mood for tacos that night; as for me, I cannot imagine a time I will want another taco ever.

Having food and shelter is something we have always shared amicably, perhaps because all three of us have been as close to homelessness as we ever want to be. For Cooper and EmmaRose, euthanasia was near; for me, life was a series of question marks for some time.

What if

We learned to re-frame our lives, not looking back at what we no longer have nor looking to what we fear but rather through it, moment by moment—together. Cooper and EmmaRose seem better at facing fear than I but in watching what they give to one another as well as to me, reciprocating is effortless.

Every vision starts somewhere.

I suspect the force that is all life, whether the form is matter or antimatter, sees wholeness not separateness, offers treasure without condition—imagine.

ROW80 Wednesday Word Marking

 I am re-framing my writing goals. This round, I am concentrating on revising the original draft of my novel, based on the kernel idea I developed in a writing workshop. You can view what I have to say about that here.

I did manage to write a little more than a thousand words (1,068) on how the new version of the novel will read, in particular what it will mean for many of the characters. It is a fascinating process, for me.

Straw Dogs: Not the Movie

Posted on by KM Huber in Oneness

The fifth verse of the Tao Te Ching focuses on the temporal but equitable nature of existence in which we are but straw dogs.

“Heaven and earth are impartial; they see the 10,000 things as straw dogs. The sage is not sentimental; he treats all his people as straw dogs.”

It is a rather provocative statement of our role in the physical universe of the 21st century. It is not a comfortable image as straw dogs are too temporal, too much a reminder of  our brevity. Within the Tao Te Ching of the 6th century B.C., straw dogs have a role to play for a brief, shining moment, and then, they are gone, only to be followed by more straw dogs.

Impartial existence does not seem all that special.

Stephen Mitchell, a translator of the Tao, has written that “’straw dogs were ritual objects, venerated before the ceremony but afterward abandoned and trampled underfoot’” (as quoted in Wayne Dyer’s Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life).

In the Urban Dictionary, a delightful resource, I found seven different meanings of straw dog including one who is “faithful” to snorting cocaine. To me, the Urban Dictionary definition most resembling Mitchell’s translation is “something that is made only to be destroyed”; the sample sentence uses a doll as an example of a straw dog.

My favorite Urban Dictionary straw dog definition is “a word that you interject anytime that you don’t know what word to use but want to make it sound like you’re smart.”  The sample sentence illustrates the definition completely in that a nuclear physics speech “seemed like a straw dog compared to other theorys (sic),” definition and example perfect for my pearl book.

Regardless of how many definitions I may find online and elsewhere, any and all of them underscore the temporal nature of the physical universe from a cocaine high to a venerated sacrifice to easing out of an uncomfortable situation by saying something silly. They all pass from existence, as the Tao, the Source of all things, knows:

“To him none are especially dear, nor is there anyone he disfavors.”

In appreciating the straw dogs of the  6th century B.C. within the experience of the 21st century A.D., it is possible to feel the forever of existence, the comfort in knowing that straw dogs follow straw dogs. “With impartial awareness, the sage genuinely sees the sacredness within all the straw dogs in this ceremony we call life” (Dyer). 

We are not special unless we all are special.

Imagine a world where all know and accept that existence is a gift for all to be opened, to be lived, and to be left for others.  What is special in each of us is our life force. Imagine if we stopped celebrating our separateness and revered our one moment of existence, straw dogs all.

ROW80 Sunday Summary

A brief, mid-week lupus flare limited my reading and writing but it was a brief flare, and I am grateful. I credit its brevity to my better diet (now a weight loss of 66 pounds), to my work with the Tao, to meditating, and to participating in ROW80. Anyone with chronic illness  or who is confined for any length of time, can appreciate how important it is to connect with life whenever possible. As a bit of a distraction, I concentrated on re-learning Twitter; fellow ROW80er Morgan Dragonwillow helped me with TweetDeck and when my brain fog cleared a bit, I re-read the Twitter segment of Kristen Lamb’s book We Are Not Alone. Who knew a lupus flare could be so productive?

Am halfway into The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. For the first time since seeing the movie Toby Tyler (late 1950’s), I want to run away with a circus, especially one as magical as the Circus of Dreams. I enjoy Morgenstern’s wit and although the time structure is a bit wobbly–I had the same concern in The Time Traveler’s Wife–Morgenstern’s writing keeps me turning the pages.

If you want to read more about my ROW80 progress, please click here.

Stirring the Pot

Posted on by KM Huber in Writing

“To let knowledge produce troubles, and then use knowledge to prepare against them, is like stirring water in hopes of making it clear.” Lao-Tzu
(Tao, Verse 87 as quoted in Mark Nepo’s Book of Awakening)

So very like “stirring the pot” was my initial reaction to this verse of the Tao as memories of harsh words—felt and returned—stirred one unkind pot after another. Never once did I think to take it off the stove nor did I imagine knowledge in any way other than as a glorious fount, effervescent, pure, dependable.

How sure I was of so much and so many–then.

Now, I appreciate knowledge within the context of creativity—the act of imagining—one of the greatest gifts life offers, requiring only an open heart.

As I begin my third act, words remain a major force in my life; I am so curious about so much. More than ever, I write, something I never quite accomplished with all the pot stirring although writing was my constant goal.

“Feeling unworthy or insecure, we create a goal, in hopes that achieving this will make us feel good about ourselves. Then we’re off scheming for success, preparing against failure, stirring the water, hoping it will go clear” (Nepo, Book of Awakening).

Seventeen years ago, my goal was to write a novel, which I managed amid much pot stirring. Always, I spoke of the experience with false fondness. I wrote 80,000+ words, allowing myself to tread water in any current of thought.

Natasha Hanova Image
WANA Commons

Frankly, I felt quite good about myself, proud even, for accomplishing my goal. To be honest, every year since writing that original draft, I tried one writing goal after another, stirring and stirring.

One of my favorite far afield attempts was to collaborate on an inspirational book of vignettes with the actual working title of Rising to the Occasion When You Can’t. Outside of considerable pot stirring for three years, our hearts were not open to a word we wrote.

From time to time, I returned to the goal of revising the 380+ page manuscript word by word—certainly a worthwhile goal within the first year of its writing—but at seventeen years later, it was time to take the pot off the stove.

“The mind is a spider that, if allowed, will tangle everything and then blame the things it clings to for the web it wants to be free of. I have done this with dreams of greatness and hopes of love, wanting so badly to see myself clearly in the water, while I kept stirring and stirring” (Nepo, Book of Awakening).

As I mentioned in my last few blog posts, I am yet again working with this first novel draft. Pursuing knowledge within experience, I stirred myself into a month-long, writing workshop. After so many years of empty goal-gazing, it took most of the workshop for the waters to still.

Truly, I did not recognize the actual moment the waters cleared. It was a gradual realization that I no longer was “scheming for success” or weaving any web. Frankly, my sediment sunk.

It was clear that I “don’t have to be finished in order to be whole” (Nepo) as a writer or as a human being. So, for the first time in seventeen long years, I saw the draft of my novel for what it is: the story of a moment passed, completely. Its worth is immeasurable.

With waters clear, I write.

Note: I am publishing only one post this week but will resume publishing two posts per week beginning Monday. As always, feel free to comment or Email me! your comments.

Comment Choice

Posted on by KM Huber in Oneness, ROW in 80 Days, Writing
Image from themacfeed.com

It seems last Sunday’s blog on silence coincided with the implementation of some “comment updates” from WordPress, the hosting company for this blog. I chose WordPress for its theme diversity and low cost but mainly for its ease in connecting with other social networks.

A blog that deals with Oneness and being is about connecting so hosting my blog with WordPress did and does make sense. It also makes sense that there will be missed connections, from time to time. On Monday, some readers wanting to leave a comment received this message:

That email address is associated with an existing WordPress.com (or Gravatar.com) account. Please click the back button in your browser and then log in to use it.

No one has to register with or log in to my actual blog to comment;  however, my blog has always required an email address (never revealed) and a name to accompany all comments. If I didn’t, anonymous responses could conceivably rival spam contributions so on my blog, one must create an identity to comment.

Identity seems to be at the core of the recent comment update issue, although I do not pretend to understand the technology of it so I may be completely wrong.  However, it does appear that in order to leave a comment on my blog now, readers must sign in with an existing social media account (Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, etc.) or create an account with WordPress.

Image from playthink.wordpress.com

This is the ether so remember that  updates/changes to what I just wrote are always just a breath away, if that far.

As this blog is also about one boomer being–I have an appreciation for and history of questioning authority so I do “get” why some readers are upset—I support every reader who does not want to sign in with any of their existing accounts or create an account with WordPress in order to comment.

For me, blogging is all about community and finding ways to support each other. Yes, I am nauseatingly optimistic almost all of the time but just the fact that we can have a global conversation about commenting or not commenting is a positive for all of us. Here’s an alternative way to comment on my blog:

Under Contact in the right hand column on my home page (Oneness),  please click on Email me!  to send  your comments.

As I do with all comments, I will review, respond (if appropriate), and I will post your comment just as if you had submitted it in the comment section. Please provide a name that you like as your identity. It may even be your own.

“So rather than giving energy to…perceived misfortunes, [I look to] the Tao…inexhaustible…the ancestor of it all…living infinitely” (Wayne Dyer).

“Wisdom is knowing I am nothing,
love is knowing I am everything,
and between the two my life moves.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj


Round One of Round of Words Final Tally 

The first round of Round of Words in 80 days ends tomorrow, and round two begins April 2. ROW80 helps writers bring their writing into their real lives, no more goal-gazing or sighing. ROW80 helps writers establish realistic goals that may be revised as many times as any manuscript. All one needs is a blog and a love of writing.

I was skeptical about ROW80 but if nothing else, I launched a blog, the writing of which requires way more than I anticipated. Furthermore, I saw my writing as it really is, which is not exactly how it was playing in my head or through my heart.  Now, I know what is possible so thank you  to the ROW80 community of writers who post their progress on Sundays and Wednesdays.

My beginning goals were modest—write at least 250 words per day, write a blog post twice a week, do something with a 17-year-old manuscript. I made it hard for me to fail, for once.

I progressed from 250 words per day to 30-minute stretches and to a daily average of 900 words. In these last few weeks, I am comfortably writing over 1,000 words per day. The type of writing includes technical, nonfiction, fiction, and blog posts but in this first round, I excluded technical and nonfiction writing from my word count. Total fiction and blog post word count is 23,639. Total technical and nonfiction word count is 14,000-18,000.

As a writer who was not writing except for an occasional spurt, I am more than pleased. What ROW80 reveals is that it does not take a great deal of time to generate words. With words come ideas and better words, clearer thought.

My manuscript is in shreds but its core, kernel idea is intact, which is more than I expected. The story is completely different as am I– seventeen years later–but the story’s idea is as fresh as always.

ROW80 Round Two on deck.

Silence is a Response

Posted on by KM Huber in Beyond Time, Oneness

Life is loud, the constant chatter of a unified life. The more we connect with each other, the more we learn about ourselves. Yet, there are moments when a silent response may benefit us most.

We live with the daily fallout of nonsense that has been increasing over the last two decades but in the last two years, the social and political climate of the planet has completely changed. Hot spots are everywhere. Frankly, we do not know what to do so we text what we do not know.

In this immediate world, an emoticon or single parentheses with a colon is acceptable but the larger fallacy in all this chatter is oranges become apples and then later, as needed, apples turn into oranges. There isn’t a logical fallacy that is out-of-bounds.

I offer this: silence is a sound response preferable to the chatter of logical fallacies. There is nothing new in the virtue of silence but as we reach across, up, down and around the globe, we are connecting with all we can be, and the possibilities are endless.

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How we connect with one another in the ether seeps into our physical relationships, particularly those conversations of the heavy heart, the ones that thud: conversations we no longer want to have much less start; conversations that reveal a truth we never saw until we realize it was there always. Revelation and resonance are pure, often painful.

In a recent blog post, Sabrina Reber tells us: “Understand that when we resonate ‘strongly’ with the pain and suffering in others, it is a reflection of our own inner pain that has not been healed. STRONG REACTIONS to anything outside ourselves are always a reflection of our own inner turmoil.”

Other people are mirrors for us, even when we look away–keep the chatter on them–as we tweet or text a response to relieve our own discomfort.

“When you find yourself having a strong reaction to an external issue ~ STOP. Turn it around and say ~ ‘this is my stuff.’ This is your place of POWER ~ because you are accepting responsibility for yourself/your emotions/your feelings/your vibration ~ and only then will you be able to tap into the underlying truth of the issue so you can create change” (Reber).

A response is a thoughtful decision including whether or not to respond. There is so much chatter in the outer world  but if we listen silently and allow our egos to chatter, judge or interpret inside our heads, then we’ll know whether or not to respond but even better, we will know what to respond.

Silence is a straightforward action, and the fact that silence is a possibility for each one of us in every moment at a cost we determine is the very power we seek in chatter.

Truly, “it is time for us to stop expecting someone outside of ourselves to make the changes on this planet we so desire to see. Our power for change revolves around the SELF……one person at a time” (Reber).

Rhythm of ROW80 Sunday Scheduling:

This week, we examine conflict in the Idea and Conflict workshop with Bob Mayer.  As he says, it will be a challenge. This past week, I struggled with the kernel idea of my novel, which is clearer but not quite there. The kernel idea exercises require the writer to peel back layer after layer of story. It’s quite rigorous, and I have spent about five hours a day with variations on the exercise. In the process, I am writing a lot of back story.

Beyond my workshop writing, I am generating at least 1,000 words per day  for blog posts as well as some creative nonfiction. In this regard, I have exceeded my original word count of writing 250 words per day in this first round of ROW80.

Shakespeare’s Sister Still

Posted on by KM Huber in Beyond Time, Writing
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“It would have been impossible, completely and entirely, for any woman to have written the plays of Shakespeare in the age of Shakespeare.” These are Virginia Woolf’s words from a series of lectures she delivered at Cambridge University in October, 1928. They were published In 1929 as  A Room of One’s Own. 

In later decades, “Shakespeare’s Sister” found a life of its own as an excerpted essay* in various anthologies. My own discovery of Woolf’s work was over three decades ago, and I am grateful for her transcendent sentences.

Woolf creates her imaginary Judith Shakespeare within William Shakespeare’s generally accepted circumstances. As is often true, similar circumstances are no guarantee of similar outcomes even when one’s mother is an heiress, as was true for William and the imaginary Judith.

The grammar-schooled William “was, it was well known, a wild boy who poached rabbits, perhaps shot a deer, and had, rather sooner than he should have done, to marry a woman in the neighborhood, who bore him a child rather quicker than was right. That escapade sent him to seek his fortune in London. He had, it seemed, a taste for the theatre” (p. 8).

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While William’s stage career began by “holding horses at the stage door,” it wasn’t long before William was center stage, “living at the hub of the universe.” He even managed to meet the queen.

Judith, equally curious and imaginative but not schooled—no  Horace or Virgil for her—did learn to read and even found a book or two, perhaps even one of William’s, until she was found out by her parents.

“They would have spoken sharply but kindly, for they were substantial people who knew the conditions of life for a woman and loved their daughter… [They] told her to mend the stockings or mind the stew and not moon about with books and papers” (p. 8).

Yet, Judith went on reading and started scribbling a line or two as she was near a marriageable age, seventeen. Upon discovering that she was betrothed to a “wool-stapler’s son, [she] cried out that marriage was hateful to her, and for that she was severely beaten by her father,” which did not produce the desired results in Elizabethan England any more than it does in the 21st century.

Father Shakespeare then offered Judith “a chain of beads or a fine petticoat…there were tears in his eyes. How could she disobey him? How could she break his heart?

“The force of [Judith’s] own gift alone drove her to it. [She] let herself down by a rope one summer’s night and took the road to London…she had the quickest fancy, a gift like her brother’s…she had a taste for the theatre” but she was sent away from the stage door (p. 8).

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Actually, Judith was laughed away by the stage manager who told her “no woman…could possibly be an actress. He hinted—you can imagine what. She could get no training in her craft. Could she even seek her dinner in a tavern or roam the streets at midnight?

“[Judith’s] genius was for fiction and [she] lusted to feed abundantly upon the lives of men and women and the study of their ways…for she was very young, oddly like Shakespeare the poet in her face” (p. 9).

Judith was turned away, time and again, until an “actor-manager” took pity on her and her dreams of theatre. Soon, Judith was with child and without marriage.

Sadly, Judith killed herself “one winter’s night and lies buried at some cross-roads…that, more or less is how the story would run…if a woman in Shakespeare’s day had had Shakespeare’s genius” Woolf conjectured, almost a century ago (p. 9).

In 2012, we are still asking: “…who shall measure the heat and violence of the poet’s heart when caught and tangled in a woman’s body.”
*All excerpts from “Shakespeare’s Sister,” by Virginia Woolf are from Eight Modern Essayists, 5th edition, St. Martin’s Press, 1990.

ROW80 Wednesday Word Marking:

My word total for January is 8250 with my goal of writing at least 250 words per day; in February, I began writing in 30-minute stretches to focus my writing and the word total for the month is 9814;  in March, my current word total is 3838.  My total Round of Words so far is 21,902, which is a raw total, meaning a lot of free writing/brainstorming yet meeting my goal of writing consistently. I generate an additional 1200 to 2000 words per week as blogs, fiction, and nonfiction.

Bob Mayer’s Idea and Conflict Workshop is life-changing, and I mean that sincerely. I can honestly say I have not been this excited about writing in years. There is true joy in my work.

A Unified Life

Posted on by KM Huber in Beyond Time, Oneness

It is not frequently the “world is too much” with me but too much always means a matter of words.

These are days of careless and thoughtless words thrown around the world in a nanosecond and forgotten just as immediately, as if a word once released is never more.

KM Huber Image

Every word reveals its writer, as Wayne Dyer demonstrates in his work with the Tao: “Live a unified life” and forego the “mind game” of duality, that “propensity to compartmentalize everything as good or bad, right or wrong.” Ah, the slippery slope of duality.

I take this viewpoint or that one, keeping each in its box, opposites, while I allow myself the luxury of weighing right vs. left, considering women vs.  men, contemplating yin-yang.

I name it balance but my heart knows it as judgment unexpressed but held. I am a lifelong hair-splitter within myself as well as with the world. At times, both are too much with me.

I am a true believer in finding common ground on any issue—no matter how insignificant that spot of ground may be, I know it exists–often, I am tenacious beyond popularity with left or right, no or yes, yet it keeps me just shy of duality. Dyer offers this: “eliminating opposites paradoxically unifies them.”

Imagine that as a political viewpoint in a discussion of  the role of government for the individual, for an entire country, especially when our planet is so pendulous, left-right, right-left, right-wrong. Words and more words, this word heard, that word ignored, a lie believed, a truth buried.

It’s a squawking sky of words where a good offense is the next day’s defense, and no one remembers to ask whether the sky is falling for the sky is full of flying words.

“…notice an opportunity to defend or explain yourself and choose not to. Instead, turn within and sense the texture of misunderstanding…just be with what is.” 

These Wayne Dyer words clear the sky for me on any day. The moment is all we ever have and it’s more than enough to “just be.” In order to clear the sky, I have to remove “me” from the words so I can see their meaning, their context, how they come together and when. Then, I can hear them.

“The world is too much with us, late and soon,” Mr. Wordsworth, as it always has been.

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WANA Commons

Rhythm of ROW80 Sunday Scheduling:

This past week, I started a month-long workshop with Bob Mayer on Idea and Conflict. For the rest of this round of ROW80, I will work with the kernel idea and conflict box of  a story that may actually become a novel.

Daily, I write for at least 30 minutes, often longer, generating at least 1,000 words per day  for blog posts as well as some creative nonfiction. In this regard, I have exceeded my word count for this first round of ROW80.

All Wayne Dyer excerpts are from Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life, second verse of the Tao.

Center of the Universe

Posted on by KM Huber in Oneness, ROW in 80 Days, Uncategorized, Writing

“You are not the center of the universe” is a pivotal line in my unpublished novel, written eighteen years ago. Actually, Center of the Universe was the novel’s real working title, which I do not believe I have never told anyone until now but I’m old and every day, my memory is kinder. For most of my novel’s years, I called it Spirit Song or a still favorite phrase, In-Between Dances.

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Anti-Spoiler: At no time in this post or any other post will you be subjected to excerpts from any novel or story I may write. This blog may  look at the 10,000 things of the Tao but my novel or story excerpts are excluded.  My writing has its place, which is not my blog.

“Center of the universe” was an unusual concept in the early 1990s  for me and for the small, coal mining community where I lived. Amazingly, I played a pivotal role in that community for a short period of time, if not as the center of the community, it was close enough for me forever. It doesn’t take much in a small community.

Fresh from a university setting, I was teaching the  basic composition course for the community college outreach program. The course was required for anyone pursuing an associate degree but I did not let that hold me back. I launched my (and the community’s) writing life with Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones. Zen Buddhism completely captured my heart; I was so in love.

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Everywhere I looked, there was analogy after analogy. In teaching Poe’s “Fall of the House of Usher,” a classic story of sentience, I nearly brought to life the house’s  weeping walls and the Tao of 10,000 things. I was ingenuousness personified. At best, I only knew half of what I thought I knew but I tossed all my sentience out there.

It stuck.

For the next few years, former students liked to introduce me as: “This is (My Name), and she thinks this chair has feelings.” Yes, a chair was offered to a somewhat startled, formerly secure person. It kept people on their feet, and for a moment, made me the center of the universe. Only now do I appreciate how truly amazing those years were.

By the time I began writing my novel in 1994, I had pulled away from the community and in all fairness, it had pulled away from me, too. We had reason to separate—it seems fair to say we had forgotten our sentient selves—it is so long ago who knows whether  there was any reason left in any of us. We just were.

Regardless, my novel was about finding community again; I wanted to discover where we had gone so wrong, all of us. Somewhere after 60,000 words, my protagonist was informed: “You are not the center of the Universe.” Truly, I remember the moment.

As a writer, I recognized the importance of the sentence but as a human being, I sensed enlightenment, albeit briefly. It would take another seventeen years to fully appreciate the center of the universe but there was light, and toward that, I moved.

In 2011, I read Stephen Hawking’s books—Grand Design and A Briefer History of Time—and learned of the multiverse, a considerable blow to my centered universe–momentarily–for I found the joy of quantum entanglement and Oneness. The reality of joy is once you experience it, you move in that direction always. Dark just does not have the same hold in Oneness.

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However, Oneness translates hard for a writer, sometimes.

While I had known for a while—sixteen years, eleven months, and twenty days—that I might glean only dribs and drabs from my first attempt at a novel, I always believed I had the center of the universe. Not so. Seems it really was a bit of fiction.  And there was something even worse: my center of the universe was a Little Darling, in writing, a death knell.

True to form, I kept silent about my Little Darling. Perhaps I hoped I would forget there was a multiverse–I promise you there is real merit in this possibility–yet, sentient human or no, once the heart knows, it knows.

Yesterday, my universe imploded, victim of  my first assignment in a writing workshop: write the idea of my novel in one sentence of 25 words or less. Surprisingly, I managed to find a sentence, not a cogent one, but the center of the universe was gone.

Note: For one of the best explanations about Little Darlings and how to get help for this alarmingly prevalent addiction, please read Piper Bayard and Kristen Lamb, proud sponsors of Little Darlings Anonymous.

ROW80 Wednesday Word Marking:

My word total for January was 8250 with my goal of writing at least 250 words per day; in February, I began writing in 30-minute stretches to focus my writing and the word total for the month is 9814;  in March, my current word total is 2118.  My total Round of Words so far is 21,182, which is a raw total, meaning a lot of free writing/brainstorming with a goal of writing consistently, which I have accomplished. I generate an additional 1200 to 2000 words per week as blogs, fiction, and nonfiction.

For the remaining days of this ROW80, I am focusing on scheduling my blogs so I am not on “deadline” ever or always on deadline.  Oneness is confusing in this regard.

Bob Mayer’s Idea and Conflict Workshop  is just incredible, and I mean that sincerely. I can honestly say I have not been this excited about writing in years. There is true joy in my work.