set her down
Can you believe the muses are demanding a day off?
Ohhh…they’re chattering away in the background…something about a day away from the spotlight?
And…more cookies?
So it’s just us this morning…
a nice switcheroo.
I woke thinking about a Zen story.
I muse (haha!) about the magical connections weaved as I pay attention.
You see…I just watched Into the Wild and felt the pain of Chris McCandless when he could not cross a raging river to leave Alaska.
And a couple of days ago I shared a river photo with a story I titled crossings.
Rounding out a trifecta of waterways—well—today a stream runs through…
Two travelling monks encounter a woman standing at a river bank. Despite a strict vow to not touch women, one monk picks the woman up and carries her across. The pair walks on. A few miles down the road the monk who kept his vow starts grumbling…
I can’t believe you did that…wrong…grumble, mumble, moan.
His companion asks, “I set the woman down long ago…why are you still carrying her?”
The book I’m working on…
I created a vision in my head of what a cover would look and feel like if Henny was featured…leaping for a butterfly with joy.
I went so far as to cut, fold, and draw up the vision on paper.
That’s it!
I want that!
And now…I find the picture quality after my myriad of edits is a blurry mess when blown up.
It won’t work…
I have to set puppy Henrietta down
to make space for something better.
I love that filtered photo, Gail! The woodcut + grayscale quality, plus (of course) Henny in major puppy mode. It captures the looking-back + embracing-joy tone of your stories. (Well, not the muses, but they have their own thing going on. 😉)
What a great lesson! I read this as someone capable of honest self appraisal, stepping back to scrutinize their work. And the critical eye calling it for what it is.
I hasten to add, my response to the picture was quite different. (I once thought I’d become a clinical psychologist. I spent some time trying. Since then I’ve spent much time not being one.) Given that backdrop in (), projective techniques in the ‘70s were used. The Rorschach Inkblot Test. House/Tree/Person.
Akin to an inkblot, in the upper right I saw large land animals about to set foot in the water. Hippos? Triceratops? Elephant Man elephants?
In the upper left one such animal swimming away. Its back to the viewer.
Henny? Henny.
The blurriness? Maybe my post-COVID-Pfizer#2 alternate reality brain is playing tricks. After some pinch and zoom, I sent your image to my printer which produced a 7x8 3/4 image with good detail. Perhaps a slight shade darker than ideal?
Whoa! Gotta leave that alone. My alternate reality filter is seeing all manner of things in the marsh grass! But tell me, “Who ate the butterfly?”