Season of Mists, Mellow Fruitfulness & Hotspots

SEASON OF MISTS, MELLOW FRUITFULNESS & HOTSPOTS
Autumnal Insecure Writers‘ Monthly Hideaway

IWSG Anthology contest, submissions accepted from today, September 5th

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells
John Keats, Ode to Autumn, 1820

Should our Ninja Commander-in-Chief, Alex J. Cavanaugh be slaving (creatively) over the holiday period, I want to thank him for keeping this little writerly group together for a respectable period of time.

Let Not Labor Day Week Disturb, All Passes
We have a tendency to enter September, with a doom-and-gloom attitude—thinking the end of the year is upon us, fall is here & I haven’t done what I thought I would do. We allow ourselves to return to the TGIF and Woe-is-Me-Monday pattern. Such autumnal thoughts weigh us down or distract us from the lustre we see as we enter another season.

Brazil’s Museu Nacional—National Museum—in Rio de Janeiro after last Sunday’s fire, Sept.2nd

Writerly advice is not my strong point, but I know of some good human advice for introverts—which writers, according to Myers-Briggs’ classic curve, usually are: pause, stand and look at the view, and b-r-e-a-t-h-e!

There are others out there FAR WORSE OFF than you and me. The residents of Puerto Rico still haven’t had their power turned back on since last year’s hurricane season.

From flooding [sea-level rise] in Indonesia and Bangladesh, to hurricane Lane mop-up in the Hawai’ian Islands after she dumped 40-inches of rain; to the other extreme—forest fires still raging uncontained in Pacific NW—through No & So California, Oregon, Washington to Utah, Colorado and Arizona. Precious water supplies—river and urban recycled—are running low. Burning Man in the Nevada desert last weekend is our crazy cultural way of challenging Nature‚ believing we can fight fire with fire, proving our power as microdot humans in a world far beyond our comprehension.

Keeping Cool in the Hotspots

Winged serpent deity in Temple of Isis, Pompeii survived AD79 Vesuvius eruption

Fire/Sun is indeed challenging our survival in increasing desertification, global temperature rise, baking end-of-summer days. Water is scarce, not just for farmers, but for fruit orchards, local gardeners and fish.

Yet, as writers, we keep on writing, don’t we? ❤

Frescoes that survived the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79 like the winged serpent, right, were among the priceless collection of 20 million pieces burned in Brazil’s National Museum blaze last Sunday.

They included a fragile fragment depicting peacocks perched on stylized gold chandeliers, and two 1900-year old designs featuring seahorses, a dragon, and dolphins. These irreplaceable objects, originally gracing the walls of Pompeii’s Temple of Isis, were among 750 pieces from Rio’s Portuguese/Mediterranean culture in the collection—largest group of artifacts in Latin America. The huge upwelling of international support has encouraged them to try to save what’s left.

Barely breathing, we pinch ourselves, thank our lucky stars—and our Ninja Cap’n Alex—for our ability to wield the pen that holds body and soul together. And what do we do?

Write on IWSGers—write on.
©2018 Marian Youngblood