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In our digitally connected world, we are experiencing ever increasing erosion of our personal privacy. Every aspect of our lives is becoming an open book to our employers, our governments and even complete strangers who certainly don’t have our best interests at heart. In the ‘perfect world’ that tech companies such as Google would make, we could no longer use pseudonyms to protect ourselves from those who would do us harm. Personal safety and security is not their concern. Cashing in on what marketers want revealed about your private life is.

Blogger Mark Hurst at Creativegood.com has given us a glimpse of that world that is sugar coated with the latest in tech aps. The prospects are frightening. I do confess: I like my Gmail and G+ and Google Calendar. However, the thought of someone with contact lenses being able to record conversations, etc. without the other person’s knowledge or permission is an invasion of privacy in the extreme.

The Google Glass Feature No One Is Talking About

shivian:

WitchTip: If you’re using a language you don’t speak in your rituals, it might be more of an energy drain than just using English

Tell us about the moment/realization when your original character concept popped into your head and you realized you had to write them.

Note: This version posted here on Fanny’s private LJ and on Pan Historia is admittedly somewhat different than the one posted to the community. Some things I am just not so very public about.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“This one, not that one,” her voice was low and sensuous with an obvious Scottish brogue. Those large eyes looked at me beneath the tossled mane of dark curls and she seemed to cluck at me. ‘Ye’ve been wanderin’ these woods as an herbalist and Wytch for how long and ye’d not be knowin’ the difference a’tween one herb an the ‘tuther.”

I felt myself flush with embarrassment. With a nod I harvested the herb the woman had indicated with my boline and put it into the basket along with the odd morels and first ferns of the spring. The primeval forest that stretches over most of my fifteen acres and into at least several hundred more in every direction around us are filled with spirits of one kind or another. Forests in this part of farmland are rare and those of us who are blessed enough to live in the trees guard them with a kind of zealous ferocity. Pitchforks and small caliber rifles are seen in the hands of neighbors whenever the sound of a chainsaw is heard. Only with profuse assurances that a tree is indeed already dead and that the wood will be used to heat the home of the person cutting down the tree do any of us let ourselves relax. Stories are still recounted of a neighbor whose out-of-state children chopped down two ancient old oaks that judging by their size had to have been there long before the first white man ever set foot in the area. No one remembered why they had done it; just that they had.

Just a mile from my back door is a cemetery that dates back to the first days long before Iowa had been declared a state. A few miles away in another direction is a cemetery that is filled mainly with the bodies of both children and adults that died due to a smallpox outbreak a little over a century ago. The only sign of their existence and passing are limestones with crudely etched notes of the year and initials on them. On some nights, especially in the summertime, you can hear children playing. There are no signs of civilisation anywhere that would explain it. So seeing one kind of spectre or another or hearing cries at all times of the day and night is nothing unusual here. Suffice it to say that I have been taking dictation from Fanny from that day onward.

But this voice I had heard before. I had experienced it for several weeks now just to the left of me behind my head, and just shy of my peripheral vision. I can see her height, her clothing and attire as clearly now as I did then, but she and I have changed. Almost completely gone is that Scot’s brogue, and it only flashes at times when she is in a state of extreme agitation. Her cadence and grammar are so measured now, after years of living in France for love of her husband and later for the place, all the while trying to divorce herself from her origins because it had been a sore point in her early years in France. She would only indicate that in spite of pretended politeness by courtiers close to both Louis XIII and her husband, she was referred to as “that barbarian woman with the dreadful accent”.

But far from that place, and when I first saw her, she was dressed as any peasant Scotswoman might be; a white blouse covered with a red and blue bodice over layers of skirts in various colours and bare feet. Even in this state, even as she was, she still managed to carry herself with such dignity and assurance that it was hard not to listen to that voice. Being both a writer and one who walks Between the Worlds, it’s easy to sometimes give pause to questions about your sanity. Are you really seeing, hearing, feeling and experiencing the things that you are or is it just a touch of madness? Are not magicians and writers all just a little bit mad anyway?

In spite of it all, and all through the times that I dance with the muse, fountain pen in hand, I still hear that voice and there is a certain depth and loyalty to the memory of that ancestress – Frances Moira MacKay.

Dreams are strange things. I have a long history of having very strange and very profound dreams. If anyone, particularly a psychologist, were to ask whether or not I dream in colour, I would have to say, yes, indeed I do. If that makes me crazy, then so be it.

Recently I had one of those dreams that ranked pretty high on the strangeness scale, even for me. It started out as so may of my dreams do, where there is a tornado. A dream interpreter would say that this particular symbol means that there is an incredible amount of chaos in the life of the dreamer. I think I would agree with this. My life is filled with a bit of chaos at the moment.

As a result of this tornado dream, I ended up dead. That was the first time I had ever dreamed of anything like that. I do remember that I was more pissed-off that I could not tell my son how to distribute my stuff than I was in being recently deceased. There were some specifics that were not in my will, after all.

In the dream, I found myself in Heaven in a waiting room. It was kind of like the one you see in the movie, “Beetlejuice”. I remember that the waiting room was pretty full. My case worker, a lovely, mid-fiftyish African American Woman was going over this and that, and asked me what my religious preference was.

“Kemetic Orthodox,” I said, “But don’t you guys have that on file?; I asked, eyebrows raised. This was Heaven after all. They should have known these types of things.

“Oh, yes,” she wrote down my reply in her notes, “but so many people decide to change their minds when they realise that they’re dead.”

“Really? Why do they do that?” I asked.

“I think some of them have the idea that they may end up getting a better deal if they switch,” she said rather matter-of-factly.

“Well…..do they?” I was quite curious now.

“No,” she said with a shrug, “everyone pretty much gets the same thing.” She then pointed a slender finger at the waiting room that had not become any less crowded in the course of our conversation. “Why don’t you have a seat and we will call you when we’re ready.”

I nodded and sat down. My initial indignance at being unable to speak to my son seemed to have been forgotten for the moment. I picked up a copy of KMT magazine of Egyptology. It had a fabulous full-colour article on the reconstruction of Thebes going on somewhere in Heaven. I made a mental note to check it out. It was one of those places that I had always wanted to see. If I could see it in all of its past glories, so much the better.

I was completely caught up in my reading when there was a commotion. It was as if the Rolling Stones had decided to open up an impromptu set on the spot. I craned my neck around the throngs of people to see who might be causing all of the commotion. In the front of the mass of people who were quite literally tripping over themselves to get to this person, I saw none other than Jesus – who bore a frightening resemblence to Jeff Bridges as Jeff Lebowski (aka ‘The Dude’) in ‘The Big Lebowski”. With that kind of laid back attitude, it seemed perfectly appropriate to me that Jesus would get a rock star’s reception. After several minutes, the agitation of the crowd died down. Everyone would get their chance to talk to Jesus. From what I could see as I went back to my magazine, Jesus was a pretty cool guy. He was standing around chatting calmly and kindly and it seemed that he was quite approachable.

Eventually Jesus made his way over to me and took the now empty seat next to me. I shook his hand and we began chatting. Jesus was warm and polite, wore well worn flip flops and he had an easy laugh. It would be very difficult not to like a man who looked like a rock star and had the temperament of the Dalai Lama. In his warmth, I began to feel very self-conscious about something that I felt I needed to tell him. I did not want to lead him on, especially since he had been so very kind during our conversation.

“You know,” I began uncomfortably, “I have to be honest with you, Dude….I mean Jesus. I think you are really very nice and a really cool guy. But I have to say I couldn’t be a Christian anymore. I left and I have no intentions of returning – ever” I said. “But I want you to know, Jesus, it isn’t you,” I added hurriedly. “It really isn’t you. “ I searched his face and it showed absolutely no sign of surprise or disappointment. “It’s some of your followers, Dude. Too many of them, quite frankly, well…they suck.”

Jesus nodded and heaved a very long and heavy sigh. “Yeah. I know,” he said, “I get that a lot. I really am going to have to set a few of them straight. I mean all I said was, ‘love one another’. How hard is that? “

Jesus and I finished our very amicable conversation and he went on to mingle elsewhere. In the meantime, I finished my magazine and got up and began checking out the various Egyptian statues. I was totally engrossed in the detail of one of them when my case worker called my name.

“Well, we’ve scheduled your driving test for you!”the receptionist said. She did sound rather chuffed at having managed such a feat. Apparently, even in the afterlife, such things can be a difficult proposition.

“Driving test?! I said incredulously, “in Heaven?!” It was almost an overwhelming surprise. “I didn’t think they needed cars, let alone licenses here,” I said.

“Oh, yes,” she said in that same matter-of-fact tone. “It was quite necessary for us to institute that. To be honest, we’ve been having a real road rage problem up here as of late and we’re trying to avoid that.”

“What happens if someone gets road rage up here,” I asked.

“Oh, then it’s a requirement that the offender go…”she looked about nervously, “downstairs” to attend traffic school with you know….HIM.”

“Him?” I was puzzled. “You mean…Satan?”

“Shhh!! We don’t talk about him up here. Seriously. You don’t want to be flagged for further testing, do you?”

Thankfully, it was then that I woke up. A few minutes after I had dragged myself out of bed, I called my son to wish him a good weekend and to remind him that no matter what, I loved him. I didn’t remember when the last time was that I did that, and after the dream I felt it was important to do so.

I sometimes think that because of my religious belief, where life and the afterlife are almost exactly the same, that idea can be in some ways rather disheartening. All of the frustrations and responsibilities that we encounter in this present, waking life, tend to remind us that we need to be in the now. We need to be responsible and honest with both ourselves and those around us about what we believe and how we feel. Loving and caring about each other should not be along lines of who is of our belief system and who isn’t. We are all human beings, and compassion knows no creed. We need to live our lives as if we mean it.

It also might help if we were to check with our priests and pastors to make sure that our drivers licenses are good from one reality into the next.

I’ve been long away.

After stating the obvious, I think my reasons for having been so far away for so long is school, work and the day to day concerns. I am finishing up the next to last semester before I transfer to the University of Iowa for my Bachelors. Yes, I am still in communications / cinema arts. With all of that, it has been very hard to write any of my muses, not just here on LJ but also on DW and even Pan Historia.

The Muses, Fanny, Caroline, Jocelyn, Melek, Archy and the rest do speak, but they feel muffled in the face of the day to day. My dog, Marissa has been dragging out my book, “The Writer’s Block” off the shelf repeatedly. I think she is trying to emphasize that writing is good for me and for everything and everyone else around me. I haven’t been entirely idle. I have written a bit more on the Sekhmet book and added more text to the Rune book. If I can figure out all the bells and whistles on Scrivener and how to get things formatted successfully to KDP, I should have one or the other or both available for Kindle over on Amazon. The fiction, however, is a bit slower going. I still hunger to do a piece set in 17th Century France – as Lee and I had discussed. Her schedule and mine, however, have not been cooperative.

Writer’s Muses will be going on, and I am sorry that it has been so neglected. I have been going down the list of prompts and posting them over to DW and to Pan. The next few weeks should be interesting. I have a lot of stuff to get out that has been backed up for some time! 😉