Category: Uncategorized

Le Défi d’être une Adulte / The Adulthood Challenge

ENGLISH: <a href=”http://meowdate.dreamwidth.org/6680.html&#8221; title=”Pre-Adulthood, Adults, and Rites of Passage” target=”_blank”> ENGLISH  </a>

Avant-d’être-Adulte, les Adultes, et les Rites de Passage …

Chers Amis voici une autre idée  pour vous :

Un nouveau rite de passage .

On a besoin d’un nouveau rite de passage dont chaque adolescent doit a son plein gré  enseigner quelqu’un, de zéro, une habilité utile et   important . Il doit être une habilité dont la personne a besoin dans le monde réale, par exemple d’alphabet jusque au lire les livres simples, ou d’énumérer jusque aux tables de multiplication , ou d’écrire un sentence jusque au un essai, ou de pas de anglais jusque au l’anglais passable dans les états-Unis.

Ce projet doit exiger un investissement sérieux de temps (de préférence deux ou trois heures par jour) pour au moins an ans . Ainsi le jeune peut être fier d’un accomplissement dur réclame son statut mérité  d’adulte.  Au même temps, plusieurs problèmes dans notre société peut être résolu :

-Le faut augmentant de l’auto-discipline, courtoise et respect pour la connaissance  parmi les jeunes.

-Le faut de enseignants et les déficits de budget dans le plupart des états seront un peu  mitigé un augmentant le tas de  étudiants qui ont besoin de terminer leur “Projet d’être-Adulte” au numéro des aides de salle et des bénévoles.

-Le besoin pour les défis et pour se prouver  pendant l’étage adolescent de la vie  est laissé  irréalisée par la définition excessivement arbitraire d’être une « adulte » de la société moderne.

Je propose que le mise en route de tel idée doive commencer par  l’engagement de la communauté local.
D’abord, l’adolescent (ou s’il a 20 ans ou plus, le “pre-adulte”) doive présenter une personne qui doive connaître la communauté pour montre le cap du processus de l’apprentissage.  Après avoir atteindre l’objective à apprendre, l’ado/ « pre-adulte » et l’apprentie  retordront  revoir la communauté pour évaluer l’efficacité des efforts et pour donner au « pre-adulte » son statut d’Adulte, avec touts les droits et responsabilités attendu d’un adulte, compris tel normes culturelles comme la civilité, courtoisie, et même la gracieuseté.

Ainsi irions d’une société ou  la impolitesse est la norme vers une dont la gracieuseté est valorisé. Par exemple, une amie raconte un incident dont un chien lui grogné, et la propriétaire ç’avait excusé tout de suit, qui c’était  la chose civil à faire, et en suite même avait offrait de l’appeler  un taxi, qui  c’était la chose gracieuse à faire. Une société ou la gracieuseté est valorisé serait tant d’une société plus compatissante que d’une plus créative.  Je laisse ces pensées pour contemplation, débâte, et action.

À l’amour, la Paix, et … la Coopération Communautaire !!!

Shira Destinie

Date  « usuelle » :   samedi,  18 octobre  2014 AD

<a href=”http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendrier_holocène&#8221; title=”Date Universelle = Calendrier Universel + Ère Holocène” target=”_blank”>Date Universelle: </a> mercredi, 18 octobre 12014 ÈH (Ère Holocène)
(mise en ligne en anglais :
Date usuelle : jeudi , 17 avril 2014
Date MEOW : lundi, 16 avril 12014 èH (ère Holocène)
Remarque : la « Date MEOW » qu’honore William James essai de 1907 «  l’équivalent moral de la guerre » venait de l’anglais « Moral Equivalent of War »   )

Change the Calendar, Change the World? Really?

In my review of a book on Cherokee Women’s Voices, I commented that the change in the calendar, from the traditional East Coast native American way of seeing time, to the Gregorian Calendar, played a large role in cementing the ‘civilization’ plan to Europeanize Native Americans.

See:  http://meowdate.dreamwidth.org/8663.html

But I wonder whether all the work those of us in the Calendar Reform movement do will really lead to the cultural change, and hence the world change, that we want to see?  In inclusive calendar should, hopefully, make people think more open-mindedly, or at least think in terms of Humanity rather than just the Christianity of 2014 AD, or Judaism’s 5773, or Islam’s 6xxx years?   But are we calendar reformers too optimistic?  How do we all come to think of ourselves as just human beings, rather than Black, White, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, American, Russian, Ukranian, etc?

In Service to Community Cooperation, and Fraternite,

ShiraDestinie

U.N. Date: Thursday, October 5. 12014 H.E. (Holocene Era)

http://universalcalendar.eu5.org/
(updated to add NVC for Cultural Change also…), Read, Write, Dream, Teach !

ShiraDest
20 March, 12016 HE

Cities of the Plain: Torture in Sodom as anti-immigration policy

This is my personal blog.  My ‘Tell Your Story’ Community Cooperation Blog is here: https://network23.org/communitycoop/ or duplicated here: http://meowdate.dreamwidth.org/profile

This post on my ShiraDest personal blog comes from my “Creator: Friend or Foe?” practice-novel series based on Midrashim which I began as a sort of stream-of…

”

Cities of the Plain

“So you are back, Young Light Bearer. To what do we owe the honor of this visit? Coem to renew hostilties?”

“No, you are quite good enough at that yourself. I am here to bring a certain set of cities in a low-lying plain to your attention, since you seem ont to have noticed. Down in the valey between that lovely nearly inland sea and the two rivers.”

Not wanting to seem out of touch with his creations, the Anc warior asked, expecting her not to know of the other civilization:

”Do you refer to the two rivers with the valley which is watered by the large platteau, between the rivers and the largest ocean, on the eastern side?”

“No, as you know very well, I refer to the smaller town-states in the western set of cities the human beings are developing. The ones from which you must be getting growing numbers of reports of the lawlessness they are instituting.”

-”Lawlessness? On the contrary, they are doing quite well with the legal institutions on the western side of that platteau. They have indendent kingdoms which are making cooperative alliances, you should like that, and developing more indivudually than their eastern counterparts, who are building their civilizations more along communal lines, putting their people in a situation requireing them to go along with the group or risk being the nail that sticks up and must be hammered down. What could be so bad about allowing each person his freedom, withing the set of laws they all have to obey? You yourself as I recall seemed to advocate some such system, no?”

“how dare you, you Ancient Hypocrite, turn my words against me. Listne, this city is taking individual freedom way too far, letting people do whatever they want to those who are not part of their group, and severly abusing their guests, whom they know they ought to be respecting. These laws you seem to admire that they are passing are requing things which make a mockery of legal proections, like the law that says that any guest in the town must fit in a bed of a standard size, and be comfortable in that bed.”

”and what objection do you have to making a guest comfortable, pray tell?”

“you really have not been keeping up with all of the reports, have you? Their idea of comfort is to ensure that each guest fits the bed by placing shorter guests on the rack, to stretch the body until it is long enough, and dead enough, to fit the bed, or doing their taller guests the favor of amputating both feet, and the legs, inch by painful inch, until the formerly tall guests is short enough to fit comfortably as you say, in the bed. All quite lawful, and all quite dangerious. If this type of behavior spreads, then eventually both of the developing sets of civilizations, west and esat, will eventually come to legalize such crimes against outsiders, possibly even requiring every citizen of the town, as a new law now proposes there, to personally involve himself in torturing any guest allowed into the town borders. They hink that this tactic will frighten all strangers away from visiting, spying out, and potentially attacking their towns, and that is how their socalled Town Fathers are coercing the population into passing this new law. The torture can be inflicted on the stranger evne if that stranger is a guest of an inhabitant of the town, and is especially recommended to take the form of rape, in the case of male visitors to the town, in order to reduce the stranger´s social status to that of a slave so that he can never lead an army against them. That is if any strangers to the town survive their visits at all.”

”Well, this has not been in my reports. So the proposed laws must not have taken effect yet. If they are using sexuality as a torture tool now, then I will investigate…”

interrupting the ”which part of this did you miss in the reports from the first newly born human man? He was doing it back then already! Why else do you think his sister, whom you allowed to take as his so-called wife, ended up reviving the Virgin thought-form?”

-”but this is different, this is a legally instituted form of sexual torture specifically meant to prevent my code of hospitality from being practiced! That is wrong!”

-”Oh, yes, it is wrong when your precious laws are used to torture a man, but not when a man tortures his so-called wife in the privacy of his own home! You Great Hypocrite! This experiment should be ended for the sake of all of our decency, both yours and mine and theirs. These human beings are getting to be almost as bad now, as immoral, torturing maiming and killing as they were before that fortuitous Great Death they had a short while ago. This needs to stop now before all of the human beings are required by law to torture one another, or shall we say before the strong are required to torture the weak, in the name of your developing legal system and your precious non-interference.”

-”Yes, you are quite right, I must go down and see about this. I will consult with some humans on the ground there, and as you can see you are not the only one to have taken a human being for a friend. I have my own friend thre with whom I shall consutlt, note. If this is so, then I will taek steps to remedy the situation.”

-”be sure you do, because if you do not, then I will be sure to have it taken care of in some other appropriate manner.”

…

Perplexed, the Ancient Warrior sent for the Light Bearer through one of the supervising guardians:

“How could this have happened, that not even one native or long term resident fo the city was good? Not all could have developed this way, surely. What went wrong, that only the recent visitor newly taken up residence was able to be saved, and that not even with the woman he married from the town. How did it come to this? Even my friend argued that there must have been at least 10 decent people in the city. This is inconceivable.”

“It happens with places like this, concentrated power and wealth attracts a certain type of person, keeping them there, building up a culture of competition and dominance. After a while,” the Light Bearer replied,

“When a culture of a place becomes the norm, however wrong, over time, it is taken as immutable. There are simply too many ingrained patterns, too many people of power setting the standard, too many people accepting the status quo, unable to reverse the dominant culture. After a while, even the kind people, who want to do good, come to believe that things cannot be changed. So many of the residents, such a high proportion of the policy and trend setters are so callous that the very culture of the city, the standards of kindness and hospitality, upon which morality is built, are set so low that even the smallest kindness becomes a great burden in the eyes of all those who have been raised or lived for a long time in that place. Callousness becomes so natural that it is taken for granted, and a small gesture of good will is first suspect, then taken for granted, then seen as weakness, and the standards of living become set in what appears normal, even right. When everyone around you was killing, Ancient Warrior, was it not natural to kill? When all whom you know are brutal, does not kindness seem to be weak, or foolish?” the Light Bearer paused, awaiting the acknowledgment of his experience before continuing, “So it was with this place, so influential that all of the towns around it took on the same culture of mean-spirited, callous rushing around, a constant hurry to do first one thing, then another, to keep up with all that had to be done, lest their lives fall into the constantly threatening calamity of debt and powerlessness, in a place where the vulnerable had neither food to eat nor a place to live. The fear became pervasive, even for those who were relatively well-off. In the end, even those who wanted to be kind, believed themselves to be good people, in the end behaved with cruelty. However kind in their eyes, by other standards, more universal standards, they were cruel, but they could not see things that way, and in the end, not knowing any differently, with the standard of kindness at so low a level, even ended up defending the system under which they lived. When that was what they were taught to be good and practical, they could not believe in any other way, and thus sealed their doom.”

”

(Hopefully some insights may be gleaned from it, if anyone is interested.)

ShiraDestinie

Universal Date: Tuesday, October 3. 12014 H.E. (Holocene Era)

http://universalcalendar.eu5.org/

One possible version of the Great Flood… fr. CFoF Book 2: Reposo

Waves lapped at her breasts, the cold water raising goose bumps on her clammy chilled flesh. The matron shivered, lifting her head, drawing a deep breath from her belly, and pushing the words out with her diaphragm:

“Soon and very soon

we are going to see the King”

the others joined in, linking arms,

“Soon and very soon

we are going to see the King”

“what are they doing singing?!” tears stung her face as Naamah bellowed

get them in here, son! Now! Drag them by their idiotic hair if you have to, but get them in this boat! What do they think they are doing?! They …”

Her words were drowned out by the woman´s next call,

“No more crying!”

the others, lifting their voices above the waves, responded

No more crying there

we are going to see the king”

Naamah lunged at the railing, one foot already hooked over the side, as her sons dragged her by each arm, the third linking his hands around her struggling waist, dragging her back inside as Reposo slammed the door, lowering the massive bar, enclosing them all in darkness, muffling the cries outside the arc.

At last, when she her breath returned,

over the stench of the animals,

“They told me, but I could not stop them. Demanding an audience.”

What?

“An audience with the One who decreed this flood. Protesting the lack of input in his decision.”

“What a hell of a way to protest. They aren’t gong to get very far.”

…

ShiraDest.

UN Date: Sunday, October 1. 12014 H.E. (Holocene Era)

Here it is -the Real Draft #6! How (NOT) to Write a Practice Novel, CFoF, Book 1: Beginnings;

Organisation is definitely another key element of writing a novel.  Too many backup files and changes in one directory make for lost edits -a novelist’s nightmare.  This is why I prefer paper.

Here is the real Draft #6, with major changes to the chapter headings, and far cleaner prose, but still two main hero(ine)s :  RealDraft6Creator Friend or Foe Beginnings

ShiraDestinie, 26.9.12014 H.E.

How (NOT) to Write a Practice Novel, CFoF, Book 1: Beginnings; Draft #6

This is where it gets hairy -as in splitting hairs.  After Draft #5, I read up on How to Write a Novel, and discovered that one should have only One Hero(ine), not two or more, per novel.  So, along with changes in the pov and scene divisions, all made on paper to a hardcopy of Draft #5, as I like to spread all the chapters out and see them lined up pages all-together (not yet possible on a pc), I began books 1 and 1.5, along with shuffling chapter 0 out to Book 2: Reposo.  Nevertheless, for some reason, here is a 6th draft of Book1, which incorporates more cute furry animal displays, more sarcastic replies, and much less philosophy than I would have liked, but I bowed to popular pressure:

Draft # 6 which was in Progress:  Drft6startedCreatorFriendorFoeBook1Beginnings

ShiraDest, TYS Date: 26.9.12014 H.E.

How (NOT) to Write a Practice Novel, CFoF, Book 1: Beginnings; Draft #5

This is where I stopped for a while, due to life.  I realized also, that it needed a complete overhaul to be marketable, despite being told that it is a worthwhile story, which I appreciate.  It may be readable, but probably not yet publishable.

Draft # 5: Creator Friend or Foe Book 1 BeginningsDrft5

ShiraDestinie

Universal (MEOW Community Cooperation) or Tell Your Story Date: Tuesday, 26 September, 12014 H.E. (Holocene/Human Era)

http://meow-date.orgfree.com/

Where’s Draft #4? Cut, cut, cut: How (NOT) to Write a Practice Novel, CFoF, Book 1: Beginnings

Now I know: always write your synopsis, and a rough draft Query Letter, BEFORE you start writing your novel!

No 4th draft, but I did:  Rm ‘Angel Thought-Forms’  (there goes my Wiccan training), catalytic over-the-top verbiage, and even whole chapters of important but possibly melodramatic anger-at-being-abused-as-a-child-and-blamed-for-self-pity angelic discussions, like:

1.) “And I can feel all of you, covering all of my body, even within and without, my Kind and unbearably Beautiful Creatrix.  You seem to flow all throughout me, and your warmth, I fear, will melt me into your wings.”  as the woman said this, she found an odd image coming into her mind of a being, human-like, but neither male nor female, head surrounded by a golden light, with white coverings, and large wings.  Had her Creatrix always appeared to have these several sets of soft multicolored wings, she wondered?  ”

and

2.) ““No, My Love, this is not the end, but rather, only the beginning.  Await,” whispered the Creatrix, “and let me show you how much more is to come.  In time, I hope to go from being a Bearer of Light to become, through you, a catalyst for illumination.  Over time, you should find your own light, and show it to me.””

and finally

3.)

”
Chapter 14. “Harp Players and Harpies -Harps, ALL”
“Waiting for death to free her … Heroic deeds lending life once more…“
-from “The Book Of The Catalyst Of Illumination”

“Hey, Harp, nice to see you again.”

“Be careful, or they will start confusing the good guys with the bad guys, as they used to say.”

“No matter, they can’t tell the difference between us, and we’re all on the same team, now, anyway.  Right?  What are you doing here in Janoj? I haven’t seen you since you were guarding that blob, back West.  Remember, the one that the humans never even bothered to give one of their silly names, when he was born?  How did that one go?”

“Oh, you mean my last charge, the poor servant who was wrongly accused of stealing?  Well, not so well actually, he ended up being tried and executed.  Since their law also requires torture for any confession to be valid, naturally he confessed to the theft, and was then executed.  These human beings are really starting to worry me.  Anyway, my next charge was this one, born here in Janoj.  ”

“Yeah, and you seem to have had a sex change, I see.  So how about this one, you like the blob you’re guarding now?  What is she like, is it this one you have charge over now?  Hey, not too bad, long hair, fair skin, not too skinny like these waifs the blobs seem to prefer over here nowadays.  Not bad at all.  Hey, would you like to trade blobs and take mine?  I can take good care of yours here, no problem protecting her.  She will be safe in my care, beneath the spread of my wings, and my skirts too…”

“OK, that is about enough of that.  You know what happened last time you tried having your way with -hey, what’s going on here.  Your ill mannered charge is intimidating my charge!  Go get him to back away and calm down, please.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, ‘why’ -is it not clear to you that an altercation is about to ensue?”

“And so?”

“If your charge harms my charge, and you do nothing to prevent it, you shall answer…”

“Answer to whom, I wonder.  Our mandate is to report back, try to protect them from themselves, and no to interfere too much.”

“We are also bound to protect them, as much as possible, remember?”

“OK, OK, let me go try to make him see a bit of reason.  He will not harm her, I know him well.  There, you see, words, mere words, he is simply speaking to her, and she will choose whether to make it the altercation you fear.”

“Your charge is provoking her, and you do nothing.  You are aware, and  you must stay his hand before it is too late.”

“Don’t worry my friend, he will be fine.  Now look.  Your, charge seems to be insisting on continuing the confrontation, rather than walking away as she should do now.  Look, she is talking to him, now, she is starting to get upset, you see, she is heated.  Making her point.  She’s going to go over the top…  Here she goes, oh, damn!  She kept her cool!”

“Well, friend, I am sorry to see you so disappointed over my charge’s good behavior.  And just exactly what did you expect her  to do, lose it and start yelling at him?  She wants to rise above it all.  And rightly so.  She is learning, and I rejoice to see this progress.”

“But I want her to let it all out!  I think it will do her some good.  Hey, maybe if I whisper in her ear…”

“Don’t even think about it friend, your charge over here is trolling for a fight.  This probably will not end well.”

“And who says that is a bad thing?  After all, these blobs do need to learn their lessons some kind of way.”

“We are supposed to be protecting them.  Picking fights for them that they can in no way win is not my idea of either help or protection.  Unless one is supposed to learn the lesson of how to pick herself up off the floor, and the other is supposed to learn how to earn more bad karma!”

“But who says a little bad karma won’t do him some good, and she needs to be less sheltered anyway.  Come on, have a little fun!  We only get to see this batch of blobs for a short time, after all.  And besides, they like it this way.  After all, this is the world that they chose to create.  They set it up this way, so they must enjoy all of this fracas.”

”What are you talking about?”

“Look at it this way.  You remember that young woman who walked to the sea, not too far back?”

“Which one, it happens all the time, unfortunately, of course.”

“Exactly my point.  She was beautiful, had men, and the occasional woman, following her around, stopping to exclaim over her beauty, and of course, asking her to have their babies for them.  She was  descended from warriors on one side, and Yuval on the other.”

“You mean the great musician Yuval?”

That one, exactly, and she had even sung a little herself.  One of her young students said she sang like one of us!  Not that we actually sing, but still.  Another friend of  her´s was in the habit of asking her to sing for her, with that ‘glorious voice’ as she put it.  So this girl had no shortage of reason to understand that she was talented.  She even gained admission the academy of Shem and Ever…”

“You’ve been reading those memory curls again!  That was in the last experiment, not this one.”

“Right, sorry, well, she did get into some academy, and was a scholar, acknowledged to be highly intelligent.  With brains, beauty, and lovely voice, and knowing that she had all of this, now why would she walk to the sea?”

“OK, you tell me.  Why did she do it?  She obviously wasn’t terribly practical.”

“Because her guardian kept too much to the letter of our orders, never interfering.”

“And rightly so.”

“Hmpf.  She was never alone, but she never knew that.  Acquaintances spoke to her.  That is, spoke to her, not with her.  But it was not sincere.  While some may have had the best of intentions, all lacked the respect of true friendship.  They offered only the sort of help reserved for the needy, with no  substance.  For her, death was preferable to this self-serving condescension.  She pointed out their behavior, and lost what tenuous support she had had.  Refusing to abandon a community which had in reality already abandoned her, she clung to them, feeling that she was not wanted.  Feeling unloved, she ended her life on her terms, in the sea.”

“Well she must not have had any accomplishments that made her useful to the community.”

“Wrong again.  She spent a decade writing, talking, singing, all to please them, trying to show them how much better they could be.”

“No wonder they did not support her.  She kept poking them in the eye, holier than they were.”

“Trying to inspire them.”

“These blobs can’t be inspired.  They respond with their instincts 99% of the time.”

“That is the shame of it.  She told them how unjust a social system they have created , and tried to explain how they could create a system which empowered and protected all of them, weakest to strongest, and could help each of them reach whatever their potential, however limited or great.”

“No wonder they laughed at her.  An idealist.”

“But this is exactly the same thing that Aclima, now called Artemis…”

“You mean the Queen mother, wife of the ruler of the city?  All the blobs are looking for her right now.”

“Yes, exactly, her.  This is the same thing that she has been saying all along, but of course, being locked up in the palace, she had no one to tell but her servants and her guardian, who told me.  We shall see whether the Lady Artemis can have any influence anywhere else on these human beings, if she survives the hunting parties that are out for her head.”

“Do they know it was her, yet?  They are still saying that Lamej, the sword-maker, killed King Evren.”

“I have not been able to find out yet.  All of the other guardians are still too terrified to talk.  The guardians here in Janoj are nearly as bad as the human beings in their unscrupulousness.  Human, guardian, it almost makes no difference, anywhere.  They are so corrupt all over, it is hard to see how any of them survives.  So, this young woman back West, anyway, she went to her death, poetically, and alone.  Such a shame, such a waste.  And so unnecessary, given that all her guardian had to do was whisper something positive in her ear.  Encourage her in the right path, let her know that she was not ever alone, even for one instant.  But that guardian refused.”

”So the guardian did her job, and in fact did it pretty well, if you ask me.  We are not here to interfere, we are here to report back and maybe try to prevent the worst excesses.  Really what they do to each other is up to them, not us.  How else are the Creator and Creatrix supposed to know what would happen?  They gave them free will for exactly that reason, and this is how that one chose to exercise it.  Pretty good deal, come to think of it.  If you ask me, the level of free will they have is actually better than the deal we get.  Almost no free will, and nothing interesting to do all day but hang around and watch them find new ways to hurt each other.  Sometimes they get more creative and things are a bit more interesting, but in general, I say the sooner this experiment is over with the better.  If I had a say in my existence, I think I could find far more interesting things to do this, when all they are is an experiment to see what they will do when given too much time and free will for their own good.  Now we on the other hand, would do much better with  free will.  Teach them how to find their potential serving us, limited though it may be.  That would do some good.  The annoying ones we could just let fight amongst themselves.  Could be entertaining.”

“Who put you on this duty?  At least when you were guardian of the Dilmun river, you were doing something useful for everyone.”

“I did something useful after that, too, I had a fiery sword, then culled the herds of errant human blobs.  That was a fun and fulfilling assignment, and a nice change of pace from supervising all of those bubble-headed water molecule guardians.  You on the other hand, might have been better off staying in the garden with the tree.”

“That tree went up with the volcano you so deftly used to revive the flaming sword, you git!  Or are you deliberately implying that I would be better off having winked out of existence?”

“Well, yes, as I was saying, a nice vacation.” the harpie smirked,  “You are taking these short-lived clay blobs far too seriously.”

“Being guardian for the Tree of Knowledge was a rewarding experience, since I had much time for contemplation, and I recommend it highly for you as well.  You are at best, a major ambiguity for these confused corporeal creatures, and at worst, an actual menace.  If you do not want to help them, then fine, that is your prerogative, since you seem to be so jealous of their freedom.  But you are certainly not here to do them any harm, nor to suggest that they work against their own potential.  You are right about our mandate, we are not under orders to influence them in any specific way, it is technically true.  Just let them play with their toys and keep them out of each others way, that’s all we need to do, really.”

“More fun to let them play with each other and see what happens.  Kind of like bumper cars or demolition derby, oh, they haven´t invented that yet, or is it again?  Anyway, watching them draw battle lines between each other with soft bodies and mostly mediocre brains -far more interesting.”

“You really are getting to be a nuisance, do you know that?  Is there not some place in the hierarchy I can petition to get you removed from Guardian duties and replaced by a harp who actually gives a damn about these creatures.”

“What, I do give a damn about them -I want to see most of them damned to a place they actually deserve.  Something resembling one of those hell realms in which many of them are starting to believe.”

“Took them long enough to re-discover that old thought-form.”

“If they insist on creating a world which is so much like what many of them and nearly all of us would qualify as being what a variety of hell would resemble if there were such a place, then who are we to interfere with their misbegotten schemes?”

“We are the ones who are supposed to direct them toward a higher path, remember?”

“Wait, have you been imbibing again, that stuff they pour out to us as libation offerings, because you are really starting to sound as if you have internalized that up and down stuff they all seem to make up for themselves, like Higher, and Path, etc.  I suppose it gives them something to look forward to in their short and mostly miserable existences.  Where have you been, Harp Player, floating on your cloud again plucking those lyre strings?  I really had a good laugh when I heard that the Ancient Warrior had promoted some guardians to form his new choir, as he calls it.  Then somehow some of the clay blobs heard of it, and started their own choirs to sing praises to King Evren and Crown Prince Janoj.  We actually heard about it all the way back West through the spy network blobs.  I was saying the other day…”

“I do not care what you were saying the other day you moron!  At least I was not one of the Harpies, dedicated to swooping down and destroying.”

“Moron?  Look who is talking, you conceited overly concerned self righteous clay blob-lover!  If I had my sword I would cut your strings and then cut your ethereal throat!  Then I could go back to cutting down these idiot nuisances we waste our time reporting on.  They all need to be cut down like grass, as the Creator has ordered on more than one occasion, and honored me with the pleasure of carrying out the order.  What a lovely sword that was, reaching from the stratosphere down to the surface of the earth, able to level whole city populations with one swing, flames shooting forth from all up and down the length of that weapon of beautiful destruction.  Ah, those were the days.  How I wait.”

“Well, how good for me then that your sword has been confiscated.  I might have to make you understand the power of my lyre.  You are on this duty because you clearly have much to learn, and I would gladly teach you were it not for the paramount importance I place upon my duty to these blobs, as you see them.  By the way, my charge is a member of the royal family, so if she is harmed in any way, you will have yet another charge of yours end badly through your negligence.  Shut up and pay attention to your charge, harpie!”

”

and you have a missing 4th draft, but a query letter (which caused me to re-plot the next draft using SnowFlake, Elizabeth George, and other websites, but in too much of a hurry, since I was also giving tours, writing my non-fiction book, and trying to build inter-faith community, all at the same time…)

QL:  CFoF Book 1 Lewis Query Letterbak

ShiraDestinie

Universal Date: (MEOW CC Date:): Tuesday, 26 September, 12014 H.E. (Holocene/Human Era)