Music in Blog

 I woke up this morning thinking of music; the kind of music that is about lyrics.  Words strung together with a certain tempo that get stuck in your brain for an hour, a day, or a week. 

Last night at the Academy Awards a young couple won an Oscar for their sweet tune, “Falling Slowly”.  Given the competition and the magnitude of the performances related to the same, is it any wonder that this pair seemed struck by a bolt of lightening when their names were called. In the true sense of winning they were the epitome of what we believe in, not the hype, not the self-seeking, not for-old-time-sake, but for the genuine purity of lyrics. 

Sometimes I answer questions with a lyric.  I find myself in a situation that brings to mind a mood and a song.  Sing to me, words to give me hope, and words to stir my heart. When Marketa Irglova was ushered back onto the stage she used up less than a minute to say thank you to the Academy.  Her words were worth noting.

 “…and, you know, fair play to those who dare to dream, and don’t give up.  This song was written from the perspective of hope, and hope at the end of the day, connects us all, no matter how different we are.” 

I am a writer and I like to write about such things as hope.  Belly of the Whale is much like the song that won the Oscar.  It doesn’t carry a lot of hype, it isn’t like another famous book, and it does not follow in the footsteps of mystery, romance or thriller.  Belly of the Whale’s message was also written from the perspective of hope.  

There are times when the beauty of simple lyrics outweighs the grandeur of costumes and seventy-six trombones.  Like a simple song of hope whose lyrics stay with you throughout the day, Belly of the Whale will touch your heart and resonate inside you long after the book is closed and the pages all read. 

  The soul’s voice whispers in the early hours of day.  Blog about music and lyrics, blog about reading a book.  Keep the melody in your head; find the words embedded in your heart. Blog what you think, see and hear. 

Linda Merlino, author, Belly of the Whale 

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A blog about Dreams

  Blog about dreams.  We all have dreams.  That place we go to when we are not in deep sleep, the cross-over place of almost sleeping brings us into another dimension.  We spend almost a third of our lives asleep, this is a known fact.  What happens to our imagination when we slumber, that nocturnal time when consciousness is shut down? Sleep takes us on a mystical journey of dreams where people and places collide.    What do our dreams tell us?  Our task is to listen. What in our waking world causes us to ask questions?  Dreams give us the answers.  The answers are not orderly.  The answers do not come in a structured response.

 Dead Aunt Mary invites us to dinner with seven people we’ve never met and the fare is water and dried prunes.  What do we make of this supper party?  How does a dream with dead Aunt Mary give us answers? The ancients believed in dreams.  Wars were fought, events foretold and Kings were born out of dreams.   Perhaps Aunt Mary was a person we trusted; maybe she had all the answers.  I wrote a novel, my first, based solely on a dream.  The seed of that story was planted with my eyes closed.  Dreams have a way of opening our minds to many possibilities.  How do we feel after a significant dream?  What emotion is present?  Does our ego over ride the interpretation of a dream?  All of these questions arise.

 I am not blogging about dreams with the intention of suggesting that we make life decisions based on them, but more realistically, that we give respect to dreams.  Honor the nights we find our self at the dinner table of a long demised relative who has invited a hodge-podge of outsiders.  Perhaps sitting down to dinner with the unknown would force me, or any of us, to make conversation, to pay attention, to be on our best behavior, and to garner wisdom. 

Seven is a significant number; it heralds a cycle which acknowledges lessons learned.  Aunt Mary epitomizes someone we felt comfortable with and it would not matter how many strangers there were at her table.  Having Aunt Mary as hostess makes it all okay.  Take this into real life and perhaps something we fear is not as ominous as we think.  Someone we trust is guiding us and we have to learn to make peace with the outcome, find our place in terra incognita. 

A dream blog can be a wake up call.  Set our alarm for tomorrow and we may find our self caught in a “ground hog day” scenario.  Do it over until you get it right.  This may never happen on the realistic plane but could recur in dream after dream until we recognize that we must face a fear, or an ingrained habit of denial that has dogged our heels.  Whatever it is, dreams are our friends disguised in vignettes and characters that seem confused with our recent activities. 

 We can blog about our dreams and view them as a response to our souls need for nurturing.  Feed me the soul asks…your dreams will tell you how and when. 

Blog what you see, hear and think… Talk later…Linda Merlino, author: Belly of the Whale

www.kunati.com/linda-merlino

preorder hardcover at great price on amazon.com

Promise in a Blog « Kunatiauthor’s Weblog

Promise in a Blog « Kunatiauthor’s Weblog

Sunrise in a Blog

 I try to follow my own advice, and in a bloggers world that is to blog about what I see.  In this case blog about what is out side my window and how it will affect my day.  There can be beauty in blog, you just have to recognize it in your life and pass the beauty on. 

It is early morning.  I am in my car.  The air crisp, clear New England cold envelopes me.  Hunkered down in the driver’s seat I begin my short commute.  Ahead of me the sun rises.  I look out my window and see blue sky, an ocean blue palette of color spread low against the sun’s upward movement. 

Still tired from being forced outside of slumber, I squint into the light.  I reach for my glasses, slide them low on my nose and dip my head to see under the tint of the windshield.  The color intensifies, like looking through a mystical glass it continues to wrap around the sky as I drive.  Skirting the blue is a layer of petal pink, the combination is upside down; pink over blue and the two together, spectacular.

If I was still in bed I would have missed this collision of color, this singular event of the cosmos.  Having to go to work keeps me from reading, keeps me from getting more pages of another book written.   My day job prevents me from answering email and doing internet marketing for my new novel.  Having to plug away takes me out of the valley that surrounds me onto a country road that takes me to higher ground.  Perhaps there is an underlying message in all of that, one that speaks of narrow views and of going outside me to broader vistas.

There is time to pull over; I am full face to the rising sun’s majesty.

Houses dot the landscape, their sleepy windows dark and snoring.   Wake up I whisper.  Run to your windows and greet the sunrise.  Don’t miss this one; don’t go through your whole day never knowing its beauty.   But this is life?  There are people who have the world uninterrupted right before their eyes and never look out a window?  They go through their days oblivious to the rising and the setting.

I can not see the sunrise from my home.  I have to search it out, like Mohamed to the mountain.  This interlude with the rising sun tells me that I am on the right path.  Tells me that others may have the opportunities but do not take them, and I have to try harder, but no matter.  Perhaps too, the journey is more important than the destination and for sure, there is a higher power.  So I share the beauty in blog and tell you that life is for living.

“He who postpones the hour of living is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.”  Horace 65-8 BCE 

Linda Merlino, author of “Belly of the Whale”: release date April 2008

http://www.kunati.com/linda-merlino

Preorder in hardcover at a great price from amazon.com

    

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