Welcome to my World

Welcome to the domain different--to paraphrase from New Mexico's capital city of Santa Fe which bills itself "The City Different." Perhaps this space is not completely unique but my world shapes what I write as well as many other facets of my life. The four Ds figure prominently but there are many other things as well. Here you will learn what makes me tick, what thrills and inspires me, experiences that impact my life and many other antidotes, vignettes and journal notes that set the paradigm for Dierdre O'Dare and her alter ego Gwynn Morgan and the fiction and poetry they write. I sell nothing here--just share with friends and others who may wander in. There will be pictures, poems, observations, rants on occasion and sometimes even jokes. Welcome to our world!

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Samhain and Angel Wings


I sometimes think about odd things. I was puttering with some jewelry making stuff the other day. Some of the new charms I had just obtained were wings, I think allegedly angel wings. They were rather stylized and all at once a question popped into my mind. What kind of wings do angels really have?

I know they are most often portrayed with somewhat swan-like wings of white feathers but why? Angels are humanoid beings, or at least that is how they are normally shown and as such are mammals, not birds, right? There are not many flying mammals. The only ones that comes to mind are the varied group of bats. They do not have feathers but do have wings, leathery skin-panels stretched across a somewhat hand-shaped frame of fine bones. Not exactly photogenic, so I guess no one wants to picture angels like that! Well then, how about fairies, another creature that flies and that few to none have ever actually seen. Again in art work they normally seem to have fragile wings a bit like dragon flies or even butterflies. No, they are not insects but again humanoid creatures thought said to be tiny. Hmm. This is all very odd!

In a book I have been reading about Celtic angels and coming to know your personal or guardian/guide angel, the author indicates they don't have wings at all! The reader is asked to draw or design a likeness of your personal angel, how you visualize he or she will look. There is something about visualizing and creating there--as you picture this magical spiritual being, so it may be. Mine is rather neuter gender, could be either male or female or maybe both and no, I did not give it wings. I'd earlier in a dream 'met' my guardian angel who is either two or again, both male and female, and goes by the short name Dara. I stayed close to this image. But the question remained.

What kind of wings does an angel really have? Or do they have wings at all? Certainly an entity with the power and 'magic' that we ascribe to them would not need any device to fly. They could simply levitate, teleport or move about in any manner they chose. So wings are kind of extraneous, perhaps. That being said I suppose they could appear with any type of wings they wish. I am seeing now something between the bat and the butterfly perhaps, a more delicate and less spooky look than the bat but maybe a bit more substantial than the butterfly--iridescent colors and a bit translucent, able to fold neatly out of the way but also a wide span to soar and float upon. Does anyone know? I'd welcome your suggestions!

And Samhain, seemingly unrelated but actually linked to the previous in that our ancestors styled this night one of several times each cycle of a year when the barriers between worlds and realms thin to a gossamer web and things can go back and forth with ease. Maybe angels or fairies or even dragons and monsters. I have absolutely no doubt that all these so-called mythical or allegorical entities do exist somewhere and have probably visited our realm at times and been seen. The old saying, "Where there's smoke, there's fire," comes to mind. Humans are very imaginative in many ways but we have to have some inspiration or nudge to create from. I do not think we could have invented all of the chimera that frequent our fairy tales, mythology, nightmares and legends from nothing all! Who knows, perhaps tomorrow night I will actually see a fairy or an angel and be able to answer this question!

Go in peace and have a lovely holiday, one of my favorites of the year's assortment!

Saturday, October 19, 2013

Perfect Autumn days

It's been too pretty lately to stay inside very much so I am only on the computer in the evenings for the most part. It is chilly early and late now but from mid morning until sundown it is just wonderful. I am reminded again why fall has always been my favorite season. Bright blue skies, golden flowers and leaves, just a fine time to be alive!!

In the distant past it was often time to get out and do a lot of riding and sometimes hunting. Yes, I did grow up with that tradition and have shot animals which may seem shocking and awful to some of my readers. However, we only killed those that we were going to use for meat and did not waste any of them, hides, meat and all. And like the Native Americans who hunted for their food long before my family did, I always thanked the animal's spirit for the sacrifice of its life to sustain me and mine and also the Great Spirit for the same boon. I do not miss the killing part now but I do miss the riding out and exploring to find where the game animals were "'hanging out" and the comradeship with my dad and others on these trips.

Were I to hunt now though, it would be only with a camera. Here is a shot of some deer taken about a year ago on a trip up in the Sacramento Mountains with some visiting friends from Arizona. And one of me on one of those very long ago expeditions up on Mingus Mountain which is part of the Black Hills Range along the western side of Arizona's Verde Valley.

Most frequently we rode mules since they were very sure footed and had good endurance for a long day's trek in the rough terrain. This mule was named Louie and I rode him a lot. Although my dear mare, Tina, who you have met in earlier posts, went a lot as well. There is a shot of me with her at about the same place, probably even on the same trip.  My dad took a lot of pictures which he used to illustrate the stories about hunting and outdoor adventures which he wrote. At the time all this did not seem so special but looking back I am so very thankful for these incredible experiences and for the fact that being born first, I got to the be the 'cowboy' and partner who went along  until my eight-year-younger brother was old enough to join in!

I think tomorrow I may take Red Hot Mama (that's my red pickup truck, you know) and maybe Ginger and go for a little drive up past Cloudcroft and take in some of the scenery a few miles away and several thousand feet higher than my home here in Alamogordo. If I do I will take my camera along and see if I can get a few special shots to share! It should be gorgeous up there about now, aspens turning etc.

In passing, I want to take a moment for fond remembrance of  Belle, my dear little Aussie companion. It's been a year now since she left us for the Rainbow Bridge and she came by to visit at lunch the other day. At first Charlie (my brother) felt a warm pressure against his leg for a minute and then a damp nose nudged my hand. She loved meals and little treats, which I always slipped to her of course, so she came at that particular time to let us know she is fine and waiting for us to join her. Yes, Baby Girl, we still love and miss you! Go in peace and I will see you again in time with the rest of the pack! You are all still so very dear.

Friday, October 11, 2013

Sneeze weeds redux


We had a very windy day yesterday but I did get out and walk with Ginger before it got really gale-force. And I took some pictures! As I mentioned the other day most of our fall flowers are yellow-gold. The ubiquitous "sneeze weeds" certainly are. Here are two shots of the local variety. Different from the common sun flowers, ox-eye daisies, Gerbera daisies etc, they are all yellow, including the center. I looked them up in my weed book and they are called Nodding Beggarticks, apparently in part because of the odd seeds, quite different from those of the sun flowers that most of us have munched. But they are in the same family. The sun flower family is one of the largest featured in my big western weed book!

Once I got to looking though, I saw there were some white and red, magenta or dark pink ones as well. I wasn't able to identify them all yet. I 'll probably have to have a sample in hand and really compare closely to the information in the book in order to do so.

I do like to identify things because it makes them feel like friends instead of some exotic specimen or something insignificant seen in passing. For the same reason, I have learned the names of most of the late spring to mid fall constellations and their principle stars, and try to identify most of the birds and beasties I see, too.

Lastly, there were late day clouds as the trailing end of the storm that brought snow to the high country west and north of us, near the Colorado line, blew past us dry but made the day's end interesting. Although not quite as spectacular as the beam a friend of mine, Sue-Ellen Welfonder, featured on her blog Tartan Ink a few weeks ago, here are my rays of light seen last evening. The clouds almost form a "domino mask" with the blue peeking through above the rays! And as a reminder, if you click on any picture in my blogs, they will all come up in another window, larger in size, and you can scroll through them!

Always in Love With Love...

From about age twelve or so, I devoured adult novels--I do not mean x-rated, per se, but books written for and about grown ups, not the YA crowd like Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys, and the kid-and-horse books etc. I gravitated to love stories of course; indeed the bulk of  those novels did have a love story as a sub-plot if not the primary one. And it was not long before my head was full of fairy tale dreams and very unrealistic expectations! I just knew there was a cowboy prince charming out there somewhere who would carry me off to his version of Ponderosa and we'd ride off together into the happily-ever-after sunset! 

I think in talking about the equines, I may have mentioned taking off a year from high school after I had a painful ‘wreck’ with a wild mule we were training. It reared instead of jumping a ditch and then the bank started to cave in and I let go and kicked free. I landed in the bottom of the ditch on a pile of rocks, a solid hit on my tailbone from about ten feet up! It was extremely painful and although nothing was broken, I did pinch some nerves and had pain and numbness in my legs for awhile. Anyway, once I recovered, I worked full time for about ten months  as a ‘bronco buster’ and trainer with a number of horses and mules. Since I was basically doing a man’s work and not socializing at all with other teens, my romantic interests  turned elsewhere for the objects of my fickle fancy!


I would now call them the “young and restless” (nothing in common with the “soap” ofthe same name) as they were working class men between the ages of about 18 and 30, a few single but most of the “my wife’s married but I’m not” school of thought. They were all more than willing to flirt with a young, footloose and I guess not unattractive girl —like me. I know I was really very lucky they generally recognized me as “jail bait” and so flirting was all they did. At any rate, I went from crush to crush on several guys. I always gave them a nickname of some kind which I used in my diary/journal in an attempt to preserve secrecy but I am sure some were pretty transparent: Blondie and Ace, Rio and  Bo….  Truck drivers, construction workers, a few actual cowboys, and so on.

At the time I did not have a camera so I did my best to capture the likenesses of some of them in sketched portraits. Looking at the results now I am almost surprised—they are not half bad! I laugh though when I read how serious I was about each situation and how silly I was! All were unsuitable, of course, and quite appalling to my parents… As I say, I was lucky! That went on for quite awhile, even after I returned to high school for the last two years as I was by then even farther out of step with my classmates and contemporaries than ever so none of them seemed attractive to me—nor I to them. In many ways the die was thus cast for the bulk of my life. I always related best to people quite a lot older or younger than I was...

These three portraits were done over several years and I think my skill in drawing did improve as I went along. However before I did the last one I had a camera  so I could often work from a snapshot at least and that made it easier. Cheating? Well, (~shrug) I don't know. Probably more reliable than memory anyway!

I also wrote to a lot of penpals, both male and female. I had requests in the Junior Horsemen Column of Western Horseman magazine and later a couple of times in a magazine actually called Ranch Romances.  Most of those fell by the wayside but one girl is still one of my lifelong BFFs and I correspond occasionally with another. The guys though vanished. I met a couple of them and recognized at once that Cowboy Prince Charming were-not-us! But it filled a gap in my life at the time and I suppose no harm done in the long run. Always in love with love I was though. And still am!


Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Gold is the color of Autumn

I will always associate the color gold or golden yellow with fall. Most of the leafy trees in the southwest turn gold rather than red, orange etc. Be it the aspens in the mountains, the cottonwoods along the creeks or other small odds and ends of trees. Then the bulk of the fall flowers are golden as well. Here are a couple of my favorite shots, one of aspens in Wolf Creek Pass in SW Colorado and the other of Cottonwoods in the Alameda Park here in Alamogordo. Both gold and contrasting so beautifully with the brilliant blue sky!


And to carry the idea a bit farther, a couple of verses I've written over the years about fall and its gold. Yes, it has always been my favorite season and the sheer beauty enthralls me no end!  These poems are from my huge self-published book called Mother-Daughter Lines where I put together my verses with some of my mother's that I discovered after she had passed when I was going through her things. All verses are copyrighted! Well, actually every word that I write here is under the law.

         Autumn Gold
Gold is the color of autumn
   The flowers, the leaves and the light.
As green is the color of summer
   And blue is the color of night.
Pink is the color of springtime;
   The color of winter is gray;
But I love the gold of autumn
   And wish the color would stay.         
                        GMW 18 Oct 63

I
The aspens march in golden ranks
encircling the mountain's flanks
and wait in martial silent rows
while overhead the fall sun glows,
washing with gold, in wild excess,
aspens' parade in autumn dress.

                        II
Within a haze of golden trees
  a stream sang golden songs
I dreamed and hoped that I had found
  the spot my soul belongs.
The cliffs were rust, the sky was blue
  and gold was bridged between
to fill the air and fill the earth,
  for me, their Golden Queen.
                         I & II C: 1990

          Fall Reflection
Golden haze of autumn days
That lead the heart in peaceful ways
And hold the winter’s roars at bay, 
Above the mountains, far away.
Wandering by lazy streams
Where drifting leaves echo the dreams
Of happy past and future sure
With summer’s bounty stored, secure.
A time to savor and reflect,
Enjoy what one must oft neglect—
The sense that when all’s said and done,
One is all and all are one.    
                        GMW,1982

               Untitled
Against a brilliant autumn sky of blue
The trees aglow reflect the gold
Of low beamed sunlight, spread
Across the land. A benediction
For the day, thanks for the
Bounty here at hand.
Those leaves that briefly cast
Their colors proud against the
Steady march of winter, gray and cold.
Stark and sure, invading, conquering,
Comes winter, even here it comes.
But for now, against the brilliant
Autumn sky, the trees glow.
          GMW C; 1997

     Autumn Haiku
Indian summer maiden
Decked in turquoise:    
     Autumn’s bright blue days.
                        GMW C: 1976


Miles of Miles and Sneeze Weeds

Whoa, where does the time go? I guess making trips on back to back weekends accelerated the passing of days to the point I have nearly lost track of where I am! Autumn has come to the high desert and I love it. Bright blue skies, cooler mornings and evenings and lazily warm afternoons, just a wonderful time to get out and enjoy this amazing country. Only downside really is the sneeze weeds. I have called those many yellow flowering sunflowerish weeds by that name since I was a wee tyke as I had allergies even then.. They have a pungent scent and pollen that aggravates many people's allergies. We have a field of them right behind the house and I drove through vast areas of them on my trips. The late rains really brought out the weeds.

I was amazed to find when I did a search on the term just for a lark that there really are plants called sneeze weeds and they really are yellow--mostly--sunflowery plants! Well, darn, guess I was not so original after all. I even called those thong sandals flip flops years ago too, back when they were often referred to as thongs or zoris but guess that was not my idea either. Well pooh!

Anyway back to the trips. There was a lit fest in Silver City, NM the last weekend of September. I lived in the area briefly back in 2008-09 so still have some friends over there including one who invited me to stay with her so we could attend the event. The first annual Southwest Literary Festival was very eclectic and seemed to be a fine success. We attended several different presentations and I got what I hope will be a much needed kick start for my own work which has lagged a bit lately, really since my move down here from Colorado, two years ago last week.

I'll break here for a couple of pix from my trips. At left some musicians performing in the Vista Park at Bisbee, AZ; all members of a family or so it appeared. They did folk/bluegrass etc and it was really nice! The next is at the National Cemetery in Bayard, NM. I don't want to be buried LOL but do enjoy some cemeteries. There is just a quiet, peaceful and almost sacred feeling to many of them. This one is large and very nice. They are upgrading the facilities since it became a National Cemetery and it is on the old Fort Bayard grounds.

I met Nancy Turner, the author of These is My Words which a friend gave to me some years ago and I enjoyed greatly. I learned Ms Turner has written two more books about the same woman as well as some others so I will have to see if I can track copies down. I also learned she lives in Tucson and her husband is retired from law enforcement in Arizona as my late husband was. Small world-isms! Then I heard a talk by a gentleman who has written a nonfiction account of the Bell Ranch, one of the largest and best know of the old New Mexico ranches based on a Spanish land grant. That got me excited to try to research--if I have enough years left!!--and write a similar book about the Baca Grant and Green Cattle Company which was a similar establishment in Arizona. Also met a lady who writes westerns and is into enactments and gun-fighting and such and was quite impressed with her. Got three books in a series she is working on and am reading the first one. So I came home Sunday the 29th with a lot of ideas but a bit tired.

Before I could get going on much, an issue arose about family and my old home in southern Arizona near Sierra Vista. I wasn't able to get things resolved by long distance--communication failures--and finally decided I'd just have to bite the bullet and go. I left Thursday morning the 3rd. I was able to get things resolved pretty well and hope to be headed to a point where I will be out of that loop and no longer involved but that will take a bit more time, but hopefully maybe only one more trip to sign papers etc.

The weather was lovely and I got in some train watching, a few pictures, wandering through the Farmer's Market in the Vista Park in Bisbee, AZ and even another detour through Silver City area to see another friend who'd been out of town the previous weekend so we missed. Finally home again on the next Sunday, which was October 6.  I put about 1200 miles on Red Hot Mama (that's my red Mazda pickup, you may recall) and ended up with a new phone since I forgot to take a charger for my old flip phone and one that worked for it was not to be found. So I am almost in the modern age now; not quite a smart phone but almost LOL.

But I am now way behind on a number of projects, plans and such. It is going to take me a few days to get back on track and build up a head of steam sufficient to start chugging along in those directions once again. C'est la vie. I am retired and have all the time in the world, right? Well, kinda sorta!! Achoo.