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I can always count on the latest writing trend to give me a prompt to post. Today's prompt comes from Leslie, or ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
oursin, and the five words she picked because I asked her.
Dryads: The username for this journal islightgreendryad because I love trees. I enjoy their beauty, their structure, their evolutionary ingenuity, and the many chances to anthropomorphize their existence. Naturally, in that anthropomorphization, I latch onto the ancient idea of dryads. Those with a common knowledge of Greek mythology can tell you that dryads are women who are the spirits of specific trees. The dryad is tied to the life of the tree; dryad dies, so does the tree, and the opposite. Those who have common Greek myth know-how might be able to tell you that dryads did all sorts of mischief and had all sorts of sexual interaction with the characters in Greek mythology.
Of course, what they won't be able to tell you about is the complex fantasy/sci-fi world I've built up using those rudimentary facts. I've unearthed all the tiny facts that float around Greek mythology about dryads and then made my own applications from them. It's an ongoing project. it's work that will eventually be a publishable story, it's beautiful, and it's mine. I won't tell you anything else for fear you'll steal my creation.
Creation: I believe in the creation myth of Adam and Eve, of seven days, each with various building blocks of essential progress. I also think that the days aren't days as we think of them, but sets of several hundred/thousand years. I think that this idea easily combines the Bible creationist myth and Darwin's idea.
I believe in progress in general. I believe that every individual should have some sort of progress in their lives, and that no one should get themselves stuck. I also believe that my body is capable of the creation of another human being. Maybe several, or maybe none. That belief is being tested this year. I'm sure you'll hear whether we're successful.
Belief: Belief plus action in the direction of that belief equals faith. If you ask for help from your deity on the really big test that you've got, and then you study for the test and do as much as you possibly can, it shows that you've done the necessary work for the thing you have faith in to happen.
If you ask for safety and then jump out in front of a moving bus, that's not faith. That's just stupid. The same thing happens if you take the asking out of the action. You're just doing, but you're not depending on anyone who wants to help and who can help. I believe that we need to ask for help like we can't do it ourselves, and then act like all of it depends on us.
Dry lands: Interesting choice of words,oursin. You didn't say desert, you said dry lands. Two images pop up: the cold desert of Antarctica. And a reservoir of water that's dried up and receded, leaving mud with the skeletons of dead animals and trash embedded in it. The mud is left in the sun to dry. It gets that crackly effect, but if you arrive as a youth group and you want to play volleyball, the net is really easy to wedge in the mud and the game turns into a mud fight. It was exhausting because the mud went almost up to our knees, but it was the funnest game of volleyball I've ever had, once we got over the discomfort of slightly spiky skeletons under the several feet of mud.
Epiphanies: The reason I enjoy art. I've had the clearest, most amazing epiphanies while pacing backstage, waiting for the show to start, with the energy and excitement coursing through my veins. As both an actor and a technician. That energy is unique to performance and it's addicting. It's also the reason we subject ourselves to so much work in the theatre.
I've had the most self-revelatory realizations after I've pasted pictures into my collage book. When I collage, I'm very much in the moment of spacial perception. How things fit with each other, what parts of each image are most important, what fits where the best. I'm vaguely aware of how it all fits together, like a little buzzing in the background. The meaning of all the images only comes together after I'm done. And sometimes, it's amazing what I come up with.
oursin, and the five words she picked because I asked her. Dryads: The username for this journal is
lightgreendryad because I love trees. I enjoy their beauty, their structure, their evolutionary ingenuity, and the many chances to anthropomorphize their existence. Naturally, in that anthropomorphization, I latch onto the ancient idea of dryads. Those with a common knowledge of Greek mythology can tell you that dryads are women who are the spirits of specific trees. The dryad is tied to the life of the tree; dryad dies, so does the tree, and the opposite. Those who have common Greek myth know-how might be able to tell you that dryads did all sorts of mischief and had all sorts of sexual interaction with the characters in Greek mythology. Of course, what they won't be able to tell you about is the complex fantasy/sci-fi world I've built up using those rudimentary facts. I've unearthed all the tiny facts that float around Greek mythology about dryads and then made my own applications from them. It's an ongoing project. it's work that will eventually be a publishable story, it's beautiful, and it's mine. I won't tell you anything else for fear you'll steal my creation.
Creation: I believe in the creation myth of Adam and Eve, of seven days, each with various building blocks of essential progress. I also think that the days aren't days as we think of them, but sets of several hundred/thousand years. I think that this idea easily combines the Bible creationist myth and Darwin's idea.
I believe in progress in general. I believe that every individual should have some sort of progress in their lives, and that no one should get themselves stuck. I also believe that my body is capable of the creation of another human being. Maybe several, or maybe none. That belief is being tested this year. I'm sure you'll hear whether we're successful.
Belief: Belief plus action in the direction of that belief equals faith. If you ask for help from your deity on the really big test that you've got, and then you study for the test and do as much as you possibly can, it shows that you've done the necessary work for the thing you have faith in to happen.
If you ask for safety and then jump out in front of a moving bus, that's not faith. That's just stupid. The same thing happens if you take the asking out of the action. You're just doing, but you're not depending on anyone who wants to help and who can help. I believe that we need to ask for help like we can't do it ourselves, and then act like all of it depends on us.
Dry lands: Interesting choice of words,
oursin. You didn't say desert, you said dry lands. Two images pop up: the cold desert of Antarctica. And a reservoir of water that's dried up and receded, leaving mud with the skeletons of dead animals and trash embedded in it. The mud is left in the sun to dry. It gets that crackly effect, but if you arrive as a youth group and you want to play volleyball, the net is really easy to wedge in the mud and the game turns into a mud fight. It was exhausting because the mud went almost up to our knees, but it was the funnest game of volleyball I've ever had, once we got over the discomfort of slightly spiky skeletons under the several feet of mud. Epiphanies: The reason I enjoy art. I've had the clearest, most amazing epiphanies while pacing backstage, waiting for the show to start, with the energy and excitement coursing through my veins. As both an actor and a technician. That energy is unique to performance and it's addicting. It's also the reason we subject ourselves to so much work in the theatre.
I've had the most self-revelatory realizations after I've pasted pictures into my collage book. When I collage, I'm very much in the moment of spacial perception. How things fit with each other, what parts of each image are most important, what fits where the best. I'm vaguely aware of how it all fits together, like a little buzzing in the background. The meaning of all the images only comes together after I'm done. And sometimes, it's amazing what I come up with.