Archive for the ‘stories’ Category
Posted by Cliodhna
they are honestly.. well ok, in the top five I have seen in my short time on this earth.
The first one I saw at an animation shorts festival a few years ago and have been wanting to see it again but didn’t know the name or the makers. Its the story of the world told through the eyes of two rocks sitting on a hill watching the times pass by. here is the link to the animation. You can make it into full screen.
Das Rad
The second one I discovered on a the telly one night and tells the story of the dog who didn’t want to be a dog and has the help of a gecko to realise his dream. This has minor cult status amongst my family and some friends. By irish film maker Rory Bresnihan.
Guy’s Dog
ok, go watch and enjoy.
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Posted by Cliodhna
…and the cock crew at midnight, witching hour, space between yesterday and tomorrow, a tiny space of now.
I slept and did not hear his clarion call to the world, that caused small animals to look up in wonder and large ones to feel the pull in their bellies. I felt it in my bones though, and dreamt of tidal waves and earthquakes and great winds sweeping the earth.
In the chicken coop an egg was beginning to hatch, the chick following blind instinct to hit out at the darkness surrounding it, to crack, to break, to push outwards. Imagine! all the world this chick has ever known is about to get as big as eternity.
But then, the world is the perfect size for each of us and we should not be afraid of the spaces between the stars.
x cliodhna,
to all us little chicks pushing out and breaking out of all the world we have ever known!
Posted by Cliodhna
maggie and milly and molly and may
by e.e. cummings
maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and
milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;
and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and
may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.
For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea
One of my favourite poems. I love the work of this poet and check out the flickr photo I found as an illustration to it. The link is in the title of the poem.
I have prints for sale in my etsy shop now. Also if there is a picture of mine you would like a print of from my flickr site or easier look here at my website and I can arrange it for you.
Thanks! and happy saturday!
Posted by Cliodhna
Hades was the king of the underworld and he stole Persephone down to his underground kingdom and tricked her into eating six pomegranate seed which meant that she would have to stay for six months underground and could return to the surface for six months. This is where winter and summer comes from. When Persephone goes underground her mother, who is the earth mother, Demeter, mourns for her lost child.
So says the myth
but… greek myths are not just myths but maps of the human pysche. I become fasinated by various ones at different times. This one, I began thinking about Persephone, queen of the underworld for six months. Does she fall in love with Hades who really loves her? does she gain some of his power? In an earlier myth she was actually the queen of death and life but as the world grew more patriarchal the myths changed and the women grew less and became secondary to the men. So she survives as an abductee without power, forced to be with Hades for six months.
I think she learns and accepts her fate, takes half of the power down below and shares the throne with Hades.
Demeter can’t accept this, her beloved daughter has grown up and has taken a position opposite hers, Demeter is life, Persephone is death. She mourns for innocent times past when there was no knowledge of death and decay and change. But there can be no life with change.
Hades, in a secret part of himself worships Persephone and can’t believe he has managed to trap this angel of light to himself. He is lost when she is gone for the six months and waits for her to come home, maybe afraid she will break the agreement and never return.
She is two.. life and death, winter and summer, free and bound, the light and winds and the underground darkness.
The first picture is Persephone looking to the light as she prepares to leave for the six months, not looking back, happy to be going up to the green and the sun. Hades looks at her leaving, he can’t follow, he is bound to the underworld.
The second picture is hades lost without her. The sad king, he has a whole kingdom and it is not enough.
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Posted by Cliodhna
Once upon a time at the very beginning of the world a baby arrived on earth. No-one knew where he came from, maybe an angel brought him, but there were no other people around to ask this question anyway, he was the only one.
He was very small at first and he ate little plants and drank water from a stream and the animals brought him milk and other good things to eat. He was happy then, he played in the sun and splashed in the puddles when it rained and it was good.
He was always hungry though and as he ate he grew, and as he grew he ate more and more and he was still always hungry. He ate whole trees for breakfast, he made huge nets to catch all the fish in one lake for lunch, he caught whole herds of buffalo and mountain goats for dinner and he was still hungry and he was still growing. He got so big that he could cover miles with one step and was higher than a mountain and still he grew.
There was no end to his hunger; it was like a hole inside him that he couldn’t fill, no matter how much food he ate. When he had eaten everything there was to eat in one place he would move onto the next and start there. He lay on the ground and scooped whole forests into his mouth or he put his face into the sea and drank the water and ate all the fish that came with it. Nothing was safe from his appetite.
The time came when he had traveled the entire world and had eaten everything there was to eat. There was nothing left. He began to get very hungry, he ate rocks and earth but these didn’t fill him.
He shouted at the sun “Give me more food!” but the sun didn’t answer and this made him angry.
He shouted at the clouds “Give me more water, I am thirsty!” but the clouds didn’t answer and this made him angrier.
He pounded the earth with his fists and scraped the last little plants into his mouth but it was never enough.
He shouted to the sky “I am stuck here, and there is nothing to eat!”
Days passed and he got weaker and weaker from the lack of food. He lay on the ground and thought about his life.
“Why did I eat everything at once” he thought “I saved nothing and now I will die”
He lay there for many days, unable to move and as he lay there he got closer to death.
He opened his eyes one day and there in front of his face was a tiny blue flower. His first thought was to eat it and he stretched out his hand to take it and put it in his mouth.
He stopped and thought “This flower is too tiny and too fragile and if I eat it there will be no more. It is too tiny; it will not save me from death”
He curled his hand around it to protect it from the wind and when it rained he made sure it got water. He began to love the flower, its colour, its smallness, its bravery in such a huge world and he wondered that he had never looked at the world properly before. He cried from sadness of all that he had missed.
“I was so busy eating I never looked at what I was eating” and he remembered the yellow eyes of the goats and the silver of fish and the greenness of grass and the shade of a forest. All gone.
He closed his eyes “I deserve to die” he thought
He felt a cool hand on his face then and when he opened his eyes a beautiful figure was standing in front of him. “I am the guardian of the earth” she said and her voice was sweet and soft.
“You must hate me” said the giant
“No” said the beautiful woman “You have learned to love the earth in your last moments and I have come to give you a second chance”
“How?” asked the giant “I am dying and I need too much food to live here”
“You don’t need to be hungry anymore” she said and she took the giants hand and pulled him upwards. When he looked down he saw his body still on the ground and he was scared.
“Don’t be frightened” the woman said “you don’t need your body anymore. Will you help me guard the earth from harm and help all the living things to grow on it?”
The giant felt truly happy for the first time since he was a baby.
“Yes,” he said “but I thought I ate everything?”
“No” said the woman “You missed a lot, there are seeds in the soil and fish in the sea and animals still walk the earth, but we have much work to do”
The giant began his work and he works still protecting the small things of the earth from harm. His body became a huge mountain range and hidden in its valleys are the rarest and most precious things the giant wanted to protect.
© cliodhna quinlan
