AWARDS, INTERVIEWS, SPRING VS WINTER
As Valentine’s Day approaches Spring wars with Winter
Who has all but snuffed out LOVE
With Bluster winds, infinite days colored gray.
Racing clouds flirt with mountains like powder puffs,
Their roars of wind-tossed laughter dump infinite inches of snow in crevasses,
Until Mountain tosses off the Bully.
Spring becomes the gentle lady as she ruffles the waters of Hood Canal below, slightly.
Gulls swoop and swerve, dance in a romance with the wind updrafts.
Midst a brief show of sun and blue sky, gulls pause on logs set free by swollen waters.
Beyond the windows, Spring tussles the Winter bully who rattles the front door, rings the chimes, shakes the trees.
Inside, I lean into the word “hunker”
As narcissus bulbs break free of soil in kitchen windows,
Flooding the house with their definitive scent
Reminders in their blossoms that Spring will set me free
I draw out Courage and Strength, combine with Patience.
Written by Susan Glenn Lampe on a blustery day in the Pacific Northwest.
SEARCHING FOR SOLACE, I find myself reading Marianne Williamson’s book, A Return to Love.
I studied A Course in Miracles many years and still keep a copy beside my bed. There is much about love in this book, which claims that fear is its opposite. On page 23, Ms Williamson claims love is so encompassing, it can have no opposite and fear is only an illusion. Some believe our lives on earth are simply a mass hallucination. To quote Williamson on page 23, “fear is not our ultimate reality and it does not replace the truth of who we really are.” She regards fear as a bad dream that splits our minds into a parallel universe “where the unreal seems real and the real seems unreal.”
LOVE is the glue that holds us together and binds us to God, our Creator. We are true creatures of light and love but without the LOVE we become lost and forget our source. Then the animal side of us is set free to roar like the winter winds, and temporarily overcomes the Divine. Our light flickers and becomes dim or can even become obliterated.
WRITER’S DIGEST BOOK CRITIQUE - Recently, I was sent a critique of my book Parsing the Dragon: A Memoir. I’d entered their contest last year but somehow the judge failed to critique my group. So now I received a critique and I think I’ve been entered into another contest. The critique was amazing and I wanted to share it with those who read my BLOG.
INTERVIEW WITH DONNA SEEBO ON DELPHI VISION BROADCASTING - On Wednesday, January 29th I did an interview about my “Parsing” book with DONNA SEEBO on her show, which is part of Delphi Vision Broadcasting. The broadcast streams to 58 countries and the U.S. The broadcast lasts half an hour. Hope you’ll listen and send comments. My daughter, Mindy Hardwick also gave her an interview in September, 2019. My interview is listed in the archives which you can access by clicking on the link and following the directions below:
https://delphiinternational.com/delphi-ondemand-archive/
Click on button to access show archives.
The shows are listed from oldest to most recent, so scroll down to find my show, #2414, January 29, 2020. Click the box next to it to select.
Click on “Play selected files” at the bottom.
The file will download to your computer and play on your default media player.
My two daughters also organized us into a MOTHER/DAUGHTER BOOK CLUB
I got the first pass in January and reviewed the new edition of JOY OF COOKING—we learned of this newest edition and the history of this book when we toured The Pittock Mansion in Portland at Thanksgiving. I got my first copy of the book with my first marriage in 1963.
I also reviewed the new book by David Guterson, which is the story through his eyes of our local Mountain ranges—primarily The Olympics as he lives on Kitsap Peninsula in Washington, as I do. The book is a poem of mountains and trails and when to come home.
The book title is “TURN AROUND TIME: A Walking Poem For the Pacific Northwest.”