A Smoke Signal

A publisher said, “Utterly delightful.”

“Utterly, utterly.” I love that word. Stephen King says not to use adverbs, that is ly words. Nope, nope, nope. Use them.  I find “utterly delightful,” lovely, beautifully delicious, stupendously satisfying.

I signed a contract with a publisher yesterday, August 6, for The Frog’s Song.

I said when I got a book published I would send smoke signals. This is a preliminary Puff, for the book, more than likely, will not be out for 24 months.

I told daughter number one that I thought it took 9 months to publish a book, like having a baby.  “This one will take 24 months.”

 She said, “That’s having an elephant.”

Ms. lovely publisher said we might pare the time down to 12 months depends on the editing and such.

While the editors and I hash out the content, the Publishing House will decide the title and the cover art—can’t wait to see what they come up with.

However it turns out, it is our Island experience, our One Year on The Island.

That 24-month time frame with the publisher will include six months in which the completed work will be in the hands of advance reviewing agencies such as Booklist, Foreword, Publisher's Weekly etc. Those agencies require six months before official release.

Whatever, I’m going with it.

I will try to stay alive to see the end result.

Will people be buying books in two years?

This morning I bought a used book for 50 cents. That amount wouldn’t cover the cost of the ink. Self-publishing a paper-bound book costs around $8.00. Perhaps a publisher can beat that. It’s a numbers game.

As you know, a digital version doesn't cost much to release, or to buy. The wave of the NOW.

The Frog’s Song, now referred to as, “The Work,” will come out as a printed book and as digital.

In two years I will build a bonfire, use a huge blanket, and send signals that rival clouds.

The Photographer's Note for the statue titled “Smoke Signal.”

"It is one of the most widely known landmarks of Pioneers Park in Lincoln, NE by Ellis Burman. Smoke Signal" was created by Burman with funding from President Franklin Roosevelts’ Works Progress Administration Program.

"This program helped provide jobs and stimulate the economy during the years of the Great Depression. When Burman applied and was found eligible for WPA funding, he suggested that a huge statue of a Native American be placed in Pioneers Park.

"He formed a 15 ft tall clay model working in an unheated vacant building at the fairgrounds.

"The winter weather of 1934/35 combined with an unheated studio caused Burman a few delays because the clay kept freezing.

"When completed, a mold was made and reassembled at the park site. Cement was poured into the mold and was colored with red oxide to give it a bronze color.

"Smoke Signal" weighs a whopping 5 tons. The entire bill for materials to the City was only $50. "Smoke Signal" is a memorial to Nebraska Tribes and depicts a Native American pulling a blanket away from a fire to produce a smoke signal - a signal devised to communicate across the vast expanses of the plains. 

"When the dedication took place in 1935, it drew a huge crowd, with over 100 native Americans attending. In full dress, Chiefs from the Omaha, Winnebago, Sioux, and Ponca Tribes atop their horses lined the hillside to face the sun as it set. It is reported that the celebration and gathering of Native Americans lasted several days beyond the dedication, and that those who remained feasted on buffalo meat from the park herd."

Why are we moved to tears by a work of art?

Why do we glory at a sunrise or sunset?

Why do we stand in wonder as we watch a mother doe with her fawn?

We laugh at the antics of toddlers and puppies and appreciate their wonder and beauty.

What is it in the human being that causes them to stand in awe?

We are a glorious lot that doesn’t know we are.

“The problem with the world,” said Mahatma Gandhi, “is that humanity is not in its right mind.”

Do you hear the wonders mostly? Or do you hear the thunder of the marketplace?

Once I had a conversation with a lady that worked at Nikon Inc. She told me that she had watched conception in a petre dish, and at the moment the sperm entered the egg it emitted a glow.

Isn’t that awesome?

What is life?

I put forth a similar question in the last blog and received an answer. “Go to Curiositystream, find Jason Silva and “The Road To The Singularity”

“All will be made abundantly clear.”

I love feedback.

“Abundantly clear?!” That’s a huge claim.

I soon found that the road to singularity was that moment when Artificial Intelligence takes over.

Well, hey, I saw the movie 2001.

But he had a point."Have Artificial intelligence in you instead of controlling you.

However, I am going the organic route.

(Not entirely. I have a computer and a cell phone. I use electric and gas appliances. I love having ice made in my house—remember the Hawaiian experience of no refrigerator? Not fun.)

I want to look into a leaf, that that glistens with morning dew, and see that cell factory with its ability to photosynthesize its own food from minuscule nutrients, sometimes called fertilizer, water, and sunlight, and wonder at a majesty that far exceeds anything humans have done.

And so we chop down the tree, a powerhouse made strong out of those three ingredients, and use its lumber to build our homes. We burn its wood to keep warm, and from those simple ingredients, it has amassed enormous energy that we can use while we play our video games and dream that technology will save us.

Yes, it is easier for humans to manipulate things.

Humans are smart enough to build structures that our delicate little hands cannot possibly lift. We can create atom busters, map the Geone, and build robots that can make our lives easier, including replacing limbs and hearts.

What about the soul?

Could that be the spark we wonder about when we see life burst forth?

We can look inside ourselves and wonder why we have such awesome ability to create and to appreciate while also having the ability to destroy.

While some are standing in awe, others are torturing and killing.

Why is that?

It's tough work acknowledging the shadow and taming it.

It is much easier to build a machine we believe is smarter than us and can solve our problems.

Instead, we might wonder how we built fertile ground for the shadow to flourish.

Why would students if given a choice to be jailers or prisoners, choose to be prisoners, and then those chosen as the jailors, soon became cruel to their classmates?

Why would a psychological experiment, go awry and need to be stopped because people would obey orders to the extent of shocking an innocent party because they gave an incorrect answer. The ones giving the shock followed orders. They didn’t want to upset the power structure.

The upside of that experiment was that 35% of the subjects refused to do it.

That gives us hope.

One could say that we don’t know any better. We could say we are victims of our evolution or perhaps even of genetic tampering.

Marianne Williamson proposes that we are traumatized at such a deep level that we don’t even know we are in trauma.

Williamson writes: “At times, a person—sometimes even whole nations—can become so sucked into the black hole of lovelessness as to be at the effect of its most extreme, even heinous intentions, for this thing, which is actually a no-thing, is not inert.

“Human consciousness is like a pilot light that never goes off. 

"The problem is it is used to create either a life-producing heat or a life-destroying configurations.

“Where there is no love, there is fear. And fear, once it had gripped the mind, is like a vice that threatens to crush the soul.”

I am wondering if this force some call the shadow can be tamed.

“Remember how my daughter says, “It’s all about horse training.”

A horse can be beaten into submission, and I suspect so can the mind, but both would be unreliable.

What we want is a trustable partner.

A horse, if left alone in a corral with a human (And is run a bit, so it is tired and thus turns its attention to the human) will eventually figure out that the safest place to go is beside the human. He will “Join up,”to use Monty Robert’s term, and walk dossel out of the corral behind the human.

Perhaps the shadow can be that way as well, instead of trying to overpower it, allow it to go to the safest place, with you in love, like a child holding your hand.