Laszona

Laszona

I have practiced long and hard for this day
but the moment will be short and easy.
It can not truly be hard
when it is in my life blood
and fills my veins.
I smile
I raise my head and see the priestess
Laszona

Laszona nods at me
It is a smile
it is an acknowledgment
She knows I will be good
She knows I am a challenge

Laszona the priestess,
I see her standing upon a tall rock
hands folded over her breasts
her thighs
her feet planted solidly upon the rock

I see Laszona
I await her permission to begin
then she nods once more
I remain motionless one second

I spring to life
I am the wind in the treetops
the autumn wind
whirling
whistling
untamed

I am the last golden leaf
I spiral to the ground in a furious whirlwind
I rise
I fall
I lay silent
My dance is done
I know I have danced it well
I know I have danced it better
than anyone before me
I rise from the ground
I smile at the priestess
a small
controlled
triumphant smile

She acknowledges my victory with a bow
She claps her hands
her attendants bring her on smooth
perfect grape

She holds it to the sun
She holds it to the earth's four corners

She takes it to her lips
She bites into the nectar
She bites off only the smallest portion

Laszona throws the grape to me
It flies through the air in a long, golden arch
I pick it from the wind

Laszona steps down from the rock
She who bows to no-one
bows to me

I ascend the rock
I smile
I take the grape into my mouth.

It is sweet.


By Dixie Miller Goode

Why Echo???

Hello, Hello!! I have named myself "Echo," not because of the myth connected to the sad girl who wasted away to nothing but her voice, although after I am gone, I should be pleased to think that some of my words linger on. I love the images of places where one stands and shouts out in joy and waits to hear the echo come back.

When I was a young girl, going through the, "I love horses" phase of my life, there was one very special Morgan mare living on my cousin's ranch in Wyoming. I never owned her, but I rode her, and fell off of her, and admired her and dreamed of her. Her name was "Echoes of Pandora" but we called her "echo" and when I first began posting on forums like backpacker.com, and guideposts.com I used her name as mine, "echo." I have posted some of my things on redgage using "echo" too. Sometimes that name has been taken, and spaces aren't allowed so I use pandorasecho, on twitter and a few other places as well.

Gradually I reminded myself, when it became tempting, even fun, to get involved in the sniping and rude behavior that the anonymity of the web invites, that I only wanted to leave behind "echoes of kind words," and I remembered that what Pandora had left behind, an echo after all the troubles she had turned loose on the world, was HOPE. So passing on Hope, and kindness became my goal for any interactions I would have on-line. A goal, which has helped me to police my own words and posts so as not to injure someone I've never met, just because I can think of the funny, cutting thing to write.

I have always needed creative activity. I have to write, or draw, or weave or sculpt or paint, or doodle on a rock with a sharpie. Having a blog seems to fit in with this need very well. I usually, doodle and then put it away in a storage box but sometimes I want to share what I have done, beyond leaving the doodled on rock on the river's edge for someone else to find and wonder about.

When I wonder what are the things I am expert at, what can I share, I come up with the following things that I have quite a bit of experience in:

travel
children
art
writing
teaching
adoption
photography
camping
books

hopefully, I will send echoes of my knowledge out to where it can help someone else as well. It is such a mixed world of pleasure, beauty and pain and ugliness. Hopefully the echoes of my life leave a little bit more in the balance on the side of appreciation and a little less on the side of isolation. I know that I have read things other people have written, and looked at their artwork, and found myself just a little better because of it. Perhaps it is my turn to give a little back.