Wednesday Words of Wisdom

Summer Fiction, sort of

Well, is it hot enough for all of you? I, for one, have had enough of the heat and humidity. So has my mother. This awful, oppresive heat has kept her from spending time at her favorite place in the whole world, her pond.

So, mom, this week's post is again for you. But I hope the rest of you will enjoy is as well, after all, we all need places like this in our lives.

Special post No.1: Pond Magic

If You Can't Beat It, Break It

100 Entries Celebrating and Some Housekeeping

Moët is Murder (or "Where Wine Comes From")
Originally uploaded by bitrot

Hello, Ladies & Gentle Nouns!

A few items of housekeeping and then an update on our dear friend, Thaddeus!

First of all, we've reached 100 entries here on Fantastic Spatula! A hundred different ways of making magic! A big thanks to everyone who has been with us since the start and for those who have all too recently joined us. You've made this a fun beginning! (Because really? It is just getting started...[insert crazed, maniacal laughter here])

Second, we are still looking for contributers for our Feature Fridays! If you would like to share the ways in which you make magic, please feel free to email me. (lucydylanwiggins (at) gmail (dot) com)

Thirdly! ...Well -there is no third. But this entry would look awfully naked with only two things wouldn't it? ;)

Summer Fiction

Evening, folks. How 'bout this heat, huh? Ah, but the longest day is behind us and its all downhill from here.

My post last week was a tad dark, so here is something a little lighter, a little more whimsical.


Post No. 9: Water

Angel in the Stone

Michelangelo's Pietà. Photograph taken by Aurelio Amendola and featured in Michelangelo: La Dotta Mano.

Yesterday, my parents’ minister told a story: the great sculptor Michelangelo stood in front of a slab of marble, considering his work; when someone asked about his art, he replied, I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.

Often I look at my own half-formed attempts and see a rough, uncut mass but have no hope of finding the angel within.  I see the formlessness and emptiness present before creation, but do not feel the presence of the Spirit hovering at my side. 

But the Spirit is there.  For the Christian artist, it can be the Spirit of God, with whom we partner in the act of ordering and naming*.  The Spirit can be of art itself as Robert Henri explained:

  Art when really understood is the province of every human being.

  It is simply a question of doing things, anything, well. It is not an outside, extra thing. 

  When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressing creature. He becomes interesting to other people. He disturbs, upsets, enlightens, and he opens ways for a better understanding….

 He does not have to be a painter or sculptor to be an artist. He can work in any medium. He simply has to find the gain in the work itself, not outside it.

  Museums of art will not make a country an art country. But where there is the art spirit there will be precious works to fill museums. Better still, there will be the happiness that is in the making. Art tends towards balance, order, judgment of relative values, the laws of growth, the economy of living – very good things for anyone to be interested in.

I’m struggling through rewrites now, trying to order the chaos on the page, and feeling as though I have to go it alone.  I don’t.  None of us do.  We all have the Spirit of art with us, however you interpret it.  As Henri says, it is alive in us.  We can see through our protective stone exterior and see the angel within.  We can carve into ourselves until we set it free, give it space to grow and silence where we can hear it speak.  

Michelangelo's Pietà

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* This sentiment is shared by many artists and elaborated on in far more eloquence than I can achieve by Madeleine L’Engle in Walking on Water.  

Magi's Gift: Part II

Baba Yaga sends her love. I think she's enjoying her margaritas on the beach a little toooo much. Knowing her she's probably also taunting the younger men around her. (Anyone wonder why she's my kind of woman?) ;)

Home. It was a word he had often heard, but had never felt. For the word Home, is just as much an emotion, as it is a place. It is just as much spiritual and emotional, as it is physical. And as much physical pain as he had experienced in his lifetime, all of it and more, could never be the equivalent to the pain of never having, never feeling, home.

Yet, there he stood. On the bow of the ship that was sailing across the sky, taking him where he had never been; taking him home.

The rudder of the ship cut through clouds and daylight like they were barely there at all. The wind filled the sails and the ship sailed on at a lazy speed. Other passengers walked about. Many of them returning passengers who had ridden the Skye Boat many a time, others were frightened. They wore amusing expressions on their faces as the ship sailed over top continents, and stars, and galaxies. 

Thaddeus, too, was afraid, but his many years of hardship and struggle under the curse had at least taught him the ability to hide his emotions behind a metal mask. As he stood, one foot on the floor, one foot against the wood of the mast, he realized all that he had really learned and experienced. He was experiencing what the Riverman had called, “The Epiphany”, the moment when you realize just exactly what you have suffered through, and why. Smiling then, letting one expression slip through his steel, trap-like lips.

Soon all the people on board, crew and passengers began scurrying about the deck. All the sails were being opened and every hand was needed up top to await their approach to the Truth. Truth was a shield, invisible until approached. Everyone knew about that the Truth was real, but no one was sure where it existed. Truth would surprise you when you least expected it, and it alone could reveal who you truly were on the inside, as well as making it present on the outside for all the world to see.

      Truth was what Thaddeus had been waiting for. In the next moments to come, Truth would reveal who he really was. The Curse had led him to be many things: human, machine... Although he had been these things, facing the Truth and who he really was, was indeed the most frightening thing he had ever faced to this day. The Riverman was right, coming home was the most terrifying moment of his life, and there he stood, at the end of the boat, the first one to face the Truth.

Wednesday Words of Wisdom

Summer Fiction

This post is a little shorter than usual, life got in the way today and as a result I am almost $300 poorer; but at least my Jeep starts now.

Anyway this post today is for my mother, who suggested I do something a little more Lovecraftian in nature. Mom, without you I wouldn't know what Lovecraftian meant nor would I be able to write about something as obtuse as true horror (not that I do it well enough, but....).

Without you, I'd probably be writing about angsty teenage vampires. (Oh, snap!)

Prompt No. 8: Dark

Weekend Magic: The World Danced

Happy Monday.  Is anyone else sleep deprived from watching World Cup games?  My husband couldn't believe I got back into bed this morning while I blow dried my hair.  But the electric atmosphere of the Cup is worth the bleary eyes and loss of communication skills beyond grunts and nods.  I celebrate for every player because of the years each one spent pursuing his dreams, pushing himself when the odds seemed impossible, and ignoring the criticism and naysayers.  When you put it that way, they seem awfully like artists.

So let's stand up and celebrate.  For your favorite team.  For the dream realized.  For the part of yourself you can see in them.

And let's dance.




South Africa after the first World Cup goal scored on African soil.  The nation banned from play for decades because of internal division unites the world.  That is reason to dance.




And world leaders celebrated, too.  People who changed and healed the world danced.  Fast forward to the 44th second.  I think watching Archbishop Desmond Tutu dance is worth following the link.


And others danced, too.