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djino04 · 1 year

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Hi :) I would like to ask for Riventrix + "Cut the crap, Bea. Are you sick?" in case you still take requests. In case you don't, just ignore me 😂

Author's note: I don't usually write Riventrix, I hope this still fits your request

POV Riven

I chase after my non-girlfriend in exasperation as we fast approach the gate. Apparently she's heard of an old lady who lives on the other side of the forest and has information about her sisters. And Beatrix got it into her head that she should go and see her, right now, in the middle of the night. I grabbed her arm to stop her, getting an electric shock in the process. But I don't let go of her, I only wince as I tell her:

"Cut the crap, Bea. Are you sick? You want to walk through this forest, surely infested with burns in the process? In the middle of the night? Alone? Is there nothing in there that shows you what a bad idea this is?"

I get another shock in response, before Beatrix looks at me angrily:

"I didn't ask you to come with me. And no, I'm not scared. I'm not a coward like you..."

I let go of her and raise my hands, sighing in exasperation:

"Well listen, you can go and get yourself killed. I wash my hands of it. Or else, you go see Andreas, you explain the situation and he takes you in his car to see this old woman, who surely has no information about your family. If this woman really exists and it's not just a lie from one of the many people who have grievances against you."

I look at her for a second, waiting for a response from her and when none comes, I turn and head for the castle. It's too late to be standing, even for me. And if his precious daughter disappears, Andreas is going to be in an even worse mood and tomorrow's training is going to be even worse than usual. So I have to go to sleep.

I only take a few steps before Beatrix catches up with me and says:

"Let's hurry up and go see my dad."

I think I said "you go to see Andreas" and not "we go to see Andreas". Tomorrow's practice is going to be awful, because our new director is probably not going to appreciate being woken up in the middle of the night. I sigh but I follow his lead anyway.

#fate the winx saga #fate winx saga #ftws #fic #beatrix of eraklyon #ftws riven #riventrix

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inatelescopelens · 1 year

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london 7th december

Waking early this morning, I found myself restless although it was still quite dark and decided I would enjoy my cup of Earl Grey tea from the park today, under the trees. As it grew light I paid a visit to the flock of swans having their breakfast on the lawn by the lake and stayed there until the honking of some geese displeased by my intrusion hurried me on. I think I made a connection with the solitary black-feathered and red-beaked swan in the crowd with my own hair—at least, he stood up straight and stared at me indignantly for a while as I hovered about trying to achieve the best angle for a photo.

I kept walking to the north border of Kensington Gardens where I took in the serenity of the Italian Gardens, almost empty at such a time of day. The grey of the scenery seemed peaceful to me rather than miserable, with its splashes of amber autumn leaf and pale sky. The winter gloom gives the liveliness of the wild birds more resonance and the world feels less rushed. The atmosphere remained in this state of calm even as I went then beyond the park gates and joined the office crowds streaming towards Paddington. At Paddington Station I followed a memory onto Platform One where I found, as I had thought I would, the statue of Paddington Bear with his suitcase and label and hat. I spent a few minutes in his company before hopping on the underground to meet back with Mum at Notting Hill Gate.

The two of us set out properly for the day heading north to Westbourne Grove, a street these days lined with posh sorts of shops and salons which was once Mum and Dad’s local neighbourhood when they lived in London. We found their old house and lingered opposite for a minute or two, sipping coffee from Planet Organic. It was time though to head back down to Kensington, however, as we had morning tickets to the Palace and it was also far too cold to stay still very long. Kensington Palace was about as I remembered it from my last visit—there was a little less to see this time as some rooms were closed, but what was open was well worth the look around.

We walked on to South Kensington for lunch at the nearest Pret a Manger, having made a plan to take on the museums in the afternoon. We had no idea ahead of time but the Victoria and Albert Museum—our first and as it was only stop—was holding an exhibit on the children’s author Beatrix Potter, whose life we soon learned to be very rich with art and intellect. While it was touching to see the origins of so many familiar characters and stories, it was the revelations about the woman herself and her remarkable life and abilities which we liked best. The collection even contained the original possessions of Potter’s life which she wrote and drew into her works. Since we had no idea this exhibit existed when we walked through the door, it felt like a lucky outcome.

Against the soundtrack of a children’s choir singing carols, organ-accompanied, from the entrance hall’s upper level, we explored some of the V&A’s other collections. The Cast Courts were, are, my favourite. There is so much audacity in the precisely copied statues and structures that extend to the magnitude of entire cathedral doorways, assembled within the walls of the museum. You look around and see this entire world of art and architecture absurdly amalgamated in the one room.

Tiring a little at this point, we decided to finish up for the afternoon by continuing our tour of department store Christmas displays, making our way up the street to Harrods. The russet stone building was covered in a bright gold Christmas façade from the brand Dior, with three-dimensional reliefs in the style of gingerbread biscuits with white royal icing. Inside the tourist public milled around the food halls while the super-rich did their designer holiday shopping upstairs. The sights were quite the same as in Selfridges—expensive logos, novelty chocolates, cross-sections of hot water crust pork pie with the yellow yolk of a boiled egg perfectly centred. We took the underground home from Knightsbridge station around the corner in time to have a rest.

Our first true evening out was a genuine delight despite the frostiness of London’s weather steadily reaching new extremes; we rugged up well over the top of our nice clothes in preparation, and brought our proper gloves. It began with a train to Holborn and a walk down through the West End into Covent Garden where we were called to the doors of the Royal Opera House. Months ago, thinking of what nights out the holiday season might offer, I had looked into the possibility of ballet tickets—of course The Nutcracker is the company’s choice of show at this time of year. Most of the season’s tickets were sold by this point, all except for the furthest back of the hall stalls in the theatre, but by complete luck I came across two seats right in the front row of the circle stalls, close by the stage. It must have been a cancellation. I expect bad luck for at least a year to cosmically balance out the miracle of getting them.

Before the show we ate dinner at the Royal Opera House’s restaurant upstairs, where they had a very snappy smart system of pre-selecting your dishes and drinks online so the meal could be brought out fuss-free with plenty of time to spare. We shared burrata and broccoli to start, Mum’s main was an eggplant dish, mine was tender white fish with lentils. Collecting our programme from the desk we found our auspicious seats and sat down to watch the performance. It was a charming Nutcracker production, very traditional—the principal artists dancing as the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Prince were especially wonderful, they held the stage. Surprisingly, perhaps because it was a midweek evening performance early in the season, there were few children in the audience, and aside from a minor technical interruption when a set piece of a house had to be encouraged on stage, it went off perfectly.

Lovely dinner and show aside, though, it was the various characters of the evening that captured my attention most. It was impossible not to be fascinated by the man who sat alone at the table next to ours during dinner and we later saw again both in the theatre and during the interval: he was middle-aged, a slim unremarkable-looking person—except that his clothes and manner were so extremely noticeable. Everything about him was precise to a bizarre degree, from the uncreased and evidently tailored grey suit to the white pocket square to the way he flicked through his own programme with so much care. He ate his entree clinically and then pushed the plate away; we watched on in astonishment as he first removed the skin from his salmon fillet main and then consumed it with equal scientific exactitude. One got the sense the whole ballet experience itself was just another of these rituals to him, and what was most beautiful was that he was so totally unaware of his own character. It was truly unpretentious, though his clothes were no doubt very expensive and his life far removed from the average working person. He left before the curtain call was over, disappearing ahead of the crowd.

The other encounter of the evening, quite opposite in style, was at the ice cream counter during the interval. As I was waiting to exchange my mobile voucher at the till, a carelessly-dressed, chummy middle-aged man approached and asked if I was getting ice cream. Slightly bewildered I said yes, to which he replied by pressing a stack of eight individual one-pound coins into my hand and asking me to buy two ice creams on his behalf. They only accept contactless payment these days and he had no card and, he explained, a hell to pay with the missus if he wasn’t able to acquire their dessert. It was at that moment as I reached for my card to pay for him that I realised I had completely misplaced my bag—a moment of pure panic, since it contained both my wallet and my passport, and I had no idea where I’d left it. After paying for the man’s ice cream using Mum’s copy of our card, I was deeply relieved to find my bag still lying where I had sat in the restaurant earlier. A later crisis averted, thanks to the ice cream bloke and his missus.

With the ballet over we opted to skip the Covent Garden crowd and walk through Picadilly to Oxford Circus instead, passing through a messy world of tourist nightlife. We were able to take in the West End Christmas lights from their best angle against the clear night sky—great crowns and angels and stars suspended between buildings above the busy roads. But despite these spectacles on the bus home I was close to dozing off. In fact I was so tired that the next thing I knew I was waking up in bed still in my suit and tie—I had fallen asleep scrolling on my phone not long after we returned, out cold even before I had the chance to get changed.

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100tri365 · 2 years

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The poky little puppy the tale of peter rabbit

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The Poky Little Puppy: Janette Sebring Lowrey: Puppy is slower than other, bigger animals. 2: The Tale of Peter Rabbit: Beatrix Potter: Rabbit eats some vegetables. 3: Tootle: Gertrude Crampton: Little toy train has big dreams. 4: Green Eggs and Ham: Dr. Seuss: Sam has changing food preferences and eats unusually colored food. 5: Harry Potter. Peter Rabbit is a story of a rambunctious little rabbit who does not listen to his mother. He goes on an adventure and nearly gets caught by the farmer. As he is running from the farmer he gets tangled up and loses his shoes and his jacked. He makes it back home and immediately get put to bed without supper.

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See also:

Sling World Cup Poki

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Closeup Pokies

Hollywood Pokies

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kaynzee · 3 years

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Chapter 45

Chapter 45 “Are you sure this will succeed?” asked Jai in an ambiguous tone. “Not really, no!” replied Vee, throwing on a shade of the intellectual in the mundane hope that his remarks could fork some lightning. Una, the not yet fully mended, was quieter than was customary. As all she managed to contribute was “I’m with him,” in a mumble, vaguely not-deliberating who the HIM was she was…

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abeyances · 3 years

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✨ ana de armas, cisfemale, she/her — whenever i see beatrix “bex” navarro meandering down agnes street california by chappell roan starts to play inside my head. maybe it is the vibe they give off. plane tickets and pressed flowers in antique books, amber eyes melting into honeyed gold, any house can be a haunted one in the peripherals ; you know ? out of the attic is what keeps them interested in agnes. i heard they are a thirty two year old author. they look like the kind of person who gets swept into a whirlwind and brings others along for the ride. ( r, 27, est, she/her ) @agnesextra

hi hello! i’m r and i’m excited to be a part of this space, i’ve been trying to narrow down bex for a hot minute now, so i’m excited to throw her into play and see where the muse ends up. please like this if you’re interested in getting something going and i’ll message you asap!

bio in progress! character sheet below.

shades of grey have shrouded the house at the top of the hill for as long as anyone can remember, yet there is a distinct memory of curious eyes seeking a small menagerie of blooms interwoven with the choking vines. ivy wrapped around the large columns and there was beauty and color in the decay, should one look long and hard enough. little thought was given to the crumbling victorian outside the realm of october, yet something called to her with far more weight than a neighborhood’s taunt. suburban tradition brought about the carving of pumpkins. the competition didn’t boast of artistic talent, but was one of bravery and she excelled in both -- even in youth. each eve of halloween wrangled a small gathering with the smallest tasked to slip between the gaps of a wrought iron gate until it creaked back on its hinges.

small flames undulated and flickered with shallow, bated breaths as they took turns creeping as close as they dared. illuminated gourds lined the walk, with the bravest venturing no further than the bottom splintered porch step. wispy legends seemed to be the only actual haunt and she intended to prove it. carved gourd in hand, she ventured to the porch step and past it. a defiant glimmer was tossed over her shoulder as she pried open the door. the other children were only able to track her progress with a dim glow as she passed the windows, hushed whispers growing in volume as she traipsed up the staircase and to the attic. a chill crept up her spine, but from the street her face wasn’t the only one illuminated in the gabled window. the candle was snuffed out and skeptic turned believer as she fled from the house, but she made a vow never to flee again.

----

loyal to a fault, brave to a fault, stubborn to a fault.

LIBRA.

Libra; very sarcastic; makes jokes in awkward situations which can sometimes offend others; soo indecisive because they consider all options thoroughly and are terrified of making mistakes; often forget to put their own needs first; easily thrown off balance and can become emotional; forgive others easily because they give the benefit of the doubt; very reflective; loves being surrounded by friends and making people feel welcome; can adapt to any social group; can be a bit manipulative; views situations from all angles so often get mistaken for hypocrites; bit of perfectionists when it comes to projects; democratic; good advice givers; highly insecure and compares self to others often; will drop everything for a loved one; very loving and loves expressing this; massive people pleasers and have difficulty saying how they really feel in case it offends others; can be a total bitch if you push them over the edge; will talk about anything and stay up late to talk to you

the basics ––– –

NAME: Beatrix Bex Navarro

AGE: Thirty Two

BIRTHDAY:

GENDER: Cis Female

SEXUALITY: Pansexual

physical appearance ––– –

HAIR: Brown or blonde, depending

EYES: Honeyed Hazel

HEIGHT: 5′7

BUILD: athletically toned

DISTINGUISHING MARKS: the faintest freckles speckled upon shoulder blades, a stick and poke dot purely for the then-adolescent thrill, a small but jagged scar that tells the tale of trees climbed (and fallen out of)

FACE CLAIM: Ana De Armas

personal ––– –

PROFESSION: Bex is a published mystery + horror author, with her latest publication given the honor of a film adaptation that she absolutely detested. Another tale is due, but Bex has always been one to do things on her terms and a hurt ego is certainly not conducive to delivering.

HOBBIES: Urban exploration, antiquing, travelling.

LANGUAGES: English, Spanish, French, Procrastination.

RESIDENCE: Bex has recently undertaken the project of restoring an old Victorian, rumored to be haunted, but she intends to breathe new life back in to it. With great bones comes great determination.

BIRTHPLACE: Islebury, RI.

RELIGION: Raised Catholic, but Bex has a conflicting history with it. She has adopted pieces here and there to suit her, but it appears to be much easier to ask for forgiveness rather than permission.

AMBITIONS: Bex certainly never expected this level of acclaim, and she is unprepared for it, though she would never admit that willingly. She has always been a people pleaser, though her own dissatisfaction and recent criticism are proving to be her current worst enemy.

FEARS: It wouldn’t be fitting for an author of her genre to confess to any, but Bex is more supersitious and reserved than she would like to admit.

relationships ––– -

honestly the main reason for sticking her in a semi appless is to get the feel of her and figure this section out, but she is honestly wide open to be tweaked to fit any wanted connections y’all might have?

I could see Bex as the daughter of an affair, and either the golden child or the black sheep depending??

I woud love for some family connection - cousins? Family friends? Raised together? If truly family, they’d be part white or Cuban.

Honestly? I wouldn’t put her to leave someone at the altar if anyone wants some drama.

YOU MIGHT KNOW HER IF ––– -

Bex was born and bred nearby, so I would love some connections that go back a ways.

She frequents different locations, be it a need to break out of her rut or occupying a table out of the way to get some writing done.

she really fucks with sleep on the floor by the lumineers, and at one point fled far from islebury or nearby and has flitted back and away once more throughout the years.bex is highly, highly sentimental but has always been a flighty soul. she is incredibly charming when she chooses to be, but can seem very surface level until she lets her guard down.

traits ––– -

extroverted / introverted / in between.

disorganized / organized / in between.

close minded / open-minded / in between.

calm / anxious / in between

disagreeable / agreeable / in between.

cautious / reckless / in between.

patient / impatient / in between.

outspoken / reserved / in between.

leader / follower / in between.

empathetic / unemphatic / in between.

optimistic / pessimistic / in between.

traditional / modern / in between.

hard-working / lazy / in between.

cultured / un-cultured / in between.

loyal / disloyal / unknown / in between.

faithful / unfaithful / unknown / in between.

additional information ––– –

SMOKING HABIT: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess.

DRUGS: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess.

ALCOHOL: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess.

---

honestly, she is wide open for plots and I’m totally willing to bend her to make most happen if you have ideas!

Bex has some lowkey adult Bill Denbrough from IT vibes, so I would absolutely kill for something like the loser’s club? She would honestly go with it if that was something your character was into growing up or something. She has a strong independent streak, but that is overrode by her loyalty even if she is a little flighty. She 100% does not have to be the leader, but if you stuck with her long enough she probably swayed you into some dumb adventures.

#agnesextra #intro.#about tbd.#under construction but !#it's a start

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sussex-nature-lover · 3 years

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Wednesday 6th January 2021

A Trail with Beatrix Potter friends at Bateman’s National Trust

NB: although other outside sites are not affiliated, I do check to make sure I only link to reputable sources.

The Christmas decorations are all put away and we move forwards properly into the new year.

On one of our visits to Bateman’s National Trust gardens we saw they’d got a Beatrix Potter inspired winter trail for children to follow. We didn’t do it as we didn’t have a youth to provide cover for us, but it did amuse me that right by the first poster we saw

was a real life Squirrel Nutkin scrabbling about amongst the wet leaves. They’re the same in our garden, often burying tasty bits from the bird seed just a couple of steps from the tray and never remembering where they left them. That would be the reason we had tiny, late Sunflowers growing in some of our pots.

Because I took photos of the posters I decided I’d go through my pictures trying to match them up here.

We didn’t look for pine cones at Bateman’s but these rather splendid examples were at Sheffield Park Gardens a couple of months back. I really like the play of light on this picture.

and a lovely finished door wreath at Standen House. I don’t know if the occupant’s called McGregor.

I think the Gardeners at Batemans are wise to hungry Rabbits, although I suspect, that like the ones in our patch, they just can’t, or won’t read the signs, we actually have a collective noun for our bunnies - The Nibblers.

There are supposed to be certain plants they steer away from, such as anything onion scented. My experience is they’ll chovel away at anything and just leave it if it’s not to their taste. And don’t even start me on the day I got up to see my resplendent parsley pots had all had a buzz cut.

When we get produce from National Trust gardens, we always pay at the till or the honesty box rather than embark on a scrumping trip.

Flowers from Scotney Castle Walled Garden

Cherries, Courgette and French Beans from Sissinghurst vegetable gardens

Last year we really missed not being able to pick up some goodies. Sissinghurst usually turns up some real treasures, asparagus; fantastic fine beans including a purple variety as above; cherries - for which Kent is quite renown and the most memorable and best tasting courgette of my life.

Medlar Pear against the late Autumn/Winter sky (Bateman’s)

Our very own Flopsy, Mopsy or Cottontail doesn’t seem to have any problems. Crow usually leaves out a trail of carrot peelings for them too.

If you’re in the mood for baking, I found these recipes

Epicurious Winter Fruit Pie with a walnut crumb

Summer Berry Pie

I saw this Blackbird in the Mulberry Garden at Batemans once. It looked for all the world like it was saying ‘You there - No! Entry denied’ Whether it was repelling under the gate or over the wall invaders, it certainly looked like a very stern guardian.

Well, we found the broom for Mrs T and I’ve got something spiky in my library of photos

There were quite a few huge Sweet Chestnut trees at Petworth House - not to be confused with Horse Chestnut, whose fruits are inedible, but good for playing Conkers with

and plenty of fallen leaves in our garden at home

Hhmm, the Jeremy Fisher poster was right by the Lily Pond. I’m not at all sure those fish are meant to be caught and if he did try angling there, he might hook up with rather more than he bargained for.

Jeremy should have headed down to the River.

My Duck and feather photos came from the visit to Sheffield Park

The Ducks there are so used to people you can get really close up.

and there are plenty of feathers on the ground from their grooming sessions.

Field mouse, also known as wood mouse, is the most common and widespread mouse species in the UK. They can be tricky to spot during the day: they're lightning quick and are nocturnal. They sleep in burrows when it's light and venture out to forage during the evenings.

You might be familiar with my dislike of rodents <shudder> but one Summer we did see Field Mice playing in the shrubbery at dusk. They move in a very different way from House Mice, there’s less scurrying and more skipping, I guess that makes them a bit sweeter somehow, to my eyes anyway.

as sculpted by Ms NW tY

No Snow Rabbit, just my favourite Snow Cat again and finally some archive photos of the garden under snow.

It can be very pleasant to look at if it’s a gentle covering, but The so called Beast from the East in 2018 caused widespread chaos. We’ve not had snow here yet this Winter, although apparently another similar phenomenon is forecast. Fingers crossed we escape it this time.

What I Learned Today:

The author Beatrix Potter was born in 1866 and died in 1943. She wrote 30 books, 23 of which were the famed children’s tales. In her 30s she started by self publishing but became very successful and still is today. There’s an awful lot more to her than you might have known so it’s worth reading more on the link. I was amazed. She and her husband were very interested in conservation and she bequeathed her Grade II* farmhouse retreat to the National Trust on her death, in fact...

She left nearly all her property to the National Trust, including over 4,000 acres (16 km2) of land, sixteen farms, cottages and herds of cattle and Herdwick sheep. Hers was the largest gift at that time to the National Trust, and it enabled the preservation of the land now included in the Lake District National Park and the continuation of fell farming.

Potter's study and watercolours of fungi led to her being widely respected in the field of mycology.

With the proceeds from the books and a legacy from an aunt, Potter bought Hill Top Farm in Near Sawrey in 1905; this is a village in the Lake District in the county of Cumbria. Over the following decades, she purchased additional farms to preserve the unique hill country landscape. Wikipedia

#beatrix potter #nature photography childrens stories Peter Rabbit

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portmanteaurian · 4 years

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bookth

libi astaire’s Tempest in the Tea Room was cute but one of the core elements of the mystery was painfully obvious from quite early on. there’s a box set of her work that’s free on kobo plus and plotting mysteries is hard, so i’ll probably read more to see if the clues get a little more gracefully planted.

A Phoenix First Must Burn: Sixteen Stories of Black Girl Magic, Resistance, and Hope (ed. Patrice Caldwell) has a long-ass title but was really really delightful. I was already familiar with several of the authors included but will most definitely be looking up several of the others.

A Gentleman’s Guide to Getting Lucky by Mackenzi Lee was a cute little novella followup to the full-length Gentleman’s Guide novel. It’s pretty much just two people talking about their feelings for a hundred-odd pages.

Rachel Pollack’s The Beatrix Gates is part of the PM Press outspoken authors series -- slim little volumes with some collected stories, interviews, and essays. It was great; I think she’s a really gifted surrealist and I wish her work was more widely-known. I’ve read several of her novels, but not in years, and I should really revisit.

Sorcery and Cecilia, or, The Enchanted Chocolate Pot was cute. It started as a letters game between Caroline Stevermer and Patricia C. Wrede, with no fixed plot outline or conclusion in mind. After the letters concluded, they tightened them into a more cohesive manuscript (trimming loose plot threads etc). I’ve read it before but it remains great fun.

I enjoyed Unravel the Dusk by Elizabeth Lim! It’s rather darker feeling than Spin the Dawn, but the tonal shift is managed well and it’s a satisfying conclusion to the duology. And as u know I love a duology.

and finally I did ultimately finish Under the Pendulum Sun (Jeannette Ng) and I enjoyed it. the plot deals with some fairly grim stuff, but, I mean, it’s essentially a gothic novel? you have to expect a certain amount of discomfort while reading. It’s got an appealing twistiness and its depiction of faerie realms is super creative and compelling. It does have an awful lot of Christian theological discussion and also a big ol’ content warning for incest, so like...it is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, obviously.

#dorian reads 2k20

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domwazlib · 3 years

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— PART ONE.

— PART TWO.

revamping a bio but

let me know if you see this as like a lowkey potential thing ??

----

bex is a published mystery-horror author, with one of her novels having been turned into a movie. it was overall a success, but she absolutely hated the adaptation. frustrated with the criticism (much of it her own) and with another novel due, the words have yet to come.

she really fucks with sleep on the floor by the lumineers, and at one point fled far from islebury or nearby and has flitted back and away once more throughout the years.

bex is highly, highly sentimental but has always been a flighty soul. she is incredibly charming when she chooses to be, but can seem very surface level until she lets her guard down.

loyal to a fault, brave to a fault, stubborn to a fault.

born of an affair -- the golden child or the black sheep, depending on the inheritance.

honestly probably bought that old spooky house and is fixing it up. the garden is so cheery you almost forget, if only for a second.

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jeanlaurens1

On a more positive note, Bill demonstrates artistic ability in the film with a drawing of Beverly and has horror movie posters up on his walls, a subtle nod to Bill's future career as a horror writer. Indeed, when Bill grows up, he is a very successful mystery-horror writer, but is shown to be frustrated and irritated by frequent criticisms of his endings due to their being unsatisfactory. Bill justifies his endings by stating that they are a reflection of reality, as the concepts of closure and happy-endings are impractical; this attitude most likely being subconscious residual guilt he feels at having lost his brother during his youth.

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that-butch-archivist · 19 days

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"Christopher Street, NYC, 1988" by Kathryn Kirk

source: The Wild Good: Lesbian Photographs & Writings On Love, edited by Beatrix Gates

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discountkhanacademy-blog · 4 years

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Grammar: Identifying Compound Subjects and Predicates

✧ A compound subject consists of more than one simple subject.

ex: Beatrix Potter and Beverly Cleary are famous children’s authors.

✧ A compound predicate consists of more than one simple predicate.

ex: Their books amuse and delight children everywhere.

✧ Examples

• Beatrix Potter wrote and illustrated her own stories.

• Peter Rabbit and his family are the characters in one story.

• Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail lived with Peter in a big fir tree.

• Mr. McGregor and Mrs. McGregor planted and weeded their garden.

• Mrs. Rabbit shopped for food and cooked the meals.

• Three little bunnies hopped down the lane and gathered blackberries.

• Peter ran away and squeezed under the gate.

• Mr. McGregor shouted and waved his rake.

• Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail ate blackberries and drank milk.

• Peter and his mother had tea for supper.

(Single-compound predicates in italics and single-compound subject in bold)

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amlitlover · 4 years

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Beatrix Potter born today 1866

Beatrix Potter: "FLOPSY, Mopsy, and Cottontail, who were good little bunnies, went down the lane to gather blackberries; BUT Peter, who was very naughty, ran straight away to Mr. McGregor's garden and squeezed under the gate!" https://americanliterature.com/author/beatrix-potter/short-story/the-tale-of-peter-rabbit

#beatrixpotter #favoritechildrensstories #peterrabbit #thetaleofpeterrabbit #flopsymopsycottontail #mrmcgregor #childrensstories #classicstories #readaloudfavorites #englishliterature

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finishinglinepress · 4 years

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FINISHING LINE PRESS CHAPBOOK OF THE DAY:

Letters to My Father by Juanita Kirton

https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/letters-to-my-father-by-juanita-kirton/

RESERVE YOUR COPY TODAY

Juanita Kirton’s poetry collection is compelling, delivering a story of opposing forces of love and betrayal. The poems are brave and courageous and are found in tight spaces of kitchens, a church and a child’s heart. Kirton breaks the barriers of silence and holds her own, turning the silence of despair into the found voice of a female spiritual warrior. She uses language so close to the bone, you feel as if you are on a motorcycle with her in the poem titled, “Back Seat”. This collection is magnificent, a must read.

Dr. Juanita Kirton earned MFA from Goddard College. Her individual poems are published in several anthologies. Her new chapbook “Letters To My Father” accepted for publication by Finishing Line Press. Juanita has participated in workshops & retreat by Women Reading Aloud and is a member of Women Who Write & International Women’s Writing Guild. She served on editorial staff, Clockhouse Literary Journal and is published in several anthologies . Juanita, employed at PA Dept of Education, is US Army Veteran, resides with spouse in PA. Besides writing, Juanita enjoys touring the country on her motorcycle.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR Letters to My Father by Juanita Kirton

Juanita Kirton does not hold back in Letters to My Father. Her raw words illuminate the page through a trail of darkness. Here is a poet who digs deep. Lines like, “winter stayed another 20 years” stopped me, made me catch my breath. How does one forgive? She uses language so close to the bone, I felt as if I were on the motorcycle with her in the poem titled, “Back Seat.” Read this new collection and be prepared for Kirton’s words to linger a long time.

–Julie Maloney, Director of Women Reading Aloud.

This powerful collection of poems delves deeply into how profoundly the fearful and shame-filled silences we hold imprison and shape us. These are brave and courageous poems that turn the silence of despair into the found voice of a female spiritual warrior whose victorious struggle renders us all the stronger for having been allowed to witness it.

–Michael S. Glaser, Poet Laureate of Maryland 2004-2009

Juanita Kirton‘s compelling poetry collection, Letters to My Father, delivers the story of stark betrayals and the important medicine of truth by describing the haunting abuse that so shaped her growing up years. A decided courage brands the language and reveals the mark of the stories that mold and hold her, until her own utterance can re-form and rise. She becomes her own pride, mothers herself and the shame of the young girl recovers in painting the full picture, unafraid of the loss and grief. The child and the poet still carry a capacity for love, and Kirton breaks a barrier—denial and judgment fall before her–and she arrives into hope holding her Black son with tenderness, remembering protection offered by others who acknowledged her needs and how the roots of wholeness shattered in earlier histories can become a different kind of prayer that is strong and righteous, “I still pray for a black sons and fathers.” She takes in the gift of being alive: “Securely she takes the unknown path/ slow motion is not her devotion…”

From “generations of brown sugar blood,” Juanita Kirton is ready to sing alongside “female spiritual warriors/standing in the hard truth of radical justice,” and Kirton declares her pained and joyful utterance with a gentle defiance and pride that feeds her poems and awakens us to the power of her speech.

—Beatrix Gates, author of Dos and In the Open

PREORDER YOUR COPY TODAY

https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/letters-to-my-father-by-juanita-kirton/ #POETRY #preorder #lit #read #book

#poetry #chapbook #preorder #women poets #flp #flp authors #american poets #poets on tumblr #leah maines #chapbooks

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anastpaul · 7 years

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Saint of the Day – 11 August – St Clare of Assisi – Virgin, Religious, Founder, Mystic, Friend and Follower of St Francis, Miracle-Worker – (16 July 1194 at Assisi, Italy – 11 August 1253 of natural causes). St Clare was Canonised on 26 September 1255 by Pope Alexander IV. St Clare was born Chiara Offreduccio (sometimes spelled Clair, Claire, etc.) is an Italian saint and one of the first followers of Saint Francis of Assisi. She founded the Order of Poor Ladies, a monastic religious order for women in the Franciscan tradition and wrote their Rule of Life, the first set of monastic guidelines known to have been written by a woman. Following her death, the order she founded was renamed in her honour as the Order of Saint Clare, commonly referred to today as the Poor Clares. Patronages – embroiderers, needle workers, eyes, against eye disease, for good weather, gilders, gold workers, goldsmiths, laundry workers, telegraphs, telephones, television (proclaimed on 14 February 1958 by Pope Pius XII), television writers, Poor Clares, Assisi, Italy, Santa Clara Indian Pueblo. Attributes – Monstrance, pyx, lamp, nun’s habit.

St Clare was born in Assisi, the eldest daughter of Favorino Sciffi, Count of Sasso-Rosso and his wife Ortolana. Traditional accounts say that Clare’s father was a wealthy representative of an ancient Roman family, who owned a large palace in Assisi and a castle on the slope of Mount Subasio. Ortolana belonged to the noble family of Fiumi and was a very devout woman who had undertaken pilgrimages to Rome, Santiago de Compostela and the Holy Land. Later in life, Ortolana entered Clare’s monastery, as did Clare’s sisters, Beatrix and Catarina (who took the name Agnes).

As a child, Clare was devoted to prayer. Although there is no mention of this in any historical record, it is assumed that Clare was to be married in line with the family tradition. However, at the age of 18 she heard Francis preach during a Lenten service in the church of San Giorgio at Assisi and asked him to help her to live after the manner of the Gospel. On the evening of Palm Sunday, March 20, 1212, she left her father’s house and accompanied by her aunt Bianca and another companion proceeded to the chapel of the Porziuncula to meet Francis. There, her hair was cut and she exchanged her rich gown for a plain robe and veil.

Francis placed Clare in the convent of the Benedictine nuns of San Paulo, near Bastia. Her father attempted to force her to return home. She clung to the altar of the church and threw aside her veil to show her cropped hair. She resisted any attempt, professing that she would have no other husband but Jesus Christ. In order to provide the greater solitude Clare desired, a few days later Francis sent her to Sant’ Angelo in Panzo, another monastery of the Benedictine nuns on one of the flanks of Subasio. Clare was soon joined by her sister Catarina, who took the name Agnes. They remained with the Benedictines until a small dwelling was built for them next to the church of San Damiano, which Francis had repaired some years earlier.

Other women joined them and they were known as the “Poor Ladies of San Damiano”. They lived a simple life of poverty, austerity and seclusion from the world, according to a Rule which Francis gave them as a Second Order (Poor Clares).

San Damiano became the center of Clare’s new religious order, which was known in her lifetime as the “Order of Poor Ladies of San Damiano”. San Damiano was long thought to be the first house of this order, however, recent scholarship strongly suggests that San Damiano actually joined an existing network of women’s religious houses organised by Hugolino (who later became Pope Gregory IX). Hugolino wanted San Damiano as part of the order he founded because of the prestige of Clare’s monastery. San Damiano emerged as the most important house in the order and Clare became its undisputed leader. By 1263, just ten years after Clare’s death, the order had become known as the Order of Saint Clare. In 1228, when Gregory IX offered Clare a dispensation from the vow of strict poverty, she replied: “ I need to be absolved from my sins, but not from the obligation of following Christ. ” Accordingly, the Pope granted them the Privilegium Pauperitatis — that nobody could oblige them to accept any possession.

Unlike the Franciscan friars, whose members moved around the country to preach, Saint Clare’s sisters lived in enclosure, since an itinerant life was hardly conceivable at the time for women. Their life consisted of manual labour and prayer. The nuns went barefoot, slept on the ground, ate no meat and observed almost complete silence.

For a short period, the order was directed by Francis himself. Then in 1216, Clare accepted the role of abbess of San Damiano. As abbess, Clare had more authority to lead the order than when she was the prioress and required to follow the orders of a priest heading the community. Clare defended her order from the attempts of prelates to impose a rule on them that more closely resembled the Rule of Saint Benedict than Francis’ stricter vows. Clare sought to imitate Francis’ virtues and way of life so much so that she was sometimes titled alter Franciscus, another Francis. She also played a significant role in encouraging and aiding Francis, whom she saw as a spiritual father figure and she took care of him during his final illness.

After Francis’s death, Clare continued to promote the growth of her order, writing letters to abbesses in other parts of Europe and thwarting every attempt by each successive pope to impose a rule on her order which weakened the radical commitment to corporate poverty she had originally embraced. She did this despite enduring a long period of poor health until her death. Clare’s Franciscan theology of joyous poverty in imitation of Christ is evident in the rule she wrote for her community and in her four letters to Agnes of Prague.

In 1224, the army of Frederick II came to plunder Assisi. Clare went out to meet them with the Blessed Sacrament in her hands. Suddenly a mysterious terror seized the enemies, who fled without harming anybody in the city.

Before breathing her last in 1253, Clare said: “ Blessed be You, O God, for having created me. ”

On August 9, 1253, the papal bull Solet annuere of Pope Innocent IV confirmed that Clare’s rule would serve as the governing rule for Clare’s Order of Poor Ladies. Two days later, on August 11, Clare died at the age of 59. Her remains were interred at the chapel of San Giorgio while a church to hold her remains was being constructed. At her funeral, Pope Innocent IV insisted the friars perform the Office for the Virgin Saints as opposed to the Office for the Dead (Bartoli, 1993). This move by Pope Innocent ensured that the canonisation process for Clare would begin shortly after her funeral. Pope Innocent was cautioned by multiple advisors against having the Office for the Virgin Saints performed at Clare’s funeral (Bartoli, 1993). The most vocal of these advisors was Cardinal Raynaldus who would later become Pope Alexander IV, who in two years time would canonise Clare (Pattenden, 2008). At Pope Innocent’s request the canonisation process for Clare began immediately. While the whole process took two years, the examination of Clare’s miracles took just six days. On September 26, 1255, Pope Alexander IV canonised Clare as Saint Clare of Assisi. Construction of the Basilica of Saint Clare was completed in 1260, and on October 3 of that year Clare’s remains were transferred to the newly completed basilica where they were buried beneath the high altar. In further recognition of the saint, Pope Urban IV officially changed the name of the Order of Poor Ladies to the Order of Saint Clare in 1263.

Some 600 years later in 1872, Saint Clare’s relics were transferred to a newly constructed shrine in the crypt of the Basilica of Saint Clare, where her relics can still be venerated today. Her body is incorrupt.

St Clare’s Habit in the centre with St Francis’ on either side.

In art, Clare is often shown carrying a monstrance or pyx, in commemoration of the occasion when she warded away the soldiers of Frederick II at the gates of her convent by displaying the Blessed Sacrament and kneeling in prayer.

Pope Pius XII designated Clare as the patron saint of television in 1958 on the basis that when she was too ill to attend Mass, she had reportedly been able to see and hear it on the wall of her room.

There are traditions of bringing offerings of eggs to the Poor Clares for their intercessions for good weather, particularly for weddings. This tradition remains popular in the Philippines, particularly at the Real Monasterio de Santa Clara in Quezon City. According to the Filipino essayist Alejandro Roces, the practice arose because of Clare’s name. In Castilian clara refers to an interval of fair weather and in Spanish, it also refers to the white or albumen of the egg.

Clare is one of five characters in the oratorio Laudato si’, composed in 2016 by Peter Reulein on a libretto by Helmut Schlegel, the others being an angel, Mary, Francis of Assisi and Pope Francis.

(via AnaStpaul – Breathing Catholic)

#stclare #stclareofassisi #august11stclare #catholic #catholicism

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viralhottopics · 7 years

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If you were an elephant

the world would be a brighter, smellier, noisier place and you would be a better, wiser, kinder person. The author of Being a Beast explains all

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If you were an elephant living wild in a western city, youd be confused and disgusted.

Youd have one two-fingered hand swinging from your face a hand as sensitive as tumescent genitals, but which could smash a wall or pick a cherry. With that hand youd explore your best friends mouths, just for the sake of friendship. With that hand youd smell water miles away and the flowers at your feet. Youd sift it all, triaging. Category 1: immediate danger. Category 2: potential threat. Category 3: food and water. Category 4: weather forecasts short and long range. Category 5: pleasure.

Grumbles from trucks and cabs would shudder through the toxic ground, tickle the lamellar corpuscles in your feet and ricochet up your bones. Youd hear with your feet, and your femurs would be microphones. As you walked 10 miles for your breakfast youd chatter with your friends in 10 octaves. A nearby human would throb like a bodhran as subsonic waves bounced around her chest.

Even if it swayed with grass instead of being covered in concrete and dog shit, the city would be far, far too small for you. Youd feel the ring roads like a corset. Youd smell succulent fields outside, and be wistful. But youd make the most of what you had. Youd follow a labyrinth of old roads, relying on the wisdom of long-dead elephants, now passed down to your matriarch. Youd have the happiest kind of political system, run by wise old women, appointed for their knowledge of the world and their judgment, uninterested in hierarchy for hierarchys sake, and seeking the greatest good for the greatest number.

No room here for the infantile phallocentric Nietzscheanism that is destroying modern human culture. If you were a boy youd be on the margins, drifting between family groups (but never allowed to disrupt them) or shacked up with your bachelor pals in the elephant equivalent of an unswept bedsit (though usually your behaviour would be gentler, more convivial and more urbane than cohabiting human males). Your function would be to inseminate, and thats all. Government would be the business of the females.

Youd hear with your feet, and your femurs would be microphones. Photograph: Bruno Guerreiro/Getty Images/EyeEm

Youd be a communitarian. Relationality would be everything. Its not that you couldnt survive alone, although there would certainly be a survival benefit from being a member of a community, just as humans live longer if they are plugged into a church, a mosque or a bowling club. Yes, at some level your altruism might be reciprocal altruism, where you scratch my back if I scratch yours, or kin selection, where you are somehow persuaded to sacrifice yourself if your death or disadvantage will preserve a gene in a sufficiently closely related gene-bearer. But at a much more obvious and important level youd be relational joyously shouldering the duties that come with community because it made you happy. Why do elephants seek out other elephants? Not primarily for sex, or for an extra arsenal of receptors to pick up the scent of poachers, or because they assume that the others will have found particularly nutritious food, but because they like other elephants.

This should be terribly unsurprising. Yet many humans will be surprised. That shows how fully weve fallen for the anthropocentric lie that only humans have minds and real emotions. The lie is the high-water mark of scientific fundamentalism. Fortunately its going out of fashion now, but for years it paralysed the study of animal behaviour.

As an elephant, youd have a mind. You would, no doubt at all, be conscious. All the evidence agrees. None absolutely none disagrees. Youd have a sense of yourself as distinct from other things. When you looked out contemptuously at humans, wondering why they ate obviously contaminated food, opted to be miserable and alone, or wasted energy on pointless aggression and anxiety, it would be your contempt, as opposed to generic elephantine contempt, or reflexive contempt that bypassed your cerebral cortex, or the contempt of your sister. It would be you looking out, and youd know it was you.

Youd have a mind. You would, no doubt at all, be conscious. Photograph: Palani Mohan/Getty Images

The American ecologist Carl Safina argues that elephant X can understand the relationship that elephant Y has with elephant Z whether it is a kin relationship or simple friendship. Just think about that. Think about what it entails for Xs knowledge of itself; for Xs ability to think itself into the head of another, and for the way that X must articulate to itself the concept of a third-party relationship. Perhaps elephants are explaining the world to themselves by formulating, evaluating and selecting propositions a faculty we tend to think of as uniquely ours.

That will be too much for most. Indeed, its a mistake to assume that in order to have a mind one has to have a mind that is like human minds. So lets just say that, according to the evidence, its not obviously ridiculous to invite you, the human, to imagine yourself as an elephant. Theres some biological justification for what sounds like a whimsical, sentimental literary device. You and the elephant both have minds, wrought from the same stuff. And your minds engage with the world using the same devices. Your neurological hardware differs only in sensitivity: sodium and potassium surge in the same way through the same molecular gates when you and the elephant step on a nail; the same ancient hormones mediate pleasure, anger and stress. If you prick us, ask the elephants (using a chromatic orchestra of sounds, and well over 100 distinct body movements), do we not bleed? Indeed they do.

We can be cautiously Beatrix-Pottery with elephants. When the temporal glands near their eyes stream in circumstances that, for us, would be emotional, theyre crying. When a bereaved elephant mother carries her dead baby round on her tusks, or trails miserably behind the herd for weeks, her head hanging down, shes grieving. When other elephants sit for hours around the body of a dead elephant, theyre mourning. When they cover an elephant corpse with soil or vegetation, or move elephant bones, theyre being reverential. When they cover a dead human, or build a protective wall of sticks around a wounded human, theyre showing an empathic acknowledgment of our shared destiny that wed do well to learn. These, dear reductionists, are, as you would put it, the most parsimonious hypotheses.

Youd smell water miles away and the flowers at your feet. Photograph: Simon Eeman/Alamy Stock Photo

If elephants have minds, and minds (as seems likely) can extend beyond the brains in which we conventionally assume theyre situated, wed expect them to tune into distant elephants, and perhaps into the minds of other species too. There are some tantalising hints that they can. Safina was told by a keeper at a Kenyan elephant sanctuary that the resident elephants knew, from distances well beyond the reach of ordinary senses, that other elephants were on the way just as Kalahari bushmen know, from 50 miles away, just what a hunting party has killed, and when it will return. When the elephant whisperer Lawrence Anthony died, two groups of elephants that hed rescued came to his house on two consecutive days. They hadnt visited for a year.

Perhaps one of the reasons were so keen to deny non-human creatures minds, consciousness and personhood is that, if theyre people, theyre embarrassingly better people than we are. They build better communities; they live at peace with themselves and arent, unlike us, actively psychopathic towards other species. They know, and take account of, a great deal more information about the natural world than we do.

Back to the shamanic fantasy: youre a city elephant. Youll inhabit the city much more intensely and satisfactorily than most of its human denizens. All your senses will be turned fully on. You wont, like most woefully unsensual humans, use only your eyes, and then translate the visual images into self-referential abstractions with only a slight and dysfunctional relationship to the real world. Youll be much more properly local than any cockney, New Yorker or Madrileo, though you call Africa your home. Youll know far more of the city than any geographer, historian, zoologist, botanist, policeman or lover. By trying to become an elephant, you might become a much more thriving human.

Be careful, though. Youre likely to end up dead because someone wants a couple of your teeth.

Charles Foster is a fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford, and author of Being a Beast. Some of the speculation in this article is based on elephant lore recorded in Carl Safinas Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel.