On Being and God's Gardners

Can't wait to read Margaret Atwood's newest novel, THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD-- what she calls "speculative fiction," aka literary science fiction. The story includes God's Gardeners "a religion devoted to the melding of science, religion, and nature, which has long predicted a disaster. " Atwood has always been smart about the promotional aspects of novel writing as well. [I hear she invented a kind of pen that allows authors to virtually autograph books.I kid you not.] She is on Twitter and has a stunning website for THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD.
There, you can nominate a "flood saint."

And now on to "Being" in the moment.For those of us who find writing a spiritual practice:

I love this quote from Virginia Woolf [thanks to Dani Shapiro's terrific blog about writing, which features this quote]:

Every day includes much more non-being than being. This is always so. One walks, eats, sees things, deals with what has to be done; the broken vacuum cleaner; ordering dinner; washing; cooking dinner. When it is a bad day the proportion of non-being is much larger.-- Virginia Woolf

Stop & Smell the Buddleia

Butterflies, after they pupate, only live for about 24 hours. They flutter around in stunning beauty for a day, sucking up nectar.

The tiger swallowtail that posed for me in my front yard on the buddleia here reminds me how important it is to bring myself back into the present moment-- away from the noise and worries of the future, and the weight of the past. That kind of focus and flow happens on good writing days, when I lose all sense of time--clock time.

Sage advice from two blogs today, too good not to share:

From fellow writer Dani Shapiro, who blogs today on entering the internal world of writing: on good writing habits that foster creativity-- and avoiding the bad habits [like the maddening mind chatter from self-Googling.]

I loved Dani's novel Family History by the way...and I'm happy I stumbled upon her blog, and her quote from Virginia Woolf:

"Every day includes much more non-being than being. This is always so. One walks, eats, sees things, deals with what has to be done; the broken vacuum cleaner; ordering dinner; washing; cooking dinner. When it is a bad day the proportion of non-being is much larger."
-- Virginia Woolf

And from Zen Thoughts, some concrete suggestions on how to live without "clock time," and with a quote I loved...this one from Faulkner:

“Clocks slay time… time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.” - William Faulkner