Holidays…
Japan's celebration of the new year, Ōmisoka.
The Jewish celebration of Hanukkah.
The African-American holiday of Kwanzaa.
The pagan-derived Christian holiday of Christmas.
These are your prompts this week, be directly inspired by them, veer wildly, combine, mush, mix, invent a holiday or celebration all your own
As ever these challenges are here to prompt writing of any and all kinds. What you write may be connected or unconnected, loud or quiet, polite or profane. You do you.
The Whole Point is to Write Something
If you want to write something that is. And maybe think about that this month, as we close out a stressful year. Does writing make you happy or do you wish it did? Does writing bring you clarity or is it a series of frustrations?
Sometimes what we want is different from what we thought it would be. In which case, it might be time to either adapt the dream we had, or develop a new dream.
You're allowed to do that. You're the white knight of your life. You can give yourself the permission to change. Or if you don't want to change, you can decide to focus and follow through.
Let December help you figure that out.
Me, I'll write forever because there's nothing I'd rather do. Sometimes though the time slips away from me, so I have a new rule: 100 words a day. Just that. Having the permission to attend to all the other things after just that 100 has so far meant I write two and three and four times that amount regularly.
Find your rules. And dreams. And get on that horse, dear knight. It's time to rescue yourself.
Start here if you like. Write something. Share it with us.
It has always been my wish to visit the Temple of the White Knights, ever since I was little and my great-grandmother told us the tales of the war that burned Tierra.
Back then, the 5 great kingdoms were fighting over water, fuel and other resources and it all ended in a war that encompassed the whole planet. The White Knights, now our most important Gods, were only minor ones back then, but the prime Gods of Tierra-before were absent and did not help.
The White Knights, originally a peaceful order, took up weapons and destroyed all the floating towers that allowed people to communicate with each other. Then they divided their flying temple and crashed it into the palaces, killing the kings and queens of the 5 great kingdoms, effectively ending the war.
We don’t know a lot about Tierra-before, not much seemed to have been written down and the few things we did discover have yet to be deciphered. Nobody cares about that much though, the people back then do not seem to be relevant to our simple lives now. We have no floating towers and we do not communicate with people that live more than a few days of travel away from us.
This journey has been the longest I have ever set forth on, the Temple of the White Knights is at least three weeks of travel from my home. But today is the day that we reached it and I am so excited I can hardly breathe!
The new temple is built around parts of the old one that crashed to the ground and it’s so white it is said to shine even in the night. It’s still daylight now, so I’ll have to wait to verify this.
I enter through the first gate and my heart is pounding so hard I can’t hear anything else. I reach the old wall and I run my fingers over them, to connect with the Gods. Although I can’t read the words on it, they look like old magic to me: International Space Station.
As I had dreamed awake, so it unfolds
The White Knight begs for his partner’s life
Bowed under the weight of his armor, his hands hang empty
Lost without his guiding star.
Yet his eyes, they burn with an icy heat
He is bowed, but not yet broken
The flame is bright, as in former days
When he thought he could save the world.
Even now he rises, lifts the shield
Once more unto the weary breach
Can he save his Polaris? My dreams say no, but his eyes
Oh, how bright they burn.
.
[A/N: Starsky and Hutch fanfic, based on the ep “Bloodbath.” Going where the muse takes me… :)]
sacred dark, blesséd light
heritage, ritual
reverence, hope
the pause at the end of an exhale
that waiting stillness
and then the rush of air in