E.A.A. Wilson's Blog, page 4
April 9, 2015
My Shit Morning was Shittier than Yours
So you think you had a rough day? Let me correct you: No rotting, putrid flesh-wound of a morning that you may have experienced in the stagnant pits of Hell comes close to the horror that I went through before the sun had even risen. I wasn’t even sure it would rise, so severe was the darkness that veiled my miserable breakfast (a coagulating fried egg on a piece of stale toast.) My shit morning was definitely shittier than yours.
This is what happened. (You may want to find a well-cushioned stool to sit on, if you haven’t already.)
The short story: I spilled my tea.
The long story:
The film crew hadn’t finished packing up their equipment until around midnight last night, having spent 6 hours filming me and my daughter for The New 8-Bit Heroes. So I was already broken by the time I got to bed. My MUCH needed beauty sleep was interrupted approximately oh-two-hundred hours later, when my husband started snoring like a ferocious beast. Some men snore the classic gzzzd..d..pheeeeew… snore, but my man growls, guffaws and revs his nasal engine like he’s an entire Florida bike gang.
Once I’m awake, I’m awake. There’s no hope of returning to the Land of Nod, especially since the Krakatoan roar beside me wouldn’t stop shaking my brain until dawn. So I got up, made a simple and actually rather disgusting breakfast, pottered to my work station, and cracked my knuckles. I’d write a few chapters, that’s what I’d do.
So there I was, tapping away at a little scene involving a small altercation between a disgraced guardian angel and the ferryman, when my eyes slid to a tiny paper angel my daughter had left on my desk. “Oh how sweet!” I thought, in catastrophic error. I picked up the seemingly harmless little piece of origami, and stretched to place it ever so tenderly on the shelf above my head.
My husband isn’t his loudest when he snores. He reserves the most gargantuan decibels for when he does DIY. I think it’s somehow connected to the primal caveman in him: the desire, nay need, to announce to other tribesmen across the lands that shelves are being hung. I like watching him work too – it awakens the cavewoman in me, an equally primal instinct to bear him child. He hung this shelf up just where I wanted it, so I could enliven my workspace with a few little plants, a Tibetan bowl and an inspirational card that reads “Woman is Masterpiece.”
The little paper angel floated down like a dandelion seed, and landed on the surface of the shelf like a whisper. And then, in perfect slow motion as my jaw fell agape like a bleating goat’s, the shelf tore itself from the wall by its very screws and tumbled onto my horrified face. It landed with a thunk on the bridge of my nose, the thin bridge between the skull that protects my brain, and the now sliding projectiles. The pot of fern, Tibetan bowl and “Woman is Masterpiece” skated along the shelf’s sloping edge towards my exposed eyeballs. My sight was only saved by my instinct to duck, which of course launched the shelf over my head like a vaulting pole flicks its athlete.
The Tibetan bowl landed upside down on the desk, and was spinning there in the infuriating way crockery does, the sound reaching a crescendo almost as loud as my husband as few rooms away. To punish the universe, I grabbed the shelf bracket (with the plastery screw still poking from it), spun round and frisbee’d it through the cut out at the kitchen wall, secretly hoping it would smash one of the grey tiles my husband had grouted only last week (that’d teach him for having vibrating cartilage).
His caveman instinct ignited and soon I heard his footsteps thud-thud-thudding down the hallway to protect me from bears. I had to make the split second decision whether to be reasonable, or continue to fester in my fury. I chose fury. He wrapped his arms around me and kissed my forehead, scanned the room for perilous beasts, then went straight to my shelf to inspect the damage. The bowl was still wobbling, it’s perfect “A” hanging in the air like a star of innocence.
And that’s when dismay punched me in the emotional gut.
You see, nature decided, for some reason, that women’s fingers should swell when they’re pregnant. It might have something to do with survival, though it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when giant turd-like sausage fingers would benefit someone who’s already incapacitated by vomiting and carrying an internal sack of amniotic fluid and developing human. But such is the way of it, and I try to comply with evolution whenever I can. So I’d removed my engagement ring, wedding ring, and the tiny sand-grain diamond that had already loosened, and placed them in the Tibetan bowl for safe keeping.
Where were they now??????? While my husband jabbed at the screw and mumbled something like “don’t know why it came loose, solid as a rock that was, stellar workmanship,” I clutched my almost certainly broken nose, and leaned forward to check the crack between the glass and the window frame, in case they’d spun off in that direction.
I’d forgotten about my baby bump. (They call it a baby “bump” because it sounds cuter than a baby “heaving, swelling mound of parasitic offspring”, which may appear cruel at first, but is in fact more accurate.) My dimensions are all off. I no longer have any idea where I begin and where I end. As I leaned over, my unborn child knocked over my mug of tea. The steaming liquid flooded the work area, with my freshly inked notepaper blotting it up and rendering my brilliant ideas completely illegible. I just stared. Then my chin began to wobble and I couldn’t see for the reservoir of saline welling up in my eyes. I left my man to wipe up the mess and threw myself onto the couch, sobbing into the cushions from the injustice of it all.
And there I lay, howling into the depths of tragedy.
Until I felt a little flutter. A few little popcorn pops, and then a sweet butterfly kiss as my baby turned around inside me. I stopped crying and opened my eyes, staring into the air. There it was again. And again! What an amazing feeling! My tiny baby had woken up and was pottering about inside me. My mind’s eye could see its sweet little body, stretching and flexing as it practiced for the future outside. Moments later, just as I was wiping the mingle of tears and snot on my pyjama sleeve, my three-year old daughter opened her bedroom door and pitter-pattered out into the living room, crawled up into my lap and said: “Mummy, I think even bees have elbows, but they’re very small.” My husband wiped up the last of my spilled tea, hung all my notes up to dry, and sat down beside me, his giant man-arms over my shoulder. I snuggled up, and smiled.
Dawn broke, and thin rays of pink light streamed through the paper blinds. And nothing else mattered but that joyful moment with my baby, my daughter, my husband and my broken nose.
I found my engagement ring in the end, but my wedding ring and diamond are still missing. It’s ok though – what they symbolize is stronger than ever.
March 31, 2015
The Unintelligent Atheists
Dear restaurant-owner,
As always, I spent the first ten minutes of my day deep in prayer. But today my thoughts wouldn’t focus. I was thinking about my eyes, you see. What you said to me yesterday over coffee made my eyeballs shrivel up until they were withered like raisins, and now I can’t get on with my day until I say my piece.
“There’s obviously a God,” you said, stirring your mug of Americano. I shrugged. Obvious is such a subjective word. “The evidence is all around,” you continued, and I nodded with an eyebrow slightly raised. Evidence is pretty subjective too. “Atheists must be unintelligent,” you concluded, and I snorted into my hot java, burning my eyeballs from the scolding splash-back.
You’d been droning on about religious freedom for the last half an hour, about your right to refuse service to gays (though you didn’t mention your right to refuse service to shrimp-eaters, the tattooed or those who wear polyester, all as detestable as gay love in the often-misquoted Leviticus), and I’d run out of etiquette.
The ‘unintelligent’ atheists. This is the group of people who first had the courage to challenge patriarchal convention and put question marks around the limited, pre-scientific understanding of the universe. Their reluctance to accept “because it says so in this book” as a satisfactory answer to the mysteries of the most high was pivotal in driving the scientific understanding that we rely on.
Oh, but their blasphemy is deplorable to you? That’s ok. You don’t have to change your beliefs. In the same way, the fact that your daughter is allowed to read is deplorable to our Taliban friends. The axiom “One Nation, Under God” is deplorable to many atheists. My use of the “argument by shrimp” above may be deplorable to Jews, and your remorseless violation of certain sections of your own scripture in the attempt to uphold arbitrarily chosen prejudices is certainly deplorable to me. Or does religious freedom only apply to Judeo-Christian faiths?
If you, like me, have faith in the higher power and the intelligent design, and you believe that God is infallible, that unconditional love is the essence, the very construct of everything, then you’ll agree that we’re all here looking for the Light. I see it in the flowers, I see it in the clouds, I see it shining the eyes of the faithful—whether their faith is in God, nature, science, themselves, or in all of us. I’m in awe of my atheist brothers and sisters, who stand courageous in the face of their own mortality and drive humanity towards the Light despite having no crumbling papyrus scripture threatening them with pits of belching sulfur.
And in the contrast of our faiths we can refine our understanding of the Truth, whatever form it takes. We’re truth-seekers, after all.
Just had to get that off my chest.
Love and light,
E. A. A. Wilson
E. A. A. Wilson is an ordained minister, metaphysician and writer. Visit her site here.
March 23, 2015
Sinking Ship – by Daniel Quinn
The ship was sinking—and sinking fast. The captain told the passengers and crew, “We’ve got to get the lifeboats in the water right away.”
But the crew said, “First we have to end capitalist oppression of the working class. Then we’ll take care of the lifeboats.”
Then the women said, “First we want equal pay for equal work. The lifeboats can wait.”
The racial minorities said, “First we need to end racial discrimination. Then seating in the lifeboats will be allotted fairly.”
The captain said, “These are all important issues, but they won’t matter a damn if we don’t survive. We’ve got to lower the lifeboats right away!”
But the religionists said, “First we need to bring prayer back into the classroom. This is more important than lifeboats.”
Then the pro-life contingent said, “First we must outlaw abortion. Fetuses have just as much right to be in those lifeboats as anyone else.”
The right-to-choose contingent said, “First acknowledge our right to abortion, then we’ll help with the lifeboats.”
The socialists said, “First we must redistribute the wealth. Once that’s done everyone will work equally hard at lowering the lifeboats.”
The animal-rights activists said, “First we must end the use of animals in medical experiments. We can’t let this be subordinated to lowering the lifeboats.”
Finally the ship sank, and because none of the lifeboats had been lowered, everyone drowned.
The last thought of more than one of them was, “I never dreamed that solving humanity’s problems would take so long—or that the ship would sink so SUDDENLY.”
“If the world is saved, it will not be saved by old minds with new programs but by new minds with no programs at all.”
Daniel Quinn
March 22, 2015
The state of things
A hot article – I am certain the darkness is turning into light, but I believe our role in the solution is not to try to fix what is broken, but to sledgehammer it completely and start fresh…
Originally posted on Russell Chapman:
The human-race is like a car which is rolling towards the edge of a cliff and instead of hitting the brakes we seem to be hitting the gas.
At the UN Headquarters, “let us beat our swords into ploughshares”
The vast majority of people just want to get on with their lives, wanting to raise their families in security both financially and physically, but we now live in a time when that is becoming harder and harder for more and more people. Society is becoming very deeply divided and tribal, politics,religion race and wealth are the dividing factors.
After World War 2, there was a period when things seemed to be going reasonably well. During that time we saw nations rebuilding themselves along with the fall of colonialism, businesses were booming and the quality of life was improving for the majority, medical care was made easily available, housing was easy…
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March 6, 2015
Backstabbing in Purgatory…
E A A Wilson’s Ascension Denied is released May 14th 2015 (Ascension Day). Here’s a quick taster…
A hilarious tale of mystery, adventure and the search for freedom, where angels and humans struggle to navigate their weaknesses in a complex and fascinating afterlife.
Purgatory is in trouble. In a bureaucratic afterlife where science, theology and utter confusion are entwined, something is preventing the dead from ascending… Can Alice unclog a corrupt system before the streets are overrun by dead people? And what happens when two drunk guardian angels accidentally open the doors to Hell?
Original cover art by Danielle Beebe
“A wondrous, masterfully-assured debut novel. Fantastical, romantic, and piercingly satirical, this tale of bureaucracy and backstabbing in purgatory is a slice of literary heaven. If you like Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, you’ll love this!”
Scott Ciencin, NY Times bestselling author
“With the humor of Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett, and the biting satire of Vonnegut or Twain, E.A.A. Wilson takes us on an adventure that upends our expectations about the afterlife and skewers religion, business, and the banal trappings of modern life. Ascension Denied is that rare book that stands alone as an exciting, entertaining fantasy but that also has the guts to take an unflinching look at the world we actually live in. I can’t recommend this book highly enough and know that readers will enjoy it.”
Rob Griffith, award-winning author of The Moon From Every Window
“Great imagination…thought-provoking ideas.”
Kirkus Reviews
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How to write a FEARLESS book while hiding under the bed
Brilliant insight by my author colleague Jennifer Skutelsky.
Originally posted on Musings Of Orientation:
Photo courtesy of © Kim Baker (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kimberlyfaye/3520321496)
A couple of nights ago I had a dream. The subject matter may have had to do with reading WORLD WAR Z before bed after watching the movie twice (not on the same day), so you could say I got what I deserved. Did I dream I was trapped in a dangerous place with Brad Pitt? Ohnonono. I dreamed I was at the bottom of the zombie pile swarming up a wall, with bits of my brain dribbling onto my shoulders under the weight of rotting zombie feet. It was unfortunate, but what did it teach me? That it’s better to be the zombie who has a shot at the helicopter than the zombie sucking mud. And here I’ll do as Maggie Smith suggests–never explain. Okay, I’ll explain a bit.
As we stagger or float through Publishing Today, our books are in danger of sucking…
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February 14, 2015
The Song of the Gondolier: Episode 1
A Valentine’s gift from me to you!
Originally posted on E A A Wilson:
Ah, Veneziabella. Imagine the labyrinth of architecture enveloping the charming little island city cut by crystalline canals. Narrow cobbled streets frame the gondoliers who paddle serene and winding canals. Listen! The gondolier serenades. His tones are soft, and the sound of the water at his oar as he glides a forward stroke is at once soothing and evocative.
This is where Mr. and Mrs. Grubfeldt were to rekindle the flames of their courting days, rediscover each other’s coital mysteries and once again embrace one another in the naked, fleshy inferno that is the true romance invariably strangled by marriage. For, after smelling her swollen husband’s body gases for nearing thirty-five years, Mrs. Grubfeldt finally snapped, bought a travel magazine and demanded that he prove that his passions extended further than watching UFC and eating pop tarts dipped in butter. And to his unexpected credit, he got off his…
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January 14, 2015
God-Man or Not God-Man. Those are your choices.
Took me years to realize you don’t have to decide.
Originally posted on E A A Wilson:
This is the terrible, but true, story of how I pissed off a priest. Only read on if you are unafraid of lightning bolts and eternal pits of belching sulfur…
The story takes us back 17 years to a dark little industrial town in Norway where the economy was primarily kept alive by a weapons factory. Most people who have lived in such places know that paradigms are unshakable, dogma is solid, and minds are tightly closed.
As far as spirituality went, you belonged in one of two boxes:
1. Christian
I’m yours, God-Man!
Core belief according to small town creed: There is a white God-man up there, with a beard, probably a staff of some sort.
God-man blesses some people and damns others. He gave people free will but you’ll burn in hell forever if you practice it.
Once he sent a giant flood and a little man called…
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January 7, 2015
How to Give: A Guide for the Greedy
Do you think you’re completely broke after Christmas? You’re not. You have more to give!
Originally posted on E A A Wilson:
Giving is profoundly good for the soul. It’s also a prerequisite for getting.
Everyone knows you don’t get without giving. That goes for everything: Friendship, wealth, even herpes.
But it can be really hard to give. If you’re poor, stingy, Scrooge-like or strapped for cash because your assets are tied up in your sparkling possessions, there is hope. If you’re too busy watching Biggest Loser or Game of Thrones to volunteer for the homeless, no problem. Here are four secret ways to give without ever having to dip into your wallet or set foot in a dirty soup kitchen.
You are important, skilled, and brimming with incredible things that you can share with those who need it. Here are four extremely easy but valuable ways of giving that are just as good for your soul and for your fellow people on this tiny planet:
1. Give of your…
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January 2, 2015
You are H20
My New Year’s resolution: Be more like water.
Originally posted on E A A Wilson:
Water does stuff that we don’t do. Like evaporate. Be a place for shrimp to die. Lie on my bathroom floor until I slip on it. Scare the shit out of my cat. Be a toilet for whales.
But it has some similarities with us too.
1. Stagnant water stinks…
…like rotting eggy mushrooms. It’s vile. Sometimes one of those fat bubbles will rise to the surface and belch more mustard-colored ooze into the atmosphere.
And a stagnant person gives off the same vibrational fumes of boredom, underachievement, frustration, anger, low self-esteem… But if you could sieve all that algae and fungus and whatever else out of the water, the pure water is still there. The best way to do that is to get the water flowing again. If you have stagnated, recognize that and take action. (How? Start by remembering your goal.)
2. Water flows over obstacles.
When…
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