Over recent weeks I have spent dark days
Lethargically slumped
over my writing desk
I have been feeling dispirited and dull
My concentration has gone
and I am now prone
To frequent,
unpredictable mood changes

For days now I have felt indifferent
decidedly irritable and
if you so much as looks at me
I am likely to snarl viciously and
Aggressively demand to know
why, just because
I teach people how to write
Everyone expects me to be an accomplished writer

What could someone
With a banal daily life like mine
Possibly have to write
In verse or prose for that matter?
Of what consequence
Are my sporadic, deranged mutterings?
It has all been a façade, a masquerade
all done with smoke and mirrors

This proliferation, this sudden invasion of my organs
this debilitating infection of my brain has left me
suffering from a chronic, torpor
It is an effort even
to raise my pen
I am suffering from daytime insomnia
exhausted by periods of sleep-like unconsciousness
And fear I will slip into a deep coma
wither and die of sleeping sickness

Sleeping sickness?
First described in the fourteenth century
when Sultan Djata of the Kingdom of Melli
was stricken by a lethargy that killed him
Only methodical destruction
of the tsetse flies habitat
repelled the spread but now, centuries later
a fresh reservoir of blood lies unprotected

Only a vigilant mobile surveillance system
with specialized staff
using effective diagnostic tools and
improved field control strategies
Will repel this resurgence
control this vigorous strain of sleeping sickness
causing neurological impairment in
lonely writers and artists all over the world

I wrote this many years ago when I was summoning the courage to face each day with my husband who was battling bowel cancer. Over recent months the malaise has taken a grip and bought my creativity to a grinding halt.

Seeking regeneration.

The Soul Food Cafe has evolved over a ten year period to become an amazing collective of international writers and artists.

Nothing happens by chance. It was born as a result of the Trains of Thought of the creator, Heather Blakey and has grown because of the creative people who responded to the call, who stumbled through the doors to feast upon the food for the soul that she served up. Many of them stayed, inhabiting the place for many more than 101 nights and, in so doing, helped to make it what it is today.

This blog tells their stories and the story of Soul Food.

For more of the story of Soul Food take the time to wander its halls with Heather Blakey

“Alice is bored sitting on the riverbank with her sister, who is reading a book. Suddenly she sees a white rabbit, wearing a coat and carrying a watch, run past, lamenting running late. She follows it down a rabbit hole and falls very slowly down a tunnel lined with curious objects. She lands in a long hallway lined with locked doors. She finds a little key sitting on a glass table. Behind a curtain on the wall she finds a tiny door that opens with the key and leads into a beautiful garden. The door however is too small for Alice to fit through. “

When Alice followed the rabbit down the hole into Wonderland she found a fantasy world populated by peculiar and anthropomorphic creatures.

Many people who come to the Soul Food Cafe, despite efforts to provide directories, never do see the little key sitting upon the glass table. Perhaps it is because someone else has forgotten to return it. Whatever! If you choose to follow me through the door that leads into the vast halls and vaults of Soul Food you will gain insight into the depth and breadth of this quirky cyber cafe and you will be sure to be enchanted all over again. While you are roaming the halls it is possible that you will meet tan Enchantress, more than one white rabbit and even travel on a talking donkey.

The Soul Food Cafe was built on the premise of making writing a daily practice. Perhaps you might want to make it a daily practice to visit a link and complete an activity.

Maybe you will keep a journal so that others can follow your footsteps.

Keep returning to this page to find links to a guided tour of the Soul Food Cafe. Use the comment tool to offer feedback and encouragement for others and to ask any questions.

Each time you click a link make sure to keep a record so that you remember where you have been.

Get yourself a notebook – any kind of notebook and join in the fun. Take a tour, today, with someone as mad as a hatter and bring joy into your life. Preserving your work is important. Make it a practice, every day, to add a new page of stuff to your journal and then, if you feel so inclined, blog and share your work with others. You will find ideas of what to do on your pages in each of the posts below.

Once Upon a Time, Long Long Ago – November 15th 2009
Unleashing Monsters – November 16th 2009
Breathe Life Into New Books – Taken from the 2004 Advent Calendar
I Remember Where I Was – November 17th 2009
Stocking the Shelves – November 19th 2009
A Basic Theory of Evolution – November 24th 2009
Drinking from The Waters of Castalia – November 25th 2009
Providing Anchorage – November 29th 2009
Not a Burley Griffin Design – November 30th 2009
Believing Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast – November 30th 2009
Claiming Nooks at Soul Food – December 3rd 2009
Planting Lemurian Seeds – December 4th 2009
Worthy of Divine Inspiration – December 5th 2009
The Abbey – December 7th 2009
A Murder of Ravens - December 8th 2009
Naming Myself Writer – December 11th 2009
Commissioning Artists – December 15th 2009
One Lemurian Portal – December 18th 2009
Seeking Artistic Expression – December 20th 2009
Box of Wonderment – January 4th 2010
Importance of Filling the Stocking - January 6th 2010
Baptism by Fire – January 19th 2010

The world of Lemuria and  Enchanteur lies at the tip of your fingertips.
Head towards the light and follow the Serpentine Road towards Rainbow Beach.
Heather Blakey October 21 2009

The Great Spinx dominates the Giza Plain. Latest theory has it that this was carved as a tribute to a Pharoah’s father, the likeness ensuring his immortality and restoring calm after his death.

If you travel the Serpentine Road and reach the Valley of Bones, deep in Lemuria you will find a huge skull that is a cauldron. It is said that those who manage to drink from it tell particularly good Halloween stories.

So as you can imagine there is quite a crowd gathered on these plains, singing amidst the bones.

As Winter’s Night approaches there is a window of opportunity. Enchanteur has been hibernating and Lemurian roads, villages, hamlets and residences have all been cloaked in silence. With the arrival of Winter’s Night, light is returning to Lemuria and, for those who are quick, there is an opportunity to slip through the portal and continue the adventure. It is a bit like the pause button has been turned off and the narrative has resumed.

Travel lightly, enter Lemuria and pick up where you left off, or start all over again.

The SS Vulcania, which has been in dry dock for months, will sail again in the lead up to Christmas, so those who are travelling the Serpentine Road might want to make haste and navigate those pathways.

If you are joining in make sure your blogs are listed on primary blogs such as the Vulcania, the Serpentine Road and Hestia’s Hearth.

Whenever a cry for help goes out, whenever someone from within Soul Food needs a defender, Raven Warriors come to the rescue
Heather Blakey
October 1 2009

There is no time like the present to rummage through a Cabinet of Curiosities, visit places filled with eccentric, quirky collections and to pull some old things out. Baba Yaga is an old friend who visits the Hearth from time to time. Do her bidding and you will be rewarded.
Heather Blakey

A cabinet of wondrous curios
A delightful collection
Objects,
Carefully placed
Lying, seeming unconnected
Next to each other
Evoking,
Triggering memories
Permitting the mind to
Wander to faraway places

Microscopes,
Scales, microtomes,
Drafting tools,
Cameras,
Magic lanterns
Antique candle powered projectors
Fine laboratory glassware
Vintage beakers, funnels, test tubes, crucibles,
Dessicating jars
And a one-off hand blown, baroque piece carefully stored

A pair of rare wax anatomical models
Crutches and callipers,
Arm braces,
Blood pressure meters
And first aid dummies
Antique botanical prints
Woolly mammoth hair
Coprolites,
Spiny trilobites,
Skulls, fish and ammonites stored in labelled draws.

Butterflies mounted in Petri dishes
An Atlantis Moth
Obscure,
Whimsical and wonderful
Packets of seed,
Very old taxidermy birds, in excellent condition
Hand-made pills,
Patent medicines and toiletries.
The scent of human breast milk, swamp water and sex
Stored in tiny laboratory vials

All combine to fill
A purveyors
wonder chamber of
creative stimuli

1. Sally said,

   September 23, 2009 at 8:00 am · Edit

   I love the picture and the words! I’ve been looking for something important not seen for many years and have found some curiosities of my own! Either the objects are curious or I am curious as to why I have them!!

   Reply
2. 

   Lori said,

   September 23, 2009 at 9:31 am · Edit

   My gosh! What a treasure trove of ideas. Hmmmm…. what can I do with coprolites?!

   Reply
3. 

   cronelogical said,

   September 23, 2009 at 11:47 am · Edit

   Places I’ve been
   things I’ve made mine
   a cabinet of life
   and a story designed. More than fun here. Fran

   Reply
4. 

   traveller2006 said,

   September 23, 2009 at 2:12 pm · Edit

   I just love these old cabinets of wonderment

My Shadow and I In Eldorado
by Heather Blakey
September 19 2009

Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.

But he grew old-
This knight so bold-
And o’er his heart a shadow
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.

And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow-
“Shadow,” said he,
“Where can it be-
This land of Eldorado?”

“Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,”
The shade replied-
“If you seek for Eldorado!”

by Edgar Allan Poe

Cosmic Energy, Creative Fertility Forces
by Heather Blakey August 2009

After reading The Faithful Gardener I have been left pondering upon the creative energy forces that are at work in the vast universe that surrounds us, of which we are a cog in the wheel of life. Life is given, life is taken, the cycle continues as it has continued for billions of years. In uncertain times change is the only certainty. Be it Viriditas, Duende, Tao, Qi, there is a cosmic force that is available which drives creativity. For some, it is the Red Serpent. For others it is something else.

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The Devouring Serpent
by Heather Blakey August 2009

In a modern world where money has been on the ascendancy for decades, the serpent consumes everything, fattening itself, leaving a wasteland wherever it has been.

In Women Who Run With The Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes devotes a chapter to Hestia. She does not specifically name her but then she does not have to because the presence of this Goddess vibrates, just as surely as song lines sing, through every lyrical word that Estes pours like mulled wine.

In Chapter Nine, Homing: Returning to Oneself, Estes tells us that there are seasons to go home, to return to ones ancestral grounds. After touring Great Britain and Europe for six months in 2001 I felt a great sense of homing as I touched Australian soil, breathed Australian air once more. However, to home does not require an overseas jaunt. Unlike the Atlantic Salmon we do not have to swim thousands of miles to reach our ancestral space or to arrive at our soul home. All one has to do is cross the threshold , step through an outline drawn in chalk and claim space with Hestia.

Called Home
by Heather Blakey August 2009

The old ones have been calling and I choose to respond to their call. I come to Hestia seeking her support and guidance.

Reference: Women Who Run With Wolves: Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Chapter 9 Homing: Returning to Oneself.

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