Muse in the Morning

Becalmed Breathing A few people standing on the deck of this boat blowing at the sail will not move it Newton ensured that We’ll always have that equal and opposite reaction Moving this boat will require the collective breath of millions who are not on it –Robyn Elaine Serven –April 4, 2008

Please join us on the inside to celebrate, venerate, regenerate and/or motivate our muses.

Muse in the Morning

Window Reflection and Refraction I see the past in the mirror of tarnished memories and often misaligned contemplation The future on the other hand is best seen through the window of imagination –Robyn Elaine Serven –June 1, 2008

Please join us on the inside to celebrate, venerate, regenerate and/or motivate…maybe even castigate or exonerate…our muses.

I have a fascination with words and how they came to mean what they do and take on the connotations that they have.  

Of Queers and Fags, Hussies and Catamites

queer – 1508, strange, peculiar, eccentric, from Scottish, perhaps from Low Ger. (Brunswick dialect) queer (oblique, off-center),  related to Ger. quer  (oblique, perverse, odd), from O.H.G. twerh (oblique), from PIE base twerk (to turn, twist, wind), related to thwart. The verb “to spoil, ruin” is first recorded 1812.   The sense of “homosexual” was first recorded in 1922; the noun in this sense is 1935, from the adjective.

I admit to being queer.  But I am not spoiled or ruined.

The word homosexual dates from 1892, in C.G. Chaddock’s translation of Krafft-Ebing’s Psychopathia Sexualis, from homo-, a combination form from the Greek homos (same) and the Latin-based sexual.

‘Homosexual’ is a barbarously hybrid word, and I claim no responsibility for it.

— H. Havelock Ellis, Studies in Psychology, 1897

Homosexual was first used as a noun in 1907 in French, in English in 1912.  Interesting comment in the etymological dictionary:  In technical use, either male or female; but in non-technical use almost always male. The slang shortened form homo first appeared in 1929. The alternative homophile was coined in reference to the homosexual regarded as a person of a particular social group, rather than a sexual abnormality, in 1960, but it didn’t catch on.  Homophobia is from 1969.

Well, I’m sure homophobia is from way before that, but the word is from 1969.

The WeaveMothers were one and several.  The collective imagined a HereNow.  But the autonomous units were going to do what autonomous units do.  The distance between imagination and image on the one hand and reality on the other was immense through the eye of any disinterested observer.

As if there existed such a concept as disinterested observer…

It started out in the comments to one of my essays.  I have rewritten the comments just a bit for the purposes of readability.

so,

1. is there abandonment of the gender identity you, Robyn, had before your surgery?

2. and a full embrace of the gender you had surgery to become?

3. or is there a sense of identity with both genders,

4. or this there an identity awareness of a new, blended gender?

and the reason i mentioned this belonging in your Friday essay was due to the quote pulled from Friday’s essay that prompted these questions.  you notice, i hope, that i’m finally taking you up on your offer to answer questions, Teach!  

– kj

So I respond, with full knowledge that sharing even this much diminishes the probability that venturing inside will happen…

Tunnel Shiny Objects Words arrive at the edge of consciousness searching for meaning, rhythm and grace Visual emphasis focuses the mind and heart connecting to the words through what is seen and what is not Words are spilled one life’s blood hoping a gatherer happens to pass this way The thoughts are moderately decorated into a shiny object to attract attention –Robyn Elaine Serven –May 29, 2008

Please join us on the inside to celebrate, venerate, regenerate and/or motivate our muses.

Muse in the Morning

Muse in the Morning

Muse in the Morning

Ribs Mixed Media A song and a dance words caressed by the music of memory Colored pixels dancing a future that never was Words   from an emotional place words of pain and sorrow of disappointment of heartache and also proclaiming what can be Graphics added to set the mood or perhaps illuminate those words –Robyn Elaine Serven –May 28, 2008

Please join us on the inside to celebrate, venerate, regenerate and/or motivate our muses.

Muse in the Morning

Muse in the Morning

Muse in the Morning

Groove Thing Are we there yet? We can spend our time counting the days living metronomes beating out the hours minutes or seconds but in the end the important question is whether or not tomorrow will be a better day than today and perhaps we could wonder for whom that may be and for whom it will not –Robyn Elaine Serven –April 2, 2008

Please join us on the inside to celebrate, venerate, regenerate and/or motivate our muses.

Treatise (or Treacle) on Insanity

I am intensely interested in how words have come to mean what they do.  Since words are all I have to argue for my inclusion into human society, how could I not need to be interested in those long forgotten thought processes.

With help from the Online Etymological Dictionary and its many contributors, I do the research so you don’t have to.

Insanity – 1432, (referring to health of body, or rather lack thereof), deriving from Latin sanus (health)

Interesting question:

Why insane?  Why not unsane?  Nonsane?  Presane or postsane?  Protosane?

insane – 1560, mad, outrageous, excessive, extravagant

sanity – 1602

sane – 1721 (back created from sanity, which was back-created from insanity.)

When you wish upon a star

Makes no difference who you are

But when you wish upon a gum wrapper, it makes a whole lot of difference.  If you are not rich, you are going to be labeled something.  Even if you are rich, you may do.  See below.

Boom chucka chucka.  Boom chucka chucka. Boom chucka chucka.

The WeaveMothers rustled.

Rustled?  It’s as good a word as any to describe their collective motion.  A ripple of the fabric was often necessary since the units seemed predisposed to perform the same task over and over and over again.

Uncertainty happens.  At least it is supposed to happen.  One can’t be certain that it will.

Take one part eternal truth…

[We’ll leave aside the philosophical questions about whether or not their can be eternal truths about Truth and what the nature of those truths might be.]

Truth lies in the moment between the appearance of a thought and having words to express that thought.

Add one part political relevance (or not)…

Seeking to Connect Be the Change If we strive to live as if the world was as we wish it to be perhaps it will become like that “But that’s the way things are,” says the crowd That thinking is what keeps our lives this world our relationship to this world rigidly unchanging So we resist try to eradicate that mode of thought try to keep flicking some switches hoping that more lights will illuminate searching for a trigger to ignite the cascade effect that will bring the change we desire It starts inside each of us with those things we can really control –Robyn Elaine Serven –March 26, 2008

Please join us inside to celebrate our various muses…