Is she worth it?

I thought I would share a little about how I sit down to write. Not because I think there is anything useful I can share but so I can be nosy and ask about your process!

Sometimes ideas come to me, usually in the middle of the night, they wake me from my slumber and I have to get up and write it down. These flashes of inspiration  are few and far between, rarities my muse dispenses when she so wishes.

In reality something tends to catch my eye or ear and my mind ponders it for a while. It can be a picture, a quote or even a song and it will capture something in my imagination.

Recently I saw this image and knew it would be one of those images to get the cogs in my mind moving. So a grovel later and the photographer Liam Dagan sent me the image to use. I am grateful that I can borrow the images of super talented people like Liam from time to time just so that I can show you where my mind starts!

Any way here is Liam's image and the snippet that it put in my mind.

To Hell and Back

"Let me get this straight, I'm dead and this is hell?"

"Ahha"

"And i could climb out up that?"

"Yup"

"Anyone ever make it?"

"One"

"Who?"

"One of the original fallen. He fell for a human girl on the living plane, forbidden eve for a fallen so he was condemned to eternity in here. Always looking out with that smallest glimmer of hope to torture him."

"He climbed out to be with her?"

"Yeah, it even worked out for a little bit. Right up until Death caught up with her and they were both consigned to Hell for eternity. Apparently if you ask them they don't care where they are, as long as they are together. Personally I could do without the eternal damnation, but who am I to argue."

"Why don't you climb then?"

"I've nothing worth risking everything for."

"But we are already dead! What could be worse than being dead and stuck in Hell for eternity!"

"Nothing."

"That's my point."

"No, seriously, nothing!! Fall on there, and its not an easy climb, and you'd kill yourself all over again. Only this time you have no body to die, just your soul. You would simply cease to exist at all. Granted some do it just to get away from the torture of being down here, but not many things are worth that!"

"There are a few"

"So, who's yours?"


So what gets your creative juices flowing? Do you get the same impulse to tell a pictures story that I do?

Hades, Hell and the Afterlife

(Warning, this post may get a little religious, which is totally unintentional. This is just the wanderings of my deranged mind so feel free to ignore me, that is fine!! Especially if you have a different take on things, you are completely entitled to your own beliefs.....still friends??)

Wow, way to dive right in the with a heavy topic. I guess I could have started with a little small talk first.....So the meaning of life anyone?

Lets start at the beginning, not 'the' beginning but the beginning of my train of thought. Yep that's right a joy ride on the Sleepy Express again, fasten your seat belts!!

I have been thinking a lot about soul-mates ever since I read Brida, by Paulo Coelho, last summer, which then led to the development of a story that is growing here. I have come to the conclusion that I believe in the concept, in fact I buy into Coelho's version. That one soul is split, almost like a fertilised egg, to create two souls. Which are then in turn split, thus there can be many parts of the same soul, all connected all trying to find a part of it's self.

My mind then wandered off, is this the point of our existence  Is this our reason to live, to find each other across time, across space? 

Our bodies are just chunks of meat, it is the electrical impulses coursing through them that makes us who we are. The neurons firing, nerves sparking, the feelings that they produce is this the essence of the soul? So there is some law or another that says nothing can completely disappear, only ever change. Our bodies decay and feed the earth and their essence continues, but what of the electrical impulses? What of our soul? That won't simply decay and apparently it won't just disappear, does this mean there is an afterlife? A place for the dead, a place for our souls.

The Greeks and Romans had Hades a place of the dead, the realm inhabited by darkness and dreams. The Vikings passed to Valhalla and Christians brought the concept of a Heaven and a Hell. A place for good souls and a place of torment for dammed souls. Mythology and religion spanning time all have a take on what comes next, but there is usually something and not nothing.

I was raised a Christian; I believed in God, Heaven and Hell. I tried to live my life as prescribed and earn my seat in the good place. Right up until I started to question things. My beliefs have changed somewhat, I live as good a life as I can and hope that that will be enough. 

There is a small part of me though that looks at the suffering around us, that sees the pressures we put on ourselves and wonders if hell isn't here with us. Torturing us into believing we are never good enough.

I don't know, I get the feeling I won't find out until I can't give the secret away to anyone else! All I know is if the reincarnation religions are right I will probably come back as a bug and there is no way I will be let into heaven...

So I will leave you with this Lokiism:

"Welcome to Hell, we have marshmallows" (at least they will be toasted...... maybe!)