Welcome to The Yarning

“Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents,
it was loaned to you by your children.
We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors,
we borrow it from our Children.”
Ancient Indian Proverb

Blog Meaning and Purpose
The Yarning is a companion blog, co-authored by Deborah J. Burns and Sidney A. Staunton, Jr., to the historical fiction novel, The Yarn Yard, by Sidney, that focuses on the historical stability of ‘place,’ due to be completed in spring 2013.

The blog is an innovative approach in the development of a novel, comprised of three elements: limericks written by Sidney as benchmarks tracking the novel’s development, interpretations of the limericks by Deborah and Sidney, and letters between the
co-authors, all of which provide insight into the novel’s plot, theme and character development. The blog is framed by poetry, photography, and artwork.

In the spring of 2012, the blog will be trimmed to limericks, handwritten letters, and artistic framing elements. For accessibility, the letters will be printed as well.

The blog’s purpose is to generate interest in the thematic content of the book and offers readers an opportunity to contribute to the book’s development via comments and feedback.

Author’s Warning
Our blog, akin to a live outtake in the process of writing the novel, contains an expository diction more sophisticated than the novel’s simpler narrative.

Gratitude.

Dear Friends -

Sidney and I have decided to discontinue our literary blog, The Yarning, the companion blog to Sidney’s historical fiction novel, The Yarn Yard. We are most grateful to each of you for your interest and valued feedback over the
past year.

Moving forward, Sidney will be dedicated to writing his novel, and I will be
focused on building my brand and media strategy agency.

Limerick 5 Letters

Co-Dependency http://www.reportonvegas.com

Letter To Deborah

I suspect there is a sense of adventure and daring involved the moment two decide to make a ritual of their apparent union. And once enacted, this interpersonal testimonial, an accountable symbol marking their special exchange, serves to bind the two in its promise. In hindsight, the implications of the pact’s daring quality emerge once the participants observe that a former freedom and spontaneity wane, commandeered now by the convention to which they both belong. In the case of Robin and Lucinda, a lop-sided dependency condenses the relationship into a taut string of erosive, obeisant obligations that to an alarming degree are only dutifully met.

Robin, still strong enough to rebuff Lucinda’s undue advances, contracts in her bonds of sympathy, as yet a caring friend; but she passively refuses to empathize for the victim in Lucinda. Decency collapsing, the two ignite an insidious fuse that leads to an intimate explosion. Less than imminent, though, the girls’ break-away experience is extenuated by Robin’s naivety for the desperate nature that haunts her close friend. At this juncture in her psychological development, Lucinda, clinically undiagnosed as yet, is haplessly clutching for a rope. Robin, not unaware of a serious malady, confronts Lucinda’s dire gravity like a nurse’s aid at first; by the time a critical confidence is divulged, the ‘candy-striper’ is locked in a moral struggle to extricate from the wards of her sympathies the ravages of over-commiserating with a victim. For Robin, strong undercurrents betray a craggy sea bed that gnarl a glassy surface into a frenzied chop with a changing tide. She realizes finally that her vessel is not high enough at the transom to brave such a chop: Lucinda needs professional help.

“She is your mirror, shining back at you with a world of possibilities. She is your witness, who sees you at your worst and best, and loves you anyway. She is your partner in crime, your midnight companion, someone who knows when you are smiling, even in the dark.” by Barbara Alpert

http://www.sandivand.blogspot.com

Letter to Sidney

Why would two people engage in a ‘blood’ pact ritual? Is it our innate desire to  become ‘one’ with another person? To create a symbiotic union? Surely, the pact fills a specific need in each participant. For most, the ceremony brings to mind images of youthful innocence and purity of heart. To others, perhaps naivety. What is the goal of such a pact? Perhaps it gives each participant the hope of being intrinsically linked or the promise of unyielding loyalty – both of which are very desirable in their own right. What would motivate you?

Limerick 5

Limerick Five

Was it Robin’s Lucinda who vowed

 The intractable bond, when they bowed

 To the candle’s joint mold,

 Or Lucinda so bold

 As to hook Robin, blood-sister sowed?

Special: A blood pact between two innocent, impressionable young girls is perceived by some, and perhaps even the participants themselves, as a rite of passage into young adulthood. Some may perceive the rite as a yearning, or even a burning curiosity, to see what it might be like to be older than our years, to be more mature? I can’t help but wonder if taking major risks in one’s life is a rite of passage in itself?

Healing Love http://www.crystalinks.com

Spiritual: At some point in our lives, each of us has a connection with another person that is otherworldly and uncommon. Instinctively, we want to protect this life-changing relationship by elevating it beyond the common constructs of friendship and brother or sisterhood, to something sacred and unique. Some believe that a blood ritual between two people bonds two souls together – forever as one – an indelible union that may never be compromised. Each makes a vow to the other to ensure its sanctity.

Limerick 5

Integration

by Deborah Burns

Two soul-friends,

Spiritually pledged, yet driven by different forces.

Both seek to bond in miraculous
and uncommon ways,

In the hope of securing ‘forever’
in a blood exchange.

Mixing dreams and desires with obligation,

Tainting the spontaneity of innocent love.

d3rkangel.deviantart.com

Limerick Five

Was it Robin’s Lucinda who vowed
The intractable bond, when they bowed
To the candle’s joint mold,
Or Lucinda so bold
As to hook Robin, blood-sister sowed?

Psychological: As blood-sisters, two young women, unmarried, with significantly different family backgrounds, are bound together voluntarily, but for different reasons. A needfulness drives the passion of one, who, as a victim, gropes for security in the simplicity of a peer; a kindly desire and willingness forges the agape of the other, who goes along for the ride, impressionable. The blood-sisters make their pact, and the relationship rolls a little harder, now that it is obligated. So, what rolls hard leaves a groove, unless founded on rock. And in this interpersonal furrow, up and down marry, adding doubled friction to each individual’s wending course. If the pact includes this eventuality, great! If not, then an imbalance sores at every difficulty since made mutual.

Philosophical: What is in a special pact between friends? Are they any more or less worthy of each other’s companionship because of it? Are they really better friends, confirmed as such? Of course, there is the promise of longevity in either friend’s loyalty expressed in the vow, the ‘thick or thin’ allegiance. But why the ceremony as this formalizing a promise between two who are already faithful? The answer may rest merely in the merits of convention as a backing; or, the convention’s exercise may betray a restlessness, a fault, in its implication of surety on what is really a latent distrust.

Sociological: Much of human history, as we are taught, involves compacts, formal agreements, treaties, and the like that preface and conclude consequential social actions. For example, in the United States, when the anti-trust laws of the Roosevelt Administration were legislated, an agreement in the form of a mandate legally obligated corporate entities to ‘play ball’ with a government entity. In my opinion, one imbalance, the monopoly in question, had been exchanged for another, governmental infringement on private enterprise. The benefits of fair industrial competition, intended in the regulation measure, also effects a zero-sum loss for the subject corporation(s). The non-mutual mandate, far from a compromise, has of its lawful coercion the domineering quality of an unruly relationship between the two necessary parties.

Soul-Friends - dixonho.tumblr.com

Limerick 5

Limerick Five
Was it Robin’s Lucinda who vowed
The intractable bond, when they bowed
To the candle’s joint mold,
Or Lucinda so bold
As to hook Robin, blood-sister sowed?

Academic: In history class, we are taught the rudiments of ritual, yet it is only when we are personally involved in ritual that we become clear on its intent and purpose. Through our research, we learn that rituals are sacred and some holy acts have their roots in paganism. As it turns out, rituals, in most cases, evoke a spirit, deity, or elements into a sacred space and the resulting pact or vow between two people is manifested on a either a physical, spiritual, and mental plane, or all three. Why do we perform rituals? It is a demonstration of respect and honor for each other and a commitment to transcend personal needs and desires for the sake of the union.

Blood Sisters

Archetypal: In sacred ceremony, young women mix their blood and become ‘blood sisters.’ This ritual embodies the Goddess archetype. It is a ritual that serves as a gateway to a deeper love between two females, and one that recognizes and celebrates the essential feminine within.

Sisterhood

Common sense: Kinship as friendship readily assumes its special relation on the point of a sisterly pact between close friends. But, such a closeness can result from a stressed social atmosphere as well as from the affinity shared between one another. One may need, while the other purely enjoys the mutual contact. The two may not yet see what impels one another, while engaged in their constructed filial relationship. Oh yes, divulged secrets about romances with boys and young men and tender female intimacies may render both as forthcoming in the bond’s trust; it’s the relation’s dynamic, though, that may reveal interpersonal imbalances that could stress the stated promise in the vow into captivity.

“We sisters of this pact Call forth the power of spirits of hope & of despair Of darkness & of light We here by become blood siblings Forever & for always As we each light a candle And put it in the star and on it’s 5 points We claim our forever loyalty to you, oh spirits And you alone We call upon the elements of the world Fire Earth Wind Water As we each cut a piece of our skin And as our blood seeps out We forever will be connected by blood And by your forces and elements Oh spirits of Light, Dark, Hope & Despair We are forever blood siblings with you now As the candle burns, so will our trust in each other.” www.theoseternal.webs.com

Limerick 4

Limerick 4
One upholds when it comes to a fight
What one feels to be mightily right;
And what might is upheld
In a fight may be quelled.
But in peace, both observe with squared sight.

“Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”
Sun-tzu ~ Chinese General & Military Strategist

Letter to Deborah

Rare is any incitement of war the sort that is singularly justified, because the question of such action so often addresses to the political effect: ‘the other party started it.’ But wars are justified regardless of perspective, and innocence, always subject, gets ravaged before any judgment can be decreed. ‘Stability of place,’ I think, resides where initiative concerning conquest weighs the cost of consequence, bringing into account especially the unpredictability of a protracted series of battles. Defense, of course, holds no option, whereas offense can be too squirrelly a formula for those probabilities it relies upon. If one must fight, then one fights best, I believe, once it has been determined that he and|or she is clearly under siege or targeted as such: unduly threatened. In this, the defender’s careful investigation, before any shots are fired, lie the seeds of possible reconciliation, albeit counter-intuitive. Know your enemy, love your enemy, if at all possible; as your enemy is just as human as you are, irrevocably.

http://www.openheartspiritualcenter.ning.org

Letter to Sidney

Stability of place. Yours is a noble vision; a seemingly core belief in the goodness of humanity. I would concur that your premise is plausible! So let’s come to an understanding of exactly how warring factions create a stable, peaceful resolution. What has to be present for this outcome to occur?  Are honesty, fairness, and humility the cornerstones? Of course, diplomacy and perspective also play a major role. Why then is something so intensely sought after, so immeasurably difficult to achieve? And always at a cost? The ‘toll’ is historically measured in loss of life, loss of land, and in most cases, loss of face. Must we endure so much pain for so long proving ourselves right? Or is this simply the greatest demonstration of the human spirit, to seek the highest truth against all odds?

Limerick 4

Limerick Four
One upholds when it comes to a fight
What one feels to be mightily right;
And what might is upheld
In a fight may be quelled.
But in peace, both observe with squared sight.

rhrealitycheck.org

Spiritual Interpretation: When two parties vehemently disagree, no matter the cause, I ask you, ‘Is one right and the other wrong?’ Who determines what the criteria are? What drives someone to push his or her point so emphatically? Is it an aim to convince the other just how right they are? If you take a closer look, isn’t the goal in any physical or emotional altercation to earn respect? Or, perhaps, to satisfy one’s ego and ones’ pride? Sometimes, the disagreement may simply be a difference of opinion, and neither party is right or wrong, just different. The disagreement may also be a misunderstanding on the part of either party, and further education may serve to bring them both to a common ground.

“Brotherhood is not so wild a dream as those, who profit
by postponing it, pretend.” Eric Sevareid

Sociological Interpretation: Culture clashes, deep divides, social inequality. Are these not the flint to start the raging fire of disagreement and inevitable war? With the onslaught of material progress, we are witness to varying degrees of greed, territorialism, and a superiority that fuels tension and fear among people. Don’t we all just want to get along and give peace a chance? The social contract of mutual respect, gratitude, and brotherhood is potentially compromised as long as these former elements are present.