C.G.Ayling

Author: CGAyling

  • on Intangibles

    I look back on the monumental achievements of the past with awe. Achievements such as the Pyramids, the Great Wall of China, Gothic Cathedrals, and incalculable other ancient structures that somehow manage to endure for dozens of centuries.  I wonder how and why humanity no longer seems capable of accomplishing such feats. Modern structures no longer last a hundred years, let alone a thousand. What has changed? What have we lost? I think I have the answer.

    Perhaps the things people value are changing, it certainly seems like they are. In general today’s people seem to favor the tangible more than the intangible.

    Love, family, friendship, compassion, dignity, freedom etc are all intangible.

    A big screen TV, a smartphone, designer clothes, fancy cars, big houses etc are all tangible, and they are what people nowadays seem to value.

    Unfortunately without love, family, friendship, compassion, dignity, freedom and all the other difficult to grasp things that make life worth living none of those tangible material things matter.  How much money you have and how many tangible material things you can buy with that money doesn’t matter if you have no one with whom to share them.  If you don’t have love, everything you have is worth nothing.

    The breakdown of the family unit into discrete, commercially accessible and individually exploitable units will be the downfall of society as we know it. But honestly I don’t think I care very much anymore. Society as we know it is nothing but a shallow yet insistent lie that tells us as long as we’re doing okay individually the rest of the world doesn’t matter. It does. Individuals matter far more than society encourages us to think.

    Earlier I claimed to have the answer, and now I’ll reveal what I think that answer is. It’s a simple little word. Unity. The emphasis on material, tangible things has come at enormous cost. That cost is the loss of unity. Individuals are encouraged to value things they can hold in their hands more than people they can hold in their hearts. That single change in emphasis means the sole unit of concern becomes the self. When the self is more important than the family from which the self springs, how can the society in which the family dwells matter?

    Unity is the cost of the tangible.

    Unity is not a sense of “me”, it is an understanding of “us”.

    Sadly I think the collective of humanity has lost unity.

  • If Thoughts

    ~ If Thoughts… ~
    ~
    If thoughts were twinkling stars
    You would be the first one seen each night.
    If thoughts were but sighs
    You would be every breath I take.
    If thoughts were tears
    You would be the river in which I swim.
    If thoughts were kisses
    I’d save them all for you.
    If thoughts were rays of light
    You would be the dawn.
    If thoughts were formed in words
    Every word would be for you.
    If thoughts were drops of paint
    You would the canvas covered in their art.
    If thoughts were merely waves
    You would the ocean in unrest.
    If thoughts were but a breeze
    You would be the Four Winds at gale force.
    If thoughts were only thoughts
    You would still fill mine.
    If thoughts were morning coffee
    You would be the first sip I take.
    If thoughts were only dreams
    Would that every dream I have is you.
    If thoughts were drops or blood
    You would fill my veins.
    If thoughts of you were unshed tears
    I’d never cry again.
    If thoughts were single steps
    You’d be the lifelong path I choose to take.
    If thoughts were fingers
    Yours with mine would be entwined.
    If thoughts were tender kisses
    You would be passion and pure bliss.
    If thoughts were memories
    Would that every single one was you.
    If thoughts were fingertips
    You would gently press to my lips.
    If thoughts were single pixels
    You would be the only image in my head.
    If thoughts were drops of water
    You would be torrential rain.
    If thoughts were considered wicked
    You would be the essence of pure sin.
    If thoughts were all of goodness
    You’d be the Angel who dwells within.
    If thoughts were little fears
    You would be Terror incarnate.
    If thoughts were degrees of warmth
    You would be the Sun.
    If thoughts were the shadows cast at night
    You would be the Moon.
    If thoughts were simple sounds
    You would be an orchestra in tune.
    If thoughts were the patter of small feet
    You would be a sonic boom.
    If thoughts were calm silence
    You would be the Void.
    If thoughts were measured distance
    You’d be the circumference of my world.
    If thoughts were things we chose
    I’d choose every one to be of you.
    If thoughts were little impacts
    You’d be hammer blows to my heart.
    If thoughts were grains of sand
    You’d be all the beaches of all worlds.
    If thoughts were tiny pinpricks
    You would be every needle ever cast.
    If thoughts were tender touches
    You’d be pressed firm against my flesh.
    If thoughts were desires
    You would be all of mine fulfilled.
    If thoughts were distance traveled
    You’d be my start and my destination too.
    If thoughts were single stars
    You’d be my Universe.
    It thought was but a single word
    the word for You’d be Love.
    If thought was but a single sound
    the sound for You’d be Soul.
    For You, my love,
    are the One
    who makes me
    Whole.
    ~

    My son seems to believe Poetry must rhyme.  On the other hand, I seem to think Poetry must have meaning.  I wonder what you think?

    Oh, and please visit again some time… Why? Because something else I seem to think is that meanings change, and thus so does my poetry.

  • Perfect Imperfections

    ~ Perfect Imperfections ~
    ~
    Perfection can
    dwell within moments only
    Perfection can
    dwell within words of lovers
    Perfection can
    dwell within imperfection
    ~
    Imperfection
    is what we all are
    Perfect
    imperfections
    ~

    ~ unknown

  • Wrought, of Stone

    ~ Wrought, of Stone ~
    ~
    Modern buildings wrought
    by man and so quickly sold
    no longer last as do the
    ancient structures
    of old.
    What differs?
    The builders,
    or the sand
    they cast into transient,
    impermanent stone?
    ~
    Humanity’s efforts to better nature
    are misguided at best,
    and soon fail before Time’s tests.
    All humanity has ever built is doomed
    for Nature will once more take
    its rightful place,
    and from earth’s cruelly scarred face,
    of us,
    every single sorry trace
    erase.
    ~
    Is all of humanity
    already doomed to return into the
    dust
    from whence we came?
    Only Time will tell,
    but will we be here
    to listen when Time
    tells her tales?
    ~

    modern efforts dwindling to dust.
    modern efforts dwindling to dust.

  • Beware our Wishes

    Have you ever wished you could eliminate all flies? Have you ever thought flies are filthy little pests, and the world would be a better place without them? I have.

    However…

    Pest are also pollinators. We think the world would be a better place without flies. But do we think it would be a better place without flowers?

    be careful what you wish for
    Pests are also pollinators

    Simply because we don’t immediately see the value of something does not mean it has no value. Within nature everything has a purpose, even pests. We wish things were different, yet we are incapable of grasping the end result of our actions. Why is that? Is it because collective humanity is as selfish as its individuals? If something doesn’t serve us, then it doesn’t deserve to be?

    Monsanto have embraced this thinking, and our government has protected Monsanto. So what?  All Monsanto is doing is killing pests, right?  Wrong.  If you still think pests deserve to die, please take another look at the image above and ask yourself if all flowers deserve to die too.

    Perhaps you don’t realize precisely what Monsanto have done by producing GMOs {Genetically Modified Organisms}. Perhaps you’ve never considered the ramifications of what introducing a pesticide into the genes of plants means. I have. And it isn’t “good”. Do you like eating pesticides? But we’ve been told they’re safe! We were once told tobacco is good for us.  Is what we’re told always true?  When people with vested interests are the tellers, question every word they tell. Unbiased scientific research has proven the toxins from GMO crops are present in human blood. How come you’ve never heard about this? That is another good question to ask yourself.

    Did you realize that every time you eat a GMO you’re ingesting toxins that were once sprayed onto crops, but were washed off before those crops were processed into foods?

    How can we wash away the pesticide embedded inside a grain of corn? We cannot. We’re eating it. Have you ever heard the expression, “You are what you eat”?  How does it feel to realize the ultimate truth of that? Humanity, the world’s pesticide. Of course there is a problem with this… Namely that the creatures we consider pests are vital elements in a natural ecosystem.

    What happens when plants kill their pollinators?  Please think about that the next time you casually brush off the apparent “hysteria” against GMOs.

    Take great care with your wishes. Great care.

  • on Religious Persecution

    Religious Persecution is alive and well.

    Where?

    Why virtually anywhere you care to name, including this great bastion of democracy that took the brave steps of entrenching protections against religious persecution into its constitution, namely the USA.

    The thing most people don’t consider about religious persecution is that it is the religious who are doing the persecuting as much as it is the religious who are being persecuted. Sure, they often persecute believers of religions who dare differ from theirs, but they also persecute people who dare to abandon theirs, to switch to religions other than theirs, and even those people who have never ascribed to any religion at all.

    The religious are the persecutors.

    That is an undeniable fact.

    The religious are the persecutors. Though they may sometimes be the persecuted, they are always the persecutors.

    Yes, there are radical atheists who vocally proclaim their lack of religious belief. However I have yet to see a bunch of atheists inciting others to mass murder. Not now, in our present time, or ever in the annals of history. Not even in the history of the USSR, which promulgated some of the toughest reforms against organized religions.

    Do you think I’m referring to the current persecution of Christians by Islamics?

    Think again.

    Think back in history and recount the crimes against humanity committed by Christians. What a sordid series of atrocities virtually without end. How many hundreds of millions has Christianity murdered and tortured during its course? How many thousands of precious and unique cultures has Christianity not only destroyed, but utterly obliterated from written history?

    What Christianity has done to humanity must surely count as some of the worst examples of religious persecution.

    And now think back into the present and recount the crimes against humanity currently being committed by Islamics. I am certain you don’t need my guidance to find the appalling evidence of Islam’s excess.

    What Islam is doing and has done to humanity must surely count as some of the worst examples of religious persecution.

    Yet religion remains at the root of countless other less obnoxious persecutions against individual freedom and liberty. In the USA same-sex marriage has just been declared constitutional. What has the holdup been in allowing loving couples to love each other openly and with the full and equal protection of the law? That holdup would be religion.

    Does religious persecution still exist? Undeniably. However its perpetrators remain the same as they have since our most ancient of histories – other religions.

    Lest you think I exaggerate try standing up in public view anywhere in the USA, where Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion are constitutional guarantees, and say “I am no longer a Christian.” I wonder who will persecute you for such a pronouncement?

    I don’t really wonder at all…  Do you?

    {PS. So what do I believe?  Am I religious, or am I not? I don’t know the answer to that with any certainty, however I do know I don’t subscribe to belief in any singular all-powerful deity.  But if you’re interested in what I believe you may find some of the answers here.}

  • Suns and their Sets

    ~ Suns Rise to Set ~
    ~
    Upon the planets of a thousand suns
    do a thousand sunsets
    die
    then with a thousand dawns
    are they resurrected
    again
    their faces reform upon their
    worlds and within every watching
    eye
    may I my every sunset
    my you,
    let go
    for at my every dawn
    my you,
    will I behold
    again
    and as I my body down
    upon my sleeping bed do
    lie
    may your moon forever
    be the moon that in my dreams
    I see
    and thus
    my you
    do I
    never need relinquish
    again…
    ~

    Luna in all her glory - by Julia
    Luna in all her glory – by Julia

    A post, for every lover of Art in all its myriad forms.

    I hope you enjoy my poem, and my favorite youngest child’s magnificent, and incredibly difficult to accomplish, capture of our beloved moon.

    Julia is a very special young lady. She is a true artist, filled and motivated by compassion and love. Several of her poems appear sprinkled throughout my blog, search through some of the Poetry and you’ll find her words. I don’t doubt they will touch your heart.

    Julia is special for another reason. She is also the principle Heroine in my work, Malmaxa. I say principle, for within that work are many Heroines and even a Hero, or two.

  • on Realistic Writing Goals

    I have never been a goal oriented sort of guy. My motivations have always been the journey rather than the destination. But sometimes perhaps we have to set realistic goals or we spend so much time enjoying the journey that we never get to its end. I’ve often tried to set targets in my writing, but ultimately I never do. Why? Because my writing is the journey, which makes completion of the work the destination.

    Am I saying I’ll never finish Malmaxa? Not at all. Indeed I already know the entire tale, in all its beauty and all its pain. I am intimately familiar with ever twist and turn in every character’s path. In my writing I am the unseen, yet ever present and ultimately unavoidable Hand of Fate. It is me who sits at the loom and threads in the colored thread that each character’s story is. It is me who makes the yarn from which their threads are formed. It is me who already sees the finished tapestry. And it is me who feels compelled to make the work as true to that elusive image as I possibly can.

    In a way this could mean I have already finished the journey and all that remains is for me to document it. That is not untrue. However my role as author of Malmaxa might well be compared to that of a Roman building a road.

    Bear with me for a few moments while I flesh out this analogy.

    Today, road building is a trivial affair. A machine scrapes a shallow trough through the earth. Another machines packs down the ground. Another machine dumps a load of gravel into the bed the first machines have formed. Another machine packs it down again. Another machine comes along and either pours concrete or tarmac onto the gravel bed. Leave it to set for a day, and it’s done.

    The focus of road building today is to turn out miles of road, fast. It is not to build roads that last.

    Roman roads are nothing like modern ones. They were literally built by hand. And they were built to last. Two thousand years, and we still have Roman roads. Compare their longevity to modern roads…

    Malmaxa is my Roman road. I am not building it fast, I am building it to last. Every sentence is hand crafted, then smoothed and polished till it fits as perfectly between the preceding and following sentences as a Roman flagstone fits between its neighbors. This task cannot be done fast.  It just cannot.

    A Roman road stands up to the test of time. It can be traversed for centuries.  If you walk it barefoot every time you do it will tell your feet a different tale. Likewise with Malmaxa. Read it once, and you’ll see one tale. Read it again, and you’ll see another. Yet you’ll still be treading the same road, with the same flagstones beneath your feet.

    Enjoy the journey more than you anticipate its end…

    The thing I most like about the reviews Malmaxa has garnered is how often they mention this is a work that warrants re-reading. As the craftsman engaged in building it that makes me very proud, and very thankful.  That my readers are willing to give up their time to compose their thoughts on my work touches me deeply.

    Allow me to apologize for the delay in re-releasing “The Pilgrimage”. Though that road is set, its flagstones were not as flush as the craftsman in me demands.  I am once more tamping them into place using a tool which I am only able to wield infrequently, namely the spare time left after my working day is done.

    And for all of you unique people out there who long to share their story, let me share this thought with you:-

    Write your story your way for you, then publish it, or not. The healing is more in the writing than it is in the reading.

    {Should you be tempted to sample Beltamar’s War, the first book in the Malmaxa series, you may do so for free, right here, right now, right in your browser. I hope you see between the sentences and are tempted to support me by purchasing a copy, and possibly even reviewing it.  Thank you ~ Charles.}

  • on the Young

    There is something special in the tentative, vulnerable smiles of very young girls.

    I wonder what happens to them that they lose that precious innocence?  Perhaps it is when they pass beyond adolescence into young adulthood and begin to realize boys are easy prey to their wiles.  When this happens, some mistakenly think all men are their eager subjects. Yes, I think that may be the point at which they eschew innocence in favor of manipulation.

    Sadly what they give up, they never regain.

    I have always been willing to share smiles with the young, but since I matured I find myself less willing to appear friendly toward teenage and older girls. This is partly because in modern society friendliness can be misconstrued, however it is also because I have a strong dislike of being manipulated.

    Saddest of all, to me, is this undeniable truth – the very young are able to easily twist us about their smallest finger.  This magical power, which all babies possess, exists right up until they realize they possess it, at which time it mysteriously ceases to be.

    Is that the way of all magic? That it loses power with realization of its effect?

    The rain is tears shed by the sky, until we understand precipitation.

    The moon lights the heavens on the darkest of nights, until we realize it barely reflects the sun.

    The ocean fights a perpetual battle with the shore, until we reduce its majestic armies to the tide.

    Resist the urge to shut your eyes to the everyday magic that surrounds us, for eyes so closed never reopen to its wonders.

     

  • on Fate’s Odds

    Followers of my blog may realize I am a believer in Fate. Every passing year has increased this belief to the point I now find it hard to understand how anyone could not realize Fate is the rider that pulls our reins.

    Is who we are right now the result of an enormous number of chance occurrences, each of which is itself the result of the same?

    Mathematically, those odds are not good. And those bad odds get exponentially worse with each iteration we follow the chain of chance backwards. Soon the odds of anything happening become so remote they become infinitely unrealistic.

    To clarify what I mean let me provide you with a chain of events, specifically leading to my writing this blog post today. You may be the judge of their likelihood.

    By chance my father meets my mother while his family is on a international vacation. They see something in each other. The vacation ends, but before it does they exchange addresses. They correspond {by snail mail}. The bond between them strengthens. Chance results in my father’s father relocating to The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.  Chance dictates this is the country in which my mother was born and raised.  My parents become engaged and marry.  They conceive three boys, then me, then my twin sisters and finally my youngest brother.

    Nothing particularly unusual.

    Really?  Let us consider the math.  The average human ejaculate contains about one hundred and eighty million sperm.  Statistically, there was a one is 180m chance of my conception. Let us call that number the HumanBase, for the base chance of existence of any human is at least that number.

    However I am not a stand alone person, nobody is.  Who I am is a combination of two things. Specifically my genetics and my circumstances. In this you are no different than me. So, considering only my immediate family, which is a ludicrously simplified way to consider this, who I am may be mathematically described by this equation:-

    Charles = (180m x 180m x 180m x 180m x 180m x 180m x 180m x 180m)

    or

    Charles = (Mom x Dad x Piet x Chris x Jan x Libby x Sarah x Nick)

    Simplistically speaking, I am who I am because of my parents, modified by my brothers and sisters, who are each the result of a similar equation.

    More realistically, I am who I am because of my parents, modified by my interactions with every other human with whom I have come into contact, each of who may be fundamentally described as a HumanBase modified by a similar number of interactions.

    How many atoms are there in the universe, I wonder?  I wonder how many times that number would fit into the odds against either you, or me?

    Mathematically speaking the odds against any one of us being who, when, and where we are at precisely this instant are infinitely great.  Yet we are, and we are not alone.

    What greater evidence of Fate do you require?