Tag Archives: Writer’s Workshop

“Synchronistic Symbolism” for Writer’s Workshop

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 I  bought this wonderful oil painting in Peru and just let my mind go in building a retablo for her.  I had no idea who she was––thought she was just another Madonna.  When I had finished, an artist friend, Eduardo Xilonzóchitl, was at my house painting and building a sculpture for me by the pool and he saw her and said, “Ah, Santa Cecilia.”  I then Googled Saint Cecilia and discovered that she is the patron saint of poets and musicians and all of the symbolism–the various musical instruments, the quill, manuscript and sheet music  did in fact tell the story of her life.  Some things just want to belong together and so it was with her portrait .

IMG_5362
16″ X 16: Santa Cecilia: Mixed Media Retablo, Wood, Metal, paper, dried flowers and leaves, Gold Leaf, Feather, Bone, Abelone, Antique Toy Rocking  Chair, Oil Painting on Canvas, Acrylic paint. 16″ X 16.

Click on picture to enlarge and see details.

For the Writer’s Workshop, the prompt is “symbol.”

“Magic” for Writer’s Workshop, Aug 7, 2025

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The Magician

Through what I choose and where I give in,
I create the world I live in.
If I’m a trickster, I trick myself
and lay my talents on a shelf.

Magic’s not a thing without
or a thing to sell or flout.
It’s simply using the strength within
to play the game of life and win.

For Writer’s Workshop: Magic. Image by Aditya Saxeena on Unsplash.

“School Reunion” for Writers Workshop, May 9, 2025

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Class of 1965, Murdo, S.D. class reunion.

School Reunion

He’s an aging “Murdo Coyote” in his ancient football shirt––
remembering past  touchdowns while we’re dishing out the dirt.

Non-Trumper against Trumper, human rightist against bigot,
all the ways we’ve grown apart, gushing from the spigot.

When the debate gets heated, he brings about a shift,
repeating old glories until we get his drift

and switch our conversation way back to the past
to all those high school memories that thankfully still last

and that turn the party back to what it should have been:
turning old friends back to what they all were way back when.

For Writers Workshop, May 9, 2025

 

Genealogy, Murdo News, 1922 for Writer’s Workshop

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Murdo News, 1922

I grew up in a tiny prairie town in South Dakota, population 700 when I left it, 500 now. (Photo above, 1950’s by my guess.) I’ve talked of this place many times on my blog, published two books on growing up there, but just today, someone on the town’s website published these newspaper stories from 1922 which I found fascinating, as many of the people mentioned were known to me.  Judge Parish lived across the street from me, Louis Simpson was my dad’s cousin  and many of the other family names are well known. This may not be interesting to anyone other than my sister Patti and friend Jim, who read my blog and who grew up in Murdo as well, but for what it is worth, here are some of the stories:

JONES COUNTY, SOUTH DAKOTA

News Items

Murdo, April 18. – Statistics are said to show that after every great war nature replenishes herself through twin babies. Mrs. Burke of this place has the distinction of being the mother of three sets of twins and one set of triplets.

Mrs. M. P. Kerlin, also of Murdo is the mother of twin boys, who are now a few years of age. During 1921 Mrs. A. O. Kimble and Mrs. Roy Guthrie each became the mother of twin girls. Mrs. Sam Hubbard gave birth to twin sons, both of whom died.

Recently twin boys were born to Mr. and Mrs. Rex Williams.

Thus, out of nine births in Murdo, nineteen children were born, seventeen of whom are living. It is believed that no other town of Murdo’s size in the state or northwest has a birth record equal to this.

John Connery
Two Boy Swimmers Drown
Lads Meet Death While Bathing at Murdo, S.D.
Deadwood, S.D., June 17 — A telephone message from Murdo, a small town east of Rapid City, tells of the accidental drowning there of John Connery and a companion named Pomberr. Both boys, who were sixteen years old, were in swimming at the railroad dam at that point and are supposed to have been seized with cramps. Neither body has been recovered.
[17 June 1910; Aberdeen Daily News] *Note from Judy: In my part of South Dakota, little manmade lakes were called dams, probably due to the fact that they were created by digging out the earth and rolling it up to the side to create a depression large enough to collect rainwater and snow runoff. In this dry cattle  country, it was necessary. My dad got his start building such dams. Below is a photo of a dam in process. That’s my dad, Ben Dykstra, sitting on the back of the grader adding his weight to smoothing out the dam grade.

M. L. Parish [crime]
Four Fleeing Men Battle Posse and Flee in Prosecutor’s Auto
Sioux Falls, S. Dak. Aug 25 — Four convicts, who escaped from the penitentiary on August 17, fought a posse near Stamford early today. After mortally wounding State’s Attorney M. L. Parish and wounding Sheriff J.C. Babcock, they escaped in the State’s Attorney’s automobile.
The men were pursued from Murdo, S.D., by a hastily formed posse when it was learned they had recrossed the Missouri River into this State and were heading toward the Bad Lands. Airplanes have been sent to aid in locating them. [26 Aug 1922; Philadelphia Inquirer]

Louis Simpson [injury]
RATTLESNAKE PROTESTED
Struck Boy Who Tries to Pull It From Its Hole Near Murdo
Murdo, May 19. – Catching a rattlesnake by the tail to prevent it escaping him nearly caused the death of Louis Simpson, the young son of Mrs. Charles Luken, living near here. The reptile struck the boy on the left hand with its fangs, and but for prompt work he would have died

When the boy discovered the snake the reptile beat a retreat for its nearby hole, and was partially down this, when the boy grasped it by the tail and attempted to pull it back to the surface of the ground. The rattlesnake doubled back and buried its fangs in the boy’s hand, this being one of the tricks of the average rattler when grasped while partially in its hole.

For Writer’s Workshop  the prompt is genealogy.

“Surprise” for Writer’s Workshop, Jan 14, 2025

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                                                                    Studio Surprise

Yesterday I spent the morning in my studio for the first time in almost a year.  Actually, I was working on my blog, but I never could get connected to the internet event though my extender and also my personal hot spot on my cell phone both registered as strong signals. I was just about to give up and go up to the house, but there are so many interesting things in my studio to photograph, that I got involved in snapping a few pictures for Cee’s new “Compose Yourself” challenge.

Then, as I gathered my camera and computer and coffee cup to go up to the house, my eyes fell on something that gave me a shock.  Surreal!  Sure, it was something I had seen before, but  definitely not in my studio!! Yet there it was, placed on top of a screwtop drink container that came with my blender, next to a jar of brushes, right by the window.  This is what I saw:

IMG_5928It was a katydid. I’d seen one this big before, on a bush outside my bedroom door the first month I’d lived in my house.  As a matter of fact, fascinated by its alien looks and behavior, I’d put it in a large jar with air holes for two hours while I observed and wrote about it; but how did this one get here?  As I snapped picture after picture, it never moved, and I realized that it must have just become trapped in my studio, died and dried out in that pose.  But what were the chances it would die in such a prominent spot?

I haven’t even been in my studio for months and since it had been totally shut up, there is no way this object could have found its way into my studio, unless it hatched out there.  But in that case, what would it have found to eat?

Then the solution occurred to me.  Yolanda had at other times arranged strange little tableaux for me and just waited patiently for me to find them.  She and Pasiano knew my fascination for insects, for instance this is one that he had brought in from the pool a few days ago:

IMG_5468I shuddered to think I’d been swimming and exercising in the pool for an hour and a half in the dark the night before! At six inches long, with pinchers the size of tweezers, that millipede could have seriously damaged me!

So, I was sure either Pasiano or Yolanda had found the dead katydid and set it up as a surprise for me.  Hilarious. (Pasiano just called this insect a chapulin which is a grasshopper.  It seems that the Spanish language does not distinguish between the two.  When I put “katydid” in a translator, it translated as “saltamante,” but when I put both names in Google Image, they showed both pictures of grasshoppers and katydids for both.

I took at least 50 more shots of the beautiful green insect, then decided to move the paintbrushes to get a better angle, and when I did, HIS ANTENNAE TWITCHED!!!!Version 3Yes, he was alive!  Quickly I got a paper towel and cupped it over the top of him and carried the blender bottle, towel, uninvited guest––all out to the hibiscus shrubbery closest to the wall next to my spare lot. By now the two dogs had developed an interest, so I placed him far out of their jumping range.

IMG_5986Can you even find him in this photo?  Here is a larger picture that might make it easier to see him in his natural habitat.
IMG_5989I looked away for a few seconds to readjust my camera and when I next tried to find him, he was gone.  I had seen no flurry of wings, no movement.  He just vanished.  When I told this story to a friend that night, he said, “How do you know?”  Ha.  He had a point.  He might have still been there. How would I have known?  All he had to do was to adjust his position slightly, and he would have become another leaf.

Lest this post become too long, I’m going to try to find the poem about the katydid I wrote 14 years ago.  If I find it, I’ll publish it tomorrow in a different post.

Always a new thrill in Mexico, where if your friends don’t furnish it, nature will!

This is a reblog of a piece I did years ago. Hope that is okay.It fit the prompt so well…and I had totally forgotten it so perhaps others have, too.

For Writer’s Workshop, the prompt is “Surprise.”

“Take 2 Aspirin,” for the Writers Workshop

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Take 2 Aspirin––

For all the world’s diseases and all life’s little ills
they’ve been inventing medicines, elixirs, syrups, pills.
But those crafty bacteria, viruses and germs
keep running on ahead of us as we come to terms
with ways to counteract them. They’re crafty little mites
who somehow slip inside of us through food or air or bites.
So in spite of all our science—our test tubes and our beakers,
all that malevolent mini-world just don their little sneakers
and keep on evolving a little bit ahead.
Enough to keep us sneezing or roiling in our bed.

 

The Writers Workshop prompt is “Medications.”

“Honesty”

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Honesty

Though I always tell it if I can,
of the brutal truth, I’m not a fan.
(It’s the brutal part that bothers me,
and not the actual honesty.)
In fact, let’s institute a pact
to exercise the utmost tact.
When telling others just what “is,”
be gentle, be they Sir or Ms;
for though it’s not right to be truthless,
there’s no excuse for being ruthless.

The Writer’s Workshop prompt for Aug 22 that I chose wa the word ‘Honest.” Image by Steve Sharp on