Author: madamtruefire1

OK you found me out. I'm a semi retired microbiologist and author. This somewhat unholy alliance has led to many articles, four novels and one bio thriller about to be hatched. I have no earthly excuse not to write volumes except that I have this belief system that I must be in some dangerous place to be inspired. Hence, I exercise every ounce of frequent flyers I possess. My travels worldwide have inspired much of my writing and, of course, been involved in my bio work as well. It is now time that I pay attention to the calendar and get cracking. Riding two horses of two parallel careers can be a bit uncomfortable and hard on the hips. One last confession, I love all animals to bits. I pet sit anyone from dogs and pussycats, to kangaroos and the occasional emu. They help and inspire my writings and often write their own journals. Another career? Perhaps. let me saddle up my third horse.

My Song for Mother Earth

by madamtruefire1, posted in Uncategorized

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Can you hear my heart calling?

Remember, remember…

My dolphin, my whale, my glorious living sea, remember.

My lion, my tiger, my elephant and rhino, my tiny newborn lamb,

My mountains, my meadows, my deserts of golden sand,

My redwoods, my rainforests, my flower fields of wonder, remember.

They stand courageously beside you, remember.

Cuddle my little ones in your arms, 

Hold them now, as I, indeed, hold you.

Life upon me can be a gentle dance or a frightening Armageddon,

Choose the peace of nations, and choose to walk in peace upon Me.

I hold you all now in the Breath of a new Morn.  Remember, Remember!

All life upon Me stands at a hush now and also a prayer.

Remember.

 

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Counting Sheep

by madamtruefire1, posted in Uncategorized

my wooliesNo, I’m not suffering from insomnia.  It is a shepherdess I have become, don’t y know.  Well beyond my seventy years, I am caring for a wee mob of woolies in Scotland.  Counting them one by one becomes an exercise in repetition as I always miss one or two in the first round.  I’m told there are no predators to concern myself with but one could get tangled in the bushes and not be able to free himself all wool and thorn entwined.  So I get lucky this first afternoon alone.  All sixteen are present and accounted.  I scoop up large handfuls of hay into their trough while my lieges gaze on.  They seem to be as curious of me as I am of them. Tomorrow, I’ll create a stool so I can sit midst my flock and write.  After all, they’ve signed up to be my editors.

Back at the cottage, the mysterious barn cat stares through a dark closet. Big golden eyes welcome me back to an evening of peace.

 

April 4

by madamtruefire1, posted in Uncategorized

Fifty years ago on this day, I was holding my first-born in my arms.  I had married an Aussie and custom had it that women had to lie in for ten days.  Wow, now all they get is a drink of juice and cookie and a bundle and hit the road.  Ten days was dignified.  My daughter had been born at 11PM on April 3.  I was still quite new to the business of mothering.  So here I was  ten thousand miles away from my own country, trying to figure out breast-feeding and the business of mothering while half way around the world, disaster struck again.  We didn’t have internet or tweets or any of the social media that gets instant gratification today.  And so, I heard about it from an Aussie nurse who came in to check on me and my new bundle.

I held my daughter close to my heart and wept.  We had already lost a president, and now a hero, Dr. Martin Luther King.  I remember how I felt such loss, such betrayal, such agony.   As a new mum, I wanted to promise my children peace and safety and maybe just a little bit of wonder. And here I was rocking and weeping and praying:  “Lord make it stop!”   The violence on the planet was escalating.  Viet Nam was on fire and the streets of my own country were ablaze with protests.  In the middle of it all, a courageous visionary was gunned down at a motel in Memphis.

Years later, that same daughter and I were on a pilgrimage across country.  We were driving a beaten up SUV loaded to the gills.  Our goal was to deliver her to a two year assignment in an all black high school in North Carolina.  She would teach for America before she set off for a PhD at Yale.  Wow, This same kid that I rocked so long ago was following the road of human rights.

So we made this road trip count.  We veered off at Memphis and went to the museum there.   The counter, the bus, the hangings, the marches, the black history that so few whites really knew was there before us.  The museum ended at the site of April 4, 1968 at the very motel where a hero died needlessly. The toussled bed covers, the dinner on the plate had been frozen in time.

I’ve never forgotten that moment.  I don’t think my daughter has either.  She went on to teach and fall in love with so many of her students who struggled the race card.  So many of those same students lost relatives to drive by shootings.

Now twenty-five years later, has anything changed?  Sure.  Our newborns are inheriting an even higher level of violence.  Safety is a treasured word that means very little on a day of automatic weapons and crazies and anger piled upon anger.  Have we learned nothing?

I’m in my seventies and I still won’t give up.  In MLK’s immortal words: “We as a people will get to the promised land.”   What did he see that night when he had been to the mountain top?  I can but wonder.

 

He is Risen

by madamtruefire1, posted in A different spin, Heart, Loving Kindness, Uncategorized

Today is Easter for the Christians, Passover for the Jews, and the bridge makers of it all sometimes sigh:  What exactly does He is Risen truly mean?  Last night, I watched “Jesus Christ Superstar” again.  I’ve watched it ritually for close to forty years.  Ted Neeley is still playing the part of Jesus in his seventies, and, worldwide.  Where does he get his vitamins to move onward every year?  He imbues the kindness of Jesus as well as his human frustration as he plays that powerful role.  “Father forgive them for they know not what they do” takes on a deeper meaning.  Last night, I put on the captions and actually sang along. Why not?  But as I studied those captions, I realized dialog I had missed even with my repetitive viewing on Good Friday or Holy Saturday.   It became clear that often the lyrics were subtle Sometimes they were evocative:  “Jesus is cool”  voiced by the high Sanhedrin priest.

And then the dialogs of Jesus and Judas.  Clearly the love between the two of them was there as well as the agony.    Tim Rice, the lyricist, is my hero.  He brought the story to life, not just another repetition of something written so long ago.  It is timeless.

Well, here is where I’m going with this blog:  What if  He is Risen was reflected in all our thinking?  What if Redemption, ah the elusive word, was ACTIVE NOW.  Redeem? Rise? Crucifixion? Forgiveness. All the words repeated ritually just might take on a new meaning.

We are smack in the middle of global change whether we wish it or not.  This “Holy Week” I contemplated who actually cooked the Last Supper.  Now there’s a subtle veering to the side  I honestly thought:  Wow!  The girls are at the market buying the lamb today (Tuesday).  Wow! The girls are prepping the roast for cooking and doing side dishes.  I even asked a Jewish friend what kind of side dishes would be at the Last Supper?  Sure it appears humorous but in fact, it’s kind of nice to wonder.  We glean over so much in our rituals.  And then I went to “Who cleaned up the dishes?”  Women quietly did their thing then as we do now but often invisibly.

What I’m trying to say is this:  What if we just threw out all the ritual repetition and allowed ourselves to feel the Rising from a very personal space.  Maybe we could throw out bigotry, judgment and taking any sides and oh yes, TWEET kindness for all.  Sure I’m Polly Anna again but Polly also rises. Our planet, our people, our nations our states, our cities, our homes just might HEAL.

Echoes on the Wind

by madamtruefire1, posted in Gun Violence, Heart, Human Rights, Uncategorized

At a time when tweets and sound bytes could easily disengage another beautiful day on planet Earth, I pause.  I pause because I can.  I pause because I choose.  I pause because I am in awe.

I’m here to witness CHANGE.  An old Chinese warning is “May you live in interesting times”.  Yes, indeed.  Yesterday, I proudly witnessed our youth marching with determination, focus and courage.  They were not alone. Older people walked beside them and behind them and remained silent.

These kids nation-wide and world-wide were not only gutsy to organize such a grand scale protest; they named it a movement.  Yes!  It isn’t going away after fifteen minutes of fame.  These kids have a plan.  Rolling thunder? perhaps.  But planetary change requires sacrifice, sheer guts and fearlessness.  I saw all of these yesterday and each speaker brought a sense of dedication to standing for an end to gun violence.

There were many moments of heroic speeches that will impact history.  However, the most moving for me was the young girl who read out the names of those ‘sacrificed” in Florida and then stood in silence.  Silence, silence.  Can you hear it? Can you hear the echoes of “Enough is enough, Never Again, and lest we repeat ourselves, shouts from the rooftops, “Never Again!”  Perhaps “never again” needs to become a mantra that is repeated over and over and over and over and over and over.

Please tell me that we won’t slip back into cerebral “conversations” on boring panels in beige meeting rooms with politically correct old people.  The youth are on the move. Yes, indeed, and I’m marching with them in my heart, in my mind and with my pen.

Perhaps we need to take several hours to read the list of everyone killed due to gun violence and then stand in silence, in respect, in grief and in dedication.  Can you hear the echoes or will they be lost upon the wind?

 

We Stand, We March, We Listen, We Shout Enough is Enough

by madamtruefire1, posted in Gun Violence, Human Rights, Marching for truth, Uncategorized

This is a day that the world just may shift on its axis.  It needs to do so.  The youth are marching against gun violence and all that goes with that term. Parents, grandparents, elders and friends are walking beside them, and those who can’t march are sitting and waiting for them to come by and holding this moment sacred and powerful.

We have lost too many innocents in the name of inaction, putting off legislation and, frankly, greed.  The second amendment nonsense is just that….nonsense.  It does not serve anyone in the twenty-first century to be imprisoned in old out dated laws.  And let’s be honest, semi automatic armory did not exist in the time of muskets.  Muskets were personal devices meant to protect an individual, not blow away a classroom.  OK, that’s rough to read but it is also true.  We have no more time to sit and discuss and have dreary legislative or political conversations.  We are losing our nation to nonsense and the inability to take action.

I’ve been silent over this situation since I wrote about Sandy Hook.  And what has been solved since that hideous event?  More kids lost.  More sophisticated repeat rifles and semi automatic guns and more devices to easily convert to that status are now eerily available..

So today, I stand with the courageous kids that are marching worldwide, nationwide, county-wide, city-wide. There should be a sit in on the White House Lawn and every legislative lawn in the nation.  We have all had enough.  Let us not go silent and switch our attention to nonsense.  It is time.

Shout from the rafters.  Shout from the cliffs. Shout from the graveyards. 

Enough is Enough. 

 

A Rare Kind of Courage

by madamtruefire1, posted in Animal Rights, Heart, Loving Kindness, Uncategorized

I lost a true friend this weekend.  She wasn’t human but she possessed the incredible attributes that make fine humans and fine dogs.  Maggie was a Golden Retriever who had become blind in adulthood.  In some ways it might have been easier for her as she had memorized so much of life by the time she lost her earthly eyes.

I pet sat her for a number of years and the very essence of that beloved pup seemed to remain with me even after I had driven away.

We had long conversations out at the common area where she particularly loved a variety of sniffs.   It was miraculous with its soft grass, wildflowers and yes, sniffable spaces.  I like to think she saw it all with her “other” eyes. When I walked her, there were the occasional bumps into objects that she quickly learned.  Later she became frightened of the tile floors that made her slide a bit.  Still, she carefully proceeded down the stairs to her pit which she had dug under a shade tree.  A gentle command of “Down” was all she needed to start the descent, and oh how she loved to roll in the grass. Pure Joy!

I loved sitting in the chair in the lounge with her close at hand.  We were buddies and I often read aloud to her.  Most humans don’t reach that far into pet assignments, but Maggie was NEVER an assignment.  I was honored to be with her whenever her owners called.

I like to think that since it is Chinese New Year, and the year of the Earth Dog, Maggie left at an auspicious time.  I also know that she is somewhere above us watching with her new eyes.  Her very gentleness fills the room as I write this last farewell.

The courage she taught me to go on in the face of all aridity will carry me through for many years to come.  Blindness never stopped her one instant.  It was, well, just something that happened along the way.  Wouldn’t it be fine if we humans had that much detachment and yes, courage?

Paws up to you, Maggins.  (This was my pet name for her).  As I sit and watch the falling snow, tears fall for one of the finest dogs I’ve ever had the privilege of caring for.

Pet sitting has become a true journey of the heart, and this fair girl will be missed, incredibly missed by us all.

 

Me and Maggie Dog

 

A Memory or Two on V Day

by madamtruefire1, posted in Fabulous research, Heart, Humor Insights, Reprisal

OK, It’s time for a confession of sorts.  I am a powerful babe but Lord have I tripped on a few misconceptions.  Before the dawn of time, I found myself at University with some fairly cool friends.  We used to hang out at The Grill at USC and our one goal was to impress one another.  One had to race for the latest copy of Times to speed read it and then casually drop pearls at the table.  Whoever pre-empted the others got the booby prize: a startled look and a “Dang!” from the others.  In those days, women scientists were few among the mix so the gathering was always lopsided with guys.

But on the Eve of Valentine’s day I was desperate.  I didn’t give a damn about the Times magazine and impressing the dreary lot.  I wasn’t dating anyone regularly and so the possibility of candy, flowers and silky nothings was somewhat remote.  But undaunted, I decided to put out a tiny request.  Of course I did it with perfect covert tactics.  I removed myself from the dialogue at that sacrosanct Grill and then interjected a thought into the mix.

“Y’know? It’s a shame we don’t all just simplify.  None of us girls need a full blown dozen of long stemmed red roses.  We’d even settle for ONE, One sweet little red rose bud.  After all, it says the same thing.  And by the way, it isn’t necessarily I love you forever.  It just kind of says, Hey, babe, I’m thinking of you.

I deliberately avoided eye contact but noted a silence in the group at that fated table.  Next day, I showed up after Chemistry class.  There was the same crowed of intellectuals and as I sat down, one of them, a good friend, not a lover, quietly handed me that red rose.  I have loved that moment forever.

Two years later, I found myself again, in a similar position, only at a different university in a different grill.  By that time, I had kissed a few frogs.  I had two closeted gay friends and I issued the same rose treatise.  They were professors and very very formal men.  I don’t think they were a couple, but who cares?

The next morning, I called in sick.  I just couldn’t face Valentine’s Day without a rose.  Call me a wuss, but I needed that validation.

On February 15, I resumed my research post and put on my lab coat and prepared for the day.  As I opened the refrigerator to get out some lab preps, I gasped.  There was a single rose in a vase.  Oh ye of little faith, I told myself and smiled.  The card read:  Hey, girl, no need to play sick.  Here’s your damned rose!  Happy V Day,  Ron.

Now, decades later, I still remember those two roses, both from men who were not my lovers, just my fabulous friends.  And YES, it was simple.  One rose.

Invitations of Various Kinds

by madamtruefire1, posted in Fabulous research, Heart, Humor Insights, Reprisal, Uncategorized

Disclaimer:  this is a casual trip around the cosmos, with absolutely no direction whatsoever.  Caution:  Read at your own risk and not while driving.

Years ago, I read a poem entitled “The Invitation” by Oriah Mountain dreamer.  I strongly suspect that this was not her given name but it matters not.  She gave it to herself kind of like my non de plume Madam Truefire.  I’m sure each has its own story of origin. Oriah’s prose poem is not flowery and it doesn’t rhyme.  I envy her that poem because every word speaks directly to my heart. After many years, it remains timeless and most of all precious. I wish I would have written it, but that’s the beauty of words that fly across the page. Sometimes they are mine and I have to wait for the ink to dry.  Other times they are on a printed page written by another author. I get to choose a variety of options: asterisk the line, put a tiny pencil mark at the side, roughly turn the corner of the page down or use yellow out.  It then starts to appear “dog eared” which is an intriguing term.

When I’m reading something fabulous, the yellow out marker makes some chapters literally glow in the dark, and somehow this means I’ve owned the book.

I love buying used books on Amazon and in cool old book stores.  In truth, Amazon gets fairly prissy over the amount of usage.  They don’t have a loved to bits and beaten up and scribbled on choice.  Some of the kooky old nook stores accept books with notes on the side.  I love those notes.  They say:  someone out there read this book too and this is what he/she thought.  Getting a brand new book is a different story.  It is clean, immaculate and no thought forms stalk the pages save one’s own.  It feels sterile and requires owning in the reader’s hands.

When I was in my early twenties , I found myself smack in the middle of what Kerouac called the Beat Generation. By day I worked in tropical medicine research at UCLA  so I wasn’t exactly the type to drop acid and lie around in a pile.  However, my student dishwasher in the lab explored the universe nightly with his eclectic friends. I was invited to some of those soires where philosophy majors, drugs and wine and much pacing and dialog occurred.  I always stayed straight and sober enough to drive home. And hallucinogens were off limits.  I figured I did enough spontaneous trips on my own without them.

When I left that position at UCLA  to go off on a wild goose chase love affair which ended in an off shore marriage, two kids, and a divorce, I felt duty bound to divest myself of certain things.  After all, I was “in love” with a conservative Australian physician.  I needed to rise to some level of dignity.  I needed to grow up. So I began to divest.

I gave that dishwasher my wine stained, dog eared copy of “On the Road”.  He could have squeezed it out and had a good modicum of wine to sip.  That day, he looked at me like I had handed him the Holy Grail.  It’s been over 40 years since that book flew into his possession by fate, and I wonder where that darling boy is.  I’ve tried to find him a number of times, but he remains elusive.  With the way he lived, he may have left the planet.  He loved marijuana and LSD and living on the edge.   His life was one trip after another.  I’ve often thought of that ragged book and that look on his face. It became his bible.

An aside if you will,

I proved my somewhat straight laced life style a number of years later.  The “traveling folks” had progressed from LSD to Ecstasy, the feel good hallucinogen. I called my friend, an opera singer in Malibu.  It was New Year’s Day and I wanted to wish her well.  She was the Empress of Events:  kooky spiritual gatherings in a salon in a mansion above the cliffs that overlooked the Pacific.

I was there for several of her eclectic events and I’m here to assure you that she would never lose her position as Empress.  Of course she was gorgeous with long flowing blonde hair and a voice like an angel.  Couple those attributes with exotic Thai silk caftans and she looked like she floated several feet above the ground.  She also possessed the keys to magic.  We all played our parts in her royal court.  I dutifully lit 100 candles and then set up projectors with slides of beautiful transformational images.  A lovely older black man always showed up to spontaneously create ambiance on the grand piano and jam with that exotic diva.  And then there was the grateful audience who often brought poems or just jumped from their silken pillows to spontaneously recite some eternal truth.

I’ve often wondered if Walden Pond was a bit like this.  Still, Emerson and Thoreau were New Englanders not Californians so it probably was far more reined in.

What I’m remembering now is that during one of her majestic salons, the Empress taught us all freedom, the ability to express beauty in any way we saw it.

But I digress. It happened to be New Years Day around noon.  I dialed her number and that sweet voice of hers drifted across the line.

“Darling!  Happy New Year, Darling!  You must come up and join us! We’re all nude lying around snuggling and need your Divine Presence.  We’re about to do another round of ecstasy.”

Maybe there was a time when I would have accepted that invitation and jumped for my car keys; but that day, the vision of thirty or so nudes on ecstasy, cuddling in a scattered pile was not my preference.  I wasn’t ever a goody two shoes but walking into the room, cold turkey, let alone into a pile of stoned naked hippies did not appeal to me.

I graciously bowed out with an excuse of having children returning from time with their dad, or maybe the biblical I am sorry I have bought me a team of oxen…Even the bible is rife with usable excuses.

But hey!  Back to page one after this rocky trip around the universe.  I long for the salon gig.  I’d stand and read Oriah’s “Invitation” with a background of the sea and a hundred candles twinkling.  Then again, I just might read some of my own prose while someone spontaneously dissolved those images of mine on the wall.

But, now there would be interruptions of dings of approaching texts.  Unless of course, I demanded a cell free zone and put a basket outside the door where one could dump all electronic devices.

Much to ponder as the bath water cools and the snow outside melts.

Another day of of What if I had Nothing whatsoever I had to do today at all.

To the End of the Earth

by madamtruefire1, posted in Fabulous research, Heart, international travel, Reprisal, Romance, Uncategorized

A very stately elder gentleman friend of mine has recently stated that there are few people for which he would travel to the end of the Earth.  I pondered that statement and then said  “Tell me about this.”

He closed his eyes for a few moments and then tried to explain.

“Well, there are a lot of babes in my past:  You know, the good-looking girls with little to say, the  intelligent ones that could really converse, the good friend types that were comfortable, but I have to admit, I wouldn’t have gone to the end of the earth with any of them.  This one, this gal, I am willing to put my money on the line and see where it goes.  And yes, it feels different.  This feels different.  This feels like love.”   I stood up and gave him a standing ovation.  After all, I have been in his life for twenty years, and seen him in and outside of a marriage and wondered.  I never thought in a million years that he would find someone for the happy ever after.   And now he’s pondering the end of the earth junket?

I love the thought:  to the end of the earth.  I’m glad Galileo figured out that it is round, or we’d fall off for being goozy with someone and yes, following them to the end of the earth.

But wicked humor aside, it is a lovely thought.  I have to wonder how many people really have ever felt that way about anyone in their lives, even their spouses.  It caused me to sort of workshop my own history and so I went over a mental list:  no, never, you’ve got to be kidding, maybe, huh, d’know, another weak maybe and then I screeched to a halt.

OH YEAH!, John.  I would have gone to the ends of the earth for that fine fellow, and in many ways I did.  He’s gone now, left way too soon, or I would still be doing “Same Time Next Year” with him, somehow, even if we got to walkers and guide dogs.  But why John? why not the man I married? why not that other dreary list of maybes and d’knows?

I think it has to do with serendipity, magic, and the ole tried and true, falling in love.  Things look different from the other side of rose-colored glasses.  The practical to do list of a relationship simply flies out the window.  It makes no sense to make sense of any of it.  So maybe it also has the attribute of surrender, to a what the hell, I’ve never felt quite this way in my entire life.

Now some may run far from this realization.  Some may hide in a stable of wannabes…men are particularly good at that option,  But ever so now and then, the bug bites and the “victim” surrenders.

But I need to get back to the End of the Earth gig.  Sure, falling in love is written about in just about every category of existence.  It’s the bug bite thing, the itch that needs to be scratched, the feeling of falling…not rising…falling, through space, with a kind of out of control lack of direction.  I’ve always counselled that this feeling this falling in love thing lasts eight or so weeks.  The can’t live with out it business gets dusty about then and a more practical side sets in.  ……for most…..but then there are those rare couples that stay goozy for a life time.

I remember an old actor once talking about his marriage of 50 years.  He said, “Hell, I still want to grab her in into my arms as soon as I hear her key in the lock.”  WOW.  That’s impressive.  But, hey, that’s how I felt about John.  Every time I’d see him, even after thirty years, I just had to catch my breath.  The sex had gone to the retired end of things but the wow moment hadn’t.  I cherished him.  That’s it.  I cherished him.

So back to the 8 weeks of falling in and out of love for most, it takes a transition of sorts. Falling in love is some sort of whaky mechanism to get pheromones cracking toward the perpetuation of the human race.  Let’s face it, and let’s blame pheromones.  But science aside, loving is a completely different ball of wax.  It requires some sense of time, wounding, losing, finding, staying the distance but it ain’t falling off the rooftops with passion. …….unless it is.

After all the ins and outs of trying to figure out my life of princes charming, dark knights, cool dudes and just plain fabulous men, I guess the Ends of the Earth statement brought me to my knees.  TWO out of 50 or so (no I am not a trollup, I just have years on this one), made the cut.  TWO!  But John, could take all of my frequent flyer miles, if he had asked.

My proper gentleman friend is pondering this as we speak.  He and his sweetheart are going to Antarctica together on a boat cruise.  Now that’s the test of a lifetime, for me at least:  a boat surrounded by water for many many days, a tiny stateroom, and lots of folks we don’t know.  It can mark disaster or the most wonderful adventure of all time, but yes, it is to the ends of the earth, and he knows it.  Smitten? oh yes,  smitten.

As I sit and drink my second cup of coffee, I stare out at freshly falling snow.  Suddenly, I am sitting with John somewhere in time and the feeling I had has not diminished.  He passed some ten years back and I still love him to bits and will so far beyond my years.

And when it comes to the End of my earth?  You bet your sweet ass, I’ll be looking for him on the other side.