Defense

Kotodama
First off, I’d like to admit to some rather apparent laziness. Also, I want to say that I find that writing this essay is not what I want to do, even less is speaking in front of the class. I find it pointless to try to defend what doesn’t need to be, much less something which, “needs no justifications.” Blah! I really don’t have anything more to say on this.
“Story! Story! Tell the story, Joanie!”
Oh, boy. Brats. Great. Fine.
“All right, lets see… Bambi? Beauty and the Beast? Snow White? Or something else? What do you guys want to hear?”
Boy, this brings me back, me staring up at my dad’s face insisting that he read to me or let me read to him. Or just that he tell me stories. I was versatile like that. Still am.
And now here I am sitting in front of a group of brats, the locals’ kids that I have semi-adopted as mine and they’re demanding that I tell them stories. Man, things have come full circle. I suppose that’s the way it goes though.
“Hmmm… Shall I weave the Enchanter’s Tale around your ears? Shall I sing of the Siren and the Sailor? Or would you, here, today wish the tales of the Eld? Of Lightning Dancing and Wind Runner? What about the Horse Lord, Shadow Fax, and his faithful Wizard Friend? Raptor Red? What of Maerlyn and Arthur? The Ghosts of Christmas?”
Squeals. Boy, kids have the worst voices.
My list of stories could go on for hours, they know it, I know it. Frankly, I kind of prefer the stories of humor and adventure. Dramas and tragedies are good (I worship Shakespeare), but they lack something without a good dose of humor (Oedipus, gag!). I’ve been reading, and then writing for as long as I can remember, but I hate being forced to read or write, it takes all the enjoyment out of my beloved.
There’s a wonderful thing about literature and imagination, you can go anywhere and do anything with either or both. You can make anything happen, believe in anything you choose, spend twenty years in prison, betrayed, in the space of a second, a few words, and find the lost treasure of the Nameless Pharaoh.
I’m an eclectic. I like a lot of things in a mix. My friends complain about my taste in music and literature. I’m also an aesthetic. If it sounds good, or looks interesting I’ll take a look. I like off the wall or odd things, pagan, wild, Zen, you name it. I’ve been called a lot of things, too: pagan, cowgirl, hick, boonie, mountain brat, blunt (I’m actually rather fond of this one), and some things I won’t repeat. Point is, is that these are only words and those people know very little about me.
The Japanese have a theory that they call Kotodama. From what I understand, each word has power and that once the word is spoken the power is released into the world to spread. Like a physical force, it affects every thing around it moving outward like bad gossip, or if you want to stick to orientalism, like ripples in a pond, reaching out and then bouncing back, again and again until there is no more power to the word spoken.
The words hold power, and every word of every story I tell is true and real according to this theory. That is a reassuring thing. To know that somewhere, old sages spread knowledge, dragons spread both honor and chaos, that witches cackle over bubbling cauldrons, politicians plot, watchmen watch and the world turns on, time passing in cycles as ages rise and fall. Soon, very soon, something will happen to force this ironic world into mythic and there will be no place for those like me who adore irony and satire. No place for those who find humor in nearly everything.
I believe I’ve lost myself, and perhaps the reader as well. I do tend to do that. But then how will I know what I think until I say it or write it? Apparently, I tangent a lot. Shall I tie in? No? Very well, then.
Words poured from his mouth like water from a fall…lost, disconnected, disorder, chaos, order in chaos, chaos in order, round and round we go, there’s not stopping now. Lapsang soochong is an excellent tea with a bit of honey and a touch of lemon, but it’s an acquired taste. Honey can last for thousands of years as long as it never gets water in it, then it ferments and becomes mead, pharaohs drank it and it was still good when they opened the tombs. The accursed tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamen. Myth? Fable?
No, words of power. The belief alone will kill you. They say if you die in your dreams you die in real life as well, that’s why when we dream we fall we always wake before we hit the ground. It’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the last part.
Every story told is true, everything written down or spoken is rhetoric and therefore literary. As an English major I can read anything and become a part of that world, I can touch on every subject known to man, and even those that aren’t. I reach out into the world in all fronts while others focus down to one or two. “Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon, that the maker’s rage to order words of the sea…” “To order words,” to arrange, to demand, whichever way it is taken it is what it is. So mote it be