Welcome to the first issue of Lion’s Paw!

In this issue…
    -         Welcome Words – with appreciation to those who’ve been patiently waiting!
    -         New Works – Codacat coming soon! Kenna coming of age!
    -          News Splash – a new home
    -         Creativity Spark – Set your journal on fire! 
    -         Nature Speaks – a little (winged) persistence
    -         The Gold Mine – Wild Mind
    -         Quote of the Moment – garden sense

 Welcome Words…
Lion’s Paw is finally here!  Released on an artistically unpredictable schedule, each issue of Lion’s Paw attempts a quick, sharp swipe at a small part of the world of poetry and art and/or other related and unrelated slices of being, as blundered upon by the lion-hearted author.

Some of you have been waiting for this for nearly a year as I struggled with what to say here. As a professional communicator, I know to determine my overall purpose and target audience(s), among other things.  But, I asked myself, what if there are multiple reasons for this missive?—to update those who’ve expressed interest in my latest literary escapades; to acquaint the artfully curious with “Codacat” news; to share with those who crave the next fieldnotes from my puny but plentiful backyard wildlife habitat; and/or, finally, to update the one or three people on the planet who are interested in the other places my mind, soul, legs and hands may take me.

So, you’ll find a wee bit of myriad things here.  Morsels for the masses?... just a tease of tenuous tidbits for hungry passersby?   Suggestions?  Feedback warmly welcomed.

Caveat—The curse of the independent woman: As I insist on maintaining direct control over the development and maintenance of the Lioness Press Web site, I encounter occasional obstacles like fully comprehending the difference between an “image library” and a “photo album” in the language of my Web posting tool. Thus, the site is an eternal Work In Progress—at least for awhile longer—so, if you explore LionessPress.com, please view kindly, and check back periodically for new (and hopefully much improved!) features and content.  

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New Works – Codacat coming soon! Kenna coming of age!
Bar codes. They’re as ubiquitous as gravity. Look at a cereal box, a bag of beans or a can of Pringles^®. Or your daily dose of junk mail and magazines. Books. Coupons. Gift cards. Frozen peas. Cat food. Your library card.  Bar codes are everywhere. But in art? Why not?!  I can’t claim to be the first, and likely won’t be the last, to see the beauty in bar codes, the artistic potential in the brilliant binomial black & white symmetry. Simplicity and complexity. Does it not speak to the dichotomous nature of existence itself?... sleep, wake; sit, walk; plus or minus; good and evil? Hmmm…. Maybe a bar code is just a bar code.  Or not.  Stay tuned for Cosmic Codacat and kin… coming soon! Too curious?...Click here…\\\\\=^..^=///// 

My novel’s protagonist Kenna is busy growing up and trying to avoid trouble... a lost cause, as she will soon see… as will I, I hope.  I suspect we’ll be arriving together.   Meanwhile, Anni the Astronaut Cat is about to embark on its round of children’s book publishers. I just hope it’s not round and round and round until Anni and I are both dizzy! Send us good vibes.

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News Splash – a new home…

Late last year the sun set on the gallery that once sold my handmade journals and cards. But a new day dawns as my ‘haikugami’ greeting cards and both lines of journals have found a new home at Impulsive gallery and gift shop. If you’re in Virginia, please stop by this fabulous gift shoppers’ and collectors’ paradise in Falls Church for exclusive DJGaskin/LionessPress products and myriad more marvelous items!

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Creativity Spark – Set your journal on fire!  
Need a spark to heat up your journal-writing? Try this: If you awoke in the wee morning hours to smoke and flames, what items would you rescue before leaving your burning house? Aside from the usual – children, pets, your favorite jeans, maybe even a spouse – focus on what else is important in your life. If you had just a minute to run through your house and take just what’s most essential to your existence, your identity, what would you take and, most importantly, why?

Close your eyes and visualize the scenario. Imagine your most burning need (pun intendedJ) and all that’s in your home that you associate with that need. Envision your path from room to room on the way to the best portal to safety outside. Standing barefoot on cool grass in the middle of the night, over what would you feel the most intense relief for having saved?

Explore the “why” several layers deep. For example, if you would save a particular scrapbook, why?.. what is it about this scrapbook that you’d prefer not to live without? Does it contain mementos of time with an old friend? ticket-stub and cocktail-napkin memories of a unrealible but sizzling old boyfriend?  Where do the memories take place? Why is this place special? Why is keeping this scrapbook (or whatever other item) important to you? What relevance does this person have for you and why?  Why and why and why…. dig until you can dig no more… then stop and put the journal away.  Return the next day to dig some more… write, read, edit, sketch, rewrite, read, stop, re-read, draw, write, end… or not? Maybe you’ll end up with musings for a poem, inspiration for a story or – maybe more importantly – just a little self-discovery.

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Nature Speaks – a little (winged) persistence
The little bird, in its tiny tuxedo get-up, stabbed repeatedly into the slender myrtle branch. With the tree just six or eight feet from my favorite spot on the deck – and given the oddly enormous amount of time I spend there – I witnessed this bizarre behavior dozens if not a hundred times in under a month’s occasional evenings and weekend afternoons in my little wild kingdom.

Spring had arrived with Mr. & Mrs. Chickadee’s annual reclaiming of the handmade birdhouse in my little backyard wildlife habitat. For the third year now, Ma and Pa Chickee had set up housekeeping in the tiny cedar casa with ‘farmhouse red’ trim painted to match my own, somewhat larger, house. The annual closing in on their miniature A-frame was followed by the gathering of grass, twigs, hair and lint-trap rejects that would shape their expected hatchlings’ cozy first home.

Not in possession of a birdhouse-portal sized periscope, I was left to trust unseen that nature would take its course and perfect small eggs would soon occupy this protected bed of straw and dander. Which is exactly what happened. Soon enough I could hear for myself the result: a high-pitched chorus of frail chirping that kept mom and pop flitting to and fro to feed the growing flock of feathered hunger. And that’s when I noticed the beak-driven head banging time after time, following each foray to the feeder. I know: those of you bird-nerdier than me are sending me duh-lepathy messages about now – why of course!...the birds were slamming the little safflower seeds into the hard surface of a tree branch to break open the thin but tough outer shell. The better to eat them… and the better to feed their tender young.  And that was just the beginning….

Mother and father chickadee seemed to spend every daylight hour – at least those hours I was privileged to observe – darting to the feeder for seeds, and to the trees for tiny green worms or itty bitty spiders, and back to their now crowded house to feed their babies. Over and over. Such tireless persistence! And something about this left me briefly sad as I thought of all this frantic effort to care for these little flightless ones whose fuzz would soon turn to feathers as they prepared to leave the nest and, within a couple more days, would be flying off to explore their own pairing possibilities... leaving the parents, and I, empty-nesters.

How often do we persevere with what needs to be done so urgently, without even a thought that the well-earned rest we’ll have later may also be an ending of sorts. I've sometimes discovered after such times a competing sense of elation and melancholy.

I suddenly longed to cradle these tiny creatures, each in a palm, plant kisses on their little feathered heads and offer soothing sounds of comfort and assurance – that their fatigue would be rewarded, that their tireless devoted efforts would gift the world with new life, that very soon they may even know a brief sadness mixed with joy at what they’ve produced when their creations bolt from the nest and eventually soar skyward on the tip of wind supporting freshly feathered wings. 

As I continued this sappy little scenario in my head, it occurred to me that chickadees do not need sympathy. They’re just doing what they do, what they need to do. Their task – from mating to nesting, from feeding to freeing – requires unwavering focus to be successful, a persistence to see it all through, up until the final farewells to their fledglings.  This then reminded me of a pet project at work.  And, it being the weekend, I decided to just stop thinking for awhile.

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The Gold Mine – Wild Mind…
I was never so pleased about how I mutilate books than when I met Natalie Goldberg. It was many years ago, and I still mutilate books, and I still use Natalie’s Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life. 

It was an independent book shop in Takoma Park where I lugged Wild Mind and Writing Down the Bones to hear Natalie Goldberg speak about these books and maybe to snatch an autograph in one or both while I was there. I enjoyed her talk so much that I committed to standing in the lengthening line for autographs and a few hoped-for words of wisdom from this writers’ writer. 

My turn arrived and I stretched out Wild Mind toward Natalie and her pen, as she asked my name. I was just about to apologize for the condition of my copy of the book, which sported penned notes in the margins of nearly half the pages and more dog-ears than twenty litters of pups, as well as slightly waterlogged covers and other signs of misuse.

But before I could utter more than my first name, I caught Natalie’s look of delight as her gaze left the mangled book and raised to see who had so used, so abused, so loved, this book.  Which brings me to….

I don’t officially endorse books or other products, but I have to say, I credit Wild Mind (and Writing Down the Bones) with many excellent writing habits and muse-summoning ideas that contributed to a fairly decent collection of writing… so far.

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