Archive for the ‘myth and mystery’ Category
New Urban Mystery: Dancing with Trees
A new Urban Mystery is available! Dancing with Trees is the 5th novella in the Series. The story is set in Fredericton, New Brunswick. An artist, Katie, who is cataloguing interesting trees in the city, happens on a mystery associated with the trees. As she walks the city streets, she encounters a strange dancer who shares a special relationship with each tree.
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Fredericton, known as the City of Stately Elms, has long been celebrated for its old trees and urban forest. The story was a natural for me – during my career as an environmental botanist, I often worked with trees, including those in the city.
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The Urban Mysteries are short, at only about 20,000 words, and each one is a quick, easy read. So far, there are five novellas in the Series:
- Office Green: set in Halifax, NS
- City Grotesque: set in Saint John, NB
- Roundabout: set in Fredericton, NB
- Hollow Hotel: set in Saint John, NB
- Dancing with Trees: set in Fredericton, NB
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The books are available at Dog Ears Books in Oromocto, New Brunswick, and 2nd Story Books in Harvey, New Brunswick. They are also available at Amazon.ca, under my pen name, Alexandra Tims.
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Hope you enjoy these books!
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All my best!
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Jane Tims
(a.k.a. Alexandra)
exploring the legendary 2
Interesting and different weekend!!! I participated via webcam in The Quest, an effort to gather more information about the Loch Ness Monster. This was a weekend organized by The Loch Ness Centre. To add my bit to the effort, I stayed right at home and observed remotely.
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I watched the webcam at Lochend for 6 hours from 7:00 AM to 1:00 PM Atlantic Time (11:00 AM to 17:00 PM Scotland Time). It was not boring. This was partly because there was a lot to see: people on the opposite shore, birds and flocks of birds, sailing ships, speed boats, and cruisers, and a couple of things I couldn’t identify. I recorded my observations every 1 to 2 minutes and took some screenshots.
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Loch Ness is a long, narrow lake (27 km long) in the Scottish Highlands. The area where I watched is at Lochend, near Caledonia Canal, the northern outlet of the Loch. The webcam panned back and forth, showing the water and land between a long narrow beach to the north and a point of land to the south (near Dores).
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Most of the boat traffic I saw came from or went into the Canal.
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I quickly found, because the webcam moved on a pivot, I would not see a continuous sequence of events in any one area. For this reason, I divided the viewing area into four sectors (A, B, C, and D) so I could identify the sector where any particular action was occurring.
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The wind was blowing, so the water was choppy and riffled. The water of the Loch is also very reflective, so elements of the shoreline are reflected in the water. All of this means that waves appear long and thin, are constantly moving and appear darker near the shore — easy to make an observer think they have seen a long dark serpent-like monster.
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Some of the things I saw:
birds, individually or in flocks, on the water and in the air…
… ships of various types: sailboats, cruisers, speedboats and canoes…
… and people, in small groups, on the opposite shore, walking, swimming, canoeing, watching…
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I also saw two things I couldn’t identify. One was a dark ripple in the water of Sector B that moved northward for about 9 minutes and then disappeared. Another was a white, stationary blob that only appeared for about a minute, also in Sector B. I made photos of these for the Loch Ness Centre, but didn’t get photos of my own. I submitted these two and I understand I will eventually hear if they were observations of interest. Neither would win any prizes in the ‘looked like Nessie’ category!!!!
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All my best,
Jane
(a.k.a. Alexandra)
exploring the legendary
All my life, I have been interested in legend, and in particular the creatures of legend: the Ogopogo, the Sasquatch, the little folk, the Loch Ness Monster and so on. Perhaps it is my general interest in biology, my writing about science fiction and my love of story. I also know that we humans do not know ‘everything.’ Each day I learn of a new species I have never known about before. Or I hear of the discovery of a new plant or animal. Or I marvel at how strange nature really is.
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For these reasons, when I heard on CBC that there would be a new, concentrated search for the Loch Ness Monster, the first such effort since the 1970s, I thought it would be interesting to participate. The Loch Ness Centre is organizing The Quest for the weekend of August 26 and 27, 2023. The weekend effort will include observations by volunteers at arranged locations along the shore, as well as explorations by drone and underwater devices.
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I am not traveling to Scotland any time soon, but the interview said people could take part remotely via webcam. So, I went to the website and now I am registered to watch Loch Ness for five hours on Sunday.
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I will be watching the webcam at Lochend, near the outlet of the Loch. The webcam swings back and forth, so I will get a full view, constantly changing. Watching a bit of water for five hours will present challenges, no doubt, but I will prepare myself for a long haul with water and snacks and lots of enthusiasm. Botanists are used to watching plants grow, so I am looking forward to this new adventure! Here are a couple of views of the area I’ll be watching.
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The participants have had a briefing and a briefing package. This weekend, there is a preparation presentation via Facebook and wrap-up sessions at the end of each day, also via Facebook.
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I will have fun and perhaps I’ll spot something of interest. The organizers tell us to expect to see water craft, floating logs, standing waves, debris, and, yes, perhaps even Nessie!!!!!!
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You can also participate. The organizers have said that latecomers are welcome. Just look at the website above to discover how to join in.
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All my best,
Jane Tims
(a.k.a. Alexandra)
coat hanger
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My most recent poetry book, a glimpse of dragon, includes several poems about the mystery and magic of the night sky. One of the most interesting star groupings I have seen is Collinder 399, also known as Brocchi’s Coathanger. Its ten stars look a lot like a little upside-down coat hanger. The grouping is not a true star cluster or constellation, but is considered an asterism — just a random pattern of stars. To see the asterism, you need a dark, summer sky. Find the Summer Triangle (the triangle created by Altair, Vega and Deneb) and Collinder 399 is near the line between Vega and Altair. On my back deck, it can be found by facing south, and looking along the roof ridge of our house, so I can always find it at the right time of year.
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(Source: Wikimedia Commons, Petr Novak)
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Here is a poem about the asterism from a glimpse of dragon:
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coat hangers
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1.
metal hangers aggravate
refuse to cooperate
they are
jangled, tangled
twisted
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2.
her closet has
grace
padded satin hangers
plumped
muffled
kind to arthritic hands
pearl buttons to keep
her dresses from slipping to the floor
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3.
Brocchis’ Coathanger Cluster
between Altair and Vega –
with binoculars
this fuzzy patch of light resolves
to ten splendid stars
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suspends the fabric of sky –
a strong little hanger
with an oversized hook
upside-down
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To get a copy of a glimpse of dragon, take a trip to Westminster Books in Fredericton, or order from Amazon https://www.amazon.ca/glimpse-dragon-Jane-Spavold-Tims/dp/B09M5KYBS3.
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Hurry up summer sky!
All my best
Jane
now available: a glimpse of dragon
a glimpse of dragon, second poetry book in the ‘glimpse of’ series, is now available at Westminster Books in Fredericton.
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The book is illustrated with my black and white drawings and considers extraordinary things in ordinary life. These are poems about comets in the sky, ghost cars in the covered bridge and dragons lurking in the campfire.
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campfire dragons
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dragons prowl
in balsam
backcrawl in amber
blisters of pitch
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dragons lurk
under mantles of smoke
blacken the stones
spurt throatfuls of fire
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dragons leap
to the Draco sky
watch us grow small
with sparking eyes
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close their lids
and sleep in flight
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You can also order a glimpse of dragon at Amazon, click here.
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I hope you enjoy ‘a glimpse of dragon.’
Jane
a glimpse of dragons
This year, I am continuing to gather my various poems into categories for publication. I intend to publish three books of poetry in the ‘a glimpse of…’ series.
So far, I have published ‘a glimpse of water fall,’ a collection of poems about waterfalls and the way lives can sometimes take a ‘downwards’ turn. In 2012, the manuscript for a glimpse of waterfall won Honorable Mention in the Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick’s competition for the Alfred G. Bailey Prize.
Next year, I will publish ‘a glimpse of sickle moon,’ poems journeying through the various seasons of the year. In 2020, the manuscript for a glimpse of sickle moon won Third Prize in the Bailey competition.
Later this fall, I will publish ‘a glimpse of dragons.’ This poetry collection is about the mysterious events in my life that take imaginative reasoning to understand. The title comes from the idea, in the Dark Ages, that unexplainable celestial events were the actions of dragon-kind.
I have gathered six types of poems into this collection and I illustrate many of the poems.
1. those ordinary things in my life that seem imbued with magic;
2. my ‘observations’ of dragons;
3. unexplainable events in my life that would fall into the category of ghost stories;
4. my encounters with magical people;
5. poems about my deep appreciation of sky and the awe that accompanies trying to understand the reality of space;
6. a tribute to the crow, an animal I feel kin to, and the dark women I associate with crow-kind.
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The poetry book ‘a glimpse of dragons’ will be published by kdp and available in paperback on Amazon in December. The book will also be available from Westminster Books in Fredericton.
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Take care in these days of pandemic,
all my best,
Jane
the wisdom of faerie tales
As I write and revise the poetry for my ‘garden escapes‘ project, I search for references to enrich my poems. One category of these is the faerie tale. Many faerie tales include gardens in their tale-telling. Some include wisdom to be applied to my experience of the abandoned garden.
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I have chosen three faerie tales to include in my poems:
Rapunzel: the beautiful girl with the long, long hair is imprisoned in the tower because her father makes a bargain with a witch. In one version of the tale, the father steals rampion bellflower from the witch’s garden and gives his daughter as compensation.
Beauty and the Beast: a beautiful girl falls in love with an ugly beast. The tale tells us that you must sometimes look beneath the exterior to find inner beauty. This is another tale where a father is caught stealing a flower (a rose) from a garden and gives his daughter as compensation. Hmmmm.
Sleeping Beauty: when the princess is put to sleep, a thorny vine grows around the castle to hide her away.
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I have included these faerie tales in three of the poems I have written. Below is my poem incorporating the tale of Sleeping Beauty.
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wild cucumber (Echinocystis lobata)
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I think the story of Sleeping Beauty requires a little retelling, to make the princess less compliant. The three vines in the poem are:
- Clematis (Clematis virginiana): names include virgin’s bower and devil’s darning needle. This climbing vine has delicate white flowers and fluffy seeds
- Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia): an aggressive climber with leaves palmately divided into five lobes
- Wild cucumber (Echinocystis lobata): a prickly annual vine and a climber with tall columns of white flowers
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Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia)
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Sleeping Beauty
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“… round about the castle there began to grow a hedge of thorns, which every year became higher, and at last grew close up round the castle and all over it, so that there was nothing of it to be seen … ” –The Tale of Sleeping Beauty, the Brothers Grimm
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three vines whisper—
Clematis virginiana
Virginia creeper
wild cucumber, reshape
the hawthorn, the rose
with frail flowers
and five fingers
tendrils like springs
disguise the thorns
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keep curiosity seekers away
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dampen noises from
beyond the barrier
where wakeful Beauty
taps her nails
on foundation granite
wonders if anyone
will dare to tear
at tendrils, breach wall
of thorn and vine
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the need for rescue always in doubt
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only decades ago
a home chuckled
behind the hedgerow
mowed lawn and a dyer’s garden
tansy at the cellar door
flax in the meadow
Beauty dibbling seeds
deadheading flowers
tying up sweet pea
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only the cellar remains
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perhaps she will slash
her way through hawthorn
rip out wild cucumber
scrape away suckers of creeper
tame the hawthorn, the briar
renovate house and barn
encourage the scent of sweet pea and petunia
transparency of hollyhock and mallow
whisper of yellow rattle, rustle of grasses
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no more virgin’s bower
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Clematis virginiana
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This work was made possible by a Creations Grant from artsnb!
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All my best.
Are you getting COVID-fatigue?
Stay alert!
Jane
crystal ball
During these incredible days of isolation, our writing group has begun a series of prompts to help stimulate writing. One of our members suggested ‘weird phrases’ as the prompt category. So far we have had ‘ear hair,’ ‘under the fridge,’ ‘spider web’ and ‘crystal ball.’
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I have two ‘crystal balls,’ both small and both more properly called ‘glass spheres.’ But they are as close to a crystal ball as I will ever have. I am certain neither sees the ‘future’ but both show an interesting ‘present’ and both remind me of the ‘past.’
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clairvoyance
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my crystal ball
is a glass sphere
from a claw-footed
piano stool I sat on
to practice my scales
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chipped, it never
snags the sun
will not scry or clarify
occludes
forecasting fog
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it has a past
Chopin’s Butterfly Étude
in half-time
and a furry
Für Elise
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but gaze
though I may
it never resonates
with a note
about tomorrow
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although it has
guessed, after
damaging percussion,
I will never play
Carnegie Hall
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All my best,
Jane
watching you …
A couple of years ago, I did a set of five small acrylic paintings to reflect my love of mythical dragons.
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Dragons can be nasty creatures. They hoard gold, breathe fire and frighten the villagers. But they have a good side. They provide hours of entertainment, they helped explain comets in the skies for centuries and they have soulful eyes!
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Just to say, there is some good in every situation.
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All my best,
Jane
wings of angels
As part of my at-home-writers-retreat, I had a ‘break’ day yesterday. I had my hair cut (always relaxing) and went with my husband for a drive to our cabin. We read our book aloud (a Philip R. Craig Martha’s Vineyard Mystery) and took lots of photos. This evening I wrote a poem, based on today’s photos. Most are blurry, because of the relentless wind.
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wings of angels
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I don’t believe in angels,
though I catch their whisper
between stems of Poa,
meadow grasses and blue.
Discover feather fall,
seed tufts of goldenrod,
Solidago. Wing tips
disguised as autumn leaves,
staghorn sumac or oak.
Glimpsed along low ditches,
silken hairs of rabbitsfoot
Trifolium arvense.
Find feathers aloft, on air,
cirrus or stratus clouds,
or wind-smoothed cotton-grass,
tassels of Eriophorum.
Catch scent—Dennstaedtia
hayscented fern, or cedar,
sets cones for another year.
I think of angel wings
and refuse to believe.
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Copyright Jane Tims 2019
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All my best,
Jane
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