Category: The Future

About "Heart Wood"/Brain Implants/Dystopian Fiction/Dystopic Future/Inner Listening/Speculative Fiction/The Future

Elon Musk’s Neurolink: Harbinger of the “Nib”?

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Elon Musk has bold visions for the future of humanity. His inventions include the Tesla electric car, Space X Starship, and Starlink– space-based internet. But when he unveiled the latest developments of his Neuralink – a wireless implant into the brain that could someday let human brains directly interface with digital devices, my skin crawled with goosebumps.

Elon Musk describes his “Neuralink” brain implant

I went back to my early 2016 drafts of Heart Wood – to Amisha’s future world (2070-2090) in which everyone has a “Nib” implanted at birth behind their ear– a miniscule micro-chip that eliminates all need for external electronic devices. It would be like having a continual “Siri,” “Alexa,” or “Google” active in your head, clouding or overriding your personal thoughts, providing you with information and giving directions in anticipation of what you might or should want. With less need for other humans, eye contact and physical touch would wither from disuse.

Amisha was a young child when she was retrofitted with the new, mandatory Nib…

“Amisha hardly remembered the time of silence, before her parents took her to the tall building, the line of other little children, the sharp stab in her neck, the prickles that grew behind her ear beneath her skin, and the new voice she began to hear.” (Heart Wood)

I pondered what to call my imaginary implant. “Chip” was too predictable. My friend Mark Jokerst helped me come up with the word “Nib” (Neural Implant Bot Sensor).  I like that “Nib” also had a brief appearance in the late 1800s as the nib of Eliza’s fountain pen – both communication devices, two centuries apart.

Musk describes his Neuralink as like a Fit Bit in the skull with tiny wires that connect the brain to computers/phone via Bluetooth. To insert, an advanced robot surgically implants the Neuralink (0.9” wide/0.3” tall) and its 1,024 miniscule electrodes into the brain matter. Its battery life lasts all day; you charge it at night. Like your Tesla.

“Amisha nodded to the rain pelting the bedroom window and, with a right-flick of her eyes, queried her Nib: Didn’t it already rain twice this year? Last rain: April 14, 2075. Four point six inches of precip in one hour temporarily raised the Bay five inches. Seawall was moved back two feet. Your closest umbrella stand is corner of Grove and . . . Amisha halted her Nib feed with a left-flick of her eyes.”

 Musk is serious about his invention, predicting it will enable people with spinal cord injuries to control their prosthetic limbs. He goes on to say that future applications will cure blindness, seizures, depression, and other mental health conditions. Eventually, he speculates, you’ll be able to record, replay, and upload your memories. Neuralink may one day upload and download thoughts. People with implants would be capable of telepathy—not just sending and receiving words, but actual concepts and images. “The future’s going to be weird,” Musk said.

“Menting” in Heart Wood is a version of telepathy. Like mental texting.

“Orion!” she called from the bathroom. Of course, he was still gaming. She sent him a mental message but got no response to her ment. Breathe in . . . out . . . in . . . out. She left Orion an urgent ment to contact her. –I.P. hours in thirty minutes, reminded her Nib. A pedi.cab is passing in eight minutes. Amisha dropped a handful of general purpose Pharm.food packages into her aquamarine crocheted bag for her midday food, then checked her route for shootings and outbursts and decided it was safe enough to walk. She needed to clear her head from last night’s dream.”

How close is the Neuralink to reality? With great fanfare, Musk held press conferences on August 28, 2020 to show off the Neuralink implanted into normal-acting pigs, and on April 12, 2021, showing a monkey playing video games with its Neuralink-enhanced brain.  Links to these are below.

As new technologies like Neuralink infuse into our future, I see bioethical red flags being raised regarding privacy invasion, consent, and misapplication by military, political, commercial, and government interests.

But I have an additional concern: that something essential to being human will be lost.

As Amisha grew up, she modified her Nib’s voice:

” …first upgraded as girlfriend Talia, then briefly Jordan, until she got tired of hearing a man’s voice. Eventually she installed a nameless voice, programmed to be both competent and comforting to her. Over the last few months, however, she had detected something new, a murmur so faint she thought at first it was static from her Nib. Now and then, a word would break through, then just as quickly be covered over by a wave of Nib drivel. Something was weaving through her dreams at night like a root tip seeking water, seeking her. She’d wake up shivering.”

It’s our inner voice that we stand to lose – the source of intuition, nudges, insights, and the unique expression of our spirit.

Technology will integrate deeper into our daily lives: A.I. leads us to our destinations, Google searches distract us down rabbit holes, podcasts fill our quiet moments, and every click adds to our profile. These probably won’t change. For me, the question is how do we keep our inner voice alive and vibrant?   

I wrote Heart Wood in part as a reminder that beneath all the technology, we have our unique, still, small, voice. The small oak desk is a metaphor for what connects us to a deeper, more universal, earth-based wisdom.  We can ignore it or pile our “stuff” on top of it, but when we finally sit quietly with no distractions, our inner voice can be heard.

I feel this is one of the most important things we can share with our children: to make time every day for the bliss of boredom. Just sit quietly, perhaps out in nature. Notice what you see and hear around you. Maybe close your eyes. And as Shima’a said to the future…

Listen to the Silence

Heart Wood – Four Women, for the Earth, for the Future

Winner of the National Indie Excellence Awards for Visionary Fiction.

2021 Finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award’s Montaigne Medal for the most thought-provoking books that either illuminate, progress, or redirect thought.

Finalist – Self Publishing Review and RECOMMENDED by the US Review of Books

Purchase Heart Wood at your local bookstore (support independent bookstores!), here on Amazon, and in Nevada County, California, at JJ Jacksons, Reflections Skin Oasis, SPD, and of course, Harmony Books and The Book Seller.

Please consider leaving a review on Amazon and Goodreads. It’s a great way to support independently-published authors. Thank you!

To read more about Elon Musk’s NEURALINK:

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Three Books that Shaped “the Future” in Heart Wood

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I’m often asked, “what influenced your creation of a dystopic future in Heart Wood ?” Although I’ve read speculative novels by amazing authors (think Margaret Atwood), my answer is always the same:

The three dystopic novels forever branded into my memory are:

“Earth Abides,” “The Great Bay,” and “Feed“

Each novel influenced how I wove the 2075 journey of great-granddaughter Amisha into my vision of the future. Coincidentally, two of the authors described a great pandemic that wiped out most of mankind – a premise that now gives me chills. That wasn’t the premise of Heart Wood, although I did mention “the flu” as something Amisha often endured as a child.  In Heart Wood though, there’s a sense of something else….

“EARTH ABIDES” by George Stewart. Written in 1949, Stewart details the earth’s transition and rebuilding after a virus wipes out most of civilization. Saved by the venom of a rattlesnake bite, the character Ish survives the virus and wanders through Northern California in what civilization has left behind. In vivid detail, Stewart describes the waves of transition the earth experiences, now freed from mankind’s influence. This book helped me let go of what I assumed is vital for the future. “Men go and come, but earth abides.” (Ecclesiastes, 1, 4)

“THE GREAT BAY” by Dale Pendell. Written in 2010, the late Pendell who lived in Nevada County, details the Great Collapse in California from 2021 to 16,000 years later. This takes place after a global pandemic in 2021 kills most of mankind – more than 200 million die in the U.S. in the first month alone. Chillingly prophetic!  Pendell moves forward decades and centuries at a time with detailed stories of survivors and maps that show the steady filling in of Central California to form a “Great Bay.”

“FEED” by M.T. Anderson. Another prescient book written in 2002. Although this Young Adult novel was written before smart phones (introduced in 2007), Anderson absolutely nailed how insidiously this communication technology would infiltrate and control our lives. Like the Nib in Heart Wood, almost everyone has a chip implanted in their brain that connects them to “The Feed.”  I listened to this as an audio book first and was hooked.

About Heart Wood – From Sandra Rockman, Theater Director

“Wow! What a feat! A really good read, mammoth detail and impressive imaginings with the Nibs, etc. Although sobering to read right now in the midst of the pandemic and the election – such an important story and sensibility. Thank you for all your work on it. The world needs this book right now.“

Heart Wood – Four Women, for the Earth, for the Future

The perfect gift for holiday giving; the perfect read for the times we’re in.

You can purchase your copy of Heart Wood at all local bookstores.

HERE: To locate your local independent bookstore. (Available at The Book Seller and Harmony Books in Nevada County) And HERE for Amazon (ebook and paperback)

Visit me at: www.shirleydickard.com

If you enjoyed Heart Wood, please consider giving a review on Amazon or Goodreads. It’s one of the best ways to support me and all indie authors. Thank you!

Climate Change/Eco-Novel/Environmental Activism/Environmental Concerns/The Future

Where will the sea first enter San Francisco?

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This is first in a series: Behind the Scenes of Heart Wood

San Francisco 2075 –

“San Franciscans were surprised by water falling from the sky. Most water crept in at them from the sea.”  (Heart Wood, page 5)

I originally wrote the opening scene for Amisha (year 2075) set amidst the rising sea levels propelled by continued climate change. The sea would first encroach San Francisco along the Pacific Ocean side, I imagined, then move eastward and slowly flood the city from the beach, up the avenues and into Golden Gate Park.

I was wrong. 

According to professional future projections of rising sea levels, salt water is first going to enter San Francisco from the bay side and flood the waterfront piers, Embarcadero, Financial District, and China Basin – areas mainly built on landfill.

I discovered this, thanks to my friend Mark, who sent me websites that project future sea level scenarios – websites used by land use planners as tools to help understand, visualize, and anticipate vulnerabilities to sea level rise and storms.

This San Francisco map is from Our Coast Our Future (OCOF) at 6.1 ft – 20-year flood. Light blue areas are under water.

Try it yourself! Select a map location on these websites and play with various scenarios. California: http://cal-adapt.org/sealevel/ and USA: Sea Level Rise Viewer  https://coast.noaa.gov/slr/

Based on these projections, I moved the rising sea level scenes away from Golden Gate Park near the Pacific Ocean, and in its place, described the park as “a three-mile long tent city that generously houses Oceania’s Pacific Rim immigrants.”  

According to a 2017 report, at least eight low-lying islands in the Pacific Ocean have disappeared under rising seas. 

After studying the map projections, I decided the most likely place for Amisha to encounter the encroaching sea was in the San Francisco Bay, across town.  From Heart Wood:

(Earthquake) Rubble that wasn’t hauled into the ever-moving sea walls of the Embarcadero, Mission Bay, and Financial Districts was piled high, casting shadows over surrounding buildings. (Page 39)

Amisha and Orion walked through the old Financial District while waiting for the ferry to take them across the bay to the Martinez dock.

Amisha felt herself losing ground. “How much longer ’til the ferry?” she asked, reflexively waiting for Nib’s reply, but getting nothing.

“Forty minutes, at least.”

“Let’s walk then.” She struggled out of the truck and started down the street toward the old Financial District but didn’t get far. The district, once a vibrant collection of purposeful high-rises, was now a forest of toppled buildings standing like barren tree stumps in a swamp. The street ended abruptly at lapping water. Boats floated in front of each building. When did electric power start failing? If she couldn’t remember on her own, then how was she going to know things now? She reached for Orion’s arm, feeling a queasiness return. She could still stay. He’d cover for her.

“Eight minutes,” Orion said, and guided her back to the truck.

When did the sea invade the ground floors? she wondered, unable to stop thinking about the inevitable. (Page 40)

Are rising sea levels inevitable? With the COVID-19 pandemic and political uncertainties currently sweeping the world, we have so many new, urgent problems, yet in the background, the earth continues to warm; the seas continue to rise.

How does global warming cause sea levels to rise? When I’m faced with a complex situation – more than I can get my head around – I first look for easy-to-understand descriptions and suggestions. Here’s a start:

First, as carbon-dioxide traps more heat on the planet, the oceans get warmer and expand in volume. Second, ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica as well as other glaciers start melting, pouring more water into the oceans. Once these processes get underway, they won’t stop quickly, even if we ceased putting carbon-dioxide into the atmosphere tomorrow. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/11/01/can-we-stop-the-seas-from-rising-yes-but-less-than-you-think/

Is it hopeless? In imaginary conversations with my character, Amisha, year 2075, she asks me if I even tried to do anything, or like Harmony, did I give up assuming it’s too big a problem for one person to make a difference? With a little research, I found a list of “Seven things you can do today to reverse sea level rise.” 

I decided to start with these:

Check the list yourself – https://www.thebalance.com/sea-level-rise-and-climate-change-4158037  Maybe there’s some things you can commit to as well.

I invite you to browse my website, www.shirleydickard.com, where I will be gathering information and links to issues covered in Heart Wood.

PURCHASE HEART WOOD at your local independent bookstores or online at Amazon

Back-to-the-Land Movement/California History/Climate Change/Dystopic Future/Eco-Novel/Environmental Activism/Feminine Power/Heart Wood - Four Women, for the Earth, for the Future/Speculative Fiction/The Future

Heart Wood has Arrived!

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Now that social isolation has become the norm, how about curling up with a good book? The coronavirus will continue to alter our lives in unimaginable ways, but at least we can still enjoy reading! 

Heart Wood will transport you into the lives of three women of the past, present, and future as they cope with their changing worlds. No viruses, I promise! The most common reaction I do get to Heart Wood is “this gives me goose bumps!”

You can order Heart Wood on Amazon Here

The ebook version will be available online soon and Heart Wood will eventually be available in local independent bookstores. Be sure and ask for it and support your local indie bookstores!

“To my own surprise, I don’t expect new authors to be so sly or quick in engaging, holding, and enlightening their readers. Whenever I pick Heart Wood up, I always regret having to put it down. Shirley DicKard is extremely good.”
             – Gary Snyder, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet, essayist, environmental activist 

SYNOPSIS

Heart Wood – Four Women, for the Earth, for the Future

Deep in the heart of a small oak writing desk is a legacy that mysteriously connects three family women across centuries and generations in their fight for the future.

     Shima’a, an ancient woman with disturbing visions of the Earth’s demise, sends a message of warning, and a seed of hope, forward in time within the heart of an acorn to three family women:

     Eliza: Post Gold Rush in the Sacramento Valley, late 19th century.

     Harmony: Back-to-the-land homestead in the Sierra Nevada, late 20th century.

     Amisha: Dystopic San Francisco and the Sierra Nevada, late 21st century.    

Writing on the heartwood of the old desk, each woman is influenced by the ancient message as she views mankind’s escalating destruction of the natural world through the eyes of her time. The women learn to listen to the silence, hold the earth in their hands, gather the women, then do what must be done.

Heart Wood is a compelling family saga set in the foothills of California’s Sierra Nevada. Its characters shift from one generation to the next, as do the struggles they face in saving their homestead from the ravages of climate change, fire, and human greed. But it’s mankind that poses the most dire challenges to the land and to those who seek life upon it. Heart Wood speaks of the collective power of feminine energy to protect the Earth. If you feel you’re not doing enough or that it’s already too late to make a difference, Heart Wood may change your mind. An eco-speculative-historical-magical-feminist novel.

About "Heart Wood"/Dams/Environmental Concerns/Right Action/Sierra Nevada/Student Activism/The Future

Dams: A 19th Century Solution to a 21st Century Problem That Won’t Go Away

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Dams have been in the news and on my radar again. Just as I’m revising the chapter in my book about fighting a dam back in 1990 (yes, the novel’s still in progress, but I’m pedaling faster now that I’m working with a writing coach!), here in Northern California the Oroville Dam spillway break caused the evacuation of 200,000 people in the Yuba-Sutter lowlands,  and a new dam is being proposed on the Bear River in Nevada County. 284

I totally emphasize with all that would be impacted by the Centennial Dam that Nevada Irrigation District (NID) is currently proposing for the Bear River west of Colfax (Nevada and Placer Counties). Back in 1999, the Moonshine Road area of Camptonville was faced with the prospect of a dam on the Middle Yuba River. Without benefit of today’s social media, our very small community of 600 people organized, educated, then partnered with SYRCL to form our own MYRACL (Middle Yuba River Area Citizens League). Eventually, the Yuba County Water Agency took the Freeman’s Crossing Dam off the list of options for flood control. But in the current political culture of abrupt reversals, no one can afford to be complacent. Thankfully today, myriads of new organizations have joined SYRCL to focus on protecting our rivers and environment. Folks are better connected, informed, and proactive.

If you want to become informed about the Centennial Dam proposal and learn how to impact the process, here’s some links to check out. Citizens have until April 10th to give public comment to the Army Corps of Engineers, so do it soon!

www.SaveBearRiver.com, and SYRCL’s http://yubariver.org/get-involved/

Now back to my writing. Dams provide the dramatic backdrop for my present-time character, Harmony, a back-to-the-lander religiously devoted to saving the planet.  Based on the true events  in Camptonville, Harmony  was part of a group that struggled to ward off a dam that would have inundated over a third of the families in her small, rural, community.

But in the end, it was the children who saved the river.

Excerpt from The Desk:   (Note: “The Desk” was the former working title for “Heart Wood” before 2020)

       Back then, the prospect of this dam hung like a shroud over our school kids. In classrooms, bathrooms, lunchrooms, and recess, all they could talk about was that half of their friends would be flooded out; families would be forced to leave; the school would have to shut down.

      Mrs. Watson, the fifth grade teacher, understood that the best antidote for anxiety was action. She assigned her ten-year old students the project of creating a plan. What did they want to happen?  Who could they approach?  What would they say? Soon parents and school staff got on board and helped the class get on the Supervisor’s Agenda. TV and news media were alerted, and at ten am, the school bus dropped twenty children into a throng of reporters and cameras in front of the county government center.

   

CV Students Oppose Dam 1999
Grass Valley Union Reprint, April 28, 1999

  Once inside the Supervisors Chambers and called to speak, students displayed their six-foot, hand-drawn poster depicting how the dam would destroy their community. One-by one, four students stood at the microphone and read the speech they had practiced in class. How, they asked, could the Supervisors purposely wipe out one of its own communities?

     Towering above them from their elevated desk, the five Supervisors leaned back in their seats, taking in the children, cameras, reporters, then back to the children. The Chairman thanked the students politely and announced they would make their final decision by the end of the afternoon, then added he wished he could to bring his own constituents to the school to learn how to make a good presentation! 

     The next day the school’s hallways were plastered with news coverage of the childrens’ appeal….the children who saved their community from being flooded.

Flash forward to 2,020. Having once defeated this dam that would have flooded her home, Harmony is now faced with the revival of the 19th century solution to the 21st century problem of droughts, decreasing water supply, and increasing demand. What is now different in this (hopefully)  fictional account is that by 2,020, the environmental regulatory process has since been dismantled. No more red tape, pesky regulations, meddling oversight, or tedious public input. Developers are freed at last to finally get things done!

May I repeat how you can impact our future right now?

Check out: www.SaveBearRiver.com and SYRCL’s http://yubariver.org/get-involved/    The public has until April 10th to comment on NID’s plans to construct Centennial Dam – a new reservoir on the Bear River between the existing Rollins and Combie Reservoirs. It’s up to us citizens to take notice and take action.

About "Heart Wood"/Environmental Concerns/Right Action/The Future

Acting Locally

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Just when I thought my life was perfectly full, I take on something really big.  It wasn’t my idea – well, of course it was – but somehow I had made the decision without telling myself.  I realized this when I woke up at 4 am and started writing notes on how I was going to run the local community newspaper.

The Camptonville CourierBeing Editor of The Camptonville Courier was never, ever on my retirement radar.  Five months ago the last volunteer Editor left, and though people in our small town said how much they missed the monthly “community voice,” no one has come forward to take it on.  Certainly not me!  I’m a writer.  That doesn’t mean I know publishing or want those responsibilities to take over my life.

Yet, something’s right.  Here I am, one month after that fateful night, and loving what’s happening.  Instead of feeling overwhelmed, I feel supported and delightfully challenged by all I’m learning about running a newspaper. More importantly, I have a crew of twelve community volunteers who are helping by taking on pieces of the work.

What cinched it for me is this is one thing I can do for my community. I’ve often grappled with what is right action, considering all the suffering and planetary deterioration around us.  Not surprising, Christie, the present-time character in the novel I’m working on, grapples with the same question. She knows that by the end of the century, her future great-granddaughter Amisha will be grappling with the impact of the actions we do/don’t do today.  Here’s a draft excerpt from The Desk:  (Note: “The Desk” was the former working title for “Heart Wood” before 2020, and “Christie” is now “Harmony)

“It seems no matter what route I take, I always end up wallowing in the same pool.  Signs are everywhere.  My humming laptop has already collected the morning’s emails – Outrage! Warning!  Take Action! Thank god lots of people are working hard for causes, yet I sit here paralyzed by despair.  I’m not a hero.  I’m just me, living my life with right intentions as best I can, yet sensing there’s a huge tsunami coming toward us.

I go downstairs and refill my coffee cup.  On the way back up, I rationalize that in small ways I am doing something.  I grow my food, reuse cloth shopping bags, frequent farmer’s markets, and shop locally before checking Amazon. I’m a poster child for “One Hundred Ways to Save the Planet.”

Seated at the desk, my new fountain pen is poised in my hand, ready to write. I’m in love with it. Compared to a ball point, the ink flows almost as fast as my thoughts.

     Amisha taps me on the shoulder.

     “Thank you.”

     “For what?” I ask, startled at her voice in my head.

    “For water.  The hand pump still works.”

     “Oh that!” I laugh softly.  My husband wanted a fancy solar pump and back-up system, but I told him I wanted simple.  Too much high-tech stuff makes me feel helpless.

     “You planted fruit and nut trees,” she continues.

     “It’s what we back-to-the-landers did.”

     “But they lasted.  Even without anyone’s care.”

      “So the drought-tolerant ones really were?”  I’m impressed.

     “I couldn’t have survived without them.”

     I shift in my seat, feeling uneasy.  “But it wasn’t enough, was it?”

     “No, it wasn’t.” Her voice is cold and dry inside my head. I cover my eyes, despair drawing me down like quicksand.

© All materials copyright Shirley DicKard, 2014, except as otherwise noted.

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Day 2 – A Personal Writing Retreat

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The Bed Nook
The Bed Nook

I reluctantly leave my cozy down comforter,  knowing I have miles of words to write today.  After yesterday’s drizzle, the sun is invigorating.  First, a tall mug of black coffee and a bowl of hot oatmeal, then I open my laptop to where I left off in the Scrivener program.

Hummer and Rupalini pop up on the screen to greet me.  They’re the old couple who escaped the growing dystopic world of the mid-2000’s and settled in the hills.   He’s saving his last 2 bullets from his now empty stockpile;  her mind long gone, she’s obsessed with finding out when the world turned.

After that chapter, I return to the present day narrator, wondering what will move her from feeling overwhelmed and hopeless about the state of the world and get her motivated into action.

Skyline Meadow
Skyline Meadow

Scott knocks at my door with a refilled jar of brown sugar and the most recent copy of Yes! Magazine from Diane.  I’m drawn into conversation with him, and write down his blog,  The Rambling Taoist.  He came to Skyline Harvest for a short visit and stayed. Skyline attracts such interesting people!

I write all morning, take a break for lunch and a short nap, then continue into the afternoon.  My word count is mounting, but not fast enough.  I console myself that the time I spend thinking through larger aspects of this project doesn’t show up as word counts.

There’s a lot of good stuff in Yes! Magazine’s Summer 2013 issue.  Here’s a few notes I took:

  • Will we turn against one another in a struggle for the last resources, or turn to one another in cooperation and community?  (Sarah van Gelder)
  • How to create new cultural stories and what we consider sources of true happiness? (van Gelder)
  • Definition of Revelation (Latin) and Apocalypse (Greek) is “A lifting of the veil, a disclosure of something hidden; coming to clarity.”  (Robert Jensen)
  • It’s an illusion we can maintain an extractive economy indefinitely.  Our planet is not just a mine and a landfill. For some, it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of air conditioning! (Jensen)
  • “Prefigurative  Interventions” – Playful Protests, Pranks & Serious Works of Imagination.”  Look it up!   Beautiful Trouble, a Toolbox for Revolution at  http://www.beautifultrouble.org

The Ranch House
The Ranch House

The afternoon sun beckons me out to pick some figs from the huge tree next to the Ranch House.  I also explore the other buildings for future stays.  Each one is cozy in a grandmotherly kind of way.

The Cabin's Livingroom
The Cabin’s Livingroom

The Cabin
The Cabin

Gazebo
The Gazebo

Next time I come to Skyline Harvest, I might stay at the Cabin with its multi-level outside deck.  Or if I had a group, we’d take over The Ranch House.  I probably won’t have time to spend writing in the screened Gazebo, but maybe next visit.

After dinner and another session with Diane, then an hour of cello practice, I’m revitalized to write again.  Work Table -NightThe moths check in on me against the lighted window, wondering how I’m doing.

When I close the laptop at 11:30 pm, I’m at 2,159 words for the day, for a grand total of 2,525.  Not as many as I’d hoped.

As my Grandma Moffett would say, “Well, it is.”

© All materials copyright Shirley DicKard, 2012 – 2013, except as otherwise noted.

About "Heart Wood"/California History/California Landscape/Creative Writing/Environmental Concerns/Gold Rush/Personal Writing Retreat/Sierra Nevada/The Future

Day 1 – A Personal Writing Retreat

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The Old Pendola Ranch
The Old Pendola Ranch

As I turned off Highway 49 onto Pendola Road, traveling to the Skyline Harvest Retreat Center, it was like traveling through time.  I followed what was once a narrow dirt road that early Gold Rush settlers had carved from the hills,  scanning the downslope for vestiges of old mines and water ditches while staying alert for on-coming cars around the many blind curves.   Further along, the woods opened up into the pastoral Pendola Ranch  – where hillsides were once covered with vineyards until Prohibition stepped in and hacked the copper stills to pieces.

.Road into Skyline Harvest

Passing through the gate to Skyline Harvest

Bullards Bar ReservoirBullards Bar Reservoir is to my left.

I settle into The Hermitage.  It’s too perfect!

The Hermitage

 A corner table for eating and writing, a futon couch, meditation chair and kitchen fill up the main room.  The single bed is in an alcove tucked behind a folding wooden screen, and a modern bathroom with shower is in a separate room. Two chairs wait on the deck for watching wildlife in the small clearing outside.

Work Table

Bedroom AlcoveKitchen

11 AM.  Food, books, laptop, clothes all in place, I fix a bowl of soup and watch the rain drizzle outside.  After a short nap and cup of coffee, it’s time to write.  I’ve decided arbitrarily to set a goal of 7,500 words for these 48 hours.  Let’s see – that comes to 156 words an hour.  Can I write in my sleep?

I plunge ahead, not knowing where my story is going next. Though I know the general arc of my novel, The Desk, (Note: “The Desk” was the former working title for “Heart Wood” before 2020), I’ve learned to quiet my mind with meditation before starting, then have faith that the characters will surprise me.  And they do. Like today, Hummer appeared.  I’m mid-way through the future section – Year 2088 – my prospective  great-granddaughter Amisha’s story of struggling to survive on a planet irreparably damaged by man’s impact.   Hummer and his woman, Rapalini are one of the old folks who fled to the hills early on.  What do they know?

3:30 PM.  I’m startled by a knock on the door. It’s Diane Pendola who (along with Teresa Hahn) founded and is Director of Skyline Harvest.  I’ve asked for some of her time to help me think  things through – drawing on her experience with indigenous wisdom, Gestalt Therapy, theology, The Enneagram and her mentors, Ramon Panikar, Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme, to name a few.

I’m interested in the questions raised in my story –  not so much the answers.  Diane asks if mankind can move  from an era that’s been shaped by man’s ability to circumvent the natural checks and balances of nature,  into one that recognizes that we are part of a universal consciousness? If not, what kind of world will Amisha live in?  That’s where my story goes.

We jump up two hours later – time has flown into the dinner hour.  Diane departs, and I take a cool walk along the firebreak road to watch the golden sun set into the departing clouds.

Skyline Sunset
Skyline Sunset

A fox scurries past as I return to The Hermitage and prepare my dinner, heating with the wood stove instead of the gas range.  My gourmet husband has sent me here with a chicken cacciatora, a beef stew, garden salad, and a bottle of red wine.  He’s amazing and I’m so lucky!

After dinner, I check my word count.  Yikes, only 366 words!!  This is going to be a long evening!  But then, that’s what I’m here for.

But my cello also calls me.  I unzip its case intending to practice a few scales, but  instead, I  play for an hour – improvising in  C minor harmonic – a moody, searching key. Crickets add a chirping accompaniment, though I’m too tired to see if there’s any correlation with my playing.

10 PM.  Off to bed.  Got lots of words to write tomorrow!

September 30, 2013

© All materials copyright Shirley DicKard, 2012 – 2013, except as otherwise noted.

Environmental Concerns/Right Action/The Future

Planetary Compassion Fatigue

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Morning emailsEleven political and environmental emails today.  Ten deleted.  I’ve got planetary compassion fatigue.  How to do the right thing when I’m buffeted between hope and cynicism ?  So many people working on urgent causes trying to elevate awareness, concern and of course, money.  But it’s too much.  I snap my laptop closed with a decisive click.  Time for the river.

My Honda knows the way to my favorite river trail.  It glides down the north fork river canyon, following the intricate twists and switchbacks of the mountain road until the road flattens out and parallels the shallow, trout-filled waters of the north fork. Shallower than normal for this time of year, I notice.  Every year’s different, but I can’t help feeling a smidge of concern.

Middle Fork Yuba RiverSandals off, hiking boots on, I find the dusty trailhead.  The first part is rocky, but I know it will smooth out around the bend and I’ll strike up a cadence.  I pull off a handful of manzanita berries and pop them in my mouth.  Crunchy, slightly sweet. My husband and I made manzanita berry sugar last week, experimenting with what’s edible in the wild. I hope I never have to live on them, I think as I spit out the granular seeds.

My steps fall into a rhythm against the soft dirt, sending waves of vibration up my spine.  Thump, thump, thump – base notes to the river’s wavering alto.  Hermit Thrushes fill in the soprano voice.  My mind lifts off and floats along.

I’m troubled with information overload, I think.  There’s so much to be concerned about, but what can one person do?  Sign the next email petition, press the “Donate Now” button, listen to the phone pleas, call my Senator?  What actually makes a difference? I kick a rock from the trail, watch it tumble down the bank and splash into the river.

Thanks to technology, I know what’s going on almost as soon as it happens. Great-Grandmother Eliza only had telegraph, newspapers and back fence gossip, I muse.

“Hah! But it was sometimes a week after it happened.” I’m aware of Eliza’s voice and let it come through. “You want to do the right thing,” she continues. “You’ve got the whole world literally at your fingertips. I had to use my feet – hitch the buggy, go house to house.  Except Sundays – one more reason to go to church.  Oh, and letters.”

“Snail mail,” I snort.

“It’s all we had until telephones became common.

“But you made some important changes.  You got the saloons closed; got land set aside for state parks.”

“Did it through face to face persistence. You’ve got to look them straight in the eye, see into their soul.”

“Video conferencing,” I think.

“Someday you won’t even have that.”  My future Great-Granddaughter enters the conversation. “Just voices inputting information in your head. And even that will die.”

I pull off the trail to make way for a hiker from the other direction.  He smiles, nods, and passes through.

I pick up the thread of conversation. “I wonder sometimes if information overload is intentional. I get so distracted and overwhelmed: public drinking water privatized, elephants wiped out for tusks, tax breaks for corporate “farms”, oil spills, bee-killing pesticides, sex trafficking, GMO’s, fracking….  After a while, it all becomes background noise and I stop caring enough to do anything.”

“Then you should stop listening,” Amisha cuts in.

“Don’t let her get away with that,” Eliza says. “I did what I could with what I had … and what I cared about.  Think of the power you have with your Internet and what you all call “social media”, she says.

Is it power or illusion? I wonder.

© All materials copyright Shirley DicKard, 2012 – 2013, except as otherwise noted.

About "Heart Wood"/Inner Listening/The Future

Into the Silence

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Walking alone in the woods, I’m hardly aware of the cacophony of chatter in my mind .  . .  Ah, a new wildflower . . . deer tracks . . .  clouds building to the east.  I’m also processing the day before, or day ahead, or re-visiting past emotions that disturbed or delighted me.  I’m a bubble floating within myself, while all around me, the world swirls with its own awareness and stories.

I’ve been reading Becoming Animal by David Abram. He links the interior chatter of verbal thought with the advent of silent reading – a fairly recent acquisition in man’s development. A tight neurological coupling arose in the brain between the visual focus and inner speech, he posits.

Frankly, I’ve never thought about the ability to hear the words in my head as I read them on the page. It’s only natural, right?  Yet Abram relates that before the twelfth century in Europe, the written word had to be spoken out loud to make sense of it.  Greek and Latin writing had no spaces between words and little guiding punctuation.  Semitic writing had no vowels and had to be sounded out loud to hear the meaning.  Starting in the seventh century, monks put spaces between each word as they copied texts, making it easier to read the words without having to sound them out.

I’ve thought about this in the novel I’m working on, “The Desk.”  Amisha has fled San Francisco in 2088 to find the family homestead and the desk that’s haunted generations of family women.  She has gouged out the chip implanted at birth in her neck – the only communication device humans should have or need. Her mind no longer filled with HumanaCorp’s constant messaging, she wanders in silence.  Without a cloud of inner dialogue obscuring her awareness, she is drawn into the animate and inanimate world surrounding her.  She becomes a listener.Firgure Pictograph

“Our intelligence struggles to think its way out of the mirrored labyrinth, but the actual exit is to be found only by turning aside now and then, from the churning of thought, dropping beneath the spell of inner speech to listen into the wordless silence.”  (David Abram, Becoming Animal).