Cryptic Texts

It has been a while since I posted here. My apologies to all.

Friday night left me bored and up to no good. I looked around and decided then that I DID have pendulums, spell books, tarot cards to interpret and that I had not paid a fortune for them for nothing. Suddenly, I was not so bored.

I put on some music, lit candles and set down a purple decorative cloth on my table. The sun set, the stars shone and dragons and owls kept a stern watch on guard.

I pulled out my spell books, and got to work. I began with the tarot and spent an hour trying to decipher the Rider Waite tarot cards. I am a beginner in tarot and Rider Waite is purposefully hard to interpret. The cards opposed each other and the magic is ruined by looking up the meaning of each card and then more impossible to derive a meaning of the ten cards as a whole. I put that aside for a time and turned to my pendulums. A wind blew in from my open window which spread the lovely scent of frankincense through the room. THe candle flames flickered and I felt like a wizard or priestess alone in a dark dusty library reading ancient texts by candlelight. I was carried away by the magic. i could almost hear the hooting of owls in the night.
I own 3 pendulums- two I bought and one was given to me. The pendulums are all beautiful and usu work great. Tonight was not the night.

I watched the candle flames flicker and relit the frankincense. I am working slowly on a book of shadows. I spent an hour or more on the book of shadows- how to put it together in a careful, meaningful and artistic way. It has to be done with care.
I want to compile a beautiful book of spells I would prefer a handmade bound wooden or leather book of shadows and hope to accomplish this within the year. A witch traditionally begins a book of shadows on the new year @ Samhain. I cannot wait that long.

The time flew and it was late before I knew it. I blew out the candles, put the spell books away, knowing I could visit that magic world again. Goodnight owls and dragons

Independence- a bad day!

I've just had a new development in my life. I moved into my apartment. Rock on! With the freedom, came the sours.
From my fire alarms ringing repeatedly,tears streaming down my cheeks from the smoke from the chicken in the oven to a month long battle with my landlord over a rotting bathroom sink- which, by the way, I won.
I sweated it out through reupholstering my chairs to painting my furniture and cooking unbleviably delicious dinners.

I just spent two hours trying to open an email to finish the email transaction. It is piss pouring rain and freezing slush here.. We had a blizzard earlier and I had to plow through that. I went to the library and couldn't open the email and finish the transaction, so I wrestled with the wind and sleet to the bank and they couldn't help me and I went to a few other spots. Places were closing early and school was closed. By this time, my feet are a brutal mix of soaked, stinging, freezing numb and everything else. I limped back to the library in time before it closed and the bank thing worked. I went to the bank and they were like, "You again!" and I'm like yeah, and so I was exhausted because due to aching soaked feet- there were puddles in my sneakers and I couldn't move my feet they hurt so much, I went to buy groceries and I got veggies, a chicken and some food to hold me over. I went to catch the 51 and waited 1/2 an hour and finally caught the 51. Basically, I went through hel. The whole time, I sat on the bus all I was aware of was my poor feet which are still red. Clearly, sneakers do not do it for this nightmarish weather. Passengers were going by me and I drew my poor foot back so as to not have it knocked by a passenger. I had to rest my right foot on my left. The pain was unbearable. The roads and sidewalks are risky and impassable. I can now stand up straight any surprise I have slippers on- it's ten minutes now and my right foot still aches and I am having a hot cup of tea and cookies. I plan to cook that bird TONIGHT. I have a blanket that was cheap as shit I bought from Value Village the other day around me. I am going to use equally inexpensive fabric to make a cover for it. Not a real quilt from scratch. I am recuperating but I have food.

anyone have one of those days? I since have bought proper winter boots, buy groceries on nice days, own a buspass, and had a cute technician from Aliant improve my internet system. He was cute! That bad day had to be the worst! Anyway, freelance writing needs to pay off. I must persevere.

I had an article recently published in Canadian Stories about my meeting with Margaret Atwood at a fundraiser.I may have a second article published in the same magazine soon.

Heddy Johannesen

Summer reading

My summer reading list is comprised of a novel by Nora Roberts, fencing styles, The Coast, newspapers, Writers Digest, Exploring Candle Magick, Wicca for Solitary Practitioners, and anything else I can get my hands on.

I feel that summer is the perfect time for summer reading, reading the books you put off all year. The Public Gardens in Halifax have recently opened a cafe and so a person can sit and sip a coffee and read a good book. And a person is surrounded by swans, ducks, trees and flowers of every possible kind. Then again there is the beach.

Poet at a workshop

Hello

Here I am, practicing giving a poetry reading. I have my book of poetry entitled Metamorphosis. The Seahorse Tavern is a hot spot for poets! David Rimmington gets a group of poets together to recite their poetic musings. Despite the noise, we trod onward, marching.

Maritime Writers Workshop 2006

I attended the wonderful Maritime Writers Workshop last year. I studied Cyberpunk fiction with Biff Mitchell. i wil remember the
mall spying and ghost hunting. I probably did my best writing at the workshop. It was a week to remember.

The one with the blond hair is Anne Rice. No, I mean, i like to write vampire novels. This is me at the desk at the Cyberpunk
class with Biff Mitchell and the other writers. I enjoyed the classes, forced me to think new things. I wrote a scary flash fiction story about a guy who has to outsmart a computer to escape the room alive.

Matrix anyone?

Summer writing

This is George Elliott Clarke's review of my book of poetry, Metamorphosis

THE NOVA SCOTIAN BOOKS SUNDAY SEPT. 24, 2006

GEORGE ELLIOTT CLARKE’S REVIEW OF MY BOOK OF POETRY, METAMORPHOSIS

Heddy M Johannesen’s first poetry text is Metamorphosis, a self-published work, (for copies, contact goddess_heddy@yahoo.ca). A Haligonian freelance writer, Johannesen’s approach to verse is spontaneous as Davies is deliberate.

Both writers exhibit the ideal qualities of contemporary East Coast poetry: vernacular freshness plus sculpted articulation.

Johannesen’s Metamorphosis is slimmer and simpler than Davies’ work, for it is an amateur’s artless art. Her lyricism is, frankly, reckless, but beauty is wreaked, nevertheless.

Flight of the Butterfly tells us, sprightly, “Hope is the hue / of my monarch’s wings / in flight. / A silken angel lingers / on perfumed heavenly / petals.” Then, the clichés begin: “gossamer wings,” “lightness of a breeze” and “sips ambrosia”.

Despite an anachronistic term, the poem ends with a sign of poetic promise: “Alas, I dreamed my wings / were held in your / hands. / / you were here, forever. “ Suddenly, the butterfly is no longer an abstract symbol, but the embodiment of a dashed love.

Johannesen’s temptation is to turn things into symbols: a difficult act for even long-practiced poets. But she wins some success where her diction is tactile: “Eros / I want to be a black mare / trot over sandy beaches / feel your dark glistening coat. // I want…/ your eyes (to) peel to my soul…”

With its realized (not only imagined) details, The Wet Poem demonstrates Johannesen’s clear talent: “A blues song plays / faintly / on the radio, / shaking / desk, / my nose is so / stuffed up, / like a false gift / filled with Kleenex, / crinkling, my / head is so pounding. “

Metamorphosis has many such moments, and it is really splendid when verbs are fresh and nouns are firm: “Under leaves crown a massive / ample tree, leaves trickle / to gray earth…”
Johannesen’s book marks the arrival of a gifted voice. Welcome her “rage at bare pages.”

The wet poem

My name is Heddy Johannesen. i am a Halifax-based freelance writer. I write ina cozy attic room which in the past, would have been the servants' quarters. This is a Victorian style house. I like it here. Quiet.

My other website to check out is www.bookLoversInk.piczo.com. The website is a marketing tool of my writing and a way for interested people to sense what type of writer I am and what writing I do. I have published a book of poetry entitled Metamorphosis. I have 3 published magazine articles. I love to write and tinker with words all day.