The tornado disaster in my community. #prayforarkansas

Vilonia, AR - Carlo Allegri/Reuters

Hello, lovelies,

As many of you know, I live in Little Rock, Arkansas.

When the storms hit, my phone started blowing up. Calls, texts, emails, and instant messages poured in Sunday night into Monday morning, and then into the afternoon and evening hours. Friends and readers from around the world popped in to check and make sure me, SS, and our family were safe.

We are safe.

We live about 20 minutes from the area that was hit, so it missed us.

So many others weren't as fortunate.

I'm a social worker by day, and a large portion of my assigned area is that which was devastated by the tornadoes on Sunday night - Ferndale, Mayflower, Vilonia, White County... my clients live in all of these areas. Many have called these communities home for fifty and sixty years.

Over the last couple of days, I've talked with so many people who have lost everything. Their homes. Their pets. Their friends, family, and neighbors. In the coming weeks, many of those who were injured and are sent to inpatient rehab to recuperate will undoubtedly be referred to me. This is what I do every day... I connect the elderly and disabled with the resources they need to remain in or return to their communities.

Mayflower, AR - Kathryn Piotrowski/Reuters

I don't even know where to begin doing that right now. I'm learning about disaster relief on the run. But I am learning, so I can teach my clients, too.

Seeing the damage left behind in our community has been heartbreaking. I can't even begin to express how overwhelming it is. Over 3,000 homes were damaged. A large portion of those are completely destroyed, uninhabitable. We lost fifteen people. Two of them were just little kids. 

I checked in on the last of my clients today, and they are safe. I cannot even begin to express how relieving it was to cross that last name off the list today. To know that the people I care for - the ones I work with every day - are safe.

Sitting in my car after making that last contact today, I heard this song and cried like a baby. 

 

I cannot even begin to tell you how many of those I've spoken with or visited have said the same thing: how amazing everyone has been in their time of need. 

And you guys have been amazing. The compassion you've shown my neighbors is humbling. Beautiful. Empowering. Inspiring. And something none of us will forget any time soon. This song demonstrates that compassion so beautifully. So I just wanted to share it with all of you. To take a minute to say thank you to everyone who has pulled together to help out, to lift spirits, and to lift up our community.

And to say thank you to all who purchased FADE or FALL in April. What I've earned from those sales will be going to the Red Cross to help my neighbors. I think it's only fitting.

For those who would like to help out, too, please consider making your own donation to the American Red Cross at http://redcross.org. They were on the ground almost immediately, and their trucks continue to pour through on their way to help not only those in our community, but to help those in communities in Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Iowa, Kansas, Florida, and Oklahoma - each of whom have suffered unimaginable losses in the last few days.

xoxo,

PS: Please forgive me for the ridiculous formatting of this post. I still don't know how to make Blogger knock it off with the white background and cooperate. 

FALL– The Ragnarök Prophesies: Book Two is now available at Amazon | Barnes and Noble | KOBO. FADE - The Ragnarök Prophesies: Book Two is available at: Amazon US | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | Barnes and Noble | Kobo | Books-a-Million.

Varima-te-takere #atozchallenge

V - Like Utset and Gaia, Varima-te-takere is another of the world's primordial mother goddesses. According to the mythology of the Cook Islands, Varima-te-takere lived in a tiny egg in the mud at the bottom of the ocean of Avaiki. Her space was so small, she could barely move. Varima-te-takere subsisted on raw taro (a tropical plant).

Varima-te-takere desperately wanted children, so she shaped them from her body. From her left side, she shaped Vatea (father of the gods). From her right, she created the goddess Papa. Together, Vatea and Papa created the Earth and the god Tangaroa (or Tinirau).

Interestingly enough, Vatea and Papa were not only gods, but were also the first humans. They populated the world with their offspring, thus creating the people of the world.

In another version of the myth, Varima-te-takere is credited with creating Tinirau (lord of the seas), Raka (lord of the winds), Tango (lord of the birds), Tumu-te-ana-oa (echo of the rocks), and Tu-metua (the fourteenth night). She shaped these gods from her flesh much like she did Vatea and Papa.

Varima-te-takere is also celebrated in the Polynesian myths as the Mother Goddess.

xoxo,

FALL– The Ragnarök Prophesies: Book Two is now available at Amazon | Barnes and Noble | KOBO. FADE - The Ragnarök Prophesies: Book Two is available at: Amazon US | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | Barnes and Noble | Kobo | Books-a-Million.

Utset #atozchallenge

U - In Native American mythology, Utset and Nowutset were two sisters created by Sussistinnako when he drew a cross in the Lower World and sang the sisters into creation. Utset and Nowutset created the sun, moon, and stars. The Native people came from Utset and all others from her sister, Nowutset, before Utset tore her heart out after she lost a game of riddles to Utset.

This sparked a great war in the Lower World that lasted for eight years. During the ninth year, the Lower World drowned in a primordial flood. But Utset saved her people by leading through through a reed into the Upper World.

She also carried with her a bag of stars.

One day, she asked Beetle to watch over this bag of stars so she could tend to her people, but Beetle chewed a hole in the bag. Many of the stars spilled across the sky. When Utset saw this, she abandoned her people to retrieve the stars, but there were so many of them, she didn't get very far.

Utset was so caught up with the stars, her people began to starve. When she realized this, she placed the stars that remained in the bag into the sky as the Pleiades, Orion, and the Great Bear.

She then rushed back to tend to her people. To save them, she planted pieces of her heart into the ground. Corn grew from it, thus nourishing her people and becoming an incredibly important plant to the Native people.

xoxo,

FALL– The Ragnarök Prophesies: Book Two is now available at Amazon | Barnes and Noble | KOBO. FADE - The Ragnarök Prophesies: Book Two is available at: Amazon US | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | Barnes and Noble | Kobo | Books-a-Million.

Tiwanaku #atozchallenge

T - Prior to the rise of the Incan Empire, Tiwanaku was the cultural center of a tribe long lost to the world. From about 300 BCE to 300 BC, this group spread through a large portion of South America, colonizing areas that once belonged to smaller tribes and groups.

They were rather advanced when it came to farming, using an exhaustive technique that wielded even more product than many modern farming techniques. As a result, they were able to support a massive number of people. It's estimated that anywhere from 200,000 to one million individuals called the city of Tiwanaku home during the height of the civilization. They were also quite skilled at negotiating treaties, which allowed them to flourish by forcing other civilizations to become dependent upon them.

With no written language, little remains of this society now, including their name.

But what we have found in the ruins is fascinating.

The people of Tiwanaku participated in a rather brutal form of human sacrifice in which they would rip an individual open and disembowel him or her. Gods and religious beliefs from other societies were also often swallowed up by the Tiwanaku people. When the city was found in the 1500s, evidence of many other religions was found among the ruins. The Tiwanaku people would carry these beliefs and artifacts back to their city and add them to their own pantheon, most often in a subordinate position to their own gods.

One of their most important gods was Viracocha, who created the world and organized everyone into societies (which the Tiwanaku continued to do through colonization of South America). Viracocha came from Lake Titicaca during a period of great darkness. As he rose from the waters, he created the sun, moon, and stars. He then made Giants to carry the rocks which eventually built Tiwanaku. But these Giants angered Viracocha, so he sent a great flood to destroy them.

Once destroyed, Viracocha started over with a new race at Tiwanaku. He breathed into small rocks to create humans, and then wrote his instructions for civilization down onto a giant piece of rock. Of course, his people couldn't read, so he drew great lines in the rock, and demanded that his people settle into each of those areas and name the tribes to live therein. The spreading of the Tiwanaku society was their way of following that instruction.

His mission thus completed, Viracocha walked out onto the water of the ocean and disappeared, never to be seen by his people again. But he did not vanish from the world entirely. Viracocha wandered, teaching others and working miracles. Interestingly enough, Viracocha was a white man, dressed in robes, who carried a staff and a book. He frequently dressed as a beggar.

As the Tiwanaku society began to lose power, the Incan Empire rose. Viracocha became an important deity in their pantheon, taking on the same creator role as he did in the earlier Tiwanaku society. And, as with so many others from around the world, the similarities between Viracocha and Jesus are striking.

xoxo,

FALL– The Ragnarök Prophesies: Book Two is now available at Amazon | Barnes and Noble | KOBO. FADE - The Ragnarök Prophesies: Book Two is available at: Amazon US | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | Barnes and Noble | Kobo | Books-a-Million.

Shapona #atozchallenge

Statue of Shapona

S - In the Dahomey and Yoruba faiths of Africa, Shapona (also Shakpana and Sopona) is a powerful deity or Orisha (spirit) believed to infect humans with smallpox, insanity, and other infectious diseases. As Shakpana, this Orisha takes the form of an old man. He is the son of Yemaya (Goddess of water and childbirth) and Obatala (the god who created the human race after getting drunk and failing to create earth), and isn't necessarily a nice god.

The Dahomey and Yoruba people are very careful not to anger Shapona, as they believe doing so will cause an outbreak. In fact, they often refuse to even speak his true name for fear of angering him. For a very long time, shrines to Shapona were maintained by a specific group of priests. The people believed that angering these holy men could cause an outbreak, thanks to their special relationship with Shapona. This exclusivity lead to the creation of powerful secret societies (cults of Shapona).

Priests in these societies would blackmail individuals into doing as they were told by promising the wrath of Shapona (in the form of smallpox) if they failed to perform as expected. When these individuals actually began falling ill with smallpox, it raised a few red flags. A doctor (Dr. Sapara) went undercover in one of these societies to investigate.

Come to find out, the priests were actually causing the outbreaks. They would intentionally infect villagers with the disease to punish him/her for not following orders. To make matters worse, they were a very vocal opponent to smallpox vaccinations. To avoid their wrath, and thus the wrath of Shapona, many refused these vaccinations. Which meant they continued to be vulnerable to the disease, which kept the priests in power.

Pretty horrible, right?

Based on the findings of Dr. Sapara, the Shapona societies were outlawed in 1907. However, worship of Shapona continues throughout Africa. After their history with the Shapona cults, I can't say I blame them for being extra careful! Luckily, with these societies out of the way, smallpox vaccination has flourished, and the wrath of Shapona has become a little less terrifying.

xoxo,

FALL– The Ragnarök Prophesies: Book Two is now available at Amazon | Barnes and Noble | KOBO. FADE - The Ragnarök Prophesies: Book Two is available at: Amazon US | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | Barnes and Noble | Kobo | Books-a-Million.