Sexy Big Cat

Yes, the sexy big cat is sipping on her eggnog-laced hot chocolate, a definite lip-licking favorite of the Kougar's -- all the while trying to erase the sleepies from her brain, and definitely attempting to erase all the silly mundane dreams floating there, like sodden ugly bits of flotsam. One would believe purr-moi should at least be dream-visiting a magical land of high adventures and larger-than-life luxuries.
If the Kougar's dream during this slumber is a reflection of her world, of the world, our world -- well, dear Big Kittie Lovers -- well, no fun at all. The dream itself was one that seemed all too real, as if it was her real life. In fact, when the Kougar finally popped her unwilling little eyes open, she was surprised by her surroundings. A rare, rare occurrence indeed for the Kougaress.
As the Kougar gleams her waking gaze at the overall theme of this *on and on, over and over* dream, the descriptive word she sees is obscurity. Certainly the Kougaress lives an obscure life in many ways. Being obscure in life can be pleasing, even exceptionally useful at times. It can also be excruciatingly difficult and heart lonely.
The Kougaress always thinks of Vincent Van Gogh in this regard, given his tragic and magically obscure life. Magical because he must have lived enchantment with paint brush in hand, even though he wasn't recognized as an artist. Yes, those moments like a magical spell when the words flow and excite and live on the page.
Van Gogh lived in obscurity, by choice and necessity. His amazing-dream paintings also lived in the land obscurity...until now, now they are mostly a treasure to be bought and sold in the land of the ultra rich.
Thus, the Kougar must ponder the question: Would dear spirit-beautiful Vincent have chosen a life of obscurity over his current recognition by the rich? Or would he have chosen to have his paintings become the commodity of the rich? Rather than remain obscure, alone with his glorious rich dreams done in brush strokes?

Big Cats one and all, take a leisurely lope over to Title Magic to feel the Wales magic of Evonne. My catnip goodness, she and her writer's words are a wonderful gift, rather like getting to read theater. Below, of course, is the Kougaress's invaluable comment:

Hi Evonne, sexy big cat here...I couldn't let that pass! Wales! Yay! Do tell about the magic and mysticism. You know, I think you should seriously consider adding a dragon or two to your romantic suspense, if only in human form.
Holli, if anyone can navigate us through the delights and horrors of Fairyland, it's Evonne.
Mel, yep, have mop, will travel for seriously good drooling.

Sexy big cat smooches from the Kougar...

Today, in Shades of Gray

Today, in shades of gray, my Big Beautiful Kitties. The cattle prairie is mild and in shades of gray in it's new winter, just a dust coating of snow beneath leaden and pale gray skies. And the world around the Kougar is gray and weary. Despite all the plasma big bright ostentatious TVs, as artificial looking to the Kougaress as the first artificial christmas trees, the ones stored with bulbs attached.
Do you not feel it, my lovely Big Cats. The world is weary. Our world is weary. The Kougar observes it everywhere she goes these days. Even the daily 'breaking news' is weary with the same ever-increasing bad news, the rote of mindless and endless fear stories. Yes, the so-called news, also depressingly weary with glamor gone bad stories. Unceasing in it's efforts to bring us Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan...whoever the latest poor-little-rich 'bad' girl is these days, these weary gray-spinning days.
The Kougar might ask, where is our world, our precious spinning planet world -- where is our world not weary? Perhaps upon the faces of the young ones, the children, the frolicking cubs. Perhaps there is no weariness upon the faces of the Angelic Ones, those here to help us and love us. Perhaps...
What is the answer to our world's weariness. The Kougaress deeply believes the answer is a renaissance. Indeed, my wonderful Big Cats, a renaissance at every level of society, at every level of our souls and spirits.
Let us bring it forth.

For a fascinating and well-explained insight into what 'words' mean to us writers, cozy on over to Title Magic for Anitra's blog.
You just whisker-yawning, a yawn of satisfaction, know the Kougar's particularly brilliant comments are featured below:

Hey Anitra, I'm in the same love boat with words -- in love with 'em. I wish readers and publishers were more on the Bard's side when it comes to word usage. I do that and people go nutso, screaming with red ink ensues. But, that's okay. Tanj, that's good! I might have to 'borrow' that, unless it's against some code or law I'm not aware of. I've certainly made up words for my all my otherworld novels, cuss words among them. Words make up a culture, and the culture makes up the words. Just like hussy for housewife transformed into a negative use and is now returning to a more positive usage, the Hussies Romance Writers, and they're definitely proud of it!

Mel, that's a good idea about exploring the dark moment or black moment in books, especially romances. Being a happy-ever-after girl myself, and yeah, I can't do the endless angst thing either -- the dark moment could make the ending so much more brighter. It may be that if that moment is truly organic to the story instead of a plot contrivance, that could be the difference. Then again, I think people miss the magic of living sometimes if they depend on a black moment for a happy ending???

Happy reading kisses from the Kougar...

Kissed by Fire and Water

The day before yesterday the nearly full moon hung over the western horizon. She hung in the new morning's blue light, dressed as an ethereal and magical goddess. She appeared nearly transparent, an illusion to the eye...nevertheless, the illusion was soul-stoppingly beautiful, yes, Big Kittie Lovers, a beauty to inhale inside your soul.
The night before last night, Lunabelle, as the Kougar has been calling her...Lunabelle hung above the eastern black sky with the planet, Mars, as her companion. She was dressed in bright luminous white, an amazing purity, a beauty to tempt the eye and soul. Mars sparkled like a huge diamond, yet with far more beauty.
What does it mean, Big Cats, the Moon and Mars in a celestial dance of some exquisite and divine order? The ferocity and fire of the Mars God dances with the serenity and watery tidal moods of the Moon Goddess? Fire and water, serenity and ferocity. Balance or outright chaos, do they dance the sweet elegance of a cotillion? Do they dance the blazing wild elation of flappers in a speakeasy? Maybe both in our world, in the expressions our world takes on now. Fiery explosions and water disasters? upon the Mother. In our individual lives?
Kissed by fire and water, yang and yin, their dance. Perhaps that is the forecast for our new year...perhaps?

Hey, Big Kitties, romp on over to Title Magic. Holli's blog on unwrapping and unwinding is not to be missed.
Below is the Kougar's comment:
Hi Holli, what a wonderful analogy, the romance of Christmas, the holiday season as compared to the arc of a romance story. Personally I avoid the dark moments as much as possible now when writing, a lot of reasons. One being my personal life experiences. The other, to be honest, the dark moments just got to be too much in the romance novels I was reading. Does anyone else feel that way? Or do you all luv the dark moment? What I like about this time of year, is that it seems like its a breath between the old year and new year. A time to take in a big breath, a time to step back, take in the breaths of just living and look at what happened last year, then prepare for the new. New Year blessings to All.

Moon kisses from the Kougar...

Sparkles, the Christmas Fairy

One of those happy little magic happenings, rumbling-purr moi has acquired a new, for now, invisible friend. Yes, Sparkles the Christmas Fairy -- born from the imaginative use of language, Mel of Title Magic being the Sourceress -- and born from where all fairies are born, the enchanted realms surroundings us. No, so sorry to claw-scraping disappoint. No, not born in a cabbage patch like the infamous and mostly adored cabbage patch dolls (mere fang prey for the Kougar) of Christmas years past, unless you just enjoy the cabbage patch birth in the realm of your imagination. Then, do enjoy. Beneath each cabbage leaf a new fairy is born.
Yes, dear Big Cats All, the enchanted realms once seen by our ancestors and now seen by those with the Sight. As Doreen Virtue, acclaimed and beloved Angel Reader says, fairies are angels with egos. Fairies protect and love every plant, every blade of grass. Fairies watch over and take care of the animals. Fairies, if they are fond of us, will help us, if we walk well upon Mother Earth, if we are good to her flora and fauna.
The Kougaress adores fairies, Tinkerbelle being her first. She paw-clapped hard and she wishes she had the Sight, only occasionally seeing the fairies as orbs, golden ethereal orbs or white light orbs. Since cubhood she has believed in their magic, more as a fizzy spinning feeling of euphoria, and with her internal awareness, despite the claims of the rational world culture, the jungle of vast cement, the cage of synthetic buildings we live in and among -- the worn-out culture with no answers anymore, which is dissolving as fast as the Arctic glaciers.
Yes, the world, our world, it is a-changing, becoming a rolling growing snowball of change that can't be stopped. Wouldn't it be nice and splendid and enthralling to have fairies again? As part of our world once again?
The Kougaress thinks so, hopes so...for she would adore feeling and seeing and hearing and touching their magic as it lives on the Mother, and makes the sacred Mother Earth a more resplendent Being. For us all.

Dear Big Kittie Lovers, slowly saunter on over to Title Magic for a Christmas day blog we can all relate to, written by the magically incomparable Mel.
Below is just-waking-up, a yawn or two, moi's comment:
Mel, Sparkles the Christmas Fairy, who wouldn't leave after Christmas, has demanded equal time with both of us. She'll be glad to show up wherever and however we want. Maybe she needs to be our Title Magic mascot?

Christmas fairy kisses from the Kougar...

Christmas Eve Kiss

Curl up by the fireplace with the softly crackling flames, creamy egg nog at the ready, dear Big Kittie Lovers. Santa is on his merry journey, gifts for all of us good kitties in his magic always-filled bag. Rudolph lights the way through fog or snowstorm with his beacon red nose. Yes, the big night of Winter Solstice has arrived, the night of all divine, the time of all Good Angels is here. Whether you're the cat who loves to pounce at Santa's legs or if you merely keep watch and squinch open one eye to glimpse Santa's arrival, all is to be enjoyed on this night of many miracles and wonders.
Hence, I will share a little story written for Title Magic, *smiling purr* moi's very first blog:

The magic of Christmas Eve, it’s a natural. Whether you envision the three Wisemen, or Magi, bearing their precious gifts of frankincense, myrrh and gold to the newborn savior. Or if you, when you’re my advanced boomer age, remember what it was like to believe in Santa Clause. Yes, the lovely simple dreaming magic of believing in the jolly guy strangely dressed in the red eskimo suit, his giant bag of gift goodies slung over his back. Only for all of us good girls and boys. I remember the excited smiles of all the other kids, especially my sisters and brothers.
Having studied the realm of herbs, and of essential oils, the Magi’s gifts of frankincense and myrrh were not only sacred and considered to be magically protective, these potent resins were also used in many healing applications. As to the gift of gold, yes valuable as we would consider gold today, however the frequency or vibration of gold is powerful, an enhancement of spiritual abilities. Do we need to mention the alchemist’s eternal quest to turn lead into gold, as another clue to our mystical heritage? Does it simply mean transforming our baser natures to the elevated frequency of gold, or elevating to our golden angel natures?
Ahhh, my good title magicians, that was not my original topic. Alas, it was on the realm of lucid dreaming and the incredible magic of Christmas eve. Lucid dreaming was first mentioned on our ATIV loop by Anitra. While I don’t have her advanced ability to lucid dream, I occasionally have a real doozy, some of them spectacularly good (my very own beautiful white Pegasus once), and some in the category of a Boris Karloff nightmare. However, good readers all, let me write the tale as I remember it.
Tiny, before kindergarten age, I had no idea what Christmas was all about, only that there were yummy new things to eat and it caused lots of excitement, especially my parents who put up the real fragrant-special tree and eagerly talked about Santa Clause. My dad’s blue eyes glowed with a happiness I will always treasure and remember that night before Christmas. Well, it was just me and my younger sister then, sitting with my dad while he, dramatic as a poet actor, read Twas the night before Christmas to us. My teensy imagination lit up like the bulbs on the tree, before lightbulbs twinkled, when you had to figure out which one had gone bad on the string and replace it before the tree would be bright with colored light again.
On, Comet! On, Cupid! on, on Donner and Blitzen! Those immortal words are what I remembered most about the poem that christmas eve night. Santa Claus and his reindeer, the magnificent reindeer...More rapid than eagles his coursers they came...in my imagination I could see them flying through the night sky, the snowflakes whirling ‘round them. They looked magical, these elegant beasts with branch-like antlers. And I felt magical, light as air, all tingly fizzy inside.
I swear that poem danced in my head as we set out the hot chocolate and cookies for Santa. My eyes were filled with twinkling stars while my dad assured us that Santa would somehow make it down the chimney we didn’t have in our GI bill ranch house. I still remember heading off to bed bouncing on my tippy toes. Kissed goodnight and tucked in, I imagined Santa in his miniature sleigh with his eight tiny reindeer flying toward us, much better than dreaming about sugar plums. And soon I heard them...the pawing and prancing of each little hoof...on my very own rooftop. Now Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen! Santa called to his reindeer team. I heard it plain as day. It was so real, their hooves on my roof, I woke up to the loud jingling of sleigh bells, like the ones you hear on the horse harnesses as they pull the sleigh over the snow to grandma’s house. Springing out of bed, I ran outside to a beautiful white blanket of snow, so cold on my bare feet. Santa had landed on my roof. He waved, stepping out of the old-fashioned handsomely-carved sleigh. Prancing spiritedly on that new fallen snow were Santa’s life-size reindeer decorated in the red leather finery of their harnesses. They were exquisite creatures, their fragile-looking legs, their thick brown coats glistening with snowflakes, the drifting flakes falling from the black heavens. Their faces were noble, their eyes large and brilliant as they looked down at me. I remember being entranced by the regal tangle of their antlers. And I wondered what it would be like to ride on one of their backs as they soared through night. Santa shouted down to me, a jolly voice reminding me he couldn’t deliver his gifts until I was back in bed.
The next morning when I dashed outside to see my dad, who was fiddling with the outdoor lights, I was surprised to see no blanket of snow, only short brown grass. But I simply ignored that tiny detail and exuberantly told my dad I knew Santa was real because I had seen him last night. Despite my dad’s rather puzzled expression I went on to tell him about hearing the prancing hooves on the roof, about running outside and seeing Santa and all his reindeer. I think he tried to tell me it was a dream. But I was so insistent in all my glorious detail, he ended up nodding and smiling. And not spoiling anything for me. Thank you, Dad.
And no one, not any playground gossiper or any kid’s cruel attempt to spoil Christmas for me, could ever convince me Santa wasn’t real. After all, I had seen Santa and his sleigh full of toys, and his reindeer...oh, his majestic reindeer too. In fact, I may have turned a few kids back to the magic of Christmas simply because I believed. I truly believed. Until, okay, seventh grade. Laugh if you want. That’s okay. I had a Christmas spirit then, that I still treasure to this day. It was magic. It was pure magic instilled into me for a lifetime.
That lucid dream was absolutely real to me, as real as anything I have ever experienced since. That enchanted dream still feels as if I lived it, and remains as vivid inside my mind as any memory.
As I write this, my fellow life magicians, I realize like a flash, tore open the shutters and threw up the sash - realize, I hope my stories are as movie-screen vivid, as magical and magnificently real as my Santa lucid dream, for everyone who chooses to read my otherworldly novels.
A special thanks to Anna Campbell for being our first guest blogger. Don’t you just luv that delish romance-splendid cover. Her inspiration and her writing is a gift to us all.
To my Title Magic buddies, thanks for getting the blog ball rolling. Okay, I’m seeing the traditional typical bright shiny red ornament rolling, rolling...my imagination never gives up, I swear.
Thanks, Santa!

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like a the down of a thistle,
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"
Clement Clarke Moore (1779 - 1863)

Christmas Eve kisses from the Kougar...

Kisses to John Lennon

As the Kougar walks her life's journey upon the Mother, she finds herself in another untenable position, especially in the realm of emotions. This is a constant for the Kougaress. However, last night on Coast to Coast with Ian Punnett, a most remarkable man shared his life experiences. He spoke eloquently and with rough deep realism about John Lennon, about their friendship. He first met John as a student at the Liverpool Art school during the not-the-Walrus's artisitic coming of age. For those of you who don't know or don't remember, John Lennon, Give Peace a Chance John Lennon was one of the Beatles. Remember now? the Fab Four, the musical invasion from Britain. The Mop Tops. That was the Kougar's generation, when she came of age from her cubhood.
As the Kougar listened, reminiscing like a claw-crazed, bouncing-off-the-walls cat, and spellbound with a fervent fascination for what had been, for what she knew, for what she didn't -- the Kougaress often lamented her choice to go for longevity in this world, instead of living a more wildcat life. For it was a choice consciously made at the time. Driven by, perhaps, an over-idealistic belief the future was there to be created in a beautiful incredible way never before seen, where all of us could flourish and nourish each other in freedom, real freedom where peace had a chance. Flower power, dear Big Kitties all. Yes, it was once real. Once possible. Once.
And the dreams...the dreams, they die hard. Dreams of the soul, they die even harder. Dreams...well, dreams of the heart may never die...but they are buried alive. Often buried alive, dear Big Cats, who walk and paw-dance this world with your good beating hearts and your precious bright souls.
Dreams...dreams are often buried alive because what was once possible has been lost to an opportunity, an opportunity for an Age. The sign of that loss, the loss of the Flower Power Age, the death of John Lennon, not by the hand of his cruelly-used assassin, but by Who pulled the pathetic assassin's puppet strings. And that I shall leave to your walk upon our most beloved realm, the blue marble planet, Earth.

Flower Power kiss from the Kougar...

Atlantis Sinks, Atlantis Rises

Yowl! Big Kittie Lovers, great, powerful and strange changes are on the event horizon. Probably for most us. The planets, sun and moon are aligning with the Great Milk galactic center, opening up possibilities never seen before and revealing what has remained unseen for centuries. In rumbling grumbling truth, the Kougar wonders if she should peek into her crystal ball, into the revealing mystic waters. Or is ignorance bliss in this x-files case? Do certain elements of sci fi and fantasy now join us as our common reality? What new truth supersedes what has been truth? Or, the learned truth of kindergarten superseded by the learned truth of PhD graduate studies.
Remember, darling kitties, we are brave enough to gather our future to us. It will be a far different future than has been imagined by most of us. Think the catastrophic sinking of Atlantis and the renaissance rising of Atlantis, both at once, so joined at the proverbial feline-sleek hip. The old established land sinks and the new horizon land rises simultaneously. Those who paw-cling to the established will sink. Those who wisely stride toward the new horizon, will be born anew, and be born free. At least, eventually.
From the ice-rain prairies, with the winds whipping, and the electricity threatening to cut out, remember, the Kougar is with you, all my beloved Big Cats, in Spirit. In the communing hearts of us all, joined to one another. Let us truly love one another in our walk upon the Mother, our cat and human journey beneath Father sky. For love will see us through.

Gardenia, New Atlantis kisses from the Kougar...