When people create they go to a magical place that is uniquely theirs. I blog about teaching children peace, writing, and reveling in the creative process.
Kidnapped Smile inspires children everywhere to find the artist within.
About Laurie: The author of the recently released Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, and Forests Secrets. Laurie Woodward is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapteria.net
Is this all an illusion? Am I truly here on this planet revolving around the sun or am I a dream in someone else’s imagination? Is my mind my own or the extension of a large factory?
The movie The Matrix poses these questions with superb symbolism and poetic ideologues. Through the use of a futuristic world whereby a machine race has enslaved mankind as a renewable energy source, we both question our own existence and our purpose here on Earth. If we are but a dream inside of an elaborate world of dreamers, and controlled by image-makers is there any free will? How can we fight injustice and inequality if life is only a mirage? Perhaps we believe we are at battle but truly all is a simulacra; a construct of our minds and we are in conflict with our own alter-egos.
As the story unfolds we find ourselves intrigued by the young man, Neo who searches for something he calls the Matrix. Is this not a symbol of our own search for a spiritual existence in a technical world? As we further remove ourselves from a natural existence and find comfort and company ever more in electrical images does it not make sense that a quest for spirit would take place on the Internet? Yet when Neo delves deeper into this world of computers he finds not a God but a race of machines who have declared themselves God. So, does he embrace them and kneel before their alters? No! On the contrary! He joins a force which seeks to destroy their temples in a holy crusade. He is an unbeliever at first. He doubts what he cannot see or touch. But then again, what has he ever felt or touched that he can trust?
Morpheus says, “Welcome to the real world.” But Cipher quips, “Why didn’t I take the blue pill?”
Do we keep taking the blue pill today? We wrap ourselves up in computers VCRS TVs, cellular phones, cars, and cubicles. This cuts us off from our interaction with the real world. Hell, we could have hundreds of conversations in a day and never touch another living human being.
Although violence is often a gratuitous tool used by Hollywood to entice movie goers, in this film the violence is essential to the plot. How else could our protagonist realize that he is not of the Matrix World than to combat within it. It is a symbol of man’s own struggle within himself of the intellect vs. the body or a life of choice vs. a life of enslavement. As he fights his way through we see him overcoming his own doubts about who he is and where he is going.
Just like me.
About Laurie: The author of the recently released Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, and Forests Secrets. Laurie Woodward is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapteria.net
About Laurie: The author of the recently released Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, and Forests Secrets. Laurie Woodward is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapteria.net
Breathe in deeply. Hold it. Exhale. Repeat, filling your chest deeper with each inhalation. Repeat. The practitioner recites. And I listen, trying to follow his/her instructions. Trying to find peace in an uncertain world of chasmic divisions. Trying to find wisdom in the myriad of mistakes and false steps that have tripped my life.
What set me on this path? Didn’t teaching full time give my life purpose? Wasn’t I already writing poetry, books, and blog posts to quench that creative thirst? Shouldn’t I have been satiated with the successes of my career?
Nope. Because while I was elevating my professional life, I was ignoring my personal one. Going off to do my “important shit” while leaving my boyfriend behind. Every morning and most weekend days I’d wave him away saying no to every invitation for breakfast, beach walk, or football game. While I wrote he’d go off by himself often texting me with his complaints. “Come on, meet me. I’m lonely, damnit.” Or “Dating you makes me feel like the loneliest man in town.”
Did any of that change my behaviors? No. I kept typing in a desperate attempt to become a “great writer” like Thoreau, Hyde, Atwood, and Koontz. I didn’t leave any space for him, ignoring his every plea and sad text until, over time he stopped asking. When he became disillusioned, and told me he was moving out, I was shocked. And heartbroken.
Again.
I begged him to stay. Told him what he wanted to hear. I’ll change. Get counseling. Meditate. Spend more time with you. Don’t go!
Although I did all of those things, none of them worked. It was too late. Another failed relationship. Feeling like a total shit, I started to wonder if I’d learned friggin’ anything since my divorce.
The old tapes started playing in my head, telling me what a selfish failure I was. Still I kept practicing my daily meditations. Sometimes I’d sit there with tears rolling down my cheeks as I listened to positive affirmations saying, “I know who I am. I am love. I am kind. I am beautiful. I am fun and funny.”
I’d always been taught to be humble and at first it felt strange to repeat those words. But over time I noticed a difference in how I felt. Yes, I was sad to lose my best friend. Yes, I had ignored him a lot of the time. But that didn’t make me a horrible person. Or evil. Or a failure. It just made me single.
And that was okay.
While I tried many podcasts and videos, Rising Higher Meditation was the most healing I found. It showed me that no matter what, I was full of love and kindness. Perhaps it can help you too.
Rising Higher
The world continues to be uncertain and relationships still have their ups and downs but in the two years since I began this practice, I have learned to calmly accept these truths. My new mantra is “Love, peace, health.”
Try it, you just might be surprised.
About Laurie: The author of the recently released Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, and Forests Secrets. Laurie Woodward is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapteria.net
Do you love reading about or watching strong girls? Young women who kick ass in sports and life? I sure as shit do. And one sport that is a friggin blast to to watch is skateboarding. Long a male dominated discipline, it has changed in recent years. Women now skate and compete in greater numbers than ever before. This year the categories of park and street skating for men and women were added to the Olympics.
Yes!
What is the difference? Park skating is done on a course that resembles a bowl. Skaters launch themselves off the sides of the walls in 45-second runs and perform tricks that are judged by a panel of five judges. Skaters get three 45-second runs per round, and the judges grade them on a 0-100 point scale. A skater’s best score of three is the qualifying score.
Street skating is judged on a street-like course that includes handrails, slopes, curbs, benches, and walls. Here skaters perform tricks over the obstacles while a panel of five judges scores them on a 0-10 scale . Each skater gets two 45-second runs and five tricks, and judges rate the tricks. The highest and lowest scores for each run and trick are dropped, and the remaining three scores are averaged.
There are many admirable athletes competing in this year’s Olympics, but for me Sky Brown inspires the most. Not only is she the youngest ever to compete for Great Britain, but her journey to Tokyo has been a difficult one. Just a year ago while practicing vert, she fell fifteen feet onto flat concrete. Injured horribly, the twelve-year-old drifted in and out of consciousness with multiple fractures to her skull, a broken left arm, multiple broken fingers, and lacerations to her heart and lungs.
Four days later she had her full memory back, was smiling at her father, joking with doctors ,and watching TikTok. Doctors described her recovery as a miracle attributing her ‘grit, positivity and attitude.’ On to the Olympics, she won bronze for women’s park skateboarding. Go girl!
As I read about this inspirational young woman skating vert, dropping in down the side of the ramp to do Fakies, Rock and Rolls, Axle Stalls, and Kick flips I found myself all choked up. Then I thought, we need inspirational people like her. That is why I created the character of Gwen Obranovich for my Artania Chronicles series. She is a lot like Sky. Tough. Strong. Willing to push beyond to learn a trick.
A skater girl and heroine who battles monsters in an art created world.
Let’s hear it for strong girls and women!
About Laurie: The author of the recently released Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, and Forests Secrets. Laurie Woodward is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapteria.net
Sierra Santiago, a Brooklyn teen who loves making art, wants to have a fun summer. But all of that is interrupted when a corpse crashes the first summer party. As she races to escape one macabre creature after another, Sierra discovers shadowshaping magic that blends spirits and art. She is perplexed at first but determined to unravel the family’s secrets to keep shadowshaping alive for generations to come.
About Laurie: The author of the recently released Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, and Forests Secrets. Laurie Woodward is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapteria.net
My name is Joy, Joy Chappell. Over the top, I know, but my Mom wanted me to sound all innocent. And maybe I was, in my own way.
Can a car stealing, pot smoking, LSD tripping chick be innocent? I thought so.
Even though it was always on my mind. It, the thing we never talked about. It that Mom hid with Cover Girl and I lied to my friends about. It, making me dream that someday the light of hippie sun would shine down as we danced barefoot in meadows.
Naïve, I know. But when you’re a kid you see the world through your own eyes. And when you’re high to boot, everything is tinged with a soft mist, like an out of focus camera, and you trust people, thinking they just want to give you a ride.
Even with It, I never knew people were truly ugly until that night. I really thought the face inside was just a mask, one I could melt away with my Kodachrome soul. But I was wrong. And by the time I figured it out, it was too late.
I was seventeen, and I was about to die
About Laurie: The author of the recently released Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, and Forests Secrets. Laurie Woodward is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapteria.net
This Father’s Day, take a moment to remember the magical times while creating anew.
Baby rubs her eyes.
About Laurie: The author of the recently released Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, and Forests Secrets. Laurie Woodward is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapteria.net
About Laurie: The author of the recently released Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, and Forests Secrets. Laurie Woodward is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapteria.net
