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Word of the Day for Tuesday, January 1, 2013
exordium \ig-ZAWR-dee-uhm\, noun:
1. The beginning of anything.
2. The introductory part of an oration, treatise, etc. As for your beginning and exordium, I no longer remember it, nor consequently the middle; and as for your conclusion, I will do nothing of the sort. In commencing, with the New Year, a New Volume, we shall be permitted to say a very few words by way of exordium to our usual chapter of Reviews, or, as we should prefer calling them, of Critical Notices.
Exordium stems from the Latin root ōrd meaning "to begin." The prefix ex- in this case means "utterly," and the suffix -ium which is often found on nouns borrowed from Latin, such as delirium and tedium.
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WORD A DAY: exordium
Employee of the Quarter
Certificate
Yeah, new coffee cup.
Their words, (not mine).
New EOQ pin for my badge.
{There are so many "David"s that I go by my middle name}.
Don't feel bad, LOL it throws everyone off.
After 14 years of service for the State of Texas I was honored by my peers; thank you everyone.
TWR: THE CRANE
The hazed light turned the sky grey, as if it had wanted to rain all that day. But by the time his classes were over, the skies had cleared into a beautiful mid-summer's day again. His father's home was on the other side of the sea port city, along the northern cliff, perched with its own view of the empty docks below. By the time he had reached the old marina, evening fell.
Every late-afternoon he would unclasp his red cloak just before leaving Mithar's weathered, grey tower to walk home alone. Now, it was near dusk and he was eager to hurry along, leaving his booted prints in the wet sands along the beach. The shoreline along the bay was his favorite route to take.
Fayendar looked like your average youthful student, loaded down with parchments under one arm and a polished-walking stick in the other hand. Shoulder length blond hair, braided on both sides as the rest blew in the occasional breeze. He enjoyed looking out on the gulf waters. In the bay, the shrimpers fished in their rickety round Ka’nath boats while being waylaid by seagulls, as the sinking sun painted its majestic backdrop.
Idho was his real name. The name his family gave him on his first birthday, before that it was just ‘baby’ as was tradition in the Bay area of Lindon, his parents first home. Back, when he remembered running barefoot through the streets of Mithar with his best friend Branthen, things seemed so stress free.
Fayendar, which meant Beloved-brother, was his mother's nick name for him; in an attempt to foster better relations with his older brother. A name that was not taken as it was intended, for he and Calan had always been rivals it seemed. This was another reason why he enjoyed his solitary walks home. It was also an excellent way to end an already stressful day. Though today was no different than any other, Fayendar had no idea that it was all about to change.
As he made his way home, he rehearsed the events of the day over in his mind again. Fayendar was a ministerial student, studying for the priesthood; the desire of his father for him to follow in their family’s tradition. Yet, more and more the student was becoming disillusioned with his teachers. They are long winded, and overly given to details that bore everyone to tears, he thought to himself as he picked up a small branch and threw it into the water.
His head was full of questions, unasked and therefore unanswered. Fayendar knew for sure the elders would have admonished him immediately, and changed the subject back to their own rambling of dates and conflicting theories. He knew that if he had he raised anything remotely resembling disbelief they would have turned the whole incident around, and would have made him appear to be the foolish one in front of his class mates. “How dare you grow a brain, and think for yourself!” he mockingly said to himself aloud, then quickly glanced about to see if anyone had possibly overheard him. So, he just resigned to keep quiet.
Fayendar enjoyed the long walks home because they gave him time to figure these things out for himself. Still, for some reason the lessons made more sense to him while he was there studying, among his peers in the watchtower's grey sheltered-chambers. Yet, when he was left with his own thoughts, like now, the certainty of their doctrines unraveled in his mind. For instance, he never quiet understood why it was they were to be so excited about staying in the world, if it was true that their forefathers had originally come from heaven. Or, why they alone were entrusted to be scholars and teachers to lesser men; or --
Suddenly, a group of annoying seagulls disturbed his private thoughts. They had begun flocking overhead and squawking for someone below to feed them. As he looked out on the long stretch of beach, Fayendar noticed, several yards ahead of him, a dark figure dressed in a heavy dark-blue cloak standing by himself. The man's hood was up, with a high point in the air, and his back turned toward the approaching youth.
The figure was intent upon looking down at the ground. For, something in the wet sand seem to have caught his focused attention. The man was using the end of his oak staff to poke at it; yet, the closer Fayendar came to him he realized that instead of poking, he was drawing in the sand. Presently, standing just a few paces behind the now squatting stranger, and almost looking over his shoulder, Fayendar could see the details of what he was doing.
It was the design of a bird -- a crane, drawn in exquisite detail. The stranger stooped over his drawing, and added dry colored-sand to its wet trenched-lines. Then after some whispered words and a few unusual waves of his hand, something under the sand began to move about just beneath the surface, blending the colored sand together. Suddenly, there burst out of the packed mud a real white-crane, violently shaking itself clean; looking from side to side. After a brief glance up at Fayendar's astonished expression the bird flew off, in the direction of the fishing boats.
The artist stood erect and laughed aloud to himself as he slowly turned around, acknowledging Fayendar's presence with a smile, "Greetings, Beloved-brother."
"H- How did you know my name?" The bewildered youth quickly asked. His clear grey-blue eyes grew even larger, as the silver ring of the Priesthood griped his carved pine-staff even tighter.
"I know more about you than you think." The face was that of an older gentleman who appeared to be in his late eighties, though his yellow-green eyes hinted at a much wiser brain. His round face was covered beneath a smartly trimmed beard, and broad smile. His eyes now bore through Fayendar like piercing daggers. Yet, the stranger's voice was warm and friendly, with a haunting tone, "I know you enjoy -- hidden secrets." He looked back at the disturbed sand-drawing, then at the scrolls under the student's left arm. "Like the crane, you too will achieve heights beyond the confines of that tower's shadow."
"You disapprove of the Valithdane Elders?" Fayendar said, looking through strains of his golden, wind blown hair, as he took a wary step backward.
Smiling, the stranger stroked his peppered-grey chin. "I merely said that you will rise above where you are now." At that moment a strange breeze caught the edges of his cloak, briefly revealing a large buckled sash, embossed with an Eye sigil on it. Squinting at Fayendar, he continue, "For the days are fastly approaching when all you know will change. The very world around you will cry for you to listen."
"Who are you, sir?" Drawing his red, ankle length cloak about himself, Fayendar became very intrigued.
"I have been called by many names: Drocthuk by the dragons of the north, Silvermane by Men of the east, Balthenorn by the southern folk, and Meirith by those in the west." Smiling, Meirith withdrew a small velvet bag with a draw string, and handing it to the young man said, “As a token of this meeting, that you would not forget, I wish to give this to you. It is a Blithvere; made by the same craft that created such gifts as: the ancient rings of power, the crystal seeing globes, and the healing leaf-stone gems. A Blithvere is a Well of endless ink, call its name to command the color you wish.” After accepting the bag and inspecting it contents, Fayendar’s interest in the capped container grew.
Meirith ended their conversation with a mysterious voice, as he began to walk past Fayendar, adding, "I am just a wanderer, one who journeys south to visit the dwarves even now."
"Dwarves? They're a lonely sort." His brows caved in, and lips pursed, feeling a little apprehensive again, Fayendar almost whispered, looking about the deserted shoreline, "The elders say we are not supposed to talk about such things."
The stranger stopped, whirled back around, drawing up his own garments as if cold, and said loudly, "To avoid people, young Fayendar, does not mean they cease to exist. The dwarves knew much of your people - long before you were called The Fallen. Remember the appearance of the White Crane, for it is the key to your true home." Meirith stopped his close approach toward Fayendar, letting his stern expression soften to a kindly smile again. Then briskly turned away. The full length of his smoke-like cloak went rippling behind him like a shadowy version of a cape as the elderly man strolled away with a slight limp, walking southward.
Feeling his heart pounding harder in his chest, Fayendar quickened his own pace toward home. After about ten steps or so, he turned back around with another question on his mind, but was suddenly confronted with the fact that he was all alone on the open beach. Noticing that even the stranger's footprints and the disturbed sand drawing had vanished as well. A slow chill crept over Fayendar causing him hurry back down the trail, quickening his march to his father’s house.
Only years later did the young ministerial-scribe realize just how much that one incident had changed everything in his life. From that time onward his questions about their traditions, and the world around him, would never be quiet the same; like the singing of a bell unable to be unrung.
TWR: THE REQUIEM
“Like the terrified inhale of a sharp gasp,
I saw her life being extinguished and fade
as in the exhaustion of sorrow.
In the inhale of that crumbling moment
my life’s meaning faded away
as sorrow filled my heart with loneliness.
Cradled in my arms, she died so pale
a lifeless shell, void of expression;
yet forever, my only, one true love…”
The Nephilim Scrolls I:1-9
............................................................................
"Father I realize it's only been three days, but you still need to eat." The body of her dead mother lay quiet, and bound in a red shroud, with her head in his lap. The slender figure of a man, weary from grief and fatigue, sat with his slumped back against the darkened wall of the stone hune cave. His graying long hair fell over his limp shoulders and down his tuniced back. With only the slightest hint of pointed ears peeking out, his high arched brows accented a youthful beleaguered face. Yet, only recently had his adult daughter begun to notice his age.
IL`brekah crossed in front of her father to sit beside him. She was a beautiful girl in her late twenties. With a slim build, striking features and large, round brown eyes that were adjusting to their newly darkened surroundings within the burial chamber. The musky smell of dust permeated the air causing her nose to twitch.
She tried to find some way of reaching beyond his three days of grief-stricken silence, "Tell me about how you and mother met." Her voice was soft, but cracked as her full naturally-smiling lips struggled to do so. It is strange watching him caress mother's covered face like that, she thought to herself, but did not say it aloud. Her high cheek bones nearly teared over as she tried not to cry. Looking at his pale complexion in the dark cave gave her an uneasy feeling in her stomach. It was like staring at a deathly white-powered statue she knew was alive. He had once said that he had devoted his entire existence to her mother. He looked small, like a wasted shell of his former self -- thin beyond belief.
"Where did you come from?" Her quaking voice asked, "You've always been quiet about yourself -- why is that, father?" As a way of not letting her mother go, she now found herself strangely drawn to know more about the distant figure she sat beside. She had always felt more like a sister than a daughter to her mother, and this loss was devastating. Her father had left home when she was very young and had only recently just returned, a little too late, she thought. Now that her mother was dead, IL`brekah found herself alone, gently consoling the cold silhouette of a person she hardly knew. Lightly rubbing his back, she was startled by his movement. As he turned to look into her eyes, she noticed they were red and blood shot, like lifeless things unable to cry any more which made her own tear up.
"Where shall I begin?" His dry, whispering words sounded creepy. They were odd, even to himself; scarcely his own as his voice broke again, "For such things have many beginnings and each, older than the last..." His cracking dry lips trembled. As his voice trailed off it seemed that his memories were being absorbed into the shadows of the cave about them. The air was still. His, now tearing, large slanted-eyes had taken on that uncomfortable, silent stare again; and for the first time a slight grin dared to make an appearance.
Other than the dusty morning light, beaming in from the opened doorway on his right side, no other light bathed that dark, dank room. As he began to speak again, his daughter listened intently to the song-like rise and fall of her father’s voice chanting. IL`brekah's thoughts and imagination became immersed in her father's story. It was as if she had fallen into a trance. Her expressionless face watched the suspended dust particles drift within the flooding beam of light.
* * * * *
TWR: Table of Contents...
THE WATCHER'S REQUIEM
An Epic Novel
by
David DeLane Snow
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(c) Copyright material
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(c) Copyright material
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Links
Table of Contents
.......................................................
Chapter Six
Chapter Eight
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
David Snow
There are a lot, a lot of people with my name, (or me with theirs); check it out for yourself.
My name is Delane; there is a Nicolas, an ornithologist, an Executive Director, a candidate of a school board, a NFL football player, an Associate Professor at Purdue University, a company's Co-founder, and many others. But there is only one of me, (thank goodness) fulfilling the journey of a Seeker. So, who are you being in your own life?
Snow Coat of Arms: 1617 - 1982
Mosses Moran Snow
!Jesse Moran Snow
!
John David Snow== Alma Tracy Lundquist
!
Elmo Snow == Drucilla Newsome: Mamie Price: Wilma Padgett
! ! !
Bob Snow ============= Linda Townsend: Betty Smith
! !
David DeLane Snow =============== Alice Smith: Benjamin Garza = Anna Longoria
! !
Elizabeth Rebecca Snow =========== James Cuauhtémoc Garza
!
Savannah Alise Garza; Jamison DeLane Garza
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A New Web Page...
Coming across several neat quotes on Facebook I've come up with another way of sharing with my friend some of the selection I enjoy the most and posted them here on:
Just Me striving to be mindful...
Everyday we re-invent our ourselves by continuing to add yet another layer of experiences to our lives. It has always fascinated me how we do this. So many of us think our mundane boring little lives mean so little, and yet we actually are woven into each others lives more than we give thought. To go shopping or drive on the freeway, work or attend Worship services "is" to touch the lives of others. Sitting in a crowded theater full of strangers and collectively experience brief moments in another world and then later as a cultural express our thoughts in review is a way of weaving your life among others.
I am not perfect and please do not misunderstand my striving toward a standard I know in this incarnation I will never obtain to be perfection however, should we not at least work at being better than we were yesterday - I think so.
Do not sell yourself short on the power you have; I did that for far too long. Even the smallest of acts can become an example in someone else's conversation tomorrow. The adult actions influence the youth around you; even in line at the grocery store you frequent. So - always be mindful of your walk in life; someone's watching.
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