May 10, 2019 by athling2001

Reena’s Exploration Challenge #86 5-9-2019

This is a fun weekly writing prompt from Reena Saxena. Give it a try!

Reena’s Exploration Challenge by Reena Saxena

Welcome back!

I’ve been busy last week, and there were delays in reading and responding. In case, I’ve missed out on any of your pieces in the links below, please do let me know.

PROMPT

This week’s prompt consists of two words –

BLEEDING EDGE

The dictionary meaning is

the very forefront of technological development.

However, I can visualize many more applications of the word. Go where your imagination takes you.

FOR THE NEW ENTRANTS

There is no restriction on the length or format of the piece. Write a post on your blog, and link it up here with a pingback, or copy-paste the blog link in Comments.

I eagerly await your responses.

LAST WEEK’S ROUND-UP

Hecblogger (Amit Agrawal) at

मरीचिका

Beckie at

“Conserved” (Poetry) Reena’s Exploration Challenge #85

Tessa at

Reena’s Exploration Challenge – 84

Indira at

https://amaltaas.wordpress.com/2019/05/03/reenas-exploration-challenge-85-resilienr-friends/

Rupali Banerjee at

https://reflections451.wordpress.com/2019/05/03/endurance-haiku-reenas-exploration-challenge-85/

Eugenia at

Unlike Elements

Sadje at

Reena’s Exploration Challenge #85 —Being One With The Nature

Deborah at

https://awisewomansjourney.wordpress.com/2019/05/04/a-longing-ache/

VJ Knutson at

Discord

Susi Bocks at

Trapped

Len at

The Sacred Grove

athling2001 at

athling2001.wordpress.com/2019/05/07/reenas-exploration-challenge-85-5-7-2019/

Tanusri Sen at

Save Mother Nature

Indira at

https://amaltaas.wordpress.com/2019/05/03/reenas-exploration-challenge-85-resilient-friend

Helene Vaillant at

One Source

Von Smith at

https://2thinkis2be.wordpress.com/2019/05/08/roots-6/

The Dark Netizen at

https://thedarknetizen.wordpress.com/2019/05/09/flash-fiction-embrace-2/

May 7, 2019 by athling2001

Reena’s Exploration Challenge #85 5-7-2019

Reena’s Exploration Challenge by Reena Saxena

April 20, 2019 by athling2001

Reena’s Exploration Challenge #83 4-18-2019

Reena’s Exploration Challenge by Reena Saxena

Welcome again, and always to this space, which has become sacred to me! You may not see it in the same manner. And why should you? Each of us has our own unique perspective on the world and its interesting contents.

PROMPT

Picture

FOR THE NEW ENTRANTS

There is no restriction on the length or format of the piece. Write a post on your blog, and link it up here with a pingback, or copy-paste the blog link in Comments.

I eagerly await your responses.

LAST WEEK’S ROUND-UP

Amit Agrawal (hecblogger) at

शून्यता

Eugenia at

Unexpressed

Deborah at awisewomansjourney

https://awisewomansjourney.wordpress.com/2019/04/11/a-vacated-ache/

Teresa Smeigh at

Reena’s Exploration Challenge – 82

Michael at

Reena’s Exploration Challenge – 82 – Cyril Rum and the Black Hole.

Len at

Uniformity

Jade Li at

Reena’s Exploration Challenge #82 and dVerse Villanelle with Slant Rhymes — Black Hole

Sadje at

Reena’s Exploration Challenge #82

Jen Goldie at

https://jengoldie493473930.wordpress.com/2019/04/13/yes-miss-cross-in-response-to-reena-saxenas-exploration-challenge-82-april-11-2019/

The Dark Netizen at

https://thedarknetizen.wordpress.com/2019/04/14/microfiction-our-black-hole/

VJ Knutson at One Woman’s Quest

Black Hole

Reena Saxena at

https://reinventionsreena.wordpress.com/2019/04/15/human-blackholes/

Indira Mukhopadhyay at Sharing Your Thoughts

https://amaltaas.wordpress.com/2019/04/18/reenas-exploration-challenge-82/

March 1, 2019 by athling2001

Reena’s Exploration Challenge #76 3-1-2019

Reena’s Exploration Challenge

PROMPT

There is a range of words/phrases to choose from – this week.

Disorientation
Live forward, look backward
You are made of stardust, and to stardust you will return

Musings on the Universe

Sputnik Beep

There is something indefinably magical in space. Mankind has looked upwards for centuries, always wanting to know more. Where did we come from? Why does the rain fall? What Gods make lightening? What have we done to make the Gods angry? What are stars made of? How did the universe begin? How will it end? How can we see further and further into a mystery always just beyond reach?

Ancient civilizations had cause to fear the sky. In the modern world, however, we have lost any sense of fear and wonder about that which suspends our tiny planet in the vastness of space and time. The ability for the majority of us to experience the universe first hand is small. Astronauts are heroes because they dare to step into the vastness that has frightened and awed and puzzled mankind since our first ancestor rose onto two legs and looked towards the sky.

Did dinosaurs ponder the wonders of space? Fish? Lions? Horses? Even the small one-celled amoeba? The creatures of this world don’t need to ponder space because they are space. Instinctively, they know their connection to the universe, something we forgot long ago when we chose to divide and accept ‘he’ is different than ‘me’.

So why does the sound of a machine beeping in space open up such a vast emptiness inside me? Awe that, even though the sounds were recorded over 40 years ago, makes me shiver, forces me to admit I, too, am part of the wonder of the universe. Sounds which make me feel something opening inside me in a way I have never experienced before; connects me to the universe in a way I never imagined possible.

I am, you are, every living thing in this world and beyond, not to mention rocks and chairs and books, and computers, are made of starstuff. We see solids when, in reality, the atoms from which we are made are simply gathered together and pretending to be the solids called ‘me’ or ‘you’ or ‘Fido.’ The same as a star 40 million light years away is pretending to be the solid called ‘star.’ I am ‘me,’ but I am also Sputnik, forty years ago, sending the sounds of infinity back to the’ me’ on earth listening this very moment.

What awe would fill this world if we all understood, down to the tiniest particle of our being, that we aren’t different. We are all made of the same stuff as the stars. We all feel that deep instinctive pull towards knowing, understanding, who we are and where we belong in this infinite universe.

Perhaps that is what the beeping of Sputnik reminds us. Somewhere out there, beyond our sight, in the blackness both outside and inside us, there is an emptiness we all understand – loneliness, fear, death – but we do not need to be afraid. We are one. No matter the vastness between the stars, or between two neighbors, there is always a bridge, always a connection of starstuff binding us together.

February 14, 2019 by athling2001

Reena’s Exploration Challenge – Week 73 2-7-2018

Reena’s Exploration Challenge

The theme for this week is

ONE MINUTE

The words need not appear in your piece – but the spirit of that unit of time, what it can do to change things, or why it does not matter to us should be there. There are clocks which show arcs of five minutes, time schedules are often set as 7:05, 7.10. 7.30 – not giving one minute any importance. It is all of sixty seconds, but what is a second or millisecond? One breath in life, eye contact, blink of an eye, whatever you can think of……

Here is a video to aid thinking… it is 7 seconds more than a minute

Life Changing Road

“Time,” he said, “really isn’t time.”

“You see, there is no such thing as time. Time is a notion that man, in all his infinite wisdom, invented to keep track of his world. Have to be at the office by 7:00. Dinner by 12:00. Home by 5:00. How else is man going to know what to do and where to go without time?”

“But time means nothing to the universe. The universe doesn’t need to get to the office or dinner or home. The universe is present and past and future all at once.”

“It is man’s time that distinguishes between present, past and future. How are we to know when our flight arrives in Hong Kong if we don’t have time? How do we tick each minute off waiting for a loved one to call?”

“Time is elastic. Going to Grandmother’s house takes forever. Going home seems to take no time at all. The distance is the same. The only difference is our perception of time, something that doesn’t really exist except as space-time, a single point in the universe that is past and present and future all at once.”

“Time doesn’t flow. Time is. And, yet, it isn’t.”

“Tick tock. Tick Tock. Minute by minute by minute. Past, present, future.”

“Time.”

February 14, 2019 by athling2001

Reena’s Exploration Challenge – Week 2-7-2018

Reena’s Exploration Challenge #73

Reena’s Exploration Challenge

Welcome back, friends!

Last week’s enthusiasm showed that we all love a good fairy tale, whatever our age or stage in life. Some of us took a different take on that picture.

At what point does our perception change? Is it only creativity, or experience that triggers a different outlook?

PROMPT

The theme for this week is

ONE MINUTE

Here is a video to aid thinking… it is 7 seconds more than a minute

Life Changing Road

FOR THE NEW ENTRANTS

There is no restriction on the format or the length of the piece. It just has to be your reflection on the prompt from the core.

Write a post on your blog, and link it up with here with a pingback, or copy-pasting the blog link in Comments.

I eagerly await your response.

LAST WEEK’S ROUNDUP

Eugenia at

http://amanpan.com/2019/01/31/shapeshifting-powers/

Susi Bocks at

http://iwriteher.com/2019/02/01/stay/

Deepa Karthik (syncwithdeep) at

https://syncwithdeep.wordpress.com/2019/02/01/uncomfort/

Sadje at

http://lifeafter50forwomen.com/2019/02/02/reenas-exploration-challenge-72/

Michael at

http://summerstommy.com/2019/02/03/reenas-exploration-challenge-72-the-perfect-man/

Helene Vaillant at

http://helenevaillant.com/2019/02/03/a-prince/

Reena Saxena at

https://reinventionsreena.wordpress.com/2019/02/04/claustrophobic-2/

Christine Bolton at

https://poetryforhealing.com/2019/02/04/first-love/

Indira at

https://amaltaas.wordpress.com/2019/02/04/reenas-exploration-challenge-72/

VJ Knutson

http://vjknutson.org/2019/02/04/close-call/

Amit Agrawal (hecblogger) at

http://playingwithwords.blog/2019/02/05/%e0%a4%a4%e0%a5%87%e0%a4%b0%e0%a4%be-%e0%a4%ae%e0%a4%be%e0%a5%9b%e0%a5%80-%e0%a4%b9%e0%a5%82%e0%a4%81-%e0%a4%ae%e0%a5%88%e0%a4%82/

Len’s Diary at

http://lensdiary.blog/2019/02/04/the-weeping-willow/

athling2001 at

athling2001.wordpress.com/2019/02/05/reenas-exploration-challenge-week-72-2-5-2018/

Von Smith at

https://2thinkis2be.wordpress.com/2019/02/06/planted/

February 5, 2019 by athling2001

Reena’s Exploration Challenge – Week 72 2-5-2018

Reena’s Exploration Challenge

I found this illustration rather quaint and curious. It is an illustration done for Grimm’s Fairy Tales. I don’t know the story, but why is the tree male and the human female? Is the mobility or immobility an illusion? Is it a scene of love, magic or revenge? What do the projections denote?

I invite you to ponder over it, and write whatever it generates within you.

On with the quill, and the thinking cap ….

PROMPT

rec72

She heard him coming, but didn’t slow, running swiftly down the forest pathway, slippered feet barely making a sound. She wasn’t afraid of the forest, but she was afraid of him. How grotesque he looked, gnarled with branches sprouting from his back. His face so smooth and young, but his limbs like branches grown wrong way round.

In the depths of the forest, she heard the cries of the animals and they seemed to be urging her on, warning her as he thumped closer and closer and closer. His voice wind through the leaves, carried in ripples tree to tree.

Papa was waiting on the edge of the forest, catching her in his arms as he had so many times before; carrying her, exhausted and trembling, into the house and to her bed.

Once she slept, he grabbed up a bucket and set out through the forest. It took him hours to find the tree, but he did. The funny looking tree that looked like a running man.

She’d been afraid of this tree since she was a baby though he’d never understood why. Still, it was enough. He was done.

Pouring kerosene around the tree, he stepped back; tossed in a match. Walked away.

No one heard the screams.