#throwbackThursday Archives - cherylsterlingbooks.com

#ThrowbackThursday

Today’s adventure in the Wayback Machine takes us to one of the most sacred places on Hawaii, The Kuaniloko Birth Stones State Monument. The sponsor for this post is my upcoming and returning trip next week to Hawaii. Big Island, not Oahu, but a long distance from my current home in Arizona.

Kukaniloko Birth Stones

Last week, Luke and I visited another “spot on the map”, Kukaniloko, the sacred birth stones of Oahu. We’ve since found out many locals have not visited this spot although it is one of the most sacred places in Hawaii.

For over 800 years, the ancient royals gave birth on the stones, ensuring high regard for the newborns.Click To Tweet The chiefs witnessed the birth and ceremonially cut the umbilical cord then pledged their support to the newborn.

No one else was at the spot when we arrived at the small parking area just off Route 80, directly opposite Whitmore Avenue. If we hadn’t seen the marker on our map, we would have thought we were driving into a pineapple field. We drove past the drive and had to double back. A very worn, small King Kamehameha marker on the north side of the drive directed us in.

The parking lot was dirt, the iron-rich red soil common in the area. It had rained earlier, so we stepped carefully.

The path to the grove of eucalyptus trees that house the birthing stones is about 300 yards long. It may have been my imagination, but I swear I cold feel the echoes of labor pains as I walked it. How many royal mothers were carried over this same path, their bodies twisted in labor as their child struggled to be born?

Trade winds shook tree leaves as we walked among the stones. Small puddles of rainwater lay in the indentations carved by the feet of the birth retainers, who stood on the stones as they braced the mother.

A perimeter of stones circled the main area, a warning to keep out strangers. We hardly spoke, the history of Kukaniloko pressed down on us.

Kukaniloko Birth Stones left me in awe. Few places I've visited have left me with a profound sense of awe and history. Click To Tweet

Monument Rocks, Kansas; South Point on Big Island; and Kukaniloko on Oahu. They’ve left an indelible impression.

For more information, visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kukaniloko_Birth_Site

Blessings,

Cheryl

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October 12, 2017

Tragic news once again reminds us of what is important #TT

General

Tragic news from Las Vegas makes us reflect on what is important. #ThrowbackThursday

#ThrowbackThursday and more tragic news

Sadly, the tragic news from Las Vegas is the latest in a long string of atrocities we’ve witnessed. In this post from 12-19-12, I reflect on where I was and what I was doing.

It’s sad that we need a tragedy to remind of us of what is important – our families.Click To Tweet

Tragedy after tragedy reminds us of what is important

The tragic news from Sandy Hook Elementary has galvanized the nation in support of dozens of grieving families. Blame will be cast and speeches made, urging reforms on gun ownership and mental health treatments. We can only speculate on whether our government takes action on any promises. It’s easy to talk when tragedy overcomes our nation.

I’m at an age that I can look back at several tragedies in American history.

November 22, 1963

A Friday. School officials let us out early. Only after we arrived home did we learn an assassin had taken the life of our president, JFK. Before the birth of CNN and FoxNew and a hundred other cable stations, we had three local stations. All weekend, our family was glued to the television, watching NBC’s coverage of the death of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. I was eight years old.

January 28, 1986

I watched in horror and a sick fascination as the images of the Challenger exploded over and over and over again as we tried to make sense of a senseless act. We watched the launch because of the novelty of having a teacher on board. If not for this anomaly, coverage probably wouldn’t have taken place.

I was home on maternity leave. My daughter was six days old.

October 14-16, 1987

The nation was glued to the developing story of Jessica McClure, an eighteen-month old girl who fell down a well. It took rescuers fifty-eight hours to pull her out alive. I was six-months pregnant with my son.

September 11, 2001

A man I worked with received a call from his wife, and he informed us of the hit on the first tower. We listened in horror on the radio as the plane flew into the second tower. I heard Jim Miklaszewski report live from the Pentagon as the third plane slammed into it. Someone turned on the television in the cafeteria, and we watched as both towers collapsed. Numb, the events too surreal to comprehend, we tried to stay focused on work. I was to attend a five-year anniversary dinner for my investment club that night. Instead, I spent the afternoon scrambling for emails and phone numbers (this was before yahoo groups) to tell the members the easiest decision I’d ever had to make: Go home to your families.

Columbine, Waco, Oklahoma City and now Newtown, CT. The names run together in a sea of senselessness and grief.

Your character’s angst isn’t important. Deadlines can wait. Forget the little things that keep you apart from the ones you love.

Pick up the phone, email a note, Skype, do whatever it takes to breach that gulf between you and estranged family.Click To Tweet Hug them, hold them, show them how much you love them. Do you want to go to bed tomorrow, feeling guilty, with their names on a list circulating the globe?

Hug your family today. Never forget what is truly important.

2017 Cheryl returning.

Don’t let the news of last week’s tragic news stop you from mending fences with loved ones. Life is too precious, as we’ve learned over and over.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the families and friends of the latest victims of senseless violence. Let us hope the Las Vegas/Mandalay Bay tragic news is the last we see and hear.

Blessings to you,

Cheryl

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September 7, 2017

Kickstart Your Muse #TT

Writing tips

How do you kickstart your muse when you're stuck writing?

#Throwback Thursday

This post originally appeared October 25, 2009. None of the advice to kickstart your muse has lost its relevance. . .

I’m back from a weekend writing retreat and feeling recharged. It’s one thing to say “If I just had a chunk of time. . .” and actually sitting down and writing. I pushed through and finished my latest W.I.P.

How can you kickstart your muse?

Don’t get out of the habit of daily writing. It’s easy to do. Life intrudes and “I’ll write tomorrow” can become a mantra. Instead, set your alarm for 10 minutes. You’ll be surprised how much you can write in that time and how much over the limit you’ll go.
Turn off your inner editor. Don’t search for the perfect word. I’m a fan of XXX. When in doubt for the best word, the name of that character in the 2nd chapter, or whatever it is that you’re stuck on, insert XXX. When you come back to it during your edits, it won’t seem as important.
Don’t reread what you’ve written. In preparation for this retreat, I printed off the last ten pages of what I’d written. I never looked at them. I started from the last sentence and pushed on from there.
Even if you think you’re writing dreck, it’s good dreck. Not every building can be the Taj Mahal. Sometimes you have to start with a straw hut and make a lot of improvements.

Now that my book is done, I have a week to go through it and make my first cut of edits. On Nov. 1st, I’m starting a new story. I won’t be shooting for the full 50,000 words, but I’ll be participating in my own version of NaNoWriMo http://www.nanowrimo.org/ and taking my own advice.

Happy writing!

****2017 Cheryl returning****I’m not sure which book I was stuck on as I don’t keep a book diary (bad me), but from the MSWord doc files I have stored, it might have been Tall, Dark and Slayer. Buy it here.

Thank you for joining me in the WayBack Machine.

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