The Guitar Man

Trees pool in floods of colour, prickle against sight, cluster together beneath the wind. The guitar maker narrows his eyes, a fugitive from the business of creativity. He has come to this big-bellied forest to pick his beloved, a tree that will bear his image. A tree that will build the finest guitar that jazz has ever met. The taste of orange oil floods his mouth with pleasure, reflexive, certain, unattainable. Cedar shapes begin to emerge in his mind. He sees curves. The wind is a wet loop. He is caught in a dream of music. In this forest is the key to impossible living. He alone must find the right note, unlock it, uncover its delicate one-ness, its splendid identity,. How he loves this moment. This time before time runs out, when all is possible, before he makes the first cut.

The Downfall of Icarus

Icarus is busy making plans in an effort to offset his fear of becoming invisible. He believes, these days, that transparency is furtive, unworthy. He is melding high thoughts with hopes of eternity gilding his veins. In short, because nothing is ever the shape it suggests, he has persuaded his father into building them some wings.
Daedalus writes down the formulas for flight in a secret script of broken mathematics. He sends Icarus out to rob the bees nests for honey and wax. Under a teal sky at evening time, Icarus returns home, following the cold scent of melon on the air, to find his father constructing the vast angelic wings. They grin which gives them both the understanding that there is no business between them but the grave business of living. It is so because they believe it is so. But Daedalus is uneasy. He knows his son, extracts from him the promise not to go too high. These structions of wax and keratin cannot hold for long, he says, and Icarus nods, greedy to get on with it. He'd be patient if he had more time.
The morning dawns with a soft light. At last Icarus stands framed in the doorway and hooks his arms through his bright wings. He moves out, launches himself into the fabric of the air. Balloons of nectar billow beneath his wings. He is moving through a miraculously perfumed light in sweet cold disobedience. The sun calls him into the scarred sky. Tiny cracks, hairlines, barely visible, begin to appear in his wings. The day is pitched too high and the dials in his glass heart are flickering chaotically as he begins his spiralling fall, and suddenly Daedalus is alone, knee deep in shivered feather and the broken body of his boy and the whole world vibrating with grief.

Message in a Bottle

Make it all your own, then share it out. Velvet Blake carved the words into the piece of driftwood she had found that morning and pinned them above the door to the tiny room with its big bed. She was living the good life, a born-again pig farmer in the commune of good-lifers in the sleepy village of little Winchendon. Mostly she was glad. She liked the pigs. She especially liked the the large white sow called Violet, who would lay her vast bulk down before her in every inconvenient place and wait to be tickled.
She also liked the boy who bottled mineral water, called Martin, though it made her laugh to think of anyone mad-fool enough to think of paying for water. Still, she was thinking that moment of inviting him to sleep with her in the very high featherbed. It was cool. Whatever he decided, it would be cool.
She followed the staircase of horseshoes up to the room. The door was open and the fire was burning in the grate. Baby Hoof was in his crib, his blue face dark as a wet stone beneath her gaze. Velvet Blake feeds him hoof jelly, boiling up the hooves of lame fairies to pacify his colic. Which is nice of her, she thinks, and a mark of how far she has come in the way of communal living.
She only notices the bottle when she straightens the Jilly Cooper novels on the windowsill, squares them up against Dick Francis and The Hobbit. It is one of Martin's, corked with a single message  inside it written on a rizla paper. Tenderly she unrolls it. Baby Hoof is utterly still, quiet as the dead. The message reads: Can I warm my hands by your fire?
And she turns, whips round before the fist sized scar above her heart has time to ache and sees him, Martin, a half-smile on his face, waiting for her response. She closes his eyes with her one hand and leads him under her new sign: Make it your own, then share it out.

The Purposes of Spoon

I belong to you, Beloved. In the darkened After Noah time of forever I give you my burnished heart. I come to your lips like a fish rising in scales of pewter and gold. I scroll to you like a peppershake of birds, iron filings in a magnetic sky. The air about me is like mica, ancient with bitter flecks, the slenderest of separations.
I belong in the drawer of twisted maple, with the filigree knives and all things capable of drawing or catching blood. I am loved especially, as surprising to the palate as silverfoil in jam. My purposes are symmetrical, smooth and pleasing. I will not serve lemons or lychees or any delicate thing. Unburden me of practicality, no childhood medicinal doses. I will pour divine syrups into their mouths, sumptuous magic will slide in from me to them and they will lap it up.
When I am full of maverick light I glow like a celestial bowl. I lay upon the table, baring my fullness to your gaze. I reflect all your desires, invert them, console them with silver lustre. You hope to see the birds fly back at dawn. I offer you the lace pattern of sunlight through leaves and the chill shadow of twilight.  Fullness becomes me. It makes me alive to what is and what might be. I am full of moving reflections, as stark as a hospital room, as chastely miraculous as a win on the lottery. When I am full, chagrin and dismay fall away and I brim with pleasure and plenitude.

Rafael Contemplates his Fate

Rafael stands dauntless above their heads, balanced on the narrow wire. Behind him the silks of the evening sky lie ripped with defeat. The air is radiant with jasmine or snow. Way below him, the strong man moves in random ways amongst the crowd, unseen by Rafael who leans into the curved air and doffs his top hat. From behind a parapet of dark Alisha's raven flies towards him, a lit cigarette in its beak. He lands on Rafael's head, the chip of molten light dancing.
Rafael drops. The crowd gapes with a capricious longing for blood, but elegance and fate bind him and the cigarette describes a resurrected arc. The strong man breathes out and dips away from the tent. Looking up Electra sees them, bird and man sharing the light. Finally, she thinks, you came true.

The copyright of this post belongs to Claire Steele

Lena

She was born with a sense of bravado, a strawberry birthmark over her right eye and all the opulence of the earth's kingdom up to the hilt in hock. She was born to a mother in mourning, born on the very day her granny was to be cremated. The air was bitter, disastrous, framed with snow. The day had lost its focus, the birds refused to sing, and the edge of her granny's coffin was thick with lint, which so distracted her grieving mother she could barely think of anything else.
It was then that she decided that the time to be born was upon her, and she pushed herself into the gaping world in a whoosh of water, to the scent of lilies and the astonished weeping of the family. Like a fish in a net she looked up at the faces of an unfamiliar world.
'Truth, to be understood, must first be believed.' her mother would say later when she told Lena the story of her birth: 'You were wrapped in an ostrich-feather cape', which Lena thought must have prickled, though she would have looked magical. She pictured herself in a black feather nest, shadowed by grief, held in the shallow crook of her father's arm, while the congregation felt both blessed and cheated and commented on the lack or surfeit of taste.
She imagined him looking down at the tomato stain on her brand new face and planting a kiss there, for the wisdom and sheer bravado it took to be born.

Magical Journeys 2013

Join us in 2013 for three more amazing magical writing journeys
Morocco 14th- 21st March 2013:  A week’s retreat in the beguiling 18th
century fishing port of Essaouira - beautiful, mellow and full of vibrant
colour.
Turkey 9th-16th May 2013:  A week’s retreat in the heart of Istanbul.
Bursting with story and richly textured with historical and cultural
diversity, Turkey offers a completely unique writing experience.
India 7th-21st October 2013:  Two weeks in the beautiful laid-back Southern
Indian state of Kerala. Cruise the tranquil backwaters in a traditional rice boat,
enjoy the bustling pleasures and antique palaces of Fort Cochin; an inspiring
extended retreat among the waterfront spice warehouses perfumed with
cardamom and sandalwood.

These retreats are designed to be both vibrant and uplifting. If you seek peace,
space and inspiration to rekindle the creative process, they offer a revelatory
time of creative pleasures. Complementing the writing workshops are lazy
lunches, convivial evening meals and visits to local sights. You will have the time
and opportunity to expand your creative life and explore your astounding
imaginative potential. Morning writing workshops are held on roof-terraces, in
pavement cafes and in simple sunlit salons. The rest of the day is free for you to
browse through the markets, soak up the sun, or indulge yourself in a spa. Oneto-
one supervision is available. All sessions are optional so you are free to write
as much or as little as you wish.

"Spices, minarets and silk carpets inspired our writing under the guiding hand of our
wonderful teacher, Claire. Yet again she managed to take us all on a magical journey
from which we were reluctant to return" Helen
“Our trip to Turkey was sensational and how we laughed. We didn't have to worry
about a thing except to be at the appointed place in time to write. And write we did
...We came home with reams and reams of inspired writing... truly a remarkable
writing holiday.” Cath
“It is a taste of renewal in a creative and nurturing atmosphere, where
fun and laughter surrounds the whole group”. Valerie
“My Morocco week was a wonderful exploration of hidden depths and unlocked
for me different styles of writing... and a treasure trove of laughing, talking and
bonding with a bunch of wonderful women. Claire is inspirational.” Mojo
Happiness is a writing holiday with Claire! Claire’s retreats work for anyone,
complete beginners to accomplished writers, she is a ‘magician’ at her craft of
drawing out story. In unique settings that are her second home, there is an easy
friendliness, a sharing, a sense of freedom and real holiday. Debs
A relaxed and thoroughly memorable week in the company of the nicest and
most generous bunch of writers you could wish to meet. Judy P
Claire's knack of sourcing extraordinary "one-off' hotels,
combined with her undoubted ability to draw the personal voice
out of each of us make her magical holidays a must. Lesley
"A magic carpet of a retreat to place of peace and stimulation, a city of
inculcating contrasts, amongst the atmosphere of ancient and
modern, and with a group of ‘write-minded’ souls." Gabby

If you would like more information or to book any of these retreats please
contact clairesteele@hotmail.co.uk
Magical Journeys
Creative writing retreats in the sun 2013