Friday Challenge

I'm completely blasted with farm images and amazing conversations with wonderful people. I simply don't have a challenge in me. Perhaps that is the challenge. Yes, I can see that it is. My mind is like a field gone fallow - it needs to rest and let the images percolate and the ideas emerge.

Here is the biblical dictate that also led to the notion of a sabbatical:
The land was to lie fallow and all agricultural labor was to be suspended. There was to be neither plowing nor sowing, nor were the vines and olives to be attended to. The spontaneous yield was not to be garnered, but was to be left in the fields for common use, and what was not used was to be abandoned to the cattle and wild animals (Exodus 23:10-11; Leviticus 25:1

And the purpose? Farmers don't much let their fields go fallow these days. They, if they can, choose to rotate crops. Both have the same use which is to restore the nutrients to the land. If one isn't to use lots of fertilizers then the crops which have been raised have taken the nutrients from the earth which need to be replenished.

The challenge for today is to find a time - no matter where you are at in your writing practice - to simply turn it off and let 'the boys in the basement' (to quote Stephen King) have their way for awhile. Let the constant barrage of images, ideas, characters, plot twists work beyond your conscience. We call it sub-conscience but perhaps it is meta-conscience. For me this means that I will not ADD anything to my writing life today. I will not allow myself to think of new and more projects. I will not attend to those vines and olives that are already in progress. I will let the cattle and wild animals play on my fields why I do something completely different.

What will you do?

Note: Please remember to join in on my contest. So far I only have a couple of entries - so check the post before this one for details. I am WELL aware that the challenges are not quick and easy and that I could probably get ten folks for every one I get on challenges by asking you to tell me your three favourite songs to listen to while writing or some such thing - I will persist. Otherwise they aren't challenges - they are just games. Don't be shy!

Here are some pictures from The Balmoral Mill - an old water run mill that is run as a museum. I was there on its last day yesterday and got the last bag of ground oatmeal! Oatcakes coming up!!

and here is a lovely Miss from Tatamagouche at The Raven Gift Shop