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Author Archives: Julan62

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About Julan62

I'm now living in Portugal with my husband John and have travelled extensively all over the world writing for children. Working on the children’s page of the Kuwaiti times for about a year. Just before the first Gulf conflict in 1989. And the storyteller's page for the Dumfries and Galloway standard, and the press and journal Banff Standard, plus numerous other papers, and short story books to my credit. I am drafting a few novels and taking things one day at a time... I am almost ready with a fantasy novel, which will be due out in the winter. Published with Opera Omnia Publishers and CDB and Chave Book Publishers. Empath Warrior....

Winters Grasp

The long night settles like a velvet cloak
Quiet stars whisper to the sleeping earth
The frost paints silver on every rooftop
And the moon glows with tender rebirth


Our breath becomes prayer in the crystal air
Soft clouds drifting from our waiting lips
Old stories rise where the shadows gather
And time slows to the beat of winter’s heart


In the hush we feel a stirring of hope
A shy promise beneath the frozen field
The dark holds the seed of light within it
Bright treasure hidden but soon revealed


So we lift our gaze to the patient heavens
And welcome the dawn that follows the night
For even the coldest hour of winter
Holds the first warm note of returning light
JH

 
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Posted by on December 22, 2025 in poetry

 

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Advent has arrived

Advent has arrived like a soft-footed guest
slipping through the dusk with a lantern in hand
and the whole world seems to hold its breath
Candles wake with gentle fire
their small bright voices rising in the quiet
as if they wish to sing before the choir begins
The air tastes of spice and promise
of pine trees dreaming in the stillness
of stories that knock at the door of the heart
Each morning a little more light is poured
like warm gold upon the windows of our hope
and even the most tired soul lifts its head
Advent is here
a tender reminder that wonder still dares to return
that patience has a song
that love is already on the way
So let us gather our waiting
tie it with laughter
and place it beside the candle glow
For something beautiful is stirring
and if we listen carefully
we may hear the first quiet notes
of joy beginning again
JH

 
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Posted by on December 5, 2025 in poetry

 

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Now

I stand in this breath
as if it were a soft doorway
opening to the wild hush of everything.

The world leans in
holding its cup of warm light
and I drink it slowly.

Time forgets its hurry
and becomes a friendly stray
curling at my feet.

For a moment
there is no before
no after
only this
bright bead on the string of living.

JH

 
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Posted by on November 19, 2025 in poetry

 

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Step away a while….

There are moments when the world feels like it has had far too much tea and is humming with nervous energy. Every screen glows like a tiny sun and every notification tugs at your sleeve. That is when the universe itself seems to whisper go outside for a breath and touch something real. Let your toes wander into grass or sand or onto a quiet bit of earth. Feel the steady pulse beneath you. It is ancient and patient and it never rushes you the way your inbox does.

And when you do step away for a little while the strange magic is that everything inside you begins to settle. Thoughts stretch out like sleepy cats and worries shrink to their proper size. A small offline pause becomes its own kind of rebellion a reminder that you are a living creature not a constant broadcast. In a world spinning faster each season there is something brave and bright about choosing stillness. The future will always need dreamers who remember how to breathe.

JH

 
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Posted by on November 15, 2025 in Uncategorized

 

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In Quiet Fields

In quiet fields where soft winds roam, we stand

And feel the breath of those who marched before.

Their names drift through the grass like distant sand

And settle in our hearts forevermore.

We promise them our memory will stay

As still as dawn that trembles into day.

The poppies rise in gentle crimson light,

Their petals catch the turning of the sun.

They glow as if they gathered up the night

Then traded it for hope when morning won.

So when their red blooms stir beneath the sky,

We look, we breathe, we remember why.

JH

 
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Posted by on November 8, 2025 in poetry

 

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Honesty

Soft truth in the air
Voices clear as morning bells
Hearts open like dawn

Eyes meet without shade
Words fall pure as spring water
Trust blooms in still light

JH

 
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Posted by on November 3, 2025 in Uncategorized

 

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Love em

Daily writing prompt
Do lazy days make you feel rested or unproductive?

I love lazy days, it’s a time for reflection, chilling, reading a good book, or finishing off something you wanted to do for a while…

Lazy days..bring them on..

 
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Posted by on October 17, 2025 in Uncategorized

 

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How Can You Sit and Be Silent?

How can you sit and be silent,
while children fade from the sky?
Do your lips not burn with the question
how long, how long, and why?

A man builds thrones from his lying tongue,
and truth is left to die.
Your silence is a shadow’s song
and even shadows cry.

JH

 
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Posted by on October 11, 2025 in Uncategorized

 

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I Want More Kindness in the World

I want more kindness in the world

not the kind that hides in silence,

but the kind that rolls out like sunlight,

warming pavements,

healing strangers.

I want kindness that speaks up

when cruelty takes the stage,

that plants itself firm as an oak

and says, “No. Here, love grows.”

I want kindness that lingers

not a passing smile

but a steady flame,

lighting doorways where the lost wander,

offering bread,

offering rest.

I want kindness in the clumsy,

in the ordinary,

in the hands that hold shopping bags,

in the voices that say hello

and mean it.

I want kindness

not because it is easy,

but because it is strong

a rebellion,

a revolution softer than steel

yet sharper than any sword.

I want more kindness in the world,

because kindness is not small.

It is the thing that saves us,

the thread that mends us,

the promise that

we are still

worth saving.

JH

 
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Posted by on October 9, 2025 in poetry

 

The strange thing about bullying and hiding behind a so-called “campaign”

It is a most peculiar and troubling spectacle to behold that J. K. Rowling, once exalted in the public imagination as a benevolent architect of whimsical childhood narratives, has instead refashioned herself into a crusader of antagonistic commentary, a self-appointed sentinel of “women’s safety” whose rhetoric, far from protecting, has functioned as a sharpened blade against other women, most notably those, like Emma Watson, who dare to articulate a vision of feminism that is inclusive rather than exclusionary. The paradox is almost Shakespearean: the very author who built her legacy on tales of courage, loyalty, and triumph over cruelty now appears to wield her influence as a weapon of cruelty itself, engaging in a pattern of online disparagement and public belittlement that seems less concerned with safeguarding women and far more invested in punishing dissenters. It is both astonishing and profoundly dispiriting that a writer of children’s literature, whose moral universe was once populated by lessons on compassion, solidarity, and the necessity of standing against bullies, has so visibly embraced the role of bully herself, hurling invective and fostering division under the guise of principle. The dissonance between the professed ideals of protection and the observable reality of aggression is so glaring that one cannot help but describe it as a tragic inversion, a betrayal of the very values her audience once sought within her pages. It’s tragic! To say the very least.
JH

 
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Posted by on September 29, 2025 in Ranting

 

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