In my second novel, The Awakening, as one of the characters seeks to unravel the mystery before him, the trail leads him to a specific Web site. Blakesville.Net is the local Internet Service Provider for the small town of Blakesville, Pennsylvania. If you put the address in your browser and go out to the site, you'll find that Blakesville.Net really exists.
But there's much, MUCH more there than just a Web address.
For those interested in poking around, Blakesville.Net holds its own stories, characters, and mysteries. There are comments to each post and news article as the residents of town of Blakesville offer the perspective of those who live in the town. In addition to the news stories that lend additional details to The Awakening and foreshadow the next book in the series, A Tide of Shadows, there are threads of the larger tale that exist only on the site.
Take, for instance, a seemingly mundane problem with squirrels.
The story begins in the Blakesville.Net forums under the post, Squirrel Problem and the first post (by user sbaker) opens with the innocent words, "I've been hearing something crawling around in my ceiling and walls..."
It turns out that something has been walking down the walls of sbaker's bedroom in the dead of night. Something that left footprints behind. Photos are taken and posted in the forum. People grow scared.
A news story posts the next morning, Local Home Gutted In Late Night Fire. "The home of Blakesville resident, Scott Baker, was destroyed in a fire late last night. Arson is suspected. Mr. Baker's whereabouts are currently unknown."
Rumors run wild. Did Mr. Baker burn down his own home and flee the town of Blakesville? Was he taken away by whatever left the footprints behind?
Seven photos of the footprints that appeared on sbaker's bedroom wall are posted to the forum. A second user posts a similar photo, this of an eerie handprint left near the bottom of her car door.
The thread plays out in a seemingly unrelated news article, Home Now, Local Veteran Is Still At War. An interview with John Peterson, a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq who was exposed to chemical weapons during a firefight relates the hallucinations that still haunt his dreams. In his nightmares, beings come with the darkness, trying to pull him into the shadows.
A coincidence? Are Peterson's hallucinations real and related to the photographs posted in the forums?
Hints to the answers can be found in The Awakening, currently available in both paperback (autographed for $15 which includes shipping via USPS priority mail) and $0.99 ebook (Kindle | Nook | Other) editions. All will be revealed in A Tide of Shadows, coming May 2012. In its first week of publication, The Awakening has already received five glowing "5 Star" reviews at Amazon.com with additional reviews appearing nearly every day,
In case you're wondering, all of the photos are real. I took them myself. None of the photographs on Blakesville.Net were staged.
Now that The Awakening has been published (ebooks are $0.99 in Kindle, Nook, and other formats), I can take a deep breath, catch up on reading posts from my fellow bloggers, and get back into the flow of things.
Scott Poe over at Indie Book Blog was kind enough to interview me for his page. He does a lot to review and promote the indie author community and I read his blog regularly.
Me? I'm going to breathe, recharge, and get ready to jump back into the fray on Monday. I will catch up with everyone then. :)
Stories about the end of the world have never made sense to me. The end of humanity? Sure. If humans disappeared from this planet, we wouldn't be the first species to go extinct. But the whole world ending? That's a very different event and the concept instantly brings a very important question to life.
When we talk about "the end," are we referring to the end of the world or just the end of the current human experience? It seems as if so many of our religions look at the world around us and say, "God created man and that's all that really matters." As a traditionally trained shaman, I look around and think, "Spirit created EVERYTHING."
Ending the human experience is a pretty simple task. A severe global pandemic would do the trick. If a massive electromagnetic pulse fried all electronics planet-wide, it would utterly change the human world. I've heard all the arguments - from the return of a messiah to the spontaneous evolution of human DNA - but each holds the same challenge for me. Under nearly every scenario presented by any religion, all of creation is reduced to a prop in a play about Man. If you're The Creator, why even bother with a lush, beautiful, expansive world if the only thing on it that matters to you is a single species? We live on this amazing planet where we're outnumbered by other species by millions to one - and yet we assume it is somehow all about us.
I personally find that perspective very hard to embrace.
To extend this concept out even farther, even if we include all life on Earth, we're still not extending the idea far enough. In this incredibly vast universe, we're saying, "This is the only planet that is important." If we're creating an event that is truly the end of everything - then it needs to be the end of every bit of reality we're aware of and all the pieces we've never imagined.
Since that isn't complicated enough on its own, because we live in a material universe the end also needs to follow the laws of physical reality. It's a fairly straightforward concept. I can create all of the rocks I want to from thought and energy and throw them at you all day long. In the end, it's the repetitive nature of me going through the motions of throwing those rocks that will annoy you, not the "spirit rocks" themselves. If I pick up a physical rock and throw it at you, however, it will have a significant impact on your material body. In much the same way, the end of reality would have to unfold in harmony with existing physical laws.
The questions before us becomes, "When we talk about the end of the world, is it the end of the human experience or the end of all reality?" and, "If the even must follow existing natural laws, how does the the world end?"
In my second novel, The Awakening (now available), the characters wrestle with the scale of this question.
It was the Indian woman who spoke, her voice soft and even. "Imagine that you live in a world that can be symbolized by a sack of rice," she began. "The galaxies, the planets – all of known reality is symbolized by the grains of rice. The fabric of the sack represents the borders of our universe."
Drew nodded, signaling that he understood.
"Now imagine that a small tear appeared in the side of the sack, that some of the rice poured out onto the storeroom floor. That spilled rice, symbolizing all of reality, believed that it was alone, that it was reality."
"The spill is our world, isn't it?" the young man asked, his voice quiet and still.
The Indian woman slowly nodded. "But not just our world, Drew. Our reality. It's a scale that we can scarcely understand, but that scale is dwarfed by the realm our universe came from."
"So our entire existence is a mistake?" he demanded.
The scholar slowly shook her head. "It's likely a rare but natural phenomena, Drew."
The young man uncomfortably rubbed the back of his neck. "So is there just one sack of rice in the storehouse?" he asked. "Or is it just one of many?"
Matthias grinned. "That's the question, isn't it?"
Drew answered with a slow shake of his head. "No, it's not," he said with an air of finality. "The question is, when the farmer comes into the storeroom, what does he do with the spilled rice?"
The room was silent.
"Does he put it back into the sack," Drew continued, unable to stop the flow of words, "or is the rice now considered soiled and the farmer decides that it can only be thrown away?"
The Awakening (May 13, 2011) sets the stage for A Tide of Shadows (May 2012), which in turn builds to the climax found in Days of the Fallen (May 2013). You can read the first three chapters online for free.
Secret One: Aleph (May 1st)
Secret Two: The End (May 2nd)
Secret Three: Angels (May 3rd)
Secret Four: The Bloodline (May 4th)
Secret Five: Heaven and Hell (May 5th)
Secret Six: What Does God Look Like? (May 6th)
Secret Seven: Working Miracles (May 7th)
Secret Eight: The Four Horsemen (May 8th)
Secret Nine: Small Town Mysteries (May 9th)
Secret Ten: Photographing the Paranormal (May 10th)
Secret Eleven: Blood on the Threshold (May 11th)
Secret Twelve: Find the Thread (May 12th) Secret Thirteen: How Does the World End? (May 13th)
The challenges before us may be extremely complex or seem too large for us to ever overcome - but they're not. If you can find the right place to focus your efforts and apply your energy in just the right way, the entire structure, no matter how large it may be, will come tumbling down.
This concept was central to the Battle of Thermopylae (480 BCE) where a Greek force of 1,000 men (including the three hundred Spartans that inspired the movie 300) held off a Persian army approximately 300,000 strong.
In 1976, Betty Williams witnessed three children killed in front of her during the political turmoil in Northern Ireland. In response, she went door-to-door and organized a peace march to the children's graves, an event which attracted 10,000 participants. The march was disrupted by the Irish Republican Army who claimed that she and the marchers were tools of the British. Unwilling to give in, just one week later, Ms. Williams organized a second march, this time 35,000 strong. The same year she this receptionist and mother of two - a person no more remarkable than you or I - was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The Berlin Wall came down. Slavery was ended. The Cold War drew to a close. Apartheid is no more. Each time we face a challenge that, by all rational measure seems beyond our ability to overcome, we somehow find the thread that unravels the entire weave.
Even in our darkest times - whether we are facing a massive invading army or children are being killed on our streets, there is always hope. Always. Margaret Meade once said, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." This concept is central to my second novel, The Awakening, which will be published tomorrow (May 13th).
"I need you to begin searching," he said, turning back to the bag of groceries.
"Searching for what?"
"For the end," he offered simply as he opened a box of breakfast bars.
Jenny twisted her face into a grimace of playful disbelief. "You'd think that would be front page news," she grinned.
Nathaniel shook his head. "Your people won't see the truth until it's reached its conclusion. They will only understand the implication of the individual events when their world has come to an end and they can see how each strand of reality led to their destruction."
Jenny stared at him. "You talk like I'm not a part of them anymore."
"You're not."
The teen swallowed uncomfortably. "So what exactly am I supposed to look for?"
"Are you familiar with the prophecies of your early peoples?"
She nodded with an ironic grin. "Lately, they’ve kept me awake at night."
"Find the links between their words and the events of the modern world. It's imperative that we locate the threads before the tapestry is complete."
"And if we do?"
Nathaniel sat beside her on the bed, holding her eyes with a serious gaze. "Then we do our best to unravel it."
The Awakening (May 13, 2011) sets the stage for A Tide of Shadows (May 2012), which in turn builds to the climax found in Days of the Fallen (May 2013). You can read the first three chapters online for free. The Awakening will be published on Friday the 13th in both paperback and ebook formats. You can order the autographed paperback edition directly from my Web site for $15 - which includes shipping via USPS Priority Mail.
Secret One: Aleph (May 1st)
Secret Two: The End (May 2nd)
Secret Three: Angels (May 3rd)
Secret Four: The Bloodline (May 4th)
Secret Five: Heaven and Hell (May 5th)
Secret Six: What Does God Look Like? (May 6th)
Secret Seven: Working Miracles (May 7th)
Secret Eight: The Four Horsemen (May 8th)
Secret Nine: Small Town Mysteries (May 9th)
Secret Ten: Photographing the Paranormal (May 10th)
Secret Eleven: Blood on the Threshold (May 11th) Secret Twelve: Find the Thread (May 12th)
Secret Thirteen: How Does the World End? (May 13th)
As I journeyed around the spiritual globe, I became well-versed in the concepts of magick. We may scoff at such a concept, but magick is much more common that most of us realize. In fact, we've all worked a spell, most likely several, over the course of our lives.
Don't believe me?
Have you ever made a wish and blown out the candles on a birthday cake?
It's a simple enough spell to weave.You take one candle for each year of the person's life and ignite their wicks.Those gathered chant (or sing), repeating the mantra, "Happy Birth-Day" over and over again.The person makes a wish and blows out the candles, ideally with a single breath.
The candles represent the person's life.A sacred moment (the person's day of birth) is chosen for the rite and the spell is connected with the energy and symbolism of the event that brought them into the world.The flame represents energy and, coupled with the candles, symbolizes the energy that brought the person to this point in their life.When they make a wish, they take the breath of life and merge it with the energy that has brought them to where they are today.This act symbolically says, "All of the energy that has created my life to this point will now give birth to my wish just as I was born on this day."By blowing out the candles, the wish is sealed and the smoke symbolically carries the wish upwards into the spirit world.
And you thought it was just a silly tradition. There is a side of life that is all around us that we simply overlook.
With that perspective in mind - the power of symbolism and what it represents - consider the following passage. If you would, pause after each sentence and consider the deeper meaning that is hinted at by the words.
Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. None of you shall go out of the door of your house until morning. When the spirit goes through the land to strike down your enemy, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.
That's pretty crazy.Why the blood?Who is "the destroyer"?There's some fairly spooky stuff held in that bit of text.
It's Exodus 12:22-23 from the Christian Bible.The only thing I changed was "LORD" to "spirit" and "the Egyptians" to "your enemy."This passage is where the term Passover came from; the holiday (or "holy day") honors the anniversary of the day the when "the destroyer" passed-over the homes that were marked with blood.
Christianity still relies on symbolic blood, be it the blood of Christ that washes away sins or the blood represented in the Communion wine.The link between blood and the spirit world is one of the many concepts that is explored in The Awakening.
Moving toward the bedroom, turning on each light as he passed it, he climbed atop his bed, not bothering to undress, laying on top of the blankets.He pulled a pillow into his embrace, holding it close to his chest, his wide eyes filled with images of blood and painted symbols, wondering if he'd ever be able to sleep again.
I realize it isn't much of a sneak-peek, but it's the best I could do without compromising any of the scenes. One of my personal pet peeves is when a movie trailer gives away the best parts. The Awakening publishes on Friday, so there's not much longer to wait.
The Awakening (May 13, 2011) sets the stage for A Tide of Shadows (May 2012), which in turn builds to the climax found in Days of the Fallen (May 2013). You can read the first three chapters online for free. The Awakening will be published on Friday the 13th in both paperback and ebook formats.
Secret One: Aleph (May 1st)
Secret Two: The End (May 2nd)
Secret Three: Angels (May 3rd)
Secret Four: The Bloodline (May 4th)
Secret Five: Heaven and Hell (May 5th)
Secret Six: What Does God Look Like? (May 6th)
Secret Seven: Working Miracles (May 7th)
Secret Eight: The Four Horsemen (May 8th)
Secret Nine: Small Town Mysteries (May 9th)
Secret Ten: Photographing the Paranormal (May 10th)
Secret Eleven: Blood on the Threshold (May 11th)
Secret Twelve: Find the Thread (May 12th)
Secret Thirteen: How Does the World End? (May 13th)
We started with the letter "I" before wrapping around to the beginning of the alphabet. That means that with tomorrow's post, we've reached the end of the Musical Alphabet.
Here are three "G"-themed tracks for your listening enjoyment...
Gomez - "Girlshapedlovedrug"
An English indie rock band hailing from Southport. If they sound familiar, you most likely heard them years ago (1998) when Philips Electronics featured Gomez covering The Beatles' song, "Getting Better," as part of their campaign introducing flat panel and high definition televisions.
The Getaway Team - "Lost All Hope"
Another indie band from the UK, The Getaway Team, they were described by Alt UK as, "...enjoyable to listen to with hugely impressive melodies always present, and astronomically catchy choruses attached to all five of these excellent pop songs."
Griffin House - "The Guy Who Says Goodbye to You Is Out of His Mind"
A beautiful folk song (with a really long title) from a talented singer-songwriter. (Yes, this is the only track from the States in today's post. I believe Griffin House is from Ohio.)
The Guggenheim Grotto - "Fee Da Da Dee"
An indie folk band from Ireland. I like 'em and have no idea how to describe 'em. :)
Much of the day-to-day life of a traditional shaman is pretty tame. I like to call it, "The Path of Common Sense," because much of what you do as a shaman is pretty much that. Balance? It often involves finding the sweet spot between relaxation and exercise. Sometimes, "Going to be early and getting some extra sleep," is the answer to the problem that confronts me. Traditional shamans are notorious for simply slowing down and letting things unfold while everyone else runs around and frets about the situation. After all, we can only work with what's in our hands - or take a single step at a time. Shamanism encourages us to simply breathe and wait for that single choice to appear. Once it does, you pounce. Until then, there's not much you can do - except worry about things you can't control.
And then there's the part of the path that makes it seem like your life is an episode of The X-Files.
For whatever reason - and theories abound - shamans attract the paranormal like picnics attract ants. We don't talk about it much, but it's a semi-regular part of a shaman's life.
And my camera is never very far away.
The Awakening embraces the paranormal on countless levels and its sequels (A Tide of Shadows and Days of the Fallen) find the otherworld coming alive all around us. The site that I mentioned in yesterday's blog (the recreation of a fictional small town), both expands upon The Awakening and offers glimpses into future books in the series through the posts and comments of the town's residents. One of the posts is based around (and includes) a series of photographs that I took back in 2007.
I had spent the night at a friend's house and received a phone call from them the next morning. As they went about their morning routine, they had discovered footprints on their wall that hadn't been there the day before. Without giving away any more details than is necessary for the blog (the story is included in the site), those footprints were decidedly "non-human." I went back to their house, camera in hand, and photographed the footprints, carefully measuring them as I did so. They were approximately 3 inches (7.62 cm) wide. Each had four toes with a large gap between the pad of the foot and the toes themselves. I've taken the liberty of turning up the contrast around the print in this photograph so you can see it more easily and both the originals and this picture appear on the site.
The circle indicates the area where I increased the contrast to improve visibility.
With the exception of increasing the contrast to make this photo clearer, the photographs in this story have not been altered in any way and these prints were actually found on the bedroom wall of a very nice home. Before you begin guessing what made the print, you should hear the whole story as some of the details are rather startling. The site containing the story can be found in the pages of The Awakening (which publishes this Friday) and the prints foreshadow events that take place in its sequel, A Tide of Shadows.
My hope is that the photographs, stories, and accompanying Web site will make it that much easier for the reader to lose themselves in The Awakening.
The Awakening(May 13, 2011) sets the stage for A Tide of Shadows (May 2012), which in turn builds to the climax found in Days of the Fallen (May 2013). You can read the first three chapters online for free. The Awakening will be published on Friday the 13th in both paperback and ebook formats.
Secret One: Aleph (May 1st)
Secret Two: The End (May 2nd)
Secret Three: Angels (May 3rd)
Secret Four: The Bloodline (May 4th)
Secret Five: Heaven and Hell (May 5th)
Secret Six: What Does God Look Like? (May 6th)
Secret Seven: Working Miracles (May 7th)
Secret Eight: The Four Horsemen (May 8th)
Secret Nine: Small Town Mysteries (May 9th) Secret Ten: Photographing the Paranormal (May 10th)
Secret Eleven: Blood on the Threshold (May 11th)
Secret Twelve: Find the Thread (May 12th)
Secret Thirteen: How Does the World End? (May 13th)
Every fiction novel is a self-contained illusion. The story holds only as long as the illusion remains intact. With each crack that appears in the story's mirror, our ability to suspend our disbelief also fractures. Knowing that you could scour London, muggle or not, and never find Diagon Alley reminds us that Harry Potter is simply a fantasy. Unable to find Castle Rock, Maine, featured in many of Stephen King's novels, insulates us from the horrors that take place there.
As The Awakening unfolds, one of the characters uncovers a clue to the mystery before him in an online post. Pulling up the user's profile, he finds their email address listed as part of their contact information.
While many of us use online email (Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo! Mail), others use the address given to them by their Internet Service Provider (ISP). We rarely think about using an email like yourname@comcast.net but what if your email address was yourname@spiretech.com? Would you give it a second thought?
Maybe you should.
If you took just the last portion of that email address (spiretech.com) and pulled up the corresponding Web site, you'd discover that SpireTech is an ISP with a very limited service area. All of their customers live in Portland, Oregon. That means that if you get an email from yourname@spiretech.com, then the person who sent that email lives in Portland as no one has a SpireTech email address outside of that area.
Using this concept, the character in The Awakening traces the email they find back to a small town in Pennsylvania.
And while that town is created solely from my imagination, I took an extra step to keep the illusion alive.
Every email address in The Awakening is a real working email address. If you send an email to it, you will get a response from the corresponding character. Should you decide to follow the same clues that led to the local ISP in a small town in Pennsylvania, you'll find that the ISP's site actually exists.
But there's more.
As the local Internet hub, the site (which you'll have to read The Awakening to discover for yourself) acts as the voice of the small town. There are news stories and forums with additional material that either supports the novel, tells stories associated with The Awakening, or foreshadows the next book in the series, A Tide of Shadows. Users of the site have been given distinct personalities and back stories. Through photographs, local news articles, and the characters' comments to those articles, The Awakening jumps beyond the pages of the novel and comes alive in the online world where so many of us spend a part of each day.
News photo from the ISP's site
In the Age of the Internet, much of our reality is found online. While I'm an author, I pride myself on being a storyteller. The best stories are those that, even though you know they're not real, have an element that makes you question that position. There's a long tradition of campfire ghost stories being set in the area that encompasses your unrolled sleeping bag. In extending the tale found in The Awakening into the online world, my hope is to create the same feeling - one where you begin to question if the story was simply fiction because the pieces of the novel are found in the world around you, waiting for you to reach out and touch them.
The Awakening (May 13, 2011) sets the stage for A Tide of Shadows (May 2012), which in turn builds to the climax found in Days of the Fallen (May 2013). You can read the first three chapters online for free. The Awakening will be published on Friday the 13th in both paperback and ebook formats.
Secret One: Aleph (May 1st)
Secret Two: The End (May 2nd)
Secret Three: Angels (May 3rd)
Secret Four: The Bloodline (May 4th)
Secret Five: Heaven and Hell (May 5th)
Secret Six: What Does God Look Like? (May 6th)
Secret Seven: Working Miracles (May 7th)
Secret Eight: The Four Horsemen (May 8th)
Secret Nine: Small Town Mysteries (May 9th)
Secret Ten: Photographing the Paranormal (May 10th)
Secret Eleven: Blood on the Threshold (May 11th)
Secret Twelve: Find the Thread (May 12th)
Secret Thirteen: How Does the World End? (May 13th)
After today, there are only two more days of the Musical Alphabet left before we've reached the end of our journey. We began with I is for Indie and wrapped back around to "A" to catch the first part of the alphabet.
Here are four "F"-themed bands from four different countries for your listening pleasure...
Francesqa - "Years"
A newer indie rock band (they formed in early 2009) from England, Francesqa is currently on their first tour of the UK. This is one of the currently "under the radar" groups out there that I think could get the right break and make it big. Don't be surprised if you hear them on the radio here in the States one day.
Fevertree - "Cannot See"
A chart-topping power pop band... from South Africa. As good as this track is, there are at least three songs on the album (Under a New Regime) that I consider better than "Cannot See."
Freelance Whales - "Generator | Second Floor"
An indie rock band from Queens, New York...
Frightened Rabbit - "Swim Until You Cant See Land"
And to continue our theme, Frightened Rabbit (perhaps the most well-known of the four groups) hails from Scotland...
The vast majority of us have heard of The Four Horsemen. They are a large enough piece of our culture that they are found again and again in our popular media. Death. Famine. Pestilence. War. We're all familiar with them.
Only we're not.
The Four Horsemen have their origin in the sixth chapter of Revelation in the Christian Bible. To arrive at the versions we're familiar with today, each concept behind the Horsemen has been "dumbed down" to a ridiculous extent. For instance, The Horseman known as Famine is identified in the following passage:
When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, "Come and see!" I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, "A quart of wheat for a day's wages, and three quarts of barley for a day's wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!" (Revelation 6:5-6)
Famine? In my mind, identifying that particular Horseman as Famine is a stretch. Why isn't it called Inflation? Or "Market Economy Spinning Out of Control"? Each of the Four Horsemen has been interpreted and defined in such a manner. After all, Death (for example) is something that is a natural part of the cycle of life, not a herald of the end of the world.
In The Awakening, the themes represented by the Four Horsemen appear around the edges of the text.
"How's it going?" the Old One asked.
Jenny shook her head. "No seas of blood, no apocalyptic disasters," she reported glibly.
Nathaniel's eyes were fixed on the road ahead. "You need to read between the lines, Jenny. Look for a growing disparity between the rich and poor. Search for the threads of an upcoming armed conflict. Imagine that you are helpless, at the mercy of this world. Where would the winds blow you?"
As the series continues, will we find that are truly four individuals who are consciously manipulating the world toward such themes? The answers begin in The Awakening, which comes out this Friday.
The Awakening (May 13, 2011) sets the stage for A Tide of Shadows (May 2012), which in turn builds to the climax found in Days of the Fallen (May 2013). You can read the first three chapters online for free. The Awakening will be published on Friday the 13th in both paperback and ebook formats.
This should have posted yesterday, but I spent the day cooking for and celebrating my wife. To all of you mothers out there, Happy (Belated) Mother's Day! "Secret 9: Small Town Mysteries" will post this evening, accompanied by a very large announcement.
Secret One: Aleph (May 1st)
Secret Two: The End (May 2nd)
Secret Three: Angels (May 3rd)
Secret Four: The Bloodline (May 4th)
Secret Five: Heaven and Hell (May 5th)
Secret Six: What Does God Look Like? (May 6th)
Secret Seven: Working Miracles (May 7th) Secret Eight: The Four Horsemen (May 8th)
Secret Nine: Small Town Mysteries (May 9th)
Secret Ten: Photographing the Paranormal (May 10th)
Secret Eleven: Blood on the Threshold (May 11th)
Secret Twelve: Find the Thread (May 12th)
Secret Thirteen: How Does the World End? (May 13th)
For those who may have missed it, Scott (over at Indie Book Blog), graciously allowed me to guest blog on his page. If you're interested in indie authors and their work, Scott regularly reviews books and interviews authors from the community.
As many of you know, I'm a traditionally trained shaman. Much of that journey involved being sent out into the wilderness with an assigned task, knowing that I wouldn't be given additional instruction until I could successfully and repeatedly demonstrate my proficiency with the completed assignment.
The unasked question is, "What kind of assignments do you give a traditional shaman-in-training?"
When we covered healing, I actually had to heal - three illnesses or injuries - before I was allowed to continue with my studies. Instructed to read the weave of reality, the task was to not only see events that had yet to happen, but each foreseen occurrence had to be confirmed before we moved on to the next subject. Some of the material we covered was simple psychology. Other bits of instruction fell under the umbrella of biology or ecology. However, portions of my training embraced concepts that the general public would label as psychic abilities or even miracles.
The most dramatic? I shredded my right knee, severely tearing my MCL, almost completely severing my ACL, and tearing the meniscus. The diagnosis was made by three separate physicians and an orthopedic specialist. My knee had absolutely zero lateral stability and, if you pushed on it, would swing side-to-side like a hinged gate. Ten days after the injury, I was walking without a limp, had returned to the gym, and my MRI came back completely clean. After showing me the film, the visibly uncomfortable orthopedic specialist simply walked out the room and never returned. (I had to flag down a nurse and ask if my appointment had ended.) Today, I'm running and logging several miles each morning without an ounce of pain, instability or discomfort. No surgery. My knee went from "shredded" to "completely healthy" in ten days.
To science, there's no explanation for the injury and its subsequent disappearance. Religion would tell us it's a miracle. Traditional shamanism looks at it simply as a normal and completely possible part of life.
To grossly oversimplify a tremendously complicated concept, when a traditional shaman looks at anything, they see three different parts of the subject simultaneously - the physical (body), the connections and symbolic nature of the subject (mind), and its energy (spirit). When we turn this three-part perspective on ourselves, we find that we also exist simultaneously on multiple levels. Without some sort of training, these three pieces of ourselves become muddled into a single concept. With training, they are three very distinct entities, layered together into a single being like overlapping drawings on onion skin paper. All we have to do is learn to lift up each page and consider it both as a single sheet and how it adds to the picture when added to the other two pages.
We don't work miracles primarily because we haven't been taught to distinguish between these three pieces of ourselves. It's like approaching a piano and pressing three consecutive keys - white, black, white - in a close bunch. What we get is dissonance. It sounds horrible. To work miracles, what we need to do is understand and honor these individual aspects of ourselves. In our analogy, that puts some space in between our fingers. Then we need to balance the various aspects of ourselves, a process very much like playing a chord.
When we simply mash the keys down on a piano, the musical possibilities before us are tremendously limited. When we begin with a chord, it gives us a key in which to play music. The chord is the foundation of our work; the melody is what we manifest.
Even in traditional shamanic training, the process takes a considerable amount of time to unravel and reassemble. But what if, through some phenomena, the entire transformation could be condensed into a few days? Earlier this week (Secret #4: The Bloodline), we considered the concept that "psychic abilities" would awaken as we drew near the end of the world. This theory is the inspiration behind the title of my second novel, The Awakening (May 13th). Having your identity shattered into three separate perspectives would be a rollercoaster ride, even before those pieces began to pull apart, seeking balance.
In the normal flow of life, our lessons are often painful for us to process. We struggle to embrace new perspectives, to set aside old habits and prejudices, and fight ourselves to embrace our goals and standards. Imagine what it would feel like to have your very reality - from the way you see the world to how you see yourself - rewritten in a matter of days.
[He] began to scream, overwhelmed by the images that assaulted his mind, buried under the roar of countless voices that once more filled his ears. His agonizing cry had begun as a release, a way of blocking out the sights and sounds that buried his senses, the scream a path through the nightmare, a single, constant sensation that he could hold onto, that he could use as an anchor amidst the chaos. But it too began to change. [He] heard himself begin to mouth the words that filled his ears, countless languages spilling from his lips, unable to control his own voice. Somewhere, beyond the darkness, he felt tears of desperation trickle down his face, felt a gentle hand wipe them away. In the back of his mind, he knew that it could only be [her], that somehow, she watched over him. But the knowledge was quickly lost amidst the maelstrom of sounds and visions and [his] consciousness was swept away by a terrible current that threatened to wash away his sanity, his memory of who he was sinking to the bottom of an endless sea of images and voices.
Editor's Note: I've removed the [names] from this passage to keep from spoiling any of the story.
To a traditional shaman, the ability to "work miracles" is as accepted as gravity; there's simply nothing unusual about it. Like any path, there are those who have more aptitude than others, but anyone can work miracles in much the same way that anyone can learn to play piano. A little later this year, I'll be publishing a non-fiction book called, Unfolding Reality: Waking Up, that is designed to lead the reader through this process at their own pace - a journey much more comfortable than that faced by the characters in The Awakening, but just as powerful and effective.
The Awakening (May 13, 2011) sets the stage for A Tide of Shadows (May 2012), which in turn builds to the climax found in Days of the Fallen (May 2013). You can read the first three chapters online for free. The Awakening will be published on Friday the 13th in both paperback and ebook formats.
Secret One: Aleph (May 1st)
Secret Two: The End (May 2nd)
Secret Three: Angels (May 3rd)
Secret Four: The Bloodline (May 4th)
Secret Five: Heaven and Hell (May 5th)
Secret Six: What Does God Look Like? (May 6th) Secret Seven: Working Miracles (May 7th)
Secret Eight: The Four Horsemen (May 8th)
Secret Nine: Small Town Mysteries (May 9th)
Secret Ten: Photographing the Paranormal (May 10th)
Secret Eleven: Blood on the Threshold (May 11th)
Secret Twelve: Find the Thread (May 12th)
Secret Thirteen: How Does the World End? (May 13th)
Three "E"-themed tracks for your listening pleasure... the last by someone you are most likely very familiar with through a different medium.
The Essex Green - "This Isn't Farm Life"
An indie rock band from Brooklyn, New York. When I'm asked to find a song that represents "indie music" this track is one of the first that comes to mind.
Iron & Wine - "Each Coming Night"
Chances are, if you're familiar with the modern folk music scene, you're also familiar with Iron and Wine. If you've never heard of him, Iron and Wine is the stage and recording name of Samuel Beane. Even in a genre that typically pairs exceptional voices with an acoustic guitar, Iron and Wine stands out from the crowd. This is my favorite single.
Minnie Driver - "Everything I've Got In My Pocket"
Yes, THAT Minnie Driver. The actress. She quietly released the album this single comes from and then toured very small venues to support it. The video won't play on Blogger, but you can click on it twice (a link will appear after the first click) to watch it on YouTube.
Imagine that your life has reached its end and you find yourself in Heaven. As your new existence unfolds before you, a person comes up to you to let you know that this is the day that you get to meet God. A thousand questions fill your mind as you think of things that you can ask your Creator. As you contemplate the meeting ahead of you, the person suddenly announced, "God is here," and you look up and see...
What do you see?
During April's "A to Z Blogging Challenge," I shared my perspective of the Tao as it pertains to the nature of the divine.
At its heart, the concept of The Tao is deceptively simple. "The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao." This is the very first line in the Tao Te Ching. This perspective simply says, "Defining something limits it. If you say, 'This is God,' then there are countless things in that definition that your version of God doesn't include. By creating your definition of God, you are limiting how you're willing to experience God."
This perspective is something I embrace in my own path. It is also featured prominently in my novel, The Awakening. As one of the characters explains as they guide a new arrival through the afterlife...
"If God is able to encompass everything you believe Him to be, why do you think that He wouldn't appear differently to both of us? Do you think that if I were white, I would find God as a black man? Of if you were English, God would be an Arab? Each of us sees the divine differently. Christian churches don't often portray Jesus as a Middle Eastern Jewish man with a carpenter's callused hands and a face burnt by the wind and sun."
Looking at the question of God in this way raises more questions than it answers. But why isn't that okay? For the divine to be... well, godly... it needs to be bigger than the mortal perspective. If we can fully comprehend something, then it's small enough for us to completely encompass. That perspective strongly infers that we're bigger than the divine - and I don't know about you, but I find that a very unsatisfactory end to our journey. Sure, in the moment we may find that understanding to be a comfortable thing, but things begin to look differently when seen through the eyes of eternity. Over a single calendar year, each of us grows and becomes more than we were before. Look back over the last ten or twenty years of your life and you'll quickly realize that you are a much different person that you were back then.
Now reverse that process. Imagine that you met God today and completely comprehended what it meant to be the source of the divine. Time moves forward and you continue to grow and change, yet God remains the same as your initial understanding of the divine. How much would you change over a decade of eternity? Over a century? A millennium? Would the way you evaluated God be more or less than it began if the divine remained the same as you grew to understand it on Day One and you're looking back from a perspective that has continued to grow for more than a thousand years?
Spirituality teaches us that we are a fragment of the divine ourselves. Whether you are an old-school Creationist or embrace one of the newer schools of thought, we believe that we were created from divine energy. All of creation is. If you rewind time to just before the Big Bang, when there was nothing physical anywhere for our universe to spring from, we reach a point where the physical realm's laws no longer apply. From my perspective, whatever is beyond the physical is, by definition, spiritual. If this argument is even remotely accurate, then all of reality was created from spiritual material, simply because nothing else existed when physical reality was born. This means that reality is much more fluid than we've ever imagined and that the "divine" is present in every molecule, moment, and possibility. Both traditional shamanism and quantum physics embrace this concept, although it is given different labels by each perspective and framed in different ways.
When I teach workshops in traditional shamanism and spirituality, we have an exercise that I refer to as "The God Game." Paper and pens are distributed to the class and each of us writes down all of the characteristics we see when we consider God. Compassion. Kindness. Strength. Gentleness. It doesn't matter if you believe in a Father God, a motherly Goddess, or simply a divine expression of Spirit - what's important is that it's how you see the divine. After everyone is done making their list, we share them with the class. Each list is unique. Even in large groups, there are never two lists that are exactly the same.
So which list is accurate and correct?
All of them. Each and every list is right.
See, the divine is too big a concept for any of us to comprehend. There are only a handful of us who can understand advanced mathematics and yet there are countless people among us who claim to understand the nature of the divine. What we see when we consider the divine is simply our own sacred nature. When we look at God, when we make that list, what we're doing is seeing ourselves. Remember, all of reality is created from sacred energy. It makes sense that our definition of God is based upon the sacred energy that is always with us, that we are closest to - ourselves. That list is us at our best. Some call it our "higher self;" I like to refer to it as our core. That's why every list is different. God is too big for us to ever comprehend, but if we put in the work, we can reach the point where we can begin to embrace the unique and sacred expression of the divine that makes us who we are at our core.
The reason why people get so defensive about religion isn't because someone is challenging their God, but because the person doing the questioning is inadvertently challenging the believer's perspective of themselves. Extending this concept to its logical conclusion, when one holy person offers those who follow them a single perspective of the divine, a religion is born. It's why every religion is different - yet at its core, they share similar values. Each religion isn't a complete repository of the truth, but the perspective of the individuals who are drawn to that common theme. Remember, the divine is a concept that we aren't capable of fully comprehending. What we see is a mirror of the piece of the divine that was crafted to form "you."
This concept is explored in the version of the afterlife found in The Awakening.
"Like I said, [Heaven] isn't an exclusive club. There are Christian churches here, just as there are places of worship for other religions. No one fights about their beliefs anymore. They all believe their deity is the same, that it's one source of the divine that each religion simply follows in their own way. Paradise is a place of tolerance... You'll have to go to [Hell] to find those that would suppress another's beliefs."
The Awakening (May 13, 2011) sets the stage for A Tide of Shadows (May 2012), which in turn builds to the climax found in Days of the Fallen (May 2013). You can read the first three chapters online for free. The Awakening will be published on Friday the 13th in both paperback and ebook formats.
Secret One: Aleph (May 1st)
Secret Two: The End (May 2nd)
Secret Three: Angels (May 3rd)
Secret Four: The Bloodline (May 4th)
Secret Five: Heaven and Hell (May 5th) Secret Six: What Does God Look Like? (May 6th)
Secret Seven: Working Miracles (May 7th)
Secret Eight: The Four Horsemen (May 8th)
Secret Nine: Small Town Mysteries (May 9th)
Secret Ten: Photographing the Paranormal (May 10th)
Secret Eleven: Blood on the Threshold (May 11th)
Secret Twelve: Find the Thread (May 12th)
Secret Thirteen: How Does the World End? (May 13th)
One of the challenges in teaching traditional shamanic concepts is translating subtle spiritual principles into vocabulary that is common to our culture. For instance, if we talk about having a conversation with a deceased relative on another plane of reality, usually the best we can hope for is an odd look from the listener. However, if we say, "Last night I had a dream about my grandmother," we instantly find ourselves on common ground with the person who is listening to us describe our dream. When I teach, I tend to use simple, easy to understand phrases rather than allowing my ego to present things in a grandiose manner. For instance, I prefer to use terms like "untime" and "tomorrow me" instead of explaining the complexity of non-linear time.
So here's a new word for our common vocabulary: filters.
In its simplest form, filters are preconceived ideas that prevent us from clearly seeing what's in front of us.
For instance, let's say we were bitten by a large black dog when we were a child. Today, as we're walking through our neighborhood, we spot a large black dog wandering without an owner on the sidewalk ahead of us. Perhaps it's a friendly Labrador Retriever. Maybe it's a vicious stray. The thing is, we don't know, but our previous experience has created a "filter" that influences how we see the situation. Chances are we're incapable of approaching the dog in a neutral fashion without first consciously stepping back, disarming our defenses, and centering ourselves.
The concept of filters applies in countless places in our lives. Some filters are beneficial, like the one that tells us, "If you touch that hot stove with your hand, it will burn you." Others, however, needlessly prejudice our perspective, sometimes to the point that we literally can't see something that is right in front of us.
When we approach any spiritual text, not only are we influenced by our own preconceived ideas regarding that text and what it says, but our own bias toward how we see the Divine also filters what we come across in those pages. For instance, if you hold tightly to the concept of a strong, dominating deity, chances are that concepts which present the divine as compassionate, gentle, and nurturing will simply slip by without registering in your mind. Pieces of the greater truth could be right before our eyes and we won't see them simply because our filters - our preconceived ideas, experiences, and prejudices - get in the way.
The thing that surprises me is that our filters also change how we see ourselves.
Who knows us better than we do? Considering that most spiritual paths call for a certain amount of introspection, we typically know our minds, our hearts, and our bodies reasonably well. For those of us who have taken the opportunity to intimately explore who we are at our core, we spend more time critically looking at our own reflection than any other person in our world.
But that doesn't mean that we don't have filters in place when we do so.
And it doesn't mean that we were the ones who put those filters there.
For instance, in American culture, the following picture is held up as an example of the epitome of beauty.
2003 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition
The vast majority of us have been trained to see this image and immediately think "beautiful." Why would we think that? For just a moment, step back, let go of your preconceived ideas, and take a critical approach to the photograph. For instance, look at the model's upper arms. If she were our sister or daughter we'd be worried about her, encouraging her to eat. What's amazing is that there was a time when we would have looked aghast at this particular photo. Not so long ago, we didn't think that this was beautiful. For comparison, here's the same cover side-by-side with the 1994 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition featuring Kathy Ireland, Elle Macpherson, and Rachel Hunter - widely considered to be three of the most beautiful women on the planet at the time:
side-by-side cover comparison of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit covers
Take a moment and look at the women on the two covers. Only nine years separates the two examples of beauty. How many of you think the woman on the left is more beautiful than the women on the right? Honestly? How many of you, when you saw "The Dream Team" from 1994, responded with, "Oh my god, they were so fat," in some part of your mind?
Those instant judgments are an example of filters. Back in 1994, the three women on that magazine cover were considered the height of beauty; now were amazed at how "chunky" those models were back then. We find ourselves asking, "How did I not see that?" What changed? No one went back in time and altered the photos of the three women on the cover. Why do we perceive them so differently now? It's simple. We were given new filters, told that something new was beautiful - and we believed them.
Newsweek recently published a piece called, Unattainable Beauty: The Decade's Most Egregious Retouching Scandals detailing how women's bodies are distorted, reshaped, and changed after the photographs are taken to meet a standard of beauty the is unattainable by any of us - including the models themselves. In the piece, after seeing her retouched photograph in British GQ, actress Kate Winslet was quoted as saying, "I do not look like that, and more importantly, I don't desire to look like that." Ms. Winslet's legs had been extended to make them longer than they were and her waist had been slimmed down well beyond her real appearance.
To understand what goes in to presenting us with "beauty," Dove created their Real Beauty campaign. The following video, directed by Tim Piper, demonstrates what goes into the "beauty" process. This is how the standard of beauty that we're given is achieved. Pay special attention to what happens to the image after the photo is taken.
"Evolution" directed by Tom Piper
This type of photo manipulate is extremely common in the magazine industry. According to their website, DigitalRetouch, Inc. "...specializes in celebrity, fashion and digital retouching for photographic images. Digital post-production can provide a 'nip and tuck'... Our retouchers pride themselves by leaving behind no evidence of their transformations." With an extensive client list that includes GQ Magazine, Oprah Magazine, countless publications and more than 100 celebrities, they are an industry leader in the retouching field. If you visit their site, be sure to click on the links labeled "correction," "shaping," and "manipulation" on the right hand side of the screen to see their portfolio of before and after work changing how people look in photographs. Much of it is adjusting lighting and settings, but you'll be surprised how seamlessly they can make a person taller, thinner, or more closely resemble what the industry thinks beauty looks like. On certain photos, when I moved the slider slowly to observe the sometimes dramatic changes, I was shocked and amazed.
And this unattainable version of beauty is what we're being confronted with every day. These images and ideas of beauty eventually get lodged inside our minds and they change how we see things. They become filters. Beautiful becomes ugly. Healthy becomes fat. To understand how this process works, Mr. Piper created another video for Dove's Real Beauty campaign.
"Onslaught" directed by Tom Piper
If you don't believe that the message is effective at changing how we see beauty, keep in mind that according to the American Society for Aesthetic and Plastic Surgery, Americans spent more than $13 billion on cosmetic surgery and non-surgical procedures (such as Botox) in 2007 alone. That's $13 billion spent to alter the way that we look.
Closing our minds and walking without thinking has certainly changed what we think, giving us new filters. Not only are we spending billions of dollars each year to alter our bodies, but we've given birth to new phrases and new ideas.
Pro-Ana: Pro-anorexia movement for those who have the eating disorder and, as they say, "are not ready to recover." Those in the pro-Ana movement will often wear red bracelets to identify themselves so they can offer each other encouragement not to eat. They'll often trade extreme diets (300 to 400 calories a day, broken by periodic fasts, while working out for 30 minutes five days a week) and support each other on long fasts. (Bulimia is pro-Mia and they were blue bracelets).
Thinspiration or "thinspo" - inspirational material (quotes and images) for keeping one's self thin. An example of thinspiration is something like this:
"Sometimes I am hungry. I'm always hungry. But when I don't eat I feel good. Pure. I feel empty and it's wonderful. I feel so powerful. Like I could fly."
Filters are powerful things. When we hold up an unhealthy image, one that is often manipulated to the point that even the model can't achieve it, people listen. Some of us believe that what we're shown is really the definition of beauty. Some of us try to become what we've been told is beautiful.
This could as easily been about men as it is about women. The pressure to be the confident, brilliant, brave, wealthy, attractive guy with the killer smile, who lasts a minimum of forty minutes in bed, dispenses multiple orgasms like they're Tic-Tacs, and not only finds time for a career, friends, relationships, and outside pursuits, but still somehow has time to go to the gym to maintain his sculpted body and washboard abs is fairly overwhelming from the male perspective. The pendulum is swinging and men are feeling increasingly inferior to the images we're compared to. Ask any guy, "Do you feel this way? Do you feel inferior to this guy in the media?" and they'll most likely tell you, "No." Why? Because if we admit to feeling this way, we're just that much farther from being confident, brilliant, and brave.
We see things the way we do because of filters - preconceived ideas and prejudices that change how we see the reality around us. There's an entire industry that is focused on putting these filters in place. It's why we buy things that we don't really need - even if somewhere, somehow, we think that we do. The work of Edward Bernays established the foundation for our modern political and commercial advertising campaigns. As he explained, "If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it? The recent practice of propaganda has proved that it is possible, at least up to a certain point and within certain limits."
George Lakoff, a professor of linguistics and UC Berkeley explains how words created filters in an article from The Huffington Post. "It's all in the brain. Words activate frame-and-metaphor circuits, which in turn activate worldview circuits. Whenever brain circuitry is activated, the synapses get stronger, and the circuits are easier to activate again."
Images do this, as we see in the case of beauty. Words do this and are consciously used in politics to move people to action and to influence their ideas.
On January 29, 2002, during his State of the Union Address, former United States President George W. Bush used the phrase "Axis of Evil" to describe governments (specifically Iran, Iraq, and North Korea) that he was accusing of terrorism and seeking weapons of mass destruction. Is there really an Axis of Evil? Do they meet in a secret base somewhere under their intimidating logo, plotting to overthrow the world? No. The phrase was coined by former Bush speechwriter David Frum drawing upon Franklin D. Roosevelt's speech delivered on December 8, 1941 after the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. It was originally presented as "the axis of hatred" but Bush changed it to "the axis of evil."
The phrase draws upon the Axis powers of World War II. Words carry power. We are indoctrinated from an early age that the Allies were the righteous and the Axis were the soldiers of nightmares and atrocities almost from our earliest exposure to world history. According to Professor Lakoff, when we hear the words, Axis of Evil, those words "activate frame-and-metaphor circuits, which in turn activate worldview circuits." In other words, we start a chain reaction of filters that influence what we see and how we perceive. Those words were specifically chosen to inspire us to go to war.
It's why we didn't "invade" Iraq or Afghanistan, but are fighting the "war on terror." Are we really fighting terror? Will that particular emotional response be wiped from the human experience when we are finally victorious? No. Those words are intentionally chosen to trigger a response within us. Perhaps the manipulation is easiest to see when you realize that we're told that the enemy has "weapons of mass destruction" while we maintain a "nuclear arsenal." Think about those words for just a moment. "Weapons" implies something that is ready to be used while "arsenal" is a place where weapons are stored, not even the weapons themselves. Ours is "nuclear" which most of us associate with science or energy; the enemy's intention is clear through the words "mass destruction." You will never hear the United States government refer to its own nuclear weapons as "weapons of mass destruction," even though (according to the Brookings Institute) the US has 10,600 nuclear weapons in its stockpile with 7,982 of those currently deployed.
It's the same reason why conservative politicians choose words like "big government" and "socializing health care" when the topic of health insurance for all Americans comes up. After all, we're told that the United States is a democracy. Do we really want to embrace socialism? (Ironically, neither are accurate. We're not a democracy, we're a republic. If you're an American, you do not vote on every law that Congress considers - you elect the members of Congress who vote on those issues). What if instead of Universal Health Care, we stated that we're in "a medical emergency" and right now "The Corporation" will "refuse to allow you to see a doctor" if you're sick or injured? Suddenly people are listening. It's the same reason why we start to tune out when we hear people talk about environmentalism. What if they talked about "community poisoning" instead?
Words are powerful. Images even more so. Both change not only our opinion, but how we think and how we see the world around us.
With this in mind, perhaps the question we should ask ourselves is, "What other filters are we allowing to be put into place?"
Or better yet, "Who are you, as a unique, amazing individual? What are your truths? How do you see the world? What do you believe? Why do you believe it? Are you living your life by those beliefs or are you being influenced by filters that have often intentionally been put in place?"
If you haven't stopped to ask yourself those questions and reach those answers for yourself, maybe it's time to do so.
I originally wrote the core of this piece back on February 10, 2010. It has been expanded for my blog.
"D" contained too many artists to hold to just three tracks... so here are four artists with links to additional songs by two of them.
Antje Duvekot- "Dandelion"
German-born Antje Duvekot moved to the United States when she was 13 years old and currently lives in Somerville, Massachusetts. Known for writing songs that are often deeply personal, she frequently records and performs with only her acoustic guitar to accompany her voice. If I were making a list of my Top 100 Favorite Songs of All Time, "Dandelion" would be somewhere on that list.
Ani Difranco - "32 Flavors"
Sixteen years ago, I was browsing through a store in nearby Portland when I heard this song playing on the shop's stereo. My innocent question of, "Who are we listening to?" was met by a defiant, "You can't have her! She's mine!" At the time, Ani Difranco was a well-kept secret and, unbeknownst to me, being introduced to her music was similar to being told the location of the Holy Grail. Sacred information in hand, I went and picked up Ani's Not a Pretty Girl album and then proceeded to quickly obtain her entire catalog to that point. As her career moved forward, Ani lost my ear, but her first four or five albums are exceptional and the next two after that are very enjoyable. Often described as a mixture of folk and acoustic punk/funk, her music ranges from the folksy "Out of Habit" to the edgy "Shy."
The Decemberists - "16 Military Wives"
Portland-based The Decemberists are best known the track, "16 Military Wives," but I find myself singing their single, "Raincoat Song," more than any of their other songs. The two tracks are a fairly accurate glimpse of the band's range.
Tina Dico - "Losing"
A singer songwriter from Denmark, I love this track for its use of orchestration and dissonant chords to set the mood. It's a really amazing, very unique track. The lyrical structure is sensation and, on top of that, the artist has a beautiful voice.
Portions of my novel, The Awakening (May 13th), take place in the afterlife - locations that we would refer to as Heaven and Hell.
I have an unusual perspective on both locations. My personal beliefs hold that the divine is the very embodiment of love. Now, imagine that "God" takes a vacation and puts you in charge of who gets into Heaven (since many religions have criteria for reaching such a place.) As you're sitting there with your list, your child comes up to you. They've died and are seeking entrance into the afterlife. After checking your list, you find that they don't meet the criteria to go to Heaven. What do you do?
If you're like me, I give them a free pass simply because I love them.
This is the perspective from which I created "Heaven."
Matthias shook his head. "What I'm telling you, is that no one can tell you exactly what this place is, that no one here knows for sure. This city is only one location in a world so vast that it has never been completely explored. I've been told that this is a land of limitless possibilities, that any reality can find a home here."
"So it doesn't matter if I'm not sure I believe in God?"
The old man smiled. "There's a wonderful Jewish temple near the center of the city. Mosques are tucked in a number of corners and you'd be amazed at the number of Christian churches. Pagans are out there in the countryside; you'll find everything from indigenous beliefs to neo-paganism nestled in the valleys, mountains and forests. When you've decided where you belong, then you'll find your home."
So if the divine is love and everyone gets a free pass into Heaven, who goes to Hell?
Those who believe it's what they deserve.
"They expected to be here. Maybe not here exactly, but somewhere like this, somewhere that they felt they could make atonement."
"You can't possibly expect me to believe that they wanted to end up here."
"Your world is all about what you believe," he reminded her. "Only two kinds of people come to this place. Those who aren't happy anywhere else and those who feel they don't deserve anything more because of what they've done."
This perspective on Heaven and Hell is the middle ground between the world's religions. On one hand is the divine that embodies perfect love - which includes acceptance and forgiveness. On the other is a place of horror and suffering, not a final destination, but one where we're pulled by the anchor of our own personal darkness.
If a person isn't condemned forever but merely until they feel they've made atonement - whether that is a sense of having paid a debt or a worthiness to leave the darkness behind - then there must also be a way for those individuals to pass from one realm to the other.
Without giving any of the story away, I included that mechanism in the novel as well.
The Awakening (May 13, 2011) sets the stage for A Tide of Shadows (May 2012), which in turn builds to the climax found in Days of the Fallen (May 2013). You can read the first three chapters online for free. The Awakening will be published on Friday the 13th in both paperback and ebook formats.
Secret One: Aleph (May 1st)
Secret Two: The End (May 2nd)
Secret Three: Angels (May 3rd)
Secret Four: The Bloodline (May 4th)
Secret Five: Heaven and Hell (May 5th)
Secret Six: What Does God Look Like? (May 6th)
Secret Seven: Working Miracles (May 7th)
Secret Eight: The Four Horsemen (May 8th)
Secret Nine: Small Town Mysteries (May 9th)
Secret Ten: Photographing the Paranormal (May 10th)
Secret Eleven: Blood on the Threshold (May 11th)
Secret Twelve: Find the Thread (May 12th)
Secret Thirteen: How Does the World End? (May 13th)
There were simply too many candidates this morning, so here are four "C"-themed tracks for your listening enjoyment...
Cosmic Rough Riders- "Justify The Rain"
The Comic Rough Riders are a pop/rock band that hails from Glasgow, United Kingdom. They've had four singles in the UK Top 40 and remind me (especially on their track Have You Heard The News Today?) of bands from the late 1960s and early 1970s. As odd as it seems in our day and age, there even seems to be the echo of ballads from The Beach Boys in the track "News."
Canadian Invasion - "Pop Magic Fantastical Masterpiece"
An indie power-pop band from Philadelphia...
The Crookes - "Backstreet Lovers"
An indie band from Sheffield, known (by their fans) for the band's romantic lyrics.
Copeland - "Pin Your Wings"
An indie rock band, founded in 2001, that reached the end of its lifecycle in 2009. One of those bands that comes and goes without ever getting their big break.
