Tangled Roots and Broken Bones

While most of my focus these days is over On The Gaia Path, I'm also still working to complete my memoir "Tangled Roots & Broken Bones," a scripted journey of return to the Ozarks, land of my birth, home of my ancestors from the past 150+ years. This has been a remarkable inner adventure, fraught with peril but ultimately rewarding and illuminating. 

Curiously, and quite unexpectedly, my work on this manuscript has traversed a decade of experiences, all of which have impacted me on every level of my being. From ancestry to accidents, from pandemic to death, from sanctuary to political upheaval, life here as bridged one spectrum after another. 

Hopefully, I will soon be able to share portions of my own journey with others through publication of this project that I've wrestled deeply with (and within myself). Partly because I truly desired a process of self-reflection as I revisited early essays ... always with an intention toward healing, peace, and love.

Flying High

Today, I hit that place within creative writing where my excitement for the story suddenly skyrockets. This inner high comes and goes throughout the process for every WIP (work-in-progress), so when the sensation of flying lifts me up, I just enjoy the ebullience.

As backstory, while Book One in my Chantilly Lace series is heading out to some friends for final read-through and editing (the novel will be available for purchase by Christmas), I'm deep in research mode on Book Two: taking notes, sketching outlines, listening for the voices of characters, watching for settings to reveal themselves.

During the writing and research journey, sometimes I fall completely into a scene and quick-as-a-wink I've written a couple thousand words. At other times, full scene visualizations go dormant, but that doesn't mean I'm not buried in the imaginary world I've created. It can feel like puzzle pieces spread in front of me and I know they all fit together even if it takes a while to put them all together. And then - woosh! Creative moments strike without warning - my breath catches, my heart pounds, and I feel like I'm vibrating from the inside out! Today held one of those precious soaring moments!

Write On!

Inspiration From Authors

I don't read nearly as much fiction as I used to before I began writing my own stories. Mostly, I read massive amounts of non-fiction across myriad topics. But that doesn't mean I don't read fiction at all, which is where this post comes in.

A few months back, someone recommended the All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness. I hesitated at first, because I didn't really care to read anymore stories about vampires. Nevertheless, after reading the introduction blurb to the first book in the series - A Discovery of Witches - I gave it a go. And I was hooked! This wasn't your typical "easy" read. In fact, I know readers who won't read it because it is a veritable tome of history and depth (which put them off it), in addition to the fascinating characters and marvelous plot. I quickly ordered the next two books and immersed myself in the world of All Souls.

Why have I been inspired as well as entertained? Not because the author's first attempt at fiction became an overnight bestseller. Not because the trilogy was picked up and made into an online series for streaming. All within seven years from when book one was published, mind you. No, I have no illusions that something similar would happen for me. I'm realistic. No, it was because I felt like Harkness stayed true to herself, to the story she heard within her that wanted to be revealed. Each of the three books is distinctively unique from the others, not just a continuation of the story; the tone and style of each one is quite different. That was inspirational. It returned me to the reasons I was writing my own book series - because they were the stories that wanted to be told through me, in my own way. If an agent and/or publisher picks my books up, great. If not, that's fine, too, I can self-publish. As my younger brother says, "it's all gouda."

My problem? I was getting bogged down by the intimidating rise of multitudes of "book coaches" and related services coming out of the woodwork online and via podcasts who were saying writers have to do this and that and the other thing - including all the media platform complexities - if they ever want to sell their work. Well, you know what? I would love to sell my work, but that's not why I write. I'm lucky in that I don't need to earn a living from what I write; I can write because it's both something I enjoy and feel compelled to do. Anything that happens with the books after the manuscript is complete is simply icing on the cake.

The concrete result of this inspiration? I promptly finished up my own first book in my series, sent it out to solicit agent representation, and began serious work on the second book. I'm enthused again and having loads of fun writing and researching! All thanks to author Deborah Harkness.

When characters surprise you

So, while I'm shopping around for an agent who might be interested in the first book of my series, I became caught up in the excitement of starting the second book. However, as I began writing, my protagonist surprised me by demanding that some of her past and her beliefs be quite different than I had originally conceived! This has sent me on a research intensive because I want to get to know her in more depth and understand what drives her before I get too far into the manuscript.

Part of my research into her belief system involves Saint Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th Century Abbess in Germany. Who knew?!

By the Dark of the Moon

I wrote this fantasy piece quite a few years ago and recently unearthed it. I was struck by how well it would fit into another fictional manuscript that is stirring in my head at the moment (along with a multitude of others), so I decided to share it here while I'm in the process of copying it into a new Scrivener document.

The wet blanket was tossed over the small fire to smother the flame as quickly as possible. Someone was coming, I was sure I heard a footstep crunch toward me from the darkness, and we don't want to be seen.

We weren't supposed to be here, see, the land was off limits, private property, only those dying few who had lots of money were allowed in here. A good heart didn't count for squat among those kind. This land was held and used by The Moneybelts; I heard their ilk were called the something else a long time ago before the awakening, but it's not important anymore. There were still a few privately-held lands of lush forest and majestic mountains, like here, but no one was allowed to visit them except the last remaining strange ones called The Wealthy.

So we sneak in and commune; we are here to celebrate life within these private velds of green. Instead of hoarding Her energy, we honored and gave offering to Her, our Mother Eairth. Oh, these weren't the only green spaces, not by far. We've come a long way since the time of the Enlightenment when the scales tipped and then fell over to rust, the time of the Change when the majority simply refused to do any more work until all creatures and people were cared for and provided with enough. No, these green spaces still 'owned' and gated and isolated by The Moneybelts were few, but desperately in need of ritual cleansing to set free the spirits that lay within, remnants of an ignorant time when people thought bodies were the most important part of Life and so clung to them even in death, afraid to let them go, terrified of letting them return to the Mother as nourishment through transformation.

"I think whoever it was is gone." Cloud's whisper reaches my ears in the silence of the woods, carried upon the shadows of the dark moon night.

We pick up our shovels once more and began digging with reverence, casting prayers upon the elements, talking to the ones who were held confined to this space, afraid to leave because of the energies that bound them to their bodies within the vaults guaranteed to last centuries. Striking a hard surface, me and my friends brush the last bit of dirt away gently with our hands and open the lid of the casket. "Mrs. Miller, you're free," I whisper, and my sisters join me in an ancient chant. We take her bones and all that is left of her body, placing them within a hemp bag to take back to the funereal pyre built earlier in the night. I feel her sigh of relief caress my cheek upon the current of light cool breeze. Climbing out of the grave, I look across the dark expanse defined by tombstones and giant pine trees that rise tall and thick among the old stone markers barely legible, I see the bushes and ferns spreading themselves wild around the maze of once perfectly aligned burial sites where roots and quakes have shifted and lifted them out of their purchased complacency. Hundreds more to go, one at a time.

While we have the legal right to conduct these acts and rituals of liberation, rights provided by the Council of Elders, this compound and those like it remain heavily monitored by the Old Guard who cling to their archaic ways in spite of all that has been accomplished since the Great Shift, and it is said in hushed tones that they are still willing to kill just to maintain control and a semblance of power over others. They are so few now, they're no longer a threat to the greater good throughout most of the world. But here, we are careful not to be seen. No one could imagine killing another human these days, or any living creature for that matter, but these people might. So rather than risk it, one of the initiations into becoming a Priestess of Passing is to slip into the fenced compound and free souls from their prisons.

We know our duty and try to stay focused, but every so often one of us lets slip a nervous giggle. Which is what thirteen-year-old girls are prone to do, after all.

Writing and Perseverance

So most of my family and friends know that I'm a writer. Writing is a primary focus in my life and I take tremendous pleasure in doing so. In spite of setbacks and rejections, I keep on writing because I enjoy the process (even the hard parts of the work) and feel compelled to put the stories and ideas in my head down on paper. I study in alternation with my actual writing, always attempting to learn more about my craft. That said, it's often difficult and even depressing at times to keep creating.

In those times when I'm feeling dejected, I'm relieved that I maintain strong habits for support and inspiration. One of those helpful resources is listening to podcasts about writing; they are an easy way to feel like other people share my pain ... and I can listen while I'm cooking or cleaning or doing other household tasks.

Phew. Okay, that was a long-winded way of getting to the point, which is to share a new podcast that I just found and am delighted with. Specifically, Episode 111 on The Creative Writer's Toolbelt with Andrew J. Chamberlain, titled "Do you know what your book is really about? Cutting through the noise with book coach Jennie Nash."

Nash left me feeling like I really was part of a tribe. She pointed out much of the hard work and obstacles that writers have to overcome in order to bring a complete book into the world, and I definitely felt less isolated. They are similar for any writer, not just the famous authors making beaucoup bucks in their deals with the big publishing houses.

For instance, a ton of people like to write but only a small number of them actually get past writing the first few chapters because it can be terrifying and overwhelming, from the fear of what others might say to the complexity of organizing the material into a coherent whole. And, for Indie authors (whether you shop around for an agent and/or publisher first or go directly to independent publishing), add to that the need to even do all the legwork of visual composition from formatting and layout to cover art and then uploading the product to an independent printer. I'm not great at any of this, but I've done it, not once but six times, with at least five more manuscripts in the pipeline. And those of you out there who are writers, you know what I'm talking about.

So, if you're feeling a bit discouraged and need some inspiration to keep writing, I recommend The Creative Writer's Toolbelt. You'll feel much better after listening!

Lower-Class

I've spent a significant amount of my time these past three years in researching my family history, which includes studying American history. How could it not? Many books have helped me along the way, some of which I've noted previously, and here's another one that rakes the muck from one's eyes: White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg.

BRILLIANT. RIVETING. DISTURBING.

Now, granted, every author has their own agenda when writing a book, whether it is fiction or non-fiction, because each of us is seated within the context of our own lives and culture. That should go without saying, but it seems to be a missing piece of modern dialogue ... so I say it upfront. Nevertheless, I found Isenberg's White Trash riveting.

Using class as the lens through which to view American history opens up an important perspective regarding the society we live in now. It's easy to say "oh, sure, we all know that the poor have been and are looked down upon" but this book brings the reality home in a more visceral and disturbing way. We need to see and FEEL the shadow side of our own history if we want to continue evolving our society for the betterment of all humans, all life.

Most of us were taught the pretty image of the first colonists in Virginia and Massachusetts, those seeking religious freedom or increased fortune. And, yes, they comprised a portion of the early population, although some statistics reveal them as less than fifty percent of settlers. The rest? They represented "England's opportunity to thin out its prisons and siphon off thousands; here was an outlet for the unwanted, a way to remove vagrants and beggars, to be rid of London's eyesore population." These were children as well as adults. The indentured masses were fodder, most of their offspring filled the same niche.

I'm an American mutt with a solid 350-years of ancestral footprints embedded in the soil of this continent. My roots go deep, the bones of thousands of my ancestors are buried here, their blood spilled across the land as they toiled, migrated, gave birth, fought, and died. Many of those ancestors are the ones that the elites and upper-classes would have referred to as white trash, rubbish, rednecks, hillbillies, and more. As time and settlement expanded, I would guess they were often like the individual who "though coarse and ragged in his dress and manners ... at times described as hospitable and generous, someone who invited weary travelers into his humble cabin. Yet his more favorable cast rarely lasted after the woods were cut down and settled towns and farms appeared. As civilization approached, the backwoodsman was expected to lay down roots, purchase land, and adjust his savage ways to polite society--or move on." Unfortunately, many of these woods-families couldn't afford to buy the few acres they had been living on, barely getting by. I can imagine this is one of the reasons my ancestors came to Missouri when it was opened up to homesteading in the early 19th century -- it was their chance to own land, even if some of it was thick woods on rocky ground suitable only for subsistence farming.

For hundreds of years, if one didn't own land or property, you were inferior. As Isenberg sums it up: "The British colonial imprint was never really erased either. The 'yeoman' was a British class, reflecting the well-established English practice of equating moral worth to cultivation of the soil." How is that reflected in our so-called modern society?

This book provides a wealth of insight about the American class system that has been present from the beginning and still exists, whether we want to see it or not. Surely we can do better.

Inside the Trunk

The small, ugly trunk sat squatly defensive in front of me, bound with tattered leather straps and a rusty lock. About the size of my modern carry-on luggage, the splitting wood of the battered chest dared me to brave its dark interior. What was hidden inside? I was the latest in a maternal line of ancestors to receive the gift, though it didn’t look like anyone had peered inside for decades if not a century or more. 

I held an ornate key, in odd contrast to the unprepossessing trunk, in trembling fingers. A coarse braided-hair string straggled from the end of the key. Hesitating, I then heard a voice from the ether of distant time whisper open and read. So I did. 

My name is Damaris. They say my mother killed my sister. They hanged her for the crime of murder. But she didn’t do it. I was there. I was two years old and I saw what happened. But my own life would have been forfeit had I spoken. I knew enough to be silent. The Plymouth colonies in 1648 were not safe for outspoken women, least of all for a girl child. Before I die, though, someone needs to know what happened. Mama said to me our last touch, “Pray remember me.”

Accessing Bone Memory

Martin Shaw, at 2:18 in the video says, in response to writing about what one knows:

“As a writer, I’m interested in what I call Skin Memory, Flesh Memory, and Bone Memory. Skin Memory is stuff you put on a CV … it’s objective. Then you have Flesh Memory and … it’s a little like acupuncture points. They’re the moments in your life when you’ve been really touched by something deeply. Maybe it was an illness, a love affair, something that marked you so that when you remember it, it touches you deeply. … Storytellers, or myth tellers, go deeper … it’s chthonic … it’s what Bone Memory is. … motifs and images that speak directly to your soul … but not related necessarily to anything you claim that happened around you.”

Going Deep

Since the publication of my first book in 2007, I have produced another one every 2-3 years. This timing felt about right, both creatively and situated as they were in my experiences and subsequent research (when needed). However, my latest projects require a lot more research -- at least, I think they do -- which is placing me in an oddly impatient and unfamiliar position!

The novel is edging closer and closer to its end, which means it will probably be the first to make it to publication. I've stopped giving myself a deadline, however, because I keep getting distracted by the other two interconnected manuscripts. Every book I've come across on writing advice states to not be working on more than one WIP at a time. Apparently, that particular suggestion has not sunk in on me.

The current memoir -- let's call it a historical memoir -- is quite a persnickety piece of work. I take comfort in this comment:

"Histories commonly have autobiographical significance as this one does, and like many narratives, it is the result of ongoing research conducted over several years until the authors finally paused to summarize their experience."

The authors, Morrow and Myers-Phinney, are professional historians responsible for the book Shepherd of the Hills Country: Tourism Transforms the Ozarks, 1880s-1930s, a wonderful resource for my own work.

The family history book I'm putting together is directly linked to my historical memoir, and both are going far deeper than I originally envisioned. In fact, they seem to be bottomless sinkholes at this point. This is, however, one of the choices I made when deciding to go beneath the surfaces of culture and the roots of genealogy into the Wilderness Underground. Caves are certainly an apt metaphor for where I seem to be going with my writing.

Words and Meaning

I'm still waiting for the sacred to imbue my writing the way it used to ... before the desert and the monster in my mind scared my heart so. Sacred. Scared. Same letters but switch two of them and, oh, what a difference. So it has been with great delight that I sense the wellspring rising and meaning beginning to emerge through my private writing.

"To the alert person, a golden thread may emerge from any ordinary thing and open a doorway into the metaphysical background of the world. ... Writers follow the threads by writing down, as concretely as they can, what they are experiencing, what they are feeling, what they are seeing, hearing, sensing. Robert Bly describes this, brilliantly, as 'following the tiny impulses through the meadow of language.' It must be done slowly. Carefully. Feeling your way."

This is a different kind of writing than what we usually see in fiction, though even there it can sometimes startle us with its shimmering. I'm going to step into that meadow, with reverence, and open to its sensations and follow the golden threads.

___________
Quote from Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm, the chapter "Following Golden Threads," by Stephen Harrod Buhner.

Its Home On Its Back

This little box turtle (wish I had a good telephoto lens because he or she would tuck its head inside every time I tried to get very close), trudging along with its home on its back, reminded me of travel, the meaning of home, withdrawal when in danger, being hard on one side and soft on the other, and the ancient fable of the tortoise and the hare. Just to name a few imaginings that came up.

And those musings recalled how everything I read, most of which is non-fiction, seems to inspire a story line. Books about our planet like The Dream of the Earth by Thomas Berry to A Tear at the Edge of Creation by Marcelo Gleiser; on society and religion as from Age of Anger by Pankaj Mishra to Evolution of God by Robert Wright; from Reasons to Stay Alive by Haig to Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma by Levine. Not to mention the variety of books on history, psychology, and spirituality.

Then there is the basic review of my own life experiences from divorce to single living, from competing in dog shows to hiking on mountain trails, from moving across the country to making new friends, from learning about natural remedies to falling in love later in life.

Most of the abundance of ideas or themes can be woven into tales that could take place within my fictional series, except that the first book isn't even finished yet. I've dozens and dozens of possible tales. How will I ever get to all of the stories? I guess the simple answer is that I will get to the ones that I'm meant to write. And that will have to suffice. My Muse will have to offer the rest to other people, although I hope she waits until after I've officially discarded them.

A Panorama of Spirit

The Rocky Mountains are my favorite range, its peaks and accompanying valleys never fail to fill me with awe, and have done so for as long as I can remember. The Rockies are the panorama of my spirit.


Nevertheless, I left the Rocky Mountains in my late twenties after a decade of living along the Front Range, a decision driven by my desire to escape from the circumstances surrounding a bad marriage's end. But, even though I then built a wonderful life in Maine, filled with good friends enjoyable activities, and steady work, I missed the West and Colorado terribly. Thus it was that four years later, I returned to Colorado with a dream and high hopes. That dream took me to one of my favorite places: Cripple Creek. To my mind, it's not the most fetching of towns--too exposed and spare of trees for my personal preference, sitting in an ancient caldera and stripped of forest by decades of miners--but there's an intangible something that pulls me in whenever I'm there. Maybe a past life?  

By the time I moved to Cripple Creek in 1994, a lot had changed from the days of my family vacations there (we had been visiting Colorado, regularly, since I was a toddler). It had transformed from a sleepy little relic of Gold Rush days into a chaotic harbor for limited-stakes gambling, one of three Colorado towns approved to do so in 1991. These were not places within Native American reservations, mind you; they were, rather, an experiment designed for and directed toward "boosting economies and preserving the past" -- or were supposed to be. I lived just outside of town, an adventure in and of itself, plus worked for one of the hotel and casino ventures in Cripple Creek for an exhilarating and often daunting eight months.

So what happens when gambling is made legal in a small town in the modern American West? That's just one of the questions addressed in my Chantilly Lace series of novels, the first book of which is to be released this winter. While the town of  Chantilly Lace is a synthesis of several places (some in Colorado, others around the country), Cripple Creek was definitely my initial inspiration for it.

My personal hopes and endeavors quickly fell upon hard times, not once but twice, however, those experiences have not in any way dissolved my peculiar bond with Cripple Creek or tainted my adoration for the Colorado Rockies.

Isn't it strange how a place, a particular landscape or part of the country, can keep us held in thrall no matter what the external experiences may be?