I've been a reader for over thirty-five years. I believe that the written word holds power, and from that power magic is created. How can something that comes from our souls, our imaginations, not have power? Every book I read has the capacity to teach me something or manipulate my emotions or both — that is the power. But the trick with power is to be open to its touch and the changes it will bring. Change even for a moment.well, that is the magic. My vision of heaven is a place full of books and teachers and all the time beyond the universe to learn about the mysteries, and friends to talk them over with late at night over dessert.something chocolaty. Because I believe in dissemination of power and knowledge, I hope to share a little of that power and magic I get from my reading with you and, perhaps, inspire a read or two for you, as well.

His Dark Materials: The Subtle Knife This month I am reviewing the second book in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series, The Subtle Knife.

The Subtle Knife is one of those books that reads fast, but leaves me in deep thought, and in exploration of what I really believe. What Truth do I follow? And what does my Truth bring into existence?

Lyra and Pan’s story continues as they follow her father into another world only to be left alone, lost and on their own in a world devoid of adults. In this world Lyra and Pan meet a fellow wonderer. His name is Will and he becomes their champion and companion.

Have you ever met someone and when you looked back on it felt awed by all the serendipity hapkins that occurred to instigate that meeting? Or thought about how not having met that person would have changed who you are now? I do. I look back at times and think about decisions I made that changed who I became. It may have been as simple as taking a different way to work and finding a small book store full of metaphysical treasures I never knew existed. Once I overcame my sometimes paralyzing shyness and put down my book to talk to a stranger on a train. I never knew his name, but our discussion altered forever who I was to become. The mystery of the universe never ceases to amaze me. Who have you met or what have you discovered during one of these serendipity moments that may not be as serendipity as the Mysteries allow you to believe?

Lyra and Will’s meeting is one of those serendipity events. Two children from different worlds, literally different worlds, they meet in yet a third world. A world devoid of adults where they have to improvise, using their individual strengths and survival skills, and overcome the obstacles their individual paths create. Where they learn to rely on each other and make promises to champion each other’s goals.

While Lyra continues on her quest to learn about Dark Matter, she learns that Dark Matter has a quest for her as well. She is to help Will find his father and solve the mystery of who Will is destined to become.

Lyra’s destiny is intertwined with Wills. Lyra, by championing Will’s search/destiny, creates her own. Will’s destiny is to become the welder of the Subtle Knife, a device that in the right hands can cut through the fabric of the Universe and create doorways into other worlds. By being the destined holder of this great device Will becomes Lyra’s champion and helps her to achieve her destiny.

Will has the ability to cut a doorway and enter into other worlds, but he and Lyra are still themselves - with all their faults and strengths - when they enter those new worlds.

Have you ever imagined having the power to carve a door into another world? I have. There was a time in my life when I seriously desired to leave all that I was behind and start fresh. For all its appeal, I realized that no matter what new life I made for myself, I would still be bringing myself into that life. I realized, eventually, that I had responsibilities to this life I chose, and to the destiny that I strive to fulfill.

In Lyra and Will’s journey, as in all our journeys, there are those that would call them from their path - a path not straight, but twisted and full of obstacles that need to be over come.

I sometimes wonder if that is part of the design of the Mysteries. Purhaps the Mysteries would delight in giving us a straight path into becoming all we could be, but as human beings we refuse to take that path. Maybe our natural doubts and suspicions leave us with a lack of appreciation, unless we take that convoluted path to becoming. Maybe we are our own obstacles.

Then again if it wasn’t for those obstacles could we really become everything we are destined to be? Perhaps we are our own obstacles because we are the only one’s who really know what our destinies are, and what strengths we will need to achieve them.

The Dark Matter, or Dust, that Lyra pursues is that part of the consciousness of the Universe manifested to interact with the Elementals that create and guide the worlds. Each world is different yet the consciousness, the Dust, is universal. That very universality brings it under the suspicion of humanity – is it fundamentally good or evil? I have come to the conclusion that humanity has a hard time believing anything with a consciousness can be neutral. I could be wrong, but even our language divides things into good or bad, black or white, them or us. It seems to take a lot of training to try to see the gray.

I believe life is a matter of fire, air and water manifested within earth - passion, ideas and emotions manifested in the body - and that we use the elements that are us to fulfill our promise to the elements that surround us. I believe that I, we, have wielded our own subtle knife to enter into our world, and that we use the elements that are ‘us’ to navigate with and within the elements of this world. The Book of Shadows says it so very well…

“All we have to bring to the elemental world is our conscious involvement in what is already happening. The elements are always fulfilling our promise to them.” Shadows 2006

The Subtle Knife is a well-written book full of mysteries that pull at my soul and brings to the surface my need to re-evaluate how I interact with the world around me. What is my responsibility to find my own destiny, and then to fulfill it’s – my - promise to the elements of life? What is yours?

I’ve read the book a few times and with each reading I find new revelations about myself. The story begs to be finished. Lyra’s, Pan’s, and now Will’s story is a journey of archetypes. But it is more; it has characters that touch the heart and that created in me such a bond that I cried with empathic grief when Will finds and then loses his father. I felt the chill of horror and fear when Lyra watches helplessly as a Specter captures and drains the life force from a young man. The story is wonderfully convoluted and rich in all those obstacles that make a destiny worth fulfilling, and a story worth reading.

invite you to take the time to read this series. Allow it’s richness of characters and intertwining stories to work their magic on your mind, heart and soul. Share it with a friend, or a child, and take the journey together. A story shared can only add richness to our journeys. Salute!

His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass There is a rhythmic continuity at this time of year that I really relate to… it is as if the world is practicing rhythmic breathing to remain centered in a time of chaotic change.

Over the next three months I have decided to review the trilogy His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. Not only are the books in this trilogy wonderful in themselves they also have that rhythmic continuity that I find so prevalent in the chaos of this time of year.

The first book of His Dark Materials is The Golden Compass. The heros of the series are a young girl named Lyra and her daemon, Pantalaimon, (Pan). Lyra is a wonderfully adventurous and noble child who in no way could be called conventional. The world she lives in parallels ours in many ways, and yet is very unique.

I look around my world and have noticed that Persephone has started her journey back into the arms of her lover, back to the Underworld. I love the fact that Psyche means soul and that her journey is the soul’s journey. I believe that the soul is that spark that demands that I live. It is the thing that is eager for change and experience; it craves life. It is a part of me that permeates into every aspect of who I have been, am and will be. I believe my soul provides that continuity of rhythmic breathing that centers me in a life of chaos, but it is not separate from me.

In Lyra’s world the soul is separate from the person. It is formed as the child is born and it manifests as an animal they call a daemon. As the child grows the daemon can take many forms, shape shifting as the child’s needs and experiences change. When the child matures the daemon is limited to the form that best relates to the child’s personality and needs. One wonderful aspect of this is that the soul has a separate personality and agenda and the child and daemon must learn to cooperate to fulfill their separate needs. Although they are separate they must remain in close proximity to each other or they feel the terror and pain of severing their bond. Can you imagine being soulless? I believe the soul is how we connect to each other. The soulless person I believe would be an emotionless drone going from task to task without passion in any form. I have experienced times when my soul and I had separate agendas and the conflict and agany this created was terrible, but to imagine being without my soul? What a horrible half-life or a type of walking death.

The Golden Compass is about the darkness of human nature that wants to sever our souls from our lives, and those who would push that agenda. It is about learning that those we admire and trust may not be trustable, and it is about trusting ourselves. It is about the journey of a child and her soul learning to be their own heroes. Learning to make the decisions required to live life on their own terms.

Lyra and Pan have an almost idyllic free young life with few restrictions; well, few that they pay any attention to any-way. Lyra and Pan are drawn from their safe haven of living at university, under the supervision of loving if distracted scholars, into a world of kidnapped and exploited children, scientists and witches, talking bears, magic bugs, elegant dinner parties, death, long trips by foot, boat, hot air balloons and dog sleds, and manipulation from so-called adults. As in our world the bad is balanced with the good and they also meet loving families, make some loyal friends, and meet adults who trust children and tell them the truth.

To help them on their journey they receive a mysterious golden compass that can tell the future, and always tells the truth. However, Lyra has to learn on her own the purpose of the compass and how to use it, to prevent others from taking it from her. Lyra learns that by being centered in her heart and trusting in the information the compass provided she could use it to guide her and her friends journeys. Using the heart as a compass-what a concept.

Her own journey provides wounds, but it also provides opportunities for healing. The wounds themselves provide the catalyst for her journey, both in her world and into herself and her own personal growth. It is often true for me that my wounds provide my greatest catalyst for change and growth. Do your wounds catalyze or cripple you? Mine do both, depending on where I am in the growth/healing process.

This month Psyche is directed to go to the Underworld and bring back Persephone’s magic. The Underworld is a place of contemplation, and Persephone’s magic is that of healing. Aphrodite is asking Psyche to go within and heal herself. The Underworld, my inner world, is that place I can go to that will allow me to release what needs to be healed. The trick is, well, what did you expect? There is always a trick when dealing with Gods! The trick is that I have to relinquish control of my own healing process (choke!). Have you ever noticed that when you are initiated into “becoming” or healing they never ask you to do something easy… for once I’d like them to ask me to give up soap operas or liver! Oh, well, the process of healing and becoming was never advertised as being easy.

Lyra and Pan take their journey and they pass Cerberus and the fears that kept them in that imagined world found deep within those fears. What imagined world do your fears create that prevents you from taking your own journey and passing Cerberus? How do you go to your own depths, your unconscious, and find the magic within you to heal? I believe that only through my fears can I enter into healing. My wounds are known, they are safe, but to heal I have to face the fears that healing brings. I have to face my own Cerberus.

The Golden Compass is a wonderful book, a fantastic introduction to a parallel world that is both familiar and alien. Lyra and Pan’s journey has just begun in this first book, but it is a rich beginning. Her story is a wonderful masterpiece of intrigue and mystery. I highly recommend it to anyone. Although classified as a young adult book, its message is universal for all ages. Healing our wounds and our souls is not limited to our youth. For many of us the task grows more important as we age, and opportunities for wounds and healing present themselves more frequently. But sometimes reading a story that makes a hero of the healing journey has the effect of encouraging me to take those steps myself. Lyra and Pan’s story does just that. It helps me go deep and then face my own Cerberus in order to take that healing step. I hope it does the same for you. Salute!

Like Water for Chocolate: “Look at the seeker who is learning an art or offering a service, a naked, vulnerable self who is growing and changing; who is willing to put on the Shaman’s robes and touch the mystery.” Cynthia Jones, Moonshadows 2006.

Have you ever been challenged to do something that you believed was completely beyond your capabilities…and yet you did it? I believe life’s promise is fulfilled by those challenges. I believe life is a growth process and, if I am not challenged to go beyond my capabilities as I know them, then those capabilities will not grow. Life will be stagnant.

This month Psyche is given the task of gathering power in the form of the fleece from Apollo’s golden rams. She must weave a cloak from this power, one that she can wear or take off as appropriate, because “a true priestess, goddess, needs to know who she is - cloak on or cloak off.” (Moon Shadows 2006) Psyche’s challenge inspired me to review Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel. Tita, the heroine, spends her life seemingly without power, all the while learning who she is and how to collect her power. She learns to weave herself a cloak that allows her glorious self, her priestess or goddess self, to shine.

Tita is the youngest daughter of a strong-willed mother. Mother demands that Tita spend her life looking after her. She teaches Tita that this is her lot in life. As the youngest, she must be in service to her mother forever. Maybe her mother thought that, by dictating Tita’s life, she could maintain control over her daughter.

From my cultural perspective I found some of Tita’s challenges almost horrific in nature. Can you imagine being this young girl and hearing your mother dash all your dreams of being a wife and mother yourself? Can you imagine having your soul mate discouraged; watching him agree to marry your sister just to be near you? But in her Mexican culture these were not challenges unheard of. Tita questioned their logic and validity; she is as strong willed as her mother and questions many things. Still, she allows her mother to circumscribe her power, to limit her role to Mother’s Caretaker. Unexpected by Tita’s mother, this limitation is also Tita’s initiation into her full power.

“You need to be powerful if you want to make an impact on the world around you. That is what power is, the ability to make an impact, to influence, to create, to shape reality.” (Moon Shadows 2006) Because of her challenges, Tita grows into her power and becomes a priestess so powerful that, decades after her death, her influence is still felt by her family. Her life becomes a glorious example of personal power and priestessing.

Tita is strong and her mother’s challenges make her powerful. Tita’s mother becomes her initiator, delivering Tita to her power, just as Aphrodite is Psyche’s initiator in our story. Like Tita, many of my challenges have come when others tried to make me powerless, in their eyes and my own. They, too, did not know they were initiating me into my power. Have you ever been initiated into your power by someone’s efforts to render you powerless? What robe did you weave?

Weaving a robe of power comprised of threads called knowledge, or skills, or excellence in knowing oneself…. this weaving is only part of your true power. Skills and knowledge not used or taught are worth nothing. To spend time gathering power of any kind that is never used renders the gatherer powerless. Tita uses her power and uses it appropriately. Instinctively, she uses the four elemental powers and wields them with great skill and understanding.

Moon Shadows 2006 describes the four elemental powers of priestessing that Tita so beautifully illustrates. The first element is Breath, the power to see and say; to use voice and speech as tools to heal, inform, and make whole. Tita uses her Breath to heal those around her. She uses her power to heal those she loves and to make them a healthier family for generations to come. She wields this power to heal so well that she becomes a legendary healer.

The second elemental power of priestessing is Light, the power to illuminate and energize, to lead others to their own discovery, and to inspire and generate life force. Tita uses her love and special vision to see her family’s wounds, and inspires them to change. She inspires her sister to trust her special gifts of music and light. Through that trust, her sister finds her true soul mate. Tita inspires her family throughout her life and after her death; in this too she becomes a legend.

The third element is Soul, the power to empathize and to connect deeply. Tita connects deeply to her family and to the food with which she nourishes and heals them. She connects to the inner source of power within her family and knows which foods are needed to heal their wounds. With her empathy, she gains the strength to accept and triumph over her challenges. This empathy to build bridges between people in her world expands Tita’s legendary status still further.

The fourth element is Being, the power to take action and achieve completion and resolution. This power allows Tita to see her life through to its conclusion. It allows her … no, it challenges her to become the priestess her family needs, one who initiates change in them and in their culture.

Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel is a wonderful novel that allows a peek into another culture and, at the same time, provides tantalizing recipes for the dishes Tita prepares in service to her family. Like Water is also an outstanding example of finding personal power and using that power to change the world. I recommend Tita’s story for so many reasons but primarily because, like Psyche’s story, Tita’s is a metaphor for a life well lived. It inspired me to examine my own life, and how my power is manifesting. It encouraged me to accept a new challenge: to select an elemental form from which to manifest my power.

Eventually I’d like to wield all four elemental powers of priestessing with the grace and dedication of Psyche and Tita. For now I am in service, naked and vulnerable to life’s lessons. I hope you read Tita’s story and when you do, how about joining me for a nice warm piece of Three King’s Bread and an earthen mug of Mexican chocolate, over a shared moment to reflect on our lives? Salute!

The woman who fell from the sky: “Make your cup light and take it to the source. Fill it there. If you are to be priestess or goddess, find that river. Until you know the way to Source, you will endlessly struggle for sustenance.” Cynthia Jones, Moonshadows 2006.

This month Aphrodite asks Psyche to take a chalice and fill it from the river Styx. Aphrodite is asking Psyche to find her own source. Only through finding her own internal resources can Psyche fulfill her destiny. I think this is true for everyone, and I know it is true for me.

Cynthia states in the Moonshadows 2006 book that a heart must be emptied in order to fill, an emotion that stays too long, “wears out its welcome.” If emotions are truly like water then without returning to my source I become stagnant, just like water that sits too long becomes stagnant and poisonous. And all those I care for slowly become poisoned by my stagnant emotions.

Reading is one way I fill myself. It is essential for me to continue to refill my chalice so that I do not become stagnant, but, like everyone else, my time is finite. Psyche’s challenge was to find the source and learn that it was hers to claim. She also learned that she cannot stay at the source. I have learned that the true challenge is to return to the source as needed, to fill myself and then to go back into the world.

I love to read; no I am compelled to read, to collect stories. I know that one of the ways I access my source is through reading, but having access to the source and taking time to walk the path to the river are two different things for me. I cannot put off reading for too long. If I do so I have terrible consequences-lethargy, depression, agitation, discontent.

When I do not have the time to read a long story poetry brings me quickly to my source. If a story is a journey of a million words, then a poem is the essence of that journey. A poem is very vivid and to the point; like a raging waterfall whose magical intensity acts as a conduit I can ride directly to my source.

Joy Harjo is a wonderful writer whose poetry is related to her own search for her source. She is a Native American woman who uses her life’s journey and the stories she collects as the resources of her poetry. Ms Harjo’s poetry collection in The woman who fell from the sky is a wonderful example of taking responsibility for filling oneself from their source and bringing it back into the world.

Ms. Harjo believes that people become responsible for the stories they hear. “The story now belongs to you too, and much as pollen on the legs of a butterfly is nourishment carried by the butterfly from one flowering to another, this is an ongoing prayer for strength for all of us, “ she writes.

Stories, no matter how fictitious, are the truth within life, the life within our strength. Ms. Harjo believes it is her responsibility as a poet to tell that truth and share that strength no matter how hard it is to face. “Truth can appear as disaster in a land of things unspoken. It can be reached by white arrows, each outlining the meaning of delicate struggle.” The Naming

She asks, “If I am a poet who is charged with speaking the truth (and I believe that the word poet is synonymous with truth-teller), what do I have to say about all of this?”

What I love about poetry is that I can pick out one sentence from a poem and hear it speak a thousand stories. The following are quotes from Harjo’s collection of poems that I found to be beautiful and inspiring conduits to my source. I hope you will find them just as inspiring.

“Later she would tell Johnny that it was the sound of destiny, which is similar to a prayer reaching out to claim her.” The woman who fell from the sky. I have felt that pull of destiny, and it does feel like a prayer reaching out for me. Although I do sometimes wonder who is praying. I believe Psyche felt that pull, that prayer or call of destiny, but she learned that only by going to her source could she, and I, find from where that prayer emanated.

“You knew this, as do all musicians when a walk becomes a necessary dance to fuel the fool heart. Or the single complicated human becomes a wave of humanness and forgets to be ashamed of making the wrong step.” The place the musician became a bear. Psyche had to become that wave of humanness; she had to chance taking that wrong step. But only by finding and claiming her source, our source, my source can she, we, I do this and know that dancing to fuel the fool heart and possibly making the wrong step can be done with intentional humanness and without shame.

“The sky is the most obvious direction for saints. The rest of us enter the back door, by way of taverns, lust or the smoke of something religious.” The other side of yellow to blue. I am not a saint; the very idea of being a saint is horrific to me not to mention tedious. I much prefer entering life and the after life by the back door. One of the first things I learned about group dynamics, in family or in organizations, is that truth often loiters on the back porch and not on the façade of the front stoop. But perhaps that is just the Scorpio that rules my chart talking!

I believe that life is a journey of discovery. Some can live that journey despite the restrictions life gives them. Others can “have it all” and yet never live. Joy Harjo’s beliefs are similar, “It is possible to understand the world from studying a leaf. You can comprehend the laws of aerodynamics, mathematics, poetry and biology through the complex beauty of such a perfect structure. It’s also possible to travel the whole globe and learn nothing.”

For all of us on this journey, I would suggest that reading poetry may be a direct path to your source, as it is to mine. Joy Harjo is a wonderful poet and the parts of her journey reflected in her poems reflect the journeys of all of us. Who knows, her prose may even inspire you to pick up a pen and compose a poem about your own journey… lets see… “There was a young woman from Missouri, who lived in a state of …,” oh, well, I think it still needs a little work. Salute!

Blackberry Wine: I recently saw a program on the Oracle of Delphi that explored new scientific discoveries supporting the historical descriptions of the Delphi temple. During the time of the Delphi Oracle, priests and visitors had described mysterious vapors surrounding the Oracle, and experienced hallucinations if they stepped too close to her. The program explained that the phenomena recorded were, in fact, unusual aspects of the volcanic and chemical interactions under the site the temple was built, and that the vapors had hallucinogenic properties that could account for the Oracle's poetic visions and predictions.

I found the program’s attempt to credit the experience while discrediting the Oracle both amusing and sad. I sometimes wonder why humanity struggles so with believing in Oracles, in Divine messengers. Perhaps it’s because spiritual beliefs are held by many as sources of comfort, but Oracles have no responsibility to comfort: they are just messengers. It is up to us to hear the message and respond, or not.

My personal experience is that the Divine is patient and sends many messages by many Oracles. Well, maybe I should say, Divinity is patient for a time, and then the 2x 4 brigade is dispatched, and I have the choice to act upon the gently whispered (or loudly shouted) suggestions, or have a big headache! I call these inspiring moments my “ah-ha” epiphanies. My Oracles, whom I often think of as my muses, call it “gentle persuasion.”

In Joanne Harris’ book Blackberry Wine, Jay Mackintosh, the main character, has his own Oracle, his own muse, and for years he tries to ignore that muse’s whispered attempts to get his attention. Jay has a Divine calling to write. But after writing one award-winning novel, Jay packs his muse’s bags, evicts him and changes the locks on his soul. He continues to write, but while blind and deaf to his divine messenger he never obtains that degree of excellence his muse had inspired. Jay continues to survive by writing, but he no longer writes to survive.

When Jay was younger he had befriended an eccentric magical old man named Joe, who tried to instill in Jay a love of life that would allow him to feel joy and inspiration no matter the hardships or roads taken.

Joe was the inspiration for Jay’s first successful novel, but when Joe disappeared Jay thought the only source of magic in his life had left as well. He believed in Joe, but, despite Joe’s best efforts, Jay never quite believed in the magic.

Jay wallows in anger and self-pity for years until one night in a fit of nostalgia he suddenly decides to drink some of Joe’s homemade wines, “special blends,” Joe called them. Inside that bottle the muses danced and conspired, waiting years for their chance to speak, to send Jay on his destined journey by reminding him of his past. This connection to the past—to Joe—sends Jay on a journey to find his Self and, in so doing, his true calling.

Have you ever put your potential on hold while waiting for a message, or a sign from the gods that gives you permission to do something your soul craves? What were you waiting for an engraved invitation delivered by Mercury on a silver platter? Nice, but, in my experience, not how the gods work. As Jay remembers Joe explaining:

"Sometimes it happens by accident. After years of waiting-for a correct planetary alignment, a chance meeting, a sudden inspiration-the circumstances sometimes happen of their own accord, slyly, without fanfare, without warning. Layman's alchemy, Joe would of called it. The magic of everyday things."

Jay's journey breaks him out of his self-imposed exile from life. It propels him into the world and the lives of others, and they, in turn, bring him hope and a new perspective. Jay makes a choice to live within this new hope and inspiration; inspiration to look for the magic, and the hope of finding it. Jay isn't sure he believes in the magic, but he is willing to look for it.

Do you believe in magic? Can you look around you and see the fairy dust drifting in the sunbeams, or the laughter in your dog’s soul? The potential for magical inspiration in a newly budded flower, or the kid next door as she hangs upside down in a tree to look into last year’s bird’s nest? My ability to see magic and listen to Oracles varies from day to day. I sometimes tell myself I don’t have time to listen and I go through the day with a metaphysical hand raised, covering my eyes so I can’t see the messengers trying to get my attention. And sometimes I attempt to seek out the Oracles, and hope to see Mercury’s engraved invitation on its silver platter.

In my experience, many people refuse to acknowledge that they can see, hear and feel the Divine. I know that I sometimes feel an overpowering responsibility to respond to the Divine and its Oracles. That responsibility can feel like a burden, and that may be one of the reasons I sometimes ignore the magic.

But, like Jay, even when I am ignoring the Oracles I can’t totally disbelieve in the magic. In the process of his journey Jay comes to terms with his relationship with Joe. He remembers many instances that Joe came to his rescue. Like when he is threatened by a local bully Joe gives him a small bag of herbs which he says are magical and will protect him if he carries it. Although, Jay carries that bag with him through many summer adventures he mocks Joe’s belief in the bag’s magic. He cannot, however, ignore that little voice of belief that whispers to his soul.

“And yet the stubborn part of him which wanted desperately to believe just wouldn’t leave the thing alone. What if there was magic in the bag, after all?”

I believe that Magic is a part of life and not in conflict with the rules of logic and physics. Jay has to learn that the journey of life does not always follow rules and expectations. “Travel far enough”, Joe used to say, “and all rules are suspended.” As he trusts and travels with his muse his journey continues with all the twists and turns of the old French country roads he travels in his search for Divine inspiration. Jay comes to the realization that his writing is a Divine gift that inspires him, and enables him to achieve his true calling-an inspired Life.

Blackberry Wine is a wonderful journey of discovery both personal and magical. It is worth reading for the humor and spiritual insights alone, but also for its affirmation of the mundane magic in life. Joanne Harris’ novel emphasizes the variety of Oracles that abound in the world around us, and how their influences can expose the magic that surrounds our lives. So drink deeply of a copy of Blackberry Wine, savor its full-bodied richness as it flows into your soul and salute the magical journey called Life. Salute.

Stones from the River: Doubt entered Paradise, and with doubt came challenges, and with challenges came –choices, and choices became challenges. Each choice begat another challenge and another choice: a cycle within a cycle within a cycle.

In Stones from the River, Ursula Hegi chronicles a life: a life of challenges and choices. Her main character is Trudi, a Zwerg, or dwarf, born at the beginning of the twentieth century in a small German village. The story follows her life of challenges and choices from pre-conception through her late thirties. Yes, pre-conception, because isn’t jumping into life a challenging choice in itself?

I like stories that cover extended periods of time, because I can look back and see how one choice led to a new challenge and new choices. I was never any good in history in grade school until I had a teacher who took history away from the battles and politics and brought it into the lives of those who lived through the period. The lives of the mothers who lost their sons or husbands, the life of the soldier who came home missing a limb, the children left behind … this, to me, is true history.

Stones from the River is a work of fiction, but only in that all stories are fiction and all stories are true. Historically, the references to WWII, the Nazis, and the persecution of not only Jews, but anyone who did not conform to the ideals of normality, and the underground that rescued those that were persecuted, is quite accurate.

But there are more reasons than that to read this book. I spoke of stories being magical because of their ability to create change in ourselves and, therefore, in the world around us. Trudi’s story of quiet epiphanies and profound changes emphasizes the spiritual growth in the mundane aspects of living, no matter how unique our experiences.

Trudi is a dwarf; she was born with obvious differences that were apparent from her first breath. She had to learn to adjust to her differences and to love herself because of them, not despite them.

“She saw Pia wrapping her arms around herself, rocking herself, giving her words, which—until now—Trudi had not understood: “Some day you’ll remember this.” Slowly Trudi raised her arms, hesitating before she brought them around herself as far as they could stretch. What else had Pia said? “No one but you can change that.” They’d been talking about that dreadful loneliness that comes from believing there’s no one else like you. Trudi felt the solid shape of her body, held herself—careful at first, then exuberant—as she rocked that body in her arms, claiming it as hers.”

What is “being different”? What is “normal”? What exactly does that mean? Why do we celebrate some of our differences and despise others?

Trudi couldn’t accept herself as normal. She learned to manipulate those around her with their perceptions of her. She used the power of stories and the power of misconception to help her to survive. A Gestapo officer asked her what it was like to be a Zwerg. Trudi sensed that her story would determine whether she lived or died.

She told a story of a man with his heart on the outside of his chest and how it always kept him apart. He fell in love.

“People would not let this man forget about his heart. They’d look at him with pity, with interest. But that’s where they made their mistake—by assuming that, just because they saw the swelling on his chest, they knew what it was like for him to live with his heart outside his body. And that … that is where the secret lies.” “He let them assume.”

People assume; they assume that they are normal and that everyone else is different. Trudi acknowledges her own uniqueness and differences only after becoming aware of the differences of others through the trauma and upheaval of her life growing up in that small German village in a town of people who prided themselves on being normal. A sad phenomenon of people thinking that they are normal is the ability to make others into outsiders.

“For Trudi, it was amazing to discover how many reasons other than size could turn you into an outsider—your religion, your race, your opinions. Enemies could endanger you with rumors; friends might involuntarily destroy you by repeating something they’d heard you say.”

Stones from the River, in some ways, reads like a biography of personal growth, not only for Trudi, but for her community. It is a story of lives created from choices and the challenges that those choices created.

Trudi collected stories, and her reasons for doing so changed as she matured and grew emotionally and spiritually. Her creed became to preserve the truth: to face life in all its uniqueness, beautiful and ugly. In Psyche’s story, we learn that her creed would be Reason, Choice, and Challenge. Challenges that will enable growth and challenges that will allow us to turn knowledge into wisdom.

Life is a series of choices. Some are made consciously; some are not. Can you imagine consciously dedicating yourself to a life of reason, a purpose or vision? And how often have you strived to obtain that vision, only to realize you were there?

“The closer she looked, the more she saw, and the more she forgot herself and her pain and became part of something she couldn’t define as if, by getting closer to a smaller world, she had found a larger world…. Yet, all she needed was here, already here. Pia had been right—this was where she belonged….”

Stones from the River is a work of fiction, a story. Nothing less, but everything more. We live as stories, and our story affects the stories around us. Like drops of rain in a still pond, each drop rippling out and over the ripples of the drop next to it until a wonderfully complex pattern is created. That is the pattern of life. Overlapping rings are created by our choices, radiating out to touch those nearest and then beyond.

 Stones from the River is a well-written book and interesting from a historical point of view. It also chronicles the consequences of choices made by Trudi and her community. I like that. I sometimes forget that there are always consequences to choices; they’re called challenges. This book helped to remind me of the consequences of choices and the need for me to be responsible for my choices … and, if possible, to make them consciously so that I may delight in them, or at least view them with compassion in the end.

Godless: Psyche invited her sisters to visit her in paradise and they initiated her with doubt. “How do you know he is the god of love?” “He could be a monster.” ”How do you know?” Her sisters’ questions were ones that Psyche had asked herself, there in that unquiet corner of her soul where doubts wait until we are ready to hear them.

Doubt is one of man’s greatest initiators. It is pivotal to our history and to our development. Could any force of creation create humanity and not expect it to have its doubts?

Psyche’s doubts led her to light the candle, thus beginning her journey to becoming a goddess. Have you ever had a doubt that led you into becoming something no one expected, not even yourself?

In the novel Godless, Pete Hautman’s main character, Jason, was raised Catholic and goes through his own doubts as a teenager. He begins to question the existence of everything his family holds in reverence. Jason expresses his doubts openly, but is ignored by his family and elders because he is considered too young and foolish to be able to think for himself.

Have you ever had doubts that led you to your convictions? And were these doubts ignored when you expressed them, as if by ignoring them, they would go away? I have, and like Jason, I must admit that there were times when I stated my doubts deliberately to rebel against perceived authority. I was known in my church as a “problem” and was told that I questioned things too much. When I was accepted into a private Christian college, my minister stated that he hoped that they could get me to conform to their ideas of womanhood. They didn’t. In fact, it was at that college that I found another road that eventually led me to Diana’s Grove.

Jason doubted the existence of god; like many people, he wanted proof. Wouldn’t proof be great? But if we had proof, where would faith be in the equation? Faith is given to the unknown. If faith were given to the known, wouldn’t that revelation change the concept of faith? Jason seriously considers this when his friend Shin questions him on faith…

“I don’t have to be a believer to be serious about my religion.”
Shin asks Jason, “How do you know it’s not true if you don’t believe in it?”
“I… Huh?”
“How can you understand something you don’t believe in?”
Jason replies, “Shin, that doesn’t make any sense. That’s like saying you can’t understand leprechauns unless you believe in them.”
“Do you understand leprechauns?”
“I don’t believe in them.”
“There you go.”

In Godless, Jason decided that god was made up, along with some impressive propaganda. So he decides to make up his own religion. He does it as a joke, but as with most gods and most jokes, it takes on a life of its own.

Jason decides that since god was made up, then anything could be a god. During an altercation with a school bully, he has an epiphany about water being the source of all life. Therefore, the Ocean is the giver of life, and that the town’s water tower is a demigod, which he calls The Ten-Legged One. He jokingly expresses his ideas to his friend Shin one day when they are pod hunting (snail hunting).

“You’re saying the water tower is God?”
“Think about it,” I say.

Shin does…

“I can’t prove you wrong. I mean you can’t prove a negative can you? Like you can’t prove that God doesn’t exist, and you can’t prove that the water Tower isn’t a god. Besides when you get right down to it, it’s a matter of relativity.”
“It is?” I don’t always follow Shin’s logic.
“Sure. God is relative. As far as the pods are concerned, I’m God.”

Jason continues to present his new religion to his friends, to whom he assigns offices and titles. Soon he has several followers. Yet Jason does not recognize that he is his friends’ initiator. He considers his religion a joke, but to his friends it is much more. It is their path to finding themselves.

The path of an initiator is a lonely one. Few recognize their role and fewer still accept that responsibility. Have you ever been an initiator and “suffered” the consequences? Have you initiated people into finding themselves, only to be left behind as they took their own journey? The path of an initiator can be lonely, but it leads you to your own path as well.

My father sighed and sat back, “You think you’re an atheist, then?”
“I’m not sure what I am.”
He looked at me for a long time then. I think it was the longest he has ever looked at me without saying anything. Finally, he spoke.
“I’m sorry to hear that Jason.”
“Why?”
“Because it means you’ve got a long, lonely road ahead of you.”
“It’s my road.”
“You're right about that.”

The Hanged One of the tarot was considered a heretic because he saw things from a different perspective. Jason is considered a heretic by his small community, but after initiating a religion that gets out of control he is finally recognized for being an individual.

It is so much easier to be a part of the masses and fade into the background. I took this path for many years, but I could never give up my doubts. They followed me into every aspect of my life. They worked on my unquiet soul until the waters churned and from this I was initiated onto another path, a little water-logged, but anxious to get aground!

I met a Native American storyteller years ago who kept me riveted with his stories. He said that in Native American culture, all stories had a mora,l and that the same story had to be diverse enough to have a different moral for people at different stages of spiritual development.

Godless, by Pete Hautman, is one of those stories. It is listed as a young person’s book and has won many awards, but it conveys a variety of moral lessons and questions to those who read it. It is well written, and I would recommend it to anyone who has ever questioned their faith and had that questioning lead them to their own paths.

or those who have taken that long, lonely road, whether or not you have found your leprechauns, I believe that you will enjoy this book. It brought me some poignant memories of my first attempt to find my road, and it allowed me a moment to bask in that nostalgia of innocence that precedes the first doubts. With innocence come doubts, and wisdom comes with following these doubts wherever they may lead. So, all of you jaded innocents, take a moment to remember that first blush, that first trail, that has led you to who you are. Take a moment to visit that youth in you who still exists no matter how many roads you have traveled. Take a couple of hours and read Godless.

American Gods: In the March Mystery School story, Psyche blindly follows Eros into paradise. He asks her to surrender all her fears and her questions, entering into a covenant with him in blind trust. In return, he promises to give her entry to Paradise.

Paradise?! Could I have given up my world, family, love and trust so easily to someone else, even to a god? My ego says that I could not, that it would be a stupid move that would have dire consequences. Yet in my deepest soul—in that corner that is liberally covered in dust and cobwebs because I don't want to examine it too closely—I hear a snort! A disbelieving, amused, disdainful "Oh, you're not fooling anyone, not even yourself!" snort.

What hides in that corner is the oldest, most honest part of my soul, that part that rolls under my skin and in my belly when I know I'm trying to lie to myself and that it is time to face the truth. That snort was heard throughout my reading of American Gods. I must admit I can at times ignore the rolling under my skin and in my belly, but I have never been able to ignore that snort! It irritates the Devil out of me, and I get a little confrontational-only to be confronted with myself.

As I said, American Gods prompted many "snortful moments" that caused me to question myself. How often have I given blind faith and trust to someone or something so that they, or it, can make me feel better? How often have I signed a covenant with myself or with another, without taking the time to consider all the possible consequences? How many times have I been willing to give up who I am—my questings, my love, my soul-in response to someone else's offer of "paradise"?

The disillusioned hero of Neil Gaiman's epic journey is Shadow, a young man who must come to terms with his love's betrayal (and return from the grave). He must also come to terms with his own betrayal—as he perceives it—of all that he cares for and all that has cared for him. After his wife dies, Shadow is approached by Mr. Wednesday, who offers him a job as long as Shadow does not question what is asked of him. Shadow's only stipulation is that he will do nothing that will send him to prison. But prison was not what the gods have in mind for Shadow, at least, not a prison of metal bars.

As Shadow keeps his covenant with Mr. Wednesday and travels with him, he meets extraordinary characters who embody endearing but humorous qualities, and who have a remarkable capacity for reacting with nauseating psychopathic behaviors. In other words, Shadow encounters gods. and a few American legends.

Shadow is guided through his journey by his dreams. He struggles to accept what is happening to him, and tries to regain his personal authority. His dreams tell him that to do so, he must believe.

It is in his dreams that Shadow starts to accept what his subconscious has been prodding him to believe: that many of the characters who currently inhabit his life are actually gods. Gods created by faith, and now dying from apathy and lack of worship-good, old fashioned gods like Odin, Bast, Thoth, Anubis, Czernobog, Easter, Kali, and newer gods such as Media, Drugs and Techno-boy.

Shadow is confronted with and made to question so many of his beliefs-beliefs about gods and legends and creatures of all kinds, and about humanity and himself. He begins to ask: how are gods created? What happens to them when they no longer have anyone to worship them? Can they die? Where does the true power lie.with the gods or those who create them? Who should take responsibility for the havoc the gods create.the gods or those who conjured them?

Shadow learns that belief makes a god. Belief makes a god and it gives gods their power. He learns that, when you give up something to another, you are worshiping it. That is a scary concept when I think of what I have believed over the years. I wonder: what kind of gods have I worshiped? What gods have I created?

Belief, Shadow learns, is what creates gods, monsters and legends; these children of the imagination travel with those who believe, and they take up residence, and they survive long after their believers have died. These entities, the children of our beliefs and imagination, grow and evolve after their parent's death. Just as biological children continue, independent of their biological parent, our creations, be they god or monster, continue independent of their believers. They grow and evolve; but, like our biological children, they do eventually die.

Our history is full of dead, nameless gods. The walls of caves are covered with their essence. The waters flow over the bones of their altars. But the gods are dead. Man has religion for occasions of death. What do the gods have?

Through his own humanity, Shadow begins to understand the fears of these mortal immortals, and learns to respond to them with compassion even while taking back his sovereignty.

At the end of this book, I found myself asking: who creates whom? The gods who believe in us, or we who believe in the gods? Do we co-create each other? If so, who has the power? Does it matter? I, myself, worry about what gods I helped create. Yes, I know Thoth and Anubis and Odin and White Buffalo Woman; but I also know the gods Media and Techno-boy.

The old gods were worshiped with sacrifices of food, animals, and people. What do the new gods demand? Only time and money? Time and money are food and relationships and life itself. I have sacrificed my finite time and finances and have given it to Media and Techno-boy instead of spending it with those I love. Have you sacrificed anything to your own special god? Who are those gods? Can you name them? What gods do you truly worship? What covenants have you made in blind faith, in exchange for a promise of Paradise-only to find you gave up who you are and sacrificed what and who you love?

The book American Gods makes a covenant with the reader to provide several hours of rest, relaxation, and amusement. You will find old and new gods pitted against each other in a battle for the finite resources of faith, belief and time. This amusing tale explores the problems god-like mentalities can invoke in the life of one (or more) mortals when they become aware of each other's existence. Yes, Gaiman's novel keeps its covenant, and is a very good story in and of itself. But it will also provide intriguing challenges to inquiring minds to re-evaluate their beliefs. In this story, the gods had an agenda, and it involved me! Or rather, it involved Shadow—not me. The gods would never dare to assume they could impose their will on me! No, Nope, Never. "Snort!"

The Lovely Bones: The theme for January Mystery School is initiation and death. I've been a Diana's Grove Mystery for seven years and a nurse for ten. From that experience, I know that there is nothing that affects our lives more than death, and nothing we try to ignore more than its effects on our lives. So, the book I decided to review this month is The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. Ms. Sebold's creativity in the story line, and its ability to inspire the need to contemplate ideas of life, death and the "Inbetween," were masterfully woven.

The story is that of how the murder of a young woman – a child, really – affects her family, community, killer and herself. Her name is Susan, Susie. She is everyone’s child, parent, friend…or that person you never spoke to in school, or at work, but suddenly noticed was missing from your life and you know things will never be the same. How that unimaginable loss intertwines in our lives and becomes part of our structure; becomes a part of our bones.

My life has been one often touched by death both personally and professionally. I have lost family and friends, and by being a hospice and geriatric nurse. I have learned a lot about life from the dying, and when I retrace my life I have to acknowledge that Death has been my initiator, my mentor. Because of this I consider myself a child of Death.

However, I view Death from the standpoint of the living. Knowing how it affects my life…tracing its patterns through my choices and who I am and will be, well, that is my decision in my awareness that I am Death’s child. But The Lovely Bones is about life through the soulful vision of the dead. The murdered child Susie tells this story of her life, death and afterlife from the place she calls the Inbetween. She spends years watching her family, community, and killer; piecing together her influence on their lives. “Who could have known how my death would change the world in so many small ways?” Her story is told with nostalgic humor and true horror, but always with compassion. Compassion for those left behind and for her.

 One of the most heart-rending themes in this story is that the dead regret what they missed. How can the soul go on if it has regrets? I find I cling to my regrets like weighted life preservers. Can I really let go of anything if I hold onto my regrets? Can you?

Her Inbetween mentor tells Susie, “When you stop asking why you were killed instead of someone else, stop investigating the vacuum left by your loss, stop wondering what everyone left on Earth is feeling…you can be free. Simply put, you have to give up on Earth.” Simply put, to soar free, Susie had to let go of her life preserver. But if you never experienced letting go how do you do it? Susie died as a young girl who had not experienced true letting go. To be free, her soul had to experience this release, and the only way available to her was through watching and being with her family, friends, community, and even her killer.

Susie finds that the Inbetween isn’t static…it is as full of life and growth as life itself, and as her soul grows she begins to understand that her freedom also frees the living. “When the dead are done with the living…the living can go on to other things.” “When the dead are done with the living….” When ARE the dead done with the living? Do they leave because we, those left behind, have integrated their loss into our bones? Or do they leave because they have integrated our loss into their soul? Does it matter? Do we notice when they finally leave us and, when they leave, is it forever?

This is a powerful story. Heart-warming, full of smiles and tears. A story of compassion, forgiveness and redemption. I do not believe anyone reading this book cannot be affected. Cannot read it and ask about what they believe, or to imagine their Heaven, or to think about the legacies they received from those who left them behind, and the legacy they will leave behind.

How has Death been an initiator in your life? This is not a simple question. In life and death there are no simple questions. If followed, questions have a way of twisting and turning, winding down, burrowing through your skin into your bones; and the answers have a way of changing. Frustrating? Perhaps, but what a ride!

This is her story – Susie’s – and their story – the story of the dead and their coming to grips with what they left behind. It is about the growth of the soul, not through its death, but through the understanding of its influence on others and others’ influence on the soul. And it’s our story; the story of those left behind; how we incorporate the dead’s life, death and after-life into our existence.

“These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections – sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent – that happened after I was gone…. The events that my death wrought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous body had been my life.” When I think about those who have gone I can trace their bones in who I have become. This quote is their epitaph, and I can only hope that it will be mine as well; that my death will become some lovely bones, of which the future is built.

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