the comforter on the sofa is for the cats as it traveled with them to Arizona and back as their consistent comfort-- we all need that sometimes, right?
At night, I've had dreams where I'd wake thinking-- is that it? Is that what life is about? I love those kinds of dreams even the scary ones (and there've been a few of those too). I ask for them. Nighttime is when I can let go of my expectations and the chaos in my head and let whatever comes-- come.
During the day, I also am happy for the experiences -- negative and hurtful or enriching and empowering. I have learned that when I live it as I claim to believe-- it all works better. I think the whole set of experiences is part of grasping what life is about-- which for me always reflects into my writing-- especially of the books.
There are writers, some very successful, million selling writers, who write whatever the market wants. They will literally sell their souls-- okay figuratively-- to be successful. If they know readers want it, they will try to deliver it. There are other writers who have something inside themselves that needs to come out through their words and stories. They will stick to that even if not as successful in terms of money.
So my latest dreams have encompassed events in them, but more important was what I was left with when I woke. Here are the questions with which I've been left to ponder.
In the first dream, I woke thinking-- what if there is no one truth for life? What if how you live, what you believe is how it will be? So you believe life is dust to dust and all biology. You can live it that way and at least until you die, it's how it will be. Or maybe even then. What if we decide that and even then it can be dust to dust.
OR what if you are a wiccan and you believe in learning spells, use of potions, rituals, and maybe even are part of a circle. You live it that way, follow the Celtic traditions, use the incantations (never forgetting that what you put out you get back three times) in responsible ways and it works.
OR you are a Christian/Buddhist/Hindu/Islamist and you live your religion as true to its essence as you can. Prayer is answered. You feel the presence of the Holy Spirit. It works.
Might it be why we end up with so many people thinking they have the truth. We have assumed that there is one truth, but maybe there literally is not. There are many. If you live one of them totally, it will be true-- for you.
There is a limit to this thinking in that you might live it totally for you, but there are still the rules of the earth. You can believe all you want that a tornado is not coming straight at you. Can you really change it? Well the greatest seers, which include the one they call Jesus, who may have gotten his training from Eastern seers, did believe that you could. Most of us never live life to that level of certainty though. And the ones who think they are but are ignoring the earthly consequences as they go, they probably are thought balmy by others. They don't get it either. To have your own truth be literally true, there has to be evidence of a physical nature.
Okay that was one dream; and when I woke I thought of the corollary to it-- that we can do whatever we want but only as we go up the scale of understanding what that means. Rules are made to be broken but not by those who don't know why they were ever there. They can be broken as one grows in understanding of why they exist and why it's best to break them. So disciplined living grows into what appears to be freedom-- but really is about growth in understanding consequences and being able to weigh them.
This fits a lot of the thinking in Christianity which is never actually followed-- or should I say rarely. It's just too easy to follow rules set by an earthly leader and most never get beyond that. But it's not how it's set up-- at least in that one religion.
The second dream fit into the second anthology that I will be writing to follow When Fates Conspire. I have to say that hardly anyone has given the first book a try. I don't know why. Perhaps though books that explore spiritual dimensions within a possible romance just don't suit the average reader in any genre.
But the wonder of writing is you don't have to stop when readers didn't like what you wrote. You can go on and write the next step. That fits with the philosophy above where we live our truth and it becomes true. A writer's truest truth is not that they get a lot of money for what they do. It's that they write their truth as best they know it to be without selling out. I don't want to find any other way to live my life-- as what I write is part of what makes me who I am.
The interesting part for me is the second novella in this series, for wont of a better word, will be how evil impacts us. I am putting it together in my head, but it seemed, despite my own reluctance to think much about evil, it was the next step in what will be a trilogy. Then came a dream...
