Enacting Consciousness
Ascending Dimensions
Igniting Creativity
Grounding Down
Retreat from routine with an easy art project and soothing cup of tea in this carefree 2-hour session.
Imagination meets spiritual connection in this enlightening 11-session course.
Ancient wisdom meets quantum physics in this fascinating 9-session course.
Who we are and how we found Thrivival.
How to connect with us.
Symbolized by the tetrahedron, aligned with the sacral chakra, and governing the universal Law of Gender, Fire ignites our powers of creativity.
Expressed through art and sexuality, Fire inspires us to engage our imaginations with passionate enthusiasm.
Like light, creativity, and communication, fire is a contagious energy that ignites collective values and embodies abundance by expanding through sharing. Fire gathers us to warmth and companionship. It soothes and mesmerizes us, in dancing flourishes of flame and swirling smoke.
To our ancestors, at the centre of every camp and village, fire gave warmth in the coldness, light in the darkness, and nourishing sustenance daily. Most importantly, fire invoked the great, intangible lesson that sharing it by extending it to others, rather than diminishing the quantity or quality of the fire, actually created more and ensured that the vital resource would not be extinguished.
The Dragon Book is a work of fiction in progress, intended to both reflect and inspire a new reality. The time for dystopian stories has passed. We need a utopian story, a story to focus us optimistically on what could be—this is a conscious act of Visionary Activism.
A very condensed version of my short story, Anni Annihilation, as published by BluePrint Magazine.
We learned Newton's Laws in School. But, what if there's more to reality than physics? Join me at my new Seven Universal Laws course!
Has your creativity flourished or stagnated? Would you like to explore new possibilities, change perspectives, recharge your spiritual batteries, and awaken your creative genius?
Thoughts of gratitude and appreciation upon winning 1st prize in the Adult Division of the Dorothy Shoemaker Literary Awards Contest.
“My name is Genevieve Harris. I’m eleven years old. And I’m an oddity. I see things that other people don’t see. I see energy.”
Have you ever completed a task automatically, with unconscious ease, as if on auto-pilot—as if the information is being fed to you rather than formulated by you?
Several years ago, after watching a documentary about a child who believed he was a reincarnated monk and returned to monastic life, I wrote a short story called The Littlest Monk. Then I buried it with other neglected files. Several months ago, I reincarnated the story and edited it fairly extensively with the intention to illustrate and publish it. This morning, I completed some "informal usability testing" by reading it to a class of Grade One students.
My writing focus has flitted from scene to scene, era to era, based on my mood and interest at any given moment, as well as the accessibility of information required for historical accuracy. I’m currently focusing on a section that takes place in Kitchener in the spring of 1954. Here, I’ve outlined some of the legwork that has gone into defining it.
Names have symbolic power—personally and politically. Here are some interesting details about names as they play out in history and in the novel.
Last summer, we cleaned out the loft of our barn and found some forgotten treasures, included a book called Cordelia and the Enchanted Forest, which I had written and illustrated as a project in high school. My girls, ages 9 and 5, found the book suitably enchanting, leading me to consider resurrecting it.
Or “The Distractions & The Research”: Have I made any progress on my book since my last digest, you ask? Yes, despite the distractions, I have! Life By Fire will soon branch out into a couple of directions that require accurate historical details. To that end, I have been diligently Googling, emailing, calling and haunting various libraries and universities. Here are some highlights.
I’ve read a great deal about the value of Interval Training in exercise and highly recommend it (despite rarely doing it). For instance, if one runs (which I don’t, if I can help it), interval training would involve alternating between short, intense, full-out sprints, and slow, steady recovery jogs in one training session. I’ve realized that the same habits that I’ve applied (or haven’t but should) to exercise also apply to writing.
Propoganda Video: Brazil At War 1943 From the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs. This American video praises Brazil for joining the Allies and declaring war against Germany, endevouring to show Brazil's similarities to...
1942: Dreizehnlinden / Papuan, Santa Catarina, Brazil: In August 1942, a single German submarine sunk five Brazilian vessels in two days, causing more than six hundred deaths and leading Brazil to declare war on the Axis on August 22, 1942. That’s when the war truly reached Dreizehnlinden, forever shifting its foundations.
1939 – 1942: Dreizehnlinden, Santa Catarina, Brazil: No sooner had the stalwart community of Dreizehnlinden established foundations, than political unrest and natural disaster combined to shake them to the core.
1933 – 1939: Dreizehnlinden, Santa Catarina, Brazil: By the time Gisa grew old enough to go to school, the rudimentary communal barracks had transformed into small neat houses and productive farms, and the settlement of Dreizehnlinden into a community complete with a church and a store, as well as a school.
What to do when the historical details I need are not readily accessible? Allow my current inability to check historical facts to bring my story to a screeching halt just as it was starting to pick up momentum? Or plough ahead, imaginatively filling in the gaps as best I can, with the intention of editing for accuracy later?
Occasionally, I half-awaken around 3am and toss-and-turn as my mind churns over creative solutions to my next chapter’s dilemma. Sometimes, the solutions still sound inspired in the morning and sometimes they fall flat.
Situated in the Magic Realism genre, I wrote this short story in 1999. It was inspired by the foreboding inscription over the entrance to a gated cemetery in Catanduva, Brazil, the town in which I lived as an exchange student in 1990-1991.
The post “Forethought” marks the beginning of the story “Death by Water”, within the story “Life by Drowning”, to which I alluded when I called this a “multi-dimensional novel”. Although Gisa Catarina Gärtner and the Gärtner family is fictional, the setting is real and the historical details are accurate to the best of my knowledge. Here are some background details.
Gisa Catarina Gärtner was born at sea on October 5, 1933, halfway between the province of Tirol, Austria, and the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil, thereby becoming the youngest of 91 Catholic Austrian emigrants headed to found a new colony in the New World.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009: My curiosity over the letter’s origin turns to obsession. Who could have written such a letter and under what circumstances? The question rests on my pillow, and the letter under it, as I drift off to sleep that night.
Monday, July 20, 2009: In the days that follow, I carry the mysterious letter with me everywhere, pausing often to re-read it and re-examine the envelope.
Thursday, July 16, 2009: The year transpires much the same, one distraction to the next. By day, I split myself in two—half domesticated mom, half professional businesswoman—accomplishing neither whole-heartedly. Perpetually fatigued and scattered.
The book post entitled "Phoenix Slouching" introduces the novel’s first reference to an extraordinary event, occurring in an otherwise mundane existence and places it within the genre of Magic Realism.
In the novel post "Phoenix Slouching", I reference this poem by William Butler Yeats.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007: I awaken to the offensively chipper chatter of morning show hosts from the clock radio at my husband’s bedside. Pulling up my knees, I withdraw deeper into the dark, warm covers and lift them over the back of my head, relieved when he hits “snooze” and heads to the bathroom. A ten-minute reprieve.
