Beyond Time Book

I’m in countdown for finishing up the first draft, and it’s very emotional.  I have to lie down and rest as the characters are all converging and ramping up for their rather emotional tempestuous arcs and curves. 

 Me too, as I wind up all those pages of what I often hesitate to call writing and as I contemplate that mightiest of all tasks - rewriting.  Even more daunting than creating out of whole cloth previously non-existent characters with their unique stories.   

The most daunting character is Winnie who is now at the brink of recovering her memory many months after she suffered amnesia when she got caught in the North Tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11.  To refresh your memory on what I’m writing: Winnie, main character  only remembers the past which comes through hypnotic regressions, dreams, nightmares, and bits and pieces and deja vu of her waking hours.

  That past includes provocative memories, some centuries old, and some as an observer of historical events of epic level familiar to the world at large.

Hi everybody,

decided to take the blog off pause after long hiatus and my apologies to those who had posted replies to various posts and were never published.  Most of them landed in the spam file and I never thought to check to see if the categorization was legit.  Have not been as zealous and consistent with my writing.  I have a million excuses, but I’m sure you’ve heard them all before. 

I think you’ll find the following post quite interesting.

 MISSION TO MILLBORO

is the name of a book published by ARE Press about a group of people living in Lake Elsinore, California, who remember a lifetime together in Millboro, Virginia during the Civil War.

It began when one woman kept hearing a man’s name repeatedly in her head, a name which was unfamiliar.   Curious and perplexed she sought out the services of a hypnotherapist by the name of Dr. Marge Rieder to undergo hypnosis to determine why.  What she discovered was the name she remembered, John Ashford, turned out to be her husband during Civil War Virginia 148 years ago when her name was Becky Ashford.  As her regression work progressed amazing changes were taking place for the woman known by friends and neighbors in Lake Elsinore as Maureen Williamson, a very devoted and indocrinated Catholic. 

Then one day  absolute terror came over her that the regressions, bringing out incredible memories, were actually influenced by a pernicious souce.  To Catholics and other Christians it would go by the name of devil.  In such minds perhaps the intrusion of the past, becoming very real, might be called possession  which is exactly what a priest tells my main character Winnie in my book, Beyond Time who recalls intriquing past lives after she is present at The World Trade Towers when the planes strike on 9/11. 

Amnesia results and she is subsequently treated by a psychotherapist utilizing hypnosis.

Because of this fear one day Maureen Williamson invited a friend along to one of her sessions.  Fascinated by what she hears in the regression session the friend passes a note asking Dr. Reider to inquire whether she also had been in that lifetime.   The subject replies affirmatively; turns out her friend was her husband’s mother in that lifetime. 

 Eventually over several years others, mostly by happenstance, appear who shared that same lifetime, some of whom had never met before but all from their small town of Lake Elsinore.

Fantastical or not, the story is amazing.  I leave it to you to decide whether it could be possible while keeping in mind that for many years The University of Virginia, a definitely conservative academic venue located in a very conservative state, has been researching whether reincarnation is a possibility.  

A book entitled Thirty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation was in fact written by the late Dr. Ian Stevenson, who headed up the university’s Division of Personality Studies in the Department of Medical Psychiatry. The book is based on pristine research and interviews done in India with children claiming to have remembered their past lives.  Stevenson subsequently visited various villages mentioned by the children as the locality of their former life.  The experiences of the child written about were uncannily validated by the relatives.

Decide for yourself. Mission to Millboro is published by The ARE Press in Virginia Beach [edgarcayce.org]. Thirty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation information can be gotten through The Division of Personality Studies in the Department of Medical Psychiatry at the University of Virginia, now headed by Dr. Jim Tucker.

With fear abounding from the economy fallout, from perceived threats of terrorism, of surviving, the following is copied from the Teacher’s Manual of “A Course in Miracles” because it offers an alternative to much of the fear-based messages out there and because Beyond Time creates questions of what happens when we die.

For many of us, to keep that idea at the forefront is an immense challenge.   The question to ask ourselves is ourselves is: What is it that is making us fearful?

         “The world will end in joy, because it is a place of sorrow. When joy has come, the purpose of the world has gone.  The world will end in peace, because it is a place of war.  When peace has come, what is the purpose of the world?  The world will end in laughter, because it is a place of tears.  Where there is laughter, who can longer weep?

……..only complete forgiveness brings all this to bless the world.”

I love the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius even though, like the rest of us, he didn’t always live by his inspirational words.  However, since Beyond Time is about a woman who after suffering amnesia only recalls past lives which bridges centuries, I thought the following quote by the Roman Emperor apt.

 ”Live not one’s life as though one had a thousand years, but live each day as the last.”

I mentioned that a couple of weekends ago I would be attending the James River Writers’ Conference at The Library of Virginia and hoped to interview or at least to talk to the wildly successful author, David Baldacci. 

However, as soon as he finished his talk the author was whisked off the stage, not to be seen again. (Well, I mean I didn’t see him).  Thought I clarify that as it sounded a bit like a theme for one of his books -author gives talk - whisked off stage - never to be seen again -rival publisher becomes prime suspect.

Baldacci was as comfortable as an old shoe most probably heightened by the fact he was talking to a hometown audience. He was most entertaining talking about the price of fame and the experiences it brings forth.

Such as the story he tells on himself traveling through an airport and bumping into an avid fan who was so engrossed in reading one of his books he was oblivious to the massive crowds jostling him physically. This evoked such curiosity on Baldacci’s part he decided to break one of his cardinal rules of never intruding or introducing himself.  This guy though was in a different world, and he wanted to know more so ee started a conversation asking him about what he was reading. Avid reader ignores him.  When author persists, avid reader throws him an annoyed glance and returns to reading. 

“You don’t understand, I’m the author!” Baldacci informed with a winning grin. Avid reader perhaps thinking he is dealing with a wacko, tells him to basically buzz off. 

“No, no, you really don’t understand!” persists author” and then flips over the book, displaying author’s face on the back cover.  Now sullen, avid reader finally and reluctantly compares photo with persistent author live in front of him, and finally consents to an amused, albeit embarassed smile.    

However, the best part of his talk was that he contradicted the usual advice to a writer to “write about what you know.’ 

“Write  what you’re curious about.”

Fantastic advice Isn’t it?  Isn’t everyone curious about something?  And a writer is lucky, he can go around interviewing anybody who’s an acknowledtged expert on the subject and find out stuff from the horse’s mouth.

Do this and you’ll soon find yourself getting excited by new doors opening to you and learning at the same time which is the greatest joy of all.

Can you think of anything more cool?

So, is there truly life somewhere out there? Curious?  Well, which one of us is going to get to it first? 

“Love is a thing to learn through centuries of patient understanding.”

Author, writer extraordinaire, D. H. Lawrence may have struck upon the reason most people find intimate relationships to be the most challenging of our worldly endeavors.

Centuries?  Patience?  You always hurt the one you love?  Throw into this mix accumulating lifetimes of passion and betrayal over three centuries and throw in a writer (me) facing the challenge of integrating all these separate themes as what it might take for perfect love, honestly can’t we ask, “can it be achieved?”  

Couples who refer to themselves as “soulmates” believe so. However, in the 21st century that is grandiose considering the fact we are all living longer than any other generation who came before us.

Think, beside length of time, what that entails.  It’s to love unconditionally that other person, no matter the circumstances.  To understand and pass on the irritations, the feels of hurt, the insensitivity.  To understand not stand for abusive conditions. The abuser needs to learn to love themselves.  We all do.

In ”Beyond Time”, all of the above conditions are present and more.  What is touched in the relationship is the soul, and it is the memory of the soul that attracts those who didn’t love perfectly previously to come together and try once again.

However, if all this is accepted as truth, which is up to each individual to decide whether the belief is useful in their life or not, it’s important to accept that we are either “coming from love or coming from fear.”*

What is important to take from the characters in “Beyond Time”  a story, I remind you, of two people, Winnie and David who lifetime after lifetime fail to love unconditionally, judging each other as separate, rather than accepting their unity of creation and consciousness. 

Life is simple.  All we have to do is open our hearts, come from there, and shuck judgment. 

Simple but not easy.

Ater the current market gyrations of Fall 08 and saving the fat cats at the expense of the rest of us it seems that to sit down and write as if I were Mrs. Rockefeller - or Trump - or whoever has the mega-millions at this particular moment - downright irresponsible.  As a first child, it strikes me this is more a time to discard the writing and apply my creativity on how to survive the downdraft of this financial chaos.  I muse that sure it was easier in earlier times; Hemingway in Cuba, where it’s always been cheaper, D. H. Lawrence escaping the morality hounds while living all over Europe and the Orient.  And, I have a real reason two small businesses to produce income.

Again I ask, am I seeking an excuse to duck the writing because I am coming up on the final pages (I hope) of my first draft of Beyond Time and that it’s nerve-wracking and emotional and full of wondering whether I have almost 300 pages of something that stinks.   No, I’ll be honest; I don’t really think that.  I think I have something.  Yet nagging at me is the question how many drafts will it take to polish up those 300 pages before an agent will bowl me over and say, “I’ll take it!.”  Do they show their enthusiasm or do they say merely, “it has possibilities,” which is akin to someone breaking up you with the words, “it’s not you, it’s me.”  It’s a sentence that reveals nothing.  Far better an agent or ex say - ”it just doesn’t have it.’” 

Tomorrow I will definitely know more about this publishing game after I attend a two day writer’s conference at The Library of Virginia.  I have 5 minutes to give my spiel to an agent, that’s if she’s still alive after two days of listening to other panting writers. 

I’ll will report on the conference in future blogs.  I may even interview David Baldacci, give him my card, even.

Despite all the insecurity around finishing a first draft, I hope however it turns out, I can at least say that I did it. I’ve been told many times, that it’s not the best writers who get published, it’s the persistent ones.  I can’t give up now…..

I love to go back to what seemed so much wiser times than we are currently experiencing - to more wise and learned philosophers, poets, and dramatists who didn’t preach as much as observe.  That’s why I found the simple observation by Voltaire that “it is no more surprising to be born twice than once; that everything in nature is resurrection” made sense.  We see this so clearly after a winter’s sleep and the arrival of spring. 

One of those mornings, got the exercise in, then had to have breakfast and then check emails.

One of those days rather than writing I think I would’ve preferred being a backup singer and dancer for Tina Turner. 

whine, whine, whine….

4:30pm - Muse did not appear.  Going to James River Writer’s meeting to gain empathy and inspiration.

….second time and as though you had acted wrongly the first time.” 

Viktor Frankl, death camp survivor of both Auschwitz and Dachau, created a school of psychiatry called logotherapy based on these words.

Existentially drawn, Frankl found meaning, love, hope for mankind and the raw material for his incredible and mystical bestseller, “Man’s Search for Meaning,” while bearing witness to this century’s worst example of “man’s inhumanity to man.” In his search for meaning, amidst bestial conditions and sadism, he concluded that our life contains an inevitable triad, namely, pain, suffering and death.  The only escape route - used by  Frankl and fellow survivors - was to transcend this material world and discover the inner world.  Here the choice is made whether to be a victim or a survivor. The point of the psychotherapist’s work and its’ structure with patients after liberation, was to guide them to choose, as the post title articulates, “to act as though you are living a second time and as though you had acted wrongly the first time.” 

In later posts I will share bits and pieces of Frankl’s work that I have found to be reflected in my work as a hypnotherapist facilitating client regressions, whether current life or past.  One of my most favorite quotations that I’ve used ad nauseum with friends and three sons is also used by Frankl when he discusses the benefits that suffering and death may offer.  It’s Friedrich Neitzsche’s, “whatever doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.

“You can take that one to the bank. (Well at least you could before last week).  

The stripping away of everything a person considers their “I” or ego, which is what happened in the Holocaust, led Frankl to surmise the whole point of living which was “only love is true, only love is eternal.”  

I think the point non-debatable and hopefully future readers of Beyond Time will draw that very same conclusion.