Sleeping Beauty ... A VERY Contemporary Retelling

I would like to introduce you to something beautiful. Something inspired. Something profound.

Watching Advanced Ashtanga Yoga Practice and Poetry with Marie Belle will require less than 3 minutes of your day, but it might transform your conception of the female body forever.

Marie Belle PR

Dr. Marie Belle Pérez Rivera on Instagram

Taking a Trauma-Informed Perspective to Yoga with Marie Belle - Podcast

I watch it and see Sleeping Beauty … a VERY contemporary retelling.

Fairytales re-surface to be mined again and again. In the simplicity of their plot structures or “tale-types”, they are templates for unformulated experience and ripe for projection. Their motifs, symbols and themes easily arouse desires, emotions, and thoughts otherwise pushed aside or kept at a distance that yearn for expression if not embodiment.

They are also easily re-written.

Traditionally, Sleeping Beauty tells the tale of a female infant cursed to die at the age of sexual blossoming. However, life, fate, good faeries intervene. The curse is transmuted. She will not die, she will only fall into a deep sleep from which she may be awakened by a kiss from her beloved/betrothed.

And as the female infant-child-adolescent sleeps, so does the world around her.

Emergent consciousness. We are all being given the opportunity to see the world in new ways. Right now. This is happening. 

Witness: A princess, not asleep but “lost”; the female, not an infant but an adult. Enclosed within cement-concrete-metal bars and wires, high rises, palm trees, and urban sprawl —the modern dark woods or deep forest.

A sleeping populace.

On the horizon, an ocean — metaphysical source of nourishment.

The ultimate twist: “Magic” arrives in the form of a yoga mat.

A very contemporary retelling indeed.

No prince charming with soft lips to kiss. This female-princess-woman has encountered  a completely distinct — dare I say — novel Other. 

She has encountered A Practice.

I found myself falling in love, in silence, exploring, beyond the thinking mind.

Beyond the stories locked up inside of this ribcage.

I was not lost, I was being re-routed, my inner compass was redirecting me to this space of becoming more myself. 

I love this practice. — Marie Belle PR

Stunning.

Not only is it stunning in its poetry, its stunning in its convergence with … 

Watch the video again and ponder some of these quotes from Molly McCord’s Channeled Cosmic Messages for the Decade: 2020 to 2029.

one of the best things that  humanity can do at this time is to continue to develop our spiritual and intuitive gifts; to get out of the mind, to understand the significance of the body

as the energies within each of us evolve, we change the consciousness of humanity, and we change the matrix of energies on the planet

health and the human body are changing in this decade in a very significant way

the removal of impurities that our bodies have normalized holding: this is the energetics of the human body changing into a more pure form

the rising energies of body consciousness, respecting and loving the human body, of not taking it for granted

one of our strongest gifts at this time in our lives and in the earth’s existence is understanding the power of our hearts, the power of our bodies, the power of our intuition: how to honor all of our energies and moving away from over-reliance on the mind

Wow.

Two final thoughts.

• Marie Belle PR is my yoga teacher. (And yes I am honored to say that!) When she speaks of Advanced Ashtanga I am most certain that she is speaking of the practice and postures beyond what is traditionally known as the Primary Series. (Uhm … those displayed in her gorgeous video!) But I experience her Advanced Ashtanga as evolved Ashtanga … an Emergent Ashtanga. An anthropologist of that particular style of yoga, she has traveled to India and studied at the source along with many diverse teachers of the lineage throughout the world. And then she takes it further. With a grounded understanding of what may or may not be right for a particular body in a particular pose. With language that allows for discovery, rather than dogmatic alignments that ultimately impose injury. With curvilinear sensibilities. Both reverent and irreverent, I strongly recommend her On Demand 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training.
  
  
• After watching the video, I could not help but think, in this age of #MeToo, that those wounds that are too deep, those wounds that are too entangled in the body, those wounds that leave us feeling hopeless: that they may never be fully healed. Here, a way to healing is offered. Not with words. No. Not verbally. But by a woman taking full possession of her body. The beauty, the dignity, the agency are breathtaking.

And so Sleeping Beauty awakens in a new, revelatory and extraordinary way.

The Seeker Hero

Ryder tightened his grip around the large rock in his hand. He’d scoured Idonne’s rocky seashore for months, searching for the perfect stone.

 The first stone he’d brought back to his austere quarters had had a single sharp plane. He’d traded it out with four more before he’d settled on the one he held tonight. One of the stone’s edges sharpened into a jagged point. For weeks, night after night, lying awake on his pallet, he’d practiced shifting it into the right position. He didn’t need to look down now to know the stone’s point was centered.

For over a decade, Ryder, now nineteen, had been trained in the rigors of Idonnic research and documentation. Despite his lack of passion for the work, he had a talent. As Anton’s favorite, he’d been assigned to a closely guarded branch of Idonnic knowledge: the study of Umbra.

He’d read and reread every scrap of information the priests had collected about the mass of psychic ash accumulating in the Void. A product of mortal impotence, frustration, and failure, Umbra had formed a discrete identity and become self-aware over the eons. He intended to enter the realm of the material plane. He’d discovered a means to do so. He meant to destroy the Whole.

The priesthood would do nothing to stop the incarnation, and the Oath of Non-Interference Anton had contrived Ryder into taking a year ago—to the day—choked him. Vowing to chronicle and observe, but never to act, violated every fiber of his being.

There was also the ill-defined thing the young priest couldn’t name which called him. It radiated from deep within his heart, and of late, it left him sleepless most nights. As the summons grew more insistent, the need to leave Idonne dominated his thoughts. But he couldn’t leave without the sword.

Ryder examined the room. There were no guards, no spells of enchanted protection. Only the library’s labyrinth of marble halls hid Koldis from the rest of the enchanted world.

The sword wasn’t safe. Rumors had already reached his ears. Sorcerers and witches from Kyrakkos sought the blade and its counterpart Ormrun. Although there had been no sightings of the bejeweled basin for over a hundred years, there was no evidence Ormrun had ever left the Realm of Faerie’s shores.

The magical sword and basin opened a portal in the veil between the worlds. Plunged into Ormrun, Koldis became the key to unlock the ancient door. Umbra could leave the Void and travel through the Parallel of Shadows. He could incarnate his consciousness into a vessel of his choosing.

Last week a war captain from Huros had dined with Anton. He’d asked about Koldis. His tone had been casual, but Ryder was convinced the pretense for the visit had been a charade. The captain sought the sword.

Ryder raised his arm. No one who wanted Umbra’s power for themselves was going to get it.

He would sail to Faerie with Koldis. — Chapter 5. The Renegade Priest, Half Faerie

The farther I get away from the writing Daughter of Light, the more I love Ryder. Without a doubt, he was the most challenging character for me to work with because his integrity and strength are most pronounced in what he does ... and what he leaves unsaid.

From Morphology of the Folk Tale by V. Propp:

XI. THE HERO LEAVES HOME ...

The departures of seeker heroes and victim heroes are ... different. The departures of the former have search as their goal, while that of the latter mark the beginning of a journey without searches ... 

In certain tales spatial transference of the hero is absent. The entire action takes place in one location. Sometimes, on the contrary, departure is intensified, assuming the character of flight.

There are two, okay, really multiple heroes in Daughter of Light, but the main story revolves around Melia and Ryder. Melia is a victim hero. She is where she is and who she is—figuratively and metaphorically—when the story opens by virtue of birth and circumstance. Birth and circumstance will always impinge on Melia's choices in unavoidable ways. Her heroism will ultimately depend on how she uses her legacy to transform the future. Sometimes the toughest thing in life is working with what we've got and where we're at.

Ryder, on the other hand, is a SEEKER HERO. Yay, for travel, movement, action and adventure! Ryder's departure from the world he's known as home is intensified by hostile feelings for his mentor and an inner imperative to protect the Whole. And then there is that "ill-defined thing ... which called him."

Run by Thompson Square captures the hopes and dreams of the young priest from Idonne's determined departure:

Run Lyrics:

I'm gonna buy a boat and sail
And I'm gonna grab the world by the tail
And I'm gonna live and love and believe
No matter what tomorrow brings

I'm gonna run as fast as I can
Hold every little moment in the palm of my hand
I'm gonna fly right into the sun
Gravity can't stop me, I've already begun
I'm gonna run, run, run

Love taught me how to cry
But life taught me how to fight
And time showed my eyes how to see
And I'm not afraid 'cause now I'm free

I'm gonna run as fast as I can
Hold every little moment in the palm of my hand
I'm gonna fly right into the sun
Gravity can't stop me, I've already begun
I'm gonna run, run, run

When it feels like the world is crashing down
Just keep your feet on the ground and run, run, run
When you're broken, tired, hurt or scared
Let the wind take you here and run, run, run

I'm gonna run as fast as I can
Hold every little moment in the palm of my hand
I'm gonna fly right into the sun
Gravity can't stop me, I've already begun
I'm gonna run, run, run
I'm gonna run, run, run

I'm gonna run, run, run
I'm gonna run, run, run

As a half-faerie, Melia is an outcast in the enchanted world where she lives with her two sisters and full-blood faerie mother. The girls' father has been exiled to the mortal world for breaking his faerie troth. When a tragic accident destroys what's left of Melia's fractured family, her mother is unforgiving. The punishment she metes out will leave her daughter torn between guilt and ecstasy, challenge the bonds between three sisters, and complicate Melia's relationship with a young priest who’s come to the Realm of Faerie on a mission of his own.

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An Inner Connection

The blood-red sunset—swiped with lavender, fuchsia, and orange—signaled the approach of a pitch-black night. Melia waded across one of the Nyssalei’s sandbanks. The river was an in-between place, the waters unpredictable during the moons’ dark phase. She’d had to choose — risk the waters and reach the enchanted gardens under the safety of twilight, or end up running through the Footing Fields in total darkness.

When the vision overtook her, she stood with one foot on the Nyssalei’s bank and one foot in the water.

Warships approach. Their dark cannons smite the land with ear-shattering blows.

The banks of the Nyssalei wither.

Illialei is black and brown and grey.

I stand with one foot in the river. A luminous thing drifts to the water’s surface. Gold swirls frame it. I take a closer look. A mermaid. Drowned in the sewage of destruction.

“Melia,” someone calls.

I search for the speaker. He stands in the east — a male with dark hair, sunburnt skin, and emerald eyes.

He holds out his hand. It doesn’t reach me. A brown cloak billows behind him.

I want to move toward him, but my feet are rooted.

“I’ll stay with you,” he says. “No matter what.”'

The icy water pooling around her ankles brought Melia back to reality. She touched her forehead. Was the man with the emerald eyes the one Nandana had spoken of? How had he come to her so soon? — Chapter 4. Sisters, Half Faerie

What's going on here?

Whatever it is, it's happening in THE INVISIBLE REALM. But it is REAL?

What, after all, is REAL? Does everything that happens in the visible realm happen in THE INVISIBLE REALM first — as a thought, an idea, energy, a dream?

If everything that happens in THE INVISIBLE REALM doesn't seed the visible, what blossoms and withers? Are humans mistaken in believing we are the maximal determiners of what crosses the threshold between THE INVISIBLE and the visible, or are other forces at work? At play? Are they "smarter" than we are? More "intelligent"? "Wiser"? Must our — do our — thoughts, ideas, energies, dreams —  get "filtered" through such forces?

From Love, an Inner Connection by Carol K. Anthony: Immediately upon the beginning of a true love relationship, a dynamic connection is established between the two lover's innermost selves. This connection exists in the form of an energy that flows back and forth between them, binding them together. It is as if a large underground tunnel, through which blissful nourishment flows, connects them. They are able to feel this nourishment though they may be thousands of apart.

Is the "male with dark hair, sunburnt skin, and emerald eyes" merely a supernatural natural presence to comfort and/or guide Melia on her quest? Regardless, the half faerie experiences an inexplicably strong attraction to him after this, his first appearance in her life.

The Dark Night of the Soul by Loreena Mckennitt:

The Dark Night of the Soul Lyrics:

Upon a darkened night
The flame of love was burning in my breast
And by a lantern bright
I fled my house while all in quiet rest

Shrouded by the night
And by the secret stair I quickly fled
The veil concealed my eyes
While all within lay quiet as the dead

[Chorus:]
Oh night thou was my guide
Oh night more loving than the rising sun
Oh night that joined the lover
To the beloved one
Transforming each of them into the other

Upon that misty night
In secrecy, beyond such mortal sight
Without a guide or light
Than that which burned so deeply in my heart
That fire t'was led me on
And shone more bright than of the midday sun
To where he waited still
It was a place where no one else could come

[Chorus]

Within my pounding heart
Which kept itself entirely for him
He fell into his sleep
Beneath the cedars all my love I gave
From o'er the fortress walls
The wind would brush his hair against his brow
And with its smoothest hand
Caressed my every sense it would allow

[Chorus]

I lost myself to him
And laid my face upon my lover's breast
And care and grief grew dim
As in the morning's mist became the light
There they dimmed amongst the lilies fair
There they dimmed amongst the lilies fair
There they dimmed amongst the lilies fair

As a half-faerie, Melia is an outcast in the enchanted world where she lives with her two sisters and full-blood faerie mother. The girls' father has been exiled to the mortal world for breaking his faerie troth. When a tragic accident destroys what's left of Melia's fractured family, her mother is unforgiving. The punishment she metes out will leave her daughter torn between guilt and ecstasy, challenge the bonds between three sisters, and complicate Melia's relationship with a young priest who’s come to the Realm of Faerie on a mission of his own.

Free eBook

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Have You Made Contact With the Strange World in Which We Live Today?

Melia settled back down into the grass. “Nothing about the doors between the mortal and enchanted worlds opening?”
“No.”
“Then I wonder what my father's thinking?”
“Do you want to hear the prophecy?”
“You can recite the whole thing?”
“Yes.”
Melia didn’t believe a dusty old poem offered a solution to her problem. “Maybe another day.”
“Fine.”
“I’m so tired of all this.” The half-faerie propped herself up on her elbows. “Maybe we could catch a ship at Southend and sail beyond Faerie, to a place where it doesn’t matter that I’m the wingless daughter of Pressina and Elynus.”

“Do you think that will stop your visions?”
“My mother wouldn’t even notice I was gone.”
Tatou frowned.
Melia rolled over and stared into the sky. “Maybe I’d be happier somewhere else. Maybe being happier would stop my visions.” — Excerpt from Chapter 2. The Prophecy, Half Faerie

Melia frequently travels between the visible and THE INVISIBLE realms. In the above excerpt, she uses her imagination to explore another possible solution to her "dark vision"/dark inner terrain problem. (She's already made several failed efforts.)

It seems like a minor detail, but what if it wasn't?

What is imagination, after all?

From Lost Knowledge of the Imagination by Gary Lachman : Imagination, [Colin Wilson] said, is the 'ability to grasp realities that are not immediately present'. Not an escape from reality, or a substitute for it, but a deeper engagement with it. We could also say that imagination is simply our ability to grasp reality, or even in some strange way, to create it, or at least collaborate in its creation ... While it can be used for fantasy, illusion, make-believe, and escapism, the real work of imagination is to make contact with the strange world in which we live and to serve as both guide and inspiration for our development within it. It is the way we evolve."

What if, every time Melia crosses the threshold into THE INVISIBLE realm she's planting a seed, a seed that will blossom in the future?

First Aid Kit's I'm Building Myself a Boat:

I'm Building Myself a Boat Lyrics

I'm building myself a boat
it's gonna sail across the globe
until I find what I want

I'm building myself a boat

I'm building myself a boat
it's gonna sail across these seas
until I find what I need
I'm building myself a boat

And you can surely come along
no, we won't be gone for too long
we'll be back by dawn

Well I might settle down
in your lonesome town
or I'd leave right away
I know here I can stay

And you can surely come along
no, we won't be gone for too long
We'll be back by dawn

I'm building myself a boat
it's gonna sail across the globe
until I find what I want
I'm building myself a boat

I'm building myself a boat
it's gonna sail across these seas
until I find what I need
I'm building myself a boat

As a half-faerie, Melia is an outcast in the enchanted world where she lives with her two sisters and full-blood faerie mother. The girls' father has been exiled to the mortal world for breaking his faerie troth. When a tragic accident destroys what's left of Melia's fractured family, her mother is unforgiving. The punishment she metes out will leave her daughter torn between guilt and ecstasy, challenge the bonds between three sisters, and complicate Melia's relationship with a young priest who’s come to the Realm of Faerie on a mission of his own.

Free eBook

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Buy the Paperback

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Whose Demons? Yours, Mine, Ours.

"I was thinking about my thirteenth birthday," Melia said. Her father had telepathically interrogated her that night. Since then, during every dark moon phase, gruesome images intruded on Melia's mind—gruesome images that she'd never seen or imagined before. It was all connected: her father's psychic trespass, the horrific visions, and the black nights when the enchanted world's two moons offered zero illumination. Tears welled in the half-faerie's eyes. She rubbed them away.

"What?" Tatou asked.

"When Melusine taught Plantine and me how to block Father's telepathic intrusions, I became the best at building interior walls. I was certain that would stop everything."

"But it didn't?"

"No." Melia's heart hammered in her chest. No matter how many psychic walls she threw up, or how thick the walls were, when Faerie's moons were dark the visions came. The most logical explanation made her uneasy. They weren't coming from outside of her, they were bubbling up from within.

"Try the ylandria one more time," Tatou said.

Melia slumped with her back bowing out, her elbows on her thighs, and her chin on the flats of her fists. They used to chase glow sprites on the shores of the Undine, but now they experimented with faerie herbs.

Maybe the ylandria wasn't working because she didn't want to know the truth. Her father's trespass had violated some inner boundary, one from which there was no retreat. It was a disturbing thought, to be forever transformed for the worse through no fault of her own, and at such an early age. — Excerpt from Chapter 1. Ylandria, Half Faerie

Melia's INNER WORLD, her psychic terrain, has been invaded in a troubling way. Who is responsible for said invasion, the sudden introduction of violent images that now recur according to a lunar rhythm?

From The Uses of Enchantment, On the Meaning and Significance of Fairy Tales by Bruno Bettelheim: "There is a widespread refusal to let children know that the source of much that goes wrong in life is due to our very own natures—the propensity of all men for acting aggressively, asocially, selfishly, our of anger and anxiety. Instead we want our children to believe that, inherently, all men are good. But children know that they are not always good, and often, even when they are, they would prefer not to be. This contradicts what they are told by their parents and therefore make the child a monster in his own eyes.

The dominant culture wishes to pretend, particularly where children are concerned, that the dark side of man does not exist, and professes a belief in optimistic meliorism." 

Not only do "CHILDREN know that they are not always good, and even when they are, they prefer not to be", children ALSO know the same about ADULTS!

As Melia's story opens she struggles with that universal question: Whose demons? Hers? Her Father's? Or ... someone else's? If they're not hers, how are they being/could they be transmitted into her mind? Through some INVISIBLE but potent connection, energy, field? Electromagnetic forces interacting with plasma?

The half faerie just wants to stop them and get on with her life. Meanwhile, if she could sprout a pair of wings and be like all the full-blood faeries!

Imagine Dragons cover of Demons by Gareth Bush & Morgan Kingdon:

Demon Lyrics:

When the days are cold
And the cards all fold
And the saints we see
Are all made of gold

When your dreams all fail
And the ones we hail
Are the worst of all
And the blood's run stale

I wanna hide the truth
I wanna shelter you
But with the beast inside
There's nowhere we can hide

No matter what we breed
We still are made of greed
This is my kingdom come
This is my kingdom come

When you feel my heat
Look into my eyes
It's where my demons hide
It's where my demons hide
Don't get too close
It's dark inside
It's where my demons hide
It's where my demons hide

At the curtain's call
It's the last of all
When the lights fade out
All the sinners crawl

So they dug your grave
And the masquerade
Will come calling out
At the mess you made

Don't wanna let you down
But I am hell bound
Though this is all for you
Don't wanna hide the truth

No matter what we breed
We still are made of greed
This is my kingdom come
This is my kingdom come

When you feel my heat
Look into my eyes
It's where my demons hide
It's where my demons hide
Don't get too close
It's dark inside
It's where my demons hide
It's where my demons hide

They say it's what you make
I say it's up to fate
It's woven in my soul
I need to let you go

Your eyes, they shine so bright
I wanna save that light
I can't escape this now
Unless you show me how

When you feel my heat
Look into my eyes
It's where my demons hide
It's where my demons hide
Don't get too close
It's dark inside
It's where my demons hide
It's where my demons hide

As a half-faerie, Melia is an outcast in the enchanted world where she lives with her two sisters and full-blood faerie mother. The girls' father has been exiled to the mortal world for breaking his faerie troth. When a tragic accident destroys what's left of Melia's fractured family, her mother is unforgiving. The punishment she metes out will leave her daughter torn between guilt and ecstasy, challenge the bonds between three sisters, and complicate Melia's relationship with a young priest who’s come to the Realm of Faerie on a mission of his own.

Free eBook

Amazon  |  Amazon (UK)  |  Amazon (Canada)  |  Apple  |  Barnes & Noble  |  Google play  |  kobo

Buy the Paperback

Amazon  |  Amazon (UK)

Nightmares and Daydreams

When the Dark Master rises from the mists to breach the Veil, and a Daughter of Light, denied the throne by virtue of birth, stands alone, beware.

The blood of innocents will soak Illialei's meadows, and dreamlessness will snuff all hope from the mortal world.

The Old Texts, Appendix VII — Excerpt from Idonnic Prophecy, Half Faerie

There are three significant themes in the Idonnic Prophecy. The first one is: dreams. Night dreams and daydreams, these states when we're not quite present to the visible material world, and yet our hearts keep beating and our lungs continue their rhythmic inhaling and exhaling of breath ... while our awareness is somewhere else.

Where is it?

In THE INVISIBLE realm, attuned to the imaginal, lost in our inner world.

What do I mean?

There are layers, layers of consciousness, layers of energy in the WHOLE that we live in. Things must be envisioned, imagined, thought of in THE INVISIBLE realm before they are realized in the visible material realm.

I first began to contemplate THE INVISIBLE realm decades ago when I was exposed to the I Ching.

"The beginning of all things lies still in the beyond in the form of ideas that have yet to become real ..." — Hexagram 1. The Creative, The I Ching

"The wind blows over the lake and stirs the surface of the water. Thus the visible effects of the invisible manifest themselves." — Hexagram 61. Inner Truth, The I Ching

The cosmology of Daughter of Light, the Whole,  incorporates this concept of a layered reality through the Primal Essence, the invisible point of all beginnings; the Parallel of Shadows, invisible but accessible energetically and through visions; the Enchanted World, visible to it's inhabitants and to some mortals; the mortal world, visible; the Hidden City, also visible to its inhabitants but largely invisible to the rest of the creatures of the Whole; the Unknown Beyond, largely invisible but perhaps accessible or visible during altered states of consciousness or on the threshold of death or after, and the Void, invisible but accessible through energy and sensing.

Blogging Isolt's Enchantment, the focus was on quantum musings (quanta being largely invisible to the naked eye!). Now I'm going to move on to the themes of: fairy tales, The INVISIBLE (encompassing the IMAGINAL and INNER WORLDS), and the death of mechanistic science.

Why do fairy tales persist? Might they be efforts to verbalize the power inherent in crossing the threshold between the visible and THE INVISIBLE? Acknowledging that there is, in fact, a threshold to cross? Thus the promise of transformation through gifts of insight, "knowing" beyond the scope of intellect, psychic rejuvenation, etc.

If dreamlessness — an end of travel to THE INVISIBLE REALM — was to occur, what would that mean? Perhaps endless wars and tyranny? Maybe the destruction of the natural world in the name of technological advance?

In other words ...

"The nightmare I built my own world to escape" —Evanescence, Imaginary

Lyrics:

Ah-ah-ah-ah, paper flowers
Ah-ah-ah-ah, paper flowers

I linger in the doorway
Of alarm clock screaming monsters calling my name
Let me stay where the wind will whisper to me
Where the raindrops, as they're falling, tell a story

In my field of paper flowers
And candy clouds of lullaby (paper flowers)
I lie inside myself for hours
And watch my purple sky fly over me (paper flowers)

Don't say I'm out of touch
With this rampant chaos - your reality
I know well what lies beyond my sleeping refuge
The nightmare I built my own world to escape

In my field of paper flowers
And candy clouds of lullaby (paper flowers)
I lie inside myself for hours
And watch my purple sky fly over me (paper flowers)

Swallowed up in the sound of my screaming
Cannot cease for the fear of silent nights
Oh, how I long for the deep sleep dreaming
The goddess of imaginary light

In my field of paper flowers
And candy clouds of lullaby (paper flowers)
I lie inside myself for hours
And watch my purple sky fly over me (paper flowers)

Ah-ah-ah-ah, paper flowers
Ah-ah-ah-ah, paper flowers

As a half-faerie, Melia is an outcast in the enchanted world where she lives with her two sisters and full-blood faerie mother. The girls' father has been exiled to the mortal world for breaking his faerie troth. When a tragic accident destroys what's left of Melia's fractured family, her mother is unforgiving. The punishment she metes out will leave her daughter torn between guilt and ecstasy, challenge the bonds between three sisters, and complicate Melia's relationship with a young priest who’s come to the Realm of Faerie on a mission of his own.

Free eBook

Amazon  |  Amazon (UK)  |  Amazon (Canada)  |  Apple  |  Barnes & Noble  |  Google play  |  kobo

Buy the Paperback

Amazon  |  Amazon (UK)

A Half-Faerie, Half-Mortal Wildflower

Before I could even attempt an “in depth” blog series for Half Faerie similar to the one I wrote for Isolt’s Enchantment, I had to do a LOT of research. The books were written from a deep place of heart, and their creation was largely intuitive, so much so that it was not uncommon for me to “come up” from a writing session as if from a trance. Often going back to re-read and edit I would have the experience of “Who wrote that?” having no concrete memory of creating (what for me were some of the best!) story events, nuances and subtleties. To revisit those depths in an effort to articulate meaning has proved incredibly daunting and required an entirely new exploration of the latest scientific discoveries and my own understanding of life and experience.

The result: a remarkable paradigm shift within me; a new way of looking at the universe itself and my place within it. Which I will now share with you as we move through the Daughter of Light trilogy, chapter by chapter.

And so it begins …

If Melia — the central protagonist in Daughter of Light — is anything, she’s a wildflower.

Let’s break that down.

Wildflower definition: a wild or uncultivated flowering plant.

Wild: living in a state of nature; not tamed or domesticated.

Uncultivated: not educated; not refined; not cultured.

Flowering:  to produce flowers; blossom; come to full bloom. Also to come out into full development; mature. (Melia shall surely do both, on her own terms … and in her own way!)

Native American Proverb:


May your life be like a wildflower, growing freely in the beauty and joy of each day.

William Blake:



To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wildflower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.

William Wordsworth:



I am already kindly disposed towards you. My friendship it is not in my power to give: this is a gift which no man can make, it is not in our own power: a sound and healthy friendship is the growth of time and circumstance, it will spring up and thrive like a wildflower when these favour, and when they do not, it is in vain to look for it.

The final quote smacks of destiny and Melia’s journey will require the truest of friends, wildflowers themselves.

I can think of no better opening for the Half Faerie installment of this adventure than Sarah Darling’s cover of Tom Petty’s Wildflowers:

"Wildflowers"

You belong among the wildflowers

You belong in a boat out at sea

Sail away, kill off the hours

You belong somewhere you feel free

Run away, find you a lover

Go away somewhere all bright and new

I have seen no other

Who compares with you

You belong among the wildflowers

You belong in a boat out at sea

You belong with your love on your arm

You belong somewhere you feel free

Run away, go find a lover

Run away, let your heart be your guide

You deserve the deepest of cover

You belong in that home by and by

You belong among the wildflowers

You belong somewhere close to me

Far away from your trouble and worry

You belong somewhere you feel free

You belong somewhere you feel free

As a half-faerie, Melia is an outcast in the enchanted world where she lives with her two sisters and full-blood faerie mother. The girls' father has been exiled to the mortal world for breaking his faerie troth. When a tragic accident destroys what's left of Melia's fractured family, her mother is unforgiving. The punishment she metes out will leave her daughter torn between guilt and ecstasy, challenge the bonds between three sisters, and complicate Melia's relationship with a young priest who’s come to the Realm of Faerie on a mission of his own.

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Isolt's Enchantment: Excerpts, Quantum Musings & Songs

The Novella
Isolt’s Enchantment: Isolt’s Enchantment & Holy Water

The Chapters
The Stargazer:  The Meaning of Celeste is Heavenly
Koldis:  A Slave to Matter
The Idonnai Guard:  Who Do We Owe?
Isolt’s Enchantment:  We Will All Know Joy
Isolt’s Enchantment:  Come Away, O Human Child
The Tale of Hermes Wand:  Interspecies Communication?
The Tale of Haff and Gweff:  His Body Remembers
Josefina and the Magic Basin:  Grief, Black Holes & Particle Accelerators in the Enchanted World
Isolt’s Revenge:  Quantum Resonance in the Realm of Faerie
Umbra:  Do You Really … Want It Darker?

Isolt of the Waters is an ancient water elemental whose betrayal and enchantment has forever changed the Whole. When a young scholar in Idonne discovers her story, along with tales of dwarf magic and the birth of Umbra—a malevolent entity dwelling in the Void—he dreams of a life filled with adventure and heroism.

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Quantum Resonance in the Realm of Faerie

“It was a silver saucer with pretty colored stones decorating its rim. But it was the bones that alerted me: The bowl’s value is greater than its beauty.”

A sense of doom slithered across the back of Quasimi’s neck. Thinking it might be an insect, he tried to brush it away. “The bones?”

“Bones on the ground, fancy metalwork close by, death in the air.” She widened her hands in a display of wonder. "I said to myself, ‘You’ve stumbled upon some dwarf relic infused with magic’. Do you want to see it?” she asked.

Quasimi ran his palm across his damp forehead. He undid the top buttons of his shirt. Used to his free-flowing garments, the fitted clothes stifled him.

Flora dragged a bulky item across the floor and settled it in the middle of the cottage. “It’s like an eye.”

A silver basin shined in the cottage’s dim light, beguiling the mage. He rose from the small table to inch toward it. “Flora, it’s magnificent. Someone would pay you a pretty piece for this.”

“I don’t want to sell it.”

He winced. The desire to possess it consumed him.

“When you fill the basin with water from the Great White Sea, you can see things.”

“What can you see?” he asked.

A troubled expression flitted across Flora’s wrinkled face. She filled the basin. “Look for yourself.”

The mage kneeled on the floor. The basin compelled his gaze. Quasimi balanced on his toes before rising to his full height in the center of the room. Once he leveled the water, a cloud-colored mist rose from the water’s placid surface.

When Isolt’s face formed in the water, her eyes black as coal, the mage tried to release the bowl.

But it held him. The water in the basin boiled and hissed. — Isolt's Revenge, Isolt's Enchantment

Quatum Musings: When: Elendah’s challenge to Quasimi—to travel to the Veiled Tavern and spend a night there; his “chance” encounter with Flora and her dark curiosity; the mage’s prior actions at the behest of his friend, the God Vulcan; and Isolt’s quest for vengeance “resonate together in a reinforcing manner due [to] their overall similarity [then a] collective experiential solidity of the apparently independent material world [unexpectedly] emerges”. Is it quantum karma? Maybe.

“Karma is the non-local interconnection within consciousness which is the basis for all manifestation.” — G.P. Smetham

Thus in Daughter of Light cosmology, the consciousness of Elendah, Quasimi, Vulcan, Flora, Isolt of the Waters and—even Haff and Gweff through their created work, the magical basin Ormrun—converge in the Parallel of Shadows to breakthrough to the material plane of the Realm of Faerie in a climatic event.

Delta Rae's song "Fire" exquisitely captures Isolt's anguish:

"Fire" Lyrics:

I, I got my eye on you, I heard what you been saying
These rumors you spread ’round, they burn me down like flames and
We used to be friends, but that ain’t true now
You ain’t got my back, you’ve shown me that so many times

When I need help
Can’t call for help
’Cause no one comes

So I’m calling FIRE

It won’t be pretty, I ain’t no girl cried wolf, I’ll bring this whole damn city
They’ll come from miles around just to see how you cut me down
We used to be friends, but that ain’t true now
You poisoned the well, now I can’t tell who’s on my side

When I need help
Can’t call for help
’Cause no one comes

So I’m calling FIRE

Isolt of the Waters is an ancient water elemental whose betrayal and enchantment has forever changed the Whole. When a young scholar in Idonne discovers her story, along with tales of dwarf magic and the birth of Umbra—a malevolent entity dwelling in the Void—he dreams of a life filled with adventure and heroism.

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Grief, Black Holes & Particle Accelerators in the Enchanted World

“Regina, did you feel that?”

Her daughter waited with crossed arms on the side of the road. “What?” She cared little for her mother’s interests and concerns.

Regina’s father was a sorcerer from Kyrakkos. Soon after Josefina had given birth to a son, he’d taken the boy and left Faerie. Regina blamed her mother for her father’s abandonment.

Josefina ran the back of her fingers against her cheek. Her skin felt warm. “That hot gust?”

Regina offered pursed lips and an impatient shake of her head.

Josefina returned her gaze to the bowl, the air remained still. With reluctance she wrapped the basin with the same thick cloth the dwarf had used to cover it. She re-tied the twine to create a handle. Despite its size, the bowl was light and easy to carry.

At night, Josefina slept with her hand resting upon the bulky package. Her dreams became vivid and troublesome. She kicked and moaned, often waking her daughter. Regina said nothing, only moved her pallet farther away.

The pair veered from their original path and found themselves before the roar of the Great White Sea. Josefina quickened her pace. Regina dawdled.

Josefina knelt before the tide. She scooped up sea water with both hands and poured it into the bowl. When it was full, she carried the full basin back toward the beach, away from the waves.

An aching melody drifted above the roar of the ocean. Its forlorn sound sliced opened Josefina’s heart. The bitter loss of her son poured out. She bowed her neck and peered more closely into the basin. The song became louder and more anguished. The melody rose higher and higher, fluttering around the muannaye like a wounded bird.

A black flame unfurled beneath the water’s surface.

A magnificent illusion? Although it felt like her heart would shatter into infinite pieces, Josefina couldn’t avert her gaze.

The bowl grew warm to the touch. Josefina remained mesmerized. A promise rose from its depths, annihilation of both pain and joy.

Exquisite emptiness.

Josefina gazed into the Void.—Josefina and the Magic Basin, Isolt's Enchantment

Quantum Musings: A team of scientists announced on Thursday that they had heard and recorded the sound of two black holes colliding a billion light-years away, a fleeting chirp that fulfilled the last prediction of Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

That faint rising tone, physicists say, is the first direct evidence of gravitational waves, the ripples in the fabric of space-time that Einstein predicted a century ago … It completes his vision of a universe in which space and time are interwoven and dynamic, able to stretch, shrink and jiggle. And it is a ringing confirmation of the nature of black holes, the bottomless gravitational pits from which not even light can escape, which were the most foreboding (and unwelcome) part of his theory. — Dennis Overbye

Did the gravitational wave of Josefina's grief (black hole) over the loss of her son collide with the grief (black hole) of another mother—"a billion light years away"? Did the force of this "collision" excite quanta and/or ignite mirror neurons to manifest as heat? Did the basin serve as a conductor, the particle accelerator?

Richie Sambora's cool song "Church of Desire" captures Josefina's plight:

"Church Of Desire" of Lyrics:

Woke up in a cold sweat
In the middle of the night
Seems like a lifetime
When you're wondering who's wrong or right
One confession would resurrect the truth
Revenge or forgiveness for sins between me and you

Now we dance with the devil down lonely
Street, lonely street

Looking for a window in the house of tears
Living in hell, I pray the rain disappears
I'm headed for a breakdown
And the fever runs higher
As I kneel at the altar I can feel your fire
In the church of desire
Church of desire

You never find a reason why love falls from grace
Some kind of voodoo, like a spirit you can't embrace
There's a voice in the mirror, and a ghost in my heart
That relives the passion before we were torn apart

Now we dance with the devil down lonely
Street, lonely street

Looking for a window in the house of tears
Living in hell, I pray the rain disappears
I'm headed for a breakdown
And the fever runs higher
As I kneel at the altar I can feel your fire
In the church of desire
Church of desire

Now we dance with the devil down lonely
Street, lonely street

Looking for a window in the house of tears
Living in hell, I pray the rain disappears
I'm headed for a breakdown
And the fever runs higher
As I kneel at the altar I can feel your fire
In the church of desire
Church of desire

Isolt of the Waters is an ancient water elemental whose betrayal and enchantment has forever changed the Whole. When a young scholar in Idonne discovers her story, along with tales of dwarf magic and the birth of Umbra—a malevolent entity dwelling in the Void—he dreams of a life filled with adventure and heroism.

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His Body Remembers

The Temple of Delphinus was built atop a stony promontory whose southernmost tip jutted out across the Great White Sea.

Although the road between the citadel and temple was well-traveled, Ryder had never had the desire to visit the shrine before.

By the time they reached the blue-grey stone compound, the choir was lining up on the broad stairway in front of the cathedral.

A large audience gathered before them. A soloist with an angelic voice opened the first hymn. Ryder stilled. When the voices of the choir joined the song like a flock of birds in tandem flight, his heart soared.

As the ethereal performance continued, an unfamiliar yearning simultaneously burst forth and contracted in his chest. He longed to both remember and forget. What? Something wavered at the edges of his mind. It plucked at the edges of his consciousness. He chased the wisps of a memory, but they were so faint.

Ryder remained silent during the lengthy hike back to the citadel. It was dark by the time Garrick and Shilda said farewell at the citadel gate.

That night, Ryder felt drained. He went straight to bed and fell into a deep sleep. The dream fragments that whispered away when he woke the following morning left both sorrow and elation in their wake. — The Tale of Haff & Gweff, Isolt’s Enchantment

Quantum Musings: “The universe is built on harmonies. The Pythagoreans had it right when they married mathematics, music, and the cosmos. Just as mathematical patterns underlie the musical scales and intervals most pleasing to the ear, they also describe the probability waves at the heart of quantum theory. More than 2500 years ago, according to ancient sources, Pythagoras applied his studies in music theory to the behavior of celestial objects … Music resonates, it pulses, it leaps into our psyches. Thousands of years after the age of Pythagoras, physicists are still discussing the harmonies of the universe." — Paul Halpern

When Ryder hears the Delphinus choir, he doesn’t mentally know he’s hearing music his mother loved, music that held meaning for her, music she listened to while she was pregnant with him. But his body remembers. And his body both yearns for and awakens to … love.

This beautiful song, The Meaning of it All, captures the complex moves of Ryder's heart:

The Meaning of It All Lyrics:

If I asked you to remember
Why we set out on this road
You gonna fight me or surrender
That it wasn't all my fault

Cause you're breaking down and I can tell it's deep
There's a tidal wave that's rushing towards the beach
But your anger has such beauty underneath
And we all want love, yeah we all want love

There's no end to what we're feeling
Just some breaks along the way
I get so caught up in the meaning of it all
While my heart just wants to crave

So breathe, darling, breathe in deep
Come on, breathe, darling, breathe in deep for me

Cause I'm breaking down and I can tell it's deep
I try to dream about the future when I dream
But I can't bury that sad kid I used to be
Cause we all want love, yeah we all want love

Cause we're breaking down and I can tell it's deep
There's a tidal wave that's rushing towards the beach
But you know I'll be there waiting
With my arms outstretched to reach for you, my love
Cause we all want love, yeah we all want love
Yeah we all want love, yeah we all want love

Isolt of the Waters is an ancient water elemental whose betrayal and enchantment has forever changed the Whole. When a young scholar in Idonne discovers her story, along with tales of dwarf magic and the birth of Umbra—a malevolent entity dwelling in the Void—he dreams of a life filled with adventure and heroism.

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