Dear Russ,
I appreciated your piece on auditory dreams. I’ve had them too over the years though not as many as you (by the way I’ll be 80 this year).
One night in my late 40s a voice declared with God-like authority: "SEVEN RULES ALL YOU DO!” I’ve taken that as a powerful mantra and worked with it ever since.
And I certainly know what you mean by entering a liminal space when I’m writing. In that space I often hear the voices of characters in the book, and they do speak with spontaneity & autonomy, i.e. on their own accord & with their own agenda for the the story. In writing the second book more than one character informed me that Colum had to die. I fought tooth & nail over that one! Colum was meant to be the protagonist in all three books, but the Queen, Colum's mother, and a woman seer all seemed to know better — and in the end he dies.
Sometimes a voice will speak a whole line of dialogue. It comes out of nowhere and surprises me with its content. What the voice says often turns scene in an intriguing new direction.
You speak, too, of spider as the root of "spontaneous." It’s interesting that in Book II the Queen of the Cave shape-shifts into a spider. Now and then, she spins a web for all the women (plus Colum) to dance on. And, I must say, balancing on a web that is in constant motion is no easy feat!
Finally, I agree that the ego is resistant to such a voice — which means writing is a perfect way to practice loosening the ego’s control on one’s life.
Merrilee
Merrilee is referring to her second coming book, “The Cave of the Dark Moon” in a trilogy. Her first book The Iron Labyrinth is published by iUniverse. I wrote a review: “The central symbol in this wonderful book is the iron labyrinth. I was taken on an immersive journey into the the mystery of iron—a mystery that has gripped our civilisations since the Iron Age. “Uncle” is the ruler of this labyrinth and he conscripts human beings for arduous training in the labyrinth. They must submit to his will in order to later serve in the upper world of ordinary reality. A key question for the human conscript is: Is Uncle trustworthy? He demands complete submission, and appears cruel, unbending, and compelling. Escape seems impossible. This situation would bring the sweat out of any modern human being, as we almost universally distrust any authority today. But clearly Uncle is no mortal. He is a dragon. Trust a dragon? I think the author has put her finger on a deep mystery here. What is being asked of Colum (the protagonist) in the iron labyrinth? Not trust but submission, pure and simple! I don’t think trust has anything to do with the phenomenon Colum is confronted with. Rather I think Colum’s unconditional participation in a process of transformation is called for. It is a “ruthless” process, beyond the human, and a human must be free to choose, without any foreknowledge or the comfort of “trust”, to so participate. This is Colum’s task—to learn how to freely choose to participate in a “cosmic” or non-human process of transformation that somehow needs the human being in order to complete itself.
John,
I was so moved you your reply to my reply to Russ’ “auditory dreams” essay.
First, you GOT who Uncle is!
Second, the issue isn’t trust as I thought it was the whole time I was writing the first book. The issue is SUBMISSION WITHOUT KNOWING IF YOU CAN TRUST OR NOT. SUMBMISSION BEING (in your words) “unconditional participation in a process of transformation” — and it certainly is a “ruthless” process, on the level of the iron labyrinth … the cave … and the surface of our earthly world.
Third, the process is definitely one that goes “beyond the human”.
And fourth, a human must be free — to the degree it is possible — to choose “without the comfort of trust”. AMEN.
I’m feeling your words so strongly, John, as I edit/revise the 2nd book, i.e. Colum is part of a cosmic process of transformation that “somehow needs the human to complete itself”. But, then, humans have been part of the Cosmos always.
Let me just end with: there was power in the way you put all this that shook me and made me take it all in deeper.
Thank you,
Merrilee