#i love visual evidence of the abandonment of something once sacred

[philosophiums]

so there's this cool decaying church i pass on my route sometimes

[tomeandflickcorner]

OUAT Episode Analysis- Flower Child

Well.  That was quite the revelation.  Now can we please kill Gothel already?

For this episode’s flashback, we end up turning back the clock further than we ever have before.  Once, thousands of years ago, Gothel was a Tree Nymph.  With blue skin and hair.  And she lived with her mother and sisters in a sacred grove somewhere.  But Nymph Gothel, in a very Ariel-like manner, was greatly interested in the lives of the humans who lived nearby.  She often watched them and admired their lives to the point when she wanted to be a human, too.

One day, she ends up breaking into some fancy mansion so she could admire the ballgowns that hung within the humans’ closets.  But she’s instantly discovered by a group of young women.  Gothel attempts to apologize for her intrusion, but the young women tell her not to go, as they’d witnessed her magically produce a rose blossom. They state they are fascinated by her magic and want her to teach them in the magical arts.  As a result, Gothel starts to pal around with the young human women.  Eventually, the Nymph Mother finds out and steps in.  She kindly tells Gothel that, no matter how much she might wish otherwise, she is not a human.  And that the time will soon come when she will have to accept her place among the Tree Nymphs as she’s apparently next in line as their leader.  Or something along those lines.

Regardless of the Nymph Mother’s words, Gothel continues to hang around with her human friends.  But when Gothel decides to start training them in the ways of Nymph Magic, the young women reveal their true colors.  Turns out, they were just a group of Mean Girls this whole time.  And they were just leading Gothel along with the intention of publicly humiliating her, as they really view her and her people as freaks and abominations.

Devastated by this betrayal, Gothel returns to the sacred grove.  But when she gets there, she discovers the insult was even greater.  While she was being mocked and humiliated by the Mean Girls, a separate group of humans had lay siege to the sacred grove and completely destroyed it by cutting down and burning all the trees within the grove.  Which, of course, resulted in the deaths of all the other Tree Nymphs, including the Nymph Mother.

Immediately, Gothel lets her heart grow bitter because of this.  Filled with feelings of vengeance, she angrily returns to the human mansion to not only strike back at the Mean Girls, but everyone else as well.  Basically, this whole backstory is a complete remake of Carrie, only with Tree People.  Using her Tree Nymph magic, Gothel creates toxin-spewing flowers that….apparently killed every single human in the entire world.  The only person she spared was a young woman named Seraphina, who reveals she could also use magic but had hidden her powers from the other Mean Girls out of fear of what they might do to her if her magical ability was revealed.

Once her mass genocide is complete, Gothel tells Seraphina that, eventually, life in this realm will once again emerge from the primordial ooze, and the world will become populated by humans all over again.  But when that happens, they will be ready, and will strike back by returning magic to this world, which has now become a Land Without Magic.  As she announces this, Gothel unearths a single magic bean from the remains of the now destroyed sacred grove, which she uses to open a portal that allows her and Seraphina to journey forth to increase their number, so they would eventually become the Coven of Eight.

So, according to this backstory, our world, the Land Without Magic, used to HAVE magic.  And the only reason why it no longer does contain magic is because humans persecuted and killed the Tree Nymphs.  And then the last remaining Tree Nymph went all Carrie on them by wiping out every single living creature, so life on Earth would have to start from the amoeba level all over again.   Which is an interesting attempt at World Building.  Not to mention the most bizarre ‘Creation’ story I’ve ever heard.

It also explains what Gothel’s motive is.  Though it does NOT justify her actions in the slightest.   Yes, she’s right- humans are generally horrible and are motivated by greed, hatred, selfishness and cruelty.  I get it.  Preaching to the choir, lady.  I work in retail.  I deal with the public every day.  Not to mention my life is more or less controlled by corporate America.  But she’s so wrapped up in her own twisted misanthropy, she has completely neglected to recognize that she’s ended up just as bad as the very humans she hated so deeply.  Perhaps even more so.  Case in point, the fact that she raped Wish Killian, tricked him into impregnating her, abandoned her baby the instant she was born and then trapped her in a tower for the rest of her life.  As well as forcibly separating her from her loving father, who was the only companion she had.  Not to mention how many lives and families she’s destroyed and ripped apart along the way.

But Gothel is apparently upping her game in Hyperion Heights.  After spying on her with Margot/Robyn, Gothel approaches Tilly/Alice.  Of course, Tilly states that she wants nothing to do with Gothel, but she’s stopped in her tracks when Gothel informs her that she’s her biological mother.  Obviously, Tilly sees the impossibility of this statement, as Gothel only looks a few years older than her.  But she then defiantly states that, even if what Gothel says it’s true, it doesn’t matter because it would mean Gothel abandoned her.  And Tilly is not interested in getting to know a mother who would abandon her child.  In response, Gothel starts spouting off a whole Sob Story™ about how she had a cruel life, as if that would excuse her actions, and then states she never would have walked out on her daughter if she’d known how special she was.  Because Gothel apparently knows that Alice is the Guardian she was seeking.  So, in other words, Gothel, you’re telling Alice/Tilly that you’d only care about your flesh and blood if they were of use to you?  Yeah, spare me with your claims of being a mother.  A REAL mother loves her children unconditionally, not just when they’re useful to them.

Thankfully, Tilly doesn’t fall for it, and she puts Gothel in her place by telling her that she is already wanted by people who really care for her, and therefore doesn’t need her before storming off.  But she can’t shake away the uneasy feeling she’d feels.  So she heads right over to the police station to see Rogers, who is in the middle of trying to come to terms with the impossible circumstances of Parallel Hansel’s death.  How can someone be stabbed from the inside?  Could it be that Naveen’s claim of magic being involved isn’t so impossible?  So when Tilly starts telling him about her encounter with Gothel/Eloise, the gears in his head start to turn.  Because it’s starting to sound like Naveen’s warning about a war brewing might not have been so far-fetched after all.  He tells Tilly that, even though what she’s saying sounds crazy, he’s learned his lesson after the death of the Blind Baker.  As such, he’s no longer going to doubt her words, no matter how crazy they might sound.  This visibly delights Tilly, and the two head off to confer with Henry.

When they get to Henry’s apartment, he is initially reluctant to let them in, trying very badly to act casual and not act like he was hiding something.  But when he hears Rogers and Tilly are starting to suspect something magical might be going on, what with Parallel Hansel’s impossible death and Elise/Gothel’s claims, he willingly lets them it.  Because their words are pretty much vindication to him, as he’s set up this whole murder wall in his apartment.  Ever since he saw the results of the blood test that named him as Lucy’s father, he’s become more open to the possibility that the stories in the book he wrote are real.  While his attempts at convincing Jacinda of this were put on hold when Sabine called her up to help with the food truck (as Naveen/Drew is in police custody and is not able to make it to work), he’s grateful that Rogers and Tilly are starting to be on the same page as him.  He shows them the evidence he’s compiled, from the fact that he found a photograph of Regina/Roni standing with eight-year-old him, his swan keychain, and even the fact that Rumpelstiltskin/Weaver’s teacup is identical to the Rumbelle teacup illustration from the New Storybook.  Rogers wonders why Eloise/Gothel wouldn’t just use magic if she actually is a witch, but Henry counters this by pointing out that, in his book, this was called the Land Without Magic for a reason, and while there were trace elements of magic throughout the land, it probably wasn’t enough.  And Gothel/Eloise probably would need a huge amount of magic to do whatever she’s planning

The discussion on the matter is interrupted when Rogers receives a phone call from the Desk Sargent, informing him that Gothel/Eloise was spotted skulking around the local theater.  So Rogers goes to check it out, with Tilly tagging along. This leads to an adorable Knightrook moment, which starts with the visual proof that Tilly decorated Roger’s windshield with origami mushrooms and origami rabbit.  And Rogers isn’t the slightest bit fazed by this.  They start talking about Eloise/Gothel’s claims about how she is Tilly/Alice’s mother.  Tilly admits she had always wanted a mother, and she’s wondering if she’ll find the missing part of her if she lets this woman in.  But she has her doubts, because Eloise/Gothel doesn’t seem like the nurturing mother type.  Rogers comforts her, stating that, even if Eloise/Gothel is right and she did give birth to her, it doesn’t mean she’s her mother, as it takes more than biology to be a real mother.  He then gives her a marmalade sandwich that he just happened to have with him.  Which suggests he regularly carries around Tilly’s favorite sandwich, just in case he’d run into her on the street.  That is just adorable.  Even though he still doesn’t remember, Rogers just can’t stop being fatherly to her.  The Knightrook feelings are jumping off the scale here.  Tilly even begins to thank Rogers for everything he’s done for her, from listening to her to letting her stay with him.

That’s when they spot Eloise/Gothel entering the theater, and they start to move in, with Tilly ignoring Roger’s request to stay put.  This ends up to be bad, as the whole thing was a trap.  The Desk Sargent has been hypnotized into helping Gothel in the coven, because apparently Gothel can hypnotize people now.  When they enter the theater, Rogers and Tilly are immediately taken captive by the members of the Coven of Eight.  Rogers angrily warns Gothel that he will kill her if she even tries to hurt Tilly, regardless of his police badge.  But Gothel isn’t perturbed, stating that Tilly isn’t the one she plans to hurt.  She and the rest of the coven drag Tilly and Rogers down to the very bowels of the theater, which are revealed to be the former location of the sacred grove where Gothel once lived with the other Tree Nymphs.  Once they reach the site, Gothel tells Tilly that she expects her to help her and the other witches in casting a powerful spell.  One that, I guess, will bring back the magic in this land and restore it to the way it was before the Mean Girls exterminated the other Tree Nymphs. She goes on to state that it’s time for Tilly to accept her place among them, as she can never belong to the world of the humans, and that the Coven of Eight is her real family, etc. etc..   Tilly, however, doesn’t fall for it, stating that, whatever Gothel might be, she is no mother to her.  But in the end, Gothel manages to force Tilly into helping them by threatening to kill Rogers if she doesn’t comply.  She even reveals the fact that they’re actually father and daughter.  This threat ends up working, as Alice’s love for her father hasn’t been erased by the curse, resulting in Tilly caring deeply for Rogers.  So of course she can’t let him be killed.  As such, she reluctantly agrees to help Gothel and the other witches cast their spell, in spite of Rogers pleading her not to.

Meanwhile, there’s a whole supblot with Lucy going to Facilier, to ask him if he had another batch of magic that could help cure Henry of the poison inside him.  He tells her that he can only help if Lucy can locate a symbol of Henry and Parallel Ella’s love.  (I wonder.  Is this why he wanted the Dagger?  Was he planning to use it to break the curse somehow?  If so, I’m kinda on Facilier’s side now.)  

So Lucy gets her mother to dig some old boxes out of storage, claiming to be feeling nostalgic after Parallel Hansel/Nick’s true colors were revealed. While looking thorough the old boxes, they come across a box labeled ‘BL,’ which Jacinda states stands for ‘Before Lucy.’ Meaning this box contains traces of Jacinda’s life before she gave birth to her daughter.  As they look through the box, they find things that Jacinda cannot explain- a T-shirt advertising Granny’s Diner back in Storybrooke.  This excites Lucy, as she speculates that Henry must have brought that stuff with him before he left on his soul searching quest. (So, what they’re saying is that Parallel Ella had one of Henry’s t-shirts?  Nice!)  And, when they look into the paper take-out bag from Granny’s, they find… The Glass Slipper!  Minus the fragment that Henry has.

Bursting with excitement, Lucy brings the Glass Slipper and the Glass Slipper Fragment to Facilier.  With it, he is able to use his voodoo magic to eliminate the poison within Henry, thereby ensuring he won’t die when the curse is broken.

However, when Jacinda shows up at his place to inform him that she and Lucy found the Glass Slipper, resulting in her starting to believe in the possibility that she might actually be Cinderella after all, nothing happens when they kiss.  Much to Lucy’s surprise, as she was really expecting their TLK would be the one to break the spell.  I, however, am not surprised.  Because the original Dark Curse was not broken by Snow and Charming’s TLK.  It was Emma and Henry’s bond that did it. So I had my doubts that Henry and Parallel Ella would be the ones to break this Dark Curse.  I suspect the secret lies in a different pair.  Let’s see, it was the True Love between a mother and a son that broke the first Dark Curse.  Maybe it will be the True Love between a father and a daughter this time around?  Unless that pesky Cursed Heart issue gets in the way. That might be an issue.

(Click here to read more Episode Analyses)

[ftlo]

Patti Smith’s Just Kids captures the epicenter of art and grime that was New York in the 1970s. She centers the story upon the unorthodox girl she was in her twenties, and her predestined relationship with the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. The story Smith unfolds is a mesmerizing cluster of moments, each as brilliantly imaged as her cherished blue star. While her autobiographical account is rooted in the happenings of her intimate routine, the novel is read as a field guide to her version of the vast city. Yet, Smith disregards the objective city by blending the real and the otherworldly in her seamless streams of consciousness. The constant that threads together the contradiction of her city life is her love for Robert. Their relationship is celestial; they are two soulmates brought together almost divinely, and yet their closeness is physically distant and intertwined with the figures around them. Intimacy and multiplicity are figuratively mutually exclusive yet in practice interdependent in Smith’s depiction of New York.

The structure of Just Kids is artefactual, organized by a series of moments through which the reader is guided like an observer in a museum. Smith is a skillful curator, constructing her personal enclave within the larger city. One of these moments is Christmas at her and Robert’s first apartment:

“He liked the boxes of Joseph and often transformed significant bits of jetsam, colored string, paper lace, discarded rosaries, scrap, and pearls into a visual poem. He would stay awake late into the night, sewing, cutting, gluing, and then adding touches of gouache. When I awoke there would be a finished box for me, like a valentine. Robert made a wooden manger for the little lamb. He painted it white with a bleeding heart and we added sacred numbers entwining like vines. Spiritually beautiful, it served as our Christmas tree. We placed our gifts for one another around it.” (Smith 51-52) Smith illustrates moments palpably to craft their intimate world. She and Robert physicalize their isolation from the outside; the act of making their own original talismans mimics creating a new reality. Smith’s description of Robert fashioning the manger is almost ironic: it depicts him in reference to the stereotype of handy man of the house, constructing practical objects for his family. Their concept of practical or necessary, however, is unusual. Smith cherishes the manger painted with a “bleeding heart” and “sacred numbers”, despite having little functional furniture in their apartment. (51-52) The manger serving as a Christmas tree also holds meaning. The two Catholics are at once rejecting the tradition of the classic decorated tree and celebrating their own eccentric version of the popular holiday. Thus, Smith’s capture of this creative moment is both decidedly intimate yet still connected to the multiplicity of daily life.

These snapshots of creation may appear to some readers to trivialize her journey of self-discovery or render it superficial, but they do not. In broad terms, the moments she writes are the intricate pieces of the mosaic that is her perception of New York: each piece is different, entirely sustainable as a world of its own, yet fits perfectly within the grand scheme. Hence, Smith’s structure enables the formation of her intimate world but grounds it in the colorful context of the city, successfully interconnecting intimacy and multiplicity.

Furthermore, Smith’s novel entertains a duality between the real and the unreal. Her dichotomized place in New York is introduced in early stages of Smith and Robert’s relationship, as Smith describes:

“One Indian summer day we dressed in our favorite things (…) we took the subway to West Fourth Street and spent the afternoon in Washington Square. We shared coffee from a thermos, watching the stream of tourists, stoners, and folksingers. Agitated revolutionaries distributed anti-war leaflets. Chess players drew a crowd of their own. Everyone coexisted within the continuous drone of verbal diatribes, bongos, and barking dogs.” (Smith 47)

This scene offers an image rife with energy and movement in the public environment. Yet, while Smith speaks of coexistence, she refrains from placing herself into the context she defines. She serves only as the observer, sipping coffee with Mapplethorpe gazing onto the outside from within their transcendent experience, displaying an otherwise dynamic sequence as coldly as a still-life. It is only when an older couple comments on her and Robert’s roles that Smith closes their distance from their surroundings. The woman tells the accompanying man to take a picture of the two characters that seem like artists to her. “’Oh, go on,” he shrugged. They’re just kids.” (Smith 44) Significant enough to inspire the title, this encounter introduces the ideas of intimacy and multiplicity within Smith’s world and the city around her. As much as she and Robert seek to elevate and enchant their realities, they have become stereotypical, two of many inhabiting the city. They may present themselves as the personas associated with their alternative lifestyle, but ultimately Smith recognizes their commonality. In this way, she calls the distinction between intimacy and multiplicity into question, refusing to abandon one to obtain the other.

The line between real and unreal is rendered particularly nebulous in the context of the Chelsea Hotel.

“In between I clock the action. Eyeing the traffic circulating the lobby hung with bad art. Big invasive stuff unloaded on Stanley Bard in exchange for rent. The hotel is an energetic, desperate haven for scores of gifted hustling children from every rung of the ladder. Guitar bums and stoned-out beauties in Victorian dresses. Junkie poets, playwrights, broke-down filmmakers, and French actors. Everybody passing through here is somebody, if nobody in the outside world.” (Smith 91)

The graphic use of italics here visually signals a shift in Smith’s narrative. It underlines the dreamlike sequence that is Smith and Mapplethorpe’s experience at the Chelsea Hotel, distancing the people and happenings in the hotel from the urban exterior. The mention of “stoned out beauties in Victorian dresses” widens this distance by adding an epochal dimension to the hotel’s otherworldliness. (Smith 91) Lastly, the last sentence draws a boldly strict line between the hotel and the “outside world”. (Smith 91) Yet, the ideas of being “somebody” at the Chelsea and “nobody” in the vaster realm of Manhattan are inextricably linked. (Smith 91) Within the environment of the Chelsea, Smith belonged to a circle of drug-infused artists and patrons: society’s misfits bound together through shared estrangement. They had become somebodies amongst themselves evidently because they had all experienced the isolation of having been nobodies. Therefore, Smith underlines a causal relationship between the intimacy of the Chelsea Hotel and the inhabitants’ incongruence with New York city’s multiplicity.

Smith’s definition of intimacy is explored in distinct instances of Just Kids. It is a central theme to Smith and Mapplethorpe’s epic love story. It appears that their relationship guides the plot’s development, and hence mirrors Smith’s grander depiction of the city in terms of intimacy. From the moment they meet, Smith and Mapplethorpe are drawn to each other. Their initial encounters recall fairytale lovers who credit fate for their meeting. Disregarding courtship, they readily accept each other into their lives, as Smith states not long after their first meeting, “(...) I understood that in this small space of time we had mutually surrendered our loneliness and replaced it with trust”. (Smith 40) From this moment, much of Smith’s writing about their relationship is description of their routine. Painting and creating side by side was their ritual; in this way their daily lives were engulfed in the other’s. Despite this, Smith consciously refrains from including information that would define their relationship. While they were in love or perhaps they cared profoundly for the other, the lack of romantic intimacy conveyed alluded to the idea that their relationship was platonic. Smith’s ambiguous account of her and Robert’s bond calls intimacy into question, and perhaps deliberately pushes against its singular definition.

Multiplicity also plays a part in building Smith and Mapplethorpe’s intricate relationship. The number and diversity of figures they encounter allows them to create their intimate world away from reality. At the Hotel Chelsea, they meet an array of people including Mr. Bard, Harry Smith, Peggy Biderman, Ann Powell, Bruce Rudow, Sandy Daley, and Matthew Reich. Each person elicited a form of self-discovery for both Smith and Mapplethorpe. The introduction of these figures play an integral role in both of their artistic pursuits, and therefore reinforce their mutual creative inspiration for one and other. Thus, their intimacy is invigorated by the multiplicity of creative characters around them.

However, Smith and Mapplethorpe’s world undergoes growing tension throughout the novel. One instance in the novel that represents a striking turning point in their relationship occurs when Robert goes to an abandoned hospital and finds a fetus preserved in jar. Convinced he should transform the fetus into art, he steals the jar, but on their way home he inadvertently drops it. Smith describes the effect of this accident with the following citation:

“The purloined jar had sat on a shelf for decades, undisturbed. It was almost as if he had taken its life. 'Go upstairs,' he said. 'I'll clean it up.' We never mentioned it again. There was something about that jar. The shards of heavy glass seemed to foreshadow the deepening of our days; we didn’t speak of it but each of us seemed inflicted with a vague internal restlessness.” (Smith 69)

The jar appears to be a symbol that represents a tonal shift in Smith’s description of their relationship. Though Robert did not actually take the fetus’s life, Smith mentioning this represents birth and death simultaneously. The incident undoubtedly brought her own abortion and the trauma associated with it to mind. It could also be said that the scene underlines the limitations of Smith and Mapplethorpe’s nontraditional intimacy in terms of family-making. In this sense, the jar evokes the multiplicity within the intimacy, or the complexity that is the essence of Smith and Mapplethorpe’s feelings for each other, and for their perceptions of themselves. In fact, it is the very multiplicity within their relationship that eventually redraws its own confines. Thus, the “internal restlessness” Smith refers to foreshadows the increased strain on their world and the unease that accompanies these complexities. (69)

The themes of intimacy and multiplicity can be perceived to define not only the relationship between the two central characters of Just Kids, but also urban life itself. Manhattan is the singular backdrop for this story. This island, surrounded by water yet the heart of the world, is the essence of intimacy within multiplicity, of a patchwork of surface, sound, sight, scent, and taste. At any moment, this kaleidoscope of experience can collapse or delicately fold into the intimacy of a bedroom, a café table, a hospital bed. The structure of the book, the otherworldliness Smith references, and Robert and Patti’s complex relationship strengthen these interconnections between intimacy and multiplicity that are central to her New York story.

[academiablogs]

Writing Between Fiction and Fact: An Interview with Cindy Rinaman Marsch

Welcome to our latest Academia post, where we discuss historical fiction, the limits of non-fiction, and what it means to make history ‘speak.’ Today’s guest is Cindy Rinaman Marsch, author of Rosette and Blizzard, novels which (in her own words), “[offer] an episode of unknown history with imaginative speculation.” Her books have close to 100 positive reviews between them, and are truly works where history no longer seems past, but present in the room as you read them.

Joshua: Welcome, Cindy! To being with, what makes you gravitate as a writer toward historical fiction? What does it allow you to express that other genres and styles might not? 

Cindy: Because historical fiction is detached from our own time, it allows us to look at human nature in a context that does not require our own cultural trappings to define our characters. The mystery writer Boris Akunin captures the crystallized moment of Czarist Russia just before the Revolution, allowing his young genius police detective the great advantage of a nearly modern setting with a fairy-tale, lost-world spin. I find it a research challenge and an imaginative delight to explore a character in a world we think we know, but to highlight some things about human nature that we might tend to overlook in our own time. My character Rosette was a real person, and I've used all the material at my disposal to recreate her as I think she was, bringing the personality of her journal to life in the woman I offer to my readers.

Joshua: Since Rosette truly was a real person, what do you see as the crucial difference between writing a fictional story, and writing a fictional story based on real people? 

Cindy: I am impressed by what I have seen of the great dignity that funeral directors, and military escorts of fallen soldiers, and medical personnel recognize in the human beings they work with. The individual, once dead or unconscious, becomes in some ways more sacred and more archetypal than when that person is alive and well and perhaps irritating or even evil. In the same way, I feel a real burden for the humanity of each of the real people represented in my novel. I don't want that to result in inauthentic gushing or awe, but I want each to have the dignity of his or her own life, presented in a way that leaves the benefit of the doubt with each one. Rosette and Otis have a stormy marriage--whose fault is that? As in real life, we can trace fault in both directions and to things outside of these two people. If I'd created these characters out of whole cloth, I could do anything with them I liked. But in a way I prefer working with the real people, teasing out an understanding of who they really were.

Joshua: Given this, how much does history ‘police’ what you can write in your books? Do you ever feel that historical fact prevents you from developing a story the way you otherwise might?

Cindy: Yes. I've had readers restive about the fact that I don't lay blame squarely on one, that I don't reveal a Big Secret that explains everything. But I love the ambiguity that is a necessary conclusion from the evidence I have. As I'm writing a companion to Rosette, the story of her brother Solomon Ramsdell told somewhat in the first novel, I am constrained by the bare facts of his family history. But, truth being stranger than fiction, the real story provides a delicious twist that I'm having a great time exploring.

 Joshua: As someone who exists in more than one time in your writing, do you think people are fundamentally different today than they were 100 or 200 years ago? If so, what aspect do you think changed the most? And if not, what aspect has largely stayed the same?

Cindy: I think we can look back at Rosette's family and her own choices or compulsions and see a familiar pattern: intelligent but "difficult" young woman becomes a schoolteacher, looks at approaching spinsterhood, and marries a "suitable" man who will pursue a farming life similar to that of her father--so she begins to live out a version of her mother's own story, which is a version of her own mother's story in turn. We think, "Oh, how constrained she was! If only she could have . . ." But how much do we fall into patterns today based on what our families have done, based on our socio-economic situation, based on our educational opportunities or lack of them? Everybody loves the hero who breaks out of the expected mold. But when it comes down to it, most of us find ourselves in some expected molds. Rosette was a feisty one. Even as a young woman she made a bold fashion choice, and though it is only hinted at in the journal that forms the basis of the novel, a later document tells some of the story the journal does not. So the journal shows someone who follows a lot of the norms of her time, but reading between the lines we find out she broke some norms, too--the novel reveals some of these! I could see a Rosette today on Facebook advocating for civil rights issues and educational reform--that's what she did in her own time.

Joshua: I imagine this will inspire many people to take up their own historical writing projects. So for all the budding writers out there, where does research end and writing begin? Or does research continue well into the writing process?

Cindy: Oh, it was such fun discovering things along the way as I wrote this novel. I did extensive research of farm plots and used Google Maps to visualize the current version of her old farming neighborhood (surprisingly similar today!), but as the first draft was coming into complete form I got to visit these places in person, to see the house Otis built months after the journal closes, to see where the "sugar bush" (maple grove) from which they harvested sap ran along the creek south of their property. That visit made the scenes of the novel bloom into fuller life than they'd had before. And the document that revealed the thoughts of a 60-something-year-old Rosette? I stumbled upon that just weeks before the novel was polished to its final form. I do fear sometimes that additional evidence will come to light that will make something in the novel terribly wrong. But it hasn't yet!

Joshua: What are some of your tricks for re-creating the past in fiction? How do you help your readers ‘see’ worlds that they otherwise never have, except in films and old photographs? Cindy: I envision a setting--like the dark little shanty Otis and Rosette lived in a few months after they married--and place the action of the novel in that space. To remind modern readers of the conditions, I mention a trip to the outhouse, comment on the dim light, have them eat things Rosette wrote about in her journal. When a pregnant Rosette describes how eager she is for the first green things sprouting up that she can eat in May, we get a glimmer of what it must have been like to have to wait on the seasons. When Rosette and Otis read a cheap adventure novel together in bed, I place the book next to a candle on the bedside table.

Joshua: Again, with an eye to the fledgling historical fiction writer, what do you think are some of the greatest sins of re-creating the past in a novel? 

Cindy: Anachronisms! I do a lot of editing, and when I get a hunch that something is off, I go looking for it. But sometimes the past surprises us! Rosette was very educated for her time, but she liked cheap novels. My own editor, an expert in period costumes of pioneer America, said Rosette's "watch" would not have existed, even in the pinned version I had her wear. But the journal describes the watch several times, even to the point of showing her dependence on it for the time, and that's a wonderful detail I love including in the novel.

Joshua: One final question...do you think Rosette would recognize herself in your book? What might she object to?

Cindy: Well, if I got the details wrong about abandoning the family, of course she would object to that. But I think she would agree that I have given her dignity and complexity, and that, given my constraints, I did a good job telling her story. I think she'd be flattered that so many know of her now--before I wrote the novel her closest relative, a great-grandson in his 70s, told me he "knew nothing" of Rosette and Otis. 

Joshua: Thank you so much for your time, Cindy! If you want to learn more about Cindy’s bio and works, check out her author page. You can also find all her works on her Amazon author page! 

[hasansonsuzceliktas]

I Have Not Made My Hair since that Day

On that warm, extremely sunny day in the ancient city of Ephesus near Selçuk, I was obsessively trying to take selfies while sitting on one of the highest block of seats. I was trying to show off that gorgeous and exotic girl who came from our sacred land of Anatolia, with roots from Cappadocia on my father’s side and Kahramanmaraş on my mother’s side. I had never been to any of those cities at that point, though. So, there I was, visiting Selçuk for the first time with the intention of learning about the heritage of Kybele culture here and reactivating the strong, beautiful, virtuous qualities of the Amazons in my genes, those who came and passed through the land of Anatolia. My vacation plan included visiting the ancient cities of Pergamon, Ephesus, and Hierapolis. I swear I could feel the soft yet compassionately burning female energy everywhere, in every reflection, in every touch of ancient stone, and in every look of a statue carving. I felt it in every single cell of my body, both inside and outside! I was surrounded by this mesmerizing energy, feeling like I was everything I could be. It was like I was some kind of queen who has conquered the world or a woman with a heart huge enough to heal all the planets and galaxies in the universe. I was a sacred mother with the most magical womb and yet the hottest goddess ever, mighty but still modest. For me, it was pure heaven. I was vibrating on a higher frequency than I normally would. Yes, I wanted to wake up those “Amazon-like” qualities in me, but what was happening went beyond my imagination. During my journey, although only Hierapolis had a direct connection with Cleopatra, I always kept her in the back of my mind. I felt that I looked like her with my dark skin, dark hair, exotic energy, and love of any kind of pleasure. I had a passion to be seen and appreciated and the ambition to rule. I would do anything for just self-realization. At that moment, I heard shouting inside the ancient theatre of Ephesus: “Cleopatra in Ephesus!” There were barely any people around due to the heat, so I was surprised! I turned my head and someone asked, “Hey, are you from Mesopotamia?” I replied in Turkish; “No, I am from Istanbul.” He thought I must have come from Egypt, Iran, or Azerbaijan. We then started talking and he coaxed me out of my unending selfie trap, taking some better pictures of me instead. After we ate lunch together, I had to part with him, so I could continue my journey. I was confused, though. Clearly, there was strong evidence to show that my intention came true. The pressure was massive, however. What the hell was I going to do with the ten thousandth reincarnation of Isis (Cleopatra) reactivated in my genes? To be honest, what I had to do in the end was just accept the gift. The more I resisted, the more that the crowded groups of far-eastern tourists would approach me and ask to take selfies with me, saying things like, “Hey! Cleopatra is here too.” So I accepted and took the blessings in. I let myself feel gifted and became relaxed with that idea. I finally managed to build up enough courage to look at the me that existed before the Cleopatra experiences. What I realized has shocked me! *** I had always been in love with my hair. It was somehow a shiny black, very long, and strong and healthy. It could easily be shaped into whatever I wanted it to be, and day and night, it always looked intensely attractive with three times more volume than an average woman’s hair. It was the reason why I received so many compliments and admiring glances from people every day for thirty years. Last year, I was in northern India spending time with monks, meditating with them every day, and sharing their day-to-day life without any kind of a cross-gender interaction. I remember saying, “If enlightenment means removing all my hair, then screw that. I am not going to do that.” Since then, a year and a half has passed. I kept walking on the path of love and awareness and brought Tantra and Sufism into my life. I never missed a chance to evolve my version of me, although it really hurt sometimes. I even became a breathwork therapist and touched the hearts of hundreds of beautiful people. Now I know what it really means. It is not about removing the hair from your scalp. It is about dropping the idea of hair, the notion of being addicted to how shiny and awesome your hair looks. It means not thinking about how gorgeous you look, how attractive you are, and how much power you gain from all those visual belongings, which don’t even belong to you! It is about finding the real power of your soul beyond your superficial attributes. There is something important here, though. You can never drop anything that you never had. In order to abandon any kind of identity, even ego, you need to have had it first. You need to make it a real experience. For example, you cannot lose your passion for money without actually tasting the kind of life you could have had with that money. Likewise, you cannot drop a sexual addiction without reaching a total satisfaction of body, mind and soul for at least once in your life. Unless it becomes an experience with awareness, you can never be free of it. I was lucky. I was offered the experience of Cleopatra so I could drop my need to be seen, to be loved and admired. It was difficult at first to accept these miserable needs existed. And it became more difficult to accept that I was actually beyond these needs once I woke up to my true potential that was already lying within. If you can manage to open your heart to your most miserable sides, you will see that the cure, gift, and miracle grow out of exactly the same point. This is the point where you also experience complete freedom. I’m sure your parents expressed their love by saying things like, “Oh my beautiful daughter” or “My handsome son” did they not? (But hey, at least they loved you.) You are therefore not entirely responsible for identifying yourself with how you look. Out parent are not guilty either, however. They did their best to raise us, but we have the choice to make the change right now for ourselves and for our children. Our ancestors and our children are all wired together through the collective consciousness, and all those experiences can be transferred from one generation to another. That is why we have the freedom to choose an experience with awareness in order to evolve. Remember, Make the choice to wake up to your true spiritual strength. Just accept the situation as it is. Open your heart to however it feels. Put your intention with words from a pure heart. And go beyond the illusion. We are waiting for you in another dimension. Read the full article