What if Harry Potter Bought the House Next Door to You?

WHAT IF?

Few questions are more important to a writer. So, what if Harry Potter bought the house next door and wasn’t shy about who he was and what he could do? Really, Harry Potter himself, not Daniel Radcliffe.

Of course, the real Harry Potter—if there is one—is part of a secret world that “in real life” we would never know anything about. There’s a reason for that: people who are different are usually shunned, persecuted or worse.

The first traditional rule for the adept—alchemist, psychic, shaman, wizard—is KEEP SILENT. If he lived next door to any of us, the real Harry Potter would probably appear as unassuming as Clark Kent in the Superman stories.

But, as long as we’re playing WHAT IF?, let’s say Harry is sick and tired of staying in his figurative closet. (Actually, he did stay in a closet at his foster parents’ house—what a nice touch of symbolism on Rowling’s part).

Time for the Welcome Wagon

When a new family moves into a neighborhood, people are curious. They drop by with pies and casseroles partly as a way of starting things off with a friendly “hello” and partly as a way of getting a look at the new folks to assess how they’re going to fit in. Times might be changing, but even today there are many neighborhoods in which the “welcome committee” will be displeased if a Black, Jew, Muslim, or Gay answers the door. In other neighborhoods, Whites, Catholics, and Japanese “don’t belong.”

In scholarly literature, those who don’t belong are often referred to as The Other. They are outside the mainstream. In the Harry Potter books, witches, elves, wizards and giants are outside the mainstream of English society. Even within the magical world itself, there’s a hierarchy about who’s “in” and who’s “out.”

Fantasy offers readers unlimited opportunities to come to terms with what’s different, what goes against the mainstream scheme of things, and to consider whether the consensus reality of “real life” must be engraved in stone or not. Fantasy lets us safely question “what is.” While reading a Harry Potter book or watching a Harry Potter movie, it’s easy to feel simpatico with Harry, Ron, Hermione,  and Dumbledore, and perhaps even to feel a bit sorry for the everyday people in London who don’t know anything about the magic in their midst. Just think of all they’re missing!

But What Happens When We Get to the End of the Book and the Last Movie?

Here come Harry’s friends!

Picture this. The moving van has pulled away and the new family—who looked normal enough while carrying boxes into the house—has gone inside. So, you put together your best cherry pie or your favorite Hamburger Helper meal (depending on your skill in the kitchen), and you go next door and ring the bell.

A dark-haired guy comes to the door. He’s wearing well-aged dungarees and a polo shirt. He smiles and says “Hello.” But, before you can introduce yourself, his son—whom you can see down the entry hall in the living room—shouts Avis! and a flock of pigeons appears out of nowhere and flies past you en route to the wide open sky.

What happens now?

• The guy who answered the door says, “Hi, I’m Harry,” and acts like the thing with the birds didn’t happen.
• You ask, “How did he do that” and Harry says, “No big deal, it’s just James Sirius having a bit of fun.”

It’s not quite like seeing it in the movie, is it? As I play with this WHAT IF question, I like to think that the world has progressed a lot between the time when TV viewers were watching Rob and Laura Petrie at 148 Bonnie Meadow Road in the Dick Van Dyke Show and all the Wisteria Lane families on Desperate Housewives. We are more likely to welcome Harry today than we were in the 1960s, aren’t we?

What do you think happens if Harry Potter moves in to your neighborhood and, along with his wife Ginny, makes no secret of his skill with spell casting and potions? Will the neighbors accept him with open arms the way they did while reading Rowling’s books, or will they stay away?

This is not a WHAT IF question I plan to use for the plot of my next novel. If I were Dan Brown, I might show that Rowling’s books weren’t fiction at all and that the guy next door is probably attracting the wrong kind of attention from, say, Homeland Security, the mob, and various terrorist groups. If I were Katherine Neville, I might show that in spite of his skills, Harry needs the help of my protagonist, say, Bill Smith, who has to go on a search for the real Nicholas Flamel to save the neighborhood. Or, if I were Tom Clancy, I’d probably have a couple of CIA operatives show up to assess “which side” Harry was planning to help “win” with his most powerful spells.

Do We Want the Fantasy Characters to Just Stay in Their Books Where They Belong?

We love fantasy whether it’s epic, contemporary, urban, steampunk, heroic or another sub-genre. In the books, Harry Potter was viewed as the hero who saved the magical world and (by readers) as one of the most-loved characters in fiction.

But WHAT IF Harry, Ginny and the kids moved into your neighborhood. Would it all become one happy family with baseball games on Saturdays and Quidditch matches on Sundays? Or, would Harry, Ginny, and their friends from Hogwarts and Diagon Alley remain separate in their house and yard as The Other?

What I think would happen and what I would like to see happen don’t match up here. Even so, I like asking the question WHAT IF?

–Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of contemporary fantasy, including the 2011 novel Sarabande from Vanilla Heart Publishing.

Allowing your story to happen

“Leopards break into the temple and drink to the dregs what is in the sacrificial pitchers; this is repeated over and over again; finally it can be calculated in advance, and it becomes a part of the ceremony.” – Franz Kafka, from his Zürau aphorisms

When I first read Kafka’s temple ritual aphorism in high school, I was enchanted with logic. I believed that including the leopards either suggested that the ritual was meaningless and/or that the leaders were simply lazy and expedient. In high school, we were taught to plan, outline and research our fiction and nonfiction in advance to ensure that we said what we meant. Stray leopards in our prose might suggest otherwise.

Over the years, intuition and a love of apparent chaos have replaced logic in my life–and in my writing–as the primary inspiration behind what I’m doing and saying. Now, when I see Kafka’s aphorism, my thought is that the leopards had, in fact, been missing from the ceremony from day one.

Had the temple leaders maintained security and vigilance, the leopards couldn’t have gotten into ritual. The same is true, I think, for writing. Too much logic and too much planning can keep out the very things your story needs. Needless to say, if you allow something to enter and decide it really doesn’t help the story, you can edit it back out.

Author  Diana Gabaldon once mentioned during a research discussion on a writers’ forum that while doing research about ABC she would inadvertently stumble across XYZ. Once she investigated XYZ, it turned out to be vital to the plot and theme of her book even though she had never considered it before. Was her discovery magic, synchronicity, a butterfly-effect phenomenon, or an example of her subconscious mind “knowing” the material was there and leading her to it?

I’m not sure. And really, I’m less likely to stumble over the leopards trying to get into the temple if I don’t worry about how they found the temple or managed to appear at the proper time.  So, I leave my work open to chance. In his book Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, Mark David Gerson suggests that the stories we tell are already out there (don’t worry about where), just waiting for us to listen. If we don’t listen, we won’t hear them or, perhaps, if we do hear them, we’ll censor out the leopards because they weren’t included in the original plan.

Over the years, I’ve come to think that events and ideas that seemingly come out of nowhere are often the most meaningful. And, they can send our lives and our stories off on the most surprising pathways. In her post How an African Intruder Taught Me a Lesson on Magic and Writing, author Smoky Trudeau Zeidel wrote about a guineafowl that wandered into her neighborhood. She named the bird Gertie. Its appearance there was probably just as unlikely as a leopard in the local temple.

“All sorts of Gerties have popped up in my Work In Progress (WIP), The Storyteller’s Bracelet. Not guineafowl, these Gerties, but surprises that seem to have materialized out of nowhere,” she said. (She and I were content to label the appearance of a Gertie of any kind as magic.) Her view is that “when magic enters your life, be it through an unexpected visitor from another continent or through your words, it is best to go with it.”

I agree. Going with it is part of allowing your story to happen.

–Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of magical realism and contemporary fantasy novels, including “Sarabande.”

The Magic of Harry Potter

from Sarabande’s Journey:

J. R. R. Tolkien is credited with bringing epic fantasy back into the lives of mainstream readers. We can also claim that J. K. Rowling’s popular Harry Potter books not only fired up the reading public’s love of contemporary fantasy, but introduced the concept of books to people who seldom read novels at all.

Fourteen years after her U. K. publisher (Bloomsbury) released the first, tentative thousand copies of  Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (renamed in the U.S.), her fans continue to wait for word, any word, that there might be another Harry Potter novel. In 2007, the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows sold a record 8.3 million copies in the United States in the first 24 hours.

Any other author would have been told not to use the word “hallows” in a book title since the term wasn’t in the public’s consciousness. But Potter fans lined up and bought the book while debates raged on about what “hallows” might be.

The popularity of  Rowling’s books has been called a “black swan event.” Developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and explained in his book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, the theory examines rare events that could never have been predicted or planned and that even in hindsight, usually cannot be duplicated. Taleb himself considered Harry Potter, as a publishing event, a black swan.

Journalist Will Hutton believes Rowling’s success transcends the quality of the books themselves. “Rowling is repeating the Da Vinci Code effect – but much more shrewdly,” he writes. “In the creative industries success always begets more success, but in an era of globalisation the success can be very big indeed, as both Rowling and Dan Brown can testify.”

Hutton, and others, think globalization and the viral phenomenon of ideas, books, movies songs suddenly becoming popular seemingly everywhere is more responsible for Harry Potter’s popularity than the quality of Rowling’s books.

Is Harry Potter’s Success Simply Books Going Viral Around the Globe?

U.K. cover

Based on Hutton’s theory of why a Da Vinci Code Effect book does so well we could, let us say, create a look-alike universe without television, cell phones, satellites providing news in real time, and the Internet, and then display the Harry Potter books (one person at a time) to 8.3 million readers. Hutton would say that Rowling’s sales in that universe would be a fraction of what they are here. He may be right.

But that still leaves us with the question of: “If the outside influence of millions of people saying the books are great is what caused each reader to pick up a Harry Potter book, what caused them to enjoy it so thoroughly and read and re-read it so passionately?”

While peer influence is a powerful thing, reading is a solitary act. Top ten songs are easy to share in a way that further leads to their enjoyment and popularity. People listen to them together in cars and break rooms and parties and hear them in large groups at concerts. While the Harry Potter movies were shared by theater audiences in real time, the books were not. Each reader had to choose to sit in a chair, curl up in a hammock, or prop up in bed and read the book by himself and herself. Like all reading, Harry Potter represented an investment in time.

Many have said that in addition to Rowling’s creative and imaginative mix of characters, themes, and settings, the books’ success comes in part through their believable account of a rather geeky (yet lovable) underdog becoming so empowered, he was able to effectively battle against the adult, experienced and highly skilled bad wizards in the book. Noticeably, the good adult wizards teaching magic at Hogwarts had very little to do with the triumph of good over evil in each book.

In a world where most of the news is bad and most of the global issues seem impossible to solve, the prospective readers of the Harry Potter books found a wonderful antidote in Rowling’s books to the negativity, hopelessness and alienation prevalent in so many people’s lives and world views. Rowling’s stories are inspirational: even the most hard-hearted and logical adult can read them with a sense of wonderment and empowerment.

Far from being escapist reading that captures readers’ imaginations while they are reading, the Harry Potter books—through some we-don’t-really-understand-it mix of Rowling’s genius and a black swan publishing event—continue to delight and inspire readers after they finish the books.

In Fantasy, Magic is a Positive Symbol for What You Can Do in the Everyday World

While J. K. Rowling’s Voldemort is just as nasty as the bad guys found it occult horror books, the Harry Potter series illustrates one important difference between fantasy and other so-called paranormal books. In fantasy, magic is viewed as normal and a capability that the book’s protagonist can become allied with and even learn. This is the case even when there are Voldemort-type characters who are using the magic for evil reasons. In occult horror books, the magic, whether its seen as a typical component of the location or not, is something that is nonetheless alien and evil and to be feared. In supernatural horror stories and most mainstream fiction, the occult is considered abnormal, evil and threatening.

In fantasy, magic is seen as normal, as a talent both good guys and bad guys can utilize, and as something to be embraced. In many respects, the acceptance of and learned proficiency with magic represents a character’s personal transformation either figuratively or literally. Transformation is an important theme in fantasy. As such, we view it in fantasy fiction as symbolic of the non-magical transformations we can seek out an attain in our non-magical real world.

This is part of the empowerment one feels, I think, when they read Rowling’s books. The books stimulate the readers’ imagination, and they begin to feel the first inklings of wonderment about the prospects for their own success in becoming the best people they can be. They may still have a “Heart of Darkness,” as Joseph Conrad suggested in his novella published in 1902, but they can transcend it.

The Harry Potter books weren’t written as guides for living or as recipes for personal success. However, the magic (real and figurative) that readers discover in them and then internalize is a large part of their power.

–Malcolm

a contemporary fantasy of the dark moon

Vila SpiderHawk’s Books Reflect a Love of the Natural World

Vila SpiderHawk is the author of three magical novels that follow the coming-of-age adventures of protagonist Judy Bauman in the disputed German-Polish border territories prior to and during World War II: Forest Song: Finding Home (2008), Forest Song: Little Mother (2009) and Forest Song: Letting Go (2010). Vila is also the author of the Forest Song Cookbook (2009), featuring recipes from the series, and Hidden Passages: Tales to Honor the Crones (2007), a collection of stories about old women and their celebration of life and wisdom. Vila and her husband live in a log house in the Pennsylvania forestland.

Malcolm: Welcome to Malcolm’s Round Table, Vila. You introduced readers to protagonist Judy Bauman in Forest Song: Finding Home set in 1929 to 1933 in territory claimed by both Germany and Poland on the eve of World War II. What attracted you to this time and place for your novel’s setting?

Vila: Thank you for your hospitality and thoughtful questions, Malcolm. It’s very kind of you to do this interview with me.

Why the World War II era in the Polish-German Corridor? I am of German descent and was born in 1945. I grew up in careful silence about the horror of the Holocaust. We didn’t even learn it in school, since it was still too new to be in the history books. It wasn’t until I went to high school that I got my introduction to the period, and that was very sketchy. Nonetheless, I have always felt a pull to the time and place. Call it racial guilt. Call it something else. Whatever it is, I needed to know what caused a people to do such terrible things. And so I studied the era in college.

However, I was never satisfied with the answers the books gave for that terrible time, and so I have carried this need around all these years. Therefore, when I met Judy and she turned out to have lived in that time, I invited her in to tell me her story.

You see, I do not create my characters. They come to me, fully formed and talkative. Judy is downright overbearing sometimes. In any case, I channeled her, since she, too, cares deeply about the “whys” of things.

But there is an additional reason. I worry that our country could become the Germany of the Holocaust. I worry about Guantanamo and the attitude we generally have about Muslims just now. While I am sure some Jews in Germany fit the Nazi stereotype, since all stereotypes have a glimmer of truth to them, I believe and indeed have found that most Jews were just hardworking people trying to live decently and to raise their children well while keeping the bills paid. And, while some Muslims fit the stereotype we have created for them, most, I believe, are like the majority of German Jews. All they want is to live decent lives, to raise moral and educated children, and to pay the bills. It’s not rocket science. People are people. Most are, at bottom, very conscientious.

Malcolm: As I read Forest Song: Finding Home, I discovered an interwoven mix of history, German and Polish life and culture, Craft traditions and rituals, and faerie magic. When prospective writers ask what you write about, how do you describe the Forest Song books’ genre and overarching themes?

Vila: Oh boy it’s really difficult for me to place the Forest Song series into a tidy little box. I have classified it as historical fiction, since it has elements of that. I have also classified it as fantasy, since it has aspects that people like to call fantasy. But in truth, it doesn’t really fit tidily into any single category.

When people ask me what I write about, I usually tell them I write about life, in all its complexities. As is true of all of us, Judy’s is a creature of her culture and her era. Her spirituality is an important aspect of her attitudes as well, as it is with most of us. Sometimes she believes she’s going from point A to point B and she ends up at point H, as often happens in life. My stories are not straightforward, because life isn’t straightforward. This becomes more obvious in the later volumes of the Forest Song series but is already visible in Finding Home.

Malcolm: Fairy tales and myths frequently use the forest outside the city gates as a dangerous and/or magical realm of non-ordinary reality where characters go for heroes’ adventures and seekers’ coming of age stories with a strong focus on the protagonist’s transcendent or psychological “the inner journey.” Did a life-long appreciation of myths and folktales greatly influence your approach to Judy’s story and her drive to leave the claustrophobic and limiting world of her parents’ farm for the freedom of the forest?

Vila: Fairy tales are highly allegorical. The forest in fairy tales usually symbolizes the darkness and the space in which people reflect and learn, acquiring wisdom. Thus Persephone goes into the Underworld as a child and emerges with a woman’s wisdom and responsibilities. The forest is our Underworld.

Having said that, I did not grow up reading and loving fairy tales. That came later. But I have always felt the pull of the woods. I always felt I would not satisfy my destiny until I had escaped the clatter, stench, and hustle of the city and had moved into the green serenity of the trees. And, in truth, I didn’t. Though I have always written, it wasn’t until I had moved here and had explored my inner wisdom that I finally felt ready to write for publication.

Malcolm: I am amazed at the breadth and scope of the Forest Song books insofar as the author’s personal knowledge and research required for the plot and setting. How did you approach and organize the books’ details so that they fit hand in glove with recorded history, actual trees and plants available (and seasonally, when they bloomed) in the disputed territories, local customs, Craft traditions specific to Germany and Poland at that time, relevant folktales, and even kinds of clothing, furnishings and products available in a typical farm family’s house?

Vila: I don’t organize my books. My characters do that. They tell me their basic stories in bare bones language. Then it’s up to me to make art of their tales. Once I have the basic facts, I spend a great deal of time researching. One of the reasons I am such a slow writer is that I try to check every little detail to be sure it’s true. Judy opens herself up to me. She lays herself bare. That requires a great deal of trust. I need to be worthy of that trust. That means that I have to be sure that every detail I include in her story is true. I read many books before I sat down to write this series, and I have read many more along the way.

Malcolm: Your pseudonym combines “Vila,” a goddess, with “Spider” and “Hawk.” How did you choose this unique pseudonym and how does its meaning correlate with the intentions and perspectives behind your writing?

Vila: I chose Vila SpiderHawk very carefully. Vila is an eastern European Goddess of the woods. She is a shape shifter and the protector of the forest and all who live there. She heals with herbs. I identify with all that. She also dances hunters to death. There are times when I really identify with that as well, since I am a vegan. I chose the name long before I realized I’d be telling Judy’s story, though.

Spider is a contemplative creature. Spider spends her time between earth, the concrete, and air, inspiration. She chooses not to hunt. Instead she waits for food to come to her. She is patient. She knows that the Universe will provide her daily needs. She reminds us to see the importance of patience and spirituality. She reminds us to see the divine in all creatures, however small, however mundane.

Hawk, on the other hand, is aggressive. Her vision is sharp, and her reflexes are quick. She is a merciless hunter. She soars. She spreads her wings and touches the clouds. She is as free as it is possible to be in this life.

I am both Spider and Hawk. I am contemplative and introspective. I understand that the Universe will provide what I need as long as I have the wit to ask for it and the patience to accept that it will come in its own good time. But I am also Hawk. I can be aggressive and merciless. I tend to see sharply. And there are times when I positively soar. The Spider in me tempers the Hawk. The Hawk in me reminds me that sometimes it is necessary to be aggressive and to see sharply. And, while it’s wonderful to experience a meditative state, it is such a delight to soar.

Malcolm: In addition to exciting stories, what memories, dreams and reflections do you hope your readers will carry away with them after reading the Forest Song novels?

Vila: What the reader takes away from my books is really up to the reader. Each person brings her own experience, her own baggage, her own spirituality, and her own longings to the books she reads. Each person will take away an individual package of dreams and reflections. I don’t feel I can dictate or even suggest the “right” hopes, the “right” insights for the reader. I simply hope that each book sings to each individual in a way that feeds her soul.

Malcolm: The use of the word “crone” in your Hidden Passages collection of stories straddles a paradox. In mainstream society, the seldom-used word is generally used to malign and discount older women in a patriarchal society. Yet, in historical matriarchal societies and in the Craft and goddess traditions, the word is used as a reverent term of endearment and respect. Did you have any second thoughts or concerns about using the word “crone” in your title or was it especially appropriate to the book’s theme and intent in spite of some mainstream connotations?

Vila: I was very adamant about using the word “Crone” in the title of Hidden Passages. I deeply resent the fact that we dismiss old women in particular but old men too as useless dead weight when, given their experience and wisdom, they have so very much to offer. I think we would be a better society if we actually respected more the feminine principle of giving and nurturing life and if we understood down to the marrow of our bones how very much we owe those wonderful women who raised us.

I grew up in the company of old women. I have always treasured them. And now that I am one, I value old women even more. I understand now that, while those wonderful women who raised me were old and wise and generous and dear, they still had all the eagerness and, yes, insecurities of youth. To me the word “Crone” encapsulates all that is woman—the maiden who is brash and flirty, fearless yet vulnerable; the mother who will sacrifice anything to give her child a better life, the woman who teaches and nurtures and worries and rejoices in and about her children; and the creature we see superficially as the Crone who knows pain, who has experienced death and loss and has endured anyway. The word Crone to me is not simply a title of respect. It is, in my opinion, the finest appellation anyone can call a woman.

Malcolm: Your characters use a lot of herbs found growing naturally in the woods where they live. If one chanced by your log cabin, would they find you out in the woods gathering and drying herbs, and then using them in the teas and meals you serve at your table?

Vila: Oh boy would they ever! Of course, I have an herb garden. Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it that. I’m not sure it’s organized enough to warrant the name “garden”. But I grow all kinds of culinary and other herbs as ground covers instead of grass. And I do cut from the herbs for cooking and other purposes during growing season. I dry herbs in autumn for winter use as well. My house smells like vegetable soup through the autumn with all the herbs drying. But I also harvest herbs from the woods. Mostly that’s just an excuse to go out into the trees and to feel the woodland energy all around me. But yes, herbs are very important to me. Not only do they make food taste fantastic, they have enormous healing power that many European countries still recognize. Hopefully, we’ll get back to more natural healing methods in this country too.

Malcolm: Thank you so much for stopping by and chatting today.

–Malcolm

Review: ‘Awakening of the Dream Riders’

Awakening of the Dream Riders by Lynda Louise Mangoro

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Kyra has discovered how to fly.

As Lynda Louise Mangoro’s magical novel “Awakening of the Dream Riders” begins, fourteen-year-old Kyra is trying out her new talent: “Her favorite unicorn poster suddenly loomed directly ahead. Pulling back, she slowed just in time to avoid a collision with the wall and sent herself tumbling backward through the air, rolling head over heels in a clumsy display of aero-gymnastics.”

Before Kyra discovers what she’s doing, veteran readers of paranormal fiction will guess that her joyful and liberating flight is astral projection. But she’s too elated to concern herself about technical terms. She can’t wait to share her stunning discovery with her best friend at school.

This well-told story moves at light speed, as fast as a person flying in their “light body” can soar across town in the blink of a thought. Soon, Kyra and her friends, Ray, Lauren, Crystal, and even the science-minded Noah are talking about “dream riding.”

On the back cover of “Awakening of the Dream Riders,” Mangoro describes Kyra’s world as “a quiet street in a picturesque English seaside town.” As Kyra and her friends discover, that’s only one reality, and it’s heavy and dense when compared to dream riding.

But unknown shadows await them within the infinite scope of the bright reality that knowing how to fly has offered them. Kyra and her friends will discover their unique dream riding talents, talents they must develop quickly in order to survive a tragedy their freshly opened eyes do not yet see.

“Awakening of the Dream Riders” plunges the reader into an inventive paranormal adventure. The high-energy magic of the story arises out of the fact that Kyra’s world on the ground and in the air appears very real. And there’s more to come: Mangoro’s debut novel is the first in a projected series of open-your-mind fantasy adventures for young adults and adults.

View all my reviews >>

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of two magical realism novels, “Garden of Heaven” and “The Sun Singer.”

Jock Stewart Reviews ‘The Sun Singer’

from the Morning Satirical News:

Babb, Montana, May 21, 2010–I’m standing here on a blustery day in Babb at the intersection of Hgy 89 and Glacier Road Three watching company trucks and employee cars making their way up Swiftcurrent Valley to get Many Glacier Hotel ready for its June 4th opening for the summer season. My ancient CJ5 complained about the trip all the way from Junction City, and both the Jeep and I are wondering if the 4-wheel-drive will work in tomorrow’s expected snowfall.

I’m here–mostly on my own nickel because newspapers don’t have a lot of money anymore–to visit the setting on a mythic adventure novel named The Sun Singer. (Hey, there goes one of those 1930s “jammer buses” up to the hotel with a batch of new employees.)

Let me clarify several important CYA points right now:

1. Except when I’m desperate for cash, I don’t do windows, Karaoke bars or book reviews.
2. I know diddly about Quantum physics, and that means that I don’t buy into the theory that everything that can happen does happen or that there are multiple universes connected to each other by time portals.
3. Magic is just smoke and mirrors and too many glasses of Scotch.

So, let me dismiss out of hand, the rather rash claims by author Malcolm R. Campbell that there’s a real time portal hidden at the base of Mt. Allen at the head end of Lake Josephine that leads to another universe. If such a thing existed, everyone having “issues” with loan sharks, ex-wives and bad whiskey would be here in the park doing whatever voodoo chants or meditations were required to open that door so they could escape.

Frankly, I think the whole time portal in the park occurred to Campbell years ago after he fell off the top of Mt. Allen and hit his head.

Time Portals

If there were a time portal–and I’m not saying there is one–all those running through it might find themselves smack dab in an industrial-strength spot of bother. That’s what happens to young Robert Adams in the book. His family brings him to this beautiful park, and what does he do? He leaves the celestial world of hiking, boating, riding jammer buses and mountain climbing and steps through a doorway into a place filled with evil. Once he gets there, he forgets who he is.

I know a lot of people in the psych ward over at county general who act like they’ve been there and done that, but the big difference is, they’re real people. Robert Adams is a fictional character who has to figure out how a magical wizard’s-type staff works just to get back to the hotel with his physical self all in one piece.

Even though I had a few drinks while reading “The Sun Singer,” I didn’t totally believe in magic when I got to the last page. But I have to say, the novel tells a darned good yarn and when I sobered up, I considered getting a job in the quantum mechanics or avatar business so I could learn more about all the realities that yours truly appears to have been ignorant of up to now.

Be Safe Rather Than One Universe Shy of Reality

Look, if you go to Glacier this summer, take a copy of the novel along and read it at night while spending your daylight hours celebrating the park’s 100th birthday. Just remember, Robert Adams goes looking for a time portal because he promised his mystical grandfather he’d do it and try to fix whatever was broken. What was broken included himself.

So unless your life is too broke to fix, leave that portal alone. Or at least, read the book first and then decide where you stand on such things as magic and time portals and becoming a Sun Singer.

As for myself, I need to find a warmer place to sleep tonight than a 40-year-old Jeep with a canvas top.

Flying with Ravens – Friday afternoon magic

from Jupiter Images

“Robert, Maistó (Raven) has reminded me that you must not confuse him with common crows. They are greedy, self-serving birds that eat too fast. According to Maistó, the ‘caw’ sound we associate with crows is more of a belch than a call.” — David Ward in “The Sun Singer”

“I have fled in the shape of a raven of prophetic speech.” — Taliesin

“They slept until the black raven, the blithe hearted proclaimed the joy of heaven.” –Beowulf

When you fly with Raven and/or imagine flying with Raven you must have a sense of humor. Prepare to be mocked, mimicked and satirized in every possible way. Accept this, for it shifts your consciousness rather like getting hit in the face with a feather pillow and refocuses your attention on your inner journey. When you pretend to be flying with Raven, you are flying with Raven.

Synchronize your flight with Raven’s flight and you will go within, dying to the exterior world so that dreams and magic are paramount. Alchemists call this stage of the great work “blackening” and often represent it in a variety of morbid death’s head and graveyard drawings. While flying with tricksters, you will in time see the humor in this.

To synchronize your flying with Raven, resist the urge to fly like a common crow and shout “caw caw” at the people in the world below. Observe and you will see that crows soar with bent wings and that ravens fly like hawks, flapping and then soaring on horizontal wings. Keep your hands straight and, if you must say anything, shout “crrrruck crrrruck.”

Ravens are keepers of secrets and they will escort you into the void where the mysteries are contained or they will bring you messages from the spirits of darkness with knowledge to impart. Sometimes, to emphasize your re-focused attention, Ravens will change into something else and expect you to follow suit.

While your encounter with Ravens stops the world as you know, it can be confusing. In terms of mythology and animal totems, Ravens are fun loving and fast moving and it’s best to be adaptable. However, flattery will get you everywhere. Inform them that you know that even mainstream science believes Ravens have more intelligence and insight than crows or, for heaven’s sakes, magpies. Figuratively speaking, the diverse Corvidae family has its share of black sheep.

When you see Raven in your dreams, magic is afoot–or, actually, awing–and it’s best to fly wherever it takes you. Whether you are a garden-variety author, a seeker, or a shaman, an open-ended, nonjudgemental experience with Raven is the key to power and mystery from (depending on your belief system) the astral, inner, or spirit world.

Meditations and magical flights with Raven can turn into a carnival of colors and changing seasons and laughter out of which–when you fear all is lost in the great chaos of the moment–meanings begin to appear clear and cold as black ice. Smile, laugh, and go with the flow; otherwise insanity is a risk–and that’s no joking matter.

Truth be told, Ravens have done their best to drive me crazy. They see it as a benefit–part of the initiation, so to speak–and a prelude to greater mysteries. I’ve told them they are quite full of themselves and their only defense is to laugh and tell me I fly like a baboon in heat. (I really don’t know what that means and haven’t wanted to ask.)

Malcolm

Each purchase benefits Glacier National Park

Book Review: Smoky Trudeau’s ‘The Cabin’

The Cabin by Smoky Trudeau

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
There was a deep connectedness between mountain women in the Allegheny Mountains of Virginia, a connectedness that transcended the tangible, yet was as real as the forest itself. It was a part of the mountain magic, her grandmother had taught her when she was a young child, and it was particularly strong between Corrine and her sister, Catherine.

Faerie folk and an old cabin in the high country link characters in modern times with those living during the American Civil War. Those who “know” tell the doubters to “believe what you see.” Lives are at stake across time and the one chosen to help is in the dark.

Smoky Trudeau, who also wrote “Redeeming Grace,” brings to “The Cabin”
an obvious and highly detailed love of plants and animals, the mountains, and the old wisdom of one attuned to the natural world.

This novel is a very satisfying, very magical reading experience. Highly recommended to everyone, but especially to those interested in time portals, mountain wisdom, Native American beliefs, the Civil War, slaves and bounty hunters, folk medicine, and mystery.

“The Cabin” is available in paperback at Amazon and other online booksellers and in multiple e-book formats at Smashwords.

View all my reviews >>

Copyright (c) 2009 by Malcolm R. Campbell, author of a time portal novel “The Sun Singer” and the comedy/thriller “Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire.”