An Evening at the Symphony: The Perfect Antidote for the Blues #music #uplifting

On By Alethea KehasIn Reflections, Warriors of Light16 Comments
Image by Russell_Yan from Pixabay

We were supposed to go last year for my husband’s birthday, but the dates offered never matched up with our schedules. This year, the stars of fate aligned and we were able to witness the unadorned splendor of the NH Symphony Orchestra performing at the Keefe Center of the Arts in Nashua, NH. Just the two of us amongst a roomful of strangers on a Saturday night towards the end of April.

Neither of us had ever been to the symphony, unless you want to count the marvelous amateur orchestra comprised of the talents of our town’s local schoolchildren. Our first experience with the NH Symphony Orchestra did not disappoint. Okay, maybe we were just a little underwhelmed by the world premier performance of D.J. Sparr’s Extraordinary Motion: Concerto for Electric Harp, but let me qualify that by saying neither of us are in any way experts on what defines a great piece of music. We can only go by how it sounds to our ears and how it moves the emotions inside of our cells.

And we were undoubtably moved by the orchestra’s production of Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, “From the New World,”which filled the second half of the night. A masterpiece, whether it be a painting, a poem, or a symphony is a transformative work of art. I was, by the end of the production transformed. I was no longer feeling the heavy weight of life, but the hope and vitality of its life force. It was just what I needed.

We were also quite delighted by the world premier performance of the New Hampshire Concerto, which was created in collaboration with regional college composers. What a gifted collection of young artists! It was real treat to witness their premier on such a welcoming stage.

To complete the evening, I was able to deposit one of my Warrior’s of Light books and power animals in a Little Free Library in Nashua on our way home. And, today has offered sunshine to replace yesterday’s clouds and drizzle. I have found a renewed zest for life.

If you have not been to your local symphony, I highly recommend you gift yourself a night out. Ours only cost us $50. Money well spent.

Requests for Connection to Feed the Soul While (Not)Settling #balance #connection

On By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Reflections, the labyrinth, Warriors of Light, yoga12 Comments
It all started with A maze, a crow, and six warriors of light…

I had a fitful night of sleep, again. My dreams have been vivid and detailed every night, one following the other in a breathless chase to be the most dramatic and wildly cast. But last night it was not just the dreams that kept me dancing between wake and slumber, but the ache on the right side of my neck and shoulder. It’s becoming a chronic reminder of imbalance. Yesterday, after teaching my Friday morning Zoom yoga class, I drove to the health center and spent four plus hours checking people out of their appointments and making reminder calls. The right side of my body taking on the onus of the repetitive work. By the end of my shift I was crabby and decidedly unsettled.

What the hell are you doing to yourself?

It’s a question I have begun asking myself (again). It’s a question several of my friends have formulated in various ways over the past several weeks. The ones who know what pulls my soul into the space of wonder and joy. But here we are again…

The truth is, I have settled. I have settled for a job that in many ways demoralizes me, but fulfills, in part, the nagging obligation I have to contribute more financially to my household. It’s not even close, though, to fulfilling the potential that exists inside of me. I return each day for the regularity of the paycheck, as well as the human interaction that comes with it. I work with a roomful of kind and compassionate souls, and most of the patients I connect with daily, whether I am checking them in or out of their appointments, allow me to share a moment of connection.

Connection is what pulls me forward. It is pulling me now, with persistence. You are here to do more, it tells me, This is not enough.

I know this. I have never deluded myself into thinking I would settle permanently, but the challenge I now face is how to bring an equal balance into my life at this time of financial obligations. This wildly expansive vision of connection I carry inside of me needs to somehow be tamed in a manner that allows me to grow it with logic and care. I cannot bring it fully into maturity all at once without winning the lottery, so practicality must become a friend.

I must reach out the hand of connection in the form of requests and find new mentors and means that allow this persistence to take root and grow. People do it all the time. They take their seeds of dreams and grow them into wonders. Why not me?

A few days ago, I reached out to SCORE and have been given a new mentor. Years ago, I gave it a try and it never went anywhere. The fit was not good and the time was not right. But I feel readier now. The vision more clear. The roots itching for space to spread and connect.

If anyone who is reading this knows about other mentorship programs or resources that help visions take root and grow, I would be grateful if you would leave them in the comments. In particular, how to create a nonprofit that serves a diverse community but also has a physical space(s). Or, better yet, someone who wants to donate 100 acres of land and a structure (or two or three…) to form deeper connections to Life! 😁

Thank you for reading and for connecting.

Some Kind of Wonderful #Friendship

On By Alethea KehasIn Reflections26 Comments

We found our way to Plum Cove Beach ten minutes before a group of our daughter’s friends pulled into the parking lot an over-stuffed SUV. It was well before the waking hour of many a college student on a Saturday morning, and the weather that greeted the cheering squad was less than welcoming. The temperature trying to reach 40 degrees has the could opened to rain. The water in the cove beside the halfway point of the Gloucester half marathon was rushing its night caps to the shore. Beside the porta potty, parka-wrapped volunteers offered paper cups of water and lemonade amidst the chanting lyrics of Bon Jovi on automatic repeat, “we’re halfway there!”

The Halfway Point

As we greeted our daughter’s friends, I remarked upon the windy, wet cold, but no one complained. Instead, they looked tired, but happy as they pulled their hoods over the heads and extracted their hand-crafted signs from the trunk. Despite the marathon traffic, everyone had arrived with ample time to spare, and after checking locations of the runners on our phones, we gathered back into our cars for some warmth as we waited for the impending descent down the hill towards the cove.

Cheering Friends with Signs of Encouragement

Back in the car, I began to think about how lucky our daughter was, while intermittently worrying about her leg, which had a tendency to go numb through over-use. How lucky she was, I thought between worry, that she had these remarkable friends who chose to spend a cold, rainy, and very early Saturday morning watching her run a half-marathon. Friends she had met less than two years ago, but whose bond was forged with the strength of shared joys and hardships experienced through college life that included their first year studying abroad together in London.

A northern adventure of friendship during their year in London

We made our way, parents and friends, back out into the blustery elements well before the anticipated trio crested the top of the hill. While my husband and I positioned ourselves for optimal photography, the younger crowd gathered with signs and smiles on the opposite side of the road. Where, I realized later, they would be able to sweep the tired runners into their arms for a brief embrace before they continued on. My husband and I, positioned to be voyeurs rather than active participants, were in for a rare treat.

Without any knowledge of our watching presence on the other side of the road, our daughter waits for a chance to run into the arms of her cheering friends.

In our twenty years of raising our children, my husband and I have been witness to a multitude of moments filled with the highs and lows of friendship. On this marathon morning, we were poised to watch the wonders of what friendship can be at its finest. More than once. There we stood, as our daughter turned the corner and began her descent down the hill. Her eyes, immediately zeroing in on her group of friends never wavered from their destination as her tired (and numb) leg(s) carried her down to the bend near the cove and into the opened arms of her cheering friends.

Some Kind of Wonderful, Indeed

Never once, in those moments of passing the halfway point did our daughter turn to notice her parents were also there, which, in my mind, was more than okay. In fact, it was, in my eyes, perfection. Every loving parent wants to give their child the best of the world, but one of the gifts we cannot bestow upon them is friendship. And here we ware watching the best of the best of that precious gift. Friendship not only found, but forged with the bond of loving support.

More than halfway there

With two eyes brimming with unobserved tears and a heart filled with renewed warmth, I headed back to the car to begin our journey to the finish line. Finding ourselves once again with ample time to spare, I was able to observe how much my body had relaxed its tension. Sure, I was still worried about our daughter’s physical wellbeing, in particular, the leg that had been a chronic issue, but my worry had was mostly replaced with the knowing that she was running beside and backed by friendship.

The hands of friendship are a precious balm

And suddenly there she was, making another turn around a bend in the road with her two companion runners nearby. With about 300 meters to go, I could see the fatigue in my daughter’s gait, and doubt began to tug at wonder as I watched with breath held as one leg, and then the other pulled her forward. At about the 200 meter mark, I heard the voices of her friends as their bodies matched her stride to bookend her. “Come on, Ava,” they called out to her, “You can do it.”

Anything is possible with friendship holding your hands

That was the moment awe returned and fiercely shook away doubt. First one hand, and then another, grasped the hands of my daughter and held fast as three sets of legs made their way to the finish line.

Anything is possible with friendship holding your hands
Mission Accomplished

What’s Happened to the Last Month (Striving for Balance) #writerslife

On By Alethea KehasIn A Better World of Books, the labyrinth, Warriors of Light21 Comments

April has arrived already promising mischief. This week, the temperature is determined to plummet twenty degrees by mid-week and bring with it snow. Yes, you read this right, snow. The last time we had an April Fool’s snow storm was a quarter of a century ago. I remember that day vividly, as I had to drive my little Honda from Mansfield, MA into Providence, RI to attend my grad school classes and labs. Several feet of snow dumped on my path that day, and I am hoping this storm that is due to strike between Wednesday and Thursday will be kinder.

But I digress. This post was supposed to be about what has happened to this past month and why I am determined to bring balance back to my life. At the end of February, I started a per diem job as a patient care coordinator at a nearby family health center. When I took the job I promised myself it would bring my life more balance. And, in some ways it has. I have increased my income and my interaction with the world beyond my home and screen, but per diem quickly turned into every day, and I am finding it is not so easy for me to make time for writing.

Several days ago my husband asked me how book three in the Warrior’s of Light series is coming along, and I had to tell him “it’s not.” It still isn’t. It’s hovered around fifty pages for months now, and I really don’t have a great excuse as to why. If I have time to watch “All Things Great and Small” on my PBS app in the evenings, I have time to work on my craft.

What I have done, aside from creating semi regular TikTok posts on yoga and books, is to gather up, sign, package, and start distributing my pre-Covid/pre-updated copies of The Labyrinth (book 1) into Little Free Libraries I encounter during my forays out into the world. This has been incredibly satisfying for me, even though I have no idea what happens to the books after I nestle them among their peers in the tiny libraries.

Honestly, it doesn’t really matter. I like to play with wonder when I release the book into the world. I take joy in gripping the dragon pen my husband spontaneously gifted me (to match the dragon theme of book 2), opening the uncracked covers, and spreading words of light across the title page, before I wrap the book with an elastic attached to a soapstone animal that matches the character whose page I have bookmarked.

I like to image a labyrinth of light spreading across the land with each deposit into the libraries. A seed of hope implanted into the heart of a young reader. A thread of promise.

Some of the little libraries where The Labyrinth and its Warriors of Light have found homes.

I’ve Joined TikTok! Join Me for an EMYoga Wake-up Routine #morningyoga #yoga

On By Alethea KehasIn yoga7 Comments

After years of people telling me I should join TikTok to help promote my work and books, I have finally done it! If you know me, that’s kind-of a big deal. Especially when it comes to getting behind a camera.

A couple of days ago, I created an impromptu video before leaving the house to teach a yoga class. It was quick and completely unscripted, which pushes my Virgo boundaries. And, I’ve decided to share it with my blogging community too! Mostly because I believe it the benefits of yoga, and I really love this EMYoga Wake-up routine. It’s a wonderful way to start the day.

I’ve also started a new job, as a per diem patient care coordinator, which is also something I never envisioned myself doing. Lots of new changes for me this year! Without yoga, I’m not sure I would have stuck through this first week of adjustments. I think I’ll enjoy the work, but it has been lots of change for someone who loves her alone time.

So, if you feel inclined to watch this video and learn some tips to get your energy optimized for the day, I hope you enjoy it. If you are on TikTok, you can follow me @labyrinthwalker for more yoga videos (I promise to post more), author videos, pet clips, and, most likely some wanders in nature, and who knows what else…

Not Your Ordinary Love Story #KeystotheHeart #lovestories

On By Alethea KehasIn A Better World of Books, the labyrinth, Warriors of Light20 Comments

A few months ago, I came across an article that said middle-grade and YA readers are now seeking stories about strong friendships rather than romance. Perfect, I thought, because the bond of friendship threads through my middle-grade Warriors of Light series. It is, you could say, a rather non-traditional love story. The six young protagonists are driven by their philial love for one another, as well as their filial love, and their love for Earth.

A giant in the land that helped to inspire the character Albion in Keys to the Heart. Photo taken at Jordan Pond, Acadia National Park in 2018

A year after visiting Arbor Low, I journeyed back to England for another weekend of Silent Eye adventures, and to partake in my graduation ceremony. “You need to come to this one,” Sue had urged me. “It’s all about the ley lines and the hexagram star.” Once again, while exploring the ancient landscapes of England, I would discover more insights about the stories that had been whispering their secrets onto my pages.

These sacred waters were the site of my graduation rites

We spent a very busy day following the ley lines (aka dragon lines) in the pattern of a hexagram star, hopping from church to church to feel into their energy. Many of the ley lines/dragon lines in Earth follow geometric patterns and connect to sacred sites. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, churches were frequently, and probably not coincidentally, erected atop ancient sacred sites and dragon lines (it makes one wonder about religious images of dragons being slain or “tamed” in paintings and church windows). Truthfully, the day for me was mostly unsettling. To me, the energy of the land beneath these religious edifices feels not so much sacred, but deadened in an attempt to exert power and control. 

Sue standing beside one of the churches we visited that is situated on a hexagram of ley lines

So when we journeyed away from the churches to visit ancient sites that still feel alive in the landscape, I felt much more at home. One of our stops was to visit the chalk giant embedded into a hillside in the Cerne Valley. Legends tell that the Cerne Abbas Giant, with his erect phallus, was a fertility god of sorts. Couples would (and perhaps still do, although it is now fenced in) flock to the hillside to make love in the hope to conceive.

The fertility giant in the background of a “Hardy” sign.

But I was more interested in the idea of a love story about the land itself. The carne giant, as well as a giant I saw a month later in the landscape of Acadia National Park (see above photo), helped inspire me to created the character Albion (whose name is derived from an old name for Great Britain) who appears in book two of the Warriors of Light series. The giant Albion, whose body is comprised of the British Isles, holds within him the heart of Earth. So Albion became part of the love story I was writing. A giant whose body is a part of the body of Earth. The two, like the yin and yang energy that exist inside all of us, cannot live without each other. Keys to the Heart is not the love story of romance novels, but about the love that threads the life into the veins of Earth and all of her children.

The Story of a Water Dragon, a Fire Dragon and a Circle of Stones #dragonlines #dragons #leylines #alchemy #arborlow #fantasyseries

On By Alethea KehasIn A Better World of Books, Travel Adventures, Warriors of Light5 Comments

On the front cover of my metaphysical fantasy book Keys to the Heart, a fire dragon descends to meet a rising water dragon over a hexagram filled with the alchemy of their union.

The front cover of Keys to the Heart, designed by Sierra Wheeler

On the back cover of the book, a blurb appears inside a circle of stones. The stones, if you look closely, resemble the heads of dragons. Out of the circle, the tails of the water and fire dragons emerge. The scene wrapping the book tells its origin story.

The back cover of Keys to the Heart, designed by Sierra Wheeler

A story inspired, in many ways, by my visit to Arbor Low in Derbyshire, England nearly seven years ago with Sue, Stuart, Deb, and Nick during a Silent Eye outing. Arbor low is a Neolithic henge monument complete with a crown of stones that sits atop a hill that is now owned by a farmer. I sometimes wonder if the caretaker, who charges a mere one pound/person to visit the ancient site, knows how lucky he is to live amongst the dragon stones.

As soon as I exited the car in the lot below the mound, I felt the pull of the stones even though I could not yet see them. Deb and I helped Nick up the crest of the hill, but when we reached the top, I released him to Sue and Stuart. Sue understood how the energy magic consumes me when I visit the ancient landscapes, and here, before me, was a scene of absolute wonder. On the edge of the mound, I stood at the gateway, letting it fill my cells with memories as time slipped through space.

The stones at Arbor low are arranged in a recumbent circle, with two recumbent stones in the center. Some people think the stones once stood, and I saw the center stones as pillars; a doorway to the stars, while the ones on the ring rose up from the mound watching, protecting. The heads like dragons in wait for the Fire and Water to reunite to seed light back into the sacred womb of Earth.

I chose my path by the pull of my cells, taking each turn between the stones as though I were walking through time. “Like a clock.” When I completed the circle of the face, I was filled with a vision of magic that felt so alive I could not contain it. I felt like a lost soul finding home, once again, in the vast sea of the universe.

It was here, in Arbor Low, where I found the essence of the narrative that had been weaving its labyrinth inside of me.

As a writer, I am often asked about my process. Usually I keep the answer simple, “I am not a plotter, I let the story guide me.” The truth is, quite often I cannot explain what I write until I experience it for myself. Images and names will come to me, and sometimes entire scenes, and I will put them on the page only to discover later, why.

Standing at Arbor Low, nearly seven years ago, my body was re-awakened to the alchemical energy of the universe. Here, I experienced the magic of natural forces concentrated in the land. An energy so strong it transcended time and space. Arbor Low, like other ancient sacred sites, is a place where the complex theories of physics and math make sense. It is a place where magic is tangible and achievable without fantasy.

By the end of the day, I understood why I was so driven to write a story about six thirteen-year-olds who were drawn into a mysterious hexagram filled with broken lines of light to save a broken planet and a broken mother. By the end of the day, during which I visited three ancient sites with the Silent Eye group, I felt the wholeness of reunion in away I had never experienced in this lifetime. Inside of me joy danced with sorrow like I had finally come home.

So while I may have written two books, with a third in process, that are in the genre of fantasy, their essence is the magic of life through the lens of my own experiences. I have a feeling this is how many stories arise through us. We may doubt their origins, but the seeds they sow thread truth in an attempt to bring us home to ourselves.