Category: Warriors of Light

Stepping through the Threshold to Build a Sanctuary #nonprofit

On By Alethea KehasIn Reflections, the labyrinth, Warriors of Light13 Comments
Photo taken during the medicine walk at the beginning of the day

In the days before my “nonprofit sanctuary building retreat day,” my co-facilitator, Heidi, and I found feathers everywhere. The banded blues and blacks of bluejays and the curled wisps of downy undercoats fell repeatedly along our paths, and in my case the tail feather of a yellow-shafted flicker in the middle of my driveway. The golden center unmistakable. Some things are meant to be noticed.

My yellow-shafted flicker feather

The invitations had been sent out about two months prior, and almost immediately responses came back, most stating enthusiastically that they were definitely going, or would try to. Yet, life has a way of taking over, and by the time Saturday came we were expecting only four more. That made six of us for the day, with one more, my husband, who appeared periodically. Some things are just meant to be.

For those of you who know me through the mystical world that I walk through, you will know that I have a rather intimate relationship with the hexagram. Not in any nefarious way, as that is religious dogma’s fear of mystical symbols that predate even the written word. The hexagram is the symbol that brought me to Sue, my spiritual mentor, and is the symbol that came as a labyrinth calling in the Warriors of Light in my book series. It is a sacred geometrical alignment of unity and balance. Combining the (triangles) elements of water (feminine) and fire (masculine), as well as earth and air. Its elemental form creates a six-pointed star. In the center is one more, not always visible point, representing the soul as an aspect of the divine. On Saturday, I had my 6 + 1 = 7. A complete hexagram star.

Some things are meant to be, and as the weekend played out I became more and more convinced that Sue was orchestrating, at least in part, from beyond the veil.

Our magical sunset

So let me tell you about the night before. Heidi and I arrived at the lake at 7pm. Dusk was settling in fast, and the setting sun haloed the hills of the (goddess) land in an aura of gold. Into the cove we walked to watch the alchemy of earth, fire, air and water.

We went to bed early, Heidi to a downstairs bedroom, and I to the upstairs loft. It took me hours to fall into sleep, and when I did I was woken abruptly by the sound of the fire alarms going off. It was 11:01am. Heidi, downstairs, noted the same time, also now fully awake.

We gathered with racing hearts to assess the situation and could find nothing amiss. Climbing back into bed with my mind restless, it took a long period of time to find sleep again. Shortly after I did, the fire alarms went off. It was now 1:11am. Heidi, downstairs, also noted the time.

As we once again gathered to assess the situation, we become increasingly convinced that the alarms going off with three ones each time had not been accidental. Perhaps we were just not meant to sleep, at least not restfully. Heidi did not wake again until about six in the morning, I, on the other hand, woke once more, this time to the persistent hooting of an owl. I was too tired to look at the clock, but the messenger was noted.

The ensuing day unfolded as it was meant to. The six, plus occasional one, shared thoughts and ideas. The right questions were asked, and I had some, but not all of the answers. By the end of the day, lots of pieces of the puzzle were scattered about, but it had yet to be assembled. Our mission was to work on a name, tag line and logo, and we had aspects of each, but the whole was still illusive. Earlier in the day, during a medicine walk, I had heard this phrase inside of my head, “Surrender to not knowing, that’s when the magic happens.”

Tired and packing to go home, I didn’t know what to think of it all. Everything still felt amorphous and uncertain. I was grateful for the efforts of the gathering, but I wasn’t sure what to make it. So I let it settle and be. I went home and unpacked, watched some TV, read, and then went to bed. Almost immediately, I fell into a deep slumber.

At 1:31am, I woke abruptly. My shoulder was aching and so I rolled on my back and started to think. I thought about the pieces from the previous day and what was missing. I thought about how when I had read my vision narrative for the sanctuary, one of the participants had noted there was something missing, yet I could not articulate it during our day together. And then it occurred to me.

Wonder.

How could I have forgotten wonder, which had always been central to the vision, but had somehow not been articulated in its story. And then the name came to me. And then the tag line. I started piecing together an image for a logo, realizing the components were there, laid before me, I just needed to put them together. I thought about the book I had recently read even though, as my husband said, I had “hated” the movie, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. Suddenly, I realized who my target audience was in a way that felt more concrete.

And I thought of another message I had received during the medicine walk after I had heard the call of a loon, “Let go of expectations. Anything is possible when you open the doorway and walk through.” After years of holding this close to my heart, I think I had just walked through the doorway with my dream.

We must reignite our spark and spread it

On By Alethea KehasIn Reflections, Travel Adventures, Warriors of Light11 Comments
Reflecting on our collective history and what it means to move forward through this chaotic time
Newgrange, Ireland

I was born in the year of Roe V. Wade at the tail end of the Vietnam War. It was a time of peaceful protests infused with the idea of free love. The tide in America surged towards inclusivity and acceptance. The equal rights amendment had just been codified into law, and people were experimenting with ways to return their connection to the land, and to a spiritual force that moves beyond the structure of religion.

The wave of free love ebbed when the ’80s rolled in with the Reagan era. A war on drugs commenced, never to be won, and conservatism washed across the country. I am no historian, but I am interested in our collective stories and how we move through time informing each other. I am interested in the driving forces of opposition and polarity; the struggle for power and control when freedom and love take hold. When I turn through the half-century of my life thus far on Earth, I observe this rise and fall of tides, noticing the contraction that follows expansion, as I wonder about the years ahead yet to be formed.

Never before have I felt such instability in our collective movement. In this time of conservatism that attempts to throw us back to a time long before my birth, I feel all that precedes it in a rise of our chaos. How much unease can the individual and shared body endure?

We are wise enough to know this is a tactic, but yet we are ignorant enough to think (in part) that somehow lies are truth. That equality is a ruse when a would-be-king who is an adjudicated criminal, a rapist, a heartless narcissist, and the very antithesis of all that Jesus Christ stood for, could in fact be our savior. Even though all evidence points against this. Why do we hold fast to illusions? What pulls us into the blind path of sycophants? Why do we turn outward for security, instead of inward, especially when the prophet cares not for the lambs who follow him?

Will we ever learn? Is this our moment of reckoning? This apocalypse playing out in rapid time before us, overwhelming all sense of stability and connection will either lead to a cycle of dystopia or an opportunity to return to our origins.

Because I like to follow history back before it was history, I favor the theory of the goddess cultures as a time of harmony and true connection. As an empath, I find home among the ancient sacred landscapes that honor the Mother as divine, not without the father, per se, but elevated to the status of holy ground. Inside these holy grounds, these mother-wombs, I find my sense of connection to the self as part of a whole. I feel the light threading through life in a web, now severed, but repairable.

It is this knowing that propels me towards hope. Sometimes we must cleanse a system of its debris before we can get its parts working again. I use this metaphor, that feels like truth, in my Warriors of Light series. When the warriors follow the broken lines of light in Earth’s body they arrive at the heart of a giant named Albion, only to discover that his heart is also the heart of Earth. They are one and the same. He is the yang to her yin. One cannot exist without the other to be whole.

I am not sure why we have collectively resisted the divine feminine energy that threads through all of us, and why we have tried to dominate (and thus destroy it) in our shared mother, Earth, for so long, but it has become painfully clear at this present moment we are destroying ourselves. If we continue along this path, we will not thrive. It’s likely, if we survive, it will be just barely, and only a select few. One man’s quest for kingdom is not about sustainability and mutual thriving. Instead, it can only lead to a further severing of our connection from all that makes us whole.

This is a time of reckoning. It’s a time to reflect upon the self and the role you individually play in this life that is shared. In this time of climate crisis and political upheaval, we must, if we are to endure, dig deep into the debris and spark the light back to life. We must thread it back to a place of unity so that we can, collectively, begin to repair what we have torn apart.

A Magical Day Leads to a Magical Night #bears #crows #northernlights

On By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Reflections, the labyrinth, Warriors of Light, yoga20 Comments

It began with a large murder of crows and ended with the Northern Lights. Hundreds of the black birds spread across the rooftops and trees, flying into the brilliant October sky to send their caws to the wind and my awakened ears as I ventured from the parking lot to my class.

This would not be an ordinary day.

After a morning of teaching yoga and running errands, I returned home to a day without work. I fed the demanding cat a second breakfast, and the dogs their treats, then settled on the couch to cull through emails. Moments later, I felt an impulse to lift my head. Beyond the layers of autumn leaves and woven arms of the old apple and surrounding pines and maples, I saw a black shape in the oldest pine at the edge of my property. Even though it yielded no discernible shape, I knew instantly it was a bear.

Throwing caution to the wind (I do not advise this), I grabbed my phone and, without alarming the oblivious mutts, made my way onto the porch, out the back door, and through the gate in my backyard so that I could get a better look at what was attached to the old pine.

Mama bear from her sentry position on the pine

And there she was, staring through the golden leaves, watching me. Slung of the lowest limb that would hold her weight was a mama bear. Scampering up the trees above, were her three cubs. I inched slightly closer as I tried to focus my camera through the foliage to capture my unexpected guests. Not a smart choice, but I was close enough to the fence door for a quick exit should she decide to leave her post. Strangely, I felt safe and calm. Mama watched me without alarm as I snapped a few photos, and filmed her family as they settled in for a nap (Sorry, I am not attaching them film because I did utter an S*&t in shock).

And nap they did, for the next hour or so, while I wandered back inside to observe behind the safety of glass with Millie the cat. The dogs, succumbing to a strange impulse to slumber through their lunch hour, slept on their respective sofas, unfazed until their internal alarms finally alerted them that they had missed their meal.

Well not really, I fed the dogs a late lunch (and the cat, of course), and heated up some leftover butternut squash soup for myself while I strategized how I was going to walk the dogs without disturbing my slumbering guests.

It was as though the bears had put a spell on the household, and in particular the dogs. Quick to react to a passing dear, even when the curtains are drawn to the darkness, they failed to detect the four ursine intruders in their backyard, even after we walked through the front door. The only challenge was convincing Rosy that she did not want to take her usual lap around the house before we ventured down the street.

We were gone a mere ten or fifteen minutes, which is not uncommon for our walks these days. Senior dogs prefer the couch to the pavement, and so we turned back home before too long. As we entered the driveway, two crows flew above our heads, cawing into the pine behind the house where our visitors slept. Continuing to caw, as though in warning, they stayed in the tree until we were back inside.

As the dogs settled onto their couches to rest after their strenuous walk, I scanned through the foliage for my four friends. An hour unfolded into another as the bears woke, one by one, and casually made their way down the pine to explore the wooded area behind my house. Five hours in total, as I watched in rapt wonder with the occasional break, as they wrestled and played to the drumming of the woodpecker on my apple tree.

The cub I called Sula, trying to figure out how to use the swing in my backyard

It was pure magic. Joy mingled with peace as the protective calm of mama bear flooded the area around my home and made its way to settle any energy of unease inside my home. What a gift it was to be present, for these five hours, in quiet observation of these wild wonders. Naturally, I could not help thinking of my Warriors of Light protagonist Sula while I watched the bears climb and play. Lover of trees and slumber, Sula carries inside of her the spirit of bear. And it is bear medicine that found me yesterday, as it always seems to at unexpected, yet perfect moments, to pull me through the veil of dreams. Tugging, gently, the cloak away from courage.

Sula bear on the seesaw

What are you waiting for…come play

And as if this was not enough magic for the one day, the night decided to compete for wonder in a show of Northern Lights:

The northern lights viewed from the back and front yards

July 4th: A Pursuit of Happiness…#originstory

On By Alethea KehasIn Reflections, Warriors of Light23 Comments
My friend Irene immersed in my “Happy Place”

A couple of days ago, while gazing through the depths of nature’s canvas that wraps the cove of a lake, I joke with my friend that I married my husband because of this place. “I can see the joy in your face,” she agreed.

Although I did not marry my husband because of this “happy place,” it quickly became a site of refuge for me. It is a place where the soft sentinels of pines hug a summer home with the scent of comfort. Here, nature offers us her unsalted waters in a basin formed by a ring of small mountains. My favorite way to enjoy it is simply to sit and be still. To surround myself with the songs of the kingfisher and loons; the perfume of pine needles and campfire smoke; and a panoramic wrap of New Hampshire’s beauty that allows the wind to spread the sun across my skin in a way that makes me forget about the burn. It is the setting that inspired my Warriors of Light book series.

This morning, in another town, I sit with technology on my lap inside a home hugged in an acre of hemlocks, oaks, and maples. Here, the sun does not angle beyond the tops of the trees’ canopy to set the water aflame with light before it disappears into the night. Here, Nature’s floor is a patchwork of moss, dandelions, and prunella vulgaris (also known as self-heal or heal-all), instead of the soft throw of pine needles. Yet, it is all a part of Earth’s body.

This morning of July 5th, I find myself thinking about connection as my mind travels back through our shared and divergent origin stories. America’s origin story, for some, began on July 4th. This celebration of independence from another nation. A separation of one group from another in an effort to pursue, “life, liberty, and happiness.” But it did not begin or end here. There is intricate web of light and darkness that weaves back and forth as it goes towards the center and away. If you travel to the furtherest point inward, you get the source of everyone’s collective origin story. The place before separation. Today, we exist somewhere far away, or so we seem to, divided by time and designated spaces formed by different choices and beliefs.

When I think about America’s origin stories, I think of this web. I think about how one group’s pursuit of happiness led to the destruction and enslavement of others. I think about how my happy place is not really mine. Not because it belongs to my mother-in-law, but because long before it was purchased by my husband’s family, it was “Turtle Island.” It was the home of the indigenous peoples before it became this America that is the home where I was born, but not where all of my cells orgininated. I think about a nation made “glorious” with the muscle of enslavement.

And I think about how so often we opt to forget. To make choices that split the web into sectors of partial histories and partial truths. A partial origin story is not whole. There is no wrap of connection. Instead, there are severed lines with polarized ends seeking reunion. Even though our bodies of biology and chemistry, and our essence that abides by the complex, yet simple laws of physics, are constantly trying to remind us that existence is only possible with connection.

There is a reason why joy runs through me in the song of bliss when I sit at the edge of the lake’s body with my feet in the water sunk into the sand. Here, I allow my body to remember the place of its origin. Here, my cells realize that separation is a ruse of defiance as they harmonize to the heartbeat of the mother we all share. And here, my soul expands beyond the orb of Mother Earth to touch its origin, realizing that the origin is already inside of me.

And here, I allow myself to imagine the web repaired and whole, once again.

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

On By Alethea KehasIn Reflections, Warriors of Light19 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.

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

On By Alethea KehasIn A Better World of Books, the labyrinth, Warriors of Light23 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.

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.

Keys to the Heart is Live on Amazon! #fantasyseries #newrelease

On By Alethea KehasIn Warriors of Light28 Comments
Keys to the Heart book jacket. Book 2 of the Warriors of Light series now available in print and Kindle.

The day has arrived! The second book in my middle-grade metaphysical fantasy adventure series is now available on Amazon!

Keys to the Heart follows the journeys of six thirteen-year-old protagonists who are chosen to repair the dragon lines in Earth. In book two of the Warriors of Light series, the teens find themselves sucked back into the magical labyrinth only to be deposited in ancient sites across the globe. In order to return home, they must learn the mysteries of these magical lands and find the keys to save a giant named Albion. A giant who also happens to hold the heart of Earth in his body.

Nothing about the labyrinth is easy or straightforward, and the teens find themselves inside places ruled by ghosts of the past, and pursued by a mysterious being they encountered in their first journey into The Labyrinth.

The Warriors of Light series is intended for audiences ages nine through adult. It is a nonviolent fantasy series filled with the adventures of six friends as they learn the power of friendship, inner strength, and the interconnectedness of life.

I am deeply grateful for the assistance and support I had getting these books into the world, including the dedication of my beta readers, the cheerleading from my family and friends, and the dedication from my wonderful editor, Carol Goff and my cover designer, Sierra Wheeler. It really does take a small village to produce a book, and I am so very grateful for the village that helped birth this series into the world.