Keep the Spirit Alive

Robert said...

I thought about this (Logos), and decided for myself that it simply means the spirit of the word. This I can get my head around. Thanks Molly.

Thank you, Robert, and all my readers and supporters. You keep the spirit alive.

General Comments

Welcome to the blog created for readers of Molly Brogan books. All are welcome to post comments and all insights are appreciated. If you have a general comment or a question about a Molly Brogan book that does not relate to any of the posts below, post your comment here. Thanks for stopping by, your time and consideration are most appreciated. Feel free to contact me if you would like me to participate in your book club discussion of a Molly Brogan book.

Logos Moves Between You and I

Robert said...

"We are the writers, and the readers and the stories and the Logos."

What do you mean by Logos?

Through this Word – Logos – all things became. In it was life, the light of human beings. It shone in the darkness, and the darkness received it not. It was in the world, and the world did not know it. It entered in individual being and, to those who received it, it gave the ability to become children of God. Its radiance was seen, full of grace and truth.” – Georg Kuhlewind

In Carl Jung's analytical psychology, the logos is the masculine principle of rationality and consciousness. Its female counterpart, eros (Greek, love), represents interconnectedness. I think the term is really both.

To become aware of Logos is to become aware of logos in ones self. Logos shines through the visible and invisible alike. It is the light in relationship between persons, between words and meaning, between God and man. It is the knowing that you are. The speaking and knowing to what you are speaking … is logos. It is a living, present truth. What man cognizes, what is communicable, is the world. That man cognizes, is Logos. It is brought into meaning and passes between. This world exists for and through the knower, through Logos.

Thanks for the question, Robert. Molly Brogan
Artwork by F. Rassouli

The Death of a Character Gives Life New Meaning

Jim said...

I finally got around to reading your book, remember me, something I've been meaning to do for awhile. One question, why did you kill of your main character?

This is a great question, Jim, thanks for asking it. The Mary Margaret character in Remember Me died for reasons intrinsic to both the story of Remember Me and to the larger story of my trilogy of novels. Each of my three novels examines love and loss from different viewpoints, and all three together examine love, life and death, as they fundamentally effect our experience.

Because Remember Me was written as a plea for reform in US family courts, it was important for the main character to die because each year, thousands of people take their own lives or have their lives taken as a result of the ineptitude of the US family court system. To research my book, I spent countless hours in family court, listening to these stories and interviewing litigants. There is an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness in domestic violence cases because weak laws, inexperienced State's Attorneys, and burned out judges allow cases to go unresolved or perpetrators to go free, empowered to continue the violence. The death of this character and destruction of this family was a common story in US family court.

Looking at the larger canvas of the trilogy, on the journey of the spirit, the death of the ego is the first step to be taken toward enlightenment. Some say, for instance, that the Tibetan Book of the Dead is actually a manual for ego death. The Mary Margaret character in Remember Me never catches on to this process as she cannot let go of her egotistical concerns, and suffers her losses, defining herself with loss and pain. Because this is a dead end for a journey of the spirit, her death frees her spirit to begin again.

In the second novel, Chasing Twilight, the character is resurrected, and begins to understand the importance of ego death and resurrection of being – or consciousness raising. So, her journey can continue and the concept of death takes on new meaning. With death, comes rebirth and the cycle of life is felt in the soul.

This will bring up interesting questions in the third novel, Shadow Dancing: What is death? What parts of us die while we live? How is this integral to being and becoming?

I sincerely hope you enjoy the stories and the concepts. Thanks again.

Artwork by Moira Marshall Many thanks.

Writing About Essential Being

Ulysses said...

"energy that moves through the matrix of our being that we can FEEL." Interesting. What do you mean by "being?" I know this is a topic of discussion on your other blog, but I'd like to know what your idea of being is, and how it applies to your books.

The Essene’s think that being is consciousness, and consciousness is everything. Like that, I think being is that part of us that is connected to spirit, and as such, is all of us. Even those parts of us that feel separate from spirit, devoid of spirit, opposed to spirit, are those parts of us that eventually lead us back to spirit, and so, are of spirit. Like the notions of Lucifer being God’s favorite angel, or Judas the favorite apostle of Jesus, or Brahman – being is all pervasive.

That said, I do believe that there is an essential part of being that we can give to our attention. It is that part of us that is the witness to our life, the one that observes before we assign meaning or belief. I think that the more we can move through life posited in this essential part of our being, the more our lives will become what we can conceive is our highest potential. When I say highest potential I mean the best life that we can dream - and better, because spirit is leading the witness always.

I construct my poems from the position of the witness, although I will say, that in order to reach the reader I find that I must include not only observation but interpretation to bring feeling to the experience. I suppose this may be poetic license.

My play, Without a Word, is an examination of being from all aspects of character. It was written to be an exercise in consciousness raising while giving the audience a more holographic than linear experience.

My three novels, when looked at in succession, are one journey to this realm of essential being. On the way, like all humans, the characters make mistakes and self discoveries that create the stories. And they learn, in the end, that we write our own stories. We are the writers, and the readers and the stories and the Logos.

Thanks so much for posing this great question.

Recognizing Emotions and Feelings

Morgan said...

I have given this some thought. I think I understand what you say about negative emotions that keep us from finding any happiness. But I don't quite get what you think about the difference between emotion and feeling. Please explain. Thanks.

Thanks for the thoughtful question, Morgan. I think the words feeling and emotion are often used interchangeably, but I am convinced that there is a distinct and profound difference. Gregg Braden tells us that prayer consists of thoughts, coming from the crown, brow and throat chakras - and feelings coming from the base, sacral and solar plexus chakras - into the heart. I think that this feeling that moves through us is the energy that moves through the matrix of our being that we can FEEL. By remembering the feeling, we can move energy through our system. If we are feeling low, we can imagine feeling joy, and our energy will rise to the feeling of joy. By understanding our feelings like this, we learn to command our energies and can heal our bodies and raise our consciousness.

Emotions, on the other hand, are like feelings because we feel them too. But they are responses of our emotional body to events in our experience. If we lack emotional body maturity, our emotions can be based on patterns of previous experience. We feel fear when our hand is near fire because our hand has been burned before. When we are young, our emotions occur naturally, like the physical body functions of breathing and digesting. As our emotional body matures, we understand that the emotions that occur naturally can be changed by the way we formulate our responses or even our perceptions. We can choose to feel caution instead of fear. We can perceive fire as a thing of beauty instead of danger, because we have learned to respond appropriately.

In my first novel, Remember Me, Mary Margaret comes close to understanding the nature of her emotions and feelings, but in the end, is overwhelmed with loss and grief. In my second novel, Chasing Twilight, Molly has the emotional body maturity to not only pace her emotions, but utilize her feelings for healing and consciousness raising. This character will go on to explore the possibilities that feelings allow in the third novel.

Thanks again for this great question, Morgan.

Life Begins With Awakened Imagination

Morgan said...

Your character in Remember Me, Mary Margaret, has a lot of imagination. And yet, she is never happy. You say imagination is the key to how we create our reality. What does that mean?

Hello again Morgan and thanks very much for the question. The answer requires depth and is difficult to put into brief blog form, but I’ll try and would be glad to discuss further.

I understand that this is a mystical statement. The journey of my characters in my trilogy of novels is the journey of my spirit, written in a form meant to entertain. The characters are not me, but their journey reflects my own. In my own journey, I reached a point where I understood unity consciousness, meaning that I am connected to everything in life and everything in my experience is of me. After this, I developed a greater awareness of my role in creating this experience and what it reflects to me in each moment. This is where imagination is key.

Neville Goddard, the 20^th century mystic tells us, “Every moment of time you are imagining what you are conscious of, and if you do not forget what you are imagining and it comes to pass, you have found the creative cause of your world.”

I believe this to be true. More of his lectures on imagination can be found with this link:

http://www.nevillelecturehall.com/Lecture54.html

Molly Brogan

Artwork by Vivian George Many thanks.

There's a Blaze of Light In Every Word

Makram said...

In your book, Chasing Twilight, you begin to explore the role of the artist. Can you say what you consider the role of the artist in society to be, and why you write?

Thanks for the question, Makram. For as long as I can remember, I have written down words that allow me to feel the joy of living in one form or another. I was probably 10 when I put it into the form of a poem and thought about the experience of another reading my words. I have also pondered the divine for just as long. Between the ages of three and seven, my family lived near a large and beautiful church in the Midwest US. I would sit in that church for hours, fall asleep, and the nuns would chase me home.

I believe that the artist inspires our imagination with the works of art that they create. This inspiration can be anything from titillating interest to awakening imagination. We can be inspired in unity or separation but ultimately we are all one expression of the divine, as we are reminded by timeless works of art. It is here that the artist plays a role like no other because our awakened imagination is the key to how we create our reality. We are moved to include new possibility on the foundation of our current belief, and invited into our highest potential. The artist guides us through this movement with an inspiring work of art, transcending the separation between the artist, the work of art, and he who appreciates and allows the inspiration. In this unity process, we awaken. Molly Brogan

Developing Timeless Characters

Blythe said...

Why did you choose for the love interest in Chasing Twilight to be a Scientologist? Was this character taken from real life or did you write his as a Scientologist for a different reason?

This is a great question, Blythe, thanks for asking. How do we create our characters when we write? There are probably as many answers to this question as there are fiction authors. Part of my research for my first novel, Remember Me, was to work with a psychotherapist, who gave me wonderful suggestions as to how to base a character on my personal experience, and yet give it a separate personality that would be congruent with the outcome of the story. In Remember Me, the Mary Margaret character gives up on life. I had to create character traits and behaviors for her that would ultimately lead her in that direction.

For the second novel in my trilogy, Chasing Twilight, the love interest or anti-hero is a Scientologist so that the main character has someone who can understand her spiritual quest. The book is a dialogue between two people, and through the dialogue, the plot of the story and development of the characters are revealed. I chose Scientology because it has a new age, yet rigid doctrine and could provide some resonance, yet stark difference for the main character who believes only in the golden thread of truth that runs through all.

I did quite a bit of research into Scientology, reading and interviews, to build this character. I worked very hard to portray this character as an anti hero in the true sense, not as a villain. The constraints of his character are reflected in his passive aggressive attempts to control the relationship. The value of the faith of Scientology itself is never brought into question, but the main character does present some challenges and is answered, providing an interesting Q&A. I found it to be and extremely effective tool. Thanks again, Blythe. Molly Brogan

Artwork by Cindy Hesse Many thanks.

One Journey, Three Novels

Linda said...

How about the second novel, Chasing Twilight - what part does shadow play with these characters? Their emotions are so intense. And what about all three books together? Do they all relate to each other in terms of shadow?

Thanks for the question, Linda. In Chasing Twilight, the characters have evolved in their recognition of their shadow aspects. Molly does some wonderful shadow transformation, not only when it comes up in the love relationship, but in her past life regression sessions. However, her lover, the Scientologist, will not acknowledge his shadow behavior, as he is unwilling to give up his attempt to control outcome. This shatters the sacred space which requires honesty, appreciation and psychological safety for the relationship to flourish. Molly is, however, able to recognize this and move on.

Shadow transformation can be very intense and takes a great deal of courage. Since this post, I have had several folks tell me that most people don't live like this or understand themselves this way. I think that more and more, we do.

The trilogy of novels is a journey of spirit for one woman, so yes, quite naturally, her ability to integrate her shadow is reflected in the stories of each book. When the novels are read in succession, I hope you can see her process and triumph. Molly Brogan

Personal Mythology Expressed in Dream

Callie said...
One of the things I like most about Remember Me is the dream diary. Does this have anything to do with shadow?

This is a great question, Callie. In Remember Me, Mary Margaret takes the wonderful first step necessary in understanding her dreams at a very early age. She begins a dream journal at the suggestion of her mother, who does not want to have to hear about them anymore. This is significant to the character because while it gives Mary Margaret a place to record and examine her dreams, she is also given the message that they are not worth attention. So, throughout her life, she records her dreams, but does little interpretation or integration of the dreaming process.

I see our sleep time as a time for our body-soul-spirit to relate in ways unfettered by conscious constructs. Vivid dreaming, creative dreaming, and dream analysis are all wonderful processes wherein our soul speaks to our mind and spirit in ways that allow our conscious, continual becoming. The spoken language here is symbols, devices by which ideas often too complex or highly charged to articulate in ordinary language are transmitted. Developing a personal mythology of dream symbols involves using a body of personal myths to form a system for organizing one's conception of reality and guiding day-to-day behavior. Mary Margaret’s soul was instructing her to examine shadow through her dreams, she did not understand because she never learns the language.

Writing the dream journal in Remember Me was like writing a novel within a novel. I began by establishing symbols that were related to Mary Margaret’s current age and daily events, but also her collective unconscious. I then developed the symbols in her dreams to speak to her of life unfolding – trying always to guide her into becoming through soul. It was one of my favorite parts of writing the book and you may see this device used again sometime in the future! Dreaming, and all it can offer us, is a true joy for me! Thanks for asking.

Heroes, Villains and Rudolph Steiner

Linda said...
Can you tell me about "the Opposing Spiritual Powers," and how they are like anti-heros?

Thanks for the question, Linda. I should preface the answer by saying that I have read the Rudolph Steiner teachings for several years now and find them to be mythical and complicated. I feel that whatever organization there is to life is much, much simpler, but I do admire some of his concepts. One of my favorite is his idea that humanity has a soul that influences and evolves along with our individual souls, much like CG Jung’s collective unconsciousness. Another is that our awareness unfolds, and humanity evolves due largely to the interplay of opposing forces (the tree of knowledge or good and evil.) The Steiner teachings tell us that in the course of human history, three specific opposing forces have provided our common soul and individual souls with opposition to our perfect nature (the Christ impulse) or the God within us. The dynamic of these forces are such that either we transcend the opposition and realize freedom by reconciling the forces (transcending duality) or we continue to battle.

Lucifer was the first, providing our natural, darker side. He is closely linked to nature and the mechanics of human nature so that the opposition he presents are storms or plagues or the fall of an civilization or the domination of our ego nature. His gift to humanity was free will, obtained in the choice to realize the Christ impulse and to transcend.

Ahriman was the second. His influence was first felt about 4M years ago and is still present today. He is associated with technology and materialism and prevents us from not seeing through the material to the spirit. He is also closely linked to the laws of karma, and keeps us from understanding the process of our freedom from karmic debt. But once the Ahrimanic forces have been reconciled, and we are free from karmic debt, we enter the age of Azuras. The Steiner teachings tell us that humanity is just beginning to enter this age but is still primarily ruled by Ahriman.

Not much is written on the Azuras and to research, I joined the Steiner library in New York, and read several of his books and lectures that hadn’t been taken out of the library in decades. I also joined Steiner discussion groups all over the world, talking to folks who had their own ideas about where Steiner was going with this. The forces of Azuras distract us into looking away from spirituality and convince us that our material experience is reality, not a reflection of our conscious awareness. It tricks us out of taking our objective into the subjective and becoming the creator with it, and believing the reverse is true. The Azuras has both the natural quality of Lucifer and the Ahrimanic qualities of technology and materialism. There is a bit written and much discussed about Steiner’s notion that once we give any part of ourselves to the Azuras, it can never be recovered. My (controversial) belief was that Steiner understood that once we transcend duality, mind and soul (karma), our lives and the formation of our experience is more immediately effected by universal laws. Once we consciously understand how to reconcile the opposition and realize our connection with all of life, we are distracted less easily even though the distractions become more dramatic. Ken Wilber would say it hurts more but we suffer less after the One Taste.

It’s easy to see how these opposing forces can be used as the hero/anti hero of a novel. I develop the characters of the three anti heros in my trilogy to reflect the nature of Steiner’s opposing forces. This allows me to develop the character of the heroine along a natural line of spiritual development, learning to release her karmic debt and move into a more harmonious storyline. And who doesn’t love a happy ending?