A Brilliant Moment of Inspiration

Mia said...

I like this post. How do you think of the things you write? Where do you get your inspiration?

Thanks for the questions, Mia. My inspiration comes during quiet times, and feels like the purest parts of me coming together. It can happen while waking from a dream, reading a book, meditating, watching birds in a tree, speaking to a friend - any time really. Something within me is triggered, and my ideas come together in a way that formulates an original statement and the desire to express it. I carry these statements around with me throughout my life, creating my life's work from them - like our symbols create our dreams.

I'm not sure I can explain it any better than Goethe did when he said, "It is not the material the artist takes from nature that makes a work of art, but what the artist puts into it from within. The most elevated work of art causes us to forget that it is based on a content from nature and awakens our interest only through what the artist has made of it. The artist forms naturally but does not form as nature herself does."

Owed to Robert

reinventor said...

Big Kiss Mary! You make my life Brighter with your light!

This is a comment from my friend, Robert Parker, whose genius is behind two of my book covers. His paintings don the covers of Without a Word and Shadow Dancing. We will all be hearing more from Robert over the years, I am sure. Currently, he is a free lance feature writer in the Knoxville Tennessee area, having recently moved there from the Santa Monica, California. Working on advanced degrees in Philosophy and life in general at the University of Tennessee, Robert moves into becoming one of the worlds great artists and thinkers.

Thank you Robert, for supporting me in my work. You brighten our world too.

Each Character Their Own Voice

Kim said...
I finished Chasing Twilight! Whew. I have lots of comments and questions but need to think about it some more. To begin with, I wonder, was it hard to write such a big novel in the format of letters between two characters? Developing the story in the things that two people say to each other can't be easy, but I will say it worked here.

Thanks for your question, Kim. You are right, this format for the novel was one of the biggest technical challenges that I faced while writing Chasing Twilight. This technique is tantamount to writing in the first person for two characters, which proved to be an exacting task. The first person is considered by many to be the most difficult voice in writing fiction because the story has to unfold in the confines of the psychological filters of the character. They may not be seeing events clearly because of intense emotion or immaturity. Yet in the first person, the writer can only convey to the reader the thoughts and feelings of the character within these confines. The format for Chasing Twilight doubled those confines because each of the two main characters wrote in the first person and conveyed their own version of the story as it unfolded.

While I found this difficult at times, I thought the technique reflected our contemporary world, and allowed a wonderful exchange of spirit between the characters. Romance beginning with emails over the Internet has become common place. The increasingly popular use of computers and the Internet has expanded our individual worlds and led us to a more worldcentric view. We can now develop relationships and exchange ideas with people we will never see. It is easier for us to stay connected with loved ones without having to take the time to physically visit with them. The technology not only expands our worlds, but offers us insights into who we are and opportunities to explore our consciousness. All of this came into play as I wrote Chasing Twilight.

I have also found that when people are writing to one another, they are much more profound and poetic. They can take as long as they like to write a paragraph, writing and deleting until the words are just right. We can’t do this in conversation. Using this format gave me a chance to explore what two people might express to each other, without the problems of emotional reactions, body language or time constraints. Letters allow our very best expression. The more we write them, the more profound we can become. I think this allows our hearts to open, not only to others but to ourselves. Molly Brogan

Molly Brogan Books in Development and Soon to Be Released

Janie said...

Are you going to publish more poetry? I've read A Blaze of Light several times and enjoy the spirituality. I wonder if they are primarily love poems because they were from your novels. Do you have poetry that is not simply love poems? Will you publish more?

Thanks for the questions and the interest, Janie. You are right about A Blaze of Light, the poems are from my trilogy that portrays the love and loss experienced in the life journey of the central character. It is the first book of poems that I have published, and although I have a file drawer of poetry written over the years, I have no immediate plans to develop my next book of poetry. I am currently writing the third novel in my trilogy, Shadow Dancing, and some of the poetry from this unfinished novel is included in A Blaze of Light. I am also, after much encouragement from my associates, writing a book about living life as I see it: All About Living. This book is not fiction, but is my first non fiction sojourn, and presents my view into the depth of my spirit. The material is taken from intimate conversations with folks all over the globe concerning explorations of consciousness. Both new books should be available sometime next year. After that, another book of poems is ultimately possible. Thanks so much for the encouragement. Molly Brogan

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