Busy Days in Raccoon Town

We are known by the Old Ones.

In our backyard, they gather for their feasts.

Being known by the ancients can be wonderful.

And wonderfully terrifying.

As I noted in The Shaman

CHAPTER 123 – THE FROG
I drive back from the Y, late Fall, late morning, and come around a curve as a frog hops into the road.
I swerve, drive on, complete the curve, pull over, stop.
The frog continues its journey into the road.
Others will not care if this one completes its journey or not. Some might see its movements against the wet tar of the road.
Two cars come around the curve in my rearview mirror.
I get out of my car, trot back up the road, find the frog dead, crushed and flattened, three-quarters of the way across.
I grieve. I should have acted sooner. I know what is important and what is not.
I cry, ask Frog’s forgiveness for not taking care of its shadow.
Sunlight comes over the hillock blinding the curve, shines on the grasses opposite me, steaming where the frog might have been.
A mist rises.
Shapes.
Coming forward.
Old Ones.
The First Ones.
The Ancients.
The True Ones of which all else is Shadow and Myth, a harmony of human and animal energies so I can understand.
A’blig’moodj, The Frog Prince, the one of whom one of my teachers is a shadow, walks forward, holds its hand up to me.
Behind him, beside him, Wolf, Bear, Stag, Eagle, Lion, Hawk, Moose, Whale, Dolphin, Salmon, Oak, Ash, Thorn, and more lost further back in the mist.
A Council of All Beings.
A Council of All First Ones.
A’blig’moodj’s mist forms around me. It takes my hand. I hear it inside me. “Do not grieve, Gio. This one was old and could not survive another winter. It is good he comes Home now.”
I fall to the pavement, shaking, terrified. To be in the presence of such energies. My bodies can not stand.
A’blig’moodj lifts me, holds me, stands me beside him. “You are known to us, and we thank you.”
It returns to The Ancients.
I crawl to my car, unable to drive, barely able to breathe.
To be known by The Ancients.
And live.

 

“LifePath Work” now on BizCatalyst360

The kind folks at BizCatalyst360 just published my LifePath Work, an excerpt from my forthcoming The Shaman.

The Shaman came about because a good number of people kept asking me about my background and training. I’d meant to write a book for years, and have a really poorly written manuscript dating from the late 1980s to prove it.

Several times I’d take that manuscript out and massage it. Into a different yet equally poorly written manuscript.

Finally, I took it out in late 2019 and asked myself, “What would make this an interesting story?”

That, and getting permission from one of my teachers (who spoke for all of them) was what I needed.

Originally entitled “Shaman Story,” the graphic artist who did the interior and exterior artwork mistakenly wrote “The Shaman” on the bookcover and Shaboom! it was done.

Previous excerpts from The Shaman include DeathSong and The Paraclete.

 
Enjoy!

Rob and Joan Carter’s MEET THE AUTHOR interview Snippet 12 – The Shaman and more

I mentioned Rob and John Carter and I chatting on their MEET THE AUTHOR show in previous blog posts.

This is post #12 in a series of thirteen snippets taken from the full interview video. You can also listen to the interview via podcast

Today’s snippet deals with my upcoming novels beyond the science fantasy The Inheritors. These include the urban-fantasy The Shaman (September 2023 release), an urban fantasy follow up to The Shaman isolating one event in the protagonist’s life and entitled Search (December 2023 release), the medieval murder mystery Tag (March 2024 release), the science fantasy Wounded Healers (June 2024 release) and more.


Enjoy!

 

“DeathSong” now on BizCatalyst360

The kind folks at BizCatalyst360 just published my DeathSong, an excerpt from my forthcoming The Shaman and offered at the prodding of Mark O’Brien who found meaning in my The Paraclete.

The Shaman came about because a good number of people kept asking me about my background and training. I’d meant to write a book for years, and have a really poorly written manuscript dating from the late 1980s to prove it.

Several times I’d take that manuscript out and massage it. Into a different yet equally poorly written manuscript.

Finally, I took it out in late 2019 and asked myself, “What would make this an interesting story?”

That, and getting permission from one of my teachers (who spoke for all of them) was what I needed.

Originally entitled “Shaman Story,” the graphic artist who did the interior and exterior artwork mistakenly wrote “The Shaman” on the bookcover and Shaboom! it was done.

You can also get an idea of an earlier version of the story at DeathSong here on my blog.

For me, it’s always interesting to see how a story changes over time.

And in either case, enjoy.

 
Enjoy!