Metamorphosis: Book Club Discussion #2

This is the second in a series of blogs for book clubs and discussion groups who are reading my book, A Thin Slice of Heaven. Weigh in below, or send me an email through my website letting me know the results of your book club or group discussion.
 
My May online book tour is well underway and I am giving away a beautiful Celtic butterfly suncatcher to one lucky follower. All you have to do is follow the tour, leave comments and click on the Rafflecopter icon. The more comments you leave, the better your chances of winning.

So what is the significance of the Celtic butterfly suncatcher?

In A Thin Slice of Heaven, Charleigh loves butterflies. In the scene that follows, she is in the village with Sean during the snowstorm. The streets are empty and the shops are closed. They've dismounted from the horse so she can peek into the windows of the shops.

“Look,” she said, pointing to a sun catcher in the window. “A butterfly.”

His voice was soft and though she turned her gaze back to the sun catcher, she could feel his eyes remaining on her. “You love butterflies, don’t you now?”

“I do. How did you know?”

He shrugged. “From the way in which your face lit when you spied it.”

“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” She stared at the hand-painted butterfly with its alternating rows of yellow and orange fringed with black. “It has meaning, you know. It’s like the metamorphosis of life in one tiny creature. They start their existence as a tiny egg on a leaf, so miniscule that most people wouldn’t even know it was there. Then they hatch into a caterpillar, all chubby body and spindly legs. Quite ugly, in fact.” She chuckled. “They eat and they eat and when they can eat no more, they attach themselves to a branch and just hang there. From the outside, it looks like nothing is happening. But the metamorphosis is taking place on the inside. Until finally, the wings emerge, all soft and gooey. The caterpillar pumps blood into the wings until they grow large and strong, capable of making it fly away.”

“I have heard,” Sean said thoughtfully, “that every soul’s journey takes place first on the inside before it is manifested on the outside.”

“Exactly!” She whirled around to face him. “You’re the only one I’ve ever met who understood that.”

“Not the only one, I’m quite sure.”

“Oh, but you are. Most people would have heard my explanation and thought it nothing more than whimsical ramblings. You understood.”

He pointed toward the sun catcher. “You see the pattern around the butterfly? That symbolizes the Celtic cycle of life. Though you might search, you will never find a beginning nor will you find an end.”

The butterfly symbolizes Charleigh's own transformation in the book. When she arrives at the castle, she is tired, overworked and anxious. When her husband sends a text saying he's leaving her for another woman, she imagines the woman to be much younger and much more beautiful than she. But as the story progresses, she learns that her soul is beautiful.

The Celtic design depicting the endless cycle of life is also symbolic. She learns through Sean that Life does not end when the physical body ceases to exist. The soul's energy is transformed and carries on.

When they stop to eat a picnic lunch that one of the employees of the castle packed for her, they have a discussion about this cycle:

She offered him a thick slice of ham. “Can you eat food like this?” she asked, her brow furrowing.

In response, he bit a chunk out of it and closed his eyes in appreciation as he chewed. When he opened them, she was watching him curiously. “Aye,” he said. He held up the remainder of the slice. “When you’re in a purely physical form, you think of everything around you as being substantive. Yet, it is all an illusion. Everything is made up of energy of some sort or another.” He waggled the ham. “So I am merely joining its energy with my own.”

“But—I mean—” Her eyes traveled to his torso. She felt a blush warming her cheeks and she diverted her gaze to her own slice of ham.

He chuckled. “Ah, but you’re wondering what happens to it once it passes my lips.” He took another bite and chewed for a moment before answering. “I taste it more keenly. I feel the texture more deeply. I am conscious of where it came from, in a purely esoteric sort of way. Then its energy becomes intertwined with my own. Without the physical organs that a living human being possesses, the energy simply flows out of me—” he held his arm up as if she could see a vapor rising out of it “—and it remains one with the universe.”

“That is way too deep for me to comprehend.”

“Ah, but comprehend you will. Some day.”

“And the pig?” She held her slice a short distance from her mouth and debated whether she wanted it now.

“Ah, the pig lives on. As I said, there is no death. Only transitions.”

Spoiler Alert : If you have not read the book yet, don't read beyond this point!

For those who have read the book, you know that these discussions mean something far more. Charleigh is herself transitioning, though she does not yet know it. She is transitioning from a physical, human life in the current day to the other side of the veil. She is in a cocoon herself, believing that her life consists only of the small bubble each of us finds ourselves living, and yet she doesn't yet know how close she is to breaking out of that cocoon and becoming transformed as a spirit with no beginning and no end.

The cycle of Life is apparent within and around her, and Sean is gently leading her to discover this realization herself.


You can purchase A Thin Slice of Heaven in any book store. It is also available in all major eBook formats. Find it here on amazon in paperback or in a Kindle version.

Do you believe in ghosts? Book Club Discussion #1

This is the first in a series of blogs for book clubs and discussion groups who are reading my book, A Thin Slice of Heaven. Weigh in below, or send me an email through my website letting me know the results of your book club or group discussion.

Discussion #1 : Do You Believe in Ghosts?

More people believe in ghosts than at any other time in recent history, according to a series of polls. In the United Kingdom, one poll showed that twice as many people believed in ghosts than believed in God. In another poll, 23% of people said they had actually seen or encountered a ghost. Some people refer to them as spirits; others as guardian angels; sometimes as vengeful or fallen angels. Some believe they are demonic while others believe they can do no harm except psychological.

Have you ever seen a ghost?

I have - many times. One of my earliest memories was lying in bed with my mother and siblings when a man appeared in the room. We all saw him. My mother began calling for my father and the moment he walked into the room, the man disappeared. Two days later, she received a call that the man we'd all seen had died at approximately the same time we witnessed his apparition.

In a more recent sighting, I was visiting a friend who was giving me a tour of her home. When we reached the master bedroom, I could clearly see a man sitting in the corner of the room, his head in his hands, moaning about how he could not stand the pain. When I asked my friend if she saw him, he rose from the chair and flew across the room, shouting, "You can see me? You can see me?" I am quite certain I have never moved so fast in my life. I don't believe my feet touched the floor in my efforts to get out of there. I learned later that my friend had purchased the house after the previous occupant had killed himself in that room, in that very chair in the corner. He had a fatal illness which left him in so much pain that even morphine could not help him. In a moment of great anguish, he shot and killed himself.

Do you know anyone who has ever seen a ghost?

There are a number of stories that abound in the town I live in.

Years ago in the area that is now a courtyard outside the public library, dances used to be held. Imagine women in long gowns and men in dapper suits; old-fashioned courting and live music. The dances were long ago suspended, the area redesigned as a courtyard, and the library expanded. Yet on summer nights around the witching hour, you can still see people dancing in that area as if it was the turn of the 20th century.

The historic theater also has stories about ghosts, including the Lady in White that I tell about in my suspense, Vicki's Key. She appears in the balcony and walks across it as though she was as real as you or I... and then she disappears into the opposite wall.

Have you ever felt as if a place was haunted?

There is a home in town that is rumored to be haunted. The lady who once lived there reported hearing children's footsteps and laughter on the second floor when she was in bed on the first floor. Yet each time she checked, the house was vacant except for herself.

In A Thin Slice of Heaven, a castle in Northern Ireland is haunted. I've heard it said that no self-respecting castle in Ireland would be without at least one ghost. This particular place, Castle Brackenridge, is haunted by Sean Bracken, the great-grandson of the original Laird. The dungeons are still haunted by former residents, and in one night in particular - Christmas Eve - a reenactment takes place - not by those who are living but by those who are dead.

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania is one of the most haunted areas in the United States. It is said that on some nights, one can hear the sound of battle, the shouts, the rifle fire, and the cannons... One can smell the acrid stench of gunsmoke, blood and death... And one can see Pickett's Charge as if it were happening right in front of their eyes. Soldiers weave in and out of tree lines, others lie moaning...

Some scientists believe that in times of intense emotion, residue remains behind, and it is this residual effect that causes people to see or hear what we know as apparitions.

Still others are coming to the conclusion that time is not linear and that parallel universes do exist. Some believe that parallel universes explain the concept of quantum physics, and in some instances it is believed that what we think of as ghosts are actually a glimpse into another, parallel universe. In the Theory of Many Interacting Worlds, universes exist not at extreme ends of the cosmos but in sheets, almost like placing several sheets of paper together but not quite touching.

I think of this in terms of my various aquariums. In one room, for example, I have a large aquarium housing half a dozen adult angelfish. To these angels, this is their universe. Their world begins and ends at the four pieces of glass. Yet in another room, I have another tank housing another half dozen angelfish. They have no knowledge of one another, yet they both exist - and in close proximity to each other.

Taking It Further

In A Thin Slice of Heaven, I chose to take the ghostly encounter one step further. Not only can Charleigh see Sean Bracken, who has been dead for a hundred and fifty years. And not only can she hear him. But she can feel him. She can touch him and he can touch her.

This is not a new concept but a very old one. In the legend of Merlin, he is conceived when a female human mates with a male apparition. One of the earliest stories comes from 2400 BC in Mesopotamia, in the legend of Gilgamesh. And even St. Augustine mentioned them in his papers, citing the presence of them too much to deny.

Some of the reports consider them demonic but in A Thin Slice of Heaven, Sean is the opposite. He appears just when Charleigh needs him the most; he tends to be a guardian angel at times and yet very human at other times. He was a man, flesh and blood, who is now a spirit who believes the castle in which he lived his life is his "thin slice of heaven".

You can purchase A Thin Slice of Heaven in any book store. It is also available in all major eBook formats. Find it here on amazon in paperback or in a Kindle version.