Eden's Womb, Chapter 3 - The Portent

THE PORTENT

 

Ere sun first greets the holy seat of Pol’s Unpunished Cult
A learned eye surveys the sky, disturbed by the result.

(TEMPLE OF THE RISING SUN, RED CAPE, PREFECTURE OF CHICXULUB: 291 RETURNS-OF-GREEN AND 279 DAYS EARLIER)

here is Tullia’s Lamp? Where are her stars?

Except for the arduous climb, Jmen Zemactzil’s pre-dawn duties on the threshold of the Day of the Cicada should have been routine—a quick prayer of supplication, just a few ritual actions, and an offering—release of a handful of the sacred insects.  He had paused halfway up, not intending to look yet, just to catch his breath.  His pounding heart reminded him: he was no squeaky-faced novitiate any more.   He slumped on an ancient red sandstone step, let his lungs draw in the chill air.  It carried a hint of the sea—a refreshing change from steaming earth and jungle, from the dung-speckled grazing lands and thirsty maize that scented the mist and fog on the coastal plain below.

It was the call of the sea that made him look.

Zemactzil’s eyes first retraced his steps, down the steep eastern face of the red Pyramid where half a million Returns ago Maya primitives shed blood to forgotten gods.  At its base his gaze met the strip of white-sand beach where ocean and land had danced their tireless figures, back-and-forth, back-and-forth, since before eyes or ears existed to acknowledge them.  Out across the face of the restless waters the Practitioner’s attention drifted, past the horizon that would swallow Nuncio Zelien’s ships this very day, and on—beyond the limits of mortal vision, where Creation might yet be shaping reality, then up toward the greatest of the wonders that this creation had ever wrought—the eyes of the Ancestors, the watching stars.  So few in number they were.  Much of the night sky still looked black.

Still black?  A queer notion.  Of course the night sky is black.

That’s when a shudder quaked through the Jmen’s bones and his blood froze.  Unbidden, the odd thought forced his eyes northward, and there he saw it—an unnatural darkness blotting out part of the traveler’s constellation, Tullia’s Lamp.  A voice materialized in his mind, like a hiss of breath under the wind:

Regard the sky.  It is you who chose its color.

It was not a cloud.  The black smudge did not move or change shape with the winds.  The stars under its influence were not covered up, but they shone veiled and muted.  Many of the dimmer wayposts that traced the figure of Tullia were gone altogether—a terribly ill omen on this day when Chicxulub must launch Zelien’s brash ordained adventure, the City’s collective sin.

Suddenly this was no routine ritual.

Zemactzil knew the stars.  He knew the moods of the sky as well as he knew his own.  His long Returns of ascetic practice had not been idly spent.  This was a nebula.  It had come from beyond the stars and was moving with uncanny speed.  He had seen no indication of it when he last consulted the stars on the Day of Gifts just eight days ago.  Bewildered and aghast, he now sensed two red eyes in the midst of the darkness, with black vertical slits for pupils.  And then the Voice spoke to him again, clear and rife with power.

‘Pray earnestly.  Populate the Heavens until they glow warm’.  These were your simple instructions, human.  Why have you failed me?

The Practitioner gasped, dropped to his knees, raised shaking arms in a desperate gesture of pleading.  His heart was pounding through his skull.

“Spirit of shadow, we do pray earnestly.”  His voice felt small to him, insincere before this unknown presence.  “O vast one, do you not see?  The Guild of the Unpunished observes all prayer cycles, from the Four Orders of Devotion of each Ide, the Holy Days of Gifts and of Kneeling, the Tally of the Forty-Three, the Ancestors’ Return, the Lost Day on the threshold of which we stand today, when the Spirits walk among the suspended souls of mortals harvesting the fruit of our noble deeds.  We honor them all.  Zelien’s Mission, which we launch this waking day, is testament—through our traveling Nuncio we strive to unite all humans in true devotion.  It is Chicxulub’s holiest obligation.  Do you not see?”

I repeat.  What is wrong with the sky?

The impatient voice bore into the Jmen’s soul, twining about his mind like an anaconda tightening its grip on a capybara.  Zemactzil felt utterly inadequate, humiliated.  He was half-way up the sacred pyramid, not yet worthy to offer his supplication.  Though every bone in his body quavered like jelly, he stood and resumed his climb even as he grasped for a response.

“The sky is … is …”

Cold.

The word became all.  He felt it, lived it.  His blood ran thick with cold, and he shivered like a leaf.

I do not enjoy repeating myself, human. Answer me.

“Please.  Grant me the strength to … I beg you, Spirit of the sky …”

His prayers were fading into wordless desperation.  He had not the strength to speak.  He felt that if he could just reach the top of the pyramid he could properly obiesce toward this mysterious Spirit who was sending such dire omens.  He pleaded for forgiveness for his order.  It was a poorly concealed secret that many past Jmens had taken this duty lightly, had climbed a few steps up the east face of the pyramid, knelt toward the Guiding Stars of the North, spoken the ritual words, released the Cicadas from a pouch, and called it done.  Now he was paying the price for their indolence.

The spirit was waiting, like a school master tapping his foot before the desk of a recalcitrant student.  That student was Zemactzil, and he had not completed his assignment.  Still a hundred steps to the summit.  His chest felt like it was collapsing inward.  Pain speared up and down his left arm and shoulder, his breath came in little gasps.

“No … Please …”

Useless creature.  Weakling.

He was.  Zemactzil collapsed in a heap, his eyes filled with tears, his chest wracked with tightness and unbearable pain.  Dizziness was consuming his consciousness.

“Who are you, dark spirit?  From whence have you come?”

I am infinite.  I am your StrongMother.  Can you humans be salvaged?  Should I bother?

“We can be salvaged, O infinite StrongMother.  Make me your prophet.  I shall come down from the mountain and preach the holy word of your return … Our Nuncio will depart for the wide world carrying your urgent call for renewed devotion.  I will …”

The last phrase lingered on blue lips twitching with involuntary spasm.  His eyes wide, frozen toward the black intruder consuming the northern constellation, Jmen Zemactzil spoke no more, and as he died the StrongMother’s presence utterly abandoned him.

Prophet …  Hmmmm …

It is the way, Naja.  A seed sown and nurtured.

You urge patience, Kilkinney?  When all around us the death-wind shrieks?  No.  I will not … ooooh!

* * *

Continue to the next Chapter

Return to Book One Table of Contents



All content Copyright © 2015, P.J. Wetzel

Eden's Womb, Chapter 2 - Twilight's Shade

TWILIGHT'S SHADE

 Beneath the ice like moles or mice the tunnel-makers toil
To probe, to chip from glacier’s grip the fruits of once warm soil.

wenty miles to the south the blood-sky had turned bruise-purple and then faded to a gray of hurrying ghosts.  A fierce gale ripped at the cowl of Trilly’s scavenged wool cloak as she wielded her favorite stone axe on the best of the cordwood.  She hated the wind.  Though she was nearly thirty-five it still brought out childish fears—menacing whispers, demons creeping out of dark holes. Tonight, more than most, the wind-roar seemed an omen.  She sensed something prowling in the shadows—eyes watching and moving unseen.  Just twenty feet away, inside the wattle-and-daub hut of clan BrownEarth, Grandma Alie would be spinning a tale or singing the little ones to sleep, but she couldn’t hear it.  She was sure that if she had need to shout for help, the wind would smother the call, and lift it away, unheard except by the passing ghosts.

No, Trilly did not wish to be out here splitting logs.  But the hearth was down to a few coals and their simple round thatch-roofed shelter was a drafty place when the wind blew.  The clan would need more fuel to last the night.  So here she was among the wood-drying racks with her axe and her granite wedges and her pine-knot maul, hard at work, alone with the watching wind.

The men of clan BrownEarth, Scavengers by trade, spent their days freeing trees from beneath the glacier.  The nearest unharvested stands were some forty thousand-pace away down a network ancestral tunnels.  There they would trim logs to sled-length, and once each fortnight they made the trek home with their sleds piled high with gleanings: sappy greenwood of every size from great logs to sticks and twigs still holding their summer leaves and needles.  Scavengers also shaved the grasses from grazing fields, sometimes found wheat or barley tilled by ancient sinners.  They brought back animal carcasses if they were lucky, their dung if otherwise.   And they gleaned medicinal herbs and roots as well as household tools and wares from settlements abandoned at the time of Cleansing Storm two hundred eighty-eight Returns ago.  But wood was the Scavenger’s staple, and the tedious tasks of turning greenwood rails into seasoned furnace wood for the Citadel, and into hearthwood for the rabble—the drying, cutting, and splitting—that was women’s work.

With a grunt, Trilly hefted her heavy polished-granite axe and plunged it into the butt of a log.  Splinters flew, and the thick object yielded into two halves.  She split each of these again and let them fall to the rock-hard ground.  Reaching for a new log half her weight, she strained to lift it into the cradle of the splitting block.  She was rail-thin herself, but what flesh the Hunger had left her was all muscle and sinew.  Strong she was not, but like everyone in Saskatoone, Trilly Thaw-BrownEarth was possessed of an indomitable will to persevere, born of nearly Three Hundred Returns of defying the endless snows as the glacier grew around them.

The ice wall now loomed over the clan’s hold like a living force—two hundred feet high—impassive yet ever watching, ever alert.  You could almost feel its presence.  Was there a noise echoing off its face?  Shuffling feet?  Trilly’s heart pounded.  She lifted her cowl and searched the darkness, saw nothing but the swirl of wind-blown snow.  The twilight must be playing tricks with her mind.  She felt a chill in her blood as she returned to her task.  Her habitual grunt dissipated before it reached her ears as the axe came crashing down on the heavy new log.  It did not yield.  She felt the wooden haft recoil and crack, sending a jolt through her mittened hands and up her right arm.

Curses.  Should have used the wedges.  This log was too big to split with a single axe-blow.  The wind was distracting her—she wasn’t thinking clearly.  Too late now.  She activated the bioluminescent patch of skin on her high forehead, studied the broken tool in its light, and scowled.  The neck and helve were split down the middle and the head had come loose.  Well, it needed sharpening anyhow.  Sharpen it first thing in the morning, then after breaking fast she and Jo would fit a new handle.  They’d make a lesson of it for the children.

Her headlamp faded and the fingers of the night closed around her again as she tossed the broken implement toward where the grinding wheel lay buried under a snow drift.  That reminded her: the unruly wind was making yet more work for tomorrow—the yard would need to be cleared of the new accumulation, drifted down from up top where the endless flat expanse of snow stretched to the horizon in every direction.  Not long ago, in the fading light, she had noted Evvie TreatSoil struggling up the haul ramp with a sled overloaded with snow from her yard.

Women’s work.  It did not end.  Trilly grumbled as she hurried to gather up the wood already split.  Thank the Spirits for the Day of Gifts—their one holy day in seventeen, just two days away.  The men would return.  How she missed the warm bear-arms of her man-choice Siephus; and the holiday would give her a chance to have a heart-to-heart talk with Adam about Evvie.

My dear Adam.  He’s a man now too, with a future that my dreams fear to fathom.  But men were prone to acts of weakness—it was one the core lessons of humanity’s Long Sojourn.  None of Adam’s potential would fulfill without foundation from a woman of worth.  While at home for the sacred rest day her son must not rest.  She would encourage him to attend the first duty of a man come of age—to solicit listing on troth-rolls of some strong women.

She began rehearsing what she must say—her words safely muffled by the raging wind:  “Adam, that Evvie is a temptress, and you’re wise enough to know it.  Think of clan BrownEarth, not merely of a young man’s urges.  Think of the future the Gods may hold for you if you … if you ever choose a spirit-guided path.  But even if you do not, dear Adam, you will not want to dishonor the family when … when … your father’s sight …”

She paused, suddenly near tears. Would she dare broach this in front of Siephus?  His blindness was coming on so quickly that they hadn’t yet found time to discuss the inevitable.  Poor Siephus—still such a robust and proud man.  But lately he was stumbling over things …

She drew a resolute breath.  Yes, duty to the clan.  “… when your father can no longer work the tunnels,” that’s how she would put it, “Grandma will ask you to step up.  Even if you seek no higher calling, our clan will need you on strong foundation, Adam.  Pray on my words.  Go out and get yourself on troth-rolls.  Seek out girls who will support you through all the trials that may lie ahead, not just under warm blankets in the flush of your youth.  Go to Jenna FieldHand for one—a wisp of a girl, I know, and as quiet as Evvie is brash.  But stable as a rock.  Her clan is known for their probity—one of the few untouched by my mother’s …”

That wanton woman.  Trilly shuddered, casting aside the unwanted thoughts.  Hers was a name no one in Saskatoone now spoke.  And Evelyn’s grandfather Acob had been among the first to … one of the worst.  No.  Evvie must be stopped.  Jenna comes of age an Ide sooner.  Convince her to choose Adam and all Trilly’s worries would end.  She could start anticipating … grandchildren.

Grandchildren.  Where has the time gone?  Adam and Lissa, her special little gifts from Heaven, her firstborn twins, already past their Resolution—seventeen Returns-of-Green.  Yet Heaven never gives without taking.  Lissa was born a hopeless palsied cripple and poor Adam was so often distracted by his gift-curse—the rampant Spirit-Voices in his head—that he failed to interpret even the simplest unspoken cues from ordinary folk—Evvie’s lurid scheming, Jenna’s secretive, longing glances …

Trilly’s thoughts swirled with the ceaseless wind.  She did not see the moving shadow until it hovered over her, did not sense the outstretched arm until it clamped around her waist.  A second arm brought a hand over her mouth.  She tried to twist free and uttered a muffled scream.  The wood in her arms clattered to the ground.  Both sounds flew skyward and dissipated in the angry gale.

A male voice from out of long-suppressed memories eighteen Returns old growled in her ear, “What is your sin, First Mother.  This time you will come.  This time you will not refuse me.”

Revelstoke.  No!

 

* * *

Continue to the next Chapter

Return to Book One Table of Contents



All content Copyright © 2015, P.J. Wetzel

Eden's Womb - the epic saga begins. Preview for free.

(updated 17 Sept. 2023)

A Hard Sci-Fi/Adventure tale for your enjoyment.  Follow lowly scavenger Adam Timberfell (formerly Adam BrownEarth, formerly Jebden Gale) as he is called by a mysterious newly-arrived spirit to rescue his dying species from extinction.  What is presented here is the first full edition of the tale as it appeared eight years ago.  It has since been almost completely rewritten and the story lines have changed considerably.  But for historic purposes, I'm keeping this old version 'live'.  It's an example of storytelling at its best--the teller evolves the story with each telling.  

The full Eden's Womb novel is now (as of late August 2023) available in paperback and as an eBook.  Amazon.com: Eden's Womb eBook : Wetzel, P.J.: Kindle Store

2015 experimental cover using a detail of Eve from the 1528 painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder (now housed at Uffizi Gallery, Florence Italy).  Since she planted the garden, Naja has been away taking care of business in other galaxies.  Now she's back.

EPIGRAPHS from the 2015 edition

 

Let this be peace: When foes increase o’er Armageddon’s wolds,
When hostile hordes transgress our borders, threatening our holds—

Comes ‘End-of-Days’, and hence we raise Sev’n Shepherds to our aid,
And, too, we send Eight Princely Men to wield the swift-drawn blade.

 

                                                                            —Micah 5:5, the Nevi’im,
                            Codices of the Nine Foundation Faiths, First Canon

That final hour when Heaven flowers and Six have come to fold
A lowly child from ice-bound wild the Sev’nth in hand shall hold:

 

Daughter of greenth—O seventeenth firstborn sustained in line—
Pray name thy King, that we may bring his pow’r to bear in time.

 

                                                                    —Song of the Hallowed One,
                                                                                 Epistle of DunCanon

TABLE OF CONTENTS (2015 edition):

  

 

BOOK ONE:  Return of Naja (begins below)

BOOK TWO:  Lonely Lessons

BOOK THREE:  The Copper Curse

BOOK FOUR:  Three Crosses

BOOK FIVE:  The Preserve

BOOK SIX:  Through Heaven's Gate

BOOK SEVEN:  The Eighth Day of Creation

GLOSSARY
NOTES AND BACKGROUND

 

* * *

 

BOOK ONE:  RETURN OF NAJA

  Many thanks to Eustacia Tan for her help with this cover

 

 

Men knew me not.  Those fools forgot the Eye that opened first—
The Voice that spoke when Time awoke and Heaven’s water burst.

‘Midst raging void, ere dark destroyed, ‘twas I who stooped to nod,
Gave form to place o’er waters’ face … and made their precious God.

 

When worlds were new my garden grew in perfect timeless bliss.
Its fruits of life wrought man and wife.  On her I laid my kiss.

 

To praise the good of Motherhood I taught her of the fruit;
But Good revealed leaves Sin unsealed, hence jealous thoughts took root.

 

God loved the man.  He hatched a plan to seize my universe:
So males could claim the pow’r and fame, he smote me with a curse.

 

Thus in men’s eyes my mortal guise now takes a serpent’s form,
Which sets the stage, this final age, for one most righteous Storm.

                                                                        —StrongMother Naja, demiurge,
                                                                                      “The Flame of Creation”,

                                               ‘Essential Elements’ from the ‘Core Narrative’

 

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS, digital preview of BOOK ONE, 2013 edition:

 

 

Chapter 1  (begins below)

Chapter 2 - Twilight's Shade

Chapter 3 - The Portent
Chapter 4 - The Apostate
Chapter 5 - Evvie
Chapter 6 - The Foreshadow
Chapter 7 - The Thrush
Chapter 8 - Adam's Manifesto
Chapter 9 - Puppet
Chapter 10 - Ercildoun
Chapter 11 - Siephus's Choice
Chapter 12 - The Test
 Chapter 13 - The Legend of Luke Aeolus
Chapter 14 - The Fellowship Goes South
Chapter 15 - The Acts of Men and Gods
Chapter 16 - Many Sins
Chapter 17 - Farewell to Kilkinney
Chapter 18 - The Fugue
Chapter 19 - Impasse
Chapter 20 - Daughter of Greenth
Chapter 21 - Dim's Mete Games
Chapter 22 - A Ride Home
Chapter 23 - Mathom
Chapter 24 - Spoils of War
Chapter 25 - Crossroads
Chapter 26 - Snowball Earth

Book I Supplement: The Cantor's Elegy

Chapter 27 - The Nuncio Reports
Chapter 28 - The Fall of Rome
Chapter 29 - Birthright Denied
Chapter 30- In the Company of Golgoths
Chapter 31 - Oetzi
Chapter 32 - On the Wendish Steppes
Chapter 33 - Six Perils
Chapter 34 - Ice Land
 

 

THE GOADING

 

“O Chosen One, ye callow son, awake!” the prophet cries,

“From ice-bound womb, ere crack of doom, our Savior-King must rise.”

--The Sibyl of Sinner's Thew

rise, ye Chosen One

The tunnel veered to the right, sloping up through blue ice.  Adam BrownEarth gulped the bitter air as his sledge scraped around the narrow bend.  Up, up he chugged, thighs burning, vision dimming from lack of oxygen.  The Ancestor Voices were hawking some Sibyl-song, doing their damnedest to distract him—voices nobody else could hear.  Awake?  Chosen One?  Prattle.  He had no time for it.  He had a race to win.

The sharpened points of his three brown toenails clawed the slick floor as he strained against the hip-harness linking him to five hundred pounds of ice chips.  He was nearing the top.  He could see the orange glow of sunset ahead—a snatch of open sky.  Good.  He could turn off his headlamp, save a little energy.

“I got you, Sam.” Adam turned to taunt at his lifelong friend.  “Fourth time in a row, you pathetic hothouse flower.”

Sam’s huffing and wheezing sounded too close.  He was rounding the curve already, hauling another sled, identically loaded with tailings from the day’s tunneling.

The weights of their two sleds were supposed to match, and with his longer legs and greater experience Adam could usually out-pace the erstwhile Citadel gardener, only lately enlisted by the Keeper into scavenging work.  But as he glanced behind, he saw that Sam was closing the gap.

 “Woot!  Flower, huh? Better watch out for the thorns,” Sam chimed, forcing a grin through his scraggly whiskers.  “You’re doomed, Ads.  This time you’re doomed.”

Lissa had started them three counts apart down in the gallery—the vaulted gathering place at soil level where several narrow Scavengers’ tunnels converged.  It was a game they played every time tailings needed hauling up top.  If Sam managed to close the gap and grab the back of Adam’s sled before they reached the open sky, he could claim victory.  Unthinkable. Adam dug deep.  He would erase the pain from his mind in the same way that he dismissed the damn Voices when Lissa wasn’t there to help.  Force of will.  His legs pounded up the slope.

Doomed?

Adam tried to think of a glib retort, but he felt spent, dizzy.  Why?  True, he hadn’t eaten since breakfast.  His tunneling had produced nothing all day—not an ice-entombed mouse, not a single head of the ancient wheat, not even a scrawny three-hundred-Return-old flash-frozen grasshopper.  But there was more to this moment of mental fog—the Spirit Voices would not quit clanging in his skull.  They were driving him crazy.

Awake, O Chosen One.

“Oh, please,” he mumbled under his breath. “If you haven’t noticed, I’m not sleeping.”

Arise, ye King of Armies.

“Stupid,” this time he shouted.  “Why don’t you just shut up?”

“Oh, real clever, Ads,” Sam puffed.  He was dangerously close.  “Is that the best comeback you got?”

Oops.  They really were driving him crazy.

“That and another win,” Adam hurried to repair the faux-pas “… that’s what counts, big talker.”  And he still thought he could win.  He was so close to the surface now that he felt the wind curling down, tugging at his beaded, shoulder-length hair.  He could see the scintillations of sunset-light in the stream of passing crystals.  In a moment he would emerge to witness the old red orb plunging into a sea of shifting ground-blizzards.  The sky was alight with blood-fire, roaring in the Arctic gale.  But louder in his ears was Sam’s sudden cry.

“Think so? Gotcha!”

He felt a yank on his harness as Sam snagged the sled.  The Greenhouseman had caught the back brace of a runner.  Defeat.

Doomed.

Adam had his head turned in that moment, leering back toward Sam, so he didn’t notice the massive form looming over the opening of the airway—not until its shadow drew across him. Then he wheeled around, instant fear prickling every nerve.

“What the … An Ozyump?”

A rush of air thick with animal scent filled the tunnel.  An enormous orange-haired hand seized Adam about the torso with speed that defied vision.  Spears of pain encircled his rib cage.  His cry of alarm merged with the huge hominid’s roar—a deep bellow that shook the foundations of the glacier.

There was a flash of light as the setting sun wheeled past Adam’s eyes.  And then he saw that mouth, wide open, big enough to disembowel him in a single bite—purple lips dripping rancid drool, canine teeth as sharp as spears.  He saw the dull brown saucer-eyes full of avarice and gluttony, deep set in a leather-skinned bulbous head.  And streaming from that head he saw its thirty-foot-long mane of straight, coarse, straw-yellow hair waving like a banner in the wind.

Doomed.

And then he heard choirs, an anthem in his mind, a herald of trumpets.

You cretins.  The reaction hit him involuntarily.

A billion Sûl-taken Ancestor Spirits were celebrating.

 

* * *
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All content Copyright © 2015, P.J. Wetzel



Grandma Gatewood, new book about the AT legend



Grandma Gatewood's Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail by Ben Montgomery
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Where has this book been? Why hadn't some Appalachian Trail junkie not already written it? It's hard to fathom why the saga of Grandma Gatewood and her pioneering 1955 Appalachian Trail thru-hike has not been turned into a stand-alone book before now. And from my perspective as an avid hiker and an Appalachian Trail thru-hiker myself, it's a little disappointing that, when the tale finally was told, it was not by one of 'us' in the fraternity. It took an enterprising but non-hiking reporter to find and fill this gap in Appalachian Trail lore.

Fortunately Ben Montgomery was up to the task. Despite starting as an 'outsider' with no demonstrated attachment to the Appalachian Trail or to the hiker culture that bonds all of us who have lived the experience, Mr. Montgomery did his homework. As a result this book is a first rate documentary.

What Montgomery lacked in hiking experience he made up for with his well-honed skills as a Pulitzer Prize nominated reporter. He sought out Emma Gatewood's surviving children, gained access to her hand-written journals and accounts of her hike. He dug into the fascinating, gripping story of the pre-trail life of this remarkable woman. And he went to the trail and walked in her footsteps--at least enough to begin to understand: He climbed Katahdin, and he even visited Mt. Oglethorpe, which was the southern terminus of the trail in 1955 when 67 year old Emma Gatewood undertook her historic walk.

Were I to have written this book, it would have been tempting to take the facts and extrapolate--to try to get into Emma Gatewood's mind as she experienced her hike, to empathize more with her love of nature, of solitude, of the pure joy of being free of her extraordinary 'real-life' burdens -- the daily grind of raising eleven children and dealing with an abusive husband. The book I would have written would have been infused with much more emotional immediacy. But Ben Montgomery scrupulously avoided taking this route. It's the reporter's instinct, I'm sure, and I have to praise him for taking this course. He stuck to the facts -- presumably closely paraphrasing Ms. Gatewood's written journal and resisting all temptation to embellish or read between the lines. As a result, I find myself trusting the story completely. There's no whiff of 'historical fiction' here.

Grandma Gatewood in her eighties, reproduced from 'Hiking the Appalachian Trail', James R. Hare, ed., 1975

Did Emma Gatewood 'Save the Appalachian Trail' as the subtitle claims? This is my greatest complaint about the book. I think that claim is hyperbole. I think it's there to sell books. Montgomery briefly makes his case near the end of the book with a peculiar 'straw man' sort of argument. He points to the claims that Ed Garvey, and his highly successful, widely read 'Appalachian Hiker: Adventure of a Lifetime' was the turning point in public awareness of the trail. Then he uses a weak, cherry-picked statistic to knock down this straw man.

In my opinion no one individual 'saved the trail', and Montgomery presents no evidence that the trail even needed saving. True, it had fallen into relative neglect and disrepair during WWII when people had more important things to expend their energy doing. But it was the organic evolution of American culture after the war--the same mindset that popularized Frodo Baggins's epic hike to destroy the Ring of Power--that made the AT what it is today. Naturally the early thru-hikers played an especially prominent role. The title of 'savior of the trail' surely could be more appropriately bestowed on Earl Shaffer or Gene Espy, whose hikes preceded Emma Gatewood's by seven years and four years respectively, and who were both very active supporters and proponents of the trail after their hikes.

Hyberbole aside, Emma Gatewood is a memorable character - destined to be a larger-than-life legend if she isn't already. And she deserves it for multiple reasons. She was sixty-seven years old when she accomplished her feat. She did something no female of any age had done before. She has a compelling, even heart-wrenching personal background, and she undertook her hike with a sort of back-to-nature minimalism that is reminiscent of an ascetic monk on a holy pilgrimage - ultra-cheap, ultra-simple gear, no maps, spending just $200 during the 146 day trek.

Thank you, Ben Montgomery, for telling this story, for bringing it to the public at large in the most professional manner possible. If 'Wild' was worth making into a movie, then surely the story of Emma 'Grandma' Gatewood is too. And I'll be first in line at the theater on opening day.

Meanwhile I highly recommend the book.



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Reinventing the Novel: On Publishing in the 21st Century

(Updated 18 June 2026)

Having posted a foundational concept for a sci-fi novel in the form of three succinct AI-generated images with captions in Song 30 of the Song of Everything series, your host here at Comfortable Universe HQ, revisits this old post from 2014 in order to unfurl the flower of this blossom in the bright and strange new light of our rapidly evolving information culture.

When the 'Novel' isn't novel any more ...

Where do we turn for the brilliant new ideas that can reinvigorate what, in today's information ecosystem, seems to be becoming a niche art form—perhaps a fading one—that may not survive the turbulence of these changing times?

The surprising answer: to the very technology that's destroying it.

And no, I'm not talking about AI - just the opposite - the exploitation of the full technological landscape by real human intelligence—that of the enlightened and tech-savvy author.

Nor am I talking about eBooks here.  I'm talking a complete outside-the-box revolution in the way we think about publishing.  It's a revolution that has already begun, though the battle lines and alliances are shifting so rapidly that it seems almost impossible to imagine the final outcome.  But that's what I'm here to attempt to do.

Books are quaint old things—nothing but bulky lumps of stained wood fiber that lost their revolutionary status half a millennium ago once the world embraced Gutenberg's movable type.  Yet they live on.  Honestly, sometimes it amazes me that the simple paper book has outlived the vinyl record and the floppy disc as staples in the average person's household.  The latter two are information devices with roughly similar storage density as books but with far better interconnectivity, yet they are museum pieces today.  What's the deal?  Books don't connect with anything but the reader's mind.  To call any book 'novel' in this digital age is, to say the least, a stretch.

The term has become an oxymoron.  The word 'novel' comes from the Latin 'novellus', diminutive of 'novus', meaning 'new'.  A novel is literally 'a little something new'.  My obsolete ten-pound door-stop known as Webster's Third New International Dictionary, unabridged, 1986, defines the noun 'novel' as "an invented prose narrative ..."

Invented ... an invented work of prose narrative.  An author has a 'light bulb moment' and proceeds to turn it into an epic tale, as George R.R. Martin did when the idea of a set of siblings adopting wild dire-wolf pups became his mega-successful 'Game of Thrones' franchise.

Thomas Edison, I think, gets the credit for connecting invention and light bulbs in our cultural vernacular.  And ironically it was another Edison invention—the phonograph—that began the novel's slow decline as an art form.

Before there were books, the "invented prose narrative" was the exclusive purview of the storyteller.  What Johannes Gutenberg did for the written word, Edison did for the spoken.  Suddenly the oral storyteller was back in business.  Cold, impersonal black-and-white print now had an equally distributable competitor with value added: voice inflection, sound effects, even musical accompaniment.

If "video killed the radio star," then radio surely killed the novel, no?  If audio was the first nail in the novel's coffin, then today's cheap, ubiquitous, digital multi-media must certainly have cremated the novel and scattered its ashes to the four winds.

Not exactly.  Here's the case for the defense—exhibit A:  Long before Gutenberg, books had already proven their potential for supplemental content.  Cloistered monks devoted their lives to creating heavily illuminated volumes—visual works of art of highest caliber, complete with multi-color illustrations.

"But," the dour prosecutor raises a pointed finger and remonstrates, "illustrations cannot properly be considered 'narrative', and certainly not 'prose'."

"Sir," the defense calmly responds, "Have you heard of the 'graphic novel'?"

We'll leave the little courtroom dramatization hanging there, with that last parry as a rhetorical question—'question as answer'.  Even before the digital revolution, professional critics such as our prosecutor were already forging coffin nails and holding wakes: "The Death of the Novel !!!" they proclaimed. These pundits played at parsing definitions (such as the definition of "narrative"), setting up straw-man criteria for judging what is and is not a novel so they could create a sensational 'headline' and sell an article to a broadsheet.  Even today that practice continues - see this recent high-brow essay by Will Self.

I'll tell you what I think of people who parse definitions for a living.  For one thing, they're not novelists.  They do the opposite of inventing prose, they eviscerate it.  In addition to the light bulb and the phonograph, the 19th century saw the invention of the term 'scientist' (in 1834), whereupon the art of parsing all aspects of reality went rampant and even acquired its own (nefarious) name: reductionism.

This was the dawn of the 'age of the expert' - an apparently short-lived era in which a 'credential' in a narrow field of specialty was required to express a worthy opinion, and during which the generalist/naturalist (the Renaissance man) lost favor.  I argue that we have, thankfully for the field of the "invented prose narrative", entered the 'post-expert era': a term I first heard used by Amy Luers just this year (June 2014).



Screen shot from Google.com, showing the relative frequency of use of the word 'Expert' over time.

Cheap, ubiquitous, real-time digital multi-media has democratized public discourse.  The emergence of sophisticated AI tools such as ChatGPT have made textual information nearly worthless as a stand-alone product.  The expert's perspective is drowned and marginalized beneath the din.  And the same chaos threatens the extinction of the novel by engulfing it in creative alternatives.

That is, unless the Novel can become novel once again.  Unless the "invented prose narrative" can be re-invented.

The medieval monks cloistered in their cells with pen and parchment pointed the way to comic books and graphic novels.  Journeyman actors and actresses take night work recording audiobooks.  High-profile screenwriters/directors turn novels into blockbuster movies and television series.  Cross-pollination is good.

So here is my idealized seven-part 21st-century publishing plan for my best Outside-the-Box prose (which nearly always appears first and foremost on this blog).

1. Small installments.  Instead of starting by doing any sort of static 'publishing' of a 'book', the author releases the novel a chapter at a time and adds value from there.

2. Free.  The reader can partake of valuable content completely free.  Readers will not even be distracted by advertisements on the page.  Truly, purely free—no strings.  This is part of a 'loss-leader' or 'market seeding' strategy applied in an unprecedented direction.  See item 5 below.

3. Multi-media.  The blog posts will include not only text but vivid illustrations (including AI generated images), videos, links to external content, to an index and to appendices and glossary pages.  Among the videos could be the author reading from the manuscript and/or offering commentary.  My Comfortable Universe YouTube Channel is an attempt to begin implementing this goal.

4. Interactive. (Given enough active interest,) each installment is intended to be dynamic—never static but flexibly evolving to add new content.  Fans would be invited to contribute artwork, videos and written commentary, including questions, critiques, and suggestions for improvement.  There would be contests and giveaways and other promotions.  Courses could be created and taught, covering topics from world building to individual character studies to plot analysis.  The author goes on speaking tours, appearing live at book signings, gets on podcasts, approaches media providers of all kinds about interviews.  Here is where the human element will always out-compete the growing competition from AI.

5. Subscription based:  Then ... if and/or when demand develops, further installments or advance previews may be made available first through subscription on a 'members only' section of the web site.  Note that major software publishing has converted from packaged CDs to monthly subscriptions.  

6. Branded.  The 'Eden's Womb' Universe, should it gain any attention, would not just be just the title of a novel series.  It would be a brand.  The paperback book is merely one of a suite of products.  As/when demand develops, other merchandise would be produced—t-shirts, decals, action figures, etc. etc.  Sale of the rights to a movie producer is, of course, a dreamed-of ultimate part of this.

7. Entrepreneurial.  A successful novel becomes an ongoing enterprise.  This has already come to pass with successful authors like Brandon Sanderson.  But if less successful, the modest start-up effort (a domain name and web site, social media presence, etc.) need not cost the author a penny.

Now, here's the reality check.  The above seven steps comprise an intensive, time-consuming occupation—a business—a 'brand name'.  It involves a lot of hard work and a lot of common sense that goes far beyond skills at writing prose.  Typically, start-up businesses like this fail 80% of the time.  There are plenty of entrepreneurs out there eager to 'help' you market and promote your work for a fee, or to help you to learn to do so yourself through courses and coaching.  The opportunities to throw your money at the problem are boundless; and any that you use need to be carefully evaluated beforehand.

So ... why has the print book remained (barely, and admittedly fading, perhaps only for the elite mega-successful few) a commercially viable commodity while the vinyl disc has dwindled?  Why do we remain so enamored with the old-fashioned printed word—so nostalgically loyal to a half-millennium-old technology?  My short answer is that there's something very fundamental about visual symbolic expression that defines us as civilized humans.  Symbols have 'magic' - a real-world sort of magic that is emergent, entirely different from the impact of spoken words, and shrouded in the mystery of human consciousness.

Will the magic last?  Will the print book survive to see the 22nd century?  With the seven-part strategy that I've outlined above, an author can hedge his/her bets while still embracing the newest developments.

Novel becomes hyper-novel!

Go for it!  It seems like a fun idea to play with at the very least.  It's an experiment—an epic adventure in its own right in this new emerging landscape.  And our readers, many of whom are aspiring authors, are invited to come along for the ride.

Cracking the code of the 'Game of Thrones'

In what key is the 'Song of Ice and Fire' composed?  No minor key, that's for certain.

I've just finished a six week 'total immersion' experience, reading all five available books in George R.R. Martin's famous fantasy novel series, 'A Song of Ice and Fire'.

This was an epic adventure, and I'm not just talking about the plot.  It was quite a feat of reading.  We're talking about plowing through five volumes--roughly 1000 pages each--in 42 days.  I estimate that I read 40,000 words a day.

And now that I've 'finished' - meaning only that I've caught up to the present (the series has two more books yet to be released) - I'm here to report some of my reactions to what I read as well as some insights into the man behind this truly epic project.

What I write here is not exactly a book review, but it's not exactly not a book review either.  Specifically, it's a list of seven subjective, sometimes off-beat observations.  Let's call it "Seven Keys to the Seven Kingdoms": a look into the dungeons and secret passages in the hidden, unexpected underbelly beneath the castle--the untold 'story behind the story'.

There's a lot of buzz about author George R.R. Martin right now, coming in conjunction with the October 28th 2014 release of his Christmas-gift-worthy coffee-table-book, The World of Ice and Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and The Game of Thrones.  Martin has given several new interviews, both in print and on TV.  Here's a link to a fine fifteen-minute interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos broadcast late last week.

The headline of the ABC interview provides the first of the unexpected keys:

1.  George R.R. Martin had his first 'fifteen minutes of fame' long before he started writing 'Game of Thrones'.  He made his first TV appearance in 1987, four years before he even conceived of the 'Song of Ice and Fire' novels.  It happened as a result of his position as one of four screen-writers of the short-lived TV series 'Beauty and the Beast'.  He made a cameo appearance sitting in a restaurant chomping a cheeseburger while reading one of his own books.

In the Stephanopoulos interview, Martin says that it took eight takes to get the scene right--that meant eight big chomps on a soggy, luke-warm, microwaved cheeseburger.

The larger take-away point from this:  George R.R. Martin did not just burst on the scene out of nowhere.  He had been writing and publishing novels since the early 1970's and when his career in fiction stalled, he became a reasonably successful Hollywood screen writer.  Then in 1991 he had the germ of inspiration for the 'Ice and Fire' novels ... and that leads to the next interesting observation ...

2.  'The Song of Ice and Fire' sold before even two percent of it was written.  This proved to be a bad idea, in my opinion.  Though he never intended to do so, Martin played 'bait and switch' with his eager publisher.  Here's more detail:  After writing just the first 100 pages of the first novel and a two page general summary of the rest of the plot, Martin sent his agent out to seek a publisher.  The result: four different major publishing houses bid on it.  He had a contract and a commitment, but hardly any actual written manuscript.  He naively told his chosen publisher that he might take a year to get out the first book.  Three years later (1995) he finally delivered the first volume, 'Game of Thrones'.  And twenty-five years later we're still waiting on the sixth and seventh volumes ('The Winds of Winter' and 'A Dream of Spring').  This leads to another unexpected point ...

3.  After 1.85 million words, nothing is resolved.  For God's sake, the Christian Bible only took 783,137 words (KJV) to tell a pretty epic story in its entirety.  Yet after more than twice that length, Martin still leaves a dozen or more plot lines hanging at the end of the fifth book.  This is the result of his decision to follow the points of view of so many different primary characters.  The result ...

4.  You can't tell the players without a scorecard.  The scope and ambition of this saga is unprecedented, as far as I know, in the entire history of alternate-world fiction.  By Martin's rough count, he has written roughly 1000 characters into the story, all of which have back-story and entanglements with the main characters and with each other.  Each of the five volumes published thus far has an extended appendix--an organized list of the characters and their relationships.  These are EIGHTY PAGE rosters, consisting of nothing but lists of names.

I chose to read the books without referring to those lists.  If I didn't remember who somebody was (which happened often), I just assumed they weren't important enough to matter.  That made some of the multi-page stretches of political scheming rather tedious if not downright boring but ... surprise ... it didn't cause me to lose the important threads of the plot.

My take-away reaction: Martin could have written a 'normal' sized novel with far fewer characters on the page and, in my opinion, it would have been tighter, cleaner, crisper, with better pace.  Would I use the word 'bloated' to describe the product as written?  Would I do that?  Nahhhhh.  The readers adore Martin's attention to detail and the depth of the story as it is.  The avid fans love being immersed in all the political nuances and intricacies.  That these books continue to increase in popularity with every new release tells all that needs to be told.  There will be an honored place in the history of literature for this work.

One wonders whether some future author will try to outdo this feat.  Just imagine ... !  Imagine an appendix the size of the New York City phone book.

For Martin, the characters and their entanglements matter more than anything.  He once said that his ultimate aim in writing was to explore the internal conflicts that define the human condition, and he described that as the only reason to read any literature, regardless of genre.  So ...

5.  The fantasy elements were (practically) afterthoughts.  Yes, Martin's prime inspiration came from his dual-middle-initial counterpart J.R.R. Tolkien, but this little tidbit intrigued me:  At one point during the writing, Martin was not going to include dragons.  It took the prompting of a writer friend, Phyllis Eisenstein (to whom he dedicated the third book) to change his mind:  "George, it's a fantasy - you've got to put in the dragons."

Martin himself has said that early in the process he was considering it as just a pseudo-historical-fiction story modeled after the War of the Roses - what I'd call a medieval soap opera.  And in my opinion 90% of the final product remains that--not Fantasy but historical-style fiction.  The themes of family and power far outweigh the impact of magic and supernatural elements.  Even Tolkien's influence on Martin largely comes from the quirky post-climax ending of the Lord of the Rings trilogy - the tale of the 'Scouring of the Shire' where gritty, uncomfortable reality trumped the simple good-wins-out-over-evil paradigm of the primary plot.  Martin likes to keep his readers uncomfortable (in suspense) regarding the fate of their 'favorite' characters.  And this preference goes back to some of his earliest writing experiences ...

6.  The key word is not Ice, not Fire, but Blood.  Martin relates that as part of a high school essay assignment he rewrote the last scene of Edgar Allen Poe's 'The Pit and the Pendulum' to create a hideous bloody ending where the victim is slashed by the pendulum and dies in a pool of blood.  Subsequently the rats come and eat out his eyes as the body festers.  Sound familiar?  His teacher praised his originality, and that positive reinforcement, coming as it did during those vulnerable formative years, has stuck with him to this day.

In my review of the first volume, which appears elsewhere on this blog, I noted that Martin manages to include a bloody element in virtually every scene.  One of the things that I did as I read, beginning with the second book, was to circle every occurrence of the word 'blood'.  On average it shows up at least once per page.  It seems almost an obsession with him.

Martin has stated that he wants his novels to have the 'gritty feel of historical fiction', and he succeeds at that. Uncomfortable cruelty is a common theme throughout the books, with characters who seem critical to the story being brutalized, maimed, and/or just plain killed off.  Furthermore, almost every significant character has some fatal flaw that, if it doesn't actually kill them, leads to bad decisions with major negative consequences.  And underlying all that real 'grit' is the ubiquitous greasy slime of blood.

The unexpected, often brutally sudden twists in plot come so often that - well - you begin to expect them.  But let us hope that one particular unexpected twist does not happen ...

7.  The mortality issue.  There are three epic fantasy authors who have projects of seven books length or more who were born within 1 1/2 months of one another in the fall of 1948:  George R.R. Martin, Robert Jordan (whose endorsement helped 'Game of Thrones' become a success), and me (audacious, aren't I?).  We're no longer young.  We're on Medicare--we are officially senior citizens.  I'm doing okay--I exercise regularly, have a Body Fat percentage around fifteen, and seem to have good genes.  Both my father and mother remain alive and in decent health in their 92nd years of life.  Martin, on the other hand, is 100 pounds overweight.   And Robert Jordan did not survive long enough to go on Medicare.  He passed away in 2007, leaving his epic 'Wheel of Time' series unfinished.  On his blog, back in 2009, George R.R. Martin wrote:

"After all, as some of you like to point out in your emails, I am sixty years old and fat, and you don't want me to 'pull a Robert Jordan' on you and deny you your book. Okay, I've got the message. You don't want me doing anything except A Song of Ice and Fire. Ever. (Well, maybe it's okay if I take a leak once in a while?)"

Just so long as you're not leaking blood, George.  Live long and prosper.

Unlocking Nature's Code--the secret message in plain sight



Here’s the short version of this post: Nature’s Code is our DNA. It is the first language. It carries God’s oldest, most fundamental message; so it is the true ‘bible’. In order to live to our full potential—to find happiness, wellness, and peace—we must learn to ‘listen to our bodies.’ People call it instinct, or intuition. It is far more than that. It’s about getting in sync with four billion years of practical wisdom on how to succeed in life—written in a four-letter language at the core of every single cell in our bodies.

(Updated 7 October 2023)

This page, along with the Firestorm in the Wilderness tab, the Paradox tab, and the Great Stream tab, are where I “go deep”, delving into what I believe—the basis of my ‘religion’ or more accurately, the way I try to live and interact with my world.

In simplest terms ‘Nature’s Code’ starts with our DNA when it is first constructed (from sperm and egg) and our individual being is created as a single cell in a very protected environment (our mother’s womb). Lucky us. Cruder life forms send their spores to the wind and they’re immediately subject to the full gauntlet of threats and destructive forces that make up the rest of ‘Nature’s Code.’ More on that later.

For me, the three-billion-letter document that comprises our DNA is the original ‘bible’ and the most practical manifestation of God. It contains 1000 times more information than the Judeo-Christian bible (a paltry three million letters), and it has undergone far more rigorous real-world testing.

If you are devoutly religious, I have a little quiz for you:  Who wrote your faith’s foundational document? Did it have as many contributors as your DNA code has? If you had to choose between them, and trust only one, which would it be?

If your answer is “I trust my faith’s written scripture…” (more likely you’re Christian than Hindu or Buddhist, where no definitive canon exists) “…because it is the distillation of the greatest truth and comes from an omniscient supernatural source,” then I still would ask you to read on, because you are not wrong. It’s just that the miracle of an omniscient supernatural origin to all things does not give you a ‘pass’ to ignore the instructions of your DNA code. Did it not also come from that supernatural source?

I’ll take a quick aside here to discuss the position that … well … maybe human DNA was corrupted along the way—tampered with by … some other (evil) supernatural source that sprang from the original unified omniscient and omnipotent creator. Still not wrong. Still not a ‘pass’ to reject the instructions of your DNA. Some of the instructions do, indeed, tell you to do ‘evil.’ Just hang on a little longer.

Back to the simplest physical story. ‘Nature’s Code’ starts with our DNA as we ourselves start as a single cell in a very protected environment (our mother’s womb). Lucky us. Cruder life forms do not seem to be given a ‘soul’ before they are sent out into that full gauntlet of threats and destructive forces that make up the rest of ‘Nature’s Code.’

What is a soul? Supernatural or not? Nobody knows. Science hasn’t come up with a satisfactory explanation for what it calls ‘consciousness’ or for what it calls ‘intelligence’.

The religious discipline called ‘Science’ rejects anything and everything supernatural and simply leaves many questions unanswered. Most of us don’t like having such big empty gaping holes in our conception of reality, so we fill them with answers provided by our faith.

What is faith? Now we’re getting down to it—distillation of the greatest truth. Faith is what our ‘soul’ is made of; and it does not have to be considered supernatural but merely a part of reality that cannot be resolved by logic or by the discipline of the sciences.

Science is still our friend here, though. Science has proven in more than one way that its own discipline is incomplete—not because of the many things we haven’t learned yet, but because we HAVE learned that there are things that it is not possible to learn. In pure math, we have Gödel’s incompleteness theorem and Bertrand Russel's Paradox. In quantum physics we have the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and the amazing ‘Measurement Problem’, which tells us that what we see actually shapes what is real.

Let’s look in on a scientific lab in action. A scientist is making a measurement. S/he has chosen the experiment with care, establishing a hypothesis about some unknown phenomenon, designing an experiment to test it, and is now making the measurement to see whether the hypothesis is confirmed or must be rejected.

A hypothesis is a conjecture about reality. It is not truth and never was. Where did these claims—these ‘fantasies’, these supernatural constructs about reality—come from?

The answer is ‘consciousness’—intuition, inspiration, imagination—and it is a faith-based process deeply rooted in our subconscious and underlain by the four-billion-year training of our DNA. Yet progress in science critically depends on it.  It is our species' big advantage.  Our DNA has given us the ability to construct imaginary ‘models’ of reality in our head—fantasies that sometimes give us a competitive edge.

The stone-age hunter waits at a waterhole, knowing (i.e. believing) that the oryx will appear at sundown. S/he hides in the bush, having never seen this particular animal before. And here it comes. A spear whooshes toward its mark, the prey falls, and dinner is served. The hunter survives and passes on his/her skills to the next generation.

The ’vision’ of the imaginary prey coming to the water hole is the scientist’s hypothesis. The experiment is each individual hunt. The chosen place for the experiment is the water hole. Around the fire that night, the hunter declares that God has been merciful and provided the prey. The scientist will probably form more hypotheses about oryx behavior and send a bunch of summer interns out into the bush to study them. In response to all the kids swarming around in the bush, the oryx might become skittish about the human presence and stop coming to the waterhole. This is a simple example of the ‘Measurement Problem’. What you choose to study affects what you learn. And it is a simple example of two very different religions. ‘God provides’ or ‘if you delve deeper, you’ll find the physical truth.’

Well, science has delved *much* deeper and found that the ultimate answer is bound up in an entirely unfathomable realm where there is no physical truth, called the quantum foam.  What you see emerging from the quantum foam depends entirely on what you're looking for.

Does ‘God provides’ tell you anything different? The oryx comes to the waterhole because it is driven by the programming of ‘Nature’s Code,’ rooted in the origin of life itself and lost in the hazes of time.

At the beginning of this discussion, I equated Nature’s Code with God. I think I’ll rest my case here.

DNA’s complex message, written using just four simple letters, defines us, guides us, and makes us who we are. It is always there, providing the ‘instinct’ that we use to respond to our surroundings, and so it is the single greatest influence on our lives.

Yet we modern humans often deny our instincts, forcing our lives in unnatural directions. Our DNA has taken us in the direction of forming a very complex brain, but is that a good thing or a bad one? More than any other living thing, we have tuned out our genetic guidance, drifting away from the strong currents that make up the course of true, long-term success. We think too much—create our own mental models that are always full of flaws and omissions. Losing ourselves in these models, we use our minds to drown out the deeper, older messages that nature has put in place to guide the Venerable species down the right channel in that ever-shifting Great Stream of life.  DNA does make mistakes.  Species go extinct from time to time because the course that their DNA has set them on was not sufficient.  Yet the Great Stream flows on all the stronger for these branches that go astray.  It is the greatest self-correcting instruction code ever conceived.  The skills at logical thinking that it has given us *ought* to give us a distinct advantage.  We can learn from the mistakes of others without being hurt ourselves.  We can test different courses with our mental models and choose the best of them.  But the key is keeping the DNA guidance at the heart of each decision--the good of the species, the good of the greater web of life.

Our DNA isn’t going away. Even if we aren't paying attention to it, it remains in place, waiting patiently. Its message is constantly, quietly, trying to influence us to follow the right course. Other ways of saying this same thing have been expressed by many of our established religions. The Christian God wants us to find salvation. The Buddha wants to show us the way out of suffering. The very word “Islam” is an appeal to still our thoughts and submit to the message of God, to surrender ourselves (our busy, self-centered minds) in order to find the course to joy, wellness, love, and happiness—the 'Way of the Great Stream'.

Throughout history human messengers have been inspired to spread the word (Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Confucius, etc.). The similarity of themes in their messages demonstrates a common origin. Their inspiration comes from what Judeo-Christians call the "Holy Spirit"—the very real strength, confidence, and positivity that we feel when we are ‘on course’, living or conveying a message we know is true, important, and helpful to those around us. I find it useful to personalize that Spirit. I call her Dalle, from the French and old Norse roots meaning ‘channel’—the strongest currents in the eternal Great Stream of Life. Dalle’s voice becomes ours when we heed God’s message. Dalle’s currents flow strongest when we are following the Way of the Great Stream through life. She is like a megaphone—an amplifier—giving greater strength to every word we speak, every action we take, when it is in tune with the deep-seated message of our DNA.

We all know this to be true. We’ve all felt the surge of strength and sense of well-being that comes from doing right, from pursuing a cause larger than ourselves.

Most significantly, to me, is that nothing I’ve said so far requires one shred of supernatural influence. DNA is a text that is more complete than any science book, more powerful than any religious volume, and more influential than the greatest inspirational speech ever delivered. Reading this text is not optional. We all do it all the time. It is what makes our hearts pump and our lungs draw in the fresh air. But its message holds so much more for us. Imagine, knowing all the mysteries that scholars explore as they interpret the bible, how much richer our lives can be if we devote more of our energies toward personally interpreting that great book written at the very core of each and every cell in our bodies.

Let the work begin. I pray that you will find your true path. May your days be filled with peace, joy, and wisdom walking the Way of the Great Stream.