WRITING HISTORIC FICTION: A LEARNING CURVE

A man who recently read my historical novel “Pentadaktylos” commented that he was amazed that an author could actually control a whole set of people who came together to form a solid book. He commented: “Isn’t that like playing God?”

            I had never thought about it like that, but after some pensive moments, I did acknowledge that the author should have a degree of control over the characters in a novel. “It’s very easy for some key characters to run away with the plot to the point that the author has to re-think or worse still, dump a chunk of pages and start again.

            It does help enormously if the writer creates a synopsis or story-board prior to writing, and indeed write a rough of the final chapter. In fact, it’s an excellent strategy to be completely familiar with how your book is going to end. This is like having a goal – it’s a roadmap to where you’re going. You can always change the goal or destination, but having it there early or at the beginning can save a lot of frustrations and writer’s block.

            This actually happened with “Pentadaktylos” a story set on the island of Cyprus in the Eastern Mediterranean in late 1958. I wrote the novel about seven years after leaving the island and the ending I chose seemed quite fitting then. But the MSS sat in a box for over forty years until I scanned it into the digital age. I decided to edit and tighten it up and in doing so created a different ending which as it happens, for many readers is much more satisfying and actually adds life and truism to the novel.

            . One very useful strategy is to create a resume or character sheet for each of the major players in the novel and add to it as the character develops, or refers to a major point in his life that is likely to be mentioned again.

            In writing “The Guardians of Stavka” I developed one or more pages on each of the characters. For Harry Travis the Canadian Secret Service operative, who is also the reluctant hero, I worked on his background such as schooling, ethnicity, maternal relations (he lost his father in the Korean War) and a lot of his preferences and distastes before I even set action to paper. Knowing his total background brought Harry to life.

            His boss, a crusty Englishman who had worked for British Intelligence in London and was now heading a strange service in Canada, had a military background in WW II. I had him serve in Egypt and work with the historic Long Range Desert Group. Coincidence! He worked alongside one of the major British players in Pentadaktylos, my first Cyprus novel which is not connected to “Stavka.”

            I needed to have Harry Travis meet a girl, fall hopelessly head over heels in love with her and then sow the seeds of suspicion that she was not exactly the person she appeared to be. Harry spends his summer vacation from college in Prague, Czechoslovakia. It is July 1968. He meets Anna and she’s mixed up with a group of activists – remember, social rebellion was in the wind with drugs, flower children and hippies. They break away and spend a month wandering through the country – even making love on a church altar.

            They return to Prague and continue living together. It is hot and humid. They sleep on an apartment balcony. It is August 21^st 1968.  Harry wakes up to strange sounds. Tanks! Shooting! Screaming! He desperately searches for Anna, but she has gone. The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia actually happened and his frantic, perilous search for the young woman he loves is set against that event. He has to wait a year or so before he meets her again – in Toronto, Canada.

            Historical fiction is just that – fiction! However, it does allow the reader to have some knowledge of what really happened. If they wish to know more, the fictional tale acts as a step towards finding out what really transpired.

             “Pentadaktylos – Love, Promises and Patriotism in the Last Days of Colonial Cyprus” is a love story set against a real life background of violence involving British troops on the one side and Greek Cypriot freedom fighters on the other. The main thread of the story occurs in 1958 with flashbacks to Cyprus in 1940 and the British Expeditionary Force’s evacuation of Greece in 1941. I lived in Cyprus during the Struggle for Independence and I knew people from both sides. I listened to their stories and then created the fictional characters for the book.

            A reader asked me how was it possible that one of the EOKA people being hunted in the mountains by the British Army could have fought alongside the British at Normandy in WW II?  Easy. He was a member of the Cyprus Regiment which served in many theaters of war including Dunkirk, North Africa and as the Allies swept through France in Normandy. The Cypriot in the book while in England transferred from the Cyprus Regiment to be with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps to work with explosives. Several Greek Cypriots who served in EOKA also served at Normandy. Ironical?  Absolutely, but then history is full of irony and it’s reflected in historical fiction.

            While reading historical fiction can be quite intriguing for the reader because it takes one’s imagination back into another era, it’s also fascinating and challenging for the author. If one has lived in the past times, one knows the social and political climate of those times, but if not, one has to start digging into the history of a lifestyle perhaps in another century.

            I have always been fascinated with Russia and its history but I knew nothing of a town called Gori, Georgia where the Prologue occurs for my book “The Guardians of Stavka,” in the summer of 1894. I had to research the lifestyles and habits of three teenagers, the dialogues of the residents, the smoldering resentment of being ruled by the Tsar and the laws forcing Georgians to learn the Russian language. At first, research can be challenging and sometimes frustrating, but then an energy takes over. One feels enmeshed by the subject and it is at this point that the writer can start the novel. Incidentally, if you know your history, you’ll know that one of the teenage boys in “Stavka” grew up to be Joseph Stalin. His mother wanted him to be a priest in Tiflis.

            It becomes gratifying when a reader phones and says: “When I read your story I feel as if I am there. I become a part of it.” That is the ultimate compliment for the novelist writing historical fiction.

Read more at www.threemilepointpublishing.com

BOOK: ANOTHER THRILLER FROM ROBERT EGBY

Robert Egby’s second novel, another thriller entitled “The Guardians of Stavka: The Deadly Hunt for the Romanov Gold” has been published with global distribution.

            For sixty years rumours raged on Canada’s west coast that a large gold cache belonging to the murdered Tsar Nikolas II was lost in a sunken ship.  In 1979 when a weekend hunter discovers an ingot in a remote mountain cave it triggers a flurry of international gold seekers.  The Tsar’s cache of 110 tonnes is worth three billion dollars.

            Dimitri Komadze, deputy chairman of the dreaded Russian KGB seeks to correct his father’s fatal mistake in losing the gold; Alex Plastiras, a disgraced US Marine now working as a mercenary for exiled Romanov interests, launches an airborne unit to get the gold.

            Then there’s Harry Travis a reluctant Canadian Secret Service operative who finds people are not what they seem—in fact some are either ruthless lovers or deadly killers—or both!

            Colonel Ilya Orlov, a guard’s officer with sworn loyalties to a long-dead Tsar, founded a secret community called “Stavka” where the old Russian flag still flies.  His beautiful granddaughter, part Russian, part Native Indian, has trained a bald eagle to hunt and kill anyone on demand.

            As he battles to pursue the treasure Travis discovers there is a dangerous secret hidden with the gold known simply to British and Canadian Intelligence as the “Nikolas Consignment.”

            This historical novel while set in the Canada of 1979 has a storyline weaving through actions in Chile, Sydney Australia, Prague, San Francisco, the Kola Peninsula in Northern Russia and Gori, Georgia, the birthplace of Joseph Stalin.

            Author Robert Egby lived in Kamloops and the Lower Mainland of British Columbia for thirty years working as a journalist, editor, award-winning broadcaster and public relations executive.  He wrote the original manuscript in 1980 while in Vancouver, taking time out to explore the incredible beautiful and dangerous region of Canada’s west coast where much of the action takes place. He completed revisions this past year. He now lives in upstate New York.

            The Guardians of Stavka is his second novel. The first was “Pentadaktylos: Love, Promises and Patriotism in the Last Days of Colonial Cyprus.” Set in 1958 it tells the story of a British Army officer who discovers a past romance with a Greek Cypriot has produced a seventeen year old son who has joined EOKA to fight the British.

            The books are available at Amazon and at all leading bookstores.

Title: The Guardians of Stavka:  The Deadly Hunt for the Romanov Gold.

Author: Robert Egby

ISBN: 978-0-9848664-0-3

Pages: 386

Publisher: Three Mile Point Publishing

Distributor: Ingram

Internet: www.threemilepointpublishing.com

The Spiritualist View of Getting to Grips With God.

This is an excerpt from my award-winning book "The Quest of the Radical Spiritualist" which takes the reader on a quest to find the Journey Home  through Meditation, Metaphysics, Sacred Energies, Spirits and the Universal Mind.

The Yogis talk of “Union with God” which is the meaning of Yoga. So, at what point does an ascended teacher merge with the Universal Mind or Infinite Intelligence?   

While my spirit guide Paul, the entity who got me to start this book at St. Just, knows many things, he hesitates to discuss “Union with God.”

At one point while I was conducting a class, he came through and suggested that at the “higher levels, beyond all understanding” there is a Universal Consortium, a collection of “spiritual academics” who observe and influence the Universes (plural) and the various spiritual developments occurring there.

“These spiritual academics,” I asked. “What are they gods, goddesses, gurus, saints…?”

Paul laughed. “Yes, you might call them that. They are not inclined towards labels. Like God, they are. God is.”

“Are some of these the sons of God mentioned in Genesis (Genesis 6:2),” I asked. “What about the 2,500 gods said to be in Hinduism? What about the Greek and Roman gods?”

Paul’s energy shuddered under the barrage of questions. “You still have your journalistic inclinations towards asking questions. Let me share a story. It will help you understand.”

He paused. “You once compared a spirit to an atom living in the body of God, remember that?”

I nodded. It was a quote I had picked up years before in a book called “Mysticism” by Robert Chaney.

Paul continued. “Imagine an ocean, a vast ocean. It is made up of many drops of water. All substances are made up of millions and millions of tiny atoms. In water, for example, each molecule is made up of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. So let us take one drop of water.

“One day our drop of water is plucked up from the ocean into the clouds. It is carried a great distance before it is dropped in a rainstorm over some mountains. First, our drop of water helps irrigate the vegetation on the mountain. Then it slips away and joins a stream.  Some miles away, a woman collects water that includes our drop. She uses it to boil potatoes for her family. She uses the water then to make soup, and our drop finds its way into her son’s body, and a day later is ejected.

“The water drop soon finds itself back in the stream. It joins a large river flowing  along a valley. A plantation is on fire. The villagers dowse the blaze with river water. Our water drop is there. Eventually, it seeps back into the river and soon after reaches the ocean from where it started. It is still a drop of water, a molecule made up of three atoms, but it has returned to its mother, its father, the Source of its Being.”

Paul paused. “Do you understand that?”

I nodded easily.

“Well, that’s how Jesus must have felt when he was trying to explain God, Infinite Intelligence or the Universal Mind to a crowd of lovable but ignorant fishermen,” he declared. “There are so many complex shades, so many veils, so many differences between your physical world and ours, that even spirit teachers frequently find it difficult to explain.”

“Why?”

“Because of the ego, the False Self. It blocks or taints all true information between the Spirit World and Earth. As a Quester, you need to continue working on yourself, and help other Questers walk the path. Give classes, talks, and write a book,” he said. “Tell people about metaphysics, working with energy, dissolving the negative ego, living in the present, spirit communications, loving unconditionally, and the Spirit World. And don’t forget the silence. You humans talk too much.”

“Thanks, Paul,” I said, then added: “I’m a spirit renting a human body.”

“There you go,” Paul laughed. “Come over and see us some time.”

“Permanently?”

“Not on your life. Not yet, anyway,” he said.


More Information on this award-winning book.

SEARCHING FOR PEACE AMID WAR

Almost two centuries ago the Spanish painter and printmaker, Francisco Goya created 82 etchings entitled “The Disasters of War” or “Los Desastres de la Guerra.” Although not published until some 35 years after his death, they were his visual protest against man’s inhumanity to war. He served as court painter during the brutal Napoleonic Wars which lasted twelve years and ended in 1815. Goya crossed into Spirit in 1828.
Historians are still trying to get a grip on an accurate figure of total fatalities, both military and civilian. The Napoleonic Wars involved most of Europe and claimed between 2.5 million and 3.5 million military deaths and between 750,000 to 3 million civilian deaths. A reasonable estimate of both military and civilian fatalities rests between 3,250,000 and 6,500,000.
Did we learn from European events in the early 19th century? It’s doubtful!
Exactly 100 years later Europe was again the battlefield for something they called The Great War. While disease through lack of medical and cleanliness claimed many casualties in the Napoleonic Wars, World War I saw an increased array of deadlier weapons on the battlefields –- tanks, enormous cannons, intense field artillery and aerial bombing. A staggering ten million military personnel and seven million civilians lost their lives. As if to curse the entire war in 1918 Spanish Flu swept Europe and the world and an estimated 50 to 100 million people died.
WW1 was called “The war to end all wars.” Twenty-one years later Planet Earth realized World War 2 and in those six years of 1939 to 1945 an estimated 62 to 70 million lives were lost. Of these 22 to 25 million were military.
Did peace come with V-J Day? Not a bit. Did we learn anything from the deadliest war in human history? Doubtful!
In case we have forgotten there were other wars taking place on the planet. Mao Tse-Tung’s war regime in China, Stalin's regime, the Russian Civil War, Congo Civil Wars, Korean War, the French Indochina War, the American Indochina War including Laos & Cambodia, the Sudanese Civil Wars, the Russian-Afghanistan War, the Ethiopian Civil Wars, the Mexican Revolution, the Iran-Iraq War, Nigeria: Biafran revolt, Mozambique Civil War, Rwandan Massacres, French-Algerian War, First Indochina War, Angolan Civil War, the Spanish Civil War and the Somalian Civil War.
In the modern history of the human race there has not been a day of peace.
Has humanity in the 21st century learned anything about the tragedy of war? The number of smaller wars currently taking place on Planet Earth is mind-boggling and terrifying. Go to The History Guy and look under "21st Century Wars" and you will feel as bleak about war as Francisco Goya did two hundred years ago.
Is it true that humanity is prone to or even addicted to war?
Let us take a look at “war” on all its levels. There are the major wars. Then there are the neighborhood wars that range from big time drug trading, to small time gang wars on city streets. There are smaller wars that go on between families, cultural sects, and groups. When a group of people gang up to haze a person and hurt or kill that is war. Wars big and small are happening all around us. An adult group that violently invades the peace of another group is as guilty of war crimes as a country invading another.
Most wars are motivated by one or more of the faces of the negative ego: possession, envy, posturing, jealousy, anger, arrogance, deceit, discontent, despair, deviousness, anguish, lying, bias, worry, fear, panic, criticism, bitterness, revenge, tension, boredom, resistance, foolishness, confusion, flattery, conceit, insecurity, ignorance, possession, obsession, boastfulness, terror and hatred.
As an exercise read up on a good history of any war perhaps one in ancient times to one of the two dozen wars taking place at present on Planet Earth. Work to understand why the war came about. Work to understand the official rationale then work to understand underlying motives, the roots of war. Observe the propaganda; observe the news media reports for accuracy and bias. Study independent observer reports. Review the statements of the chief motivator of war and observe what faces of the negative ego were or are being manifested by leading politicians and opinion-leaders on all sides.
As a follow-up exercise examine a family or local conflagration and work to understand why that happened. Again, observe if any of the faces of the negative ego are evident in statements or actions of the chief motivators. Work to see if there are similar comparisons.
With both examples make notes and view everything without personal attachment – that is without comment, opinion or judgment. This technique is called Impartial Self Observation and is described in detail in my book Cracking the Glass Darkly. This ancient technique allows one to see clearly the motives of national leaders and the events of war without personal attachment.
Well intended people say we should all “fight for peace.” But here is one of the crazy illusions that frequent the human psyche. No one has ever fought for and accomplished peace. Fighting for anything does not result in peace. If a country has to maintain superior weapons of mass destruction in case they are needed, that country and its people are not at peace with itself or others. Nuclear silos are not symbols of peace, neither are nuclear bomb shelters in the backyard. They are reminders of war.
Peace is a consciousness of mind and spirit.
Learn to be an impartial observer of war whether big or small and work to understand why the principals are acting the way they do. Make a list of the faces of the negative ego given earlier and see if the principals are resorting to any of those faces. Do not fall into the trap of becoming guilty, angry or fearful, because that is falling into the mire of their scenario –- the scenario of war.
The more humans of all countries work to impartially understand the reasons for war and the people who brought them about, the more all will yearn for and seek peace and elect leaders with similar minds. It is a Peace Consciousness that stands in its own light of truth. Perhaps this is the message Francisco Goya was thinking when he created those classic 82 etchings two centuries ago called “The Disasters of War.”

SPIRIT DELETES FOUR WORDS, PROPELS A FILM INTO PRODUCTION

The Sneak Preview Poster on the ASPE Brochure.

On October 29th 2011, over one hundred students and practitioners of the Paranormal were treated to a sneak preview of Paul Davids’ new film “The Life After Death Project.” It happened at the annual symposium of ASPE, the Alliance Studying Paranormal Experiences held in Taos, New Mexico at the end of October.

The movie, which is still being edited and is described as “a work in progress,” is scheduled for release some time in 2012. For believers and practitioners in metaphysics and the paranormal it will be a welcome experience.

It demonstrates that science is advancing to the point where a phenomenon – such as a spirit communication -- can be scientifically repeated in a laboratory proving that life does exist after death. And a veteran Sci-Fi enthusiast is helping them do it… in Spirit!

The 100-minute production features a bevy of well-known people from the field: Richard Matheson, the American author of “What Dreams May Come” and “Bid Time Return”; Whitley Strieber, author of the 1986 best-seller “Communion” which is a personal encounter with “visitors”; Dannion Brinkley, best selling author and survivor of three near-death experiences; and Mark Macy who researches and teaches Spirit communication through Electronic Voice Phenomena and Instrumental Transcommunication. There’s also Professor Gary Schwartz, professor of psychology at the University of Arizona in Tucson and director of its Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health. He is the author of several books, including “The Sacred Promise,” “The Afterlife Experiments” and “The G.O.D.Experiments.”

The film was two years in shooting, and it probably never would have been made if not for some strange events that happened to the director. One incident had to do with four words in a document – words which were neatly and precisely blacked out by some sort of “obliterating ink” while the papers were lying on a bed at a time director Paul Davids was alone in a house. The words “Spoke to Joe Amodie” matched a style of pun attributable to the late science-fiction authority Forrest J. Ackerman – he liked to find words that had people’s names or nicknames isolated in the middle syllable. In this case the message seemed to be “Spoke to Joe Moe” – and Ackerman’s very close friend Joe Moe, who took care of him in his final years and arranged a grand tribute for him, did experience a sort of apparition or “super-conscious dream” in which Ackerman came and spoke to him. Though Joe Moe tried to retain his inborn skepticism, director Davids wondered if the ink incident was a way of Ackerman confirming that the communication with Moe was not just a dream.

Most ink is traceable, but not this “obliterating ink.” The Chairman of the Chemistry Department of Indiana University and a chemistry professor at New Jersey University were stumped by the fact that they could find no way to duplicate the ink smear because its properties had so many complications. They also experienced some anomalies that disturbed them while researching the mystery, which kept them (and some graduate students) busy for hundreds of lab hours.

Although he was not a believer in an afterlife, it soon became clear to Paul Davids that something akin to a haunting was occurring, as it appeared that Ackerman apparently was trying to make his presence known from the beyond. Davids hoped to finish the production, which includes filming of the university chemistry tests, in about a year, but more and more anomalies kept occurring, so until Dr. Gary Schwartz began attempting documented and measurable communication with the deceased Ackerman using delicate radiation and light sensors, the movie refused to offer up an “end game.”

Sci-Fi fans will surely remember the unforgettable Forrest J Ackerman who crossed into Spirit less than three years ago – at precisely 2 minutes to midnight, December 4, 2008, the exact time having been ironically predicted in a painting of Ackerman made four years earlier by artist L.J. Dopp that showed Ackerman with a raven and a clock. For over seventy years he was one of science fiction’s greatest promoters. Editor of the original Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, author, literary agent, actor, memorabilia collector and curator with a house everyone wanted to visit (and thousands did), he was famous for his word play and neologisms. For instance in 1953 he coined the genre nick-name “Sci-Fi” and possessed a fantastic sense of humor and incurable love of puns which comes through clearly in the film.

Two separate cameras were filming electronic voice expert Mark Macy’s interview. So what happens? Interference appears, first on one camera filming Macy and then on the other for absolutely no rhyme nor reason – except a touch of electronic energy from Spirit?

Of course, Michael Shermer, founder of The Skeptics Society and editor-in-chief of its magazine Skeptic is given the opportunity to introduce his opposing view to everything in the movie and one wonders why. As one watches “The Life After Death Project” the evidence comes through loud and clear, particularly towards the end. But director Davids insists he has great respect for Shermer’s intellect and feels it is important to try to rule out every possible “logical” explanation for weird happenings, which is Shermer’s calling as shown by his books such as “The Believing Brain.”

The cameras go into Professor Gary Schwarz’s laboratory and it is here in the world of electronic and digital mediumship that repetition in spirit communication takes place. That is all I am going to say about the movie’s plot.

As a person who has long observed Spiritualism and Spirit communications, I found the events and the climax of the sneak preview of Paul David’s “work in progress” an exciting breath of fresh air. This documentary will be released in 2012 and spiritual folk – along with skeptics – should receive it with open arms, if not an open mind.

Paul Davids’ credits include “Roswell,” “Timothy Leary’s Dead,” “Starry Night,” “The Artist and the Shaman,” “The SCI-FI Boys,” “Jesus in India,” and “Before We Say Goodbye” (a tribute to Hispanic-American culture and the mystery of the miracle of the Virgin of Guadalupe, appearing in Spanish December 2011 on Telemundo). Back in the 1980s he was Production Coordinator for television’s “The Transformers” on about eighty of the ninety-five episodes, some of which he also wrote. He also co-wrote (with his wife, Hollace) six STAR WARS sequel novels in the early 1990’s which reached millions of kids of ages eight to twelve. The books made their way into many school libraries.

For “The Life After Death Project” Davids is editor, writer, producer and director. He gives his word that absolutely nothing was invented or contrived for the movie – the weird stuff (unlike Hollywood fiction) happened to him and others exactly as it is shown. Executive producers are Hollace Davids and Anne Strieber, wife of the famous Whitley.

When the website for the new movie goes up next year it will be www.lifeafterdeathproject.com, but until then, you can hear Paul discussing the film on the Catherine Bradford Show at: The Catherine Bradford Show. And those wanting info on Paul Davids’ previous contributions to cinema, TV and books will find it all thoroughly covered at his website: Paul Davids.

INVADERS FROM OUTER SPACE: HOLLYWOOD STILL TERRORIZES

Well, it’s seventy-three years ago on October 30th 1938 that Orson Welles with a radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds” terrified Americans with a broadcast that has gone down in history.
If one goes to Grover’s Mill, a hamlet outside Princeton, New Jersey. there is a commemorative stone, and it shows a scene associated with that broadcast. It’s said some people were so horror-stricken that they suffered nervous breakdowns and there were reports of suicide. Such was the power of the media. It learned to pump human adrenalin. And it still does.
I write this as I attend the annual symposium of the Alliance Studying Paranormal Experiences in Taos, New Mexico. At a forum attended by a flock of VIPs in the Paranormal field including Dr. Donald Burleson, Star Child of the DNA Recovery Project, Steven Jones of the British ET Contact Experience, Michelle Many specializing in Planetary Meditations, Rainbow Eagle, an Okla-Chocktaw American Indian Philosopher, Travis Walton, a UFO abductee, British crop circle researcher Lucy Pringle, and film producer-director Paul Davids who produced the old classic “Roswell” and is in Taos to introduce his new film “The Life After Death Project.”
Ever since Orson Welles sparked fear into the minds of Americans, Hollywood has regularly and routinely maintained films that fuel the public’s fear of so-called “Aliens,” those beings from another part of the Universe whose sole plan is, according to Hollywood scriptwriters, the torture and destruction of the human race.
Given the opportunity to speak, I attacked the Hollywood practice of showing all visitors from another planet as evil and threatening. There is no evidence that entities from an extra-terrestrial existence wish us any harm. Of course, the way Hollywood shows it the “invaders” must be annihilated with military might and yes, even nuclear force as the ultimate defense solution. This very action spurs continued fear among most people on Earth and it sends a terrible negative and war-minded message out into the Cosmos.
My charge to Hollywood was made while I looked at Paul Davids, and for this I apologize. The charge was to the Hollywood moguls who capitalize and profit from the idea that Earth might be invaded by beings from outer space. Paul is one of those producers who is actually helping extra-terrestrial consciousness by producing films that are scientifically based.
Attendees at the Taos Symposium saw a movie on the previous night “Fire in the Sky” and I walked in for the last fifteen minutes to see a disgusting scene of so-called aliens operating on a helpless human being in the worst way, with a terrifying needle coming down into the abductees right eye. That is terrorism – inducing and spreading fear among Americans and others. Luckily, the next movie was Paul Davids’ classic “Roswell.”
It’s good to know that Travis Walton, whose story was told in “Fire in the Sky” is working to have the Hollywood tainting of his story corrected. -- Robert Egby.

The Cave that inspired D.H. Lawrence

There is an unusual mountain a short distance from Taos, New Mexico. It’s called Lucero Peak, a massive rock form towering 10,780 feet. According to Indians, it contains a sacred place.
The steep sides of the mountain are blanketed by cedars and firs and on the October day Betty Lou and I laboriously climbed the ragged trail, a light blanket of snow heralded the coming of an early winter.
Some fifteen hundred feet below the peak, there is a cave. It’s mostly hidden by trees and bushes. The trail to it is flanked by a profusion of young aspens, their trembling leaves a brilliant yellow. These days, above the cave on the mountainside there is a small gully and a stream of water pours over the rim and flutters easily down to a pool beside the cavern. The locals at the nearby village of Arroyo Seco say in the spring run-off, the stream becomes a formidable torrent.
Let us roll back the clock.
Almost ninety years before we struggled through the dense brush to the cave’s entrance, four horses made their way along the ill-kept trail, littered with fallen trees and cluttered with branches. They each carried people who would make their mark in history.
Mabel Dodge Luhan a celebrity hostess who entertained the cream of writers, artists, academics, composers and a flock of other notables. Her husband was a wise, philosophical Taos Pueblo Indian named Tony Luhan. The other two were D.H. Lawrence, the self-exiled British author who wrote the controversial “Sons and Lovers” and would go on to write “Lady Chatterly’s Lover. The fourth person was Lawrence’s wife, the seemingly long-suffering Frieda.
The foursome explored the cavern that stands like a gaping hole in the side of the mountain. They peered into the tunnels and smaller caves that lead off the main cavern. The gaping hole in the mountain is so big that several full sized buses could be parked easily side by side there. Afterwards, they had a picnic while sitting on the boulders.
The energy of the cave impressed Lawrence because soon after he wrote a short story “The Woman Who Rode Away” which features a cave which he described as “a dark socket, bored a cavity, an orifice, half way up the crag.” That’s exactly how the cave on Lucero Peak appears.
The story tells of a woman, tired of married life, who takes a horse and rides off into the wilds and joins the Indians who happen to have a sacred cave. If you know the history of Taos you will realize that in some ways that“The Woman Who Rode Away” from a life in high society and married an Indian was modeled on Mabel.
The cave on Lucero Peak, high above the village of Arroyo Seco is considered sacred by the Indians at nearby Taos Pueblo, but today no one seems to know if they make use of the mystical earth energies that exist in the cave. They have their own mountain and also a sacred lake which also possesses earth energies.
If one spends some time relaxing inside the cavern, you can feel the energy. It’s not only powerful it produces lucid dreams and there is a special spot, where, if one stands still you can feel the healing energies emanating from deep below the ground.
The special spot is known to dowsers as a geospiral. It is not unique because scattered throughout the region between Taos, Los Alamos, Chemayo, Santa Fe and Sandia close to Albuquerque there are clusters of geospirals all having an interesting magnetic, and often a healing affect on people. Geospirals, in addition to having healing qualities, also generate a magnetic affect on sensitive people, people with high levels of creativity. This would account for the extraordinary number of writers, composers, philosophers, artists, and scientists being attracted to the region.
This is the subject of a book I am currently researching and writing which details many of the geospirals. It’s provisionally called: ‘The Sacred Magic of Earth Healing” scheduled to be published in the spring 2012.
Meanwhile, here are some photographs of the sacred cave on Lucero Peak, some showing my partner Betty Lou to provide size comparisons, and one showing the trail to the cave.


The view from inside the immense sacred cave.




The view from outside the immense sacred cave.



The uphill trail that leads to the sacred cave.