Laura Davis Hays Blog

Laura Davis Hays writes fiction that pushes the boundaries of ordinary reality. 

Laura Davis Hays
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Writing Incarnation - An Open Letter To Friends and Family

3/28/2017

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​As many of you know, I completed and published Incarnation last year. Starting with a roaring success of a book launch on April Fools’ day, I’ve been slowly working on getting Incarnation out into the world. To those who have come to my readings, bought and read Incarnation, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I continue to be astonished by your kind reviews.
 
Writing a novel is a big undertaking. I was not prepared when I started over thirty years ago, and was not as patient as I am now. After a writing class or two, I dashed off a 1200 page draft, full of digressions and bad writing. Yet I pinned my hopes on that version and began going to writers’ conferences, pitching to literary agents and editors. At one such conference, I met a “psychic” agent who touched her third eye and told me to cut the book in half. I’d already understood that the book was too long, and had been editing it down, so I accepted her advice without much resistance or deep understanding. It wasn’t until a few months later that her words hit their mark.
 
Fish Out of Water, as it was then called, featured interwoven stories, two narrators, two protagonists, two worlds. Kelsey, my modern scientist, dreamed of Iriel, a young savior living in antediluvian Atlantis. Much of the length of the book came from Iriel’s passage from her teenage days on her outlying Atlantian island to her journey to the mainland to the destruction of her world to her escape across the sea. My epiphany was that I could make Fish into multiple books. And so I am doing that, with Chosen, the first of the series just about ready to go. Meanwhile, Incarnation became Kelsey’s story and her past life as Iriel informed her spiritual growth, as she informed Iriel’s spirit.
 
Life after death holds a fascination for me, but not to the point that I want to hurry it.  I like being alive and like to consider the possibilities of the other world. Incarnation is the story of one possibility: that we have lived before, and we might live again depending upon where we are on the ladder of enlightenment, and that our souls inhabit a heavenly realm for a time before returning to our earth classroom, and that there can be communication across the realms. Behind the veil a kind of magic exists. Time collapses, bargains are made, angelic beings watch and protect, and a most magnificent God embraces all of it.
 
Particularly, I have looked for my father on the other side of the veil, listened for his voice, sought his advice, and at times, like a punch in the chest, have received his answer. YES, DO IT! Now more beloveds, friends, my mother, have gone to the seat of our ancestors. I have vowed to write about those ancestors and those realms in all the days left to me.
 
I will write, because writing is my calling, my pleasure, my way into myself, my way to understand the world, and perhaps I have a little imagination and talent. I will invent, I will channel, I will craft. That is the true gift of Incarnation. I have become a writer, a real writer.
 
A year ago, I took a workshop led by the charismatic Tom Bird, called Write Your Bestseller in a Weekend. And I did. Rain, like the early Fish Out of Water, is a mess. Thankfully, it is much shorter! The magic that happened in those forced march writing sessions was akin to channeling. Many have spoken of waiting for an elusive muse, or wading through writer’s block. I don’t choose to go there. Sometimes a piece needs time to settle into a final form, and I honor that. Sometimes I need to muse upon the change I might make, whether big or small. There’s a little niggling voice that says, that part is not quite right. Take it out, expand it, tidy it up, make this change or go in like a blind surgeon, and see what happens. Then once I make the change, it’s done and the work is improved. I believe that I am led in the right direction, in this and everything else I undertake.
 
How do I feel, now that Incarnation is finished, published, out in the world after thirty years? It couldn’t be done until I stopped knowing how to make it better. That went on for a very long time. Then suddenly, I had a publisher and we were working on the finishing touches. I did put in a little scene or two near the end, couldn’t help it. Atlantis keeps giving me those stories, those pictures.
 
What I feel now is the thrill of not knowing what stranger or friend is going to read my book and judge it, or love it, or want to talk to me. I’m still shy about that. Like wanting to jump off the stage and hide after an ovation, I’m not quite comfortable taking the praise or promoting my work. But I do want to keep performing and expanding my circle of readers. I do want to get into a dialogue with my readers, have my audience help me grow and move in some undiscovered direction. I want that thrill of performance whether it’s a reading, giving a speech that I’ve crafted, a radio interview, or publishing something I’ve written.
 
You’re such a lovely audience, such gentle readers. This much I know.
 
My sincerest thanks and my love to all. 

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Book Launch, April 1, 2016

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Sightings

2/4/2017

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The other morning I looked out my bedroom window and saw a coyote eating a rabbit. I don't like coyotes because I have cats for pets, and have lost a number of them to the predator that roams freely in our neighborhood. However, this particular morning, Rufus and Dexter were safely inside, so I watched with fascination. I grabbed my phone and started taking pictures. After awhile, the coyote became aware of me ....
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Or perhaps he became aware of another presence ...
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A bobcat came to check out the feast, and the coyote retreated.
Bobcats represent the attributes of Awareness and Strategy, Clear Vision in Dark Places, Vigilance and Patience. They are known as solitary creatures. But hold on .....
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 Another one appeared! 
Beautiful and wild, a privilege to see.
I take this as a sign, that we are together, protected, powerful and patient. Thank you to the animals who showed themselves to us and who crossed our path one morning.
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WHY I'M BLUE

11/12/2016

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PicturePhoto of print by Carolyn Rifam
 I live in deep blue city in a sometimes blue state. Everyone I know shares the same values, voting patterns, response to our president-elect, more or less. I know a few who voted for him, family members, clients, casual acquaintances, but I can’t really understand why. The chance to elect our first female president, a lovely grandmother with iron will, courage to face down considerable adversaries with strength and grace, and uncommonly high qualifications, made my heart soar with nationalistic pride.  She was my candidate from the beginning. I am blue for her and for every person who voted for her and for my two beautiful granddaughters who might have witnessed this historic sea-change. I pray a qualified compassionate female candidate will come forth in their lifetimes, let alone mine.
 
Compassion might be the defining characteristic of my blueness. Unless there is a war on American soil, I will never have a gun in my home. Nor will I allow anyone to bring one in. I am not afraid of the people I meet on the street or anywhere else I go. I understand some might be unstable or angry or be a true enemy to my health and safety. But I will still see their humanity hiding there, and if I have a chance, I will do what I can to reach in and touch it. I am also smart enough to sense and avoid danger when I see it. I will not teach my granddaughters hatred and fear, rather their antidotes, love and faith. I believe love is the defining principle of the universe. Love is what we are made of, love is where we are going. Love is what saves us.
 
I’m not without judgment; I’m not without sin. Yet I believe that ego does not always serve our highest purpose. Nor does greed. We are stuck between our need to survive and our ultimate goal to transcend the limits of our humanity and to embrace our Godliness.
 
Some might call me weak for my compassion and belief in humanity’s goodness at its core. But I am not weak. I am full of the courage to seek my path and to stand up for who I am and what I believe. You want to see a Mama Bear? Just threaten my beloveds.
 
Are my beloveds threatened now by this election and this president-elect? I don’t yet know. Are my beloveds threatened by an enemy without? That, I pray will not come to pass. But the future is yet to be written and I am a patient woman. I’ll give government a chance to make a future or to destroy it. There will be many rainbows and silver linings among the storms. There will always be a guiding light in the darkness. That much I know for sure. There is beauty in nature and there is only God.
 
I did not take to the streets in the 1960’s, but I might do so in 2017 or 2018. My eyes and ears are open. I will not bring a gun, but will bring my words and my fierce heart.
 
And I will make art. Talking to my wonderful son the day after the election, we agreed we’d make art. Art may endure beyond politics. Art expresses what is inside. Art lets us be who we came here to be.
 
And that is the most important thing of all. That, and to do good in the world.

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GREEN SOUP

10/25/2016

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​We grow zucchini in our small vegetable garden every year.  It is the most prolific vegetable, producing baseball bat sized fruits on a weekly basis. In mid-August I had a dream about an Oscar Meyer wiener type vehicle with the body of a zucchini. Two men were rolling it along on wheels. It was huge, as long as a bus!
 
Knowing the dream was a sign, I got up and went out to the garden. There I found the nice baby squash I’d seen just a day or two before, had grown to an alarming size. Nothing to do but pick them and go through the zucchini recipes. Zucchini fries. Zucchini spaghetti noodles. Stuffed zucchini. All done. So I thought of my puréed green soup, something I’d invented a summer or two before. Zucchini, onion, potatoes, garlic, chicken broth. Sour cream stirred in to make it creamy.
 
I read recipes but don’t usually follow them. I am more of an intuitive cook. I have an idea of what works together and tend to repeat myself with variations. I don’t spice heavily, relying on ingredients like garlic and onion for flavor, a little salt, fresh herbs, olive oil. Parsley stays alive in our front garden until thanksgiving or so. Chives too.
 
After that dream, I made two batches of green soup, each delicious, good for dinner or breakfast, and enhanced by the addition of a little sour cream (or a lot). Then my husband took over. He saw that he could use up many of the vegetables he’d been growing in the garden, including some larger squash that I’d passed over, and handfuls of Swiss chard. His first batch was a grand success, so he made another using the baseball bat sized squash I’d left in the basket. They were so big, I’d given up on them, thinking their skins would be tough, their insides seedy. But no, the blender worked miracles. They were just right for green soup.
 
Jim loves making green soup. He’s made it twice a week through the early fall.  He’s got at least one more batch in him before the freeze. Out to the garden, washing, chopping, sautéing puréeing. He’s frozen green soup, given it away to his clients, and we’ve enjoyed it every time.  He’s made his adjustments to my recipe, best thing is the chile or two he’s been sneaking in. Makes it spicy. And the carrots add a little heft and sweetness. He’s left off the sour cream except as a serving garnish He thinks he’s invented it now, and in a way he has. He has it down, and he creates the batch each time to perfection.
 
Here’s the recipe loosely.
 
Ingredients:
 
Red or white potatoes as a thickening base
Zucchini – lots of it and large ones are OK
Onion
Garlic
Fresh garden herbs like basil, chives, parsley
Chard or spinach, large quantities OK
One small chile or pepper (not two, Jim)
Salt
Fresh carrots if you like
Chicken broth
Cooking instructions:
 
Cut potatoes, onions, and zucchini in chunks. Sautée vegetables in olive oil. If using carrots, add those now. Once the vegetables are soft, add broth. Pile in a large portion of greens, and cook down until tender and reduced. Add more broth as needed. Add late spices like garlic and fresh herbs.
 
Purée soup in a blender, not filling it too full with the hot liquid. (I read a warning that said filling a blender too full with hot liquid can cause cracking, exploding, etc. NOT GOOD! SO BE CAREFUL!) Return soup to the pot and continue fished out the chunks and puréeing. Soup is done when most chunks are gone and the soup is a brilliant green color. Soup can be served with a dollop of sour cream. If not eating carbs, don’t have buttered toast. Otherwise it’s a delicious side.
 
Freeze leftovers (if any) to enjoy 

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Bandelier National Monument - August 2016

9/3/2016

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As they drove into Bandelier National Monument, a breathtaking canyon opened up below the road. Harrison told her the cliff face was full of caves where the Indians once made their homes high above the canyon floor.
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"You see dozens of them here," Harrison said when they came upon a grazing doe and her fawn. "They're practically tame."
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Harrison crossed the creek and veering into an open field of golden grasses. He squinted into the light. "There's a cave up there."

"I see lots of caves," Kelsey said.
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"Look," said Kelsey. "Pictographs."
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They sat with their backs to the cliff, watching the sun drop behind the bluff across the valley.

"It takes half an hour to cut down a tree, and two hundred years to grow it back," Harrison said. "A terrible karmic debt, in my view."

"The earth is like God," Kelsey said. "It has a long memory, and infinite capacity to heal."

Photos by Laura Hays, taken in Bandelier National Monument, August, 2016
Quotes are excerpts from Incarnation, by Laura Davis Hays, Chapter 10, pages 91-96.
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Why I Write

8/14/2016

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​I’ve heard people say, “I write because I can’t not write.” At first glance this statement appears self-aggrandizing, i.e. I am that very special kind of person who was born to write, and you, that not-so-special person, are not like this and furthermore you wouldn’t understand.
 
I have enough trouble with specialness, being an only child (and the mother of an only child). I am a tribe of one, a unique snowflake, the center of the universe. So of course being also a very good introspective introvert (as are many only children) I would avoid this attitude at all costs.
 
But let’s follow the I-can’t-not-write idea a little further. If I, for instance, am caught up in pre-tax season, pulling together paperwork, proving the books for my 12-15 entities, I am usually not writing anything other than a few e-mails (granted, they are edited three times), but I’m not really writing. I might find myself getting a little dull, a little grumpy as I engage that problem solving part of my brain for hours and days on end, rushing to finish while still achieving numerical perfection that is only a little elusive because it is achievable. I get the bulldog complex. Won’t let go, won’t let go, won’t let go. Here’s what’s in my brain: If I can just get this done, I will be able to take a few days off to do some writing. If I just put it all away in neat color-coded folders, send the package off to the CPA, I will be able to WRITE this weekend.
 
Yes, I like to write. It is fun, it is satisfying, it is pleasure. It is my reward.
 
But it’s not really true that I can’t not write the same as I can’t not eat or can’t not breathe. I suppose I could not breathe, but I’d be dead then, certainly a valid state of being, or non-being, I suppose.
 
Here’s a better truth: I LIKE to write.
 
When I sit down at the computer or over a notebook and start typing or fidgeting with some sentence or paragraph, I get all smiley on the inside. Here I am at last, free and creative. I don’t know where I’ll be led. It’s like traveling to a foreign country. Around the next bend is something new. Or someone new.
 
Or I find myself wrapping my brain around a nice structural book-length problem. I don’t suffer from writer’s block (though sometimes I just want to go watch TV).  Usually, once I get started, the time disappears, and it’s soon lunch time and I’m hungry so I better stop to eat. (This also happens when I’m at one of my favorite clients’ office cranking through the numbers, absorbed, and suddenly look up and it’s four thirty.)
 
“Keep telling,” my six year old granddaughter Sadie said on a recent visit. She had discovered that I had written a book, that it was published and I was going to do a reading and a book signing in the coming days. So every evening she would sit with me on the back porch and ask me to, “Keep telling.” I’d describe a little more about Atlantis and Iriel and Kelsey and the characters and the story. When I got to the point of needing to provide a PG version of the romantic and sexual tensions that plagued the main characters I told her, “Kelsey has two boyfriends.”
 
“I have six,” Sadie responded without missing a beat.
 
Keep telling, that’s the essence of it. Writing seems the most sensible thing to do in light of the stories that run around in my head and the partly edited books that live in my computer.
 
Making art is an added benefit. Writing, like music, has that surprise element of beauty, a description, a truth, a discovery. When I’m writing I have a chance to express something that I didn’t know before. Maybe my characters reflect some personal truth that I haven’t quite understood, like, what it was like to be a teenager dealing with the death of a parent, or even remembering falling in love or being a child or winning a prize. Or more simply, didn’t I always want to travel to Atlantis?
 
Here I am with my feet in the sand at last, and the smell of salt in the air and the hush of the ocean filling my ears and clouds drifting overhead and the heat of the sun warming my back.
 
And then there’s that ambition.
 
What I really want to do is write something good, something really good. I want to express a UNIVERSAL TRUTH that inspires people, that makes people weep, that makes them laugh and go AH! I want to create a character so universal, so admirable that no-one ever forgets them, whether a Rocky Balboa, or an Anna Karenina, or a Siddhartha. Or a world or history so profound or interesting that everyone wants to go there … Or just make something beautiful.
 
Are we there yet? No, not yet. How much longer? Until the end of my lifetime, I suppose, and even then I probably won’t know for sure.
 
So in answer to your question, writing is my soul’s expression which is pretty close to soul purpose, which is pretty close to my reason for being alive.  That’s why I write.
 
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She's A Writer

6/28/2016

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​In high school, I was smart, pretty, shy, weird, nice, trying to fit in to a new Texas school where popularity ruled the day. I liked books, I carried books, I dropped books on the main stairs to the school. I appeared to be a nervous nerd. I excelled in math, took AP Physics and Calculus classes with the boys. I was the only girl. Top of the class except one. Stuart Ambler, so smart, once wrote me a love letter when we were away at separate colleges. (Me, Rice U. in Houston, Texas, him, at Harvard.) He wrote, “Though we are a thousand miles apart, I wish we were a thousandths of an inch.” I did not write back at the time, but now I say to Stuart, wherever you are, I hope your life is full and wonderful. I imagine you’ve done great things, are doing great things, are still quirkier and smarter than I am. I send you love and blessings and thanks for your compliment so long ago.
 
My life is full and wonderful and at times challenging. Like all humans (except those few enlightened ones) I struggle with worries, shyness, frustration, bad dreams, failure, tiredness, physical pain. On the other hand creativity and love keep me going. Husband, children, grandchildren, cats, friends. Music. Swimming, skiing, flowers, food, wine, the ocean, the mountains. Birthdays, dinner parties, movies, books, family.
 
My novel, Incarnation, published February 29, 2016, an auspicious leap day, is getting read and reviewed. The reviews are like a mirror held up to my mind. I’m still smart and quirky. Some find the book difficult or complex, some a fun fast read. Some don’t like the science, some love the characters and the story. The ending? That’s my own personal resolution after years of writing and being a human being on a spiritual journey. I like transcendent endings to stories. They are a deeper, insightful version of the happy ending. Tolstoy, my old favorite, is master of transcendent wisdom finding his characters somewhere near the end, whether in death or in love.
 
The thing I’ve mostly outgrown since my high school years is embarrassment over who I am and how people see me. My great Aunt Marjory, about whom I’ve written at fictional length, often used the word “mortified.” I was mortified when I climbed those grand steps at Alamo Heights High School and lost my pile of books. I was on display. Everyone was looking, everyone was laughing at me. I’d proven myself unworthy of their liking. Solidly in the unpopular category.
 
Perhaps not true. Didn’t some nice boy stop to help me gather my pile? Didn’t I head to my locker (where I occasionally forgot the combination just like I now occasionally forget my debit card password) and put away some of those books? Didn’t I go on to ace a test that afternoon? Didn’t I have a boyfriend who sent me a football mum every Friday? Didn’t I go turn handsprings and walk on the balance beam that afternoon in gymnastics? Wasn’t I more beautiful at age 16, than I can even imagine now?
 
Now, as I present myself to the world through musical performance, through writing, through speaking from the stage, I realize that a wrong note, a wrong comment, or some unannounced tears can be forgiven or overlooked, or may even be endearing. And no, everyone isn’t looking at me, (probably looking at their cell phones), or if they are, they’re interested in what I’m saying or playing. I’ve gone even further. I’ve realized the pleasure of having an audience in the palm of my hand. I’ve experienced the thrill of a standing ovation. I’ve heard the applause and bowed my thanks. I may someday grow to love it.
 
And the next day, if I’m back at my computer delving deep into my story, or simply living an ordinary human life, quietly doing my job, doesn’t my smart, weird, quirky, introspective nature make me better at what I do and who I am? Anyway, it’s certainly time to embrace it as I go forward, late bloomer that I am.
 
 
 
 
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Why I Talk to Trees

6/28/2016

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​Ella Young, “the Joan of Arc of the Irish revolution,” was a mystic and poet and lecturer on Celtic and Gaelic studies at University of California, Berkeley.  She was known to talk to trees and listen to faerie songs. This intelligent woman made her way to Taos in the summer of 1929, met Mable Doge Lujan, and visited the sacred Blue Lake with the Indian chief of Taos Pueblo. The picture I saw of her is quite modern—long blondish hair, no makeup—and could have been taken any time from 1963 up to today. She could be me.
 
I talk to trees in the springtime—praise, love, gratitude. You are so beautiful! Thank you, thank you! A pink tree in full bloom, lilacs with their old lady scent, white apple blossoms, red roses, or better yet, a few varieties dancing together in someone’s yard. I feel the thrill, the glory of that moment when blooms burst open, blanketing the tree in fleeting color.
 
I talk to trees in the summer, their green leaves shimmering with heat, their boughs shading the sidewalk. Thank you, you are beautiful.
 
I talk to trees in the fall when they make one more dazzling display—for what purpose?—perhaps because it’s just fun to be so beautiful. Perhaps because they can. Pretty! Pretty!
 
I once heard writer and teacher, Anya Achtenberg, start a conversation with a scientist about why the sky was blue. She had a poetic philosophical tone to her query and of course the scientist told her about wavelengths of light and O2 molecules and scattering. I prefer the poetic, philosophical, and spiritual. In this conversation I would wonder about the serendipity of that filtering to make this color and our eyes made to witness the beauty of blue.
 
Beauty. I see it everywhere and lately I can’t help but praise it.
 
I talk to clouds as they billow and flow against the foothills, torn off pieces making pictures in the sky, the faux surf of a giant ocean rolling in to cover the land. Rain slanting with the pull of gravity, lifted up by heat, blowing sideways by wind.
 
Watching God painting in the heavens, expressing through nature, playing in our playground, I am lifted out of myself. In these moments I almost forget my human self, as I resonate with the divine. Union with God or the Absolute—that is the definition of mysticism. Trees provide the opportunity to do that. Clouds too.
 
The cycle of birth and death and rebirth—certainly the symbolism has not escaped mankind. Spring returning each year, the buds, the fruit, the dropped seed, the decay, leaves composting into soil, roots blanketed, sap hibernating, still alive under there. Then the miracle happens. Warm weather returns and it’s time to wake up.
 
I can’t help thinking about the perfect moment when we humans are at the pinnacle of our glory. Athletes peaking at 13 or 32, scientists peaking at 57 or 90, mothers at 25, presidents at 68. Even the inevitable decay is a fine thing. Can an old rose still bloom? Yes, I will bloom every chance I get, and enjoy the fallow time in between.
 
I read a few articles about the possible sentient nature of plants or trees, the way they react to insects coming their way by emitting chemical repellants, the way they search for sunlight, or a fence or pole to cling to. They have been shown to enjoy certain types of music, react to human thought, and have prescient abilities.
 
The thing that caught my attention was that plants and trees simply live on a different time scale. They move more slowly as can be seen in time-lapse photography. We hardly notice them changing incrementally day by day, season by season, while we speed by in our cars.
 
Question: Do trees talk back? Do they care about us? We need them to sustain our life on earth, cleaning the air of CO2 for example, but what would a plant say if we could hear it?
 
I like to think they respond with love to our love, maybe even giving us a message from the slow infinite divine mind. You are alive! Don’t forget it! Or reflecting back our words: You are so beautiful! as we run past, our breath even and deep in our chests, our legs pumping, hair streaming, sweat running down our skin, the effort of a slight smile gracing our lips.
 
They might cry out in pain when we cut them down to make lumber, or even when we prune away a dead branch that no longer fruits. They might observe our foolishness as the campfire, left untended, sends sparks into the underbrush.
 
No need to anthropomorphize. Maybe trees are enlightened at another vibrational level. They simply are. Be here now. They preserve their own life. They flower unintentionally. Magnificence without ego. If they have thoughts, how deep and slow would one be? Be …….. Here ……. Now.
 
So, I’m not a crazy lady, and probably not a mystic. Not yet, anyway. I just like nature’s beauty and can’t keep quiet about it. What does it hurt if I talk to trees now and then, or even every day? It’s good for me, I believe. It’s probably good for them too.


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Questions & Answers about Incarnation, by Laura Davis Hays

4/4/2016

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Laura speaking with Linda Durham at Book Launch Celebration - April 1, 2016, at Everyday Center for Spiritual Living in Santa Fe, NM

​Q: What led you to start writing Incarnation?
 
A: In 1984 I read Shirley MacLaine’s book, Out on a Limb, in which she explores the concept of reincarnation. I don’t believe I’d thought much about reincarnation at that point, or only in that casual way where a certain period of history fascinates, or a place on earth feels resonant, or someone becomes an instant friend. That was a time when many people were talking about psychics with powers ranging from talking to the dead, channeling entities, predicting major life events through reading cards, or seeing auras, and so on.
 
I always liked magic as a child, and magical worlds like Oz, and so these talents and coincidences and mysteries and powers caught my interest.
 
The accounts of past life regression in Shirley’s book, while interesting, left me hungry for more. I wanted to feel these experiences from the inside out, I wanted to see a past life full on, I wanted the memory to be in the present moment and so vivid I felt I was there.
 
They say write what you want to read, so I did.
 
Q: What was the process of writing Incarnation like?
A: I’d not written fiction since high school, and though I’ve always read a lot, I did not really know how to write a story. I took a few writing classes and just started writing. I went over to Bandelier National Monument in the Jemez mountains, and the place set my imagination on fire. What would it have been like to live in a cave on the side of a cliff in a primitive culture? Then I went further back to my fear of wolves and forests, perhaps a very snowy place in Russia or the Scandinavian north, then further back still, to my fascination with the ocean, my fear of waves, and my love of sunshine and sand and calm turquoise waters. There was a time, I was sure, that was both ancient, and advanced in spirituality and technology. So I found Atlantis.
 
I wrote a 1200 page first draft alternating my modern character Kelsey with my Atlantian character Iriel. A lot of the words poured out and though I had a sense of the structure—Kelsey dreams Iriel, Iriel taps Kelsey for help with her karma—the book was still in its infancy, and much too long. I attempted to cut it, mainly by editing out excess words. It was not until I met a “psychic agent” at a writers conference who told me cut the book in two, that I got the idea that I had more than one book.
 
Q: Who are your characters?
A: Kelsey, the main modern character, is a young scientist who is having nightmares that often involve tsunami-like waves or strange talking fish, and then suddenly, after she moves to New Mexico to take a job working at BioVenture, a research firm headed by her father’s former student, the dreams become waking. She hears voices, she sees things. The voice is mysterious and seems to be pleading with her, warning her. Then when she meets a charismatic lawyer named Stan, things begin to come clearer. Stan is somehow connected and the visions become completely vivid.
Kelsey sees this other world, this ancient world of Atlantis, through the eyes of Iriel, a 13 year-old girl. She gets access on a need-to-know basis and always through contact with Stan. With the help of her therapist, Marigold, Kelsey seeks to discover who Iriel is and what she wants. Despite her natural skepticism, she begins to accept that Iriel is a past life self with some very difficult karma to resolve and that Stan was once a spurned suitor in that past life.
 
Q: Who is Harrison and what is the scientific storyline?
A: Harrison works at BioVenture and is Kelsey’s friend. The company is testing a genetically engineered organism that is designed to feed on pollutants, evolving as need-be as the chemicals being dumped into the ocean change. These microscopic animals prove to be unstable and uncontrollable as the project moves down to a Belizean island that was once both a pirate hang-out and an ancient Mayan burial ground. The team of men, plus Kelsey, eventually come to terms with the unethical shortcuts taken by her boss, Myron Crouch, who by-the-way has a vendetta against her professor father who is long dead at the onset of the story.
 
Q: What is the Atlantian Material?
A: The Atlantian Material is a series starting with Iriel’s coming of age story on an outlying island in the Atlantian chain. There have already been two cataclysms and the continent has broken up. Iriel and her family live in the town of Yabeth on the far shores of an outlying island. Their culture is isolated without trade, communication, or knowledge of the rest of the world. This was decreed by their founder, Lyticia, who both caused and escaped the last cataclysm. The second book of the series is Lyticia’s story, and the third follows Iriel to the mainland where she is the Chosen One, prophesied to save the land from the final destruction.
 
Q: What is the importance of crystals in ancient Atlantis?
A: Crystals were potentially psycho-active, powered by those, such as Iriel and her grandmother, Muamdi, who have a talent for them. Some are used like machines to power flying cars, or weapons, or household gadgets. They can be used for healing and telepathy, etc. They can be useful or dangerous—perhaps like the little organisms in Kelsey’s story—and are not easily controlled.
 
Q: How did you research Atlantis?
A: The only source I read was Edgar Cayce. He was a clairvoyant and healer who lived in the early part of the 20th century. He performed over 14,000 readings in his lifetime, many mentioning Atlantis. According to Cayce, Atlantis stretched from the Mediterranean to the gulf of Mexico, and there were three major destructions ending in the final deluge about 10,000 years ago. The destruction was attributed to greed and crystal technology (likened to quantum technology) and there was genetic engineering to create a race of slaves that were mixtures of animal and human. Star beings originally inhabited the continent.
 
Some of what I read sank in on a subconscious level and has come out in my writing about Atlantis. Further details I would claim to have channeled, evidenced by some similarities in my writings and that of Taylor Caldwell, an author who wrote about many times in history including Atlantis.
 
Q: Do you believe in reincarnation?
A: I’d like to. Our instinct is to cling to life. I love being on the planet for the many sources of joy available to us, whether through the beauty of the earth, the love of fellow man, the moments of enlightened revelation. Of course there are the lessons we face, some harder than others.
 
The possibility of reincarnation means the chance to live again, to wake up in a baby body, rather than an old one that may have suffered disease or disability. It means that we may get to see a loved one again, although in a different form.
 
My father died at the young age of 40, and I was only 13, so I have a vested interest in seeing him again, in knowing his soul still exists. If there is an afterlife, or angels, I could be with him again. At any rate, that is a certain comfort.
 
Q: What is the final theme and message of Incarnation?
A: Agape love and forgiveness of the unforgivable are the ultimate answers. If we can understand another person’s heart, we can feel compassion. Forgiveness benefits the forgiver, rather than the forgiven. A burden is lifted. Isn’t that what we all seek? An unencumbered heart and the peace that brings?  



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Write Your Bestseller in a Weekend with Tom Bird

12/10/2015

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​It took guts.
 
It took guts to sign up to write a book in a weekend. It took guts to show up at the end of a work week and begin writing full speed. It took guts to keep that ink flowing, the pen moving, to keep on when tired and sore, to not let up on the speed, never let up on the speed, to get to that emotional point and say the unsaid. It took guts to give up caffeine, noon lunchtime, weekend naptime, to sit back down, and go again as hard and fast as you could. It took guts to reach inside and find story that you knew was there all along.
 
Tom Bird’s workshop is based on the premise that the soul knows the book that wants to be written, and that by letting the right brain have its way that book will come out fast and full of heart.
 
About thirty of us met on a Thursday evening at Body Café in Santa Fe, were guided into a meditative state and began writing longhand on unlined pads. We were elbow to elbow, a group of strangers, some experienced writers like me, some novices, and a group of Unity clergy Tom had invited.
 
We wrote in fifteen minute increments, taking one minute breaks in between to count our words, sip some water, or eat a little of the snacks we’d been encouraged to bring. All the while the CD of soothing music, punctuated by a coyote’s howl, and subliminal encouraging messages played non-stop.
 
I had the idea that I would not make it because it had taken me 30 years to complete my first book. Good for me, I’d persevered around raising a child, doing bookkeeping for my husband’s business, starting a couple accounting consulting enterprises of my own, and working careers from real estate to landscaping design to stone masonry. All the while, I found stolen mornings to write that 1200 page first draft, to figure out I needed to break it into a trilogy or more, to attend writers conferences to pitch the book to agents in terrifying 10 minute sessions, to rewrite and rewrite and rewrite, and finally publish Incarnation.
 
With a little help from my friends.
 
The second day we met at 7:30 and continued longhand until about 10 AM when we switched to computer. I used a spreadsheet to calculate my word count and clocked in at up to 664 words in each 15 minute session. We broke for a 45 minute breakfast at 10:30, and that’s when we started talking to each other. People had traveled to get here, some were locals, everyone friendly and determined. Then we were back at it. A brutal session that lasted until a second break for lunch at 2:30.
 
All this was well organized, by the way, with the staff of Body Café delivering our food orders to our places at the appointed hour.
 
I was writing at a wobbly table with a man sweet-faced man named Mike who always said bless you if I sneezed, who accommodated me with gentlemanly politeness and a few well placed comments. We had a balance going, bracing the table with our feet and knees, Mike often standing to work, me on my pillow with my back support, Mike with his trail mix, me with my cheese and apple and protein bars. Neither of us stopped or took a break except that one minute to count our words.
 
It took guts.
 
Somewhere in that long session I got the tittle to my book, the sequel to the sequel to Incarnation, a story that had been in my head (or my body, or more likely my soul) for a really long time. Rain. I typed that in at the head of my document and kept writing.
 
I was in an altered state when we stopped to eat again. The community table was full, so I found a little two-top and sat down. That’s when Jen joined me. I was light headed, weepy, open, and when we started talking, and I realized Jen was a therapist who did past life regressions, and I had written a whole novel about past lives, and that now writing about Atlantis and star-seed beings called, Ari, we were in the same zone. Little by little I came down to earth and made a new friend.
 
Not long into the final session of the afternoon, I got the last line of my book. “And then it rained.”
 
I was stunned. I got up and went into the bathroom. Alone in the stall, I thought of my two year-old granddaughter Gemma, who, when she does something new or brave, like jumping off the couch says, “ I do dat.” I do dat, I thought, and then I wept. I had not only done it, I’d done it before the halfway mark of the weekend.
 
I reported to Mary, Tom’s ultra-capable assistant who was writing her own book and keeping the timer going, that I’d finished. She sent me to Tom who told me to take a 5 minute walk and see if I was really done. I was not the first to finish by any means. We all met in a yoga room at the back of the spa and Tom taught us the emotional mapping method of book design. Here’s where the pink, blue, yellow, and orange post-its and the poster board we’d been told to bring came in. His proprietary method involved re-designing the story along screenplay lines, pulling the emotionally laden sections to the top of each of five columns (designated by pink post-its), following by the cool blue narrative, back-story, expository, then building back up with yellow and orange. Tom gave this speech multiple times during the last two days and each time it sank in a little more. We set to work taming the monster, writing the cryptic notes designating scenes onto the post-its and arranging them on the board. In between, we went back to the writing room and started in on our 2nd book, using the same method, the CD playing, the timer, Mary calling us to write down our work counts.
 
The last afternoon, Tom talked to us, had us write, encouraged our process, looked at boards. Unexpectedly, it started raining. As we left, covering our boards so as not to ruin them, I felt the wash of that rain, reflected in the title of my new book and the cleansing effect of getting it out.
 
I came out of the workshop with a mess of book, a plan for putting it into shape, and daily inspirational thoughts of how it would connect, what it would mean, things to put into it. I’m feeling the dance my new book will make with its predecessor, Chosen. I came out with a huge respect for everyone involved, from Tom and Mary, to the Unity group, to the writers who were delving into their deepest wounds to tell there stories. All that time Mike, standing across from me, typing into his computer, was writing about the death of his child. Oh, my God.
 
It took guts.
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Mike with his completed board
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    Laura Davis Hays

    Laura Davis Hays writes fiction that pushes the boundaries of ordinary reality. She is driven by Story and a life-long quest for Universal Truth.

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