From Ruin To Renewal

When I began my writing journey I had no idea that it would become intertwined with my spiritual pathway. There were numerous books written before the ones you see now on this website. But it was with these six completed novels so far, that I began to see the echoes of my life and the spiritual twists and turns spilling out onto the pages.

Spookily, supernaturally it would follow that after I had written a particular book, something in line with what had happened to the characters, would then present itself to me. Admittedly not in the same direct way. Please do not think that the events in the books are based on my life, but rather the emotional, spiritual imprint of what the characters were feeling, I then would experience.

One classic example I can give is when Eve starts to realise she is gifted psychically, only after the traumatic split with her husband. The exact same thing occurred to me. My marriage of thirty two years ended and wham, like a bolt of lightning from the heavens, my life changed on way more than the earthly plane. I could connect with my 'guides', I could slip between the barriers of time experiencing past life regressions with no warning, even in the middle of the day with other people present.

You can imagine how traumatic this was on top of the devastation of my life as I had known it, coming to an end. The collapse of a 32 year marriage is as big a Tower moment as you get, if we are to use tarot cards for an analogy. The Tower card in tarot brings ruin and then renewal; a theme woven into all of my books. Again, I did not realise this at first. But it is actually blindingly obvious now I see it.

For Daisy, Eve and Fae, they have huge Tower moments at the beginning of their stories.

For Daisy and Eve, the end of their relationships. For Fae, the thunderbolt of falling in love at first sight, shaking the very foundations of who she thinks she is. And even with young Joe in the Valley trilogy; he is rudely awoken at midnight by the Watchers who announce he has been chosen by a Goddess and must forgo all he has known before. That's some Tower moment for a twelve year old!

But from the ruins there is always the opportunity for renewal.

When we are stripped bare of all that we have known, when our beliefs are challenged, shattered, when the masks fall from the people around us, and even from ourselves, only then can we truly begin again. A rebirth can only really be that, when we have to go back to the start with everything.

My books, pretty much like my life, are about facing those Tower moments, going deep into the dark night of the soul ( I will write more on that in another blog) and finding the courage ( audacity even) to rise up begin again. When I say begin again though, it must be observed that the characters never remain the same. They are all very different at the end of the books from who they were at the beginning. I suppose this too is another area where my writing echoes the journey of the Tarot.

From the Fool card at the very beginning, to the World signifying completion at the end.

And surely that is what any good book should do?

Take the characters and the readers on a journey.

It just so happens that mine, always take them from ruin to renewal.

I hope you enjoy being their travelling companions.