The short of it...
Mera Akiana weaves words as a way of singing the song of her soul, and braiding bridges to remembrance and reverence for the glory of life.
She read Psychology & Philosophy at the University of Oxford, UK, after growing up in Germany acting on the professional stage, sailing in the youth elite, and training at ballet boarding school. Later she whirled about Hollywood and danced in the realms of somatic empowerment and sacred sexuality.
Having always spent a significant part of her life in the otherworlds of books, Mera Akiana one day, in a hammock, enjoyed an epiphany – she could write her own – and soon recognised how the first tracks for writerhood had indeed been laid in childhood with her penning of the story about Nesuwechtel (read more below).
Today she writes transcendent fantasy romance: Decadent indulgence that delights, and seductive enchantment that makes your soul sing.
The long of it...
I believe singing our authentic, joyful soul song and feeling our connectedness with all that is around us as the great cosmic oneness is vital. Stories are a way for me to be a portal and a bridge for that remembrance and inspiration. Most of all, stories - and books in particular - are home. Books have been my shelter, solace, and spiritual guidance since childhood - and yap, I mean fiction, including fiction that I read before I turned ten. :)
So what’s this talk about Nesuwechtel, you wonder? (What on earth does Nesuwechtel even mean?) Here’s one of those fabulous German words for you, of which I have learned to appreciate how much awed and enthused throat croaking it evokes for delighted non-German-speaking folks…
Though to let you in on a secret, this particular word is in fact made up, dreamt up by my nine-year-old self. We’d received a school assignment to write a story, and I went a teeny bit overboard. Bent over my little desk, I spent hours writing page after page…naturally, much to my parents' despair, without turning on the desk lamp to save my eyes.
The hero creature of my story: Nesuwechtel, an anagram of the German word Leuchtwesen, which translates to ‘creature that radiates, shines, glows’. Now, this wasn’t your Beauty and The Beast style garden-variety lamp, this was a creature who was lit up from within. 'Twas a heart glow, and it elicited tender feelings when one shared a caress with it. All of which I found excruciatingly embarrassing to read out loud to my rapt parents and ballet teacher who happened to be over for dinner when I finally emerged from my twilit writing world. (I do believe I’d recently made the acquaintance of ET, and it’d left an impression. Funny that later in life I should become an 'alien of extraordinary ability'.)
Another time I began composing a guide for living life - eleven years old, while sitting on the loo - and then there was that gift for my sister: a book about aubergines, printed and bound in the shape of an aubergine. (She really liked aubergine. You must cook it well, otherwise it can be poisonous. Says so in the book. – Edit by my sister: She still loves aubergine. Best veg in the whole wide world.)
Finally at fifteen there was the class-contest-winning story about the impactful, moving encounter between a salty, sullen train conductor and the blind girl who calls his heart back to the dance, to join in once more with the drums of life.
…And many a secret scribble and dramatic poem in between, at some point switching from German to English.
Thus I’ve been getting lost - and truly found myself - in stories from the time I knew how to read at age five, usually reading roughly seven books in tandem. You can find out more about the stories that most touched and transformed me - that sung my soul home - through my newsletter and blog.
Now, finally - or again - I write my own stories; stories of reverence, radiance, and remembrance, so they may find those souls whose hearts they set singing in resonance, like so many others’ did mine.
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