How to Set Your Soul Free

Image Credit: Pretty Woman Holding A Book And Smiling At The Camera by Sarawut Nirothon from NounProject.com

Behind the scenes of a novel being born

Read on for…

• a helpfully irreverent insight for navigating the scary lands of living your dreams
• why publishing fiction is so exposing & intimate, and why that’s a gift
• how I went about dreaming up my novel & how it grew around its themes
• discover what parts of my novel haven’t changed since the first draft
• what writing my novel has to do with the myth of wolf woman…and with setting your soul free
• how you can do good and protect nature with your reading
• prophecy, mirrors, and keys — and a special treat for Damon and Khal Drogo/Aquaman fans ;)

{Every other Friday, my newsletter subscribers receive a personal love letter from yours truly, affectionately titled the Friday Mythical Mera Missive. Sometime later, some of the time, (some of) it goes live here—for love is best shared, and yet some love letters are writ to stay secret…}

So, darling, I promised you that other secret.

That other thing I discovered in the scary land of daring something new and living your dreams. Besides the realisation that in the grand scheme of the universe, it’s all as hilariously irrelevant as it is vitally precious. Which can be really helpful to keep in mind.

Here it is: Writing a fiction novel—or rather publishing it, and having other people (aka, you) read it—feels incredibly revealing. Intimately exposing. Like yes, you reading it, that’s the whole point—but do you have to? 😆

And also like yes, that’s the whole point—and oh how freeing. Hello, pleasure to connect with you, this is part of my deep truth—so given that that ink sure has dried, any chance for pretzeling so you’ll like me is long gone, and there’s nothing left to hide here… how wonderful to be in connection with you and just be…

So let me give you that peek between the pages and tell you a little more of the behind-the-scenes about how this novel came into being.

I mentioned in your last missive that Bond and Song rose around themes that speak to my core…

Short weeks before the first sparks of Bond and Song jumped from heart to synapse, long before it ever took a shape where it’s allowing you to take a tour through my brain, I’d watched an interview with the brilliant Lynne Twist. She evocatively retold the stories that shaped her life, and thus her, and as I was listening to one of them, sitting in my hammock at dusk, I got goosebumps all over.

Lynne was mentioning a Native American prophecy that had been shared with her, which related to this time—our time—being vital in bringing about a new balance and harmonious way of being between the sexes. (The prophecy is alluded to quite clearly in one certain memorable conversation that takes place in Bond and Song—you’ll know it when you see it.) As Lynne was painting images in our minds, sharing the words of the prophecy, and my skin pebbled and spine shivered, I felt a clear desire and knowing: In some way—in many ways, in different ways—my life was going to be about contributing to seeing the fulfilment of that prophecy come through.

So there’s one theme, in the broadest of strokes, and it finds expression in sacred sexuality and the culture of the Sung, their dynamics of female and male, feminine and masculine. Their version is one version. It can look many different ways, we can (in some ways must) transcend the binary all together… but for Bond and Song, this theme found life in the symbiotic dance of the energy-weaving witches and their protectors.

{Some other themes are, of course, the courage of becoming—longing and belonging—coming home to ourselves… Reverence of nature, love of the ocean—juxtaposed with the climate crisis we’re facing… And an experience of life that can neatly be wrapped in a bow with the label ‘Human Design Reflector’—I realised that last one post-writing. Just like I read a one paragraph description of Gene Key 13 three weeks ago, and gasped, since it managed to capture the core of the story in three sentences. A little fun gem for you in case you’re inclined towards Human Design or the Gene Keys.}

Thus, as Bond and Song first began slipping through the veil, from the otherworld to this one, I had the themes, nebulous and ill-defined as they might have been. I had the heroine, with her intense and extraordinary way of experiencing the world. I had the first scene and the last (prologue & epilogue came later).

Those scenes are still in the finished manuscript, still largely resembling their very first draft—still including some phrases and dialogue unchanged. (Isn’t that kinda cool??)

And as I breathed the fire of life into those bones—

Just like the woman of myth in the forest; Bone Woman, the Gatherer, Wolf Woman; who calls forth and resurrects the wild spirit from the underworld; by singing over these lost wolf bones she carefully collected in the darkness...

By singing deep and strong until they grow flesh and fur and bound up and run…

Singing on and on...

Until, then, at last, mid-stride in their run, they transform back into a woman: laughing, dancing, set free in new life!

—as I sung into this novel skeleton, as you know from last time… it wasn’t just Bond and Song that arose.

A laughing woman set free arose with it.

Maybe, in reading it, some part of your soul will be set free, too. That’s my wish for you. ♥️

Darling, may you sing your soul’s song and may your heart bloom in love,

Your Word Weaver,

Mera Akiana

P.S.: Thank you, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, for sharing with us the Women Who Run With The Wolves, and myths like that of Bone Woman.

P.P.S.: Cherishing nature is one of Bond and Song’s vital melodies. So it fills me with joy to donate a percentage of all profits to organisations that do just that.

Since I’ve been a supporter of the work of Conservation International for a while, what better place to begin? You may have seen one of their ‘Nature is Speaking’ videos, where celebrities you know and love give voice to an aspect of nature (I see you, Damon and Khal Drogo/Aquaman fans…)

You’ve got one week left to get your copy at the pre-order discount, darling (if you haven’t already, and thank you so much if you have!! 😍)—and do good with your reading!

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