Sue Vincent's Blog: Echoes of Life - Posts Tagged "magic"
Sword of Destiny - New release
When I was a child I tramped the moors of Yorkshire with my mother, my grandfather and my great-grandfather. I listened to them weave the tales that brought the landscape to life. Tales of boggarts and barguests,sleeping giants and the Old Ones who walk between the worlds.
They spoke, especially my great-grandparents, with the rich dialect that is being lost, as are many of the old tales. I started writing a story, weaving the legends and the landscape I love into an adventure, preserving them for other eyes to discover in imagination. I called it Sword of Destiny.
I had only the vaguest idea of the plot when I began, but the characters took on a life of their own and it seemed all I had to do was listen as the story unfolded…..
” “Where’s that dratted brother of mine when you need him? We could use a nudge from Heilyn right now!” The old man stomped off and sat down on a large stone, muttering under his breath.
Alec turned away from the lake to scan the horizon, searching for clues. The tarn nestled between the Raydale hills. There were a few ruined buildings, small clumps of trees, but nothing stood out as a landmark. A flash of white caught his eye, the only movement in the silent landscape. He watched in a desultory manner as a pretty white mare pawed the ground and shook her mane, while his mind searched for answers. Timidly the young mare came closer. Slowly, but surely she approached the party. Sabrina was at his elbow, watching entranced.
“She’s the symbol of Epona, isn’t she? The Horse Goddess in the Celtic myths.”
“Of course. I never thought of that, I was miles away.” Alec glanced at the blade in his hand. Sabrina laughed quietly.
“See, I told you I’d come in handy!” The young woman motioned to Jamie who came to stand beside her. The white mare was very close now. “Alec look… she’s not all there!” Jamie uncharacteristically bit back the retort that sprang to his lips, it seemed not the time for teasing. He followed her gaze and saw what she meant. “Look, you can see the hills through her flanks.”
“Good Lord!” The exclamation drew all eyes to watch the final approach of the translucent, transcendent creature. Solid she seemed, white as carved ice reflecting rainbows of light. Gently she nuzzled Jamie and bent her foreleg before him, inviting the young man to mount. Jamie met the peat brown eyes of his mentor.
“Go on, lad. She’s waiting for you.”
Jamie took one deep breath and mounted, burying his hands in the snowy mane. The mare threw back her head, meeting the gaze of the companions, and then walked towards the lake. Stepping into the shallows her hooves seemed to melt away as the water lapped around them. Jamie took one last look behind him then set his face towards the centre of the lake as the deep water took them and he disappeared from sight.
Many things touched the calm acceptance that had suffused Jamie as he rode towards his destiny, but none broke through the barrier of conscious thought. He existed only in the moment, pure emotion incarnate. He felt detached, outside of reality and at peace with the rightness of his fate. As the waters closed over his head he did not fight.
On the bank, Alec held his sister as she watched, shocked to the heart, as Jamie sank into the depths. Merlin looked out across the water, searching with inner sight to see what was to come, but he could not pass the barrier of the shifting waters. All he could see was blood. From the deep, cold centre of the lake, a great bell tolled.”
Rhea Marchant heads north to the wild and beautiful landscapes of the Yorkshire Dales where she is plunged into an adventure that will span the worlds. The earth beneath her feet reveals its hidden life as she and her companions are guided by the ancient Keeper of Light in search of artefacts of arcane power. With the aid of the Old Ones and the merry immortal Heilyn, the company seek the elemental weapons that will help restore hope to an unbalanced world at the dawn of a new era.
Set in the ancient beauty of the Yorkshire Dales, Sword of Destiny weaves the tale of a small band of friends brought together as a new age of Man unfolds. Through their personal quests, through friendship, love and laughter, they learn to see the world with a clearer vision as they battle creatures of ancient myth and legend, under the aegis of the Keeper.
Sword of Destiny by Sue Vincent
They spoke, especially my great-grandparents, with the rich dialect that is being lost, as are many of the old tales. I started writing a story, weaving the legends and the landscape I love into an adventure, preserving them for other eyes to discover in imagination. I called it Sword of Destiny.
I had only the vaguest idea of the plot when I began, but the characters took on a life of their own and it seemed all I had to do was listen as the story unfolded…..
” “Where’s that dratted brother of mine when you need him? We could use a nudge from Heilyn right now!” The old man stomped off and sat down on a large stone, muttering under his breath.
Alec turned away from the lake to scan the horizon, searching for clues. The tarn nestled between the Raydale hills. There were a few ruined buildings, small clumps of trees, but nothing stood out as a landmark. A flash of white caught his eye, the only movement in the silent landscape. He watched in a desultory manner as a pretty white mare pawed the ground and shook her mane, while his mind searched for answers. Timidly the young mare came closer. Slowly, but surely she approached the party. Sabrina was at his elbow, watching entranced.
“She’s the symbol of Epona, isn’t she? The Horse Goddess in the Celtic myths.”
“Of course. I never thought of that, I was miles away.” Alec glanced at the blade in his hand. Sabrina laughed quietly.
“See, I told you I’d come in handy!” The young woman motioned to Jamie who came to stand beside her. The white mare was very close now. “Alec look… she’s not all there!” Jamie uncharacteristically bit back the retort that sprang to his lips, it seemed not the time for teasing. He followed her gaze and saw what she meant. “Look, you can see the hills through her flanks.”
“Good Lord!” The exclamation drew all eyes to watch the final approach of the translucent, transcendent creature. Solid she seemed, white as carved ice reflecting rainbows of light. Gently she nuzzled Jamie and bent her foreleg before him, inviting the young man to mount. Jamie met the peat brown eyes of his mentor.
“Go on, lad. She’s waiting for you.”
Jamie took one deep breath and mounted, burying his hands in the snowy mane. The mare threw back her head, meeting the gaze of the companions, and then walked towards the lake. Stepping into the shallows her hooves seemed to melt away as the water lapped around them. Jamie took one last look behind him then set his face towards the centre of the lake as the deep water took them and he disappeared from sight.
Many things touched the calm acceptance that had suffused Jamie as he rode towards his destiny, but none broke through the barrier of conscious thought. He existed only in the moment, pure emotion incarnate. He felt detached, outside of reality and at peace with the rightness of his fate. As the waters closed over his head he did not fight.
On the bank, Alec held his sister as she watched, shocked to the heart, as Jamie sank into the depths. Merlin looked out across the water, searching with inner sight to see what was to come, but he could not pass the barrier of the shifting waters. All he could see was blood. From the deep, cold centre of the lake, a great bell tolled.”
Rhea Marchant heads north to the wild and beautiful landscapes of the Yorkshire Dales where she is plunged into an adventure that will span the worlds. The earth beneath her feet reveals its hidden life as she and her companions are guided by the ancient Keeper of Light in search of artefacts of arcane power. With the aid of the Old Ones and the merry immortal Heilyn, the company seek the elemental weapons that will help restore hope to an unbalanced world at the dawn of a new era.
Set in the ancient beauty of the Yorkshire Dales, Sword of Destiny weaves the tale of a small band of friends brought together as a new age of Man unfolds. Through their personal quests, through friendship, love and laughter, they learn to see the world with a clearer vision as they battle creatures of ancient myth and legend, under the aegis of the Keeper.
Sword of Destiny by Sue Vincent
A golden dawn
I couldn’t sleep. I’d gone to bed early and spent most of the night in that liminal state between dream and waking when the mind treads strange pathways, watching itself, while the body rests as if in slumber.
It is a strange state where the levels of consciousness seem to separate out and you see each of them clearly. Like liquid in a centrifuge, your immobility in the spinning of the world teases out the dense from the subtle, showing the clear definition between the layers of being, where in the agitated movement of everyday life we are accustomed to see them mingled, as if shaken together and cannot see what they truly are.
As you lie there you are aware of the components of who you are… the body… heavy, dense, the stuff of earth… the emotions and the mind… other layers less observable as a rule… and you see how they mingle, inter-dependant, the ingredients of the being you call you.
For that brief time it is a bit like the wonder of watching a rainbow as a child. Seeing all the colours of light refracted and separated in the unreal prism. Light is all around us, always, yet though it illuminates the world we do not see light itself until it interacts and plays upon the physical world, as in a rainbow, captured in water droplets, refracting and reflecting the sun.
When you see a rainbow, it isn’t really there… it is not an object, cannot be touched or approached.. which is why that pot of gold is so elusive. We see them only when the sun is behind us and conditions are precisely right. Sometimes the light reflects twice within the moisture and there is a double arc, the colours reversed in the inner and outer bows. To a child… or a dreamer… there is magic here.
Although the rainbow allows us to see sunlight manifest in beauty, have you ever thought that you cannot look at both the rainbow and the sun at the same time? You may see prisms in the clouds or camera lens… tiny glimpses of colour… yet to see the full beauty of a rainbow the sun must be behind you, and if you look towards the sun, the rainbow is no longer in your line of sight… it is no longer perceivable. To see the rainbow you turn your back towards the sun, to see the source you turn your gaze from the rainbow.
Yet if you stand between them and close your eyes, you know that both are there, even if unseen.
As I observed the separating layers of self in the night I thought about that… and realised that there was, in the spectrum of being I was observing, a rainbow of self, ranging from the density of matter to the most ethereal levels of mind. They too are reflecting and refracting a Source unseen, that stands behind our life, out of our line of sight.
Call it what you will, in the still, small hours it was clear. And something else too. The observer was none of the parts of me that I think of as ‘me’ in daily life… it was other than that… poised between the Source and the rainbow, knowing both and partaking of the nature of each, poised at the mid-point of creation.
As dawn rose on a frosty autumn morning I was out with Ani and saw the sky on fire, pondering the night. In that flare of golden glory I saw the source of light reflected in the windows and rooftops of the sleeping village, gilding the clouds and setting the skeletal trees ablaze. I could not see the sun itself, obscured by the structures in which we live our lives, but its colours changed the world into a magical place as I watched.
For those moments I was aware that the world was held in the reflected light of the sun, a sun still in the heavens even for the dark side of the planet, simply obscured by our own shadow as we the earth turns its back in sleep.
And there are no words for the feeling that followed, knowing that we too are rainbows of being, gilded refractions of the One, and though we may not see both Source and manifestation in the same glance, though It may be obscured by the busyness of our lives, we sometimes catch a glimpse, a prism in the clouds, and we can close our eyes and know that both are there.
It is a strange state where the levels of consciousness seem to separate out and you see each of them clearly. Like liquid in a centrifuge, your immobility in the spinning of the world teases out the dense from the subtle, showing the clear definition between the layers of being, where in the agitated movement of everyday life we are accustomed to see them mingled, as if shaken together and cannot see what they truly are.
As you lie there you are aware of the components of who you are… the body… heavy, dense, the stuff of earth… the emotions and the mind… other layers less observable as a rule… and you see how they mingle, inter-dependant, the ingredients of the being you call you.
For that brief time it is a bit like the wonder of watching a rainbow as a child. Seeing all the colours of light refracted and separated in the unreal prism. Light is all around us, always, yet though it illuminates the world we do not see light itself until it interacts and plays upon the physical world, as in a rainbow, captured in water droplets, refracting and reflecting the sun.
When you see a rainbow, it isn’t really there… it is not an object, cannot be touched or approached.. which is why that pot of gold is so elusive. We see them only when the sun is behind us and conditions are precisely right. Sometimes the light reflects twice within the moisture and there is a double arc, the colours reversed in the inner and outer bows. To a child… or a dreamer… there is magic here.
Although the rainbow allows us to see sunlight manifest in beauty, have you ever thought that you cannot look at both the rainbow and the sun at the same time? You may see prisms in the clouds or camera lens… tiny glimpses of colour… yet to see the full beauty of a rainbow the sun must be behind you, and if you look towards the sun, the rainbow is no longer in your line of sight… it is no longer perceivable. To see the rainbow you turn your back towards the sun, to see the source you turn your gaze from the rainbow.
Yet if you stand between them and close your eyes, you know that both are there, even if unseen.
As I observed the separating layers of self in the night I thought about that… and realised that there was, in the spectrum of being I was observing, a rainbow of self, ranging from the density of matter to the most ethereal levels of mind. They too are reflecting and refracting a Source unseen, that stands behind our life, out of our line of sight.
Call it what you will, in the still, small hours it was clear. And something else too. The observer was none of the parts of me that I think of as ‘me’ in daily life… it was other than that… poised between the Source and the rainbow, knowing both and partaking of the nature of each, poised at the mid-point of creation.
As dawn rose on a frosty autumn morning I was out with Ani and saw the sky on fire, pondering the night. In that flare of golden glory I saw the source of light reflected in the windows and rooftops of the sleeping village, gilding the clouds and setting the skeletal trees ablaze. I could not see the sun itself, obscured by the structures in which we live our lives, but its colours changed the world into a magical place as I watched.
For those moments I was aware that the world was held in the reflected light of the sun, a sun still in the heavens even for the dark side of the planet, simply obscured by our own shadow as we the earth turns its back in sleep.
And there are no words for the feeling that followed, knowing that we too are rainbows of being, gilded refractions of the One, and though we may not see both Source and manifestation in the same glance, though It may be obscured by the busyness of our lives, we sometimes catch a glimpse, a prism in the clouds, and we can close our eyes and know that both are there.
