My Interview With Author Todd Erick Pedersen

Recently Author and Editor  L.M. Browning interviewed Todd Erick Pedersenabout his forthcoming novella: The Sapphire Song. The story follows Metaxaeus, a youthful albeit visionary sculptor, who embarks on an odyssey of love and destiny in which he will at last meet face to face with Akasha, an unusually talented storyteller from a distant township. They then undertake their own journey, and along the way these two young lovers, separately and together, encounter mysterious strangers and experience the sublime. Underscoring a fidelity to the sacred dimension of life, that so often unfolds itself to us in the inmost presence of our dreams, and set in a lush and varied landscape, this rich novella beautifully evokes the spiritual power, and the lasting truth, inherent in our quest for an enduring love.

Browning: In a little less than a month you will celebrate the release of your first novel: The Sapphire Song. Briefly, what is the book about?

Pedersen : The story is a panoramic look into the lives of two people, Metaxaeus and Akasha, who we follow from early youth through to an advanced age. We are given the chance to witness how their spiritual development weaves in and out of their love for each other, and how this is in the end really the very essence of their merging.

Browning: What inspired The Sapphire Song? What was the first thought that initiated the many pages that followed? 

Pedersen: The original thought was born of frustration: in particular with always encountering the idea that our spiritual maturation must always (and inevitably) be a strictly individual affair at all times, almost like the process of dying or birth. Because this idea would always prompt me to think: "Yes, and true enough in a way, but shouldn't the whole purpose of a meaningful path in life be ultimately to introduce people, as intimately as possible, to their own true selves… and what if that 'true self' happens to be in the end an other, who one might find oneself connected to on no less than that deep a level?" So you can see, it's very paradoxical. Too it would occur to me, "What about the story of Adam and Eve?"

Browning: One of the main themes in The Sapphire Song is the progression of our individual spiritual paths. In what way is your own spiritual progression reflected in the story? 

Pedersen: I suppose the best way to answer this is to say that my own progression has been (typically?) dotted with intimations—call them "synchronicities" if you will—and these for a long time now, that would indicate a movement toward deeper union, or even toward a particular meeting. I know that's vague, and maybe a little superstitious, too, but archetypally it bears much resemblance to what I've tried to illustrate in the story of Metaxaeus and Akasha.

Browning: The two main characters Metaxaeus and Akasha seem destined to meet from an early age. Do you personally believe in such intertwining paths? Fated love? 

Pedersen: Yes. To me, this is a possibility that, psychologically, and in order for our humanness to blossom as fully as it should, has to be allowed, that is, the door needs to be left open for this sort of chance. And all the more so, I believe, if we are to look at it from the point of view of a spiritually creative manifestation, that is, of either the soul, or of individualized spirit—theprobability that a particular love could be woven or embedded, into the universe, into what is real, into the story of things.

And incidentally, I think it would be a mistake to regard this kind of notion as a mere fantastic idea, or worse as some sort of simple wish-fulfilling superstition: because what I believe I'm referring to, and what I have tried to depict in the book, is a truthful and thus the absolutely genuine spiritual unfoldment of two individuals' coming together in a "destined," which here means in a meaningful and a harmonious, way. But this has to be evoked poetically; and cannot be justified either by philosophical argument, or by any psychological probing, alone.

Too I should point out, however, that while the entire book is on one level very much the story of Metaxaeus the man and Akasha the woman who do eventually meet and who are lovers, and who also happen to achieve a spectacular spiritual apotheosis; nevertheless on a deeper level these characters can be reinterpreted entirely, and the whole story can be read, from start to finish, as a retelling, for the twenty-first century, of the parable of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (albeit with a very evident twist, an altogether different trajectory, and even something like a complete reversal…), so that Akasha and Metaxaeus then become authentically archetypal figures, or symbols for humanity.The story might then be read as one of our collective and overarching human destiny: an intimation or a glimpse of where we could all ultimately be heading, which is—and not to give too much away—to a collective theosis.

Browning: The language of The Sapphire Song verges on poetry. Did you ever consider releasing the novel as a narrative poem? 

Pedersen: That didn't really cross my mind, no. It was always pretty much intended as a novella, which I have thought of for a while as an especially rich literary form largely because of its ability to approach the poetic. And anyways I tend to think of the poetic, or even of poetry as such, as something not at all restricted to the form of a poem, but rather as the uniquely evocative combination of imagery and ideation, and the play between these two, that is present in any given piece.

Browning: Describe your writing process. 

Pedersen: Although by now it is a bit generic to say it this way, nonetheless it's true that my writing process is about receptivity, waiting and listening, and then fine-tuning. Yet there are specific ideas that I do try to feel my way into the atmosphere of more than others, and then see what can come from there.

Browning: What are you working on now? 

Pedersen: To be honest, right now I'm not writing anything. I'm not a daily writer; I wait to be moved; so I'm enjoying long walks with my dog on the virtually countless Sun Valley-area trails each afternoon, and otherwise just trying to remain open to whatever might come next, to not cut myself off. So as of now I don't actually know yet either when or what my next project will be.

I think I should at least hint, however, at the likelihood that the Sapphire Song is, at least for me personally, one of those once-in-a-lifetime stories.

But in any event, and as you read the book through, it of course becomes abundantly clear from even the first pages that the story is as much about the primacy of art and creativity and even of their ultimate blending, or non-duality, with the many culminating revelations of the spiritual path, and what is its ultimate gift, its quintessential meaning: love.