A supernatural serial story

I try to plan my projects and keep them reasonably corralled – I really do. And there are a lot of them.

There’s the CE5 outings and associated work, the energetic dowsing & mapping, the energy work, the books titled Roadside Rockhounding in Virginia (a multi-part series for locating and identifying rocks & minerals and learning about our native geology), The Magic of You (a mulit-part series intended to give the reader tangible proof of their amazing energetic nature and techniques for developing it), and The Bigfoot Project.

A few times a week, I climb into my Jeep and foray into the backwoods in search of native plants and beautiful rocks & minerals. In the early mornings or late evenings, you will find me making soaps and creams from the plants or crafting dowsing rod handles with the stones.

And I almost forgot – I also have a “real job”.

So yeah, I try really hard to keep the projects in line and resist the temptation to allow any others to creep in because it’s an undeniable fact that there are just so many hours in a day.

But every once in a while something pops up that cannot be ignored. Sometimes I will scrutinize the new idea and find that, while it is exciting or interesting, it can wait a bit, and I put it aside with a promise to return to it as soon as I can. Rarely, the intruder stops me cold in my tracks, garnering my full and undivided attention and refusing to go away. And that’s exactly what happened this past week.

In all honesty, the groundwork for this has been underway for close to 20 years. I was well aware of all the different parts and pieces of course, but had never strung them all together, especially in the sense that they formed a story. I can’t even tell you what transpired that brought all of it into focus, nor what point in time it happened. One day it was just a fascinating array of unrelated dreams, ideas, and real-life events, and the next it was flowing onto a page, dovetailed and interlocked in a way I had never imagined.

I tried to create an outline for the story (because that’s the kind of stuff that Capricorns do) and realized that I couldn’t because I don’t know what happens. How can you write a story if you don’t even know how its supposed to go??? But that didn’t seem to matter – the first 12,000 words laid themselves down like magic ink; I was just the scribe.

So what is this mysterious thing?

It’s the story of Jack and Maggie, a magical blend of real events and recorded dreams with a little bit of embellishment thrown in for readability, and it is unfolding as a “serial story”. Serial stories are also called “chapter books”, “cliffhangers” and occasionally, “novellas”. The gist of the format is that, instead of a large book with a lot of chapters, a serial story is told in short “episodes” that are released to readers regularly. In this case, a new episode (or two) will be released every Friday.

The first three episodes went live at midnight on Friday, August 13 (thought that was kind of witchy, and quite appropriate)

Folks can read the first three episodes for free, but subsequent episodes must be unlocked with tokens that readers buy. Most episodes will require 30-40 tokens which can be purchased rather cheaply – you can buy them in varying bundles, from 200 for $1.99 all the way up to 1,700 for $14.99, so you get a lot of story for a very low cost.

So where did this story of Jack & Maggie come from? I don’t want to get too long-winded here, but for anyone who’s interested, the backstory follows, which includes three parts: Big Dreams, Life with Jack, and Real Magic.

I sometimes have what I call “Big Dreams”. The first one that I can remember occurred when I was 10 or 11 years old and in the 5th grade, and the latest one was just a couple of months ago. I guess I probably dream non-sensical stuff most nights like everyone else does, but these “Big Dreams” are different.

For one thing, they are incredibly detailed and always revolve around something way beyond the mundane. They have varying levels of supernatural elements, magical events, mysterious beings, interdimensional travel, prophetic messages, and, invariably, an overarching tone about spiritual growth or evolution.

The second thing that makes them unique is that I can remember every detail of them after I wake up (which I cannot with regular dreams), and the third tip that these nighttime forays are different from normal dreams is that they have an undeniable feel of actuality about them. It doesn’t matter how far-fetched the content may seem in the light of day, they still feel real.

These “Big Dreams” are in alignment with all of the energy work that I do during my waking hours and have often prompted me to explore things in ways that I never would have imagined otherwise. And so, I made it a habit to write them down, because I felt that, at some point, they would serve an important purpose.

A couple of weeks ago, out of the blue, it occurred to me that if you strung them all together, they actually created a story of sorts. I was stunned at the realization and felt fairly ridiculous that I hadn’t noticed it before, but quickly reminded myself that everything happens exactly when it is supposed to, so I picked up the thread and started to follow it.

If you follow the episodes of Jack & Maggie as they are released, you will see these “Big Dreams” form the backbone of the story, including the mysterious town, the garden, the mystical shop overseen by Keeper Wickets, and the “magic stones” which have the mysterious property of allowing the user to bounce high into the air. In later episodes, the dreams continue to be the backdrop against which events unfold, including Maggie’s visits to places and times in the blended reality of multiple dimensions, a tragic event which befalls Jack, and another encounter with the Swallux (or “purple flower thinghy”, as Maggie calls it) in which it’s surprising origins are revealed as being closer to home than Maggie ever thought possible.

The overarching commonality between all of the dreams is the merging of the physical world with the energetic one, supporting a landscape that is an ultimate balance of tangibility and supernatural, a perfect blend of who we really are, should we choose to open our eyes to truth.

The “Jack” in Jack & Maggie is absolutely real. The descriptions of him in the story are accurate, both in a physical sense and the parts about his uncanny intelligence and ability to know what I am thinking. In fact, I don’t dare think about going somewhere in my Jeep (which Jack considers “his vehicle”), nor out to the garden, or sneaking off for a nap unless I am prepared to deal with him knowing exactly what I am up to well before I do it.

In Episode 1, the thing with the peanut butter is true, as is the fact that he refuses to eat or drink when I am gone. And the way that Jack & Maggie fall into sleep – yep, that’s real too. In fact, it would be easier to tell you the parts that AREN’T true, because they are so few and far between.

I’ve never seen Jack materialize in the clouds, nor have I witnessed him grow to three times his normal size with glowing yellow-green eyes. He can’t hold a lengthy conversation in spoken English, but he can talk, to a degree. In fact, his favorite word is “no”, and he barks it at me any time that I tell him he can’t have his peanut butter or that he has to wait until I finish something before I let him go outside. And I’m not talking about just a bark – he actually SAYS the word “no”. I didn’t teach it to him as a trick, either. He just started saying it, presumably because he heard me say it in response to some of his demands. The crazy thing is that he does not use it out of context – he will only say it in displeasure when he doesn’t get what he wants.

As to the question of whether or not Jack is a Guardian in both the “real world” and the story – anyone who has ever met him in person can testify to the fact that he is truly my protector. He will not hesitate to swiftly and violently incapacitate any person or animal that he perceives as a threat. By the same token, if he knows and likes you, his demeanor is one of limitless affection. The personality of the Guardian in the story is exactly modeled upon Jack’s own personality, including the ability for spine-tingling menace while still exhibiting affection. If there ever was a dog actually harboring a creature such as the Guardian, Jack would be it, for certain.

Jack also appears in some of my Big Dreams, and so there was no question that he would be a part of the story. In fact, when I first started writing, I didn’t have a title for the whole thing, and I didn’t know that Jack was going to figure so prominently in the storyline. I was fairly surprised when he emerged in Episode 1 as the main character, and continued to hold that position as more of the story was written. It wasn’t until Episode 3 was in draft form that the title of the series became “Jack & Maggie”, and I understood that he was going to be a permanent and leading fixture in the story.

Anyone who is familiar with me knows that I live and breathe anything to do with energy work, spiritual evolution, and unified consciousness. As with Maggie (who is a simplified version of me, in case you hadn’t figured that out), in my heart I know that the limitless possibility associated with these things is absolutely real, and it is my main purpose in life to open others’ eyes to this fact.

Some of the fantastical things that happen in the story are a mix of Big Dreams and real-life magical experiences. The golden luminescence that Maggie witnesses at her brow and in the palm of her hand when she observes her reflection in the looking glass is an example. The cottage and surroundings are a part of the dream, but the sparkling energy is a real-life translation of the forces that I see, feel, and work with daily.

The same is true for some of the plants that will appear in the story from time to time – the dramatic descriptions are taken directly from the dreams, but the energetic connection is a normal part of my three-dimensional life.

And as to the stones – my fascination with rocks, minerals, geology, and the energetic connection we have with all of them is very real, as is the brief description of the stones on the table in Episode 1. The rocks in the basket are a real component of a dream (and in that dream, yes, they really did allow me to ascend very high into the air when I held them after wrestling them away from the shopkeeper).

Stones will continue to figure prominently in the story, as they have in both dreams and real life, and ultimately, the connection between the rocks in the dream and the ones that I work with on a daily basis will be revealed, which is a fascinating turn of events that may be an “AHA!” moment for some readers.

In conclusion …

I have a hard time defining a category for this story. It’s certainly not non-fiction because there are some embellishments, and a large portion of the whole thing is based on dreams. But since the dreams really happened, the recounting of them is truth, so I didn’t make the entire thing up out of thin air. It’s not entirely fiction, nor is it wholly non-fiction. Instead, it’s something else entirely that does not fit comfortably within the confines of such narrow definition.

To me, it transcends the dull and stifling limits of traditional book categorization and leads the reader to a different place entirely. In the blended reality of Jack & Maggie, possibility and potential are the take-aways, and nestled among the paragraphs are real-life lessons and techniques for developing them in your own life.

So yeah, a couple of my other projects have taken a back seat to Jack & Maggie for the time being, and surprisingly enough, the one that has been put on a total “pause” for a while is the one that I was so enthused about – The Magic of You.

At first, I actually felt really bad about that, as if I was neglecting an animal that I had promised to take care of, or something equally despicable, and then I realized something – Jack & Maggie is completely shot through with the content of TMOY, and will continue to be as the story unfolds. At the present time, this feels much more “right” to me than continuing TMOY as a stand-alone text because in Jack & Maggie, the truth of TMOY is encapsulated within a fantastic story that unapologetically flaunts embracing possibility and potential as the vehicle for positive spiritual growth, giving the reader the sense that there are no limits once the mind is opened.

If you decide to check the story out and genuinely like it, please give it a thumbs-up and leave a comment, as any activity will, of course, make it more discoverable to other readers. New episodes will go live every Sunday until the story concludes itself, so if you like it, click the “follow” button to be notified when an episode is published. Happy reading!