Sedona by REMullins

Beautiful, mystical Sedona. 

I finally got the chance to visit Sedona with my daughter and it was more and less than what I expected. 

This, however, was entirely my fault as I couldn't be satisfied with the gorgeous scenery.

You see, I'd read about ley lines and vortexes and couldn't wait to hike out to see one. I hoped the site wouldn't be roped off as I wanted to get right up there and feel the raw, concentrated energy bubbling out of the earth...

Perhaps the vortex would be a small hole with trails of white vapor escaping ala Yellowstone? I wondered how strong the magnetic pull of a ley line might be. Would I get the sensation of walking through sucking mud when I walked along it?

Okay, I admit it. My imagination had taken things much further. This is how I was picturing things as we drove up from Phoenix. 

Though dressed in shorts, tee, and sneakers, in my mind's eye, I saw myself wearing a long white robe. My hair flowing in the breeze and a crown of flowers encircling my head. Earth child returning to her mother. And since it was my imagination, I shaved off about ten pounds. Envisioned my skin a little tighter. Boobs a little firmer. 

As soon as we reached the mystical spot, I'd lift my arms in supplication to the ancient earth spirits. I'd stand Marilyn Monroe style in the circle of stones...or the crevice...or whatever the vortex might actually be. Then, I was positive, I'd feel a miraculous sense of healing and renewal filling me. Maybe, I'd even finally understand life in a more metaphysical level.

But most of all I believed there would be some finite location an X marks the spot type thing. Was I ever disappointed to learn there wasn't a designated spot. 

The entire region is supposedly the vortex. What? You are left to find what you will. My mind balked, completely revolting against the idea it wouldn't be all mapped out for me. I wanted, no needed an epicenter of some sort. 

My daughter and I hiked up into Bell Rock and as I walked I thought I could hear faint musical notes. Was this my totem spirit guiding me? Turns out it was a man with long, grey hair sitting atop a spiral of red rock blowing spa-reminiscent music on a tribal flute. 

Cynicism took over and I said on a sneer to my daughter, "the park probably pays him to come out and play for the tourists."

The steep climb wore me out. I was sweating and my leg muscles had turned to jelly - so not what I'd envisioned. My daughter and I found a place to sit on an outcropping of red rock shaded by a scrub tree. I closed my eyes in relief as I felt a slight cooling breeze. The music wove around, the vista was breathtaking, and I was filled with a deep sense of serenity. 

Perhaps that was my vortex moment. Yet to me it was no different from the peace that fills me while sitting next to a lake or stream. I've felt the same calm contentment at the beach or working in a flower garden. 

It suggests that mental healing can be found anytime we slow our lives long enough to allow our hearts to open. Rested, peaceful, we headed back to the trail head.

Reaching the parking lot we discovered a couple studying the trail map. The man stopped us with a perplexed look.

"Where exactly is this vortex located?"
I laughed and left my daughter to explain. 


REMullins
Author of IT'S A WONDERFUL UNDEAD LIFE
               VAMPIRE IN THE SCRYING GLASS
               A VAMPIRE TO BE RECKONED WITH
AMAZON
THEWILDROSEPRESS

Life: The True Stuff Our Stories Are Made Of by Margo Hoornstra

Ever wonder what the world would be like if you were never born? In the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey got to see the impact he had on the lives of others. For the rest of us, we’ll just have to calculate our own worth.

As authors, never been ties right in with those what if questions that drive our stories.

Where would the romance genre be without the secret baby trope?

In my first book, Honorable Intentions, I got a lot of mileage out of the teenaged daughter of a single dad hero. She was the product of a one night stand, and I built an entire book—heroine and all—around his desire to take care of her. Keep her safe and in his life.

In another, One Fateful Friday part of the Saturday in Serendipity anthology, the hero is sterile yet he and the heroine come together to adopt two orphaned children. In that same book, a secondary character and her husband who can’t conceive, live their lives as foster parents.

It might be I come by these storyline ideas naturally. My own mother was an unplanned pregnancy BEFORE my grandparents were married. *Gasp* Back then, in the early 1900s, such a thing was frowned upon and then some. Though Grandma and Grandpa eventually married and had another daughter, my grandmother was actually disowned by her family for having and raising the child conceived out of wedlock.

But think about it in a real sense. If my mother hadn’t been born, I wouldn’t be here, nor would my children or their children or…well, you get the idea.

My how times have changed though.

Married with two soon to be teenaged children, moving steadily upward in my career, with money in the bank and empty nest on the horizon, I had my own unplanned pregnancy. For me, inconvenience wasn’t a sufficient reason to not have and raise the resulting twins. Long story short (ahem!) my life has been better for the choice I made.

To each his or her own, but you can see what I mean about how some events in life shape the events in our stories. Scads of historical romances have been, well, born, with the unexpectedly pregnant circumstance as the inciting moment that drives the protagonist into action and on to what we term the heroine’s journey.

Here’s another true life occurrence that has me thinking fiction. My husband’s maternal grandmother left two children in the old country, never to see them again, while she sailed to the new world and a new life. And where she subsequently married and bore then raised three more children. That’s a book I’d love to write someday. I even have a title in mind - Emma.

What would the world be like if you had never been born? Certainly something to ponder now and then, isn’t it?

The 11^th and 23^rd are my days to blog here at the Roses of Prose. For more about me and the stories I’ve written so far, please visit my WEBSITE