This, and the next blog written for the beginning of next month, will be shortened due to the publishing of my next book, Basket of Reeds. On that work, let me expound just a bit;
It was the first novel written after my first book, the autobiography Dream Weaver. I determined the subject by the old rule, “Write what you know!” and did so, banking on my studies in anthropology and my months’ long stay in a peasant village, along with the nearby Huichol Indians, in the backwoods of the Sierra Madre Mountains in Mexico. This was done with my then-girlfriend on a shoe-string budget back in the summer of 1982 around the time of my 28th birthday.
The scenery in the mountains was astounding and the people exotic beyond anything I had yet experienced. It was a rugged, often difficult, but exciting two months’ stay.
Years later, I realized that I had witnessed the beginning of the rise of a powerful drug cartel, which was just starting to take over the Huichol areas for the growing of opium poppies and marijuana. I had worried then that the conflict over land with the Indians would escalate, and when I started writing the novel in about 2011, I found that the struggle was already mostly over, and that the cartels had won. From what I read, I found that much of the lifestyle of the Huichols had been reduced or destroyed because they could no longer practice their former way of life without the land. Much of the action of the book revolves around the initial struggles, with an imagined battle between the two forces pivotal to the story.
As for the druggies, we know what became of them: they now run large areas, even whole states, in Mexico. There will be no justice for the Indians because everyone in power is afraid and/or paid off. It is the way of our current world: corruption and money are more destructive than ever to traditional ways of life, particular to the sacred aspects. This includes Christian beliefs and practices as well.
As the book was being written years ago, the state of the world became more and more apparent with each chapter. Other discoveries also occurred, but it was not until recently that the greatest of all gradually surfaced: that I had been led all along in the writing by the Holy Spirit and had not known it.
That this happened is ironic in that I had started the novel with a cynical idea: that I would include something biblical within it to make it appear “deep.” At that time, I was a practicing Catholic, but only in the modern sense. I had kept my own secular opinions about the Church and Christianity in general, even believing at times that Christ was perhaps just another prophet or guru – high up and wise, yes, but not the risen Son of God. As I wrote the novel, cynicism often was transformed into discovery, but still, I had no idea that the writing was actually using me.
I didn’t know this, in fact, until I began editing and rewriting it late last summer. Over many months it then became clear: the book actually was spiritually deep, but not because of me. I had not even seen what was happening. In fact, I found so many twists and turns into the ‘deep’ when editing that I knew with a certainty that I did not have the intelligence to ever have written this stuff without great help from a higher source.
And so, Spirit has had the last laugh, and I am glad. Perhaps I would never even have noticed its profound influence on this work had I not grown in faith over the years. And, as usual, the “last laugh” of Spirit was not mean, but simply overriding, helpful, hopeful, and even cheerful. It has brought the sense of fun I had when writing it up to another level, while still keeping the fun. Holy Spirit, you are amazing!
And so I leave for now to start the process of turning electronic pages into permanent print. My sister, a natural artist, will be doing the cover art which will be an experience for me as well as the reader. I pray that all will go smoothly and, more importantly, that the joy that is Easter will be shared by you all.
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