Exploring Landscape and Belonging Through Story

‘Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.’

James Baldwin Giovanni’s Room

Recently I attended a storytelling festival in Aberystwyth and as I sat mesmerized by the unfolding story of Pryderi, the ruler of Dyfed, I realized once again the power of the ancient stories and the oral tradition of storytelling to connect us to history, to each other and to the land. In Women Who Run With The Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes wrote that, ‘telling or hearing stories draws its power from a towering column of humanity joined one to the other across time and space, elaborately dressed in the rags or robes or nakedness of their time.’ Listening to this spine tingling retelling of stories from the Welsh Mabinogion, for a moment I felt myself balanced on this towering column and understood what it must mean for someone to feel rooted to the earth, to grow and develop in a country with stories that feed the soul with the wisdom of mythic times, and a landscape that is steeped in these stories.

While the stories we tell about ourselves form our individual identity, the stories we tell about our country form our national identity and for better or worse, these narratives act as roots to ground us to place, providing a sense of belonging and a definition of nationhood. I don’t pretend to be Welsh but my ancestral roots are closer to Britain than they are to Australia where my ancestors are not the indigenous Aboriginal people whose land was taken from them. It’s not always comfortable being a white Australian. We have no ancient claim to the land and no traditional stories to draw from, except the stories of conquering and overcoming the odds, and the legends of mateship and a ‘fair go’ that came with colonization and a persistent white Australian policy. These are stories that have become mythologized in Australia, forming a national character that often marginalizes the indigenous population and ignores the fact that Australia is now a multi-cultural nation and the majority of its population are or once were, immigrants.

There are a number of contradictions inherent in white Australians’ relationship to the land. Many of us are at once drawn to, and repelled by the outback, awed by its beauty and frightened by its dangers. We carry the guilt of the conqueror, a guilt that often stops us from claiming a real connection to the land. Our legendary heroes are the men who cleared fields of rocks, who dug canals to drain marshy land, who made the harsh land work for them. The Aussie battler has become part of our national character. Yet, despite this reverence for the outback, more than ninety percent of Australians live in urban environments, for the most part clustered around the edges of this continent, turned away from the centre which carries such a mystique. We romanticise the wilderness, but most rarely, if ever, experience it. Yet, deep within us there's such a longing for wildness, for wilderness and for the sense of real connection with place.

When I began writing my first novel, Gathering Storm, I had no idea how important a role landscape would play in it or how confused I was about my own relationship to the land. The story moves from the snow covered Malvern Hills in England to the harsh heat of the Australian outback, a dramatic contrast in itself, but then there are the contradictions that are deeply embedded in the relationship the characters have with the places in which they live, or once lived, or never lived, but still dream of. These are contradictions which I feel strongly, having grown up in the suburban wilderness of Adelaide, with its manicured lawns, neat fences and garden beds filled with roses and hydrangeas, all cowering under well placed umbrellas to avoid the worst of the baking sun. At school I learned European history in an education system that was still clinging to the comforting notion of a homeland. The only things reminding me that there was more to Australia, were the throaty laugh of the kookaburra, the eucalyptus scent of the gums trees, the fierce summer heat and the frequent dust storms that blew in from 'out back', turning the sky orange and clogging our lungs.

The word nostalgia comes from two Greek roots, nostos (returning home) and algos (pain). For most of my life I suffered from this affliction; a yearning to return home but no idea of where that home might be. This sense of alienation I felt goes some way towards explaining why I decided to make my main character English in Gathering Storm. This gave me the freedom to describe Australia through the eyes of a stranger, someone who doesn't belong. Storm is also part Romany – partly imbued with the blood of a nomadic people, and although her family have lived in England for nearly seventy years, she still doesn't fully belong there either. Storm belongs nowhere. She is torn between movement and stillness, restless but afraid, wanting to settle, but eager to move. Her sense of self is scattered between the cottage in the Malvern Hills, her boyfriend’s apartment, her art studio and her Kombi van. Then there's her romantic notion of a Bohemia she has never visited, her nostalgia for the Malvern of her childhood and her fearful retracing of her mother's footsteps in the Australian outback. And finally there's the traumatic cultural legacy of the past that plays havoc with her sense of self. Storm’s childhood is filled with secrets and silences embedded in the spaces between the stories her family reluctantly tell. Speaking of her childhood need for stories, Storm says, ‘I consumed them as if there were a great hollow inside me that needed filling and that once filled, their weight, the weight of my ancestors, would act as an anchor. . .’

For me, a sense of belonging is linked very closely to place and to the stories we tell that connect us to place. I was an adopted child and grew up steeped in a sense of my own illegitimacy. Like Storm, I felt I belonged nowhere, that no place was truly mine. And because this lack of belonging was a strong central theme in my own life, it inevitably demanded to be explored in the stories I told. Woven through both Gathering Storm and Flight, is this sense of dislocation and statelessness that can be felt and experienced personally, but also within a family a culture and a nation. Place gives us identity, a passport to belonging. But time does it too. In a sense, space and time cross when a family or a people have been anchored in one place for generations. Ancestors provide us with roots and so does place. As Storm asks: How long does it take? How many generations? Do we inherit place? Do we earn it? Or is belonging simply a state of mind? Exploring these questions through writing has helped me to resolve issues of belonging and identity within my own life. Like Storm I have begun to suspect that belonging is ultimately something we carry inside of ourselves. It is a realisation that comes when we are on the right path in our lives. Until then nowhere is ours, but when this realisation arrives, the world becomes ours. For as Joseph Campbell wrote, ‘our true reality is in our identity and unity with all life’.

Copyright (c) 2013 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/

The Hero's Journey - Stages of the Adventure

‘We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.’

Joseph Campbell

It seems appropriate to be writing about the Hero’s Journey right now, as I’m immersed in my own journey; moving to a new country, a new job and ultimately, no doubt, a new way of living. Journeys are always confronting and no matter how well planned, any adventure will be filled with both joy and terror, moments when everything slips into harmony and we know all is as it should be, and other moments when we feel we simply can’t go on, or we’re certain we’ve made a terrible mistake setting off at all. But there’s no turning back, so all we can do is deal with each new challenge as it arises, riding the wave of change and hoping we’re not dumped too often.

In my last post I wrote more generally about the Hero’s Journey. This post I want to explore the stages of the journey more deeply. According to mythologist, Joseph Campbell, the three stages of story, Separation, Initiation and Return, can be found in most heroic myths, many contemporary stories, and in the journeys of mystics, shamans and sages throughout time and space. Within each major stage Campbell identified a number of common elements: Separation includes: the Call to Adventure; Refusal of the Call; Supernatural Aid; the Crossing of the First Threshold; and the Belly of the Whale. Initiation includes: The Road of Trials; the Meeting with the Goddess; Woman as Temptress; Atonement with the Father; Apotheosis; and the Ultimate Boon. Return includes: Refusal of Return; the Magic Flight; Rescue from Without; the Crossing of the Return Threshold; Master of Two Worlds; and Freedom to Live.

In The Writer's Journey, Christopher Vogler describes a simpler three-part, twelve-stage structure in stories, which incorporates and occasionally develops the stages Campbell identified. Act One or Preparation includes: The Ordinary World, The Call to Adventure, Refusal of the Call, Meeting the Mentor and Crossing The Threshold.  Act Two or Journey, includes: Test, Allies and Enemies, Approaching the Inmost Cave, Ordeal and Reward. Act Three or Return, includes: The Road Back, Resurrection and Return with the Elixir.
Although Vogler concentrates on film, his theories can be applied just as easily to a wide range of novels as there is a great deal of commonality in the structure of films and novels. Indeed many films are direct adaptations of novels. According to Vogler, all or most of these twelve stages are evident in a broad range of stories and genres, which he then goes on to analyse, applying his theories to films as diverse as Star Wars, The Wizard of Oz, Titanic, The Full Monty and even Quentin Tarantino's post structuralist film, Pulp Fiction.

Critics have accused Vogler of concentrating on Hollywood films and creating a formulaic method for writing narrative and developing characters. Vogler does warn of the dangers inherent in following the twelve stages as a formula, stating that for the writer, 'the conscious awareness of its patterns may be a mixed blessing, for it's easy to generate thoughtless cliché and stereotypes from this matrix'. He then goes on to answer his critics by demonstrating the vastly diverse array of factors that can be applied to each stage, creating endless possibilities for stories. Like Vogler, I believe that all good writing is informed by, but steps beyond technique or craft. If we write from our heart, if we allow our stories to lead us into the depths of ourselves, if we emotionally engage with our writing, then what emerges are living, vital stories, not clichéd market driven formulas.

As a writer, I found Vogler's theories fascinating because when I applied them to my own work, I could see that unconsciously I had created stories that fitted closely with his model. And when I applied his structure to my own writing life, I could identify the stages and the parallels between the story, the writing of the story and the themes in my own life, expressing themselves through Flight.
During the writing of Flight, I was already familiar with Vogler's twelve part structure but did not use it as a framework for my story as I didn't want my novel to feel formulaic or to be weakened by forcing it into an external shape. Vogler suggested that there are a number of variations on the order of the stages. 'The stages,' he wrote, 'can be deleted, added to, and drastically shuffled without losing any of their power'. I decided to write without a plan and it is only in retrospect that I can see where Vogler's structure does and does not fit in Flight.

Flight begins with a depressed Fern, self-imprisoned in her attic. She has been there for some months and this has become her Ordinary World, the world that is generally portrayed at the beginning of a story, and one in which there is often some form of stagnation that needs to be addressed. There are a number of Calls to Adventure, which are refused. Change is not something most people choose willingly, so more often than not the hero is not inclined to accept the call. When this occurs then inevitably the call will become stronger, and life as the hero knows it will collapse, forcing him or her to accept change. Twice, Fern's flat mate, Claire, asks Fern to come out of her room as they are moving out of their rental house. Shamesh appearing on the pavement below her room is also a Call to Adventure, but not one that Fern understands. Even when Fern escapes through the window and into Cassie's house, she is still a reluctant hero, choosing to react rather than act.

There are crucial moments in every story, moments of decision that change everything: Billie Elliot puts on a pair of ballet shoes and steps into his first dance class; in the Da Vinci Code, Robert Langdon decides to make a run for it with a strange woman; and James Frey, the author of A Million Little Pieces, enters a rehabilitation clinic. Crossing the Threshold is that moment in a story when there is no turning back: a plane takes off; the hero shuts the door behind her and is thrust into a new world; a crime is committed. . . In Flight, Fern Crosses the First Threshold when she leaves her attic room and steps out onto the street, knowing there is no turning back. According to Steven Jones, 'the threshold crossing is a crossing from the conscious, rational realm to a fictional representation of the unconscious, non-rational domain of the individual's psyche'. Indeed, once Fern steps out of her Ordinary World, she is confronted with Tests, Allies and Enemies and finds that the rules and regulations in this ‘new’ world are different. Reality is not what it seems and the adventures she experiences are to test her readiness for the task ahead of her. Along the way every hero must learn new rules, collect allies and inevitably make some enemies, either in the form of other characters or in the form of self doubt, destructive behaviour etc. These adventures test the hero’s readiness for the task ahead.

In the Approach to the Inmost Cave the hero makes final preparations for the central ordeal of the adventure, says Vogler, who then goes on to use the analogy of the mountaineer who has reached base camp and is preparing to climb the highest peak. The subsequent Ordeal occurs in this metaphoric inmost cave in which the hero faces their greatest fear/s. This can be physical, psychological or emotional, and can be represented by anything from fighting a monster, to standing up to a parent. But in some way the hero must die and be reborn. In Vogler's terms, this is the crisis, not the climax of the story, which comes towards the end. Success at this crisis point enables the hero to develop and change. In Flight, the Ordeal comes early in the novel, when Fern is put into a psychiatric ward. It is here that she finds her power and undergoes a symbolic initiation; a death and a resurrection. She emerges from the cave, not having vanquished her enemy but having gathered her strength, and is now fully equipped to complete the journey. This is Fern’s Reward. The Inmost Cave is the equivalent of Campbell's, Belly of the Whale, in that it is symbolic of the hero's immersion in the unconscious.

Soon after Fern escapes from the psychiatric ward she makes the decision to turn around and face her enemy, a decision that she acts upon by seeking him out. But it is only later, when the enemy that is attacking her, steps through her dreams and into life, nearly killing her, that Fern understands what is at stake and senses she has reached a turning point. Perhaps this is a second Inmost Cave, a moment of realisation, when Fern is more afraid than she has ever been but has to act anyway.

There are many Trials and Tribulations in the hero’s journey, occurring both before and after the Inmost Cave. These trials occur in the dream world where Fern must fight battles she doesn't understand. And they occur in the physical world where the rules are generally clear, such as her meeting with her birth mother and the confrontation with the Bloodhound. However, her meeting with her father does not have clear rules because in the centre of the labyrinth the rules are different. Here the physical world and the dream world meet and Fern finds herself fighting with her father on both planes at once.

The Road Back is a turning point, another threshold to cross and it generally occurs after the Inmost Cave. The hero must either decide to return or be forced to return to the Ordinary World. And he or she must take with them what has been earned, gained, stolen, or granted in the Special World. In Flight, The Road Back is the trek through the wilderness with Adam, seeking the centre of the labyrinth and in it, her father. The Resurrection is the climax of the plot, and it is also the climax of the hero’s development as a character, making it apparent in some way that the hero really has changed. It may come as a test or a sacrifice of some sort and generally there is more at stake than personal happiness. In Flight, the Resurrection comes during the final showdown that Fern has with her father, the results of which I won’t reveal, for those who haven’t yet read Flight.

And finally, the Return with the Elixir, occurs when the hero returns, bringing with him or her a new love, medicine, wisdom, fame, wealth. . .  though, as Vogler states, the 'best Elixirs are those that bring hero and audience greater awareness'. A few days ago we arrived in lovely Aberystwyth; shaken and shocked but not too bruised. However, our journey is by no means over; in fact I feel as if I’m still immersed in the inmost cave, that stage in a story where we are forced to confront our deepest fears. But slowly and surely, the journey is becoming smoother and I’m sure we will ultimately emerge stronger and wiser, having reaped the rewards of embarking on this adventure. For as Campbell explains so beautifully, 'the effect of the successful adventure of the hero is the unlocking and release again of the flow of life into the body of the world'.  

 Copyright (c) 2012 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/

Writing Character: Uncovering The Wound

'To release the full potential of the treasure, the wound must be uncovered, delved into, healed to some degree, as if coated with loving layers of lustrous deposits.'

Bill Plotkin, Soulcraft

Earlier this year an astrologer friend looked at my birth chart and winced. When I asked, she explained that my year was full of major transits, meaning major upheavals. Well she wasn't wrong. Until a few weeks ago I thought I'd been through enough upheavals for a year a significant birthday, awarded a PhD, a new novel published. . . but no, there was more to come in the form of an interview in Wales for a position as Creative Writing Fellow at Aberystwyth University. When I was offered the position, I gulped and said yes, then sat down suddenly and began to consider the implications. Moving from Hobart in Tasmania, across the world to Aberystwyth in Wales is a major upheaval, paling all else that has happened this year into insignificance. A new home, new schools, a new job, a new country to become familiar with. . . there's no doubt these are exciting times. Exciting, but frightening too, because like many of us, I am afraid of change.

Change is something we tend to yearn for and then fear as it approaches. It's a natural part of life but not easy to allow. Change is also the major catalyst for story, in fact without it we wouldn't have story, or at least our stories would be extremely dull. Major upheavals tend to signal those moments when a new story begins and are often linked to characters who are afraid to embrace this change - the reluctant Hero, as Vogler calls them. The nature of the change tends to depend on what wounds our characters (or ourselves) are carrying, as often the unfolding drama involves a healing of those wounds.

We all love wounded characters. A wound adds mystery, back story, tension and most importantly, the potential for healing, for as psychologist Jean Houston writes, a wound can be 'an invitation to our renaissance'. A character's wound may be a physical one in the form of a scar or a limp perhaps. Or it may be a psychological wound, a memory of an event that has isolated the character from the world, making him or her an outsider; perhaps the loss of a child or a spouse or some other injustice that is indigestible. This is something that is often evident in the cowboy story or detective genre where the protagonists are outsiders, running on the edge of law, isolated from society and family, and generally carrying a heavy chip on their shoulders. The isolation and pain is revealed through a bad habit, perhaps a drinking problem or perhaps an abrupt manner towards other characters. In more complex stories that carry a good deal of psychological exploration, the wound may be less clear, revealing itself through a number of memories fused together, the scar tissue creating a filter between the character and the world so that each action a character takes is really only a programmed reaction to the past. In story, the character arc often provides an opportunity to change or unravel one or more of these programmed reactions, and if not, it generally reveals the tragedy that occurs when we are unable to do this.

'In many cases in psychiatry,' wrote Jung, 'the patient who comes to us has a story that is not told, and which as a rule no one knows of. To my mind, therapy only really begins after the investigation of that wholly personal story. It is the patient's secret, the rock against which he is shattered. If I know his secret story, I have a key to the treatment.' The story that Jung refers to is one that even the patient may not be consciously aware of. It often resides deep in the unconscious, buried under layers of scar tissue. The process of uncovering this wound can be long and arduous, but it is necessary, for it is the clue, or as Jung says, 'the key' to psychic health. In Soulcraft, psychologist, Bill Plotkin writes that 'the wound does not necessarily stem from a single traumatic incident. Often, the wound consists of a pattern of hurtful events or a disturbing dynamic or theme in one or more important relationships.' This is the case with the two main characters in Flight which explores complex psychological patterns within the main character, Fern, and the man she learns to love, Adam.

For Adam, one aspect of his wound lies in the birth of his brother and the guilt Adam feels for being normal. Another aspect lies in the death of the father and the guilt Adam feels for his part in that tragedy, as well as the loss he felt, growing up without a father. Both of these wounds have created a series of reactions in Adam, sending him away from Tasmania and into the army, where he has tried to follow in his father's footsteps. And it is in the army that Adam wounds himself so deeply he can only withdraw from society and from his family, hiding in a basement in Sydney and attempting to drink himself into oblivion.

Adam's healing begins when he meets Fern who takes his attention away from himself. The healing continues with his return to Tasmania and his family, and then with his return to nature. Adam is of the earth, the wilderness feeds his soul and it is only in the wilderness when he has been brought back from the brink of death by Fern, that he can tell his story. In the telling, Adam makes it conscious and begins to live again, bit by bit, releasing the guilt that he is holding.

Fern's wounds are even more deeply layered. The story opens with her having retreated to an attic room where, like Adam, she is hiding from life. Fern is damaged by her childhood, by the callous treatment of her adoptive family and by the guilt she feels at being accused of trying to kill her father. Through the course of the story, Fern also uncovers pre-verbal wounds that occurred while she was in the womb and just after birth, the trauma of her birth father's violence towards her in his two attempts to kill her, and also the trauma of being abandoned by her birth mother. Then, as the story unfolds, Fern discovers that she has another connection to her birth father, one that reaches back through many past lives and involves a repeating pattern of abuse.

Psychologist and physical healer, Jean Achterberg, writes that 'in traditional shamanic cultures, healing bears little relationship to the remission of physical symptoms. It refers, rather, to becoming whole or in harmony with the community, the planet and certainly ones private circumstances.' This attitude differs greatly from allopathic medicine, where symptoms are almost always treated before causes, and for which healing generally means, a 'return to normal where normal is culturally defined by some measuring standard created by society's members.' Achterberg cites a remark made by an Indian Medicine Man: 'With white man's medicine you only get back to the way you were before; with Indian medicine, you can get even better.' In a sense then, the writing of Flight was an exploration of Indian medicine, an attempt to truly heal a condition (Fern's depression), rather than treat the symptoms.

At the beginning of the novel, Fern has lost most of her self, something that in shamanic tradition is considered a serious illness, leading eventually to depression, damage to the immune system, cancer and many other disorders. Soul retrieval is a major element in shamanic healing. In order to retrieve a fragment of the soul, shamans must travel into the upper world or underworld with the help of their power animal/s and find it, sometimes having to coax it back, sometimes having to fight for it. These fragments may have left the soul in shock at a violent action or been taken by another person. As the story progresses, Fern is able to retrieve a number of parts of her self, and in the process realises how much she had lost.

In Greek myth, the wise and gentle Chiron the centaur is a wounded healer. When he is wounded by a poisoned arrow he is forced to live the rest of his life in great pain. Because of this he studies the healing arts, finding many remedies that heal others but none that take away his own suffering. In shamanic culture, prospective shamans generally become very ill, and then must agree to become shamans before they can heal. It is only in experiencing pain that we are able to heal others. Joan Halifax writes that 'the true attainment of the shaman's vocation as healer, seer, and visionary comes about through the experience of self-wounding, death and rebirth.' This is the process that Fern must undergo. In the novel, Shamesh tells Fern about the initiation process, which is a process of clearing the dense parts of the self. When Fern asks why the process is so slow he tells her that she will become a healer but must first experience the process herself. Fern only accepts the possibility of becoming a healer towards the end of the story, when she uses her hands to heal Adam and remembers that she had done this before. Towards the end of Flight, Fern studies homeopathy and herbalism, 'trying to understand the patterns of illness, trying to see its source which is so often beyond the physical'. She says, 'I have understood that true healing is not something you can do with a closed heart. It must reach deep into the spirit and work its magic from within. True healing changes a person, clears scar tissue and the patterns of reaction that have formed their character. It is not an easy path to choose.

According to Houston, we must be 'willing to release our old stories and to become the vehicles through which the new story may emerge into time.' When Fern tries to tell her story to Adam, she realises that each story is linked to another and she feels weighed down by back stories, wishing she could sever them all. Through the course of Flight, both Fern and Adam reluctantly and painfully release their own stories. By the end of the novel, they are creating a new story, both together and individually. Accepting change provides us with the opportunity to let go of an old story and create something new. It enables us to learn something new, integrate that knowledge, and in the process heal an old wound or wounds. No doubt I will need to repeatedly remind myself of this over the next few months, as change picks me (and my family) up and hurls us across the world to beautiful Wales and to a new story.

For other posts on characterisation see:

Digging Deep: Writing Character

Catharsis and Transformation in Story

Motivating Character

Juggling Archetypes: Heroes, Villains and Tricksters

And there is more on The Wound in Story as Therapy: Healing the Wound

Copyright (c) 2012 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/

Buried Treasure - Symbolism In Story

'Reason, science and technology pin us down to the literal fact, but symbols nourish the soul by pointing to something beyond what is known. Symbols quicken reality with meaning.'

Carl Jung

Today I buried Clown. The ceremony was poignant, though slightly incongruous. It was a finishing off, a letting go of sorts and it needed doing. You see, Clown was a stuffed toy from my childhood. He wasn't attractive; in fact he was grossly misproportioned, with an enormous torso, long thick legs and tiny arms. He was torn and filthy and his face was macabre, with an array of mismatching features and one eye missing. In short, Clown had been well loved.

For many years I had forgotten about Clown but a couple of years ago when my mother went into aged care, I went back to my childhood home to help pack it up, and there in the cupboard I found him. My mother had made this oversized stuffed toy for me; sitting up late one Christmas Eve so that Father Christmas could bring me a present, and I saw no contradiction in this, believing in my childhood way that they were working in cahoots. We weren't well off. Christmas meant treats, like chicken and tinned asparagus, pudding laced with an occasional coin and real cream, not the dreadful sort skimmed from the top of the boiled milk that we had for the rest of the year. There were few presents; undies from an Aunty, an occasional book or board game, and this particular year, Clown.

From the moment I clapped eyes on Clown, I fell in love. He became my friend and confidante, my ally, my comforter and my security. I poured into Clown all my angst and pain, the injustices I encountered, my sense of being different, of being misunderstood and unwanted. Seeing him again so many years later, I was torn between love and repulsion. I had moved on. I didn't need or want Clown anymore. He needed to go in the garbage bin but I couldn't do it, so in the end I stuffed him in my suitcase and brought him home. Since then he has been languishing in a cupboard awaiting his fate.

Today I had intended to write a post about characterisation but this episode with Clown made me think about symbolism instead. Clown symbolised a great deal for me. As an early much loved toy, he was a substitute for the absent mother. But as I said above, he was also a vessel for my unwanted emotions, an outlet that enabled me to get through difficult times. I don't know why my mother fashioned a clown for me to love rather than a teddy bear. Perhaps she wanted to help me see the funny side of life. Traditionally clowns represent a parody of kingship – irreverence, absurdity, ridicule. . . but there was nothing funny about my clown. He was sad but only because I had filled him with sadness. And while he was my protector he was also something for me to protect. Hence he deserved (and belatedly received) a better ending than the garbage bin. Symbols are both universal and individual, specific to a culture and a historical context, yet also transcending these things. They cannot be pinned down to a single meaning because they are able to be interpreted according to the cultural, historical and personal context in which they are placed. Clown meant something to me that was unique and yet in a story, a child clinging to a ragged stuffed toy tells every reader something about the character and needs of that child.

While many words are needed to express an idea, a symbol combines many ideas into a single word. As Anthony Stevens writes in his book, Ariadne's Clue: A Guide to the Symbols of Humankind, 'symbols tolerate paradox and can combine contradictory ideas; words are about one thing or another. Symbols awake intimations; words explain. Like musical compositions, symbolic forms are psychologically more athletic than words: they leap across national barriers'. In short, symbols inhabit the world of poetry. However, this doesn't limit them to poetic forms. As story tellers we can enrich and add greater depth to our work by consciously exploring the use of symbols. and as such, they are an important element in writing; one which we can use either consciously or unconsciously.

According to Stevens, 'the conjunction of sym (together) and ballein (to throw) emphasises the idea that the strange must be thrown together with the familiar to construct a bridge between the known and the unknown. . . . resulting in the experience of a new meaning.' In a sense then, symbols and metaphors are bridges to the unconscious, ways of explaining what cannot be explained, expressing what cannot be expressed. They provide us with access to essential truths, those that are felt but not measurable or possibly even visible.

My novel, Flight, is laden with symbols. Even the story itself is a symbol, or at least a metaphor for the journey to self, to an understanding and a remembering of who we are, to what Jung calls Individuation. Fern's story documents the journey from a mechanistic, conditioned life to one that is lived freely as a true individual. In the novel, the labyrinth is a strong symbol, and one that I consciously used. It has a two-fold reading. On a metaphoric level it is the story itself, the path Fern must follow in order to free herself. On a symbolic level it is the wilderness that Fern and Adam must find their way through in order to complete Fern's journey. There are other symbols in the novel, the snake, the bear, the eagle, the spiral, the cave. . . most of which I was unaware of at the time of writing. It was only later, in the editing process that I identified these elements and in understanding their meaning, was able to further develop them, adding a greater richness and depth to the story.

Symbols are not literal, they are not the language of the head, but rather of the heart. As a writer my goal is to find a synthesis between this language of the head and the heart; a synthesis that would create a more balanced means of interpreting the natural world and the human structures we have created. According to Stevens, symbolism is a language that transcends race, geography and time. It is the natural Esperanto of humanity'. This is a language that is fundamental for 'living stories' and one that is in danger of being lost in a world that tends more and more to a literal reading of story, rather than a metaphoric reading which allows for the transcending of difference and an embracing of the sacred.

Copyright (c) 2012 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/

Writing Through 2012

'The world is changing and we are changing with it. It is too soon perhaps to see how.'

Rosie Dub, Flight

It's only early March and I have already had a significant birthday, a new novel published and I've become a Doctor of Philosophy. There have been school holidays and guests, colds and overgrown gardens to attend to. Time seems to be speeding up, it's difficult (well actually impossible), to fit everything in each day. And not least of all, it's 2012; there are murmurings of dread in the air – whispers of prophecies and predictions, the end of the world, wars, earthquakes, social disruption. . . . The news is full of injustice and upheaval, insane violence and corruption. 'The Apocalypse,' people are saying. 'The Mayans predicted it for 2012. It is coming.'

Needless to say, so far this year I've found it difficult to settle down and write, difficult sometimes to even credit the value of writing or to focus on anything positive. Because hope is what keeps us moving forward, it's what keeps us creating when around us is destruction. Without hope, we find ourselves sinking into a mire of helplessness and with that comes a shadowy inertness that becomes stronger and darker each time it is fed. Caught in this helpless spiral I found myself sinking quickly, and seeking more fuel to feed this hopelessness. I stared at the blank screen on my computer and found nothing to say, stopped writing in my journal, forgot I had a new novel to write, a new story to tell, something that sought harmony through chaos and beauty through ugliness, something that just might help provide a little nudge towards making this world we have created into a better place. I forgot why I had written Flight, what gifts it had given me and a growing number of readers. In short, I forgot the power of hope.

'We do not inherit the earth from our parents, we borrow it from our children.' I read this anonymous quote many years ago and at the time it shifted something within me, helping me to see from a different perspective, one that is not so much 'me' centred but rather 'world' centred, a perspective that reveals a bigger picture and a sense of responsibility. When I read this again recently, I realised that with three children growing into an uncertain world, it is vital for me to keep the flame of hope burning. In fact, it is my responsibility.

'Enough,' I said to myself and set about making a few changes. Firstly, I made the decision not to watch the news for awhile, or anything else for that matter; no ruthless elimination shows, no violent dramas, no historical war documentaries and no flashy, inane celebrity shows. I went for a walk, then another, took up yoga again, made myself a vegetable juice – all the things I couldn't do when I was filled with hopelessness. Quickly I began feeling better. I looked at my journal again, went over what I had already written and once again began getting flashes of insights that I hoped would lead me back to my new novel. But all the time I kept wondering about this apocalypse business, wondering if it would be more useful to grow vegetables, put in a water tank, get off the grid, protect my children from the inevitable. . .

Frustrated, I looked up the word 'apocalypse' a term we associate with widespread destruction, with the end of the world as we know it. But in the definition I found something quite different. Apocalypse comes from the Greek word, apocalypsis, meaning a 'lifting of the veil' or 'revelation'. According to Wikipedia it means 'a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception'. Not an end then, far from it. Rather a time of change and a seeing through. A time perhaps when truth will be harder to hide. When humanity will look for different qualities in their leaders; integrity perhaps, compassion and honesty. Looking at it in this way, it is not an end but a possibility of a new beginning. With this definition in mind I can sit in front of my computer screen and find the words needed to create something new. Once again I have found hope and optimism and with it the possibility of action. And with that, the key to my new novel, Between Worlds.

Copyright (c) 2012 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/

Dr Dub at last!

'Knowledge is learning something new every day. Wisdom is letting go of something every day.'

Zen Proverb

It has taken six years, some of full-time study and some part-time, along with a few stops and starts and a transfer from one university to another, but finally I have completed my PhD. I've received my examiners reports (glowing), made the few minor amendments required from one examiner and submitted it once again. That's it. I'm done. The graduation ceremony isn't for six months but I'm not going to wait for that. Dr Dub it is! And I'm rightly proud of it.

So why undertake a PhD or an MA or any other course that involves writing? Firstly, there's the title – Dr Dub has quite a ring to it. However there are plenty of other reasons for doing a PhD, one of which is the potential for finding a well paid and secure job in a university, something which most writers only dream of. Another reason to study in this way is to find a space in which to write, with a framework and a discipline that is imposed from the outside in the form of supervisors and deadlines. This is why I did my MA in Writing a number of years ago in the UK. I began it when my first child was six months old and finished it two years later when my second child was six months old. I have little memory of those two years of sleepless nights, part time work in London, classes in Sheffield, morning sickness and deadlines. However, aside from a certificate bestowing me with the honour of an MA, what emerged from these two years was a novel. And that is another reason for doing study in this area – it's fruitful. You can't just start a project, stop it and start another. You have to see it through! In an educational institution there is also guidance and constructive criticism that helps us to find a way through the bleak patches. This guidance comes from the teachers but also from fellow students, all those other people who are mad enough to want to write. There's the potential for friendships too, based on common interests, feedback and support through all those difficult times when you want to give up and when the support is not coming from elsewhere.

Some people say that writing can't be taught, that these courses are simply fleecing students. I disagree. The art of writing can only be found through learning the craft and in many cases this needs to be taught. Quite a few years ago when I did my BA, I majored in creative writing and loved it. I made long lasting friendships and learned a lot of useful theory but the emphasis in the University I attended was on experimental writing and I found there was a subtle pressure to conform. I left with a BA and no idea how to construct a story or create convincing characters. It was only when I joined the MA program at Sheffield Hallam University, that I learned about technique, something which then allowed me to find my voice as a writer, identify the stories I had to tell and tell them with some measure of success.

For me the PhD was different than my previous courses because I didn't do it in order to learn how to write fiction. In fact, initially my interest in story and its inherent structure, led me to begin a purely theoretical PhD, called Story: Mapping the Journey to Self. I channelled my research into this, whilst trying to write a novel 'on the side'. However, what began as a simple desire to understand the structure, origins and purpose of story, became much more: an attempt to understand the essence of creativity, the dual functions of memory and imagination and the complex nature of truth. My interests grew and I struggled to keep within the confines of my initial plans for the thesis.

Work on my thesis was interrupted when my novel, Gathering Storm was accepted by Penguin and I began the process of editing. It was interrupted again during the excitement of publication. Then unexpectedly for a third time it was interrupted when I found my interest shifting to my new novel and realised that the research I had been doing for my thesis was reappearing in Flight. It felt like an alchemical process, as I unconsciously transmuted theory into fiction. Through story I was exploring themes such as: the power of words; the nature of story and its patterns; patterns of human behaviour; the journey of the soul, illustrated in Flight through shamanic initiation; the role of memory and imagination in creativity; and the legacy of memory, through personal experience, ancestral inheritance and through the repeating patterns of past lives.

Speaking publicly about Gathering Storm helped me to realise that my own writing was a cathartic process for me. I had been unconsciously weaving my memories, and the themes that were pertinent in my life, into fictional stories. The process of transformation I was exploring in my thesis was playing out, both in my fiction and in my life. I became intrigued by the process. Could I weave these ideas in without detracting from the story? Could I illustrate these ideas through the journey of the major characters rather than through exposition? To do this I had to digest the theory, rather than reiterate it, trusting instead that it would somehow transmute into fiction. When my interest in this process did not wane I realised that I was writing a different thesis and changed my theoretical PhD to a more practice led one.

So was it worth doing a PhD? Yes, very much so, and I'm pleased now that I worked with both fiction and theory, exploring the way in which the two work together. What I found most precious in doing my PhD was the space it provided me, in which to think, to discover my true interests and the direction I want to take my research in the future. What has emerged from this space is a novel and a supporting theoretical document that are both deeply enriched by my research, practical experience and personal reflection. From studying the work of others and fusing it with my own experience and ideas, I have been able to find that 'something new' which is the aim of the PhD. Instead of an end, this feels like a beginning, a passport to follow my interests and become a specialist in my field. Story!

Copyright (c) 2012 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/