Yep ..it looks pretty good from where I am..well done.. worth the effort A....

E..

Thank you Nell and Ellie..

Glad you liked the web site. I have to admit that I gave the web stuff to younger son Robin (16 year old) to sort out for me.

I am hoping that he will teach me how it all works sooner or later.

If you, or anyone else, has any ideas for developments and things they would like me to add, please let me know.

Andrew )

Clever Robin - he's done a good job.

Chapter 4 The Prediction has now been up-loaded
here is a link to it...

http://www.writewords.org.uk/archive/1554.asp

This completes all the chapters from the Prologue through to Chapter 5.

(There are 27 chapters and an Epilogue in total in the completed novel)

Hope you enjoy it..

Andrew )

Some background information to Chapter 4

The Tarot card Hermes - he was the first magician, and his mother was Maia.

Maia makes magic, literally as the derivation of the words are linked. Maya is actually the Sanskrit term for illusion, an interplay of Substance and Energy. Hermes is also credited also with the invention of medicine, astrology, and letters.

Hermes had, as part of his duties, messenger to the gods. It was also his responsibility to bring souls of the dead to the underworld.

So Nell, perhaps you were right, this is where magic starts to happen.

Andrew )

There are many sites on the web which attempt to explain the symbolism of the Tarot. The Jungian symbolism of archetypes is one theme that runs through the Icera Stone.

Therefore, for those interested, from the site below I have copied below some of the text that relates to the theee major cards that Erica drew at the Tarot reading.

http://www.schuelers.com/chaos/chaos7.htm

Hermes
The Juggler or Magus. This is the Magician, the divine Messenger, Mercury, Hermes, and Thoth. The Marseilles deck shows a parlor magician going through a magic act of some kind with various `tools of the trade' on a table. This is the popular view of the magician -- one who does sleight of hand, and who employs gimmickery. The Waite and Golden Dawn decks are more sophisticated. They both show a magician in robes, with his four traditional weapons: a sword, a wand, a cup, and a pentacle. The Thoth deck shows him with a naked golden body, smiling, with winged feet standing in front of a large caduceus. In his right hand he hold a style and in his left hand, a papyrus. The card shows a monkey, swords, cup, wand, and pentacle. This card represents the will. The imagery portrays the archetype of the magician as described by Moore and Gillette (1993). It also suggests the archetype of the trickster.

The High Priestess.
This is usually the goddess Isis or Artemis, the huntress. The Marseilles deck shows the goddess Junon (Juno), wife of the god Jupiter and a peacock. The symbols here are lunar and suggest a lunar vision (for example, the intuition as opposed to common sense). In the Thoth deck, she is shown naked, clothed only in a white Veil of Light, and seated on a throne. Her bow rests in her lap. Also shown are arrows, four crystals, a net (symbolic of the Egyptian goddess, Neith), a camel, flowers, and fruit. This card represents the intuition and the imagery suggests the archetypes of the unconscious in a general sense and the anima in a specific sense. Nichols (1984) calls the symbolism in this card, the archetype of the virgin.

The Lovers
, or Twins, or Brothers. The Marseilles deck shows Cupid about to shoot one of his famous arrows into a young couple. All decks show a man and woman together, and the general theme is love. This card suggests the union of opposites, especially masculinity and femininity, anima and animus. Cupid is the symbol of romance, but one that is usually governed more by emotions than by rational thought. The Thoth deck shows the union of male/Leo/fire with female/Scorpio/water represented by a king and queen as well as a white child and a black child. The Hermit is shown blessing the couples. Cupid is shown symbolizing blind love. Also shown is a cup, a sword, an Orphic egg with snake, an eagle, a lion, Eve, and Lilith. Bars are shown in the background. This card represents what Jung called the soul. The imagery suggests the archetype of the lover (Moore & Gillette, 1990/1991).

A Synopsis Overview has been uploaded and can be found by opening the link below -


http://www.writewords.org.uk/groups/show_article.asp?group_id=80&article_id=1622

Please feel free to comment on it.

Allied to writing the synopsis - I have jotted down a few notes about some of the inspiration behind writing the Icera Stone as it may generate some discussion... or maybe not?

Inspiration to write the novel came by being struck by similarities in three different areas of science. Namely, the theories of the biologist Rupert Sheldrake, the ideas of theoretical physicist Roger Penrose, and the theoretical science behind the Quantum Computer, exemplified by David Deutsch.

Sheldrake’s theories suggests the possibility that one field of morphic resonance, could influence another and it stirred me to question how whether consciousness might influence the field pattern of a crystal, and also how that crystal could then be a vehicle for the transfer of consciousness over generations. My aim was not to dwell upon these ideas in detail, but to write a novel that took as its inspiration these converging philosophies. Hopefully the underlying ideas therefore become accessible to a wider audience.

Thus, the Icera Stone contains the ghost of the consciousness of Icera the Celtic Priestess.
How might that consciousness be triggered or retrieved? Perhaps, it could be initiated by the accidents of coincidence of names and words, of artefacts and places and of dates and time?

Names and words are important as they contain a magic, which can affect consciousness and capture the history of a place. For instance the Devil’s Cauldron may evoke the landing site of a meteor, the Portal Stone an entry to the Otherworld, and the Cerne Stone a Horned giant. Erica, Sarah and Icera contain in their names, hidden resonance, which is there for the reader to discover.

The natural crystal formation of the Icera Stone, the man made artefact of a brooch, and the vestige of a living thing the natural ammonite are artefacts and significant objects, which act as tangible links to the past

Also the larger objects in the environment contained at sacred sites, and within significant geological formations, the very landscape itself, all provide a vehicle for continuity of the subtle forces to be at work spanning time and be subject to the morphic resonance of nature.

Inspiration continued...

Perhaps decedents of Icera might be influenced through an inherited genetic memory? The latest notions in genetics tell us that in only a few hundred generations, we are all related to one woman. Therefore it might be easily possible for Erica to be directly related to a Celtic Priestess, especially if she and her ancestors grew up in an area in Dorset that has changed little in many centuries.

The significant date of May the first provides a time when these forces are celebrated and become stronger and connect.

Artifacts, places and words, all therefore provide a matrix within which ghosts in time are evoked. These ghosts are given the breath of life by the words, ideas, ceremonies, and rituals, which populate the landscape of Dorset. These ‘time ghosts’ are further given continuity to exist by the fabric of genetic memories, which like instincts may be sustained and passed on over generations. Erica recognizes all this intuitively, and even Chris comes to recognize it too.

Should such artifacts and landscape be threatened for whatever reason, whether it is by the medieval Church, or by exploitation for the material benefit of the modern community, then the continuity of these subtle forces, and transfer of energies and spirits from the past, are all put under threat.

A thread of the book postulates the coming together and eventual unification of two opposites; New Age thinking, exemplified by of the esoteric power of crystals, and the new science of nano-technology, exemplified by the almost equally esoteric power of the quantum computer.

This unity is made possible by Erica’s discovery of a single perfect crystal, in the form of the Icera Stone. A unity embodied by the dual symmetry of the geometry of the crystal. As such, it represents the unification of yin and yang, male and female, the intuitive instinct of Erica and the scientific logic of Doctor Chris Cronus.
In the process of this journey, Erica moves towards the logic and greater understanding of science of the left hand brain while Chris moves towards a fuller understanding of intuition and an appreciation of the nature and importance of the spiritual.

The geometrical form of the crystal also represents the four elements of earth, water, fire, and air, unified by the fifth element, human consciousness, or the spirit or love.


<Added>

nb should be Doctor Credus ... not Doctor Cronus (have changed his name)

Here is a single sentence summary of the novel...
not I'm not totally convinced whether this quite does it justice though.

The Icera Stone

The presence of the pagan past in the form of Icera, a Celtic priestess, is manifest through a mysterious crystal, discovered while walking in the ancient landscape of Dorset by forty-year-old wife and mother, Erica, which transforms her life and sets her free from her commonplace existence.

Andrew, sorry to be a pain but I really think that sentence would be better as two, it seems rather strained as one.

Chapter 6 - The Find has now be uploaded,

hope you enjoy it...

Here is a link to open a window to Chapter 6

http://www.writewords.org.uk/archive/1640.asp

<Added>

Nell - it well may be true that the single sentence would be better as two sentences - but the object of the exercise which I had been asked to do, was to encapture the essence of what it was about in only one sentence.

A question for any readers who have read the first few chapters -

In the Prologue - a fireball falls to earth.

Revealed in the Synopsis, is the fact that this meteor broke into two - one half to form the Portal and one half to form the Altar Stone.

I would like to ask those who have read the first few chapters (Prologue and 6 chapters uploaded to date) whether anyone already worked out that this was the case and whether they also guessed that contained within the geode meteorite was - the Icera Stone?

If you say you hadn't worked that out - that is fine... if you think that was so obvious from the start equally well, it would be good to know.

Thanks - Andrew

So no reader predicted that it was inside the meteor, which fell to earth 1000BC on the Hendas People - was where the Icera Stoneorginated -

or did it?

You'll have to read the book to find out.

Andrew )

For some unexplained reason, from 18 September 2003, the Icera Stone Forum no longer appears in the General Forums list, and is at present only accessible via 'the Introduce Your Own Work' Forums list, making this Forum presently a touch more exclusive.

Hope you can still find it ok.

Andrew )

<Added>

Strangely, this supernatural phenomenon occured the very hour when this forum gained the most hits of all the forums... weird or what? But a big thanks to everybody for visiting these Forum pages over the last few months even though you don't say very much when you come - it proves someone is reading the stuff and I hope you keep visiting.