Where Stillness Speaks

Margaret C. Price

Description

WHERE STILLNESS SPEAKS, Inspired by original Shaker journals
By Margaret C. Price
Experiencing a mystical flight through time to a Shaker utopia (Civil War, 1863), an investigative journalist discovers a secret that frees her from demons of her past, empowering her to speak her truth in WHERE STILLNESS SPEAKS, historical fiction. The novel unfolds a woman’s transformational healing journey in two different time periods. Present day at the authentically restored Shaker village of Pleasant Hill, and the Past, a short time after the horrific battle of Perryville. WHERE STILLNESS SPEAKS is a love story played out against the backdrop of a Shaker utopia. It is a utopia of time-travel, of places where the skin between the worlds is thin, a place apart from modern day chaos and violence. The core values of the Shaker utopia (respect for the earth, pacifism, racial and sexual equality, belief in a spirit world) resonate still today. The novel invites the reader to Pleasant Hill where Trappist monk Thomas Merton wandered among the abandoned buildings and “listened to the Silence” while sitting on a chair made by someone “perfectly capable of believing an Angel could come and sit down on it.”

Sujets

• Time Travel
• Historical
• Mysticism
• Shake
• Love Story
• Sheikh Abdullah Ahmad
• Mystical
• Novel
• Pleasant Hill
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: AuthorHouse
• Date de parution: 17 février 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781665576635
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

Where Stillness Speaks
MARGARET C. PRICE


AuthorHouse™
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Bloomington, IN 47403
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© 2022 Margaret C. Price. All rights reserved.
 
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
 
Published by AuthorHouse 02/16/2023
 
ISBN: 978-1-6655-7664-2 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6655-7665-9 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6655-7663-5 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022921829
 
 
 
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
Contents
Introduction
 
Chapter 1 Of Cowgirls & Dream-Catchers
Chapter 2 The Broken Toy
Chapter 3 Hamlet Before Breakfast
Chapter 4 One Small Star
Chapter 5 Taking Flight
Chapter 6 Of Rainbow, Sprinkles and Dreamsicles
Chapter 7 Ironing wrinkles
Chapter 8 Of Sheep
Chapter 9 Pleasant Hill
Chapter 10 Of Brown Sugar Bubbling
Chapter 11 Of Lavender and Pumpkin seeds
Chapter 12 An Unexpected Visitor
Chapter 13 The Meeting House
Chapter 14 The Old Stone Shop, circa 1811, Haunted
Chapter 15 Awakening
Chapter 16 Of Hawthorns
Chapter 17 The Tanyards 1824
Chapter 18 Imprisoned Splendor
Chapter 19 Le Cherche Midi (“The Stolen Moment”)
Chapter 20 Of Sage and Nutmeg
Chapter 21 A golden Lion
Chapter 22 A Chalk-dust Drawing
Chapter 23 Of Cranes and Planes
Chapter 24 The Angel’s Chair
Chapter 25 Running Away…Again
Chapter 26 Back-firing
Chapter 27 Turning and Turning…Till We Come Round Right
Chapter 28 Free-Falling
Chapter 29 Tennebrae
Chapter 30 A portal appears
Chapter 31 Megowan’s Fancy Girls
Chapter 32 Dancing on Air and pearls
Chapter 33 Drummer Boy’s Ghost
Chapter 34 A Walnut Boat with a Dandelion Mast
Chapter 35 A Kindred Rock Skipper
Chapter 36 The Rock-Skipper’s Name Is Theodopolous
Chapter 37 An Attempted Murder
Chapter 38 Of Cinnamon and Cloves
Chapter 39 A Presence Of Joy
Chapter 40 Luminous Webs
Chapter 41 The Shadow of War
Chapter 42 Returning to the River
Chapter 43 A Voiceless Void
Chapter 44 Gifts from The River
Chapter 45 “Dost ever thou think”
Chapter 46 The Slave Hold
Chapter 47 Sweet Valdalia
Chapter 48 The Shadow-Box
Chapter 49 Orphans
Chapter 50 Healing
Chapter 51 Higher Vibration of Love
Chapter 52 Spectacles, Lost
Chapter 53 Dancing on The Holy Plain
Chapter 54 Spirit Animals in the Stars
Chapter 55 A Mirror of Light
Chapter 56 Sage Words
Chapter 57 Of Sugar Cane and Pumpkins
Chapter 58 A Stranger and His Ghost Dog
Chapter 59 The Drummer Boy
Chapter 60 A Good Man’s Conscience and Confession
Chapter 61 Of Trunks and Master Keys
Chapter 62 Remembering
Chapter 63 Awakening to Now
Chapter 64 An Inner-Compass
Dedication
To my daughters, Meredith, Julie and Katie, my sunflowers, always turning towards the Light.

Shaker Journal
December 25, 1863
The morning was unusually bright. We gathered outside the Trustee Building and formed two lines. Marching in place, we then turned and proceeded west towards the Plain. Its exact location has been kept secret until this morning. We arrived in a short time. The Sinai Plain is laid out between two fir trees with a rectangular shaped poole between. One of the Brethren passed out spiritual spectacles and we saw winged beings also gathered on the Plain, handing out gifts.
It was on this particular day, Christmas 1863, that God herself appeared.


Children’s Order
Introduction
In September of 1976, I returned to Kentucky to accept a job far different from my childhood dream of wearing cowgirl boots and riding wild mustangs out West. As Director of the Kentucky Bicentennial Oral History Project, I worked under the guidance of giants in the fields of history and journalism. My mentors were scholars like Dr. Thomas Clark, Al Smith, John Ed Pearce (to name only a few). Inspired by their leadership, I had the privilege and honor to eavesdrop on and capture moments from Kentucky’s Past.
And so - on the kind of September morning when I remember why I love the coming of autumn in Kentucky with its mischievous winds and magnificent display of color – I turned off the main road to Shakertown and took a back-road, past Burgin, to the home of Abe Doneghi. His house stood back from a dirt drive. Abe was waiting for me on the kind of porch a child might draw as a colorful finger-painting. Slightly tilted, but sturdy. Abe, tall, soft-spoken with eyes sizzling with secrets, offered his hand, welcoming me as if we were old friends. And for the next few hours, over a cup of eye-popping coffee, I listened as Abe spun stories. Not ordinary stories but the kind of gritty, hard-hitting, down to earth tales that pulse with electricity; the kind that come straight from the soul and draw you in like a yoyo swinging slowly and then hold your heart, your mind – your very spirit imprisoned in the Truth and Wisdom of the secrets revealed.
Abe talked about his great grandfather, Theodopolous, who had lived to be almost one hundred~ (Abe was getting close.) The Shakers bought Theodopolous at a Slave Auction. And then they set him free. Theodopolous spent the rest of his life working at Pleasant Hill as a blacksmith.
Somewhere in the midst of Abe’s great grandfather’s story, I fell under the spell of the Shakers. It was not just their mystical ways – not simply their enormous kindness or belief that all are equal, or their deep respect for the earth, what caught my “soul’s breath” was the presence of these people (quiet, humble) in history as Believers. They left a legacy affirming the power of belief in things unseen – Angels and spirit guides, a Divine force of love.
Intrigued by Abe’s story, I made my way to the restored Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill. Change had come since I first traveled the old Lexington Road to Shakertown as a child. Of the three-hundred and fifty or so original structures, nearly fifty had been restored under the professional eye of James Cogar (who had also been responsible for the restoration of Williamsburg). And Shaker guides, in costume, waited to greet visitors to the authentically restored Shaker village.
Over lunch in the Trustee Building, Pleasant Hill’s director, Jim Thomas, offered some guidance which I have never forgotten. He said, in his calm genteel manner, that if I was inspired to write about the Shakers, then he would suggest that I focus on their belief in the Spirit World – in things unseen. I remember looking across the table, taking in the wisdom being offered and catching a glimpse of sunlight falling across a bowl of lemons, in the shadow of a stairway. And in that moment, I felt a presence of something felt but unseen. And so I decided to follow his advice.
Later, in an abandoned Preserve Shop, I found original Shaker journals. Waiting on dust-laden shelves, the journals spoke of preserving peaches, apples and blackberries but in one journal, with a rose pasted on the cover, writing curved along the edges. This belonged to those the Shakers called The Inspired – those who could communicate with the Spirit World.
Not far from the Preserve Shop, I wandered into the Old Stone Shop where I discovered a love poem “carved” in a second floor windowsill. From housekeepers, I heard of a Shaker sister who had hung herself – perhaps she was expecting a baby. In time, I came across a gravestone of a soldier wounded in the Battle of Perryville. Slowly, the voices of those who had once occupied these now silent buildings began to speak. A story began to take shape. As I wandered along the Shaker paths, I came to the stunning realization that there was much more to the Shakers - to this utopia – than was visible to the eye. Here was a story waiting just beyond the journals, the buildings, waiting on the very edge of Belief.
Fascinated by the journals and the mysterious Inspired – I became in a sense the last Winter Shaker. I ate the delicious Shaker tomato soup and savored the fresh greens from the garden. I read the journals and walked the paths, climbed the double-helix stairways and gazed at the ruins of a grist mill. I followed a worn cow’s path to The Tanyards and became curious about the hidden location of the Shakers’ mystical (and once lost) Holy Sinai Plain. (Where God herself appeared on Christmas day, 1863.) I entered a place both sacred and mystical. And I allowed myself to be held by a deep quiet. The kind of Quiet that holds space for the presence of something unseen. Angels, perhaps. Or the energy resonating from the whirling, praying, singing, ecstatic dancing of those Shakers whose presence has left behind not simply footsteps in the grass, but a higher frequency – an energy that raises the vibration to a oneness with all things. Oneness with the Divine.
A year later, I emerged with a screenplay, WINTER SHAKER, which attracted a film producer (Kathi Berlin with actress Marlo Thomas’ Production Company). I am grateful to Kathi for encouraging me to draw on my vast research to tell this story not only as a screenplay but also as a novel.