How the story of "The Three Feathers" began

Hi everyone,
Joshua asked me (as he has done since I met him) to write down some things. This time its the story of how the writing of "The Three Feathers" came about. It will be interesting to see this process from Joshua's point of view as I am certain it will be completely different from my own. But that for a later time. Right now let me tell you how "The Three Feathers" came about - on this side of the galaxy and in the 21st century, earth time.


It all began with my colleague Diane telling me about her friend Joyce who had computer problems. I seem to have pretty good 'computer karma' and Diane thought I could make some extra money by setting up her friend's computer at her home. When I was at Joyce's house (she is an excellent Astrologer as I found out) and sitting in front of her computer trying to figure out how to connect the printer wirelessly, she asked me my birth date and time. I gave it to her and for the next two hours, while I was trying to set up her computer, she told me all about where my sun is and in which house I was born in and the whole problem with Gemini... To be honest (sorry Joyce, you know I love you) I didn't contain much of what she said. Except for two things. First, she told me I should go back to therapy. And secondly, that I needed to stop editing myself. Interestingly enough I had been thinking about going back to Julie, my therapist, for a couple of weeks now. I had been going to her for several years and she had been extremely helpful through some rough patches. The next day, I called her and we made an appointment.


We usually do either table work which is a combination of energy work and visual journeys into my body, or what's called 'sand box work'. Julie asked me if I wanted to do the sand box that day and we did. Here is how this works: Julie has a sand box on one side of her room. Behind it is a whole wall filled with shelves on which you can find pretty much anything you need, in order to--yes--play in the sand. Small figurines, action figures, or items like little palm trees, dragons, motor cycles, cowboys, dogs, helicopters, stones, rocks, pieces of wood, train cars, etc. I would then usually randomly pick out some of the items, the task being not to think about which ones to take. So, that day, one by one I took my items from the shelf and placed them into the sand box. Here and there I pushed the sand to one side, again without much thought of anything. Once I was done, we looked at it together and as we always do, Julie asked me what I saw. It usually makes sense while I look at the landscape as to which of the figurines I am, what's going on in the box and therefore in my life at that moment, etc.


Not this time. I had no clue what I was looking at. There was a rooster, red and orange colored; there was a wolf, a large horse, a Pegasus, a frog, a dragon and three feathers on the left left side kind of stuck into the sand. That was all. I told Julie that I had no idea what it meant, what it was or what to make of it. All I said was that it sure looks like it would make a nice little fable: The rooster sets out on a journey. On his way, he picks up friends like the wolf and the horse. Then they encounter a Pegasus and a dragon. There is a frog in there somewhere. And in the end they find the three feathers. So far so good.


I left Julie, not disappointed but feeling kind of neutral with the sense that nothing really had happened in there. Sometimes a session stays with me for days. Not this one. I forgot all about it for a while. Then one morning I thought I'd better write it down before I forget. It was more out of habit as I usually write down what happens during the sessions. So I began with, "Once upon a time there was a rooster who lived on a farm on the Eastern shore..." Four chapters later I stopped. I couldn't believe the force with which the story made itself known to me. I truly felt like a scribe more than anything. None of it came from my conscious mind. It was as if I for myself discovered what had happened, like an archaeologist finding an ancient city under the dessert sand. It was there. Complete and ready to come through. My duty was only in faithfully writing it all down. There was but a minuscule and insignificant amount of thinking about plot, characters and the story itself on my part.


There will be another blog entry about the actual writing of it but let me take this opportunity to thank two more people at this point. First, Hans-Werner Sahm, a German painter whose images haunted me since I was in my early twenties. His images contributed a large amount to the locations of the story. His paintings gave me, and all of us, a glimpse into how Hollow's Gate might look like. Its astounding beauty and its law-of-nature defying landscapes opened Joshua's world to me--and many more beyond this one. Secondly, I would like to thank Sheila Wright for her painting of the lioness. It is so mesmerizing that I could not take my eyes of it for the longest time. She made me realize what Joshua's story is all about and that moment was so powerful and beautiful that I can't even describe it now. I hope while reading the story you get a glimpse of the lioness within yourself. If that is the case I have done my job as a scribe.


Cheers,


Stefan Bolz