The Harvest of Young Minds
Ralf Penderak
fine, though I believe it would be better reading it first, for a
richer understanding and deeper immersion into Novatierre and its
history.
I still didn't wholly understand Novatierre as a metaphor, if that is
all it is. One thing I am sure, and you say it, Dreamdeer, the
transfer to Novatierre is related to your growing up and entering the
world of adults.
But also the need for the transfer into a new world shows that (you
see) the common ways of adult life have failed, and made Earth a place
where one can no longer live and thrive.
Also this "New Earth" isn't just a paradise, it is no copy of "Old
Earth" and this is a very special subject elaborated in "The Harvest
of Young Minds" Humans have to get used to it, and especially the
chapter "Noche de los Muertos" shows something entirely new emerges
from humans interacting with Novatierre's planetary mind.
Then also Novatierre isn't merely a creation of your conscious mind,
but as you point out, your brother also dreamed of characters and
settings, so to me it appears this dreaming around Til happened and
happens inside more than one brain (if there is a need to limit psyche
to brain, anyway). Like you sometimes write, Dreamdeer, the story
feels larger than a single mind, larger than you. And in "The Harvest
of Young Minds" I sense a much deeper and wider world, existing all on
its own, and your dreams and story are like dipping into it, fragments
of a whole.
This openness and wide horizon of a world reminds me of "The Lord of
Rings", but Novatierre is different to Middleearth, its inhabitants
are modern, and more than that, they are more alive - and I'm not
surprised, because you have been them in your dreams.
Rob Roy kind of reminds me of Merrill (in "The Poison Gamble"). A
typical and repeating topic is they are all neglected, sometimes
abandoned but highly intelligent children. Whereas their intelligence
and abilities were not appreciated in their families. I suppose this
relates to your own childhood, but like so often, I find it easy to
identify with these children, because I did feel that way or similar
(and I wonder who did not?) and that makes your stories larger than
personal, again.
I was most touched by the chapter "Noche de los Muertos" for the
emotional intensity, but also for the transformation happening in the
children's minds and bodies, but it came over them like an earthquake,
and so we mourn for the victims, also. The Til world is also where we
humans more clearly become what we can be, traits and abilities
exaggerated, but also transformed to something entirely new, or just
useful in a new context. Not every transformation is without
sacrifice, as "The Poison Gamble" again shows. And maybe not even our
highest ambitions are without shadow, and that appears to be a main
topic in "The Outlaw God" I'm currently reading.
The seed moments are to be found in "The Harvest of Young Minds", that
is why I recommend reading first. Hoping to dip into the Til world
again, soon, but now I have to leave for nursing work!
Enjoy your holidays, everybody, and may your next year be filled with
magic, love and wonder!
Ralf
Dolores J. Nurss
> I read "The Harvest of Young Minds" after "The Poison Gamble", and its
> fine, though I believe it would be better reading it first, for a
> richer understanding and deeper immersion into Novatierre and its
> history.
Now you know how I feel! I don't get these dreams in order. I have a
filing cabinet full of folders with different years or periods of time
on them, and I stick the dream-notes into my best guess as to where they
belong, sometimes having to revise this as new dreams reveal new things,
and sometimes it will take years before I get a dream that finally makes
sense of the ones that have gone before. When I get enough dreams in a
single setting/time/period/character-cast I write about that story.
Right now I'm working on writing "In the Mountains of Fire" about
Deirdre's mission to The Charadoc, but I've realized now, late into it
that it would have suited readers better to read about her earlier
mission with others in her Friendclan, in Duerlongh (not yet titled) and
also that parts of it will not entirely make sense until I write about
Jake and Randy's simultaneous mission in Toulin (to be titled "A Snag in
a Mothhole" because Deirdre does experience impact from injury to Jake's
link with her--but she doesn't herself understand what happened. And
that is only my latest dilemma!
> I still didn't wholly understand Novatierre as a metaphor, if that is
> all it is.
I don't take it as only one metaphor, or as only metaphor. But on the
metaphorical level, I do believe that we are all like planets, in our
souls. We have our deserts within, and our lush rainforests, we have
our oceans and our peaks and our fertile valleys and our toxic
wastelands, our gold mines and our glaciers, our fresh, running streams
and our murky bogs. And we have our weathers--our calms and storms, our
flashes of lightning, our earthquakes, our gentle rains and soft
breezes, our hurricane gales.
On a literary level, being an animist in philosophy, I treat places as
characters in their own right. Novatierre lives, even as Earth lives.
And every part of either planet has his or her own character.
> One thing I am sure, and you say it, Dreamdeer, the
> transfer to Novatierre is related to your growing up and entering the
> world of adults.
> But also the need for the transfer into a new world shows that (you
> see) the common ways of adult life have failed, and made Earth a place
> where one can no longer live and thrive.
Thank you--I hadn't thought of that! But yes, this fits, very much. On
the most surface level, I was a very unpopular child until I decided
(big breaking taboo, here!) to ignore everything my Grandmother taught
me about socializing and follow my own instincts. When I finally
learned about Jung, I realized that she is an introvert and I might as
well have gone to an architect for medical advice, or asked a doctor how
to build a house.
But on the larger level, the world created by those before me has
reached such a pitch of dysfunction that it needs a complete overhaul.
My brother and I weren't even school aged when we first started worrying
about the collapse of civilization--right in the middle of the booming
50's! We used to do things like plant fruit seeds and beans wherever
water naturally accumulated, so that we could come back there to eat
when civilization fell (being kids, we pictured it all happening at
once.) Older people assumed that we developed this obsession due to the
disintegration of our first family, but it seemed harmless enough, so
they let us be. And yet now I see civilization as we'd known it
starting to crack and crumble, and in order for humanity to move on, we
shall have to drastically revamp all kinds of things, in essence make a
whole new concept of civilization.
And I don't feel at all frightened, I feel ready. I feel that I've
spent my whole life planting seeds for a new and better civilization in
every fertile heart that I have come across. I wonder how many others
like me are out there, prepared by dreams to do this, so that humanity
won't have to start from scratch, there already exist numerous young
people who will reach maturity (or already have) ready to create a whole
new world, because a generation before has prepared them for it.
> Also this "New Earth" isn't just a paradise, it is no copy of "Old
> Earth" and this is a very special subject elaborated in "The Harvest
> of Young Minds" Humans have to get used to it, and especially the
> chapter "Noche de los Muertos" shows something entirely new emerges
> from humans interacting with Novatierre's planetary mind.
I once dreamed of twins separated at birth--not in geography, but split
into two parallel worlds. One was raised loved and healthy, and grew up
lean, tanned, muscular, confident, well-cared for and beautiful and as
strong in spirit as she was in body. Everywhere she went she felt loved
and cherished; she gave loyalty and got it back in return. The other
grew up neglected, fed on junk food and otherwise ignored, and she
looked fat, pale, and pimply, and did not wash her hair often enough.
She grew up bitter, surly, she drank too much and indulged in drugs, and
treated herself with no self-respect. She threw herself at men and had
a reputation as a slut, yet all the men left too soon, and she expected
this, because she was, as she saw herself, ugly. And yet these two
women were genetically identical! And I dreamed from both of their
viewpoints, simultaneously.
>
> Then also Novatierre isn't merely a creation of your conscious mind,
> but as you point out, your brother also dreamed of characters and
> settings, so to me it appears this dreaming around Til happened and
> happens inside more than one brain (if there is a need to limit psyche
> to brain, anyway). Like you sometimes write, Dreamdeer, the story
> feels larger than a single mind, larger than you. And in "The Harvest
> of Young Minds" I sense a much deeper and wider world, existing all on
> its own, and your dreams and story are like dipping into it, fragments
> of a whole.
He is not the only one to dream in Novatierre. What surprises me is
when people dream of things I never told them about, sometimes even
whole nations and cultures that I have independently recorded yet not
told them about.
> This openness and wide horizon of a world reminds me of "The Lord of
> Rings", but Novatierre is different to Middleearth, its inhabitants
> are modern, and more than that, they are more alive - and I'm not
> surprised, because you have been them in your dreams.
Tolkien actually dreamed in Middle Earth, himself. And he repeatedly
said that he felt that he didn't so much invent Middle Earth as discover
it, that it felt exquisitely real to him. Even the name he gave it is
an old term for this reality, here--a fact which, as a philologist, he
knew well. But this worried him. He said that it was "not good for"
him to "play the game" of treating Middle Earth as a real place, which
his fans encouraged in him, and which he got swept into time and again.
His experience differed so much from conventional for an Oxford Don of
his generation that at times he worried for his own sanity.
Speaking of worrying about one's own sanity, when I was writing my
Middle Earth fanfic I would sometimes dream about Tolkien advising me on
this or that. Stranger still, I often dreamed about elves, including
Elrond, and also Gandalf, and Bilbo advising me, and telling me that
they advised Tolkien before me. Sometimes they would even say, "This
happened, but you'll have to change it to that, for literary purposes,
and because that way the story better fits somebody who will need to
read it."
Anyway, thanks for feeling the life of these tales! I hoped that would
come across. They live very much for me, but I worry about whether I
have sufficient talent to capture that.
> Rob Roy kind of reminds me of Merrill (in "The Poison Gamble"). A
> typical and repeating topic is they are all neglected, sometimes
> abandoned but highly intelligent children. Whereas their intelligence
> and abilities were not appreciated in their families. I suppose this
> relates to your own childhood, but like so often, I find it easy to
> identify with these children, because I did feel that way or similar
> (and I wonder who did not?) and that makes your stories larger than
> personal, again.
Ever see a picture where, if you look at the black space as background,
you see a white goblet, but if you look at the black space as
silhouettes against a white background, you see two profiles facing each
other? I can well see how my background could generate stories about
intelligent children from stressed or dysfunctional families. But I can
also reverse how I look at this and see how some muse would seek out
someone from my background to tell this story.
> I was most touched by the chapter "Noche de los Muertos" for the
> emotional intensity, but also for the transformation happening in the
> children's minds and bodies, but it came over them like an earthquake,
> and so we mourn for the victims, also.
Again, thinking on multiple levels, I can see this playing out in the
world right now. And if we take this dream wholly on the psychological
level alone, why shouldn't my dreams reflect the dramas of the world?
I'm part of this world.
> The Til world is also where we
> humans more clearly become what we can be, traits and abilities
> exaggerated, but also transformed to something entirely new, or just
> useful in a new context. Not every transformation is without
> sacrifice, as "The Poison Gamble" again shows.
Something to ponder. Thank you.
> And maybe not even our
> highest ambitions are without shadow, and that appears to be a main
> topic in "The Outlaw God" I'm currently reading.
So much of our folklore, religion, philosophy, etc., deals with human
imperfection. I dreamed once of a fairy man telling me, "You know what
the problem is with human beings? You all think it's a deep, dark
secret that you're not perfect! And you warp everything around trying
to keep this secret."
> The seed moments are to be found in "The Harvest of Young Minds", that
> is why I recommend reading first. Hoping to dip into the Til world
> again, soon, but now I have to leave for nursing work!
I'll keep that in mind. Thanks!
> Enjoy your holidays, everybody, and may your next year be filled with
> magic, love and wonder!
Same to you, Ralf! And somehow I think the new year will fill up with
everything you say.
--
Life is beautiful and dangerous--beware! Enjoy!
For those following my writing, I have most recently
posted "The Sorrows of Children", Chapter 5 of
"The Outlaw God", Vol III: "Skirmishes of Souls",
plus dream-notes.