Anaïs Nin (1903-1977), acclaimed American author, said this:
"You are in charge of how you react to the people and events in your life. You can either give negativity power over your life or you can choose happiness instead. Take control and choose to focus on what is important in your life. Those who cannot live fully often become destroyers of life."
My life has been lived with Ms. Nin's philosophy close to my heart. Who says "you can't" destroys -- destroys dreams, destroys innovation, destroys lives. Who takes control and focuses on dreams and goals, lives fully. I choose to live fully.
Many years have passed in bringing Dance of the Hummingbirds to life. It is a saga that merges my passions for history, archaeology, and the capacity of the human mind. During the conception, development, and now birth of Dance I have become fascinated with how people lived in the Americas and in Scandinavia 1000 years ago. Time and again I asked the question, "did they meet?" We don't have the evidence yet, but I believe people have been hopping the globe for many millennia. We now know they did indeed meet on the shores of Newfoundland, but what about in the interior of the continent. Humans after all have been great explorers since they ventured forth from Africa some 40,000 years ago.
"Hummingbirds?" you ask. What is the significance of the Hummingbirds? The short answer: During my writing journey when I could no longer peck another key, or force another idea out of my noggin, I sat on my porch and watched the "hummer hawks" (so called by some Native American peoples). I watched them nest, and play, and spiral up into the air forming the image of the DNA helix. From those aerial displays came the dance. And on our DNA is the ancestral memory that we carry from our past and into the future. The novel will explain the rest of the story..
I will continue to explore these ideas and invite you to share the journey via this Blog, articles about hummingbirds, vikings, archaeology and such will fill the white spaces. The spaces will also be filled with poetry, to which you may wish to contribute, and I welcome your participation.
Another day I will write about a dialogue between my Dad and me. It surrounds an old theory: Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny. Ernst Haekel's idea may just rise from the pile of the debunked and the heckled. I'm sure Dad would be pleased.
For now, live fully. And if you choose -- dance.