OUT OF PLATO’S CAVE: A Dream Journey
A large work now in completed draft form. Here’s the full working title: “Out of Plato’s Cave: A Dream Journey of Science, Philosophy, and Spirit, Featuring Crashes of Memoir, Dashes of Song and Rhyme, Florid Stagings of Drama, Wise Birds, Hungry Beasts, and a Garnish of Rebellious Footnotery”.
When we see science and religion as not only compatible but in total harmony together, we sense adventure. This book, now in editing, is the result. A celebration of science and spirituality, it tells the inner travels of Will and his trickster companion Jeddin as they fly and fall over a bottomless abyss, fleeing disaster, hearing glorious birdsong, bending every hope toward the teeming stars ahead of them.
Start with a thread of sudden death. Weave in skeins of Douglas Hofstadter’s “Gödel, Escher, Bach”, Guy Murchie’s “The Seven Mysteries of Life”, Robert Pirsig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”, George Gamow’s One Two Three … Infinity”, and Faríd ud-Din Attar’s “The Conference of the Birds”. It’s got limericks, jingles, and performance pieces. Ups, downs, ins, outs, forwards, backwards, inside outs. Tragedy. Comedy. From the shroud of death to the wings of life.
This book is a story, an entertainment, a fantasy, a journey. In stories we find layers and wonders that reach far and deep into the secret ways of our minds and spirits. We read stories, and we find worlds. We find life. We find understanding. We find love. We find hope.
The Writings of the great faiths are quoted here in profusion, presented as the most glorious of birdsong. We don’t understand birdsong, even though we think we do. But our spirits gather it in, and it changes us. As with birdsong, so with the Writings.
For my many shortcomings in taking this wandering path, may God and readers forgive me.
