Some time ago I dreamed about a bridge that enabled one to cross between two completely different environments. The sun shone brightly on one side, warm and radiant, while on the other side, mountains rose to great heights from a valley of soft, damp, eternal snow. Viewed another way, one side stretched out from the bridge in endless desert, desolate, unrelieved, hot; and the other stayed wet, cold, cheerless and depressing.
The bridge spanned a deep chasm, but the middle of the bridge held a strangeness that made one forget what one had just left. When one walked onto the bridge from the cloudy, snowy side, reached the midpoint and stepped through, it seemed one had always lived in sunshine, with not even one memory of snow. Conversely, when one set foot on the side of the bridge that led through the snowy valley into the mountains, one could not remember having lived in the desert, much less being born there.
From time to time I have returned to this dream, wondering what it meant, wondering how to interpret it. What would happen if one could stand in that midpoint of the bridge, for example, and see both sides? What would it mean to be able to do that? To see both sides? Would it mean seeing the past and the future? Would it mean seeing both the workable and the unworkable? Would it mean seeing what is instead of what was or what will be? What purpose does a bridge serve?
It spans something: A to B; one side to the other side; a river; a chasm; the unknown. The Unknown. That set me thinking. What if the bridge could span the depths of myself? What if one side represented the present, the other the past? What if that pesky midpoint, the very center of the bridge could be that place where one could see the hidden depths of oneself? What would that be like?
I have always loved the parables of Jesus and the fables of Aesop. What if I could explore my idea in a kind of parable/fable? What if I could actually glimpse the depths of myself?
As I grow older I am more and more aware of the simple fact that those who are much younger than me cannot have my experiences nor can I have theirs. Sometimes I worry that the simple pleasures of picnics and walks and long talks with friends about weighty subjects may only be things of my past and not their future. I worry that these brilliant, young people will gain marvelous technological skills, but they might just miss something important about being human.
So I have written a kind of parable, or maybe it is a quest story, or a fable in which Seeker looks for the depths of herself. Her search brings her to unexpected experiences, unexpected knowledge. The original quest becomes a story of personal magic, of relearning to love her creative, fearful, extraordinary, crazy, compassionate self. It speaks to remembering and honoring who she is: a Human Being with an Eternal Soul.
The Bridge is Emily Seate’s eleventh book. It is scheduled for release August 12, 2010 through Amazon.com or through her website. She is currently working on the fourth and final volume to her HeartMind Chronicles.