The Legacy of Stone Church

The Legacy of Stone Church 

By Robert Carlson

This story written by Robert Carlson takes place in the late 1960s during the times of great social and political upheavals. The protagonist, Kayle, a young woman of mysterious origin washes up at the boat dock of Stone Church Commune located somewhere on the Mid-Atlantic of the US.

She is introduced to the people who have formed a diverse family who live in the Big House and other buildings of what they call the farm. A constant stream of young men and women find their way to the farm on their way to and from their pilgrimage to try to see the Boy Perfect Spiritual Master in New York City. They come and go not intending to stay, while a few find their new home at the ruins of Stone Church.

The church is a burned out relic of some conflagration many decades earlier. Kayle has disturbing dreams about a different Big House possible located in the area but not known to any of the Townies who harbor resentment and fear about the people who live "down the road."

Family relationships and romantic connections build and disburse as Kayle uncovers a horror from the last century which threatens to rise up once again consuming families and cultures. Rose Lynn is the anchor who makes the place run. Charlene is the one who is the mother to all. Deacon is the here-and-gone again free-spirit who pops into and out of Kayle's life. Johnny is the man who can pull together the two worlds which have clashed again and again through out the age. Saul is the boy who is mature beyond his years. A dozen other memorable characters populate this mystery paranormal tragedy and final Reconstruction.

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This story is published in three parts. This first volume is the story of the creation and life of Stone Church commune and the pains that gave it its life.

The second story is the Aftermath of a calamity which so closely paralleled one of an earlier century.

The third story is the Reconstruction of the Commune at Stone Church.

The The Legacy of Stone Church is available as of January 2, 2017 at Amazon.

Books 2 and 3 are scheduled for the Summer of 2017.

If you enjoy this story, tell your friends and consider writing a review on my Author Page at Amazon.

The following vignette is from the night Kayle meets Johnny in the encampment around the old stone arch bridge:

"Meal time passed into an evening of festivities. A lone harmonica began a tune that started with a slow drawn note. Then from across the campsite, a rosined bow drawn across the strings of a fiddle sung out in response to the call of the harmonica. Its hollow wood scented voice was harmonized by the breathy reed sigh of an accordion. Next a whole host of musicians added their parts to the air of music that flooded the valley beneath the bridge. The high pitch of finger cymbals clinked and tinged to accentuate the rhythms kept regular by the fingers and palms of expert drummers on the goat skins stretched tightly over hollow wooden tubes. The singularity of the music diverged into several regional tunes that emanated from the periphery and molded into a profusion of sounds and rhythms." 

...and this passage from the final book...

"Kayle spent a lot of time wondering around the farm, walking the paths that remained indelible in the earth and thinking about how all the events swirled together and made one giant cause and effect chain of events. It was so peculiar to her that events of a hundred years earlier could sleep undisturbed only to awaken to wreak such havoc in her time. There did not seem to be any boundary that could contain the effects of a tragedy and keep it from rising up again and again to despoil the present. She wondered how the actions taken in the present would affect the long term health of the world and her little piece of it."

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Also see modalchoice.com/LegacyofStoneChurch.htm

How We Form Reality in Our Heads

How We Form Reality in Our Heads

In order for we puny humans to be able to concentrate on any part of the universe, we need to limit the amount of sensory inputs we are able to perceive. To facilitate that limitations our minds (consciousness) is wrapped in an electrical system which gives us only a small amount of all possible information.

Our bodies necessarily limit us to only a single point of view of the world around us at a time. In a similar manner we are limited to a single moment in the progression of moments we see as time. We are also constrained in the frequency range of mechanical vibrations we can hear and the spectrum of light our eyes can see.

Sketch One

In the first sketch the reality of the tree can be seen from every possible angle at the same moment. Each of us can only see the one reality of the tree from the position we stand. All the other realities go forever unseen. They nonetheless existed and continue to exist, but unseen. This can be demonstrated by having another person stand at any other position and call out to you that they can see the tree and describe it to you.

If the tree was spray painted blue on the far side, they would claim it was a blue tree while you continue to swear it is green as always.

After the two of you walk away from the tree you will always hold your own opinion of the nature of the tree. Everyone else who ever visits the tree will likewise have the differing opinion depending on which side they stood at. 

Sketch two

The passage of time is also expressed in the single moment you are ever able to see at one time. A bird flying to the tree, roosting there for some interval and flying away will only be discernible as a fluid progression through the air to and from the tree. time lapse multiple exposures can depict what one might see if successive moments could all be observed simultaneously. The impressions would be highly chaotic.

The tree has a full life-cycle which is stretched out into years. It rises out of the soil as a seedling, to become a sapling then a fully grown tree only to be felled some day by ax, wind, flood, or decay. We can come back occasionally to see the changes but not ever see the multitude of appearances all at once. That would be part of that chaotic experience which psychotic people might be experiencing in their mental illness.

The physical processes by which we see the reality we see involves receiving a small number of photons on our retinas as two dime-sized areas upside-down. The two images are fused together to appear 3D and are projected out into the world outside our heads. Imagine THAT. In order to see movement two successive images are fused together so that we see one image moving. This means there must be some sort of storage buffer to hold the previous image. A lot of processing is going on for our sensory abilities to be. We are not able to see anything unless photons reflect off of it.

We also know that a lot of post processing is going on in order for us to see what we see ant not see what we don't see.  For example we don't see the red blood cell that are floating around in our field of vision. We don't see the two holes in our retinas where the optic nerve passes through and back to our brains. Actually, there are no retina cells to see the color YELLOW but we see it nonetheless. 

In our dreams we see objects without the benefit of light or eyes.

All of the reality we see is only a field of light waves interacting with each other until some tiny portion reaches a retina and a sentient brain where it is converted something we perceive as tangible and "real." There is no image until it is seen. the image making process requires an aperture through which the light waves pass and are highly filtered to limit the light to only that portion which arrive from the same direction. In Sketch One thee is only one image of the tree and it the one You see. the rest of the light is merely a bunch of disorganized photons forming interference patterns that will never be seen.