Star Family – Page 3 – Theresa Crater

January 2, 2014

Another Interview Today

My “Blog of Power” interviews continue today with T.W. Fendley. This one’s on the writing process.

January 1, 2014

I’m Interviewed Today

Terri Bruce interviewed me today on her blog.

December 19, 2013

Miss Essig’s House

My cousin asked me if Miss Essig is based on a real music teacher and if her house exists. Here are the answers.

No. I did have a voice teacher named Miss Star who lived in that little green house in Old Salem on West Street (for those of you who know the area). Miss Star is not really Miss Essig, though. They’re quite different. I made Miss Essig up completely. I took her name from my family tree. Most of the names in The Star Family are family or famous Moravian names. Mr. Mueller, whom David and Jane discuss as their music theory teacher, was a real professor at Salem College and did teach me piano.

Yes, Miss Essig’s house does exist. My father built his house on a plot of land right across the street from this English Tudor and one of my best childhood friends lived in it. When we first moved in, she was standing behind the hedge watching. I didn’t even go inside, but walked across the then tar-covered street and made friends. My mother had to drag me inside later, “Don’t you want to see your new room?” They could tell I wanted to move into the English Tudor. My mother tried to make me be more appreciative of my father’s hard work to make money to build this new house, but he just laughed and said, “When I was a kid, I wanted that house, too.” He’d grown up only two blocks away from it. It’s beautiful, calling forth exclamations from people when they pass it by for the first time.

I’m told it’s changed some since my childhood days. There’s a fish pond where one branch of the driveway was. The hedge is taller now. But it will always live in my memory as it was then. My friend and I climbed the tallest evergreens on the property, played in the rose garden, and picked pears off the ground, then ran from the yellow jackets that would come buzzing out. The gang of girls had many a sleep-over. We played the grand piano in the living room and explored the attic.

She told me there was a hidden staircase in the walk-in closet in her parents’ bedroom. I don’t know if it’s true, because she wouldn’t let me look. That imaginary (or not) staircase is now an intricate part of the mystery.

There is no church in the neighborhood, but the Sisters’ House does exist. It’s a big brick mansion overlooking Washington Park. One of the other large houses does exist, but not in the place I put it. The fourth house I made up completely.

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December 10, 2013

The Advent Star

As a child growing up in Winston-Salem, I looked forward to the Advent season when the Moravian Star would be displayed. I remember we were driving down Cascade Avenue remarking about how Christmas kept coming earlier (this was after Thanksgiving by the way), and I pointed to the Moravian Music Foundation and said it was too early for them to have the star up.

My father corrected me, saying that the Moravians knew the right time to put it up. I learned it marked the beginning of Advent, the season of expectation, the time of preparing for the arrival of the Christ Child. I have since learned this child appears in other traditions as the Divine Child, the Redeemer, the one who will live a human life but remain in contact with the Divine Source and bring that promise all humans hear whispered in their hearts to fruition.

The Moravian Star originated as a geometry project in the Moravian Boys’ School in Niesky, Germany. This was some time in the 1830s. Peter Verbeek began making them to sell around 1880. His son created the Herrnhut Star Factory. The store selling them in Herrnhut was the first Moravian landmark we saw driving into town. The star represents the Star of Bethlehem, the promise of Light, the coming of the Divine to our little earth, which is so much more in need of this than I ever imagined as a child.

My favorite one was the enormous one that hung in Trinity Moravian Church. It struck me with awe. One year I was honored to sing the hymn “Morning Star” beneath its light. The second line of the hymn is, “Ere thou cam’st, how dark Earth’s night.”

I’ve named my novel after this star. In The Star Family, I give the Advent Star thirteen points. I think it was Dr. Atwood who told me that one of the original stars had thirteen points, but I can’t find the email, so I might be wrong. Thirteen is, believe it or not, considered a sacred number. There are thirteen full moons in a year. We have twelve disciples plus one, the Master Teacher, Christ. We have twelve constellations in the zodiac, but a thirteenth esoteric or hidden one, Ophiuchus, tucked between Scorpio and Sagittarius. Named the serpent bearer, it could represent the spine which supports the rise of the kundalini energy, or serpent, bringing enlightenment to the individual.

I’ve also heard the star might be older than the 1830s. There might be some research published about this in the future. I don’t know more than that. In the novel, I made the star much older, tracing it back to the 1500s and suggesting it goes back way farther than that. I made this part up. But it is built using sacred geometry, the angles and proportions Mother Nature uses as building blocks, so it could be true. No wonder it creates such a feeling of harmony and joy.

December 3, 2013

William Blake and the Moravians

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At the end of The Star Family, I promised a series of blogs on the history behind the book, what’s true and what’s made up. This is the first of those.

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We were at the International New Age Fair and Stephen was getting interviewed for his newest book. I wandered the booths. I saw a book called William Blake’s Sexual Path to Spiritual Vision by Marsha Keith Schuchard. I picked it up. Wouldn’t you? (It’s titled Why Mrs. Blake Cried in the UK. We can contemplate that on another blog perhaps.)

On the first page I read that Blake’s mother had been a member of the Moravian Lodge in Fetter Lane, located in London. I grew up in the Moravian Church and hadn’t realized we were in England. I had a child’s knowledge of our history at that time. That has changed!

The Moravian Church was formed in 1457, a few decades after the Catholic priest and very popular preacher Jan Huss was martyred for his desire to reform some church practices in 1415. Persecution followed, especially in 1547, and many fled Moravia and Bohemia.

The Protestants were defeated at White Mountain in 1620 during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) and we scattered as refugees. In 1722, we founded a town on Count Zinzendorf’s estate in Saxony, named Herrnhut, and many were brought back together. Some argue this was an entirely new church, but as a child, I was taught it was a continuation of the old one. From here, we spread all over, forming colonies in Pennsylvania and North Carolina. I was born in the one in North Carolina many generations later. (See Moravian Church History if you’re interested.)

Back to Schuchard’s book. Next I read that Blake’s mother had been a member during a particularly lively time. The church had regrown out of the German Pietists, a rather democratic and experiential take on Christianity. Influenced by them, Count Zinzendorf taught that the Holy Spirit could best be understood as “Mother.” We had God the Father, Mother the Holy Spirit, and Jesus the Son.

I liked that. I’d thought for a long time that Christianity suffered from not having a feminine image of God, not just a human mother. That wasn’t all. Zinzendorf taught that the body had been redeemed through Christ’s sacrifice and that there was no shame in any of its parts. Pardon me if this sounds a bit old fashioned, but Zinzendorf lived in the 18^th century. I think, though, that we still have a lot of body shame in the 21^st century.

So, no shame in the naked body, and Zinzendorf went further to teach that there was no shame in the sexual act. Not only that, sex was not only for procreation. It was also for spiritual development. The church had a married couple’s liturgy, the recovery of the ancienthieros gamos(sacred union).

Blake’s mother would have learned all this and more in her church at Fetter Lane. She would have passed some of this understanding to her son. In her book, Schuchard goes on to explore how what Craig Atwood calls the “sex-positive teachings” of Zinzendorf probably influenced Blake’s life, poetry and visual art. (See Re-Envisioning Blake for more.)

I had to know more. That’s how The Star Family was born.

October 25, 2013

The Star Family Now Available

NOW AVAILABLE

THE STAR FAMILY by Theresa Crater

A secret spiritual group

A recurring dream

A 400-hunderd year old ritual must be completed before it is too late

Jane Frey inherits a Gothic mansion filled with unexpected treasures. A prophecy claims it hides an important artifact – the key to an energy grid laid down by the Founding Fathers themselves. Whoever controls this grid controls the very centers of world power. Except Jane has no idea what they’re looking for.

“The Star Family . . . explores the esoteric aspects of a progressive Protestant sect called the Moravian Brethren and weaves their history into a fascinating piece of speculative fiction. What if the Moravians had continued to observe some of their controversial practices in secret? What if their rites and music have played a role in withstanding the malignant forces that threaten to overwhelm modern society? What if one woman who discovers her true ancestry could oppose dominion of darkness through music and erotic spirituality? What if a town in North Carolina holds the key to bringing harmony to the world? Readers who enjoyed The Historian and The DaVinci Code will enjoy The Star Family.”

Dr. Craig Atwood, Moravian College, Director of the Center for Moravian Studies

eBook $6.99 Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Smashwords

Paperback $17.99 & at your favorite bookstore

Signed copies $22.00. Send an email to the author at theresacrater@comcast.net

October 23, 2013

Pre-Orders for The Star Family Now Available

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THE STAR FAMILY by Theresa Crater

A secret spiritual group

A recurring dream

A 400-hunderd year old ritual must be completed before it is too late

eBook $6.99 Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Smashwords

Paperback $17.99

Dr. Craig Atwood, Moravian College, Director of the Center for Moravian Studies

December 10, 2012

The Next Big Thing

In the “Next Big Thing” blogging meme, an author answers ten set interview questions and then tags five more people to do the same. Here’s my contribution.

1. What is the working title of your next book?

The Star Family

2. Where did the idea come from for the book?

I was at the International New Age Book Faire and saw a book called William Blake’s Sexual Path to Spiritual Vision. In in introduction I learned that Blake’s mother was a Moravian, the church I was raised in. Then I read that in the eighteenth century the Moravians taught sacred sexuality. My mouth fell open. Had anyone told my grandparents? Why had I never heard of this before? I had to research it, then write about it. So I did.

3. What genre does your book fall under?

Paranormal mystery or urban fantasy—you decide.

4. What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

For my leading lady: Angelina Jolie or Cate Blanchette. Her partner: Harrison Ford.

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Jane Frey leads the secret power elite in a hunt for the Founding Father’s occult weapon.

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

We’ll see. I’m shopping it around right now.

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

Write? About 9 months. Research? Longer.

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, which deals with Washington, D.C. sacred geometry, as does mine, but I have a connection to colonial group and towns, plus bring in Prague and its sacred geometry.
Steve Berry’s The Jefferson Key deals with the colonial pirates settled in North Carolina now affecting D.C. politics. My novel is set in the colonial town of Winston-Salem where the founders hid a powerful key to D.C.’s sacred geometry.
Katherine Neville’s The Eight, The Magic Circle, and The Fire. Neville’s novels deal with family secrets and secret artifacts that can affect world power. The Star Family also has a secret family legacy that the character must discover for herself, plus a prophecy that suggests she holds a secret artifact.
H.D.’s The Mystery and The Gift. Modernist and Moravian H.D. wrote two novels briefly touching on what is called “The Shifting Times,” a time in Moravian church history when the mystical connections were openly taught. Goethe even went searching the church archives for this information while writing Faust.

9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?

When I found the Blake book, but the more I read about this period in Moravian history, the more intrigued I became. I found connections to metaphysics, the Rosicrucians and the Freemasons. I took a flying leap from there and really had a blast.

10. What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?

Here’s my blurb: Jane Frey handles the disposition of her former music teacher’s estate after her job in oil and gas finance is given to a younger, more corruptible woman. The Gothic mansion is full of unexpected treasures: original paintings by 18^th century visionary William Blake, a secret room used for tantric rituals, and an ancient underground cavern. When a prophecy suggests she now possesses the key to an energy grid laid down by the Founding Fathers themselves, Jane becomes a target of competing world powers who want the artifact for themselves. Except Jane doesn’t have what they’re looking for, but she must discover it before more people die. Could the key be hidden in her family’s increasingly mysterious past? She follows a trail of clues to Prague, revealing a secret mystical organization in her childhood church and a three hundred year old ritual that only she can complete.

Here are the excellent writers who you’ll hear from next. Hope you enjoy their writing as much as I do. Click on their links to read their Next Big Thing.

Stefan Vucak is an award-winning author of seven techno sci-fi novels, including With Shadow and Thunder which was a 2002 EPPIE finalist. His Shadow Gods Saga books have been highly acclaimed by critics. His recent release, Cry of Eagles, won the coveted 2011 Readers Favorite silver medal award. Stefan leveraged a successful career in the Information Technology industry and applied that discipline to create realistic, highly believable storylines for his books. Born in Croatia, he now lives in Melbourne, Australia. To learn more about Stefan, visit his: Website: www.stefanvucak.com Twitter: @stefanvucak

Christina St. Clair, award-winning author, former shop-girl, chemist, and pastor, is currently a spiritual director, Reiki Master (don’t read too much into the title master!), wife, animal lover, and writer.
She says, “Boring life? Let’s not do duty. Let’s do awe! Take a look at your own complexity? You might be amazed. Life leads us into so many interesting and sometimes difficult crossroads where we get to choose what now, what next? As a student of mysticism and spirituality in all its incarnations both religious, secular, and new age, I want to understand what life is about, what is truth? I am still seeking, but I am offering to those who are interested my insights weaved throughout my essays and stories. I hope my writings might add to your already surprising lives.”
www.christinastclair.com/blog

Carole McDonnell is a writer of ethnic fiction, speculative fiction, and Christian fiction. Her works have appeared in many anthologies and at various online sites. Her novel, Wind Follower, was published by Wildeside Books. Her forthcoming novel is called The Constant Tower. http://carolemcdonnell.blogspot.com/

Gina Bednarz: I’ve worked hard most of my life, but until a few years ago, I never really knew who I was supposed to be. When I realized that I had the courage required to follow my dreams, I enrolled in college after a 17 year absence and finally earned my Bachelor’s degree in English and Creative Writing. Now pursuing my MFA in Creative Writing (Non-Fiction) at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I’m hitting my stride, reveling in a passion uncovered, and writing my heart out. Thanks for joining me! http://www.writingwithmyhaironfire.blogspot.com/