Winston-Salem – Theresa crater

March 10, 2014

The Sacred Spring

The climax of The Star Family takes place at the source of a sacred spring that flows out into Washington Park. Does such a place exist?

Washington Park exists. I played in the park as a child in a mossy grotto with a creek, rocks, a couple of deep pool (well, they were deep for a child), and crayfish. Water trickled down the rocks, creating a special feel. I used to tell my friend Susan that a good witch lived there in a childish attempt to express how magical I felt the place to be.

Here’s a picture of it from 2013 when I visited in the spring. It’s much smaller than I remembered it, but I am taller now.

I don’t know the source of this creek. The little stream runs down a hill across the street from the park in a small open space that has never been built on. As far as I know, no cave exists like the one I added to the novel.

Imagine my delight when I discovered there definitely is a spring in Washington Park. Michael Breedlove talks about it in his article “Secret sites, hidden history, and natural wonders inside the city.” This spring on the hillside near Gloria Avenue used to feed Forgotten Lake in Washington Park, “a grand lake that offered sailing in the summer and ice skating in the winter.” Drained decades ago, the only remaining evidence of it is the steps to the lake on a sloping hill near the Gloria Avenue entrance. I wonder if this is the same spot. It’s hard to tell from both his description and picture.

Digital Forsyth has two images of a spring house in its archives. They come up when you search for “Washington Park,” but the captions say one is from Old Salem Park and the other says Wachovia Park, “established in 1884 out of a strip of woodland separating the Salem Academy and College and Salem Cemetery.” That’s where the May Queen used to be crowned at Salem College before that practice was stopped. I have Jane walk here with her friend Roxanne in the novel.

It’s interesting that we think we’ve made something up, but it turns out there’s some truth in it after all.

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