A Philosophy Of Stars

 

A Philosophy Of Stars. © 2024 F. P. Dorchak/Wailing Loon

Here it is, folks! The cover art for my newest novel, A Philosophy of Stars (APoS)! APoS is my homage to Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles (TMC) and his peerless imagination! I’ve always loved the imagination he employed in all of his stories, and I’ve always loved the structure of TMC and wanted to do my version of it, so here it is!

I’m so damned excited about this cover! Absolutely love it!

My good friend, Lon Kirschner, did the artwork. He’ll next be working on the spine and back cover.

This novel is a philosophical treatise (so to speak) on what may have happened and what could happen if we keep on the current path we are treading. It is a cautionary tale of with fantastic injustices come fantastic consequences.

I’m looking to release this book early next month, so stay tuned!

The Reincarnation of F. P. Dorchak

Bull Run, Virginia, Battlefield Cannon (© F. P. Dorchak, April 22, 1990)

I believe in reincarnation…or, more specifically, in the living of simultaneous lives that appear to us in this physical existence as reincarnational.

This belief has led to more than a story or two. The strongest past life is my Civil War existence. This is the one that seems to come up the most. Has the strongest effect on me. It led to the short story “Etched In Stone” (to be posted Feb 26, 2016, on my other blog site). I feel I was part of a Zouave regiment, perhaps the 5th New York. Another life that greatly impacts me is my Titanic life. I feel I died while in the steerage section of that ship. That lead to “The Death of Me.” Existences as a WWII tail gunner and a Ronin/Samurai lead to the short story “Tail Gunner” and a character, “Kioshu,” in The Uninvited. The curious thing about the WWII tail gunner existence is that I also feel I may have been an American ground troop in that war as well. Not only do images of B-17s rattle my bones, but many scenes with ground troops stir my soul quite a bit, too. So, I figure I must’ve had dual counterparts in WWII. But there’s more “military”…

Someone once told me they “saw” me as a Roman soldier. And a chiropractor I used to go to had muscle tested me and came up with 14 past lives…including yet another military life: a WWI life, which was interesting, because I’d never really felt that existence. He might have been confusing it with my WWII lives and his own “filters”…but, in any case, it was interesting (muscle testing can be influenced by the one doing the testing). Yet another World War counterpart. Clearly I’ve dabbled in the military end of things a bit. And I’m quite over it, to tell you the truth. Enough with war.

Another life I haven’t looked into much was one as a witch. A “kid witch.” In early 1984, a woman (a witch) told me she thought I’d been a kid-witch of 12 or 13 years old and had been pressed to death. She also told me that she’d been the cause of my death. I later found this in a letter I’d written to the late Jane Roberts and Rob Butts in 1984. In it I’d written that this present-day witch:

“…keeps seeing me as a coven member, and I tell her that she’s probably just seeing a probable self of me. She also says that we knew each other in a ‘past life.’ That I was a little kid-witch, about 13, and she was the death of me. Interestingly, [while with her one day] I saw an image of a young kid, about 12 – 13, being pressed to death–an agonized face. I told her this after she told me what I told you.”

Curiously, I could find no instances of a teenager being pressed to death over the Internet, so who knows what we’re really picking up on…or maybe it was done “in private”…you know, once you get past believing in any of this….

Interestingly, as a teenager I did have a weird thing happen to me that relates to the above: one day while looking for something in the Lake Clear, N.Y. garage, I had pulled some upright sheets of plywood toward me, away from the garage wall (the wall closest to the house). As I did so, I felt the plywood (this is how I thought of it then) seemingly take on a life of their own and fall into me. I pressed with all my might and was utterly helpless…and it raised a fear in me I had not experienced at that time. The entire “pile” knocked me over onto the gravel floor, all 10 or 15 or however many sheets there were, on top of me. Those suckers were heavy! It was the first time I’d felt so utterly helpless…and it felt so damned weird. I managed to get out from under them no worse for the wear, but that moment remains etched in my mind. I thought back to that later, after the witch told me the above. Also as a kid, I’d read up on the history of witchcraft, but it never really held much interest to me after reading about it…though I did get into it as an interest (not a practitioner) for a while, reading several books on it….

While visiting Maui, in 1998, with my wife, I had the following experience (taken from my diary):

“Nov 14, 1998, 1:36 p.m.

Note: While driving around, had a particularly spiritual experience, like the Manassas one, north of where we were staying [in Maui]. Laura and I drove north, to just inside that one-laned road, and we both felt that this drive felt “weird”! It was overcast, and late in the afternoon, but it was more than that. I again felt like I was straddling two worlds, and I got to thinking: oh boy, am I treading on ground I treaded before? Had Laura and I been alive in another life, past or future, here? Maybe had I been a spiritual kahuna? Had I died here in some ritual or war? It was verrrrrrrry weird….”

As much as I very much loved visiting Maui…I have absolutely no desire to  permanently live there (though am perfectly willing to go back as many times as possible!). Whatever the reason…it seems to stem from the above “weirdness” and finally made total “sense” to me.

Another interesting one is seeing images of me walking in monk-like robes over sand in a far-away (barren) land. I wonder if it’s Australia. I haven’t gotten much from this imagery.

There have been a couple of other possible lives I’ve glimpsed, but none of them are as strong and emotional as the ones mentioned above.

Now…as fascinated as I am by the lives I feel I’ve lived/am living in other realities, I don’t focus my energies so much on finding out all I can about them (i.e., “reliving” them) as in acknowledging them, listening to them when I need to, but focusing my conscious thoughts and efforts to my current existence. Those lives…those consciousnesses are elsewhere…being focused upon by the me that is there…and I need to focus on the me that is here…but acknowledging that my other selves do still exit elsewhere and are every bit as important and real as the me I am, here, writing this. Some of those lives I really don’t want to revisit anyway.

If you keep focusing on the past (or “elsewhere”), you’re never really living in the present.

I feel the important thing about learning about our past lives is that we have them and acknowledge them when we become aware of them. Send them positive energy. I feel in doing this we can enhance their lives…change them, even. Remember I believe in simultaneous lives…not so much past lives. All our lives are ongoing…and this being my belief, I feel we can all help each other out. Make our collective lives better…which therefore helps out our individual “present” lives as well. It’s all energy…and all energy is connected. As we help ourselves out…we’re also helping out everyone else.

So, while it’s cool and interesting to learn about the other lives we live…we still need to focus on our present-day lives (“Over Now,” by Alice in Chains has been playing just now, and “Say Goodbye” just popped up from Theory of a Deadman…). I feel that’s also why many of us cannot remember much about our other lives. Or why we only get bits and pieces. I feel we have built-in filters. We only get what we can “handle”…or only enough “bleed throughs” to remind us who “we are”…but not enough to cause us to focus so heavily on these other lives so as to ignore our current focus. The purpose of having a life is to live it. Live and focus on the things in front of us. That, in turn, helps us all in our overall experience of Life and growth of our soul.

And each of you all have this ability. I bet you’ve all had some weird imagery or experience you can’t readily categorize that fits into the realm of reincarnation or simultaneous lives but have dismissed it as fantasy.

Well, don’t.

Acknowledge it…send it positive, constructive energy when you get such images…and move on. It’s okay if you do ignore it/them…they happened/are happening whether or not you believe it/them…or acknowledge them (you know, given you believe in this stuff…). But they pop into your consciousness for a reason. So, why not give them their due? No one else has to know! It’s just between you and…you. And it doesn’t even matter if you’re misinterpreting what you’re “getting.” Just acknowledge the thought…the idea…it.

So this post is not just about the reincarnation of F. P. Dorchak…it’s also about the reincarnation of you.

Related Articles

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Voice Is Released!

Voice. (© 2015, F. P. Dorchak and Lon Kirschner)

Sex, love, and metaphysics. This intense sometimes explicit story is about what people do in the dark…especially when they’re hiding from themselves. A daring, sexy—even inspirational—read that explores relationships both familial and romantic and the tragedies that result from fractures in both. Voice is hard-hitting and unflinching…even uncomfortable…a novel for anyone who’s ever loved more than one.

After 16 years (18 if you count start to finish) and much angst, this novel is finally seeing the light of day! It’s also my longest published novel to date, at over 120,000 words.

Voice—my sexy, visionary fiction—is now available! Is it literary? Visionary? Erotica? Romance?

Truly, it is a little of each. But, whatever it is, it is my most mainstream effort ever. As I’ve said multiple times, I never wrote it, never intended it as erotic fiction. I still don’t even picture the story that way in my head. It is a story about people. It happens to have some explicit sex scenes in it, just like some novels have explicit violence in them. It turns out I actually wrote it as more of a love story: it’s a story about a guy who falls in love with a voice in his head.

That’s it.

I never had the plot nor story outlined…it just came to me as I wrote it. And I honestly did not know how it was going to end until I hit the “.” key after the last word in the manuscript. I do not exaggerate. I remember this vividly: I was banging along on the keyboard, excited how things had unfolded…wrote the last word. Hit the period key. Went to add a next page…and paused.

It was perfect. It surprised me. I ended it right there.

I’ve written a few “apologetic” pieces about the whole “erotica thing,” but…no more apologies.

It is what it is.

Writing Voice did more than expand my writing…it expanded my mind. My understanding of what I feel I’m capable of doing. Voice helped me go to emotional depths I’d never gone to before. At least in my own head. You, the readers, will tell me if I hit the mark or not. But, writing Voice took me down emotional rabbit holes. I found ways to write about the deep, sometimes hidden and painfully emotional details deep within stories. Which is really want I’ve wanted to do and hope I can do again. I’ve always wanted to write powerfully moving stories about the human condition. I didn’t want to just write about aliens or the supernatural. I wanted to write stories that were emotionally kick-ass as well as paranormal. I want to make people cry. Anger them. Excite them. Voice helped me learn how to “go there.” In Psychic I wrote a highly unpleasant rape scene. It was needed, so I did it. I didn’t flinch away from it. That scene’s power and mechanics came from having written Voice. In The Uninvited, I wrote graphic violence. I had to. They were important to the emotional context of the story. The ability to write out those scenes grew out of having worked on Voice.

And the utter irony?

When I finally made my way back to Voice and made that decision to actually follow through and put it out there…all the work I’d done on all my other novels all came back to help in making Voice the absolutely best, the most honest, emotional, and powerfully uncomfortable work I’ve ever created. And I’m proud of it—and I don’t use words like “pride.” If it wasn’t for Voice, none of the other novels would have been as good as they are…and if it wasn’t for the other novels, Voice wouldn’t be as good as it is. Or so I’ve heard from a couple readers (you just can’t trust me…).

And it is a powerful, emotional journey…but, really, that’s up to each of you to determine. I can’t please everyone, as a couple of my reviews show.

Sex, love, and metaphysics. This intense sometimes explicit story is about what people do in the dark…especially when they’re hiding from themselves.

I love this story, the setting. The whole gestalt. ERO and Voice rank as my favorite efforts. I hope you will also get lost in Voice and find the story. I did wonder if a couple of those who proofed and read it would ever talk to me again…and, well, so far they are. So, I have that going for me…which is nice….

Of those who’ve already read it, one reader told me half jokingly she wasn’t sure she could look me in the eyes “just now” when we first talked after her having read it.

That was so cool!

We laughed!

It meant I’d written something that had her look at me differently. And if she looked at me differently…how differently was she also looking at others? The world?

That meant I had expanded someone’s Weltanschauung.

That I had given another a different perspective.

Which is SO cool!

But I hadn’t done this alone!

There were others. Named and unnamed. I can never thank enough those who took a chance on this story—and me—to read it. Those who listened patiently to my conversational angst about should-I-or-shouldn’t-I? In one case, Mandy Pratt, who did the lion’s share of proofing and editing, having spent April to July picking things apart and pointing out misspelled words (dang it!) and messing with my head with shades of meaning—and, oh, let’s not even begin to talk about my own annoying employment of M-dashes and ellipses!

Yes, she kept me honest. Thanks, Mandy!

To Edie, Amy, Karen, Lon, and Joseph—thank you all for taking time out of your life to help out in the various ways you all did! Amy—you read this twice! Amy, an actual editor, read this back in 2002 or 2003…and when I asked if she was up for reading it again, she actually leapt at the chance (okay, maybe not actually launching herself up and into the air, but consider that “artistic license”…)! Karen, for helping me refine my “pitches” (Karen was there at the beginning, waaay back at a writers conference in the late nineties—thank you for sticking with me through all this, Karen!), back cover text, sounding board, et cetera. Joseph Reininger, no longer in the book retail business, was the first to read Voice and, again, waaay back in the 90s, and his reception of it literally stunned me. Never had I ever received such glowing praise (his is the blurb in the front of the novel) for anything I’d written up to that point! And he sold books! Reads tons of them. Wow. Joseph, yes, it’s finally going to see the light of day—thank you for all of your support!

And perhaps the oddest thanks goes to Joelle Yudin.

She was an Associate Editor at HarperCollins from 2000 – 2006. I’d sent a query to a publisher, and the long-and-the-short-of-it was that it had gotten routed to her. She’d read it, and on January 3, 2003, had sent me the following note:

“<Name withheld> passed along your proposal to me for my thoughts. I found the premise to be quite intriguing and so I shared it with my colleagues. Unfortunately, I will be passing, as I could not get them excited about it. I wish you the best of luck with this.”

I looked back in my writing ledger (yes, I have one; I keep track of things like this), and on January 23, 2003, at about 11:20 a.m. MT, I called her.

Yes, actually called her and I actually got her.

I wanted to know why the oligarchy’d passed on it. I do remember she’d been so kind and easy to talk to and didn’t slough me off in the slightest. What I wrote in my ledger was that Joelle said she thought my writing was good, my “voice” (heh-heh, pardon the pun) interesting, but her colleagues thought the manuscript “small,” in that they were unsure if it would “stand up in the market.” That it was “all about the $$$.” That the “size” of the piece wasn’t “large” enough and they recommended a small publisher. Then, at the end of all my notes I’d added: “Very (underlined) nice lady and open and forthcoming. Even said ‘sorry.'”

So, Joelle, I will always remember you and your kindness…your interest in Voice. Thank you for all of it! If I can ever get in contact with you, I’m sending you a gratis copy or two!

So…here it is.

Voice.

Now what??, Mandy had asked. Now what, indeed!

I gotta find something else to work on….

****

Voice is available at Amazon.com (e-book and trade paperback), CreateSpace, Barnesandnoble.com, and Smashwords.com. There will be additional outlets as the distribution “takes.”

If anyone would like a signed paperback, feel free to send this or any other of my work to the following address—WITH THE PROPER POSTAGE OR IT WILL NOT BE RETURNED. I will use any unreturned books as free giveaways. Send to:

F. P. Dorchak, P. O. Box 49393, Colorado Springs, CO 80949.

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