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| Author Janna Lynn |
PURIFYING THE HEART
After completing the manuscript for her book Cry of the Hawk for her Beloved,
a Woman's Healing Journey to Higher Consciousness, in August 1999 from her home northeast of Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she
had lived since the mid-seventies, writer Janna Lynn knew inwardly that the art print in her meditation room, Isis and Osiris,
by Brazilian-born, California artist Susan Seddon Boulet (1941-1997) was the cover that depicted her book. The enigmatic Moon
priestess, the writer’s muse, continued to reveal the meaning of the book to the author as she wrote it directly from
her transpersonal meditation practice in the Mayan spirit of “ In Lak'ech," I am another yourself," to heal disparate,
warring elements in the unconscious transmuting negative impressions to positive thoughts and feelings.
She painstakingly painted the small brushstrokes on the canvas of her book, refining the artistic form until she achieved
the effect she intended, the book reaching maturity in the spring of 2001, like a glass of rose Zinfandel. Final publication
was delayed by a move from the high, dry desert of New Mexico in the Southwest to the wet, flat prairie of South Florida where
the summer monsoons brought endless days of incessant rain in the warm, humid tropical climate. Linking the two vastly different
regions of the country, a Miami artist-designer friend added her original design of the lizard for a graphic in Hawk's Chapter
12, entitled "Dreaming Lizard."
The author had begun to feel a little like James Joyce, "the rain, the rain," after her initial encounter with South Florida's
summer. Was a cross-country move madness for a middle-aged woman, trailing her 4 x 4 on the back of a U-Haul truck? Perhaps
because the book ended in South Florida, she mused through the torrential downpours, gradually emerging from her sodden surroundings.
What is the book about, the author occasionally paused in her labors to inquire of the Moon goddess, her attention returning
again and again to the pulsating pink ring around the luminescent Moon and the emergence of the deep rose-pink dawn in the
upper corner of the night sky? "It’s about suffering and the pain of living," the high priestess of the Moon softly
whispered back, her eyes half-closed, distant, as she gazed impersonally and compassionately on the child-creation she held
in her arms. “It’s about our relationships with the identities that are transitory, race, culture, our relationships
with sons, lovers, brothers and fathers—the earthly things that because we’re human we love on Earth. It’s
about the impermanence of the small human drama weighed against the vastness of eternity. It’s about ’re-membering'
the past through the transmutation of the lead of the veins of Earth into the alchemist’s gold ore. It's about the human
cry linked to the infinite compassion of the universal Feminine emerging in the sky through the mythological journey of a
mortal woman who endured pain and suffering to attain an immortal soul,” the fleshly orange feathers of the hawk-winged
goddess conveyed the priestess' telepathic thoughts. “It's a story of resurrection. It's a creation myth, it's an act
of power and truth and beauty."
The author’s artistic contribution to personal and planetary healing and peace is portrayed in her heroine's descent
into the depths of her unconscious, as a pathway of illumination and healing for others to venture beyond ordinary reality
to the transpersonal archetype of nonordinary reality - the timeless realm of the healer, the shaman, the artist, and the
priestess.
ALCHEMY OF TRANSFORMATION
“As an eco-Feminist, my own spiritual practices are embedded in relationship to the cycles of Nature.”
Cry of the Hawk For Her Beloved, A Woman's Healing Journey to Higher Consciousness, spans thirty years from the cusp of the
century to the millennium and depicts a heroine's journey to the heart of the American continent - called Turtle Island by
Native people.
Her search among the ashes of the ancestors of the land uncovers the poignant past of a nation living in harmony with
Nature's laws. Her journey allegorically portrays the passage of an Earth-based, indigenous culture to a European paradigm,
again reforming in the modern century to incorporate a greater diversity than existed in the early formation of people on
the American continent.
The narrative portrays the heroine's confrontation with death and leave-taking of those whom she loves. Her loss ultimately
leads to her own rebirth in Nature through the mythic emergence of the Feminine in the heroine's archetypal journey from darkness
to Light. By journeying into her unconscious, the heroine retrieves information to integrate and unify the disparate and fragmented
unknown elements of the Mind to attain healing and wholeness.
The message of the heroine's spiritual quest is that often a seeker must go on a solitary journey to attain the wisdom
and truth of existence underlying the insubstantial and transitory appearances of the world. In her transcendent awakening
following her descent into the dark night of the soul, the heroine emerges as a new hybrid of human for the millennium, and
brings healing to the old paradigm of polarization. Strengthened by overcoming the obstacles and adversities in her journey,
the heroine draws on her own spirit to achieve victory through the mystical union with her Soul, or Higher Consciousness.
Her prayer for the protection of Earth for future generations, with regard to the rights of all people in an expanding
world culture, helps her to redeem her own life and resurrect the lost soul of the Continent against the harsh dominance of
the modern century in the spirit of ahimsa, or nonviolence.
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