Best friends Terra and Tiluk live alongside the wild orcas of Washington State. On the other side of the continent, Miles wallows in anger and self-pity fueled by his parents' divorce. In a moment of harrowing fate, their lives converge when Miles witnesses a captive orca brutally kill his trainer at a marine amusement park.
When Miles contacts Terra and her family of whale biologists to better understand the "killer" whale, the three teens soon realize they are more linked to each other - and the whales - than they ever imagined. Driven by a primal urge to connect with the highly-evolved consciousness of the orca, the teens take extraordinary risks to challenge big business and renew lost traditions.
Their journey is set to restore an ancient mystical bond between humans and whales that ultimately reveals The Blackfish Prophecy…a revelation about Terra - and those like her - that's about to change everything.
GUEST POST
whale dreamers?
My first book, The Blackfish Prophecy, owes its existence to a dream. And I don’t mean this in any woo-woo, new-aged kind of a way. I mean it in the most solid, concrete way imaginable.
Back in 2012 I had a dream in which a powerful matriarchal killer whale slid up onto the shore of a pebbly Pacific Northwest beach. She visited me and my sons, and she radiated into us a kind of interconnected joy I had never felt before in my waking life. Whether dreaming or awake, that experience was NEW to me. Yes, I consider it a mystical experience. But what does the word mystical mean?
Fast forward a few weeks, and I see a new book at our local library. A book with a killer whale on the front cover. An orca trapped in a pool. That book was David Kirby’s landmark, Death at SeaWorld.
Because of the dream I knew I had to read the book. And I did.
Days later, boiling over with a story that came from somewhere beyond me – one that was keeping me up at night, waking me at 4:30 am, and gnawing at me all day long such that I only had peace if I diligently recorded the exuberant details in a journal – I sat down to write my first novel. The first draft of The Blackfish Prophecy was finished less than three months later.
True. The embryo of this book had arrived many years earlier. That happened right after I’d encountered captive dolphins and Beluga whales, followed quickly by the wild orca of the Salish Sea. Thus, almost 20 years earlier, the basic characters, setting, and general idea of a title had arrived. But back then, I was clueless about how to write a novel. So I let the seed of the book rest. Then spent the next two decades reporting on science and the environment and the many ways our human culture harms people and planet.
Then, with a powerful mystical dream in 2012, that tiny seed sprouted and took root. Everything after is touched by a luminous shiver of interconnection that I am still trying to understand (and which I document in the Note to Readers at the end of The Blackfish Prophecy). Suffice to say, matter and mind have proven themselves to me to be intertwined, there is emerging science verifying this as well, and our dreams are a gateway to a connection to universal consciousness that indigenous peoples have known for millennia.
A gateway vitally important in today’s world.
The Whale Dreamers explores this “Force for Harmony” further, and invites readers to open to what they already know: we are all equipped to be whale dreamers, and now is the time to heed their calls.
Goodreads ** Amazon ** Barnes&Noble ** IndieBound ** WDCSHOP
About the author:
Rachel is a writer and biologist. As a kid she got hooked on all things animal, vegetable, and mineral. To complicate matters, she was hatching up stories before she could hold a crayon. Once she discovered biology it was all over. Ever since her first class in 7th grade when she refused to dissect a frog, a little voice in her head said: You gotta share this amazing stuff about how nature works, and ask if we really need to harm it. The little voice only got fiercer once she went to college and worked with captive dolphins and Beluga whales, then got to see wild killer whales only a few weeks later. From then on it was an all-out quest to convey the wonders of nature, while pointing out the serious problems of our very bad habit of dominating others and the Earth. She’s been a card-carrying science writer for twenty years. The Blackfish Prophecy is Rachel’s first book.
These days when Rachel is not writing, reading, dreaming, or speaking, you can find her sculpting an unruly assortment of moose-pruned orchard trees & berry bushes, gathering veggies & eggs in her micro-farmyard, foraging for mushrooms, and feasting on local food with friends.
She is a lifelong yogini, devoted pack mate to her free-spirited Canid, and mama bear who's sustained by treks deep into the Pacific Northwest with her increasingly feral family. Rachel drives a 100% electric zero-emission car, and her family's home is powered by renewable energy. Their little house is nestled on an urban lot they tend for kids' play, territory Animalia, sequestering carbon, and a food forest to augment the bounty of local growers.
Her work is fiercely aligned with the science of Life, harmony & justice for all: the enduring dream of Earth.
Author's Giveaway
5 comments:
Thanks for hosting!
This book sounds like a great read.
Thank you for hosting and sharing this wonderful guest post. Rachel and I are thrilled that you could do this for us!
I love Blogger Journey
Quotes= such a great article writting skill, I am amazed
Post a Comment