The Ariel Quigley Mysteries & Companion Cookbooks
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The Ariel Quigley Mysteries & Companion Cookbooks
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Ariel's ViewA Mysterious Newsletter from
ArielQuigleyMysteries.com
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Volume 2, Number 3 |
February 26, 2007 |
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Welcome & Weather Report |
Visit our Online Calendar
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Today in History |
Published monthly, whether permitting.
(Whether or not I'm home to get it done!)
When you've finished reading, visit our
home page,
for links to photos, contests, recipes,
and other awesome treats!
Please take our
survey,
so that we can make the site and the newsletter as interesting as
possible!
What We've Been Up To (Our Madcap Adventures)
We are thrilled to announce that
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We're busy. As we mentioned last month, we spent a week at our favorite time-share hide-away in Tennessee plotting. Now we're writing. The third book in our series is underway - The Reporter Who Died Probing, as is it's accompanying cookbook. In addition, we are planning to create a small volume to go with a two-hour workshop we're presenting at The Romance Writers' Convention in Dallas in July called A Short History of Sex in Literature, Art and Symbol. This will be loosely and humorously based on coursework Honora did while she was teaching Humanities and World Cultures at the University of Southern Indiana and the University of Evansville. And, as if that isn't enough, we have another stand-alone novel planned.
For The Chef and The Lawyer, we outlined the book, then joined forces at the computer and wrote the whole thing line-for-line together. But because of the increased load we've put on ourselves, we've changed our collaboration pattern somewhat. For our current novel, we began the same way. While we were on our retreat, we plotted the whole novel: the setting, the characters, the plot twists and turns, the whole nine yards. By the time we were done, we had an outline of nearly 100 pages. Now Honora is a speed demon on the typewriter, so she is working from that outline and doing a first pass at the novel. When she finishes a few pages, she reads them to me, and we discuss it.
We continue to plot together, incessantly. It's a good thing we have our office together (in the basement of the education center that Honora and her husband and I call home!) If I come up with an idea, I might add notes to the outline, or write a few paragraphs for her to incorporate. When she finishes a chapter, I reread it, doing a second pass, adding anything I feel might enhance the story, or questioning sections that may not flow as much as we might wish. Then we discuss the changes.
The great thing is that we both sound just like us when we write, so in the long run, it won't matter who typed which words; it's a true collaboration of two devious minds plotting a murder or two, and the apprehension of the killer, while trying to inject a touch of humor and romance.
So, at this moment, Honora is typing dialog, and I'm typing this!
Well, not exactly from the garden, but from the window that looks out onto the garden. And that view is a mess! The snow covered everything very nicely for a few days, but it's gone now, and probably won't be back, and I have to look at what I need to do in the next few months.
As I mentioned last June, I had made preparations in the garden for several trees and bushes from the Arbor Day Society, but they were not all viable. I received the replacement plants in November--six azaleas, five Rose of Sharon, and a pear tree (no partridge!) I planted the pear tree right away, since it was dormant, but I potted the rest and have been nurturing them on the back porch, along with my sage and rosemary plants. Now I have to decide where they all go, since I used the holes I'd dug for the Rose of Sharon for a couple of hibiscus, two holly bushes and a crepe myrtle.
And as I look out over the garden and ponder where exactly to plant them, I am treated to a view that is not for the faint-hearted! First of all, of course, I will have to deal with the remains of leaves that are in my various decorative layouts. (The pictures are from last year, before I put down 40 bags mulch around the "sculptures" and the rest of the back yard, on top of the green plastic which covers the whole area. More details in May's notes.)
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| Tree of Life | Star of David |
And of course, the mulch needs to be refreshed. I'll probably move a lot of it to the front garden, where it can protect the plants that are there, and hopefully fend off the onset of weeds, then replace the layer in the back.
Then I have to finish cleaning out the area where I had planted the green peppers and tomatoes, as I had too many in too small a space, and need to redesign that area, also. This year I'm planning to grow okra and green beans as well.
Does this sound like a program for a sane woman who now has 4 writing projects for the year, a website to maintain, conventions to attend, and holidays to take? A woman who is no longer a hearty youth of 18? Although spring always does makes me think I'm on the track team again, and can jump hurdles, run a 6-minute mile, and fly through the air with the greatest of ease. (OK, I never did those things exactly, but I was on the track team, and once placed 10th out of 30 at a regional track meet for the discus.)
I will keep you posted!
Where We're Going...
Places
The opera is much in our plans these days. We have seasons tickets to the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music Opera, in Bloomington, Indiana, which is only a 2˝ hour drive from Grayville. There are six magnificent productions each year, three in the fall and three in the spring. Two weeks ago we saw a double bill: two wonderful short operas: Arlecchino, by Ferruccio Busoni (in the style of Commedia Del Arte), and Too Many Sopranos, by Edwin Penhorwood (absolutely hilarious!)
This weekend we will be treated to Richard Strauss' romantic Arabella.
Book Talks
On February 28th, we'll be at the Upper Arlington Library in Columbus, Ohio, presenting a workshop: Magic, Metaphysics, and Things That go Bump in Books. (7:00-9:00 pm)
This Year's Conventions
This year we'll be featured in a few workshops, as well as taking part in panels.
| May 4th-6th: Malice Domestic - Arlington, VA |
Panels TBA |
| May 24th-27th,
2007: Mayhem in the Midlands - Omaha, NE |
Panels TBA |
| June 8th-9th, 2007: Murder in the Grove - Boise, ID |
Sat. 9:30-10:20 - What is it? Mystery? Romance? Paranormal? Or ...?:
The Blurring of Genres Sat. 4:00-4:50 - Workshop: Magic, Metaphysics, and Things That go Bump in Books: How to Get it Right When You Write. |
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July 10th-14th, 2007: Romance Writers of America - Boise, ID |
Time TBA: Workshop: A Short History of Sex in Literature, Art and Symbol |
| September 27th-29th, 2007 Great Manhattan Mystery Conclave - Manhattan, Kansas |
Friday Afternoon: Workshop: Magic, Metaphysics, and Things That go Bump in Books: How to Get it Right When You Write |
Check our Tour and Events pages to see where we're heading for the rest of the year - we will update it regularly as we figure out just where we're going to be. And if you'd like us to head to your area, let us know where you live, and what bookstores or libraries we could do a signing in, and we'll try to get there at some point. Nowhere on the continent is totally out of the realm of possibility, even though some places may be a bit hard to reach!
A Recipe from Bernice's Kitchen
The winning recipe for
Contest 2, Spanish
Inquisition Paella,
will appear in
A Killer Cookbook Volume #2,
Recipes to Accompany The Chef Who Died Sautéing,
We did receive several recipes,
and plan to include some of them in our newsletters,
or our weekly recipe file.
This
one was submitted by The Knight Family.
(Katherine Knight won contest #1--I think they plan to enter every
contest we have,
so be sure to submit a recipe, and give them a run for the money!)
So, you want pumpkin pie, but you don't have an oven, or time, or you are just too darned lazy to bake one? We got you covered!
1 15-ounce can of pumpkin
1 3.4-ounce box of vanilla pudding
2 cups of milk
2 teaspoons of cinnamon, or pumpkin pie spice
Combine all the above ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Place in the refrigerator for one hour.
1 box of graham cracker crumbs
1 container French Vanilla Cool Whip
Once the pudding mix has chilled, spoon a small layer of graham cracker crumbs into the bottom of a dessert cup. Spoon in pumpkin mix. Top with Cool Whip.
Voila! Instant Pumpkin Pie!
Ariel's Metaphysics Corner
Card 05 - The
Hierophant
© 2007 Honora Finkelstein
The Hierophant, or High Priest, is the fifth card in the Tarot deck and bears the Roman numeral V. Like the High Priestess, he is a bridge. As she is the bridge to the subconscious mind, so he is the bridge to the divine.
As an authority figure, he represents tradition—meaning traditional values, rules, laws, and belief systems. He may be seen in all the white collar professionals upon whom civilized people depend for knowledge and wisdom—lawyers, doctors, teachers, preachers, rabbis, therapists, and so forth. Among aboriginal or tribal nations, he is the shaman, the story keeper, the medicine man, the wizard. He is one who interprets the meaning of life, of symbols, of prophecies, of portents. And he does so through listening, reflecting, meditating, and channeling back the answers. But unlike the High Priestess, who goes to a higher form of consciousness within the self, the Hierophant interprets the truth through society’s traditions, social awarenesses, and the learned and handed down dogmas, rules, and doctrines, whether they are learned from the church or the state.
Numerically in the Arabic number system used by Western culture, the Hierophant sits in the middle, as the number 5 is the middle number between 1 and 9, 2 and 8, 3 and 7, and 4 and 6. So he intervenes and mediates, as a priest is supposed to intervene between ordinary human beings and their gods. As such, he also represents the True Self, the inner spiritual master, teacher, advisor, guide, or conscience, the part of the Self that takes a higher ground and assists in keeping the lower consciousness on its true path in life.
The Hierophant wears the mitered headdress and robes of a bishop or pope, and he likewise carries the staff with three crossbars, suggesting his connection to a triune god. This staff is not simply the triune Christian god of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, since many of the tribes of the ancient world, from Egypt to Asia to the Celtic races to the native peoples of Hawaii, had sets of triune gods as well. The very nature of a trinity suggests the three planes of existence: the physical, the mental/emotional, and the spiritual. Like the High Priestess, the Hierophant also sits on a throne between two pillars in a temple of worship. He is that part of Self that because of his higher knowing recognizes justice on the one hand and mercy on the other.
The acolytes who are being taught by the Hierophant are wearing robes bearing the flowers from the garden of the Magician. One wears a garment decorated with roses, while the other wears a robe decorated with lilies. As they did in the Magician’s garden, the red roses represent desire, and the white lilies represent purity. Hence, it is the voice of the True Self that must mediate or intervene and help hold a balance between the individual soul’s desire motives and pure intentions.
As the Emperor represents the physical sense of vision because of his reasoning abilities, so the Hierophant represents the physical sense of hearing. According to the Builders of the Adytum, the function of hearing is the principle link between one mind and another. It also represents the interior hearing of the voice of the True Self. A priest is a hearer of confession, and once a confession of the truth has been made, the speaker making the confession is joined to the one to whom the truth has been told.
Between the acolytes are two keys, sometimes seen as “the keys to the kingdom of heaven.” One key is gold and the other is silver. In planetary astrology, gold represents the sun of our solar system, while silver represents the Earth’s moon. The sun is fiery, outward acting, and penetrating, while the moon is cool, passive, and receptive. Hence, gold is traditionally a metal that represents the masculine gender, and silver traditionally represents the feminine—the two polar opposites of the Earth plane and of human interaction. The Hierophant sits as a mediator between the two—the voice of a higher consciousness as well as the ability to listen, which both genders must develop if they are to work in harmony.
If you draw the Hierophant in a Tarot reading, it is a time for playing by the rules and by the knowledge and wisdom of your own internal authority figure. Stay open to the internal voice that guides you to higher understanding.
Fan Corner
Please sign our GUESTBOOK and let us know what you think of the book, our website, this newsletter - what ever!
We're hoping more people will try out our little "survey" - so we'll run it for a few more issues. Click on the link to vote on some truly momentous issues.
Also, please feel free to chat with us regarding anything at all. We'll reply to all our email, and try to answer all your questions, share some adventures, have some fun.
Contact us
by email: authors [at] arielquigleymysteries.com
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