Image by Atsushi Ono from Pixabay
THE HEARTLAND
Marcia, Jorna and Eleanor, my heroines, unexpectedly find themselves on a journey of discovery that takes them into what I call ‘the heartland’. The heartland is the invisible world of emotion that resides deep inside someone.
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In the heartland lots of things happen. And they are as real as what goes on in ‘reality’. People may not be aware of what goes on inside them but those things make them who they are.
It’s a world where joyful experiences and happy memories are stored and bad ones are repressed and hidden in dark corners. Where they continue to lead their own lives as drama and trauma.
Normally they only reach the surface in dreams or nightmares, when the ‘owner’ is asleep and only barely aware of them. Sometimes, though, they are triggered by an event or incident in the here and now. Then a dream or nightmare can open as a dimension of the present. Then the events of the past mingle with reality and are relived in the present. This is what happens in Eyes Of Darkness, Demons and Fault Line. There it re-opens a traumatic past.
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It is an experience that is both awful and cathartic. It is a horrific confrontation with memories they do not want to face. At the same time reliving the horror gives them the opportunity to understand and integrate the past into the present and, most importantly, to recover.
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Cardiosophy is the vision that inspires my writing. Cardiosophy is a word I coined. It’s the opposite of philosophy, which is love of or heart for knowledge. Cardiosophy means knowledge of the heart. Hence ‘heartland’. It fuels the curiosity that drives me to answer certain questions. Why do people do the things they do. What motivates them, what makes them move. What is in their heart. That intrigues me. This kind of question has been the start of the psychological thrillers that are gathered under the heading Journeys into the Heartland.
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Each book in this mini-series is a stand-alone. There is no particular order, other than a chronological one. They just share a similar theme: recovery from trauma.
I hope you enjoy the read. If you are interested in this kind of subject matter or if you experience emotional discomfort because of reading the books, you may find the website https://www.pastrealityintegration.com/en of help to you. The home page offers valuable insight into ‘past reality integration’, an approach to emotional healing by Ingeborg Bosch, the Dutch founder and practitioner of PRI. On the left under ‘Overview PRI books’ you will find some very readable and hopefully helpful books. You might look at ‘Rediscovery of the true self’ and ‘Illusions’ in particular.’