My five novels are dedicated to, and are part of a collection called, ‘The Goddess of the Stars and the Sea’ series. This ancient Goddess carries the evolutionary force of embodied love. She calls upon a young priestess to assist humankind in their evolutionary transitions through several reincarnations, starting from Atlantis, through to the Dark Ages, and into today’s world.
The Goddess of the Stars and the Sea’s name has early roots, legends and historical correlates.
The word ‘sea’ has several language origins. Mar, mer, and mari all mean the sea. In Latin, the word mare means the sea. There are many modern words derived from this source word - mermaid, marina, marine, to name a few.
Mari is one of the most ancient names of the Goddess. It means Mother Sea.
Stella Maria means Star of the Sea. It is the epithet of the goddesses Isis, Ishtar, Aphrodite, Venus, Mari-Anna, and Mother Mary.
In legend, Stella Maria's star was Venus or Sirius (I have also seen it as listed as the Pleiades, and that is the star formation featured in my novels.)
Stella Maria is often depicted as dressing in a blue robe with pearly foam edging. (see picture below.)
Mari-Anna also means Sea Goddess, and Ishtar.
Stella Maris is the title that first belonged to Ishtar. She was known as the Goddess of the Sea, Lady of Compassion, Provider, Protector, Regeneratrix, Keeper of the Mysteries, and the one who manifested as the Magdalene.
Mari-Ishtar anointed, or christened, her doomed consort god Tammuz when he went to the underworld whereupon he would rise again at her bidding. That is to say, she made him a Christed one. Anointing is symbolic of the alchemical Sacred Marriage.
The ancient title of the North Star was Stella Maris, Star of the sea, Star of love, Star of Compassion.
The root of the name Mary means love, compassion, giving, flowing, and also sea.
The Tarot card the ‘Star’ depicts stars that pour out the water of Life, revering the earth.
Tara means star (White Tara, Irish Tara)
These early etymological beginnings, the derivations for the name the ‘Goddess of the Stars and the Sea,’ all contain the roots for the Mother sea of love and compassion. This is our way forward during these tumultuous times!
Goddess of the Stars and the Sea
from the book cover of ‘The Keys to Remember’ by Jodine Turner
Christal Banister artist
Photo credit: 'Stella Maris' by Bernadette Carstensen
I write Visionary Fiction. It’s my passion. I published an article defining it in Writers Journal, May 2009, hoping to promote the relatively unknown genre. In November, 2011, I posted a link to my article on the Goodreads page for the Visionary Fiction Group.
From that Goodreads post emerged a small network of author colleagues who also write Visionary Fiction – Saleena Karim, Shannan Sinclair, and I started a web ring in order to discuss the genre. Our initial conversations on Goodreads attracted nine other VF authors. We decided to formalize our connection and develop a blog with the purpose of increasing the awareness of the genre. Hence, the birth of the Visionary Fiction Alliance and blog!
As we launch our magnificent new, next level website, the admin team thought it would be a good time to remember this article.So, here is the originally published article. Fellow VFA Founding Member Eleni Papanou said it is ‘the article that started it all’. I suppose that is true! I couldn’t be more happy about that.
Visionary Fiction – the New Kid on the Block
I learned about Visionary Fiction first hand. I was in my thirties when the magical town of Glastonbury England, where The Mists of Avalon was set, beckoned me. I answered the call to adventure, and moved to that ancient Isle of Avalon for nine months. Glastonbury had more in mind for me than adventure.
While living there, I would take a daily walk to the nearby Chalice Well. The well is an ancient holy spring, a pilgrimage site set amidst a garden of colorful English flowers, hawthorn shrubs, Rowan trees, and meandering paths. As I’d sit beside the bubbling springs, my mind would still its chatter, and my body would heave a sigh of relief. Early one morning in late spring, while in that relaxed state, an unbidden vision flashed in my mind’s eye. Vague images of robed women, seemingly from times long past, filled my thoughts. Over the course of the next hour, I watched them plant their gardens, and bake their bread. Saw how they’d treat the sick or injured who came to them for help. I heard them sing and chant. And, to my surprise and shock, I also saw them fall, defenseless, at the hands of raiding marauders. I heard their screams, felt their pain and terror rent my heart.
Once the images faded, I sat beside the well until the sun set behind the rounded hills. Unable to move or make sense of what I’d seen, I was gripped by the sadness the images evoked. If it weren’t for my budding friendship with Anna, the owner of a local bookstore, who knows what I would have done with this experience. Maybe I’d have written about it in my private journal, keeping my vision to myself, and never fashioned a story from it. But Anna and her eccentric grandmother changed that.
After my incident at the well, Anna told me about her Irish born grandmother, Millie. She recounted her last visit with Millie, years ago, the cold and damp winter she turned thirteen – only months before her grandmother died. From her vivid descriptions, I could imagine Anna as a young teenager, almost felt as if I’d been on that visit with her.
Millie had lived in a small village in western Ireland, and owned an old stone cottage with a cozy inglenook. Anna spent many hours beside that hearth, wrapped snugly in a warm wool shawl, watching the flames lick the edges of the sweet smelling peat. Her grandmother would sit on the bench beside her, her craggy face illuminated, her gnarled hands wrapped around a mug of steaming black tea, often with “just a spot” of whiskey added. Anna would snuggle into the protective shoulder of her grandmother, never really minding the cold, because that was the winter her grandmother taught her how to “travel.”
Millie was a natural story teller, what her ancestors might have called a Bard. She regaled Anna with tales that sprang to life in the tiny, fire lit living room. Tales of the mighty heroes of ancient Ireland, the power of the land, and the Tuatha de Danaan, the early Gods and Goddesses of Ireland. Most of her stories had to do with the Celtic Imram.
The Celtic Imram
The Imram was the mythical heroes’ quest, the adventurous travels taken by ship to reach the farthest islands in the western oceans, in search of treasures, healing, or immortality. But Imrams were no ordinary expedition to explore the promises of those distant shores. They were the extraordinary voyage of the soul. The islands the travelers visited were portals to the Otherworld, that numinous place of magic, mysticism, and paradise.
Whereas their outer expeditions brought them to the edge of the known physical world, where they had to fight in order to survive, their inner voyage brought them to another sort of edge – one where they had the opportunity to evolve heightened levels of awareness. New spiritual realizations were gained and changes in consciousness occurred.
Through the tales of Anna’s grandmother, I came to see that my experience in Glastonbury was my Imram. And those startling images I’d seen as I sat quietly beside the Chalice Well were my initiation into major shifts in awareness. Several years later, those provocative images eventually married my creative Muse, and birthed the novels that became my Goddess of the Stars and the Sea Visionary Fiction trilogy.
Visionary Fiction is like the legendary Celtic Imram
Visionary Fiction is like the legendary Celtic Imram. The drama and tension of the characters’ adventures is one layer of the tale. All of the usual elements of suspense, conflict, even romance and mystery, are interwoven in the plot. The other layer, deeper and more archetypal, is that mystical inner journey of spiritual awakening. In Visionary Fiction, esoteric wisdom is embedded in story so that the reader can actually experience it, instead of merely learning about it.
When written well, Visionary Fiction does not proselytize, evangelize, coerce, or feel dogmatic. Often relegated to the genre of Fantasy, Inspiration, or Spirituality, it contains elements of all three. But the story line is generally more concerned with the protagonist’s internal experiences where non-logical methods – such as visions, dreams, psychic phenomena, past life remembrances, or forays into uncharted planes of existence – are the unique catalysts for radical shifts in perception. Characters explore alternative dimensions, sometimes willingly and sometimes not. They break from our everyday conditioned reality to glimpse a more enlightened doorway into unconventional perspectives.
It is a recent genre, and despite the fact there are not many Visionary Fiction novels out there, there is a rapidly growing interest in it. Take the world of priestesses and the sacred ancient sites of Glastonbury from Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon. Morgaine, the main character, is a priestess of the “Old Ways”, the ancient Goddess religions. The legend of King Arthur and the quest for the elusive Holy Grail – that divine receptacle of Love, Soul, and womb of the Sacred Feminine – is told through her unique perspective. Her personal and spiritual growth is an archetypal metaphor for our modern culture where there is a re-emerging interest in the Divine Feminine. This theme touched a collective yearning, something archetypally familiar, for millions of readers, and the novel became a Visionary Fiction classic.
Early Visionary Fiction Classics
James Redfield’s The Celestine Prophecy, while not a great literary work, clearly filled a need that reached main stream readership, selling over 20 million copies. It is a metaphysical adventure tale, a modern day thriller where governmental and church authorities pursue the hero as he undertakes an expedition to Peru in search of an ancient manuscript purported to hold nine spiritual insights. These insights serve to illuminate spiritual understanding as well as engaging the reader in a good tale. Mystical encounters and spiritual awakenings provide the raw material for the alchemy of the characters and reader alike.
Dan Millman’s The Way of the Peaceful Warrior is a Visionary Fiction best seller based on a true story, which also became a major motion picture. The main character, a college student and Olympic Gold hopeful in gymnastics, meets up with an enigmatic spiritual mentor, a contemporary Merlin disguised as a car mechanic. This teacher’s brand of mysticism and magic guide the hero to shatter his pre-conceived beliefs about strength, might, and victory. The world of the supernatural and the uncharted powers of the mind become fertile ground for the hero’s metamorphosis. His story becomes the quest that offers the potential of spiritual breakthroughs for the reader via the transformations he achieves.
“Visionary Fiction speaks the language of the soul”
My own visionary fiction trilogy is told through the eyes of the Goddess of the Stars and the Sea, and the priestesses of Her lineage. This ancient Goddess helps humanity during their cycles of spiritual evolution, those collective leaps in consciousness that occur throughout critical junctures in human history. Her priestesses confront personal and spiritual trials before they can don the mantle of their destiny and assist humankind through these cycles.
In the first novel of the trilogy, The Awakening: Rebirth of Atlantis, the priestess Geodran must protect the culture’s spiritual traditions from the degeneration of the once illuminated society, and go on to seed the world with Atlantean wisdom after the continent’s cataclysmic demise. In The Keys to Remember, the priestess Rhianna must preserve the lineage of the sacred feminine for posterity during a time when the feminine was savagely suppressed.
In the next novel, Carry on the Flame, the modern-day priestess Sharay must persevere through deceitful accusations that she’s criminally insane, in order to find her power and make the spiritual leap that has been prophesied – the brilliant light of embodied Divine Love.
In all three novels of the series, the heroines face obstacles in the mundane world, where the full potential of metaphysical human abilities are not often acknowledged and certainly not commonplace. The characters must also journey through the portal where the mundane world ends and the enchanted Otherworld begins. There they must address the unique challenges this unseen world presents. The metaphysical tools and methods the characters use to meet these challenges are imbued in the story, woven into the fictional thread. The invitation for readers is to apply them in their own lives.
Visionary Fiction author Monty Joynes, who wrote, among other books, Conversations with God: the Making of the Movie, says Visionary Fiction is a medium for metaphysical experience. I would add that it is a direct link to Spirit, a sort of Mystery School initiation for the reader. Whereas fiction uses story to touch the soul, Visionary Fiction speaks the language of the soul. It offers a vision of humanity as we dream it could be. At a time where our world is going through so much tumultuous change, we need more Visionary Fiction.
As with any good writing, Visionary Fiction requires you to be a word smith. You paint a verbal picture that offers a glimpse of the spaces in between the words. The spaces in between the plot, in between the drama. It is between the words that the metaphysical gem sits, and where inspiration dances. The spaces act as the passageway and portal to the visionary mystical experience for the reader. Therein they are admitted into a Universal Mystery School. The characters are merely the limina, Latin for threshold, into new views of reality. The Imram, the story, is the passport there.
A fated love and a sacred destiny brought through time.
The Hidden Abbey interweaves the story of two lovers who must fulfill a fated mission that spans across centuries and two lifetimes. In sixteenth century England, Marissa is a headstrong apprentice priestess of the mystical and legendary Isle of Avalon. she must learn to be a wise and responsible leader if she is to one day inherit the title of High priestess. her secret lover, Michael, is a warrior from a noble lineage. The two are charged with a grand and momentous task--to safeguard the Creation Bowl, the sacred vessel of the ancient Goddess tradition, imbued with the power to help heal the world. When
King Henry VIII confiscates and destroys all of England’s abbeys, the Bowl is
endangered. As Marissa and Michael fight to protect it, they are irrevocably
separated, and their quest is thwarted.
When they are reborn and
meet again in the twenty-first century as Sophie and Daniel, they are given a
second chance. The story follows their efforts to remember—each other and their
shared destiny.
In 2010 I received guidance to return to Glastonbury, England. Specifically, to the Abbey ruins, as that location would be where my next novel took place. While there, I visited the Mary Chapel, the now open crypt housing an altar alcove and a long nave.
I had received many visions while meditating in this spot when I lived in Glastonbury years before. This time, as I had often done previously, I sat on one of the stone benches in front of the altar. As I meditated, I saw a monk in my mind's eye. Someone who had often visited my previous meditations. Unexpectedly, all the prior year's meditations integrated, giving me fresh clarity and a vision for this novel, The Hidden Abbey.
This is the monk's heretofore untold story of the mystical underpinnings of Glastonbury Abbey, the hidden Abbey. And the tale of the undying love between him and the Avalon priestess, Marissa.
Dear readers,
Reviews are the best way to tell an author you enjoyed their book. Would you please leave a review on Amazon? It can be short--"I liked it" is fine. Thank you, you are so appreciated!
"Listen to Jodine Cognato Turner's interview about Visionary Fiction. Her interview is engaging, and she explains what is visionary fiction, the creative process of writing and also an explanation of writer’s block and what it can reveal to a visionary fiction writer." ~ author Eleni Papanou
To celebrate my award winning series I am excited to offer you an opportunity to win a copy of both Carry on the Flame books - Destiny's Call and Ultimate Magic. Through adventure and suspense filled story, my urban fantasy novels carry keys to how to embody love, how to unite your Sacred Lovers within, as well as magical meditation practices.
"The Love you desire is within."
Simply follow these 3 easy steps for your chance to win:
2. Go to my Facebook Author Page here and 'like' the page.
3. Lastly, leave me your email address in the comment section below so I know how to contact you if you win! And please feel free to browse my blog articles and follow me here!
The winner of my book give-away will be randomly selected and will receive a copy of both books in their choice of paperback or e-book format (PDF - with easy instructions on how to download onto a Kindle). Contest ends February 6th, 2012.
I am happy to be offering my novels to one lucky winner and I truly appreciate your support! Good luck!
Born
into a lineage of priestesses in modern day Glastonbury, England, Sharay is
chosen by the Goddess of the Stars and the Sea to help humankind move through
the fear and chaos of today’s world. To do so, she has to face her grief, loss,
and her own dark side. Her way is blocked by her jealous Aunt Phoebe, who uses
black magic against Sharay to steal her fortune and her magical powers. When
Phoebe accuses her of insanity and murder, it’s the elder, eccentric wizard
Dillon who sets Sharay on the Celtic ‘Imram,’ a quest designed to awaken her
magical abilities as a priestess. And it’s Dillon’s grandson Guethyn who shows
Sharay how to open her heart in the Beltaine Ritual, the ancient Celtic
ceremony of sacred union.
Hunted
by the police, stalked by a demonic Tracker conjured by her aunt, and torn from
everyone she loves, Sharay struggles with the temptation to fight Phoebe’s dark
powers with her own. She must transform her fear and hatred for her aunt in
order to uncover the mystery held deep within her cells that will allow her to
fulfill her destiny – a secret only she can discover. When separated from
Guethyn’s protection, Sharay continues on her Imram alone, in this
spellbinding conclusion to Carry on the Flame.
"Visionary fiction speaks the language of the soul"
During this time of the upcoming full moon, my newest novel, Book Two of Carry on the Flame: Ultimate Magic just released. This is right on the heels of Book One of Carry on the Flame: Destiny's Call receiving four awards, including being an award winning finalist in the USA Books 'Best Books of 2011' for New Age fiction.
Ultimage Magic is an urban fantasy, magical realism, visionary fiction novel for adults and young adults alike. It is fourth in the Goddess of the Stars and the Sea series, and is an initiatory experience into the mysteries of the divine feminine in union with the divine masculine through visionary fiction.
“I am that which is at the end of all longing. The love you desire is within.”
~The Goddess of the Stars and the Sea
********************
Carry on the Flame: Ultimate Magic Book Two
Born into a lineage of priestesses in modern day Glastonbury, England, Sharay is chosen by the Goddess of the Stars and the Sea to help humankind move through the fear and chaos of today’s world. To do so, she has to face her grief, loss, and her own dark side. Her way is blocked by her jealous Aunt Phoebe, who uses black magic against Sharay to steal her fortune and her magical powers. When Phoebe accuses her of insanity and murder, it’s the elder, eccentric wizard Dillon who sets Sharay on the Celtic ‘Imram,’ a quest designed to awaken her magical abilities as a priestess. And it’s Dillon’s grandson Guethyn who shows Sharay how to open her heart in the Beltaine Ritual, the ancient Celtic ceremony of sacred union.
Hunted by the police, stalked by a demonic Tracker conjured by her aunt, and torn from everyone she loves, Sharay struggles with the temptation to fight Phoebe’s dark powers with her own. She must transform her fear and hatred for her aunt in order to uncover the mystery held deep within her cells that will allow her to fulfill her destiny – a secret only she can discover. When separated from Guethyn’s protection, Sharay continues on her Imram alone, in this spellbinding conclusion to Carry on the Flame.
************************
You can view the book trailer here:
You can purchase Carry on the Flame: Ultimate Magic here.
Ultimate Magic has some wonderful endorsements so far:
This book is a revelation of deep spiritual truths that are the foundation for a new humanity based on love. It is a page turner with a profound message that might change your life.
~Tiziana DellaRovere, author and founder of Adorata, the spiritual path of Enlovement
If you feel you are not listening to your most authentic heart and want to, Sharay's bumpy journey is yours. If you have ever felt you have a calling or a mission in life that you resisted or if you are experiencing the challenges of stepping up to meet that call, Sharay's journey is yours.
~Alissa Lukara, author and founder of Transformational Writers
If you have not yet discovered the magical and visionary work of Jodine Turner, now is the time.
~ Kathleen McGowan, International bestselling author
This gripping tale of magic and adventure, set in both ancient and modern Britain, should appeal to lovers of Celtic fantasy everywhere!
~Mara Freeman, author and Director of the Avalon Mystery School
Carry on the Flame is an exciting read for modern day people who love the Divine Feminine; with intrigue, fighting the dark arts, and the challenges of facing a great destiny. This is a Goddess- inspired page turner you won't put down until the end.
~Kathy Jones, author, Priestess of Avalon Initiator and teacher.
Carry on the Flame: Destiny's Call
I'd love your support if you would leave a review of my novels on Amazon.com. You can go here to do so, and thanks!
This is Part 4, the final part in my Visionary Fiction series, describing this increasingly popular fiction genre. You can read Part 1 here, and Parts 3 & 4 in the posts immediately below.
Visionary Fiction speaks the language of the soul.
My own visionary fiction series is told through the eyes of the Goddess of the Stars and the Sea, and the priestesses of Her lineage. This ancient Goddess helps humanity during their cycles of spiritual evolution, those collective leaps in consciousness that occur throughout critical junctures in human history. Her priestesses confront personal and spiritual trials before they can don the mantle of their destiny and assist humankind through these cycles.
In the first novel of the trilogy, “The Awakening: Rebirth of Atlantis,” the priestess Geodran is entrusted to protect Atlantis' spiritual traditions from the degeneration of the once illuminated society, and go on to seed the world with Atlantean wisdom after the continent’s cataclysmic demise. In order to save her culture, as well as her life, Geodran must claim her own inner spiritual authority. Geodran's journey calls us to answer the question - are we inspired by our own inner truth to bring about change for the world, or do we align with the status quo and those who aspire to control and dominate?
In the award winning “The Keys to Remember,” the priestess Rhianna must preserve the lineage of the sacred feminine for posterity during a time when the feminine was savagely suppressed. She must learn that only by feeling your deepest pain can you truly open to love.
In the latest novel, a USA 2011 Best Books award winning finalist “Carry on the Flame:Destiny's Call,” the modern-day priestess Sharay must persevere through deceitful accusations that she’s criminally insane. She must face not only formidable outside forces, but her own grief, loss, and dark side in order to fulfill her destiny and make the spiritual leap that has been prophesied – the brilliant luminosity of embodied Divine Love. In Book Two ofCarry on the Flame: Ultimate Magic, Sharay must meet the challenges of her calling to discover that the power of love, both human and divine, lies within her very cells - and is the ultimate magic to heal and transform not only herself, but the chaos of our present times.
In all three novels of the trilogy, the heroines face obstacles in the mundane world, where the full potential of metaphysical human abilities are not often acknowledged and certainly not commonplace. The characters must also journey through the portal where the mundane world ends and the enchanted Otherworld begins. There they must address the unique challenges this unseen world presents. The metaphysical tools and methods the characters use to meet these challenges are imbued in the story, woven into the fictional thread. The invitation for readers is to apply them in their own lives.
Visionary Fiction author, Monty Joynes, who wrote, among other books, “Conversations with God: the Making of the Movie,” says Visionary Fiction is a medium for metaphysical experience. I would add that it is a direct link to Spirit, a sort of Mystery School initiation for the reader. Whereas fiction uses story to touch the soul, Visionary Fiction speaks the language of the soul. It offers a vision of humanity as we dream it could be. At a time where our world is going through so much tumultuous change, we need more Visionary Fiction.
As with any good writing, Visionary Fiction requires you to be a word smith. You paint a verbal picture that offers a glimpse of the spaces in between the words. The spaces in between the plot, in between the drama. It is between the words that the metaphysical gem sits, and where inspiration dances. The spaces act as the passageway and portal to the visionary mystical experience for the reader. Therein they are admitted into a Universal Mystery School. The characters are merely the limina, Latin for threshold, into new views of reality. The Imram, the story, is the passport there.
What are your thoughts about visionary fiction? I invite you to send me a comment!
While living in Glastonbury, England, the ancient Isle of Avalon, Jodine began writing her best-selling, award winning ‘Goddess of the Stars and the Sea’ novels. These YA/Adult Visionary Fiction, fantasy, magical realism novels tell the adventures of young priestesses who live during three perilous eras - the final days of Atlantis, the Dark Ages of the suppressed Divine Feminine, and present day Glastonbury during today’s turbulent change in consciousness many call the ‘Shift of the Ages’.
The novels carry keys to embodying love, and are an initiatory journey into the Mysteries of the Goddess.
First in this series of all stand alone reads is The Awakening: Rebirth of Atlantis. Next is The Keys to Remember. Most Recently released are Carry on the Flame: Destiny’s Call Book One and Carry on the Flame: Ultimate Magic Book Two.
Jodine lives in Oregon with her husband Christopher. She is an Adorata Practitioner in the spiritual path of embodying divine love and balancing the masculine and feminine within; as well as a therapist, a consecrated priestess, and a deacon in the Gnostic Church of Mary Magdalene.
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