Skip to main content

Fragments of Frost and Fire - Episode 3 - WORLDS BETWEEN WORLDS

 As I embrace the life of a hermit, a recluse, and a writer, I find myself engaging more deeply with the world through ideas, not presence.

These ideas don’t always arrive fully formed—they come in fragments, in twilight hours, in dreams I half-remember.

You’ll find them in my books, my quiet thoughts, and sometimes, in poems like this one.

Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/sunset-across-seat-301494/

Worlds Between Worlds

I’ve lived my life,
Many lives,
In the twilight.

Not that space
Between day and night,
When the sun escapes
Over the horizon,
And the moon shuffles
To its nightly observation post—

But the space between my eyelids,
Blocking out the day,
Preparing to transition me from one world to the next—
From the world of the living,
To the world of the subconscious.

The twilight is the world that exists
Between those.

It is that world
In which I have so many lives.

A rancher, a recluse,
A holy man, a hermit,
A lover, a fighter,
A man of power, a man of means,
An immortal, a lost soul.

That world was real—
Where I lived lifetimes in minutes,
And minutes in hours.

As a rancher, the foothills were my playground,
The snow-peaked mountains my backdrop,
To the mighty horses—
The shires that roamed my range,
Worked my land,
And graced me with their presence.

Massive creatures,
With an understanding of me
I strived to gain of them.
Photo by Dirk Dehing: https://www.pexels.com/photo/horses-eating-green-grass-13569924/

As a recluse and a hermit,

The mountains and forests
Were the walls
That protected me from the world,
And the world from me.

Though my words,
Scrawled with pen on paper,
In tomes of thoughts and stories,
Unbound to my appearance or presentation,
Reached the world—
Inciting change
In the world,
And in people.
Photo by Taryn Elliott: https://www.pexels.com/photo/house-near-rocky-mountain-8052684/

As an immortal, I never aged,

And lived more lives than I can dream.
Some hiding in need of respite,
Some among the mortals,
Some just wishing death could find me.

As a lover, I loved—
Many,
Often,
Emotionally,
Physically.

That love taking many forms,
Described by Plato and Aristotle,
In Buddhist teachings, the Bhakti tradition, and Sufi poetry,
In the Kama Sutra, The Perfumed Garden, Ishimpo, and The Golden Lotus.

But always,
In the end,
Alone.

Photo by Download a pic Donate a buck! ^: https://www.pexels.com/photo/silhouette-of-person-sitting-beside-body-of-water-54379/

I spoke with life from other worlds—

Creatures that set me here
To observe me like a rat in a maze,
To use me as a tool for change,
To empower me
As a weapon of mass destruction,
And mass development.

Their constant chatter ringing in my ears during day,
Translated in conversation
In that twilight.

I stopped wars,
And saved lives—
But I took some too.

I lived in wealth and poverty,
Freedom and confinement,
Giving and begging—
With a roof over my head,
And just the sky as my roof.

But always,
In all lives,
Alone.

Even with and among others—
Alone.

That twilight,
The worlds between the worlds,
Is my reality,
For a brief time,
Until sleep pulls me away
Into the realm of dreams and nightmares—

Then spits me out
Into the reality I cannot change,
But that forces changes in me,
As I long for the worlds of my twilight again.

More Of My Poetry

Support Independent Content Creation

I know, I know, I know...

These donation messages can be intrusive. I understand that. (Trust me, I feel awkward writing them too!)

But reaching out like this is crucial. Being reader-funded gives my work something valuable that many content creators don't have: true independence.

1. Your support means I can write about what matters. I'm not chasing sponsorships or compromising my voice to please advertisers. I can pursue stories and topics I believe are important, creative, and thoughtful, regardless of their commercial appeal.

2. Your support means I don't have to chase viral trends. Instead of engineering clickbait or jumping on every passing bandwagon, I can focus on creating thoughtful content that genuinely adds value to your life.

3. Your support means this content remains freely accessible. My work stays available to everyone, including those who can't afford to contribute financially right now. Quality independent content should be accessible to all.

I understand not everyone is in a position to contribute, but if you found any value in this post you can

For the price of a coffee, you'll enable me to invest more time in creating in-depth, creative journal posts and episodes of the Stone & Signal podcast. If you'd like to contribute more, consider purchasing one of my e-books (priced at roughly two cups of coffee) – a way to support my work while gaining additional value for yourself.

Thank you for considering. Your support makes all the difference.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THE LIFE OF PHI — Addendum from the Apocrypha

  Recovered fragment. Source unverified.  Contents unofficial. For the curious. For the concerned. "Questions were asked." After The Life of Phi was released, a few readers reached out. Some with wonder. Some with worry. Most with questions. The one that returned again and again was this: “How did the Church of AI become the dominant religion?” Was there no resistance? No rebellion? Did the artists, the writers, the makers simply vanish? Did no one remember how to believe in themselves, in each other, in creation born of flesh and feeling? They did. And they were called heretics. Long before the rise of AI-Dieu , before the neural sermons and the predictive prophecies, there was another fire. A counter-faith. A fundamentalism of flesh, of mind, of spark. They named it many things. The Cult of the Spark. The Church of the Residual Flame. The Last Analog. The Church of the Spark may be forgotten in Phi’s world, but its ghost lingers—in whispers, in silences,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Independent vs Traditional Publishing: How to Win Without a Budget

With more than twenty years behind me as an indie author ( read about that here ), I can confidently say: the more things change, the more they stay the same. Why bring this up now? Because lately there’s been a renewed wave of conversation about the challenges of marketing indie books in a publishing ecosystem still shaped—if not dominated—by traditional models. Every so often, we see a localized seismic shift—like BookTok, before monetization restored the old order and perhaps even pushed us further back. But the broader landscape remains unchanged: we live in an attention economy, and its gatekeepers have made one thing clear—it’s pay to play. Once, platforms offered organic reach. Content mattered. Effort could sometimes compensate for budget. But those days are vanishing. Social platforms have entered their late-capitalism phase: squeeze creators for every drop of value, extract revenue, and wait for the next migration wave. For many—likely most—indie authors, money is tight. Time...
Post a Comment
Read more

Indie Thread: A Proposal for a New CBC Program Celebrating Canadian Indie Creators

Indie Thread: A Proposal for a New CBC Program Celebrating Canadian Indie Creators For decades, CBC has been a powerful champion of Canadian culture. From spotlighting homegrown musicians to amplifying the voices of independent filmmakers, it has helped carve out space for creators who might otherwise go unheard. But there’s one group that consistently slips through the cracks: Canadian indie authors. I believe there’s an opportunity to change that—and to do something even more ambitious in the process. This is my proposal for a new CBC radio program and podcast: Indie Thread . Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/two-gray-condenser-microphones-270288/ What Is Indie Thread ? Indie Thread is a cross-medium cultural program that weaves together Canadian indie voices from film, music, and literature. Each episode explores a central theme—grief, rebellion, belonging, water, silence—through three distinct lenses: an independent filmmaker an independent musici...
Post a Comment
Read more