“On this day 30 years ago, The MoonQuest story ambushed me in a Toronto writing workshop I was facilitating. Its story and mine have been inextricably linked ever since…
It all started with The MoonQuest. This journey I’m on and every journey that led up to this journey, however I traveled it, has its origins in The MoonQuest.
The MoonQuest was my first book and novel, the first full-length piece I ever attempted using the Muse Stream technique I teach in all my writing workshops and books, and it would became a template of sorts, not only for how I write but for how I live.
In The MoonQuest’s mythical “once upon a time” land of Q’ntana, stories have been banned, storytellers have been exiled or put to death and the moon, as legend has it, is so saddened by the silence that she sheds tears that extinguish her light. The MoonQuest, then, becomes a journey to restore story, imagination and vision to the land and light to the moon.
The journey comes with neither directions nor a clear destination for Toshar, its young protagonist, who is informed only that he is to follow his heart and to let the stories that move through him reveal the way forward…that, and frequent reminders to trust his heart and those stories, unconditionally: “You either trust or you do not,” he is told more than once. “There is no halfway in between.”
Sound familiar? If you have been following my journeying for any period of time, it should. It describes not only this Yellow Brick Road odyssey I’ve been on for fourteen months but just everything in my life through the thirty-some years that led up to it.
Why am I sharing this today? Because it was on this day thirty years ago that The MoonQuest story ambushed me in a Toronto writing workshop I was facilitating. Its story and mine have been inextricably linked ever since.
I knew nothing about any kind of story that March evening in 1994. All I knew was that I was to do the same exercise I had just given my group: Pull a major arcana card at random from The Celtic Tarot deck I had felt compelled to buy a few days earlier, and allow the card to guide me into writing.
The card I chose (that chose me?) was the Chariot, and what tumbled onto the page that night would become the opening scene of a fantasy story I knew nothing about, one I had no conscious desire to write. Clearly, though, the desire was there.
My opening involved an odd-looking man in an odd-looking coach pulled by a pair of horses as oddly colored as those on The Celtic Tarot Chariot card and next morning, lured back into the story, I added to it. I continued adding to it daily, almost obsessively, rarely knowing from one day to the next what the story was about or where it was carrying me. A year later on the anniversary of that Toronto class and a thousand miles away in Nova Scotia, I completed the first draft of a fantasy novel I never expected to write: The MoonQuest.
As you probably know, the story didn’t end there. It didn’t even end when I thought it did, with two more Q’ntana books and the completion of an unplanned trilogy. The Q’ntana Trilogy morphed into The Legend of Q’ntana six years later when I was reminded of a line from The MoonQuest: “There’s more to every story. Tell me how it continues.”
So I did, and The Bard of Bryn Doon was born (it will be released later this year). Now, there’s a fifth Q’ntana book in-progress, with a sixth planned.
A few years ago, before there was a Bard of Bryn Doon, I penned this vision statement for my Q’ntana series…
These Q’ntana stories have always been bigger than me — from the moment The MoonQuest insisted itself onto the page. These are stories that have so long been such a part of my life that it’s as though they live deep within my cells.
I am every one of their characters, villain as much as hero, and have lived each of their joys, triumphs, disappointments, betrayals and disasters.
For decades, I have watched their themes play out in the world around me, just as I have experienced them play out in my life…and not always comfortably. In the end, I am more than the storyteller. I am the story.
I am still the story, just as I was that March evening in Toronto…the story of a bard who follows his heart and lets the tales that move through him reveal the way forward as he journeys on a quest to return story, imagination and vision to the land.
It’s that journey that the Chariot launched me on thirty years ago this night with The MoonQuest. And wherever I find myself through whatever years are left to me, I know that journey will continue.
Postscript: Ever wonder where Kyri got his name? ”Kyri” comes from The MoonQuest, where he’s significant secondary character. Of course, Kyri-dog is no secondary character; he’s the star of the show!
Read more inspiring stories from my journeys in Acts of Surrender: A Writer’s Memoir, Dialogues with the Divine and Pilgrimage: A Fool’s Journey.
If you’re inspired by my journeys and feel moved to offer some form of “energy exchange,” I welcome whatever you feel called to send my way, through Zelle, PayPal, Apple Cash, Facebook Messenger, credit/debit card or other means (reach out to me for the relevant links). Alternatively, pick up a copy of one (or more) of my books – for yourself or for a friend. Of course, the best energy exchange of all is your good wishes. I'm supremely grateful for those. Always!