Amy's Bookshelf Reviews Gives The Left Turn 5 Stars A few highlights from the review posted on 1/9/2023 by Amy Shannon: "Wonderfully told. . . . I haven't read anything by this author before, and what a hidden gem. I enjoyed it so much, that I have now followed the author and look for more books to read. This book is definitely well written, and the characters are very engaging, and very realistic. . . . This is one of those books that grabs you from the start and pulls you in. Geist has a great imagination. An emotional rollercoaster. Un-put-downable! . . . The Left Turn: Two Lives, Worlds Apart is a definite recommendation by Amy's Bookshelf Reviews." The After Show Podcast Interview I also [...]

Challenges of Discernment There are definitely times when I get nervous about something, and it's really hard to tell if that's my gut saying there is actually something to be nervous about OR it is me needlessly worrying about something that is fine. I've been experiencing that for two days. So here's what I'm trying to do to deal with it: First, I try to think and logic through the situation that is concerning me. That doesn't usually get me very far, but can provide at least some logical options for why everything might be just fine. Next, I meditate. I try to settle into feelings of gratitude for all the wonderful things in my life. But here's what seems to work best for me: [...]

Podcast Guest on William Ramsey Investigates I invite you to check out the episode in which I was recently a guest: William Ramsey Investigates.  A strange thing happened at the start. William had started to introduce me, but the audio was cutting out and I wasn't sure if it was my internet or his that was the problem. I wasn't sure if he'd actually finished the introduction or not, or if he had asked me a question. But suddenly he was gone. I wasn't really sure what had happened or if I could be heard or what. But, it looked like I was live and he was gone. So, what was I to do? There was this long pause while I tried to figure out [...]

What Would You Like? This is a powerful question. When we get really clear about the answer, it is the beginning of drawing that into our lives. This is not a list of I-wish-this-or thats. While we may rattle off those statements daily, they tend to be more expressions of frustration than anything else. Like "I wish there wasn't so much traffic" or "I wish he wouldn't say things like that." Clarity and what we would like and what having that will do for us are the first questions we would ask to implement change in transformational NLP. And the power that allows for that change and helps it come into being is gratitude for what we have and who we have been. It incorporates [...]

How Do We Gauge Reality? Something I've found surprising since releasing The Left Turn is how many people I know that have had some kind of psi or supernatural or paranormal experience. I suspect that it is actually more common than uncommon. What's also interesting is how these experiences are not typically shared or discussed, unless within a group where someone has already been bold enough to speak up about it. Once someone has done that, then everyone can get a feel for whether it is a safe topic or not. In Dean Radin's book Real Magic, he gives an historical framework for this fear of revealing psi or magical experiences and beliefs. Even though a very high percentage of people show great interest in [...]

Musings on Sensation I wonder . . .If my mind or consciousness—and I'm not sure those words can or should be used interchangeably—creates the idea or experience of sensation, then how reliable is this thing we call external "reality"? I sit on a chair on my porch with a hot cup of my favorite mix of MudWater and cacao and homemade almond milk in one of my favorite ceramic mugs. It has been raining, but now just the sound of drips from collected water in the trees lingers. I feel the warmth of the mug and my seat in the chair, taste the drink, hear the drips, smell the nearby tomato and basil plants, the cinnamon I sprinkled on top of my drink, and that [...]

Undone Season 2 Episode 1 (S2E1) - Synchronicities As I've been rewatching Amazon Prime's UNDONE series, I've discovered some additional common traits that I wanted to share. But first, a quote from UNDONE's protagonist: "The world's a magical place and anything is possible." Oh, yes, Alma, indeed! And later after the timelines realign: "The appearance that we're separate is only an illusion." In Season 2, Alma's consciousness realigns with the other version of herself that has been living her life in a different plane, or at least with a different timeline and set of experiences. Which seems like pretty much like two different ways of saying the same thing. Anyway, when this happens, she starts to have memories from her other self, the one we [...]

Genre Bending and Reality Bending I've been watching "Undone" on Amazon Prime, starring Rosa Salazar, Angelique Cabral, Constance Marie. UNDONE is a "genre-bending, animated dramedy that explores the elastic nature of reality through its central character, Alma  . .  After getting into a car accident and nearly dying, Alma finds she has a new relationship to time." I LOVE this exploration of reality and parallel universes, and all the questions it raises. In an interview with director Hisko Hulsing, it's clear that their intention was to stay in the mystery, to balance along the beam between what might be perceived as fluidity of reality and time and what might be seen as mental illness.  Clinging to the Comfort Zone In The Left Turn, Hannah stresses a lot [...]

Netflix 2022 Parallel Universe What-if Film The new Netflix film Look Both Ways, starring Lili Reinhart and Danny Ramirez, continues a trend of exploring parallel universe stories in film and literature. We are clearly fascinated by the idea that there may be multiple versions of ourselves splitting off especially at key decision points or times when a circumstance could play out one way—and we wonder what if it had gone the other way. In Look Both Ways, the circumstance that causes the split in the universe is a pregnancy test: positive or negative. Unlike most stories told with parallel lives, this one overlaps the action within the same frames, and traverses between story lines without much to distinguish them. Grass is Greener What-If The light [...]

Tossing and Turning I've been experiencing this amazing thing and it's not only helping me get to sleep at night, it's also an awesome reminder of the power of "I am.""Until recently, when I would go to bed I would toss and turn and think and think and think and . . . you get the picture. And eventually I'd say to myself, "I really need to let myself go to sleep" or "Time to go to sleep." Awhile after that, I would. Sleep Hack - I Am I don't know where the idea came from—the mystery and magic of ideas is a delight unto itself—but I tried saying to myself, "I'm asleep." Bam! It worked! Ok, sometimes I have to say it four [...]

The Right Amount of Revelation When writing The Left Turn, one of the challenging things was finding the right amount of revelation. My wonderful editor, David Colin Carr, kept reminding me to trust my readers to understand and remember things I'd already revealed—to not repeat myself. Also, as a reader/listener who really enjoys big "aha" moments once I am well into a story, and especially surprising twists at the end, I intentionally held back from in-depth explanations and tried to allow backstory to worm its way into moments throughout. like pieces of the character puzzles dropped in throughout the book. Immersed in the Protagonist's Experience The trick of this is that some readers prefer to always know what is going on. Confusion is, naturally, [...]

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