Here are the first bunch of episodes from the newly reborn Hidden Experience Podcast. All turned out wonderful.
I don't post much on the ol' blog anymore, but it feels important to keep sharing here.
It was almost a decade ago when I had coffee in Edinburgh with Colin Kerris, the young man who wrote this review. This from GoodReads, a website devoted to books.
When reading this review, please imagine it being spoken in a thick Scottish brogue.
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The Unseen! is a story about WALKING! Walking into WILDERNESS! Walking into canyons. Walking into space. Walking into time. Walking alone into the cold dark spaces hidden from the sun. Walking into the sheltered spaces between where no one goes. Walking into memories unrememberable, irretrievable. Walking into the dead of night at 3am. Walking into history. But maybe - some will go. Some should not. WILL you walk with me, traveller, into the old dead heart of time? Into the KNOWN unknown that AWAITS us all? DARE you traverse the very tightrope walk of existence? One second alive, full of joy... the next, DOOMED? FEAR YE, TRAVELER!! LOOK YE WELL, FOR THIS IS... The Unseen!
After a long decade, my podcast has come back to life.
Hidden Experience emerged in 2009, and slipped into hibernation in 2014. Now is the dawn of a newer version of my role as a podcaster. The old show was based on experiences and emotions, and the power of the story.
Dear Friends,
Last year I self-published a novel, The Unseen. It’s selling surprisingly well, and the reviews have been wonderful. The story taps into my owl research—how the ancient mythology of owls is playing out, present day, in real-life events.
Readers have been asking for an audiobook, and I’m working with a talented actor whose voice beautifully captures the mystery and subtlety of the story.
I’m hosting a Kickstarter campaign to help pay for the audiobook. It went live last night.
The site includes a short video, a list of donation rewards, and I explain why I chose to raise funds through Kickstarter. I hope to raise $4500, and I’m optimistic I can achieve this goal. The campaign ends February 27th.
Even if you can’t pledge anything to the campaign, I could use your help getting the word out. It would help me enormously if you could comment, share, forward, and retweet my upcoming announcements.
If you have experience with anything similar, please let me know. I’m eager to know what has worked for you, or any ideas to help make this fundraiser a success. You can reach me in the comments below, or at the 'contact' tab in the menu bar above.
My goal is simple—to create a powerful listening experience for a book I’m proud of.
Thank you for your support!
Peace and strength,
Mike!
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| the novel began as a comic book |
I read two other audiobooks, and after each one, I declared to myself, “Never again!”
Well, I’m at the point now where I have to trust that declaration. I am abandoning my role as narrator for my own book. I plan on hiring a voice actor to read it for me.
I know people want me to read it myself, but I’m crying uncle.
I’m poorly suited to read text out loud. I need to do so many re-takes, to the point where it’s sort of absurd. That said, I’m skilled at editing audio, so if I put in enough time and effort, I can create something that sounds excellent. But the amount of energy involved would be brutal.
I know I could read, record, and edit The Unseen. But that would mean six months or more of frustration and drudgery in front of a microphone and editing software.
I would rather use that time working on the sequel. I can get lost in the creative process of bringing the follow-up book to life.
As an aside, multiple great-horned owls are hooting out my window as I type this—and they’re loud!
I will keep everyone posted on the progress of these big projects.
audio samples of me reading from the book here
The excerpt begins at 55:21
Sharon Hewitt Rawlette was interviewed by Kelly Chase about synchronicities. I was so moved by the clarity and insight that I transcribed a big section of their conversation. Both Sharon and Kelly understand the power of this mystery, and I felt a strong pull to share it here.
This interview was posted on October 12, 2023 on Kelly’s podcast, THE UFO RABBIT HOLE PODCAST.
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Sharon Hewitt Rawlette: If you view the universe as another mind, not necessarily wholly separate from you, but somehow that we are part of that. When you're aligned with what that larger mind is trying to do—then things get way easier.
Kelly Chase: They do, they absolutely do. And for me, that ends up being how I stay grounded and noticing a lot of synchronicities.
I do think there is almost a danger in synchronicities. I think it's so cool what synchronicities can do for people, in terms of giving them direction. And also giving them this sense of agency, and wonder, and all these things that I don't think we have in our daily lives. But I also worry sometimes—because, for some people, and I've certainly teetered on that edge, from time to time. It can become a kind of madness, you can lose yourself and lose the thread, chasing these synchronicities. I would love to hear your thoughts on that, on how that happens, and how to avoid that.
SHR: What’s been most helpful for me for avoiding getting carried away by synchronicities in a negative obsessive way, has been recognizing that the primary role of synchronicities in my life is to tune me into my own intuition. I really believe from years of experiencing them and thinking about it, that the coincidences and synchronicities seem to show up in my life when there is part of me that knows what I should do, or need to do, or what I feel about something, that on a social level, or maybe in my own mind, I’m not willing to own up to. The coincidences will put that out there in the physical world—will put it there in front of my face so that I can’t ignore it anymore. And by doing that they will draw attention to the things that inside I’ve been ignoring.
I’m a very analytical person, and I tend to ignore my emotions, especially if they aren’t lined up with what I should be accomplishing in this moment, and I’ll just push them to the side. And those coincidences will often come into my life in a very strong way when there’s an emotion, or an issue, that I really need to attend to—and it really brings it front and center in such an impactful way that I have to pay attention to that intuition.
The coincidences have played that role, and over time they have trained me to pay more attention to the emotions before they get to that level where they have to displayed on the coincidence screen of my life.
So, to bring this back to your question, when people, including myself, when we get carried away with trying to figure out exactly what the coincidences are telling us—or is this coincidence is significant, and in what way? Or how does it all fit together? We’re starting to get lost in the analytical mind again which is NOT what the coincidences are trying to do—it’s not where they are trying to take us—and we’ve gone off the rails. Its almost like we’re trying to get them to speak a language that they don't speak, and we don't know why its all coming out gibberish. The more we look at the coincidences, the more they stop making any sense—they just seem overwhelming.
It’s because they we aren’t listening to them on the level that we need be listening to them, which is at the level of the heart and the emotion. So when somebody is in that situation where they feel overwhelmed by the coincidences or completely mystified by what they mean—my first piece of advice would be to take time to sit quietly with yourself and pay attention to what you are feeling. What are you feeling about the coincidences that are happening? And what are you feeling more generally in you life? Are there things that you’ve been avoiding doing, avoiding saying, avoiding recognizing, that need to be done, or said, or recognized? That’s what the coincidences trying to get you to do.
So if you go inside that way, and you find the emotional root of the coincidental events, then the coincidences are going to calm themselves.
You’ll see this reaction in the external world, where it will calm down because it doesn't need to try to get you to pay attention anymore to your feelings.
Does that make sense?
KC: That’s such great advice. The way I've started to think about it is that—I’m really obsessed with the “Hero’s Journey” and I feel like its part of that algorithmic nature of consciousness and reality we’ve been talking about. I think it’s a major price of that puzzle. And it seems like your saying, the synchronicity is trying to get you to pay attention to something.
And it can feel as though there’s this really thrilling, almost euphoric, moment when you have a really good one. You feel like the universe has winked at you in particular.
And I think about it in terms of the Hero’s Journey, in terms of the call to adventure, it’s that moment you realize that the nature of your reality isn’t what you thought it was—like it’s the letter coming from Hogwarts, it’s Gandolph giving you the ring—and there’s an elation, and a fear, and a lot of things. And a lot of things that come with that, but its very heightened. It’s one of the emotional high-points of the story, right?
I think people can get trapped in that part, because the call to adventure is just the beginning—there’s a lot of work you have to do.
SHR: Yeah, and it’s not all euphoric. In fact, most of it is not.
KC: Yeah, some of it sucks! Here’s something that happened to me. It felt like I had gotten an example that I had made the right choice in my life, I had listened to myself and I had done the right thing, but then I had to do that job. And that part wasn’t so glamorous, and it didn't deliver me to ultimate answer or purpose to my life. But I can see now it was the step that got me to where I am now, which will take me to something else. People get trapped in that.
SHR: It’s addictive.
KC: Yeah, like when they give the rats a choice between food, water, or cocaine—and they just go for the cocaine.
SHR: It’s so liberating and encouraging to realize that, yeah, there is way more to the universe than I thought. There’s something that is helping me along the way. There are all these other possibilities I didn’t realize were there.
And then you get to the point where you gotta start doing some work to make things happen, but it doesn’t feel as fun anymore and you just wanna get back to that feeling, and just let all the possibilities open up again. But it’s not a sustainable state. That’s not the ultimate purpose of our existence here.
There’s a reason that the coincidences are generally subtle, and in the background. It’s not every decision you make in your life that a coincidence will arrive and tell you what to do.
Coincidences are not a way to avoid the hard work of living. You have to make choices. You have to put in effort. You have to walk down the path. And every so often, when things are getting really tough, and you might not be able to make it up otherwise, you’ll get this sparkly little intervention from the universe that says “Don't worry, you’re on the right path, just keep going, or maybe turn a little bit to the left and things will be okay,” but it’s not always gonna be like that. And that’s a hard thing to accept. Life is a hard thing to accept in general, just how difficult it is. And synchronicity is a help along that way
Like you were saying synchronicity often comes up in transitional moments in your life. I think they come up in hard moments in our life's in general. In those times when we feel stuck, we have no idea what to do, or how to navigate—and we will get help in those moments—but then we have to run with it, and do the next step.
KC: Yes, I love that so much!
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This excerpt was posted with the approval and consent of both Sharon and Kelly. There was some minimal editing of the spoken dialog to clarify it within the printed text.
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I've been recording myself reading THE UNSEEN for an audiobook, and I want to share what I can along the way. This is a 16-minute excerpt where I read the prologue, and this sets up the rest of the story. It's been a fun challenge to act out the roles and play up the drama.
The book has been selling well, and the reviews have been wonderful. As a first-time novelist, I was SO worried that nobody would get the story I was trying to tell.
Get the book HERE
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And below is another audio excerpt posted back in June
Kelly Chase, host of The UFO Rabbit Hole Podcast, talks about my novel THE UNSEEN and lots more…
Sharon and I explore the genesis and creative process of my new novel. We wrestle with the role of paranormal fiction, and the source of inspiration.
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| old comic books and trashy paperbacks as inspiration |
Music was a big part of my creative process. Here are twelve songs that were vital to the book.
If you wanna jump past my introduction, the music starts at about 3:40 or so.
Lemme know if you want more!
(more soon)
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| initial sketch created in 2011 for a graphic novel (click on the image for a HI-rez view) |
I never imagined I would say that, but I’m saying it now. The plan is to have it available by mid-May.
Twelve years ago I had an idea to do a comic book (graphic novel might be the better term). I was pretty excited about it at the time. I wrote up a treatment, did some preliminary sketches, and then gave up. I put the thing on a shelf and forgot about it. Six years later I found the outline and reread it, and I thought write it up as a tidy little novella. I’d already published my first two owl books and figured, “How hard could it be?”
Well, that was five years, and a lot of lonely hours ago. The book should be right around 300 pages, and the title is The Unseen.
Also, I'll be creating an audio book, reading the thing myself, but I have no idea when that might be available.
Right now I’m working with a few close friends trying to tidy up the text, and that’s coming along nicely.
I plan on doing a set of youtube videos to promote the book. The thing is, this book evolved in a tumbling cloud synchronistic magic. I'm cautious to just blurt it out like that, but I don’t any other way to say it.
I don't want to say too much right now, but I can say this:
It’s a book about UFOs where I never use the word UFO.
It’s about abduction, and I never use that word.
And, it’s about aliens, and I never use that word either.
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| __________________________________________ This from the opening of my upcoming novel |
