" ... one man loved the pilgrim soul in you ... "
William Butler Yeats
About This Blog
Pilgrim Soul offers reflections about my fiction, culture, religion, Puerto Rican identity, and writing craft. It also includes a series called A Hero’s Journey featuring individuals who have shown great courage or who have changed the world significantly. A common theme is that of pilgrimage; secular and spiritual, individual and collective. I often will cite short stories to express my views.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Merry Christmas y Feliz Navidad
A Christmas greeting to you and your family. Wishing you much joy.
Born in Puerto Rico, I moved at a young age to the U.S., where my parents became Pentecostal ministers. Early immersion in Latino and religious cultures preceded later experiences as a businesswoman, a White House Fellow, and life aboard a trawler cruising from Martha’s Vineyard to South America. These sometimes incompatible worlds have given me a respectful outlook toward differing points of view. My multicultural fiction frequently explores the tensions among conflicting religious perspectives, as well as those between the Latino and Anglo cultures. My short stories have been published in literary magazines. My novels await publication.
multicultural
does not describe me fully
it is where to start
Followers
Why Waterfalls?
The defining image of this blog is a waterfall. Its inspiration comes from a scene in one of my novels in which the infant protagonist escapes her mother’s attention and wanders off to a nearby waterfall. While there, she experiences a mysterious sense of wellbeing, which she yearns to replicate for the rest of her life.
"I have made love to my writing and am now in the afterglow."
Judith Mercado
"Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession... Do that which is assigned to you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
About his fictional town Macondo, widely acknowledged to be inspired by his real home town of Aracataca, Colombia. “Macondo is not so much a place as it is a state of mind.”
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."
Plato
"The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers fear."
Nelson Mandela
"The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing."
Blaise Pascal, Pensées
"There is vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action and, because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly... to keep the channel open."
Martha Graham
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