Blog Tour with MaAnna Stephenson

Today I'd like to Welcome MaAnna Stephenson to my blog. MaAnna is the author of the Sage Age - Blending Science With Intiutive Wisdom.

While currently known as a visionary thinker and new author, MaAnna Stephenson is a true Renaissance woman. From an early age she was exposed to a myriad of influences including her father's engineering and artistic endeavors, her maternal line of intuitives, and an intrinsic fascination with sound and music. Born in the small town of Humboldt, Tennessee, MaAnna began her journey as the youngest of three children with a huge age gap between her siblings and herself. Constant inclusion in the world of adults led to an early maturity and perhaps a different view of the world than most children experience – especially with the special gifts of the adults in her family. None of it was lost on young MaAnna. "My mother was also an intuitive, as were all the women in my immediate family. Having psychic senses was quite normal and the information derived from these methods was respected and adhered to. I became accustomed quite early to the fact that there were things - forces and powers - which could not be measured with a ruler but were just as real as anything I could see or touch."

An additional gift was bestowed by her paternal grandmother – the gift of music. Time spent at the organ with her grandmother, who was well known for her passion for music, ignited a flame in MaAnna as well. By the time she was a teenager, she was already a multi-instrumentalist and composer, exploring sounds and techniques with special interest in how they affected listeners spiritually and emotionally. Her advanced education continued this line of exploration as she attended Jackson State Community College and Lambuth University concurrently, double majoring in Music and Acoustics with a special apprenticeship at a local recording studio as a sound engineer.

MaAnna transferred to Jackson Area Vocational and Technical School, acquiring a degree in Electronics. This led to a prestigious job offer and subsequent move to Dallas, TX in 1984. She continued her work in sound engineering and music with several international hits to her credit.

After a decade in the big city, she accepted a field assignment in Nashville, TN where she has resided since. It was in Nashville that she began her writing career with a short story triggering what she calls "soul memories." In response to her experience, MaAnna began her self-education in the fields of technical, scientific and New Age thought, exploring ancient mysticism and the rational sciences with equal emphasis. After a five-year preparation period, she was initiated as a shamanka. Her training for this initiation further contributed to her education process as she continued her studies in reconciling the rational sciences and the intuitive arts. This process has culminated in the writing of the newly released "The Sage Age – Blending Science with Intuitive Wisdom".

The Sage Age – Book Synopsis –

Combining the knowledge of physics with intuitive practice is no small task. The two disciplines often use the same words to mean entirely different things. Written for the seeker with more than a casual interest, The Sage Age – Blending Science with Intuitive Wisdom demystifies complex ideas with intelligent analogies and examples designed to appeal to both the scientist and the natural intuitive.

Four years in the writing, this expansive new work combines knowledge from the physical sciences and the intuitive arts to present a visionary perspective that harmonizes these diverse disciplines into one body of knowledge.

With a well-researched approach to its subjects, The Sage Age covers a broad range of material from ancient to modern thought, frontier science and current intuitive practice to deliver a depth and breadth of understanding that culminates in a holistic perspective for our time.

Living up to its mantra of "new models for new thought," The Sage Age is certain to be a catalyst for dialogue and is destined to be a major work in its field.

To learn more about MaAnna Stephenson and The Sage Age, visit www.sageage.net and you can subscribe to The Sage Age Newsletter while you are there.

For more tour information, visit
http://virtualblogtour.blogspot.com/2008/09/sage-ag:

My New Camera

Hi, Everyone!

I just purchased a new Canon digital camera. I have been thinking about a digital camera for a long time, but never got the urge to really pick one up and buy it. But last week, while shopping in Sears , I happened into the electronic section and lo and behold there were a line of digital cameras just waiting for me to check them out. My first pick was a Canon that was 7 mega-pixels, with a 4x optical lens, and thought that was a pretty good one to start with. Unfortunately, after reading the basic book and going on to the "advanced" manual, I still couldn't open the battery door to input the batteries and the memory card. Try as I might, it just wouldn't open. My daughter who has a digital camera and uses it quite often tried as well. One half hour later we both decided there was something wrong with the camera, so I decided to return it to Sears. My daughter suggested that as long as was returning that one, I really should pick up a camera that was 10 mega-pixels with a 4x optimal lens, which I did. (There was a reason behind her request. She wants to use it when she shoots her jewelry collection to post on her website.) When asked why was I returning the first camera, I told the salesman that the camera was defective, the door to the battery chamber wouldn't open. He didn't seem to know anymore about the camera than I did. Moments later, the salesman I bought the original camera from came by and took over the exchange. After I purchased the newer Power Shot Canon Camera, he asked me why I was returning the first one, I repeated my problem. He picked up the camera and with a flick of his finger had the door open. I asked him how he did it, and he showed me...It slid open it didn't work the way the book said it would. We laughed about it, but I still kept the newer camera.

Since purchasing my new Power Shot, I have taken over 150 pictures of the various trees, bushes, rocks and animals around my area. It's obsessive...you keep snapping pictures as if there is no tomorrow. My husband and I decided to take a ride down to the Ocean, and even though I couldn't see anything that I was shooting at (the Sun made looking through the LCD monitor impossible no matter which way I turned), the pictures came out better than I expected. I've discovered that I am really enjoying this camera, and as long as the batteries hold out, I will be shooting at everything and anything that passes my way.

Yes, I know after 300 or so pictures, the batteries have to be changed, but that's okay. What I love about this is that you can download the pictures into your computer and delete the memory card and reuse it over and over again. Isn't technology wonderful!

New Print Release

Hi, Everyone!

I know I haven't been blogging lately, its not because I don't want to, but man and nature has a way of interrupting what one would think was a serene lifestyle until something unexpectedly happens. It all began on April 11, 2008 when I went into a small grocery store to buy lottery tickets...then all hell broke loose. All I can say about that is that when the dust settled, I was unconscious, laying on the floor of the store and on my way to the hospital. Since then I've been in a lot of pain, spending weeks on end at the doctors' offices. Things are easing up a bit so I can take this opportunity to try blogging again. Maybe not an everyday affair, but once or twice a week.

Since all this happened, my publisher has released the 2nd book in the Sarah's Landing Series in print. The Telepaths of Theon is now in print, as well as an ebook and a kindle book on Amazon.com. The ISBN # of The Telepaths is 1-59431-598-1.

An excerpt from Chapter One of The Telepaths:
Sarah's Landing II - The Telepaths
Chapter 1 : Excerpt

Sarah's Landing, Earth

The weeks were rushing by and Alexandra was getting bigger and bigger. The townspeople under the leadership of the owl-faced Postmistress, Emily Pritchard, were now looking at her with a mixture of contemptuousness and fear.
"What do you suppose her baby will look like?" 'Old-Lady' Pritchard asked the tall, burly, full bearded General Store Proprietor, Ebenezer Grayson.
"I hear her talking to 'it' when she doesn't think anyone can hear her," a woman customer volunteered.
"And," another added, "she acts as if 'it' answers her."
"Well, I don't believe the stories we've heard," 'Old-Lady' Pritchard interrupted. "Lt. Jacobsen is the father of her child and she is trying to make it out to be the poor soul who disappeared. I don't believe that one for an instant!"
"Well what is she staying here for?" Ebenezer Grayson thundered. "Why doesn't she go back with her Lieutenant when he leaves?"
"I think she's trying to shame us all for the way our town acted when her 'friend' disappeared, don't you know," Emily Pritchard answered. Then she added haughtily, "Flaunting her 'condition' and allowing the Lieutenant into her home whenever he comes to town, so it would appear he's not the real father! Harrumph!"
And so it was with most of the townspeople. Alexandra, and her unborn child, became their favorite subject for gossip.

* * *

The stories spread by the women in the town reached Alexandra. She did her best to ignore them and tried to avoid running into them whenever she went into town to shop. Most of her daylight hours, when Henderson was not harassing her, were spent walking along the shoreline, afraid to climb or walk along the rocks above, afraid something or someone would cause her to fall and injure Joshua's child.
On nights she could not sleep, she wandered along the lonely beach, staring at the stars trying to contact Joshua and hoping he would answer her.
She sorely needed a friend. All of her friends had long since left town and gone their separate ways. They had begged her to leave with them, but she would not. Sarah's Landing was the only place she felt close to Joshua. With the exception of her doctor and the two police officers, no one in town spoke to her, afraid too, afraid of what might happen if they did; and she felt desperately lonely.
One afternoon, when she was at her lowest ebb, a messenger rapped furiously on her door and scurried away after leaving a long white box, in the hallway, at the foot of her door.
When she answered the door, she was surprised to see the white box sitting there. Looking around for the person who delivered it, she saw no one. She reached down to retrieve the box. Taking it inside, she cautiously looked at it before opening it. Not knowing who could have sent it, she wondered if Henderson has something to do with it.
"It would be just like him to drop this at the foot of my door and disappear pretending someone else had sent it to me."
I'm almost afraid to open it, she thought. If it is from Henderson it could be a bomb. She shook her head. No, not even he would stoop that low.
She finally decided it was safe enough and gingerly opened the box. A dozen of the most beautiful red roses she had ever seen greeted her. The card inside read, "Thought you could use a little cheering up -- will call tomorrow. Love, Harry." His timing could not have been more perfect.

Tony Snow's Testimony

Hi, All!

For some reason the credit for the article on Tony Snow didn't fully print. Therefore, to be sure that the credit is given to whom it belongs, which is Craig Bell of the World Net Group, I'll post it here. His email address : ctbell@world.net.att.net. Yes, I did try to edit the bigger post but for some reason it wouldn't respond to my attempts. What can I say?

Tony Snow's Testimony - Powerful Reading!

I received this in my email today and thought it was so beautiful that it was worth posting here. Wed., 7/23/08, Craig Bell wrote:

This is a bit long but well worth the read.....excellent testimony!!

Tony Snow 1955--2008

TONY SNOW'S TESTIMONY

This is the outstanding testimony from Tony Snow, President Bush's Press Secretary, and his fight with cancer. Commentator and broadcaster Tony Snow announced that he had colon cancer in 2005. Following surgery and chemo-therapy, Snow joined the Bush Administration in April, 2006, as press secretary. Unfortunately, on March 23, 2007, Snow, 51, a husband and father of three, announced that the cancer had recurred, with tumors found in his abdomen, leading to surgery in April, followed by more chemotherapy. Snow went back to work in the White House Briefing Room on May 3, and later resigned since, 'for economic reasons,' and to pursue 'other interests.' It needs little intro . . . it speaks for itself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

'Blessings arrive in unexpected packages, - in my case, cancer. Those of us with potentially fatal diseases - and there are millions in America today - find ourselves in the odd position of coping with our mortality while trying to fathom God's will. Although it would be the height of presumption
to declare with confidence 'What It All Means,' Scripture provides powerful hints and consolations.

The first is that we shouldn't spend too much time trying to answer the 'why' questions:

Why me? Why must people suffer? Why can't someone else get sick? We can't answer such things, and the questions themselves often are designed more to express our anguish than to solicit an answer.

I don't know why I have cancer, and I don't much care. It is what it is, a plain and indisputable fact. Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths began to take shape. Our maladies define a central feature of our existence: We are fallen. We are imperfect. Our bodies give out.

But, despite this, - or because of it, - God offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don't know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face.

Second, we need to get past the anxiety. The mere thought of dying can send adrenaline flooding through your system. A dizzy, unfocused panic seizes you. Your heart thumps; your head swims. You think of nothingness and swoon. You fear partings; you worry about the impact on family and friends. You fidget and get nowhere.

To regain footing, remember that we were born not into death, but into life - and that the journey continues after we have finished our days on this earth. We accept this on faith, but that faith is nourished by a conviction that stirs even within many non-believing hearts - an institution that the gift of life, once given, cannot be taken away. Those who have been stricken enjoy the special privilege of being able to fight with their might, main, and faith to live fully, richly, exuberantly - no matter how their days may be numbered.

Third, we can open our eyes and hearts. God relishes surprise. We want lives of simple, predictable ease, - smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see, - but God likes to go off-road. He provokes us with twists and turns. He places us in predicaments that seem to defy our endurance and comprehension - and yet don't. By His love and grace, we persevere. The challenges that make our hearts leap and stomachs churn invariably strengthen our faith and grant measures of wisdom and joy we would not experience otherwise.

'You Have Been Called'. Picture yourself in a hospital bed. The fog of anesthesia has begun to wear away. A doctor stands at your feet, a loved one holds your hand at the side. 'It's cancer,' the healer announces.

The natural reaction is to turn to God and ask him to serve as a cosmic Santa. 'Dear God, make it all go away. Make everything simpler.' But another voice whispers: 'You have been called.'

Your quandary has drawn you closer to God, closer to those you love, closer to the issues that matter, - and has dragged into insignificance the banal concerns that occupy our 'normal time.'

There's another kind of response, although usually short-lived, an inexplicable shudder of excitement as if a clarifying moment of calamity has swept away everything trivial and tiny, and placed before us the challenge of important questions.

The moment you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change. You discover that Christianity is not something doughy, passive, pious, and soft. Faith may be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But it also draws you into a world shorn of fearful caution. The life of belief teems with thrills, boldness, danger, shocks, reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies. Think of Paul, traipsing through the known world and contemplating trips to what must have seemed the antipodes ( Spain ), shaking the dust from his sandals, worrying not about the morrow, but only about the moment.

There's nothing wilder than a life of humble virtue, - for it is through selflessness and service that God wrings from our bodies and spirits the most we ever could give, the most we ever could offer, and the most we ever could do.

Finally, we can let love change everything. When Jesus was faced with the prospect of crucifixion, he grieved not for himself, but for us. He cried for Jerusalem before entering the Holy City. From the Cross, he took on the cumulative burden of human sin and weakness, and begged for forgiveness on our behalf.

We get repeated chances to learn that life is not about us, that we acquired purpose and satisfaction by sharing in God's love for others. Sickness gets us part way there. It reminds us of our limitations and dependence. But it also gives us a chance to serve the healthy. A minister friend of mine observes that people suffering grave afflictions often acquire the faith of two people, while loved ones accept the burden of two peoples' worries and fears.

'Learning How to Live'. Most of us have watched friends as they drifted toward God's arms, not with resignation, but with peace and hope. In so doing, they have taught us not how to die, but how to live. They have emulated Christ by transmitting the power and authority of live.

I sat by my best friend's bedside a few years ago as a wasting cancer took him away. He kept at his table a worn Bible and a 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer. A shattering grief disabled his family, many of his old friends, and at least one priest. Here was an humble and very good guy,
someone who apologized when he winced with pain because he thought it made his guest uncomfortable. He restrained his equanimity and good humor literally until his last conscious moment. 'I'm going to try to beat [this cancer],' he told me several months before he died. 'But if I don't, I'll see you on the other side.'

His gift was to remind everyone around him that even though God doesn't promise us tomorrow, he does promise us eternity - filled with life and love we cannot comprehend, - and that one can, in the throes of sickness, point the rest of us toward timeless truths that will help us weather future storms.

Through such trials, God bids us to choose: Do we believe, or do we not? Will we be bold enough to love, daring enough to serve, humble enough to submit, and strong enough to acknowledge our limitations? Can we surrender our concern in things that don't matter so that we might devote our remaining days to things that do?

When our faith flags, He throws reminders in our way. Think of the prayer warriors in our midst. They change things, and those of us who have been on the receiving end of their petitions and intercessions know it. It is hard to describe, but there are times when suddenly the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and you feel a surge of the Spirit. Somehow you just know: Others have chosen, when talking to the Author of all creation, to lift us up, - to speak of us!

This is love of a very special order. But so is the ability to sit back and appreciate the wonder of every created thing. The mere thought of death somehow makes every blessing vivid, every happiness more luminous and intense. We may not know how our contest with sickness will end, but we have felt the ineluctable touch of God.

What is man that Thou are mindful of him? We don't know much, but we know this: No matter where we are, no matter what we do, no matter how bleak or frightening our prospects, each and every one of us who believe each and every day, lies in the same safe and impregnable place, in the hollow of God's hand.'

---- T. Snow

Contact-Book I - Sarah's Landing Series

Contact, Book 1 in the Sarah's Landing Series after many delays and hair-pulling has finally been released in print and is up on Amazon.com. This is a re-release of the first book in the series with a new publisher Write Words, Inc.'s , imprint Cambridge Books, Cambridge, Maryland. The new isbn for this edition is 1-59431-497-7. I am now looking forward to seeing the second book in this series to be released in print in the coming weeks. The following is a brief excerpt from Chapter One:
Sarah's Landing I
Chapter 1 : Excerpt

Contact
Houston 2055

Three years is not a long time but when you're trying to erase a memory it can seem forever. Sometimes, while walking across the base, the noise of a machine would startle Joshua. He would stop as if waiting for something. Other times, someone's laughter would bother him, anger him, and cause him to remember the violent churning static, the endless silence. What did happen out there in space? How could the starship disappear so completely? Joshua remembered sitting in that stark white hospital room three years earlier listening, waiting throughout the night pounding the video monitor with his fists, but there were no answers, no human voices. Now, more than ever, reports upset him, especially reports of disappearances. Why, he wondered, did it bother him so much when people, he did not know, mysteriously disappeared just because they happened to be in the right place at the wrong time?

His memories of EARTH STAR-I were bad enough, but his reassignment was worse. He was told his ear problem, a result of a viral infection, made it impossible for him to remain an astronaut. He could help, he said, training a new crew or being part of a design team for the next mission. After all, could SICOM afford to throw away a trained astro-biologist?

"Use me, damn it," he demanded. "Let me be a part of all of this."

For more of the First Chapter, and reviews, check out my website: http://elenadb.home.comcast.net.

The New Book Review BlogSpot

Hi,

OnTheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, is one of my favorite reviews for my novel Adams Point. Adams Point is the third book in the Legacy Series, which is considered by some to be a paranormal series. Me, I thought I was writing a romance novel...didn't know it would turn out to be a series. So, if you've got a moment or two, please check out www.TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com and read my review. It would be great if you would also comment on it as well. Thank You!

Best,
Elena
Elena Dorothy Bowman
************************************
Journey to the Rim of Space and Beyond
http://elenadb.home.comcast.net
http://www.sarahslanding.com
http://www.myspace.com/elenabowmanauthor
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