Veil's Edge (Book 1: The Seed; Part 1: Pandora's Gifts)

In the Veil's Edge multi-media, multi-sensory epic/high/literary/transformational/immersive fantasy series/experience (7 books each published in 2 parts), Carla Maria Atherton weaves together everything from ancient and mystic wisdom, cosmology, the internal sciences, magick, star lore, dreamplay, and mythology with the social, political, personal, and relational, to reflect and reimagine our heartbreakingly beautiful, our terrifyingly lovely world, not built on limited expectations, but the possibilities—the possibilities for both the stories we tell and the stories we live. Beginning 35 years in the past, The 7 embark on journeys from The Eastern Realm, across The Bardo, to The OtherWorlds, while the rest of the people of Veil's Edge prepare for their return, for The Great Migration, for the return of them all. Book 1, Part 1: When Kalea and Anahata's 18-year-old daughter Camaria sets out as a young envoy from Veil's Edge to enter The Veil, she is overwhelmed but also entranced by this foreign land. Ten years she spends loving, losing, creating, and dying there, and the illusion of her current existence is blinking out like a disconnected hologram, the connection becoming as fragile as a loose and fraying wire. Camaria eventually escapes with her young children, back into the womb of her family and community, but not without scars, not without pain, not without loss, not without the echo of the troubling past. But as this Truth goes, with every death there is a birth—new insight, new Wisdom, new Life within and because of her—feeling through the threads to those she had to leave behind—Pandora's Gifts pouring from the trove Camaria dared to open so many years before… In the beginning… "The Box to which Pandora gestured with a graceful wave of her hand felt to Camaria to be familiar, crafted in the style of her Uncles, the word 'Love' carefully carved into its lid. It was beautiful with a promise of wonder and delight—if only she would open it. The other, The Box to which Pandora gestured with the back of her hand, was curious, strange, made of an ancient-looking rotting wood that had fallen away in places, the hinge crooked, the writing on the lid in a language unknown to her. Immediately Camaria chose…" ...And Pandora said: "Every loss is a breaking, every cry a revelation, every pause a balm. Every laugh is a revolution, every sigh a pivot, every tear a stitch. Every Truth—with no exception—is a Gift." And so it is. Veil's Edge is not simply a tragedy, an epic adventure, a comedy, a happy ending, or a cautionary tale. It is all of it, and so much more. It is Our Story—the ultimate, the quintessential, Story of Life, of Love. Camaria's is but one story in The Weaving… Felt through the hearts, seen through the eyes, and told through the voices of The Lovers, The Poets, The Dreamers, The TimeBenders, and The Artists, the Veil's Edge books are a wild and inspired celebration of humanity, possibility, passion, and purpose. They will leave you laughing, dancing, crying, singing, and utterly transformed. They are a prayer, a kiss on the wind, an apology, a Love story reimagined, rewritten, retold around the flickering fires of the StoryWeaver. "Veil's Edge is future-taleing written for hopeful romantics and impossible idealists. These books are fuel for visionaries and manifestors." Book 1 Part 1 (of 7 books, each in 2 parts); 628 Print Pages; Available also in print and as Audiobook/Audioexperience