Cezanne's Carrot Magazine for Spiritual Writing

Cezanne's Carrot magazine presents short stories and creative non fiction that allow the backdrop of the spirit, the light of the cosmic sky, and the desire to move upwards into it, at times, to expand through it, and to merge down into the glowing consciousness of ground as well, with reverence for it. In a world of jaded literature where including the spiritual epiphanies if often disallowed, Cezanne's Carrot can warms us with the notion that it is indeed welcomed to combine both bold writing and to explore beyond the mundane world. Today, spiritual writing so often is in the form of seminars, say, telling us how to take their five easy spiritual steps to make a lot of money, convincing us that if we really image we will be rich, we will be rich, and that the law of abundance says if we are not, we are doing something wrong.

This magazine is not about manifesting, channeling generic masters, or unproven overarching statements so it may be more accessible to some who have become turned off by the facile tone of the spiritual writing world. While some of the pieces have less meat than some may be used to, and the art this issue takes a lot of advantage of Photoshop filters, people who are drawn to explore beyond the ordinary world in most literature may find things they resonate with. "At Cezanne's Carrot, words and images explore the higher aspects of human nature, the integration of inner and outer worlds, and the exciting threshold where the familiar meets the unknown.... It is published in alignment with the Earth's natural rhythms, on each Solstice and Equinox." The title is based on a quote from Paul Cezanne: "The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution."

The magazine provides a list of other magazines with magical realism, irrealism, experimental, and visionary, and spiritual writing, as well as groups of writers of this style networking together.

I am here focusing on the Solstice Issue of 2007. In "God Uses a Headset", a fascinating creative non fiction by Jewel Beth Davis, she gives us an insider's view of her work in the theatre, concluding that if we do our work with "with integrity and sincerity, the spiritual channels are open. It is the reaching, the longing for the world unseen, that drives us to work and interact in a way that matters."

"The 4^th Horseman," a short story by Jim Esch, is a beautifully written piece which surprises in the placement of the words on the page, experimenting with language consistently in a way that allows meaning to shake up the synapses of the brain and let in new connections. He says, "I allowed the free flow of images to lead the way in a surrealistic fashion. Sometimes a writer just needs to follow the stream, take good notes, and get out of the way."

"Dance Home," a short story by Kathryn Gossow, is a magical realism piece with sinuous use of language. There is within it the connection with the sky that we all feel, and reading it is like having a familiar dream, leaving us washed in possibilities we feel when we are at home in our astral bodies.

"Random Talisman," a short story by Catherine J.S. Lee, says "You think about the relationship between randomness and design, how each antagonizes but also supports the other." Thank goodness this magazine is not insisting upon the formula that everything is by design, claiming it to be a law. There is a personal touch to the writing here that comes from experience, rather than from reading and regurgitating.

My short story, "The Boy Who Was A Floating Flower," was published here, and sweetly given the Editor's Pic Prize, a way the magazine generously supports writers of the spiritual ilk. My story exemplifies the new genre of writing I am calling for, Lucid Fiction, which this magazine seems to promote as well. I would like to see more writing in the world that moves beyond the need for traditional plot. Action plots can be a way of reinforcing the needs of our egos for drama, for constant desire and things to make us happy, for conflict. Why constantly pander to that? Can't we instead at times read stories that live on a plane beyond the ego? And why must literature reinforce the consensus idea of what a person is? We work so hard to achieve enlightenment, to expand our consciousness beyond the Maya, it is called in Sanskrit, the illusion that we are encased in separate bodies. Can we write and include the higher selves, the parallel universes, the continuum, alternate versions of the science of time, more educated versions of history, biology that includes the transformations of the Kundalini, the feeling that we are all made of one love? Quantum physics and Tantra Yoga, are both becoming diluted and sensationalized, but also popularizing the concepts of moving beyond outdated notions of the self and our relationship to the world. Are we not ready to let those notions into literature which is accepted by magazines and presented to an evolving public?

My story in the Solstice Issue says "This is the essence, then: heady freedom of motion between worlds of formlessness and form, that which is formed and that to be formed, and other versions of them all that call to you with clear voices from across the river banks." Tantra Yoga, with exercises such as alternate nostril breathing, and also, paying attention to lucid dreaming, and hypnogogie, does what this magazine calls for, exploring the thresholds. And integrating the inner and the outer. When we use these tools, our lives can live in that time in between story lines, in between dramas, and they become more surreal, more lit up with the light that comes through the cracks in the surface that before seemed so solid. My story continues: "You have to know what story you're in before you can get out." Can Lucid Fiction write stories which use the very means of a story to take us out of our stories? To help us let go of the need for our dramas, and instead, fly, carrying such virtual magazines as Cezanne's Carrot in our mouths?

Thank you, Cezanne's Carrot, and the other magazines and groups you list as resources, for letting our world to open up to include the vertical flight out of the trappings of the matrix, and into our true selves.