An ancient compass, carved by a master's hand from the first century, finds its way to the jungles of Guatemala, carried in secret by a Jesuit priest who shares it with his lover, a Mayan queen.
Now after being buried for years in the ruins of a Mayan village it resurfaces, and it just may be the only existing testament from the man known as Jesus.
Ashera Sandriene is an anthropologist, born in Provence to a mother who disappeared mysteriously when she was only a child, and raised in New York by her father, whose success as an artist seems to be tied to a mysterious group of twelve men known as the Consensus.
Her husband, Günter Burbank, the head of an international pharmaceutical firm, wants the secrets of the compass for his research into what he calls the "immortal gene." He is opposed in his search by the leader of the Consensus, a Southern evangelical minister who wants the compass for his own purposes.
On the eve of Günter and Ashera's 20-year anniversary party a mysterious man appears and tells her that he is in the lineage, or as he calls it the seed of the man who made the compass. Together they go on a spiritual journey to a seed community in Guatemala, through ancient caves that preserve the history of the world, and into another dimension called the Third State where she meets her mother, and her mother's angel, Mitra.
What she discovers there may be the key to the future for humankind.
This story arcs from 31A.D. to the end of the Mayan calendar, December 21st 2012.
As the end of the Mayan cycle approaches, clashes between religion and science, belief and direct experience, and territorial attachments to the past are entwined in an evolutionary battle that will determine whether humans are bound to their past, or rise above it to greater heights.
This is the first book in a series. Book II is called Angel Training.
About the Author: I was born in Tennessee and owe my love of storytelling to my father, who would tell stories of his life in the rural South to anyone who would listen, until his death at 92.
When I was nineteen I moved to California with all my worldly possessions in two cardboard boxes to study with a spiritual teacher who was forming a new age religion that eventually spread all over the world. Many within the group thought I would be the heir apparent, but in 1979 I left the group, disillusioned by the psychic tethers my teacher kept on his flock.
After wandering for a while in the wilderness of doubt and skepticism, a friend called and asked me to join a consulting firm that combined personal growth and leadership training. Over the next few years I learned to coach and train executives in communication, conflict resolution, and vision management.
Eventually I left the firm and started my own company and developed programs for adults (On Course), corporations (Communication For Results), and teens (Step Into the Future) that combined spiritual principles and commitment-based practices that produced real world results for thousands of people in the US and Canada.
I retired in 1995, and moved with my wife to a small farm in Northern California. One day the phone rang and it was an old friend who had taken our courses, and whose company we had worked with before he sold it. He asked us to join him in making the next big idea come to life. The idea was candles and everything related to living by candlelight. We called it Illuminations, and it grew into 80 stores, and eventually was sold to Yankee Candle.
At Illuminations I designed and wrote copy for some of our most successful products, including a line of Intention candles that Oprah featured on her TV show as one of her favorite gifts. I also wrote a book and candle set called Rituals: Light for the Soul, which was published by Chronicle Books in San Francisco and sold a respectable 30,000 copies.
I am now in my third retirement, although it doesn't feel that way at all.
My motto is this: Awareness itself is the teacher.
I live today in the mountains above Santa Barbara, California with my wife Paulette.
