In one way the stories represent a debate between the forces of logic and reason with those of intuition and belief, over the possibility of controlling your own destiny, following your heart and realizing your dream.
They are stories about making it through, about purpose and intent, about pursuit and discovery of self, and hope.
The books advocate a way of living that is possible for everyone. Not controlling your environment by strictures but by a reaction to life and to experience which is totally within the control of everyone – and so therefore is the outcome, positive or negative. And by living thus and by separating what gives pleasure from what brings happiness, life can be joyful.
All the books ask questions about fundamentals: life and death; love and relationships; right and wrong; colour and race; the rules and ethics we live by; God and man; the questions becoming more far reaching as the main protagonist absorbs and integrates the answers she uncovers.
Can we ever return to a state of simplicity when we have known the complexity of modern life?
Can we choose what we want and leave the rest behind and be content? Must we embrace the whole or leave it all behind?
Is there a place on earth where we belong and to which we can return, if we choose, when we choose?
In Book Two, Blood Brothers, Sam says to Kevin
“It feels… it feels as if I’m on the right path and that somewhere along the path, I’ll… we’ll… meet up… I think I left a little part of me back there…”
To which Kevin responds
“We are all little fragmentations of us” a theme that he first broached with Sam in Book One, A Rat’s Tail. And then Sam says
“Do you think that some of the fragments might get projected outwards… so you could see them better…?”
What we are unable to understand or accept within ourselves we project outwards to help that understanding – the world and our exchanges in it as a huge multi-dimensional Interactive Encyclopedia.
Another strong theme is the interrelation and interwoven nature of the universe. That what one individual does or thinks or says has an impact on that universe and therefore that by breaking down our own barriers and dealing with our own issues we are actually giving direction to others of the species – pointing the way – helping that species evolve and that if we consider the earth as a metaphor for the personal, individual self, then that too is changed. And that truth in the absolute sense is less important than each individual discovering his or her own truth and living by it.
Kevin the rat is Sam’s own personal spirit guide. She called him in when she was young, vulnerable and lonely and he remains with her throughout her life. An inner voice made manifest. A symbol of an inner self that represents her truth. In Book Two when she contemplates his possible loss as the years roll on she reasons that–
Presumably when that happens something within her would have grown to replace him – the ‘little fragmentations of us’ would have combined into one operable whole –
All part of the complex and endlessly variant selves’ way of becoming.
Circles, circles, circles
I always look for the circle. The end is also the beginning
For intent to be, creates the path
On which will dawn the day
That you and your desire meet,
And turn, and looking back,
See the route, and forward too,
A fresh, unblemished track…
Impatience
Bridget Trafford is the author of The Circular Scrolls series of books. Find out more about the books or keep up-to-date with the Blog.
