The Catalysts Book III Title Reveal!

by with No Comment CatalystEnvironmentExtraterrestrialsPrecipiceScience StuffThe FieldWriting

Title Reveal!!!

Book III in The Catalysts Series title is…

Precipice!!

It’s an apt title because in the story (and in real life?) humanity is on the precipice of disaster or salvation due to Climate Change and the havoc our activities are wreaking on Earth. Marcie and Eric and their friends are trying to be Catalysts for change with the help of other-worldly beings. I think you’re going to love it!

I’m working with my publisher, Brown Books Publishing, to come up with a release date. It’s still in the revision phase but getting closer to completion. I’ve done five (!) rounds of revisions already and it’s out with Beta-readers at the moment. After this round of revisions, it’ll be off to Brown Books for two to four more passes of revisions and corrections. Whew!

Hopefully, Spring 2023 release!

Signs and Messages from the Universe

I’m reading Signs – The Secret Language of the Universe by Laura Lynne Jackson. It’s about how our loved ones communicate with us from the other side and how we’re all connected – through the collective consciousness (read about it in my books). My mom passed away 12 years ago and sends me messages all the time. I decided to ask her to send me a sign – a blue hummingbird.

She loved hummingbirds and the color blue. It’s early in the season and we don’t have our hummingbird feeders our yet and haven’t seen any around the house. I was checking out at the dentist later that morning and on the partition between me and the front desk staff was a decal – of a blue hummingbird!

I relayed the story to the staff, and they gave me the decal. It’s on the window of my office now to always remind me of my mom and how she’s still around on the other side helping me and guiding me.

Do you receive signs and messages from the Universe?

Check out The Catalysts series here!

Take care and keep reading!

Twin Cities Book Fest

by with No Comment CatalystEnvironmentScience StuffThe Field

This Saturday, October 16th I’ll be a Featured Author at the Twin Cities Book Fest! If you‘r in the area come and see me between 10:00am to 5:00pm!!

It’s a Science Fair format so I’ll be focusing on the environmental themes in The Field and Catalyst. This is a great format for me as I love engaging with readers and talking about my books. Here’s what I have planned for my booth:

  • My computer will be running a video showing how a homeowner can light her water on fire from methane released during fracking.
  • I have a kinetic energy ball to demonstrate the Universal Energy field,
  • I created fliers on how to be a Climate Activist
  • Examples of reusing and upcycling – baskets made of candy wrappers and shorts with visible mending
  • My Be a Climate Activist, Be a Catalyst for Change banner

The Environment in Fiction and Fact

What can you do to be a catalyst for change? Environmental degradation can feel daunting, but there are all kinds of things YOU can do that help care for our planet and make a more sustainable future. Come meet YA fiction author Tracy Richardson to learn about her new book Catalyst and how fictional narrative and real life facts can both help us think about our environment more complexly.

Tracy Richardson is the author of the young adult series The Catalysts, including Book I, The Field, and Book II, Catalyst. The Field won the Eric Hoffer Award and a Bronze Medal for the Moonbeam Children’s Book Award, and was a Finalist in the Science Fiction category for the American Fiction Awards. Catalyst won the New Age category and was a Finalist in the Young Adult category for the American Fiction Awards. Tracy has a degree in biology, and her science background plays a significant role in her writing; her books include science themes such as quantum physics, collective consciousness, and the universal energy field, as well as strong environmental themes. There is no second planet. Tracy lives in Indianapolis and enjoys crafting, cooking, and being outdoors. Visit her at www.tracyrichardsonauthor.com.

Traci Harding Endorsement – The Catalysts Series

by with No Comment CatalystScience StuffThe FieldWriting

I’m very excited to share this endorsement for The Catalysts Series (The Field, Book I and Catalyst, Book II) from Traci Harding, Australia’s #1 Sci-Fi Fantasy author!!!

More than just stories, Tracy Richardson weaves quantum theory into the everyday to life altering effect. What may seem a fun tale is a subtle lesson in creating your own reality. Essential reading for young adults who desire to understand and master the skills to pre-pave their own future.

~ Traci Harding author of “The Ancient Future Series”

Traci and I did an author talk last April and really bonded over the similar themes in our novels. It’s been so exciting to find another author who writes about conscioussness, quantum physics and intention. These are just a few of Traci’s novels – she’s written over 20!!

Traci introduced me to fellow Australian author, A.K. Wilder, (aka Kim Falconer) author of The Path of the Stray, The Road to the Soul and most recently her new YA novels, Crown of Bones and the upcoming Curse of Shadows. Her books also deal with issues of environmental destruction, telepathy and consciousness but in a totally different way the The Catalysts series.

Happy reading everyone!! I know I’ve got a TBR pile a mile high!

alien-UFO-spaceship-sz

UFOs, UAPs, ETs – What are they?

by with No Comment CatalystExtraterrestrialsScience Stuff

I believe in extra-terrestrials. In other-worldly beings.

Read Catalyst if you want to learn more about how I think they are already interacting with us.

I think it’s naive, even silly and especially self-important to believe that in the vast universe we inhabit we are the ONLY evolved, intelligent beings. Most people I talk to agree. They’re just not sure that ETs are here, now, visiting us on Earth.

The arguments against them being here usually revolve around technology. How could they get here with distances in space travel measured in light years which would be thousands or millions of our years? We can’t understand or even conceive how it could be accomplished. That, my friends is the crux of the problem. So often in our history if we can’t ‘see’ something or understand it based on our limited frame of reference, then it can’t be true. Think flat Earth and the Sun revolving around the Earth. As we learn more, our horizons expand. That’s how science works. We are constantly discovering new things about the world around us and revising our understanding of that world.

Quantum physics is a perfect example. While most of us have only a limited understanding of what quantum physics is, I can tell you that it defies the laws of Newtonian physics we have come to rely on. But it has been proven to be true. Newtonian physics is also true. They co-exist.

The idea that ETs can’t get here using technology as WE know it also assumes that they are only as advanced technologically as we are. We’re back to our self-importance and naivite. I believe we are infants in terms of both our spiritual and technological advancement.

For decades believing in the existance of UFOs and ETs was ridiculed and mocked. The government denied and discredited sightings even by trained military personnel. There are stories of suppression and threats against those who would share what they saw and experienced.

Now that has changed. The govenment report release on June 25th by Office of the Director of National Intelligence acknolwleges what they are now calling UAPs -Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon. In and of itself this is good news, but it is not the full story. Not by a long shot.

They are still withholding information and spinning UAPs as a threat to national security. And not acknowledging that they could be extraterrestrials. Even though there is no evidence that we are being threatened or attacked in any way. In the face of far superior technology, and most likely very advanced civilizations who’ve created it, our reaction is to turn to aggression and possibly violence. No wonder the extra-terrestials keep their distance from us.

My hope is that individuals will send out messages of good will and welcome. That we will show we want peaceful interactions and to learn from these more advanced beings. It is time for us to turn from war to peace and to recognize we are #OnePeopleOneUniverse.

Here are some resources if you’re looking for more information.

NPR Article on the UAP Report

Dr. Steven Greer’s Response to the DNI report on Sirius Disclosure

The Arcturian Anthology by Tom Kenyon and Judi Scion

Group of Forty – David Miller’s collection of books

The Day After Rosewell by William J. Birnes and Philip Corso

Browning Mountain – Stonehenge in Southern Indiana II

by with No Comment CatalystScience StuffThings That Occur to MeWriting

To celebrate the release of CATALYST, Book II in The Catalysts Series, on September 22nd, I’m doing a blog series on some of the research I did to create the story. I LOVE research – anything for a road trip!!

In CATALYST, Lorraine and Zeke, the two mysterious graduate students on the Angel Mounds archaeological dig, take Marcie, Eric, Leo and Renee to Greystone Mountain in Southern Indiana. There they tell the teens about their mission to save Earth and demonstrate some incredible abilities while surrounded by the dozens of huge, rectangular stones for which the mountain is named

I didn’t create Greystone Mountain entirely from my imagination. As often happens in fiction, I took an actual place, in this case, Browning Mountain in Brown County, Indiana, and morphed it into a site in my story.

Browning Mountain has been called the Stonehenge of southern Indiana because resting at the hill’s summit are several dozen huge rectangular stones – many the size of a compact car – and no one knows how they got there.

Scientists say that the type of rock comprising these stones is not from the region. There are plenty of quarries in southern Indiana where it could have originated, but it didn’t. So the question is – what is it? Is it man made or naturally occurring?

Having seen the stones myself, they are so precisely rectangular, even given the effects of time, and arranged in such regular patterns, that I can’t imagine they are anything but man made.

Could the indiginous people of the area from thousands of years ago have erected a stone circle of the likes of Stonehenge in southern Indiana? I think the answer is yes. The other question, though, is how did the stones get on top of the mountain? It is a pretty tough two hour climb to the top going steadily up hill. Did they have some kind of technolgy that has been lost over the ages? I think it would be easy to simply say that the stones are naturally occuring since we don’t have the answers to these questions, but I’m not sure that we would be correct.

Ancient cultures may not have been as advanced as we are technologically, but they may have had a wisdom about the energies of the earth and the Universe that we have lost. It is definitely food for thought. What do you think?

instagram Catalyst release

Catalyst Releases Sept 22nd!!

by with No Comment CatalystScience Stuff

So this is happening! Books are shipping now! Buy links below.

Thanks to @cahokiamounds and @angelmounds for helping me with research and @verlunamusic for designing the cover!

Amazon | Books-a-Million | Indiebound | Barnes & Noble | Brown Books Publishing

Excerpt

“Now you know,” she (Lorraine) continues softly, but her eyes are fierce. “About the terrible future that awaits Earth and humanity if we continue on our current path.” She pauses, placing her hands on the stone on either side of her legs and leaning forward for emphasis. “It can be changed. Are you ready to do your part? Will you allow us to teach you so that you know your own power?”   

I want to do whatever I can to stop the destruction I witnessed in the vision. Maybe this is what I’ve been waiting for. A mission and a purpose and connecting with the collective consciousness. I feel a little like I’m stepping off a cliff into the unknown, but if I don’t move forward, I know I’ll regret it.

I take a deep, calming breath. “Yes, I’m ready.”

“How do you know about what will happen in the future?” Leo’s posture is rigid, his voice cutting. “There’s no reason to believe any of it’s true.”

“You’re right in part. There’s no way to definitively know the future. Thousands of possibilities exist with different probabilities. However, what Zeke showed you will very likely happen if we continue to disregard the wellbeing of the Earth. She can only accommodate so much abuse before her equilibrium is tilted irrevocably. Already, floods, hurricanes, fires, volcanoes and tsunamis are increasing in frequency and strength.” I note that she only answers part of Leo’s question. How are they able to predict the future, even if it is just one of many possibilities?

Renee says what all of us are probably thinking, at least a little. “I want to help, but I’m afraid. This is all so much to take in.” Her French accent is very strong, so she must be feeling really agitated.

“Yeah, I agree.” Eric puts his arm behind her back, bracing her. “Can you give us some time and move slowly on this? I mean we just found out that you’re some kind-of shamans and now you want us to save the world?” His weak attempt at a joke falls flat.

The Catalysts Series

by with No Comment CatalystEnvironmentIndian SummerScience StuffThe FieldWriting

Catalyst

First some updates on Catalyst. Due to Physical Distancing and Social Connections (as I prefer to call it) the paperback release date has been pushed back to September 22nd. However…

the Ebook release date is still June 2nd!!!

Less than two weeks away! Order your copy today!!

I hope to do a Book Tour for Catalyst this Fall. Check out my Events Page for details later this summer.

The Catalysts Series

The Catalysts Series will consist of four books.

The Field – Book I

Catalyst – Book II

Indian Summer ­– prequel

and the untitled Book III that I’m working on now (80 pages in!!).

Book III is the only true sequel (to Catalyst). The other three books can be read as stand-alone books although many of the same characters appear throughout. I’ve included an environmental theme in all of the books.

The Field is about Eric Holton, a high-school soccer goalkeeper with a super-natural ability to know where the ball is going to go before it gets there. He’s connecting to the Universal Energy Field. The environmental theme compares burning coal to other clean renewable energy sources like wind and solar and also the idea of extracting energy from the Universal Energy field in the air around us. And he’s having the high school experience of trying to get the starting goalkeeper spot, deal with friends being jerks, and trying to get the girl.

In Catalyst, Eric’s younger sister, Marcie, is the protagonist, but Eric and his girlfriend Renee are also featured characters. Eric has just graduated high school and Marcie is a junior.

Marcie, Eric and Renee are spending the summer working at an archaeological dig site in southern Indiana. Things immediately shift into the paranormal when Lorraine and Zeke, two mysterious dig assistants who claim to access the Universal Energy Field with their minds, assert that Earth and its resources are in grave danger. Marcie must decide if she’s brave enough to do her part to save the planet. The environmental theme in Catalyst is the dangers of fracking.

In the first book I wrote, Indian Summer, Marcie is in middle school and is spending the summer at her grandparents’ lake cottage. She discovers that a wealthy property owner is secretly trying to develop an old-growth forest into an exclusive gated community. In her quest to thwart his efforts, Marcie connects with the spirit of a Native American girl. Indian Summer has been completely revised and will be re-released in 2021 as a prequel to The Field and Catalyst.

Book III is in the works right now! I’m writing it from both Marcie and Eric’s point of view. There are two concurrent story lines. Eric and Renee are in France and Marcie is in Washington DC. There is some interaction between the two threads and everything will come together at the end.

During this Great Pause we are having I hope you’ve been able to consider how you might chose to change your behavior going forward. Have you re-evaluated your priorities? Will you focus more on what’s important to you and let other, non-important things go by the wayside?

Protecting the environment and saving planet Earth is very important to me and I think essential for our quality of life going forward. I hope my books make you think and consider what you can do to be a Catalyst for change.

Take care and be well, my friends.

It’s Earth Day and the Earth is Breathing Again

by with 2 Comments EnvironmentScience Stuff

These are difficult times. Doing what I prefer to call ‘Physical Distancing and Socially Connecting’ in order to flatten the curve of COVID-19 and save lives has not been easy. Many of us are out of jobs and have lost not only our income, but also our health insurance. And of course many have become ill and even lost their lives. But we WILL get through this. Maybe in the midst of horror there can be some light. Maybe we will re-define our priorities and focus on what’s really important.

On this 50th Anniversary of the first Earth Day it is important to notice one good thing that has come of the quarantine. Less pollution. Fewer cars on the road, planes in the sky and industry on pause has meant less carbon dioxide pumped into our skies.

Los Angeles – Before and After Shelter in Place Orders

China – Satellite images of pollution reduction

See the source image

India – Himalayan Peaks visible for the first time in 30 years

See the source image

The Earth is breathing. The question is – ‘What do we do about it?’ Do we go back to ‘normal’ and continue to pollute our home, planet Earth? 

What if, instead, we took this opportunity to change our behavior going forward? What if we drove less and walked and biked more? Flew less and took the train or bus more? Bought electric cars and held our legislators accountable for passing legislation on Climate Change? Are you with me?  I think we can do it!!

In the meantime, what can we do NOW while we are physically distancing? 

Reducing our Carbon Footprint is one thing we can do. What is a Carbon Footprint? Here’s the dictionary definition:

“the amount of carbon dioxide and other carbon compounds emitted due to the consumption of fossil fuels by a particular person, group, etc.”

So, what does that mean exactly? It essentially refers to our personal contribution to the carbon emissions that cause Climate Change. Here are some ways that each of us can have an impact:

Ten Things You Can Do NOW to Help the Environment

1.     Plant Trees – Trees consume carbon dioxide and emit oxygen

2.     Eat a plant-based diet or have one ‘vegetarian day’ a week.

3.     Start a vegetable garden from seeds in your house. When the weather warms up you can dig your garden and grow your own vegetables!

4.     Reduce household water waste – install efficient shower heads and toilets. Turn off the faucet when doing dishes or brushing your teeth. Take shorter showers.

5.     Upcycle, repurpose and REPAIR clothing and household items instead of buying new or discarding them.

6.     Reduce the amount of plastic packaging in the products you buy.

7.     Eat locally produced food to reduce the ‘Food Miles’ it takes for your food to travel to you.

8.     Tell your legislators to act on Climate Change legislation.

9.      Join environmental groups like the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council or the World Wildlife Fund.

10.    Follow Teen Climate Change activists on social media. Greta Thunberg, Autumn Peltier, Mari Copeny, Xiye Bastida, Isra Hirsi, Bruno Rodriguez, Helena Gualinga, Jamie Margolin, Jerome Foster II, are a few to check out.

Animal planet

The Sixth Mass Extinction

by with No Comment EnvironmentScience StuffThings That Occur to Me

We are currently in the middle of the Sixth Mass Extinction on planet Earth. That’s right – the sixth one. The difference this time is that one species, Homo Sapiens (yup that’s you and me) is responsible.

Elizabeth Kolbert, author of the non-fiction book, The Sixth Extinction, maintains that we are living in the Anthropocene period of Earth’s history. A time period characterized by human beings’ attempts to manipulate our environment, resulting in the extinction or near-extinction of many different species.

Just as with Climate Change, there are those who would deny that human activity has such a negative impact on the Earth. They would say that climate change and mass extinctions are a natural part of Earth’s history. And they would be right – I mean this IS the Sixth Mass Extinction. However, the previous five weren’t caused by a single species. This one is. Us.

Some anthropologists would even argue that this mass extinction started thousands of years ago when man hunted pre-historic animals like the mastodon and the giant sloth to extinction. But it’s accelerated within the last 100 years during the Industrial Age when we began spewing carbon into the atmosphere.

Carbon emissions are causing global warming and increased temperatures in the oceans which destroys coral reefs. Increased ocean acidity is killing off clams, barnacles and starfish. There are currently 1414 species of fish at risk of extinction. Due mostly to overfishing.

The animals on the Endangered Species List categorized as Critically Endangered, Endangered and Vulnerable include leopards, rhinos, gorillas, orangutans, elephants, giraffes, porpoises, dolphins, whales, pandas, hippos, turtles, bears, bison and bees. Rainforest deforestation by farmers and ranchers will result in many species that will not survive the reduction in habitat. And the species that rely on them will also perish because the biodiversity of the rainforest is inner-connected.

That is the single most important FACT to take away from this. We are ALL inner-connected. What happens to elephants in Africa has an impact on humans in Detroit or Albuquerque or Poland. Fires in Australia are impacted by rains in Indonesia. The nuclear plant meltdown in Fukushima, Japan in 2011 is STILL spreading radiation throughout the Pacific Ocean killing fish, contaminating the water and exposing millions of Homo Sapiens (that’s US again) to radiation as far away as the west coast of the United States and beyond. Ocean currents will eventually carry the radiation across the globe.

Concerned? You should be. Not sure what to do? SPEAK UP!!! Contact your senators and representatives. Attend Climate Change rallies. VOTE for environmental candidates. Look at what one girl in Sweden started by skipping school and sitting outside the parliament on Fridays. Fridays For Our Future is now a global movement of young people and Greta Thunberg is Time magazine’s 2019 Person of the Year.

It’s not enough to simply reduce your use of plastic and recycle your newspapers. Time is running out. There is no second planet. The Earth needs us to act now.

Science and Spirituality

by with No Comment CatalystScience StuffThe FieldThings That Occur to Me

Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. ~ Carl Sagan

This quote by Carl Sagan is NOT the one I chose for Catalyst, but I love it because it sums up my feelings about science and spirituality. To me, science doesn’t disprove or negate the possibility of a force greater than ourselves, which you can call God, spirit, the Great Mother, The Force or whatever you want. Science demonstrates an intelligent Universe. An intelligent design.

Richard Rohr, in a November 7, 2019 article entitled “The Field of Love” said this:

“The physical phenomenon of quantum entanglement is a wonderful illustration of the interconnected nature of reality, both spiritual and material. Allow me to try to explain in layperson’s terms: In quantum physics, it appears that one particle of any entangled pair “knows” what is happening to another paired particle—even though there is no known means for such information to be communicated between the particles, which are separated by sometimes very large distances. [1] Perhaps we could compare this to phenomena such as bilocation, mental telepathy, providence, or synchronicity.”

One of the ideas behind The Field is that we’re all connected through this Universal Energy Field or the Collective Consciousness. This field , or energy, flows through all of us and everyTHING in the Universe. Quantum physics proves that particles are connected at a subatomic level. The idea behind The Field is that we’re all connected at a human level. Is this field of energy what some would call God? I think so. What do you think?

We’re made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself. ~ Carl Sagan