My post on The Wild Hunt quoted extensively from the blog of Robert Moss. His work deserves its own post.
I had the privilege of introducing Robert Moss at a book store event here in Sisters a few years ago. He was in town to conduct a workshop on dreams. That’s what he does; he’s a Dream Teacher.
I haven’t explored his books on dreaming much, though I find them fascinating — but I’ve read a bunch of his fiction. He started out as a thriller writer, tapping his own background as an elite Cold War-era journalist on the intelligence beat. His Carnival of Spies is an outstanding historical novel, telling the tale of German youth named Johnny Lentz, who becomes a Communist during the turmoil at the end of World War I. After years serving as a deadly agent of the Comintern, he grows disillusioned with the Great And Murderous Lie, and turns his coat…
Just a great novel. It’s available on Kindle these days.
Moss turned his back on a very successful career. His bio states that:
He identifies the great watershed in his adult life as a sequence of visionary events that unfolded in 1987-1988, after he decided to leave the world of big cities and the fast-track life of a popular novelist and put down roots on a farm in the upper Hudson Valley of New York. Moss started dreaming in a language he did not know that proved to be an archaic form of the Mohawk language. Helped by native speakers to interpret his dreams, Moss came to believe that they had put him in touch with an ancient healer, an arendiwanen or “woman of power” and that they were calling him to a different life.
That different life included writing one of my all-time favorite Frontier Partisans tales: Fire Along The Sky. A young Irish rake named Shane Hardacre is exiled to the colonies, where he connects with his kinsman, the trader and agent among the Mohawk Sir William Johnson. Shane becomes embroiled in Pontiac’s Rebellion— and grows up.
It’s a wonderful picaresque novel, and deeply researched in primary sources. Shane Hardacre is a wonderful 18th Century character, who lets his cock do most of his thinking for him, yet who has surprising bottom when it comes to it. The writing is superb.
A tour de force that I have read many times and recommend most highly.
Moss devoted a full novel to the remarkable William Johnson in The Firekeeper. Johnson was the towering figure of the New York frontier throughout the French and Indian War era. He had a raging lust for life (and women) and an unusual ability to relate to the native peoples, particularly the Mohawk. He built quite a personal empire in the New York upcountry.
The Interpreter tells the story of a master shaman and his twin apprentices — the Mohawk dreamer called Island Woman and the young immigrant Conrad Weiser, who became a key figure in the Pennsylvania frontier culture of the mid-18th Century.
•••••
Coming soon…
Rick Schwertfeger says
Wow, oh wow. Heading to my Amazon Prime account this morning!
JimC says
You will enjoy.
Matthew says
The whole vision thing Moss went through reminds me of Philip K. Dick’s beam of pink light….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick#Paranormal_experiences_and_mental_health_issues
deuce says
Thanks for the heads up!
lane batot says
Yup–gotta check those out(some day….) No doubt, we’d likely be a French speaking nation except for William Johnson getting the Iroquois to side with the English! Another case of how ONE PERSON can have an enormous impact on history! Who’d a thunk a poor Irish immigrant kid that became a trader’s assistant could have changed the course of American history? I don’t think William Johnson gets the credit he SHOULD in our country’s conscience…..And as for dreaming in another language–I DID that once! Freaky! Some Inuit came to me in a VERY CRYSTAL CLEAR dream, and gave me an actual, very appropriate Inuit NAME(which I had to lookup in an Inuit dictionary I got my hands on–in the days before computers!) for a malamute pup I was about to pick up(the next day)–the whole story is purty bizarre! I have had quite a few often prophetic or bluntly informative dreams over the years–they are QUITE DISTINCTIVE from the usual hodge-podge nonsensical stuff most dreams seem to be–I have learned to PAY ATTENTION and take them seriously–WHATEVER/WHEREVER/WHOMEVER they are coming from!!!!
JimC says
I’ve decided that Jonson and the Brants have to be in my next book. Huge impact, mostly unknown now.
The Inuit dream is significant. No doubt about it.
Matthew says
Glad to hear that you are still thinking about a second book.
I’ve never dreamed in another language. I have had lucid dreams, though. I’ve also had sequel dreams where one dream begins where another left off. It felt like I was dreaming another life. (Though they were just dreams.)
Somewhat off topic, but I found out about perhaps one of the earliest known Men of the Middle Ground. A Scythian philosopher who traveled to Athens.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anacharsis
JimC says
Past thinking about it. At work. My brain is sore.
Matthew says
That’s even better. Well, not the brain is sore part…
Black Tyrone says
White Savage by Fintan O’Toole
JimC says
Excellent bio.
Breaker Morant says
Touching on the supernatural or paranormal or whatever. I had an experience that I have never shared with anybody. I met my wife at a New Year’s Eve party as 1988 turned into 1989.
New Year’s Eve day prior to the party-I had a wierd tingling in my torso and I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I was going to meet my wife that night. Strangest thing that ever happened to me.
JimC says
Whoa! I do believe that there are times when we’re just more tuned in to whatever it is that makes the universe hum along. Sounds like you had one of those moments. How cool.