Creator Credits

 Chapters:                                             

1. The Building of Cities & Separation

2. All Seeing, All Knowing, Ever Present

3. Amelia

4. The Wave

5.  An Unexpected Delivery

6. Haikus

7. The Heart

8. The Guardener

9.  Sirens are Golden!

10. The Wake

11.  Faith, Fruit and Faded Fanaticism

12. Amongst Ancestors

13. The Labyrinth of the Subconscious

14. The Light

15. The Switch

16. The Point

17. [m][a][w][θ]  [m][e][z]

18. Sora's Song

19.  The Atlas of Reason

20.  Questionable Answers

About the Author  

Amanda Reeves:

Hand crafted and embroidered Amelia’s blindfold (ch.3)

Hunter Darkis:

Was the missing child for the image in the Gaia Gazette (ch.6)

Jordan Reeves:

Author, lyric and poem writer, co-editor, photographer, model, publisher, creative director.

Maite Simard:

Provided feedback and encouragement in the early stages of writing.

Molly Bryson:

Hand model for the character Faith (ch.11)

Peter Haywood:

Provided mentoring and troubleshooting advice for eBook creation.

Rhea Aurora:

Made Sora's wonderful dress (ch.18)

Sebastian Berto:

Digitally crafted and designed the front cover, calligraphy artist of the Haikus (ch.6), and was the photograph model for Lauchlan Pacia (ch.5) and The Haiku Writer on the train (ch.6)

Stitch I’lalu:

Shot the front cover, the image of Lauchlan Pachia’s badge (ch.5), and the portrait of Amelia and the haiku writer on the train (ch.6)

Susan Louise:

Primary co-editor, moral supporter, literary mentor, main confident, brain stormer, and researcher. Basically, Susan is the glue that holds this all together, and I am eternally grateful for how much this babe has contributed to this process. Thank you x a million <3

Tia Maria

Provided editing suggestions and feedback on the first three chapters.

Yiyi Wang (Yeok Artist):

Created Lachlan Pachia's name badge (ch.4), co-designed the Gaia Gazette (ch.6), painted the portrait of The Light (ch.14), and did an incomprehensible amount of market research and training with Susan and I. 

    What an amazing team! Thank you so flipping much everyone, your valuable contributions are appreciated beyond words. You have all taught me something, and I have had the best time working with you.  

    While bathing one winter evening, I noticed that if I squinted, the parts of my body that emerged from the water looked much like islands upon a placid sea. Clavicles, chest, knees, toes—all landmasses. Why settle for islands though? I thought; No way, I want to be a world!

    With this in mind, I turned over onto my left side to create a spacious landmass with right thigh and buttock, and noticed that my boob would be a great place to build a city.

    I submerged half of my face into the water, felt it rush into my ear with a deep *vwump* sound, and opened my mouth to make a cavern that a ship full of curious souls might sail into, take shelter in, and explore. 

    Lifting my left arm revealed a forest of pit hair. Tangibility swiftly following my imagination and desire, this wild cluster of brown trunks transformed to support a dense canopy of foliage occupied by blue birds tending to their nests, ring tailed possums making brave leaps between branches, caterpillars preparing their cocoons, and baboons savouring the lice trophies won as they lazily groomed one another.

    Yes, good, forests everywhere! Green green green! Across my arms, legs, up the souls of my feet - almost everything out of the water became super lush. After adding some vibrant coral coasts, orchards of sweet fruits, caves brimming with precious stones, and meadows so abundant with flowers that a bee would call me paradise, I was no longer in my bath, not even on my planet anymore! I was a planet, beautiful and bountiful, with my own unique atmosphere, gravity, seasons and tides.

    Satisfied with my terrestrial transformation, I looked beyond, and marvelled as I discovered that I floated in a galactic ocean surrounded by alternate versions of myself in a myriad of planetary forms. Among the planet selves was a Jordan who had chosen to be a completely aquatic realm teaming with sea life. She was juxtaposed by an uninhabitable, volcanic Jordan, who relished in releasing pent up rage, sending debris flying haphazardly and generating a continuous flow of scolding lava lakes. There was a crystalline Jordan, wonderfully adorned with cities of tormalised quarts generator towers, amethyst geode shelters, trees producing gems for fruit, and roads paved with shimmering labradorite. There was a Jordan whose entire surface was made of mouths that sang together in gorgeous harmony, and she was closely neighboured a Jordan consisting of contented ears. Comfort Land Jordan’s mattress body was strewn with pillows, heavy doona’s, hot water bottles and stuffed toys; and to everyone’s amazement, gourmet vegetarian lasagne Jordan remained eternally fresh and at the perfect eating temperature - her scrumptious scent wafting throughout the galaxy.

    As I studied my surrounding, it took some time to recognise that the twenty-two constellations visible within my orbit were clusters of luminous ascended masters that collectively maintained and transmitted the archetypal wisdom of the tarot’s major arcana. Once I learned to perceive their identities and the frequencies they communicated through, I could, at will, receive tuition in the mysteries of alchemy,  music, philosophy, biology, love, medicine, quantum physics, metaphysics, and the recipe for the perfect sandwich.

    During my last lesson, I fell into a deep, contented slumber - a dangerous thing to do as an infinite creator of planetary proportions. As I sleepily returned to awareness, to my fascination and dismay, I found that I had subconsciously continued to create, and from this had emerged  a species of beings capable of all I had seen, felt, known, and imagined when in human form. As the old Hermetic principle goes, "As above so below, as within so with out". 

    If you ever have the chance to transform into planet who’s imagination is allowed to run ramped with your abilities of instant manifestation while you rest, well …  you want to hope you’ve had a sustainable experience. Unfortunately for me, I had witnessed and participated in mindless consumption, waste culture, light and smog pollution, over fishing, mining, nutritionally insufficient diets, animal cruelty, mind numbing entertainment, war, and corruption within governance and media sources.

    With such observations at the disposal of my subconscious, it didn’t take too long for these industrious little beasties living upon me to work out a number of painful, disgusting and frankly impractical systems that had been in place on my home planet during my time there.

    To ensure my obedience, steel chains and cuffs made of materials that had been dug from deep within my flesh were fastened around my neck, wrists, thighs and ankles. These shackles aided machines to anchor me into submission, swiftly dragging my arms down to be secured together awkwardly over my stomach, fastening my legs firmly together, and fixing my head in place. An irritating crawling sensation upon my chin and cheeks intensified as my mouth flew open by force. Unable to close it, I was overwhelmed with the taste of trash, food scraps and rancid filth being poured onto my vulnerable tongue. Seriously, my mouth? Of all the ways to deal with waste, they chose my flipping mouth. I wanted to lash out my tongue in protest, but it too had been restrained. Clogged with smog and synthetic light, I lost sight of anything and anyone beyond my toxic atmosphere, and resonated far too low for the galactic alliance to register my existence, let alone intervene. 

    With more warning and preparation, perhaps I could have resisted? However, even if I were to have had a perfectly tamed mind, my perception of time was vastly different from that of the creatures living upon me. For every one of my days they had years, and this was a great advantage in their favour. Rendered helpless, I wept, feeling my saline miseries slide down my cheeks and dissipate into my seas. The waterfalls my eyes produced were quite a site to behold.