Press Kit for The Children of Gaia
Written & illustrated by Jacquelyn E. Lane
‘An Exquisite fairy tale about reality.’
Lavishly illustrated, The Children of Gaia breaks new ground in fiction for adults and young adults. This high quality paperback is a visual feast with 178 fine art drawings and paintings through its 330 pages.
Research in forests around the world combine with decades of esoteric studies in this ambitious work that traverses science, metaphysics and story-telling.
What have reviewers and readers said about The Children of Gaia?
“This is a truly beautiful book. No surprise that it took the author, Jacquelyn E. Lane, more than ten years to complete. Just handling it is a joy, a pleasure that is reinforced when one delves inside. The intricately detailed illustrations that illuminate the story bring to mind precious medieval manuscripts, and had this reader eagerly turning the pages.
The story is a combination of fantasy and well-grounded observations of the natural world. It’s an adult fable that traverses the forests of the world and carries a message for us all. To tell more is to risk spoiling the smaller and larger delights awaiting the reader. However, it is safe to reveal that the overriding thread is our need to protect, sustain and nourish our planet, and Jacquelyn handles her themes with a sure touch.
I can see this thought-provoking novel being cherished and handed down from generation to generation. Indeed, it deserves to become a classic.” Sally Astridge (Freelance Editor, NZ)
“Absolutely fantastic!” Stewart Pearce, UK (Master of Voice, Formerly with Globe Theatre, Sound Healer, Author of The Alchemy of Voice.)
“…most enjoyable and very engaging – it was hard to put down.” Gary Hartshorn, President, World Forestry Centre, Oregon USA. (Formerly Chief Scientist with Worldwide Fund for Nature and Director of the Organisation for Tropical Studies)
“I absolutely adore your book and have lent and recommended it to many people. Everyone who reads it raves about it also.” Jan Inger (Therapist, New Zealand)
“I know it is going to become almost a cult classic . . .” Frank de Marco (retired CEO of Hampton Roads Publishing)
“I was transported beyond the framework of logic into a realm which bordered the horizon of matter and spirit. It is a well crafted, yet poetically magical story with both a materially and spiritually consistent message.” Robert Smith (BA Oxon) UK, (Retired Teacher of Literature for Further Education – UK.)
Jacquelyn E Lane
New Zealand Author—Educator—Artist
She grew up in Wellington and in the Pacific Island nation of Western Samoa. In adulthood she has travelled extensively and lived in several countries. In the early 1980s, with a social science degree behind her and two young sons in school, Jacquelyn turned a life-long love of drawing into an art career and soon became an exhibiting member of the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts. The Children of Gaia is her first novel.
Having majored in Education at University, Jacquelyn has built up considerable experience in practical education via community initiatives and private workshops. She currently runs workshops in Art, Practical Metaphysics, and the Deva Kingdom, using a potent mixture of visual aids, story telling and the sharing of knowledge gained over decades.
In 2012 Jacquelyn released a non-fiction work, This World of Echoes—A Divine Guide to Being Human. This trilogy explores the unfolding of divine energy from its still point at source out into the increasingly dense and distorting layers of substance and consciousness to form what we know as ‘our world’ of physical body and human personality.
Recently settled back in New Zealand with her husband after many years of having ‘no fixed abode’, Jacquelyn has many stories: about her work, her travels and the learning that comes from those physical and internal journeys—stories sufficient for books of their own.
Jacquelyn’s next book will be a non-fiction on Deva (pronounced day-vah), the intrinsic intelligence of matter at all levels of density based on long experience with this Kingdom as introduced in The Children of Gaia.
For over a decade Jacquelyn was a member of the Society of Authors (UK) and on return to living in New Zealand became a member of the NZ Society of Authors. In the past she has written esoteric articles for interest groups like Aura-Soma’s International and Australian magazines and her art work was featured in the German magazine Esotera. She illustrated Julie Leibrich’s delightful children’s story Once In A Blue Moon (Random House NZ 1995). In 2008 Jacquelyn was invited to become a listed artist with Derwent Pencils, the UK’s leading pencil manufacturer. She has held solo exhibitions in porcelain sculpture, painting and drawing.
Q & A with Jacquelyn E. Lane on The Children of Gaia
Q 1 There’s an underpinning of ecological science in The Children of Gaia. Are you a scientist?
No, I have a university degree but it’s not in the physical sciences. My brother is an ecologist so he gave me scientific papers and often put me in touch with other experts I could talk to. Other people came into my life with special knowledge and skills just when I needed them. Creating The Children of Gaia was quite a learning curve all round, with the research on forests and the traveling that involved, plus learning how to write a novel, communicate with deva and become an illustrator!
Q2 That’s a big job! How long did it take you and where did you travel to learn about the forests?
I dragged my husband and sons off to Costa Rica to look at cloud forest, rainforest and dry forest, where we slept with snakes rustling in the dry leaves beside us. I photographed tarantulas and deadly snakes up close. My Mother couldn’t believe it when I told her, reminding me that when I was a young girl I’d squeal about a dead fly! (My husband quipped that I just needed a porter for the camera gear. ) On another trip I traveled alone to Sweden, Norway, Finland, and joined a group of Swedish Foresters on a tour of West Germany and Eastern Europe to look at the devastating effects of acid pollution, an experience that sometimes left these hardy men in tears. Of course my family and I also visited some special forests in New Zealand. The research, writing and illustrating took me nine years with another year of script polishing later.
Q 3 What inspired such a big undertaking?
Well it was an extraordinary ‘road to Damascus’ experience. When a retired Marine Biologist suggested I write about the deva kingdom and ecology, my crown chakra tore open and the light that streamed in almost blinded me for three days. I knew it was about forests and that the figures tumbling in that light were deva. It was a compulsion that was impossible to ignore.
Q4 The story feels very real rather than a fantasy. Is that because it’s all based on your own experience?
One reader got quite upset when I described it as a ‘fantasy’. “It’s not a fantasy,” she declared, “it’s real.” It is real in that apart from some references to Africa, I experienced the forests even though their size and locations in the story may, in some instances, be ‘mythical’. The deva material is also based pretty much on my own experiences though of course these had to be shaped as needed to make an exciting, readable story that both inspires and teaches us about forces we don’t normally see.
Q5 What do you mean by ‘deva’ and did you communicate with them to write The Children of Gaia?
Deva are also called the Angelic Kingdom. It’s a Sanskrit word pronounced (day-vah) meaning ‘Being of Light’.Essentially deva are the intelligence within all levels of substance, at all levels of density, seen and unseen. Deva include the nature spirits and the higher organising deva that govern ecological systems, land areas etc.. As I worked on the book my abilities developed naturally. A clairvoyant friend had grown up in a family where seeing the nature spirits was considered normal so she became a kind of mentor and reassurance in that regard.
Q6 Why did you illustrate The Children of Gaia even though it’s not a children’s book?
I wanted to give people as complete an experience of trees and forests as I could. It often comes as a shock to me that many people never get to experience a real forest, especially one that hasn’t been planted by humans. I love drawing or painting plants so it was often a challenge but never a chore. Actually it never occurred to me not to illustrate the story and I was blissfully ignorant of the extra publishing hurdles illustrations would bring.
Q7 Do you do workshops about these extraordinary things you’ve learned and experienced?
I’ve run a number of different kinds of workshops during my life. I love sharing knowledge and helping people tap into the great inner resources that are available to them. Currently I run a workshop to help people raise their game artistically. I also run day-long workshops on the intelligent spirituality contained in This World of Echoes trilogy and another on the Deva Kingdom. My methods combine visual aids with story telling along with the ‘knowledge talk’.
Q8 Do you have any other books ready to publish?
I have just completed a non-fiction on the deva kingdom. That’s been a long journey but it feels so good to have pulled so many threads of this fascinating subject together. I have put the Deva Kingdom into a wider context for people because deva is not just about elves and fairies or even just about nature. It’s the intelligent response in every level and density of substance in all areas of life that we experience. That means we are using deva all the time and ‘creating’ them through our particularly human activities. It also means our evolution and theirs is intertwined. My team of Beta Readers have given very positive feedback so now it’s time to seek a publisher.
I also have some chapter books for children at various stages of completion that I’d like to get back to someday. There’s also a good deal of art I still want to do.
Q9 Where do you live?
After many years of traveling and living overseas my husband and I have settled back in our homeland, New Zealand. I love the land of New Zealand—there are ancient virgin forests full of deva life, lakes and sky-piercing mountains, wild rocky coasts, sandy beaches, steam-belching thermal regions and high plateau of glinting tussock—all within a few days drive of wherever you are in the country.
I love other parts of our beautiful planet too—the red lands of Australia, the white sands of Egypt and Tunisia, the woods and hills of Scotland, the forests of many lands, the rocks and beaches and endless changing skies. I cannot think of them without feeling totally mystified that we are so careless of such extraordinary gifts.
