Impromptu Love Boundaries ~ Dandelion Wind

Parker Fitzgerald & Riley Messina

Impromptu - 

done without being planned or rehearsed.

Betty and Joss

Dandelion Wind

A special woman. 

He means to say that he respects you for who you are. He's opening up to you in a sense. You are an important part of his life and he wanted you to know that. If you are special to him then he realizes what a catch you are and that he's interested in you. He doesn't want you to get away because you mean something to him.

He may very well want to take things slow as he was just hurt by a former relationship. This is totally natural, so just go with it. If you can both agree to take things slow then that's great. You're both on the same page and it'll be easier to anticipate where the other wants to go.

If he respects you and your feelings then he may very well have feelings for you. There is the chance that while he respects you and your feelings he cannot share in them, so he would like to place impromptu boundaries on the relationship you two share. Be this the case, some reference to being "just friends" will be made.
(Source)

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A Man can leave you in a dilemma when he says something like "you are special". While it is really nice of him to say that, you can interpret it in a thousand different ways.

When a man says you are special then he could also mean that he can see you in his future. You have been able to find a special place in his life and he just wants to keep you posted on the way he feels.

Sometimes a man tells a woman that she is special when he begins to feel that he has fallen in love with her. He just doesn't want to confess that to her and also to himself and hence says that she is a special person.

Lastly, when a guy says that you are special it means that things are going to change between the two of you. Either the relationship is going to become more serious and intense or is an indication that things need to cool off for a bit. Either way, both will be complemented with additional behavior which you need to read and understand.

Nobody Knows It But Me

When a man is attentive, he’s paying close attention to you as well as your needs. When you’re upset, he sees it in your eyes. When you’re scared, he’s got words to comfort you. When something’s on your mind, he’s the first to say “You need to talk? What’s going on?”

When you’re with someone who sees you as being super special, it doesn’t matter whether or not he has time. He’s going to make time regardless.

Expressing feelings is a vulnerable thing to do, a guy who’s really digging you won’t be able to contain himself. Sharing his emotions will be a given truth.

When a man thinks a woman is special, he’ll go to the ends of the earth just to show it.

When a man feels he has met the one for him, his life is pretty much an open book. Honesty comes easily for him.

The right guy is going to care about your feelings. It will bother him when you’re hurting. He’ll be by your side, looking for ways to help in any possible way that he can.

“Love is friendship set on fire” 

Love and light,

Trace

xoxo

Exploring Romantic Attachment

True Love: (Mr/Mrs. Right, The One, Soulmates.)

It is usually expected of people who are in love that they claim their lover is ``The One''. Ultimately it's very hard to tell because by definition your soul mate is the one person you will meet in your life than you will love above all others. Thus until your life is over you cannot tell who you loved best. You may meet someone tomorrow that you love more. On your deathbed, you could look back over your life and see who you loved the most, and they would be the one. Often a soul mate is someone we love so much, perhaps under particularly strenuous or difficult circumstances, that we cannot imagine loving anyone else more for the rest of our lives.

Usually, your true love is someone you feel a deeper connection with than people you have loved before. You may get the sense that they are special, unique, and a perfect fit with your personality -- the real you, who is not changed by day to day events. If we fall in love because we love someone's personality, and then they change, we may fall out of love, but with soul mates, the assumption is that they can somehow see through the transitory aspects of our personality and observe the ``essence'' of us, that which will never truly change. Thus it is impossible to fall out of true love because of circumstances which change us because the real, central ``You'' that your soul mate sees does not change.

Generally and sadly (especially in plays, books, and films) it is expected that a lot of people who find their Mr/Mrs. Right will lose them again in some tragic separation. There are two main views of this:

View 1:

They seem like Mr/Mrs. Right because you lost them. They are the one you can't forget because you never entered reality and everyday life with them. They are a fantasy. Thus Romeo and Juliet and all the other similar couples wouldn't have found each other exceptional, had they lived together for years and lost all the romance in their relationships. A soul mate is purely a lost chance, someone who might have been someone special, but you never got to find out. It's purely human nature to be curious about the one who got away. The soul mate embodies all our escapism, and impossible dreams, unrealistic ideals, and impossible fantasies. They exist in a space outside real life, such as holiday romances. If introduced to real life they would lose their magic. We project specialness upon them because we want to believe in fairy tales. They come to embody all our ``what if's'' and need for closure.

View 2:

A: Not everyone loses their Mr/Mrs. Right. Some people live in happiness with them for many years, even till death, and are happy to have found their soul mates. We hear about the ones that got lost because it makes a more dramatic story. Romeo and Juliet wouldn't be as moving if the two lovers merely slightly fancied each other, would it? Or if they lived happily ever after? Yes, finding Mr/Mrs. Right and keeping him/her is less dramatic and might seem less romantic, so is less heard of, but anyone who is in love for the wild passionate, hysterical romance of it is living a fantasy, not real love. Real love can include romance, but it is still love even without death scenes and wild speeches and fast-paced action. True love that never encounters huge difficulties does not a good play make, but it isn't any less true.

Read the full article HERE by Ruth Whistler

Love and light,

Trace

xoxo

Chance and Bethany

Richard Madden Lily James

Chance and Bethany

The mental imagery of 'A carpet of purple flowers’ inspired me in such a magical way, that I felt compelled to write my first novel. Once I started to place pen to paper, the story began to grow into a much greater tale. Maybe, every creative whimsy that I have ever envisaged and not acted on, has waited until now to be brought to life.

My mind raced as folklore came entwined with love, fate entwined with choice, science entwined with spiritual teachings - all guiding me to write a romance that revolves around a karmic cycle. Let me share with you a secret place in which only a parted veil exposes. To an ethereal plane in which otherworldly, angelic type beings, tend to a well of souls. In the book, I take the reader on a brief, visual journey to the home of these elementals called, 'The Sindria', their realm, 'Calageata'. It is here that the purple flower of Vororbla grows, emitting a thick mist ready to greet the essence of a soul.

What keeps us going when the world can feel so harsh?

Where do we draw our strength from in times of need?

What urges us to carry on when things become extremely overwhelming and too much to bear?

We all know the answer... it comes from within.

Somewhere, deep inside, a light refuses to fade.

This light (our inner strength) may become less bright for a time, but in its fading, it is re-energising, and will again, awaken from sleep. Once, our inner light screams out its very last ray of hope, the sleeping energy awakes, re-igniting the inner dimming ray. It is reminiscent of an illuminating birth of a far away star, and from apparent nothingness, wondrous brightness can evolve.

The Sindria teach… 'To be able to shine more brightly, one's light must first fade.’

In the book, I mention to 'keep your light bright' as we've all experienced at some point in our lives, a time when nothing makes sense, a time when life can feel like it's too much to bear, and I really wanted to send out an important message to my readers – that you are so much more than what you initially see, and to remember, a fading light secretly masks an eternity. Our light never truly diminishes, and we can always shine bright, again.

Bea lives a simple life residing in a South London second-hand bookshop. It had been an especially difficult year, first with Bea’s uncle dying, then splitting up with Brandon, her philandering, druggie boyfriend. The shop's trivial daily conversations, local faces, and calm, was all she desired, but that was all about to change.

            ‘Four Souls & Three Hearts’

The future is not set in stone and the choices that we make ripple through the cosmos. No matter what form your soul takes, there are consequences for one's actions in which time has no relevance – 

we call it karma, they call it Vo-ror-bla.

No-one expects to bump into supernatural beings, let alone two opposing sects of a forgotten race. Bea’s quiet existence turns into turmoil as she slowly starts to unravel a secret past. A lost history in which love, revenge, betrayal, magic, power, and karma are not mere cycles of a soul, but a sacred journey upon a web of many possibilities.

Tantric sex is an ancient Hindu practice that has been going for over 5,000 years, and means 'the weaving and expansion of energy'. It's a slow form of sex that's said to increase intimacy and create a mind-body connection.  In this way, you're sharing all of yourself with your partner. 

The heart breath to tune into each other. Stand opposite one another and look into each other's eyes placing your left hand on your partner's heart. He should then place his hand over your left one and you should try to match each other's breathing for at least two minutes.

 Crossing the veil between worlds…

A light bright
a loud cry in the night
makes way for a soul in the dark
gliding through time
a passage ethereal sublime
a story forgotten renewed

mingling the past into the future
a haze blinding most
glamour hides a host
the spiritual warrior has eyes to see
but not until he falls to his knees

the figure in shadow feels the heart of the broken
crushing love not forgotten
gripping mist
chasing dreams
karma eludes or so it seems

circles and cycles
souls entwined
something at work
possibly divine

by Tracey-anne

 Souls forever entwined

***Amazon U.K Bestselling*** 

Inspirational Romance  ~ Fairy Tales ~ Mythology & Folk Tales

Love and Light,

Trace

xoxo

Romeo and Juliet ~ Romance

Lily James and Richard Madden

Credit ~ Johan Persson

Des'ree - I'm Kissing You

Pride can stand a thousand trials

The strong will never fall

But watching stars without you my soul cried

Heaving heart is full of pain

Oh, oh, the aching

'Cause, I'm kissing you oh

I'm kissing you oh

Touch me deep, pure and true gift to me forever

'Cause, I'm kissing you

Oh, I'm kissing you, oh

Where are you now?

Where are you now?

Cause, I'm kissing you

I'm kissing you, oh

Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately reconcile their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and along with Hamlet, is one of his most frequently performed plays. Today, the title characters are regarded as archetypal young lovers.

Romeo and Juliet belongs to a tradition of tragic romances stretching back to antiquity. The plot is based on an Italian tale translated into verse as The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke in 1562 and retold in prose in Palace of Pleasure by William Painter in 1567. 

Frontispiece of The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet.

Shakespeare borrowed heavily from both but expanded the plot by developing a number of supporting characters, particularly Mercutio and Paris. Believed to have been written between 1591 and 1595, the play was first published in a quarto version in 1597. The text of the first quarto version was of poor quality, however, and later editions corrected the text to conform more closely with Shakespeare's original.

Love and light,

Trace

xoxo

Empyrean Heaven

Sacred Soul Forgotten

Storytelling Haiku 

(575)

1. Paradise bounty
her sweet innocence and youth
unaware of fate

2. A purple flower
scents of violets and mead
echo through her soul

3. His mouth an apple
his kiss an ethereal dream
encircled she’s his

4. Eyes appear that see
a crime of forbidden love
rage and fury flames

5. Hearts torn asunder
banishment they both depart
disgraced gates open

6. Under starry sky
the four rivers of her heart
drowns out the sorrow

7. Float on ocean’s waves
her heart now seeks a new home
broken but hope breathes

8. Muted horizon
she finds a land of plenty
but hell becomes home

9. Gazing out to sea
serenading memories
waves against the shore

10. The wings of a bird
soaring high in the heavens
he seeks what she lost

11. Ancient endearment
of the star-crossed love gone by
its light now fading

12. Wildmen in forests
Herne the hunter seeks her
in sacred marriage

13. A new clan inland
the past is fading away
the apple haunts her

14. A woman’s soul crushed
in a land of warring men
fragile yet divine

15. Waterfalls in mist
she falls to her knees and prays
begging for the light

16. Woodwose hunted down
the crown removed from nature
roses overgrown

17. The secret garden
where seeds of truth lies dormant
fenced off from the world

18. Sacred feminine
close your eyes and hear her name
carried on the wind

~  Tracey-anne McCartney

Love and light

Trace

xoxo

Awake in Purple Dreams - ***Cover Reveal*** - Book Two

A different kind of fairy tale for adults. 

Awake in Purple Dreams is a story about love overcoming all obstacles. Elements of fantasy weave with reality in this epic romance derived from ancient folklore. An enchanted but a brutal tale of a soul trying to find its way back home.

Blurb ~
Having thought that she had finally escaped the past, Bea finds herself hunted down by an unknown enemy who violently rips her life apart. The harsh changes that follow catapult her on a journey which not only brings personal transformation but one that marks a new era for two worlds.

Secrets long hidden are finally revealed and a war like no other is on the horizon.
Karma never forgets and until the cycle of a soul is complete, the past will never fade away.

The final book cover was a collaboration with Rebecca covers HERE

Below, my early design using free commons images. 

I couldn't get the title to stand out but loved the different colour tone in the font. In the end, I thought it best to stick as closely to book one as possible and so decided to keep the text white. I also needed help with placing stars in the background and with book formatting for print. Rebeca was wonderful and so here we are ~ a completed cover design. 

Early Designs 

Front and Back

Placing the early design next to Book One for comparison ~ 

Did they compliment each other enough to be visually recognised as the same in a series? 

Yup! I think so. 😁

The silhouette of the couple sets the theme of romance and their souls. The purple flowers reminiscent of 'A Carpet of Purple Flowers', a place which echoes in both books. The stars and cosmos giving a subtle message of the story being Otherworldly. 

Want to find out more about book two? 

Click HERE

Will be available to Pre-order on Amazon in late summer 2017.

Love and light,

Trace

xoxo

Illustrations of Undine ~ Arthur Rackham ~ August Gaber - Adalbert Mueller

Art collaboration between Adalbert Mueller and August Gaber. 

Undine is a fairy-tale novella (Erzählung) by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué in which Undine, a water spirit, marries a knight named Huldebrand in order to gain a soul. It is an early German romance.

Illustration of Undine from 1909 ~ Arthur Rackham

Art collaboration between Adalbert Mueller and August Gaber 

The story is descended from Melusine, the French folktale of a water-sprite who marries a knight on condition that he shall never see her on Saturdays when she resumes her mermaid shape. It was also inspired by works by the occultist Paracelsus.

Illustration of Undine from 1909 ~ Arthur Rackham

Art collaboration between Adalbert Mueller and August Gaber 

An unabridged English translation of the story by William Leonard Courtney and illustrated by Arthur Rackham was published in 1909. George Macdonald thought Undine "the most beautiful" of all fairy stories, while Lafcadio Hearn referred to Undine as a "fine German story" in his essay "The Value of the Supernatural in Fiction".

Illustration of Undine from 1909 ~ Arthur Rackham

Art collaboration between Adalbert Mueller and August Gaber 

In the 1830s, the novella was translated into Russian dactylic hexameter verse by the Romantic poet Vasily Zhukovsky. This verse translation became a classic in its own right and later provided the basis for the libretto to Tchaikovsky's operatic adaptation. The novella has since inspired numerous similar adaptions in various genres and traditions.

Illustration of Undine from 1909 ~ Arthur Rackham

Art collaboration between Adalbert Mueller and August Gaber 

Love and light,

Trace

xoxo

Hellelil and Hildebrand ~ Frederic William Burton

Frederic William Burton

Hellelil and Hildebrand, The Meeting on the Turret Stairs

This richly coloured watercolour painting depicts the ill-fated lovers Hellelil and Hildebrand, meeting on the stone stairway of a medieval tower. The princess and her bodyguard had fallen in love but her father regarded the young soldier as an unsuitable match for his daughter and ordered his sons to kill him. The painting captures the couple’s poignant final embrace.

Burton was inspired by the story of the ill-fated lovers told in an old Danish ballad. The poem had been translated into English in 1855 by Whitley Stokes, a lawyer and philologist, and friend of the artist.

This watercolour, painted by Burton when he was at the height of his career, has been popular since it was first exhibited at the Old Watercolour Society’s Annual exhibition in London in 1864. The writer George Eliot (who had her portrait painted by Burton in 1865) praised it saying: ‘the subject might have been made the most vulgar thing in the world – the artist has raised it to the highest pitch of refined emotion’ and went on to focus on the romance in the picture: ‘the face of the knight is the face of a man to whom the kiss is a sacrament.’

The Meeting on the Turret Stairs is a very important work in Burton’s oeuvre, he made numerous preparatory studies for it, four of which are in the National Gallery of Ireland’s collection. Burton sold the painting to a dealer, Edward Fox White in 1864 but the contract they signed notes that Burton retained the copyright, presumably aware of how valuable the image would be as a print. The painting changed hands a number of times over the following 30 years but in 1898 it was bought by Miss Margaret McNair Stokes (sister of Whitley Stokes). An article by Jeanette Stokes in the Irish Arts Review, (Vol.26, no.3, 2009) refers to the fact that there are tantalising hints in some of Margaret Stokes’s letters to her family that her interest in Burton was something more than friendship. Margaret Stokes was writing a biography of Burton when she died in 1900, in her will she bequeathed the painting, along with a number of other works by Burton, to the National Gallery of Ireland.

"Hildebrand and Hellelil. Translated from the Danish" from Poems by the Way (1891)

Hellelil sitteth in bower there,

None knows my grief but God alone,

And seweth at the seam so fair,

I never wail my sorrow to any other one.

But there whereas the gold should be

With silk upon the cloth sewed she.

Where she should sew with silken thread

The gold upon the cloth she laid.

So to the Queen the word came in

That Hellelil wild work doth win.

Then did the Queen do furs on her

And went to Hellelil the fair.

"O swiftly sewest thou, Hellelil,

Yet nought but mad is thy sewing still!"

"Well may my sewing be but mad

Such evil hap as I have had.

My father was good king and lord,

Knights fifteen served before his board.

He taught me sewing royally,

Twelve knights had watch and ward of me.

Well served eleven day by day,

To folly the twelfth did me bewray.

And this same was hight Hildebrand,

The King's son of the English Land.

But in bower were we no sooner laid

Than the truth thereof to my father was said.

Then loud he cried o'er garth and hall:

'Stand up, my men, and arm ye all!

'Yea draw on mail and dally not,

Hard neck lord Hildebrand hath got!'

They stood by the door with glaive and spear;

'Hildebrand rise and hasten here!'

Lord Hildebrand stroked my white white cheek:

'O love, forbear my name to speak.

'Yea even if my blood thou see,

Name me not, lest my death thou be.'

Out from the door lord Hildebrand leapt,

And round about his good sword swept.

The first of all that he slew there

Were my seven brethren with golden hair.

Then before him stood the youngest one,

And dear he was in the days agone.

Then I cried out: 'O Hildebrand,

In the name of God now stay thine hand.

'O let my youngest brother live

Tidings hereof to my mother to give!'

No sooner was the word gone forth

Than with eight wounds fell my love to earth.

My brother took me by the golden hair,

And bound me to the saddle there.

There met me then no littlest root,

But it tore off somewhat of my foot.

No littlest brake the wild-wood bore,

But somewhat from my legs it tore.

No deepest dam we came unto

But my brother's horse he swam it through.

But when to the castle gate we came,

There stood my mother in sorrow and shame.

My brother let raise a tower high,

Bestrewn with sharp thorns inwardly.

He took me in my silk shirt bare

And cast me into that tower there.

And wheresoe'er my legs I laid

Torment of the thorns I had.

Wheresoe'er on feet I stood

The prickles sharp drew forth my blood.

My youngest brother me would slay

But my mother would have me sold away.

A great new bell my price did buy

In Mary's Church to hang on high.

But the first stroke that ever it strake

My mother's heart asunder brake."

So soon as her sorrow and woe was said,

None knows my grief but God alone,

In the arm of the Queen she sat there dead,

I never tell my sorrow to any other one.

Love and light,

Trace

xoxo