The narrative of the dream is more than an abstraction or the random firing of visual neurons during sleep. -- The dream is something which defies both logical understanding and our estimation of anything else considered "real"... It derives from suggestion, and it derives from the inner personal psyche itself -- from passion, suffering, confusion, and memory ...

The "allegory" is a story or fable which instructs our understanding of the workings of the physical world, or reveals the inner meaning of our own intentions, which the complexity of our process of actions had caused us to forget. As a form of story-telling it must by design work on separate levels, or layers of parallel, corresponding patterns of narrative in order to expose its meaning; this is the principle of "exposition."

The narrative of a dream can combine both the recollection of a memory and an event or wish long forgotten : It is desire. It is the unknown. The dream taps upon the full range of all the emotions ever felt in one's life of experiences. Within the dream can be the presence of a living lover, or the presence or ghost of an ancestor, friend -- or a descendant not yet to be born for centuries.

The allegory of the dream does not follow the sequence of Time, but the sequence of MEANING.
It's layers are the strata of memory and the embedded experiences of personal meaning, hidden deep in layers of solid earth where they are irrigated by subterreanean rivers.

The precedents of this amorphous mosaic form of writing are the Epic poem, the early medieval Chronicles, the sonnets of the 17th century Metaphysical Poets, the 19th century French Prose-Poems, and the free verse of the Beats.

In this sense the novel form created here is philosophical in design and intent.

In visual art, its equivalents are the mythological allegory, the figurative abstract painting, the figurative landscape, and the early landscape engravings which are the lasting immediate views of the old world before the arrival of photography.

The narrative is both philosophy and history. Like the encoded sequence found within the chromosome strands of DNA, the narrative contains the failures and defeats of all that human history has attempted -- as well as the fulfillment of everything ever hoped would fulfill the human race and all of life -- all its forms, shapes, arrival and departures. In terms of philosophy, the dream is the narrative of the psyche as though it were experiencing reality in the human shape of the body, but resident in the reality of a foreign dimension.

The dream is the Rain which falls from the sky, it is the tear which slides down the cheek. It is what it is not. It suggests what will soon be, and it displays what once might have happened, but now will never come to be.

(see chapter 1 page for full text audio link)

INTRODUCTION -- click for the audio reading by the author

Fires Eternal Morning is an exploration of the Unconscious memory of the reader himself. This is a novel that is written from a child's point of view.
Along with the telling of the writer's dream stories, childhood perspectives and memories, the writer's deliberate purpose is to stimulate the spontaneous
recollection of the reader's own recent and forgotten dreams.

Creating a visual language of free-association and metaphor in the vernacular, Fires Eternal Morning is written to function on multiple layers of allegory,
thought, and perception. It is a prose-poem landscape of dreams of the writer's own childhood, set in a place called "Paradise Green." The sequence is
influenced by Dante: 1. the Inferno of a nuclear catastrophe; 2. the Purgatory of emotions and political intrigues; and 3. the Paradise of Mind and Body.

It is "A Coming of Age story of the Cold War," reflective of the anthropology of Margaret Mead, in a modern world in which the undercurrent of fear
and expectation of nuclear war, and the immanent ruin of the planet, especially during the decades of tension between East and West political blocks,
bred into the world's developmental psychology an innate nihilism, resulting in widespread depression and the perpetuation of aggressive behavior.

A generation which tried to evolve itself to "Make Love - Not War" eventually split into two specific political camps, one devolved back to the continuity
of punitive and intrusive control systems supporting paranoid militarism, privileged exploitation of workers, and social stratification, with a mindset of
reductive Behaviorism, trends & entertainments; while another political camp continues to evolve toward a new ecology, environmental concern,
universal spirituality, justice & compassion, nutrition, artistic expression, and personal consciousness.

Synopsis

This is the story of a young person trying to find his way back from the precipice of loss and fear -- In the aftermath of a global upheaval, John Hauberc picks his way through the rubble of cities, through the romantic dreams of his youth, through the dirt paths of childhood landscapes --

Awakening in a state of amnesia, Hauberc thinks the broken military weapon he finds at his side to be a child’s toy. He may be a child of the Cold War, fantasizing the adult intrigues of espionage – or he may be a soldier lost in the images of a nuclear Inferno, lost in the images of his home which he may never see or find again...

Left abandoned in the ruins of a medieval town, John perceives himself in the backyard of his childhood, near a place called "Paradise Green."
As the emotional scenes of his life unravel, he begins to piece together the part his own covert actions have played in the unleashing of these destructive nightmare forces.

In a visual language suggested by the circles of Dante and the art of the Surrealists, the narrative is an allegory of the universal experience of our era : of ideals, ideologies, and moral dilemmas. Portents of dreams explore the absurdities and ambiguities of meaning, the fear of alienation and "aliens," and the difficulties of family relations.

As Hauberc emerges from his hiding place and his traumatized visions, a purgatorial journey of diplomacy is required of him for the survival of those who remain alive. Cycles of the sky and the heavens give their metaphorical names to each step of the story: "Ancient Sky," "Deluge," "Conflagration," "Zenith," and "Nadir".

The fires are the fires of global apocalypse, the fires of memory, the fires of intended passion, the fires of love, the fires of alchemical transformation...