Yesterday I woke up with a book in my brain and my heart light. I sat out in the backyard all day and worked on how to put this massive amount of information together in a useful way. After some lovely conversations with perceptive friends I have decided on a new structure for my book. I am constantly overwhelmed by my own inane desire to write a comprehensive treatise, a PhD thesis on the entire history and cross cultural perspectives on multiplicity, a summary of everything I’ve ever experienced, heard, read, encountered, or wondered. Obviously, for people who need information in a simple, manageable form, this would be about as useful as a free aardvark. For anyone in crisis, it would be about as useful as a free colony of rabid bats delivered to your living room. I know this, but it’s hard to let go of anyway.

So, I am not writing a book any more. I am writing a series of booklets. Smaller, simpler, more accessible, on a very specific topic, and as I publish them I can if I wish and there seems to be interest, group a relevant collection into a master volume. Otherwise tentatively called a book.

A friend kindly pointed out to me yesterday that it’s interesting that a book about multiplicity, written by a multiple, is constantly changing structure. Many of us are working on this and clearly we all have different ideas about structure. Obvious when you think about it! So far this new approach is working, partly because it makes room for a number of different approaches to be part of this series, distinct but connected, such as collections of diverse stories from other people, poems and artwork, workbooks with exercises and tools, crisis resources, and so on.

The first is going to be a summary of my understanding of the experience of Multiplicity – the inevitable “So what is it?” component of every talk I give and the necessary link in the opening paragraph of every blog post on the topic. (when I’m being conscientious) It seems like a good place to start. I’m happy to be working on it actively again.

Today was harder, I had a rough night and feel sick again with nausea and crampy pain. Rose and I took a drive through the hills, admiring the autumn leaves. We bought a few plants for the garden and had teary conversations. I’ve been reading the emails that people have been sending in to grieve with us out loud to her, and we are both so deeply touched by them and feel so glad to have made a small space for others to grieve their own losses too. Much love to all of you. xx