Butterfly Voyage

by Bianca Bowers

Overview

Foreword

On 30 May, 2016, at 1.52 am, I woke from a dream and scribbled...

Seventy three lines later I had penned (or rather channelled) a cryptic poem that seemed to contain an urgent message. At that stage I had no idea what it meant, but my intuition told me that all would be revealed if I paid attention to the signs.

In the days that followed, lines from the poem started to materialise and more cryptic poems (or spirit messages as I now call them) were channelled.

Two weeks later, after a series of serendipitous events, I travelled out of state to attend a shamanic retreat where I took Ayahuasca for the first time. Ayahuasca is an entheogenic brew and spiritual medicine used by Shamans from the Amazon basin. It is said to clear spiritual baggage from current and previous lives.

The experience was both confronting and liberating, and ultimately sent me on a two year journey of deep self-reflection and healing.

Butterfly Voyage is a poetic account of that two year journey.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780648442615
Publisher:	PaperFields Press
Publication date:	11/20/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	190
File size:	12 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Bianca Bowers is the author of 5 poetry books: Butterfly Voyage (2018), Pressed Flowers (2017), Love Is A Song She Sang From A Cage (2016), Passage (2015), and Death and Life (2014). She holds a BA in English and Film/TV/Media Studies. In 2016, her poem 'Tree of Life' was chosen to feature in a trailer for a short-film called The Avant-Gardener. Her poetry has also appeared in Shot Glass Journal, Tongue In Your Ear, and The Art Toppling Tobacco Project. Bianca is currently preparing her novels, Cape of Storms, and Three Hearts for publication. You can find Bianca at: https://www.biancabowers.com

Table of Contents

The Voyage

INTRODUCTION

PRELUDE

Part i

Spirit Message I, 30 May 2016

Sleeping, Like Beauty

Once Upon A Heart

Commandments

Pilgrim

Against the Odds

Like A Ghost

The Lost Girl

Smudges of Fear

A Girl Again

Extraction

Jagged Cruelty

Old Stories

Rosemary Flames

Woodland Ghosts

River

 

Part ii

Spirit Message II, 12 August 2016

Birthday

Belief

Dreamscape

Wild Woman

White Horse

Map

The Raven Empress

Nightbird

Under Moonlight

Leda 1 - The Dragon and the Butterfly

 

Part iii

Spirit Message III, 24 August 2016

Vampire Bride

Riverbed

Simmering

Excavate

Integrity

Mausoleum

Waiting

Bonsai

Bird’s Eye View

Amongst The Bones

Skeleton Tree

Ghosts

 

Part iv

Spirit Message IV, 11 September 2016

Purple Oblivion

The Flower of Life

Rabbit Holes

Star

The Girl Who Saved The Moon

The Magic of Flowers

Whale Procession

Leda 2 - Wild Horses

 

Part v

Spirit Message V, 25 September 2016

Acorn

We Stand Still

Your Heart Is Not A War Machine

Revenge

Wake Up

Indigo Portal

The Jasmine Song Of Whales

Mystic

Spirit Message VI, 26 September 2016

 

Part vi

Spirit Message VII, 30 September 2016

Spirit Message VIII, 1 October 2016

Leda 3 - Be-come OR Become Extinct

Leda 4 - A Spider’s Nature

The Forest

Unicorn

Love is the Lotus

Paperweight

Incognito

The Sea Dragon

Leda 5 - The Spider and the Python

 

Part vii

Spirit Message IX, 4 October 2016

Medicine Woman

Leda 6 - The Nile Crocodiles

Woodland Death

April Fool

Distant Memory

Death Should Come But Once

The Art of Surrender

On The Verge

Burning Sun

Morphosis

 

Part viii

Spirit Message X, 2 December 2016

Leftovers

Flower Of The Earth

Leda 7 - Ceremonial Wings

The Cicada’s Song

The Fates

Spirit Message XI, 1 September 2018

Spirit Message XII, 12 September 2018

 

NOTES

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

BOOK REVIEW GUIDE

SPIRIT MESSAGE ENDNOTES

Editorial Reviews

EDITORIAL REVIEWS

Structured as a classical quest master plot, the book relies much on the protagonist – the lyrical persona, who sets on a voyage in the realm of dreams and the intrapsychical, aiming to attain better self-knowledge and wisdom.

The poems in the collection are organized into 8 parts, preceded by a Prelude, disclosing the motivating incident (a series of cryptic messages received in dreams) that sets off the lyrical persona on this quest.

In her 5th poetry book, Bianca Bowers invites the reader to suspend disbelief and enter the magical world of “Butterfly Voyage” where a world of cryptic messages, poetry, parables, fables, sketches, and wise quotes is revealed.

Although I do agree with the statement Ms Bowers makes in the foreword of “Butterfly Voyage” that in this book her voice is different from her previous books, the unexpected and vivid imagery characteristic of her poetic narrative are still present here. The original rhythmic and rhyming patterns give her poetry the sound of a fairy tale.

The quest narrative is enacted with the lyrical persona going to different places and meeting different magical creatures along the way. Each meeting as well as each creature has a symbolic meaning. There are many tests that the lyrical persona has to go through along the road and encounter her own fears. The result of the whole voyage is learning and the reader learns together with the lyrical persona who has substantially changed by the end of the poetic narrative.

It is very difficult for me to select a single poem as a favourite, because I do like the book in its entirety. I strongly recommend “Butterfly Voyage” not only to poetry lovers, but to everyone who is not afraid to set on a voyage into their own soul, looking for answers to difficult questions, learning things through self-exploration, finding their true self. What the lyrical persona learns while travelling in this magical world will inspire you to heal old emotional wounds, rewrite disempowering narratives, and rediscover the magic that is your authentic self.

And at the end, I must say that I am a very happy person, to have encountered such a fine poet as Bianca Bowers!

~ Galya Varna, We Art Friends Magazine

Open the pages of Butterfly Voyage. Walk your fingers and eyes right into its middle and let your mind get lost in delight in any direction.

This is a book of poetry carved out of malleable ingredients that are an imaginative wheelhouse for readers to take shelter in as he or she moves along inside the oceanic currents of the author’s journey to self.

At almost every turn there is opportunity to follow the author into the natural world that drifts along with fluid narrative. It’s not a mistake I have reggae music playing in my headphones as I write this. That comforting skip and bounce beat with a voice floating along with it is what reading this book is like.

There’s a wide, deep well of flowing creativity inside the pages. A mix of natural and supernatural. Identification and deliverance from pain and self-loathing, crossings through misunderstandings, bridges to memories, islands of visions, illusions of time bent and then bent again, perceptions of what is and is not, places that amaze with described details, the seen and unseen of who a person thinks they are versus what they’ve been hiding themselves from.

In the end all the layers listed above lift the top off of the narrator’s carefully constructed canopy of safety. They fall and float to the forest floor, letting light in which follows behind and promotes growth. Each verse from beginning to end is rich, ambient, soulful, and textured.

~ Russ Daum

From the Publisher