The Falllen Fairy-- A Modern Fairy Tale? Polyamorous Romance, Alchemy, Magic, Magical Creatures and Mayhem

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When a fairy is discovered to have haplessly incarnated as the quirky girl-next-door, sorcerers from another dimension come out of the woodwork to vie for her affections in the interests of love and occult power. But is she an unwitting fairy or a more dynamically charged and even dangerous creature? A savior, a redeemer, and a siren, she puts her men in their place.

The story opens with a gal named Bellaluna Drago, who is having a hard day, having been jilted by a boyfriend via email. She is observed by two men, Michael Solaris and his mentor Anderson Albright, who are denizens of the Inner Plane. Michael Solaris, we learn, is a co-conspirator in an underground populist movement called the Lions of Light. He is working in the Outer Plane as a neuroscientist and being stalked by a deranged “fatal attraction” who is actually a magical creature. When Michael chivalrously assists Bellaluna in the simple act of holding open a door, he realizes that she is not an ordinary “Commons” woman but the hapless incarnation of a magical being: a “fairy,” like his stalker. Against Anderson Albright’s protests, Michael begins to pursue Bellaluna as a romantic interest-with-benefits but also harbors sincere aims of protecting her against more opportunistic magical persons of his kind.

Meanwhile, a sorcerer of a darker bent, Tristan Lundragon, a cryptologist/steganographer who secretly acts as a Lions of Light conspirator, has independently identified Bellaluna and is convinced that he, in a past life as the 16^th century occultist Lunaris Dracon, was responsible for her manifestation. A heated confrontation between Tristan, Anderson Albright, and Michael Solaris ensues. Lundragon and Albright, however, ultimately form a secret pact about how the men will train and work the “fallen fairy” Bellaluna Drago.

As Bellaluna begins piecing together her odd circumstance, and after tragedy strikes, she and Tristan Lundragon ultimately acquiesce to polyamorous love triangle that includes Tristan’s research partner and sometime male lover Jason Paleologos. Tensions mount, however, as the powers-that-be target Tristan and Jason because of their connection to Michael Solaris through Bellaluna Drago and dangerous empowerments they have attained through their liaison with her.

References to alchemy, medieval occultism, the "language of the birds," steganography, and sex magic permeate the text. Each of the 22 chapters is named for and thematically reflects a card of the Tarot’s Upper Arcana.

Siren orgy --digital art by Dee Rapposelli

La Maga - Harry Potter for Grownups Fantasy Fiction Magic Romance Politics and Transcendence

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“Harry Potter” for grown-ups. When a lady mage returns to her hometown in her magical world from long years of exile in the Himalayas and thereabouts, her epiphany radically transforms the lives of an imposing, elitist, and bacchanalian dignitary and his troubled teenaged son.  The binding quality of love and conspiratorial influences propel the dignitary and his son to avatar-like roles in the up-ending of the political power structure of the land.

Sofia La Maga character study
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The story opens with the return from political exile of the lady mage Sofia La Maga. She has spent about a dozen years traveling and studying in the mystical East and so the story is peppered with imagery and insights associated with Eastern mysticism. Upon her return from exile, Sofia takes a teaching position at her alma mater, the H. Trismegistus Mystical Arts Academy. Although the consul of the sovereignty, an imposing, elitist, and somewhat bacchanalian sorcerer named Leo de Lux, is adverse to Sofia’s return, Sofia takes a liking to the sorcerer’s troubled teenaged son, Leonard junior.

Leonard de Lux character study

In an opening scene, reminiscent of the Harry Potter series, Leonard Jr. and Sofia La Maga have their initial exchange during a first day of class during which the youth tries to perpetrate a prank on the new teacher. In time, Sofia and Leonard junior enter into a sympathetic relationship through which the youth undergoes a profound transformation and secretly becomes an apprentice to the lady mage. Meanwhile, sexual tension is building between Sofia and her seeming polar opposite, the consul of the sovereignty Leo de Lux.

Leo de Lux instigates a threatening confrontation with Sofia when his suspicions that his son has apprenticed with her come to light. The confrontation, h owever, leads to an unlikely love affair.

Lord Consul Leo de Lux Sortiar character study

Public displays of magical prowess again put the lady mage in a bad light with a certain notorious power-broker, the sorcerer Hipparchus Gorgon, who holds great influence in a corrupt and corporatist political structure in which Leo de Lux is integrally embroiled. Meanwhile, de Lux’s estranged and disinherited elder brother Emmanuel, a provocateur in an underground populist movement called the Lions of Light, reemerges to coax his younger sibling to assume what he believes is a portended, avatar-like role in a political coup. The conspiratorial influences of Sofia La Maga and Emmanuel de Lux put Leo de Lux at a self-defining cross-road.

New Edition of the Novel La Maga Published Its "Harry Potter for Grownups"

A new edition of La Maga has been published by small publisher on the rise Night Horse Publishing house.  .   

It's Harry Potter for grownups, folks. And if you have the mind for the Western Mystery Tradition, and the  mystical, it is a good read.

Welcome to the Inner Plane and its tempestuous society of sorcerers and magi and an underclass of lowly folk practitioners and licit and illicit immigrants from the Outer Plane.

The series begins with the life and times of a lady mage named Sofia La Maga. Upon returning to her hometown in her magical world after long years of exile in the Himalayas, she befriends, mentors, and rehabilitates the troubled teenaged son of an imposing and elitist dignitary, the high sorcerer Leo de Lux. Strongly averse, then curious, then acquiescing, and ultimately exhilarated, de Lux  both falls for Sofia La Maga and also embraces a portended predestined role as the leader of a utopian movement that seeks to overturn an oppressive social system that not only gratuitously exploits magical persons of lesser status but persons like you and me who inhabit the Outer Plane. Magical fantasy is woven with insights from Eastern mysticism and Western esotericism in this first installment of the series. 

The series offers thought-provoking ideas about self and finding oneself and one’s true purpose in the context of magical fantasy and should be of interest to adult fiction readers drawn to magia, mysticism, and spiritual philosophy.

Reviews (refers to Kindle edition)

Sometimes it may seem like we need magic to find happiness. "La Maga: A Story about Sorcerers and Magi" is a sensual fantasy novel following lady mage Sofia la Maga as she returns home to help a troubled teen, who happens to be the son of a renowned sorcerer. A tale marked by sorcerers' exotic charisma as well as social unrest against injustice, and the repercussions of an unruly system of magic, "La Maga" is tempestuous soiree into mystic mysteries. 

The Midwest Book Reviewmidwestbookreview.com

“La Maga captures the otherworldliness of Harry Potter but tackles larger political, spiritual, and emotional issues. Soror’s writing style drew me in from Sofia’s awkward walk down the school hallway through her complicated relationship with Leo De Lux and a life-or-death magical battle and all the way to hope for what today might be called Occupy the Inner and Outer Planes! . . . La Maga is an engaging read for anyone who refuses to think that what we see is all that exists, a trip into a parallel universe that gives unique, playful form to the concepts of Shaktipat, Buddhism, folk magic, mysticism, the occult and adolescent rebellion all mixed together into a brilliant, poignant and ultimately timely story.”

“This is a novel of magic by a true expert in both Western and Eastern systems of magic and mysticism. The author’s knowledge shines throughout the narrative, exciting the reader with tastes of this-world esoterica amplified in to the scale of an amazing universe of multiple plains of reality. Within all the magical and metaphysical goings-on are stories of young love, generational conflict, and spiritual transformation. A source of enjoyment and enlightenment for young and old!”

“. . . I am also incredibly impressed with the depth of knowledge that the author appears to have for various mystical and spiritual arts from the mainstream to the more obscure. It’s a smooth read, peppered with layers of deep spiritual teachings and references should the reader’s interest be piqued. The mystical and spiritual details read like poetry, not preaching. It’s a skillfully rendered sensual work about magical beings that inhabit their world, and more surprisingly, our own.”

Danny & Leo --A Bit of a Slacker pt 2 Excerpt from Sorcerers and Magi series

A 4+minute audio mix of an excerpt from Chapter VI of the cross-genre literary/occulitist/fantasy fiction novel La Maga A Story about Sorcerers and Magi by Dionesia Rapposelli. The selection is a partner to the previous one title A Bit of a Slacker. Score is an audio mix courtesy of Order Ov Thee Octopi. 

A Bit of a Slacker -- Audio Mix from La Maga A Story about Sorcerers and Magi

A  2-minute audio mix of an excerpt from Chapter VI of 

La Maga A Story about Sorcerers and Magi by Soror ZSD23. 

Musical score by Order Ov Thee Octopi.

A hostile magical practice—the Conus magus charm--excerpt from fantasy novel La Maga

Leonard could now clearly hear his father griping to someone that the “folk-woman” (“Reverend Lady” Professor La Maga, that is) was in for it and that Leonard should be told to join his father in Dr. Bruno’s office on the other side of the pavilion. Dr. Giordano (Danny) Bruno was the dean of the graduate school and chief administrator of the secondary school.

Then, as if beaming with pride, Professor La Maga announced: “Mister Leonard de Lux, Junior. Can you explain to the class the origin of the term the ‘Conus magus maneuver’?”

As if awestruck, Leonard uttered, “Yes.”  He had spent the summer studying its legend and swimming in fantasies about how he had discovered its lost key.

 “Go ahead, then, Leonard. Please tell us,” the professor coached.

“In common parlance, the term ‘Conus magus maneuver’ means that a sorcerer or mage has pacified a foe, but the meaning, mostly among  sorcerers, is that the sorcerer has paralyzed his opponent—that the opponent is too mystified to act,” Leonard began.

“It’s an insult,” the professor announced to the class, “mostly uttered by ‘sore winners.’

Continue,” Professor La Maga requested.

“It’s a figure of speech,” Leonard said, “about a hostile magical practice—the Conus magus charm—which involves striking and then absorbing energy from an opponent.”

“And when is this hostile practice typically used?” questioned Professor La Maga.

“All the time, but no one ever admits it,” Leonard responded.

 “Indeed, it’s rampant even among Commons in the Outer Plane,” the professor confirmed. “Go on, Mr. Junior de Lux. We’re waiting to hear about the legend.”

“The term ‘Conus magus charm’ refers to the legendary charm of the same name, which is much more intense than the charm used today,” Leonard said. “According to legend, the original charm was discovered by a sorcerer named Mare Maré who lived around 250 BCE. He was a Melanesian sorcerer who was very familiar with venomous cone snails of the South Pacific, particularly the snail that millennia later would be christened ‘Conus magus’ by Outer Plane marine biologists,” Leonard explained.

 “He was a sea-charmer,” Professor La Maga interjected, adding that sea-charming was how Mare Maré “managed to cross great expanses of ocean long before the invention of luxury cruise liners. The name Mare Maré means ‘Nightmare of the Dark Sea.’”

The professor magically materialized the tapered shell of a cone snail. Grasping it between her thumb and forefinger, she held it out so all could see how harmless it looked: white with brown and tawny bands and dapples. Red, needle-like claws jutted out of the shell’s opening.

 “But this is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg, isn’t it, Mister de Lux, Junior,” she said and lobbed the deadly creature into her audience. Students ducked and screeched, but the snail vanished in midair. 

Excerpt from Chapter 1 The Conus Magus Maneuver from La Maga A Story about Sorcerers and Magi. Available at amazon.com

About La Maga A Story about Sorcerers and Magi

"What is it like to wake up from the idea of yourself?"  That is a question discovered by characters in the fantasy fiction novel La Maga A Story about Sorcerers and Magi. I got the idea that I should illustrate the novel. I like to say that is it sort of like Harry Potter for grown-ups but is especially for grownups who like classic children's literature and also have an authentic interest in magic and mysticism. 

The main character is a magical woman named Sofia La Maga.  After many  years in political exile Sofia returns to her homeland and becomes a professor at her alma mater The H. Trismegistus mystical arts academy.







Even though the governor of her homeland doesn’t much like her, Sofia befriends and mentors his juvenile delinquent son, Leonard de Lux, Junior.  The only thing Leonard is good at—or think he’s good at—is playing the Phaeton Maneuver—a  very dangerous, outlawed game that magical teenage boys secretly  play in the  where all these magical people live.

When Leonard’s father finds out that Sofia has not only  gotten Leonard on the straight and narrow but has given him the experience of enlightenment, he is not  sure whether he should be happy about it. After all, Sofia is an anti-establishment political dissident and a person from a much lower caste of society than he is. But he is impressed with her, and like young Leonard, he falls in love with her.  Like Leonard, he undergoes a profound spiritual transformation that will, in turn, profoundly shapes destiny.

 –Dionesia Rapposelli

Kindle edition

Paperback Night Horse Press

                                                     

Leo de Lux the Antihero of the Sorcerers and Magi Series

Besides the strikingly pale eyes, de Lux had severe but attractive features. His closely cropped hair was dark auburn. He had a smooth, fair, unblemished complexion; strong, intense brow; a perfect nose; and thin expressive lips that moved along with his fierce eyes to pout, wince, sneer, and tediously sigh.

The man looked bored or exasperated most of the time. He saved his smile for either indulgently bawdy or awe-inspiring moments. He was not easily impressed, but he was easily annoyed.

He was finely focused on the power of appearances. He had a knack for materializations. This was not a particularly profound feat, but a noteworthy and entertaining one. Not only could he materialize all sorts of precious objects, he could, for the entertainment of friends, materialize whole holographic theatrical performances, concerts, and sports events.

For his enemies, he made annoying and sometimes forbidding thought-forms that tended to be nearly impossible to get rid of. 

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Sofia La Maga An Excerpt from La Maga A Story about Sorcerers and Magi

 Leonard (Junior) and his buddies, Anil, Cary, and Bertrand, had gotten a glimpse of Sofia La Maga the day before. They gloated like the spoiled-brat junior elitist patricians they were that the hype about the professor was nonsense. It was just as Leonard’s father had insisted. Professor La Maga was nothing but a bedraggled kitchen witch.

She didn’t seem at all like the stories told about her. In fact, she roamed through the secondary school’s second-floor corridor as if she were roller-skating with three left feet and had the mental disposition of a hedgehog. 

She was a tall, slender but robust woman with the rough-and-tumble appearance of someone who had weathered hard climbs in exotic lands. Her clothes were rustic, quaintly worn, and embellished with savage jewelry: jangling bells and sashes of bone and fur, claws, shells, and spike-studded pods. Her Medusa-like mane was haphazardly plaited here and there and cluttered her face, blinding her as she toddled along.  She was gripping a mass of overstuffed folders, and from her arms dangled plastic bags filled with items that were heavy such that they swung like pendulums in the wake of her clumsy pace. The heels of her worn leather lace-up boots alternately caught on the frayed hem of an ankle-length skirt. It caused her to wobble pathetically as the heavy bags alternately beat against her ribs. 

No one offered assistance. They were busy gawking at her and probably thinking the same as Leonard and his pals were. This was the prodigy who had been gallivanting across exotic lands and speed-reading through mentorships with wild wizards, shamans, and anchorites? 

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The Glory of the Goddess

Durga Puja, an important Hindu festival, is coming up in October. It commemorates the victory of good over evil, order over chaos, and reveres the Great Goddess as the Redemptive Principle and Savior of the Universe. During this time, a section of the Markandeya Purana  known as the Devi Mahatmyam, or Chandi, which relates heroic exploits of the Goddess, is ceremoniously chanted in the context of elaborate ritual. Images of the goddess are constructed for the event, worshipped as representations of the Goddess, displayed in pageants, and then sunk in the Ganges or other waterways in locales outside the “Motherland,” such as the USA.  See the Wikipedia entry on Durga Puja here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durga_Puja

I had been dedicated to the goddess Durga for very many years. I was (and continue to be despite my perhaps incongruent immersion in Western occultism and contemporary Paganism) a long-time adherent of reformed Advaita Vedanta.  I was obsessed with the aforementioned text Devi Mahatmyam for at least a decade. The title translates as “Glory of the Goddess.” It has been dated to the 3rd century and is a trilogy of mythologies in which the Goddess, personifying the combined power of the gods, defeats various demons in battles and, thus, restores the order of the Universe.

The full text, which takes more than an hour or three to recite, is chanted in the context of devotional ritual (puja) and is prefaced and followed by several auxiliary prayers, chants, mantra, and ritual gestures. It is generally done as a thaumatergic exercise in which the Goddess is thought of as a beneficent entity who is being addressed for the sake of gaining favors and for protection from both supernatural evil and the nasty world-at-large. In working with the text, I ultimately took a more Gnostic and literal approach. After all, Advaita Vedanta is jnana yoga, the discipline of spiritual integration through contemplativism and gnosis. In addition, the translations of the names of the demons that the Goddess is battling in the Devi Mahatmyam include The Great Deceiver (Mahahanu), The Aimless One (Parivarita), The Hypocrite  (Bidala), Anger (Kruddha), The Savage (Ugrasya),  He Who Gives  Way to Temptation (Durdhara), The Vicious (Chanda), The Malicious (Munda), Conceit (Shumbha), and Self-deprecation (Nishumbha). And the most famous demon celebrated in the scripture is Mahishasura—the “Buffalo demon” of egoism, the depiction of the slaying of which is an important piece of Hindu iconography.

So, the demons that The Goddess is protecting you from are not oogah-boogah things “out there”; they are negative qualities within yourself that the Goddess battles with a barrage of weapons: the sword of discrimination, club of articulation, bow of determination, arrow of penetration, pike of attention, rod of restraint, axe of right action, net of unity, trident of harmony, and discus of revolving time. Then she cuts off the head of your ferocious ego. And, frankly, this is why, philosophically speaking, “bad things happen to good people,” because they are not “bad things”; they are transformational and transitional things. Or else, they are just stuff happening in the grand drama of life.

The Dragon Dieth Not Unless It Be Killed by Brother and Sister at Once

Excerpt from Chapter 6 [The Lovers] The Sun and the Moon in  by The Fallen Fairy 

The “Law of Karma” posited three lines of force: sanchita karma, prarabdha karma, and agami karma. Sanchita karma was the momentum that had originated in some mysterious and distant past. It had built up over eons like a snowflake becomes an avalanche as it accumulates compacted snow, ice, rocks, twigs, shrubs, small animals, then big ones, all kinds of crap in the path of its ferocious trajectory. Wherever the exponentially building mass was as it fell was the present. That was prarabdha karma—fate, destiny—where the past caught up with a person, dictated the present, and set the direction for the future.

Then there was agami karma, which was where the avalanche might be headed and how its structure might change because of it. It was the potential future, predicated on both where it had been (sanchita karma) and where it was (prarabdha karma). Even though the residual effects of the past were relentlessly barreling from the present to the future, the present still could modify the future’s course.

Bellaluna Drago was a fallen fairy because having had the ill-fortune of becoming some sinister Renaissance necromancer’s pet (and Michael knew who that fiendish bastard now was), she had haplessly done something despicable that led to the necromancer’s and her own ruin. She was now clawing through lives and worlds in atonement. Her redemption had come. Michael felt privileged to play a role in it.

“There is a saying in the alchemical texts that goes like this,” Michael murmured. “The dragon only dies when he is killed by his brother and sister at once; not by one alone, but by both at once. That is, by the sun and moon.’ You and me,” he said.

“We’re compelled to create stories for the whys and wherefores of things in an attempt to trump a wild card, which is existence itself. And existence happens despite us and also is a product of our own making. It’s a bit of a paradox,” Michael continued. “You dream of being attacked by a man who would pull you down to Hell with him. This is all the fluff of the mind—a subterfuge for some other vexation that is limiting you. But even that is a mere projection of mental noise. We torture ourselves with it for no good reason.”

Michael told Bella this to console her, even though it was and wasn’t what was going on. Nevertheless, he continued.

“In creation mythology, we talk about the world forming from chaos and void by the will of a conscious entity—God. But the chaos—the so-called prima materia—is not matter, nature, or the world; it is the human psyche full of convoluted impressions, habituations, and the conditioning of nature and nurture. This is the seven-headed dragon that must be slain by the hero who is none other than the divine spirit within asserting itself. It rescues the damsel, which is the soul.”

The path of inner alchemy and of mysticism in all the great traditions founded in gnosis, Michael contended, was to transform the human creature, who was nothing more than a helpless gear of the world machine, into a real person with real will, intention, and creative abilities.

“Some persons call this enlightenment; some call it ‘being like unto God’; some call it the Great Work, which is magic,” he said.

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