Power Multiplied

Life Imitating Life

This extraordinary little orchid, which I saw when I was recently in Costa Rica's cloud forest is sometimes called the Peace Dove Orchid because if you look closely you can easily make out the dove head with its neck craned and beak pointing down, its wings to each side, and its tail fanned.The orchid is even white, like the peace dove. I find this much more entrancing than the Art Imitating Life that is the Power Rising Series. In those three books, a zoo volunteer works with a beluga whale with which she has formed a special bond. The volunteer is, for a while, an attorney who doesn't love being an attorney. This is the art. In real life, I was an attorney, who, at the time, volunteered at a zoo with three beluga whales and formed a special relationship with one of them. That was the way in which my art imitated life. It was my love for that beluga, Mauyak, that propelled me into writing the Power Rising series. My attempt at imitating life pales, it seems to me, compared to this beautiful orchid. Still, this art of creating novels attempting to imitate life in some way is what writers do. It's a worthy effort, even if it pales beside something as exquisite as this flower.