Cynthia A. Morgan's Blog

 

There’s a peculiar stillness that lives inside revision.
It isn’t silence exactly; more a hum beneath the skin, as though the story itself is breathing and waiting to be seen again. I’ve been living in that hum these past few months, surrounded by pages and whispers, by sentences that ask to be unmade and remade until they shine. Shadowbound has become a living presence in my life, not just a manuscript, but a mirror, its light shifting each time I look.

Revision is where illusion becomes intention.
It’s the moment I stop chasing the echo of inspiration and begin listening to what the story actually wants to say.

Where the Story Stands

This week’s work carried me into the quiet space between two heartbeats, the kind of scene that vibrates rather than speaks. It’s a moment of connection and consequence, where fear and longing entwine in equal measure. Writing it felt like balancing on a blade between darkness and grace, with each word an act of trust.

That’s the beauty of Shadowbound. It’s not a tale that shouts; it whispers. Every emotion hides beneath layers of light and shadow, revealing itself only when you lean close enough to listen.

The Craft of Emotion

Writing in what I’ve come to call my Mythical Magical Morgan voice feels like painting with starlight and smoke. Every line must shimmer before it dissolves. Every pause must carry its own heartbeat. This kind of storytelling demands stillness and intention, along with the willingness to linger in a feeling until it reveals its true shape.

When I revise, I’m not merely refining sentences; I’m tuning the resonance of the characters to the pulse of the story. I listen to how emotion vibrates through language, how each syllable hums against the next. If it doesn’t sing, I write it again, until it does.

What Revision Has Taught Me

Editing Shadowbound has been less about changing words and more about learning how to see, hear, feel, taste and touch them. I’ve learned that every scene needs expression for connection, and if I can’t feel it, I haven’t listened long enough.

I’ve learned that perfection is sterile, but honesty trembles, and that trembling is sacred. I’ve learned that cutting can feel like closing a wound, and yet the scar that remains gleams truer than untouched skin.

Revision isn’t about correction, it’s communion. It’s where the story leans close and whispers, “Now you understand.” And in that hush, I realize I’m not merely shaping the story, it’s shaping me. Each pass through the pages teaches me to surrender a little more, to let go of control and follow the rhythm of what the story itself already knows.

The Edge of Shadow

So this is where I am today: surrounded by candlelight and half-scribbled notes, listening for the echo of words that have not yet arrived. Ayla, Mardan, Gairynzvl, Ilys and Uxvagchtr linger at the periphery of consciousness and dreams, their stories unfolding in the space between sentences. Creation, I’ve learned, is less a solitary act than a shared breath.

The Art of Unseen Worlds

Next time, I’ll open the veil a little further — sharing how I build the unseen realms of my stories: the languages, the lore, and the whispers of world-souls that shape every mythic landscape.

 

~ Morgan C. Morgan
Writer of light, shadow, and the stories between.

Need a daily dose of Positivity and Empowerment? Join Positivity Pathfinders, my Facebook group dedicated to Hope and Love.

If you’d like to keep up with everything I’m doing, sign up for my monthly newsletter by visiting my author website

If you’d like to see more of my artwork, please visit my DeviantArt page

 

Every story begins with a spark, a breath between what is and what might be.
For me, that spark lives where light meets shadow, where myth and meaning entwine, and where imagination becomes an ethereal message from beyond.

I’m Morgan C. Morgan, an author-artist of light, shadow, and the stories between. My work travels the crossroads of mythic fantasy, spiritual inquiry, and transformative inner journeys. I write to translate life’s complexity into clarity, to take what feels tangled and turn it into something luminous.

Neurodivergent with two forms of dyslexia, I experience words as color, rhythm, and texture; like sound turned into sensation. Every sentence I write strives to be both art and invocation; a way of reaching through chaos toward coherence and of listening for truth inside the quiet.

What You’ll Find There
My corner of Substack, will hold stories, essays, reflections, and fragments of myth and meditation. Here, the boundaries between fiction and truth blur.
You’ll find:

Mythic tales and lyrical short fiction — drawn from worlds where light remembers itself through shadow.

Reflections on creative consciousness — exploring intuition, empathy, and the spiritual alchemy of storytelling.

Behind-the-scenes glimpses of works in progress, including The Shadowbound, The River Yuyay, and The Power of One.

Occasional poems, art features, and meditations — moments meant to be breathed, not just read.

Why I Write
Because words can heal.
Because story is one of the oldest medicines we know.
Because even in darkness, there is beauty waiting to be named.

I write to remember, and to help others remember, that peace is not found; it’s created.
That kindness is a form of gratitude and that love, in all its forms, is the greatest act of resistance we can offer a world that forgets to listen.

As I often say:

“The only way to achieve peace is by becoming peace.”
“Show thankfulness through kindness. Appreciate blessings through generosity.”

The Invitation
If these words resonate; if you’ve ever looked at starlight and felt it speaking to you rather than at you, if you’re longing for a safe place to escape, then this space was made with you in mind.

Subscribe to walk this path with me, through story, reflection, and the sacred art of wonder.

https://substack.com/@morgancmorgan

And if you stay awhile, may you leave each time a little more luminous than before.

~ Morgan C. Morgan
Writer of light, shadow, and the stories between.

Need a daily dose of Positivity and Empowerment? Join Positivity Pathfinders, my Facebook group dedicated to Hope and Love.

If you’d like to keep up with everything I’m doing, sign up for my monthly newsletter by visiting my author website

If you’d like to see more of my artwork, please visit my DeviantArt page

 

Burnished Gold

Breathe here, beneath the golden hush,
Where light recalls the heights it knew.
The trees stand still—no need to rush—
They are the sun their roots once drew.

Each leaf surrenders, soft and slow,
A whispered prayer the wind can keep.
Their gleaming fall, a gentle show,
Reminds the heart to learn from sleep.

The world’s not dying, only new—
Transformed by light’s unending art.
It burns away, yet shines anew—
A living peace within the heart.

 

Meditation

Close your eyes.
Imagine yourself walking through this forest of burnished gold.
With each step, you feel the warmth of the light, not above you, but within you.
You are both tree and flame, stillness and illumination.
Let the shimmer remind you: transformation is not loss—it is refinement.
You are the alchemy of light becoming gold.

 

~ Morgan C. Morgan
Writer of light, shadow, and the stories between.

Need a daily dose of Positivity and Empowerment? Join Positivity Pathfinders, my Facebook group dedicated to Hope and Love.

If you’d like to keep up with everything I’m doing, sign up for my monthly newsletter by visiting my author website

If you’d like to see more of my artwork, please visit my DeviantArt page

 

In his recent speech at the United Nations, Trump declared that the U.S. government is being shut down because Democrats want to give healthcare to illegal immigrants. It sounds outrageous, doesn’t it? That single sentence, sharp and certain, was designed to burn. But beneath its heat, the truth tells another story.

The actual portion of America’s healthcare budget that goes to undocumented immigrants? Less than one percent.

That’s not a rounding error. Emergency Medicaid for undocumented people accounts for under 1% of total Medicaid spending. These are not luxury treatments or endless benefits. These are moments of crisis: someone bleeding on a highway after being struck by a car. Someone’s child gasping for breath. The American way — at its best — is to save a life.

The alternative? To look away. To let them die!

And yet, even this tiny percentage of mercy has become the weapon.

“Still,” some will say, “that one percent is ours.” Possibly, but far from draining the system, undocumented immigrants sustain it. They contribute over $97 billion in taxes each year — an amount equal to the entire state of Ohio’s tax revenue.

Yes, you read that correctly. The average undocumented immigrant contributes between $8,000 and $10,000 annually in taxes.

Let’s be clear: every nation has the right to guard its borders, to craft policy, to balance compassion with order. But fear is not and should not be policy. And truth is not treason.

We are told that ‘these people’ are dangerous, that their presence endangers our peace. But the raw, unpartisan data tells another story. According to the Cato Institute, undocumented immigrants are 41% less likely to be incarcerated than American citizens. Documented immigrants are 74% less likely.

Still, the myths persist. Because outrage is easy to manufacture, and fear is a currency that never loses value. This administration — and others before it — have relied on outrage to divide, on fear to distract, and on division to blind. And while we are blinded, things are happening in the shadows that we once called crimes against humanity.

Why do we tolerate it now?

Ask yourself:
Would you accept such violence if it were happening to your mother? Your father? Your child?

If your answer is no, then the answer must also be no when it happens to someone else’s. Because empathy cannot, should not, and must not have borders. Compassion must apply to all or be just another hypocritical device of division.

If you think of yourself as kind, compassionate, or, at the very least, tolerant, than you cannot accept the atrocities that are happening right now. Children being beaten, zip-tied, abused, neglected. Families being shattered. People disappearing. History is repeating itself yet again.

As Commander Riker said to Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation,

“Maybe if we felt any loss as keenly as we felt the death of one close to us, human history would be a lot less bloody.”

Perhaps this is where our healing needs to begin — not in argument or outrage — but in remembering that their pain is ours, too.

ArtbyMorganCMorgan

~ Morgan C. Morgan
Writer of light, shadow, and the stories between.

Need a daily dose of Positivity and Empowerment? Join Positivity Pathfinders, my Facebook group dedicated to Hope and Love.

If you’d like to keep up with everything I’m doing, sign up for my monthly newsletter by visiting my author website

If you’d like to see more of my artwork, please visit my DeviantArt page

Healing asks us to be honest, open, and vulnerable, and those are the very things that no one likes. For many, it’s easier to hold on to the pain we know than to step into a healing we don’t yet understand, or that we cannot dare to face. Pain, after all, is familiar. It asks nothing new of us. It’s a constant companion, even if it’s also a constant shadow.

Healing, on the other hand, is uncharted territory, asking us to step into a new and unfamiliar landscape where we must face our deepest fears, bitterest regrets, or unthinkable trauma. The journey to healing, however, doesn’t have to be frightening or unsurmountable.

It can begin softly, like a toddler’s tentative steps into a brand new world.

Why We Stay Where It Hurts

For most of us, we don’t cling to pain because we like it. Rather, we stay because it’s a familiar place, one that feels safer than the unfamiliar freedom of recovery. We tell ourselves it’s too hard, too painful, simply too much to deal with when we already have so much on our plate, but this is a trap. Where we imagine we need to be fearless, or to make bold declarations, to tear ourselves open in order to “fix” ourselves, we really just need to take a tiny step.

Healing rarely looks like an Avengers movie, where a hero faces unimaginable odds and fights through crazy intense battles to win a hard earned victory. Instead, the road to renewal can be more like watching Bob Ross paint.

It can be a quiet walk into a serene forest, where we focus on each small step along the way, and the beauty surrounding us. Where we choose honesty over disguise, and hope over fear. It’s allowing yourself to shed tears rather than holding them prisoner inside. It’s whispering a gentle truth in the darkness and encouraging yourself instead of condemning.

Healing isn’t a heroic leap. It’s a gentle unfurling.

Try this:
When you feel the pull to stay where it hurts, place a hand over your heart and whisper: “I am safe to grow. I don’t need to know the whole path; I only need to take one step.”

Gentle First Steps Toward Healing

Guess what? You don’t have to sprint toward wholeness like it’s a hundred yard dash. You only have to take a single step, one step at a time, each day, each week, each month; allowing yourself to make progress.

Ease is a greater threat to progress than hardship

– Denzel Washington

Here are a few small, heart-centered ways to begin your journey toward healing:

Start with Honesty: Write one unfiltered thought or feeling each day. Don’t judge it. Don’t censor it.

Encouragement: If writing feels safer than speaking, try writing to yourself in a journal and reading it back later. You may discover truths you’ve been carrying too long.

Allow Safe Spaces: Healing multiplies in the presence of trust. Share something small with a friend, a mentor, or counselor. If no one feels safe yet, let your reflection in a mirror be the listener.

  Affirmation: “I am discovering people and places where I can show up as I am, not as I’m expected to be.”

Honor the Body: Healing isn’t just mental or emotional; it roots itself in our cells. Walk outside. Stretch your arms wide. Try two minutes of deep, slow breathing to remind your body what safety feels like.

Daily practice: Each morning, breathe in for four counts, hold for four, exhale for six. As you breathe out, imagine releasing one small burden you’re carrying.

Nature as Teacher: Sit beneath a tree, watch the sky, or let water move through your fingers. Observe how nature never rushes, yet everything changes.

Gratitude: At the end of the day, write down one moment in your day that was good, came easily, or made you feel safe. When we acknowledge the good around us, we allow positivity to begin to flow.

Micro-Choices: Healing doesn’t have to be an hour-long ritual. It can be choosing tea over tension, or kindness over self-criticism. These small shifts add up over time and accompany us on a gentler journey toward recovery.

Encouragement guide: Each morning ask yourself: “What is one small thing I chose today that moves me toward peace?” By choosing our focus, we build a bridge for positivity and renewal to flow into our lives. We also don’t spend our day focusing on what we can’t do.

Each of these is a doorway, an opportunity for a fresh start. You don’t have to do all of them. Choose one or two that connect with you and make a start.

“There are two kinds of pain in this world. The pain that hurts, the pain that alters.”
― Denzel Washington

Vulnerability as Strength

The world tells us to tough it out, deal with it, stop whining, but real healing isn’t about building walls or making noise for no reason. It’s about learning to breathe without the burden that’s weighing down on you. It’s about understanding that you can be honest, open, exposed and still be strong.

Never confuse vulnerability with weakness. The Oxford dictionary defines weakness as: the state or condition of lacking strength. But anyone who’s ever been honest, or has allowed themselves to be exposed understands that it takes deep strength and conviction to be vulnerable. It’s courage in a gentle form.

When you give yourself permission to be accessible and unguarded against the fears holding you down, even a little, healing begins to take root. Like new growth blossoming from the frozen earth in the Spring, the change may be unseen at first but it’s strengthening you from the inside out.

Affirmation to carry with you: “My openness is not weakness. It’s the doorway through which light and renewal enters.”

Small step: The next time you feel like hiding, share one truth — just one — even if it’s simply: “I’m tired today.” If no one is around, just say it out loud. Honesty makes space for healing.

“Fall down seven times, get up eight.” — Denzel Washington

What Can You Do, Right Now?

Healing asks us to be real, to be raw, to be vulnerable, but it also invites us to be gentle. You don’t have to roar to start healing. You don’t have to leap off a mountaintop.

You only need to take a single step forward. One step. One decision to make a start. One act of positivity in a sea of negative.

What is one small, kind thing you can do for yourself today — one gentle step toward the wholeness you deserve? 

Gentle Steps Toward Wholeness

Breathe deeply for one minute. Close your eyes, place your hand on your chest, and notice the rise and fall.

Drink a glass of water slowly. Imagine it washing through you, cleansing and replenishing.

Write down one thing you’re grateful for. Let it be small: the sunlight on your window, your favorite mug, the comfort of socks.

Step outside for a moment. Feel the air on your skin. Look at the sky. Remind yourself you are part of something vast.

Say a kind word to yourself. Out loud if you can: “I’m doing the best I can, and that’s enough today.”

Stretch or sway. Move your body gently, even if it’s just rolling your shoulders or wiggling your toes.

Light a candle or incense. Let the soft glow or scent become a reminder that you can create moments of peace.

Rest your hand over your heart. Whisper: “I am safe. I am loved. I belong.”

Choose one nourishing thing to eat or drink. Not for fuel, but as a gift to your body.

Pause before bed. Reflect on one thing you did well today, however small.

Healing doesn’t demand we conquer mountains all at once. It asks us only to take one small, honest step at a time, to choose gentleness where we once chose mere survival. To be present where we once were numb. Every breath of kindness you offer yourself plants a seed, and in time those seeds will grow into a garden of strength, peace, and joy.

The journey is not about becoming someone new. It’s about remembering the wholeness that has always lived within you, and you are allowed to be happy!

 

~ Morgan C. Morgan
Writer of light, shadow, and the stories between.

Need a daily dose of Positivity and Empowerment? Join Positivity Pathfinders, my Facebook group dedicated to Hope and Love.

If you’d like to keep up with everything I’m doing, sign up for my monthly newsletter by visiting my author website

If you’d like to see more of my artwork, please visit my DeviantArt page

 

Realm of Dreams and Mystery

Singing Enchantment

Quietly

Whispering Lore from Long ago Gone

Shades of Twilight

In the Glimmers of Dawn

Realm of Paradox and Reveries

Shangri La of Dichotomy

As Delicate shadows Spin Ethereal snares

Dripping Enticement From Ethyreahl’s Lair

.

Intrigued?  Care to know more?  Why not Collaborate with me by adding a verse to take this poem in a different direction?  Please feel free to add yours in comments and I shall continue the tale

~ Morgan C. Morgan
Writer of light, shadow, and the stories between.

Need a daily dose of Positivity and Empowerment? Join Positivity Pathfinders, my Facebook group dedicated to Hope and Love.

If you’d like to keep up with everything I’m doing, sign up for my monthly newsletter by visiting my author website

If you’d like to see more of my artwork, please visit my DeviantArt page

A thousand mirrors whisper, speak,
Like ancients crying from the past,
Enticing visions—bold and meek—
Where mystic elves once strode, steadfast.

Before the ship of the setting sun
Clasped them in its loving arms,
A journey endless had begun,
Life bereft of all their charms.

A thousand mirrors waiting, bleak,
Longing for their master’s hand,
Silenced by age, unable to speak,
Broken, yearning, where they stand.

 

~ Morgan C. Morgan
Writer of light, shadow, and the stories between.

Need a daily dose of Positivity and Empowerment? Join Positivity Pathfinders, my new Facebook group dedicated to Hope and Love.

If you’d like to keep up with everything I’m doing, sign up for my monthly newsletter by visiting my author website

If you’d like to see more of my artwork, please visit my DeviantArt page

Changes come
in heart and mind,
A shifting season
cruel and kind,

Changes come
in wind and sky,
When trees release
their final sigh.

Changes come
in the fire’s glow,
A fleeting warmth
’ere winter’s snow.

Changes come
in loss, in gain,
Through withered leaf
and whispered rain.

Changes come
in dusk’s embrace,
A quiet strength,
a softened grace.

Changes come
to break and mend,
To mark beginnings
from an end.

Changes come
through grief, through flame,
To strip away
what bears no name.

Changes come
with truth untold,
Revealing strength
that’s deep and bold.

Changes comes
to root, to rise,
To teach the heart
new ways to fly.

 

 

~ Morgan C. Morgan
Writer of light, shadow, and the stories between.

Need a daily dose of Positivity and Empowerment? Join Positivity Pathfinders, my new Facebook group dedicated to Hope and Love.

If you’d like to keep up with everything I’m doing, sign up for my monthly newsletter by visiting my author website

If you’d like to see more of my artwork, please visit my DeviantArt page

 

It’s hard…Really Hard…to send positive energy (aka pray for) to someone you feel is evil, doing despicable things, and is blatantly focused on creating division and promoting hatred. It’s much easier to jump on the hate train, but focusing on anger/hatred/intolerance only generates more anger/hatred and intolerance.

Today, I’m changing my stance. I’m going to meditate/pray once a day for peace. For our leaders to SEE the hurt they are promoting and inflicting and CHOOSE Peace and Love over Hatred. I invite you to join me in a Positivity Movement that can be just as influential as all the negativity and darkness flooding our country and the world today.

It may seem foolish and/or pointless, but there is a wealth of emerging evidence to prove that the ONLY WAY TO ACHIEVE PEACE IS BY BECOMING PEACE.

What will you choose to do today that could change the world?

 

Mother Teresa
“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”

Albert Einstein
“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

References

Maharishi Effect / Collective Meditation

Dillbeck, M.C., & Cavanaugh, K.L. (2016). Societal Violence and Collective Consciousness: Reduction of U.S. Homicide and Urban Violent Crime Rates. SAGE Open, 6(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244016637891

Global Consciousness Project

Nelson, R.D., Bradish, G.J., Dobyns, Y.H., Dunne, B.J., & Jahn, R.G. (2002). Correlations of continuous random data with major world events. Foundations of Physics Letters, 15(6), 537–550. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025575217107

Global Consciousness Project (1998–present). Princeton University / Institute of Noetic Sciences. https://noosphere.princeton.edu

Additional Meta-analysis Support for Meditation’s Ripple Effects

Luberto, C.M., Shinday, N., Song, R., et al. (2017). A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of the Effects of Meditation on Empathy, Compassion, and Prosocial Behaviors. Mindfulness, 9(3), 708–724. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-017-0841-8

 

~ Morgan C. Morgan
Writer of light, shadow, and the stories between.

Need a daily dose of Positivity and Empowerment? Join Positivity Pathfinders, my new Facebook group dedicated to Hope and Love.

If you’d like to keep up with everything I’m doing, sign up for my monthly newsletter by visiting my author website

If you’d like to see more of my artwork, please visit my DeviantArt page

Speak in Tones that are Hushed and Still,
In Quiet Transition and Lingering Blaze,
While the Quickening Breeze lends Incorporeal Thrill,
The Luster of Autumn Outlasts Golden Days.

The Cherry Cheeked Apples Fill Cask and Crate,
While Pumpkins Smile a toothless Grin,
Crimson and Russet, Dance in Unified State,
While Garden Spiders Laboriously Spin.

These Restful Days all too Fleeting Pass,
As November Strides closer with Hoarfrost Waiting,
To Tempt the pond with a Looking Glass
So the Scene finds Reflection, Perfection Creating.

 

~ Morgan C. Morgan
Writer of light, shadow, and the stories between.

Need a daily dose of Positivity and Empowerment? Join Positivity Pathfinders, my new Facebook group dedicated to Hope and Love.

If you’d like to keep up with everything I’m doing, sign up for my monthly newsletter by visiting my author website

If you’d like to see more of my artwork, please visit my DeviantArt page