Ellyn Sanna is the owner and executive editor of Anamchara Books, publisher of the Indigo Wizard series. This four-part interview was conducted by email. Here is Part 4, the final part of the interview:
 
TheIndigoWizard.com: Which of the Awakening Tales is your favorite? Why?
 
Ellyn Sanna: I have many scenes from the book that I love. I think one of my favorite images is the Wizard jumping rope and singing opera. It's such a silly, unexpected portrayal of the Divine, and it delights me. My favorite tale, however, is, I think (at this moment), Tale VIII, "Resurrection," and that's because it speaks to my own personal fears and struggles. In this tale, Snake must "die"—he must go to the place "where he is not his skin" and let go of his identity, the familiar skin that's so comfortable and pretty. The animals learn that "the only way to not die is to die."
 
Like Snake, death scares me. Not so much my physical death (the cessation of my body's life), but the death of the comfortable life that pleases me so much (like Snake's skin, with all its pretty red and orange stripes). I want to hold on tight to the way things are; I want to cry and fuss and have a tantrum (just like Snake did) whenever I feel my life is threatened. And meanwhile, God quietly asks me to simply "go where I am not my skin" so I can discover the amazing new life that's in store for me, one I could never experience if I did not shed that old, dead skin whose time has come to go.
 
This resonates in me with a couple of other things I've been pondering. One, of course, is the words of Jesus when he says, "Unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it can never bring forth new life" (John 12:24). I was recently reading a sermon online from the Swedenborgian Church that connects to both this Gospel passage and to the ideas in Tale VIII:
 
"Falling into the ground and dying is the necessary precondition of this growth and greater usefulness. But it is a risky, frightening, even painful thing to do. We tend to resist it. When we meet the challenges of life, our natural inclination is to work, to fight, to do what we have to do to overcome them. But our greatest power to accomplish things is a power we find only when we surrender; only when we let ourselves fall into the ground and die. That is, we succeed best when instead of trying, we surrender; when we let ourselves serve as a medium for the power of God."
 
Tale VIII also makes me think of another book we've been working on at Anamchara Books, All Shall Be Well, an updated version of Julian of Norwich's medieval book on the revelations she received from God. Julian spends a lot of time making clear that our essence, what she calls the substance of our identity, is eternally safe and joyful, despite the ups and downs of our earthly lives. She wrote:
 
"Our Protector wants us to be assured of this reality, that a piece of our very essence remains whole and safe . . . knit tightly to God at the deepest level of their being, with a knot so delicate and strong that our souls become one with God . . . Divine Goodness opens our eyes to true reality, but our vision fades in and out, sometimes sharp and sometimes blurry, as God allows. . . . This mingling of life and death, rising and falling is so strange that we cannot even know where we truly are, for our perceptions are so sundered from each other that we can’t tell what is real."
 
It is this paradoxical reality—we both die and are born, we are both safe and terrified—that Tale VIII describes so well, as well as the challenge we all face to see what is truly real. What is only dead skin so often looks like the thing we want and need the most.
 
TheIndigoWizard.com: What is the most difficult part of the publishing process?
 
ES: I suppose the most difficult parts are the details. The ideas, the collaboration, the inspiration—all that is fun. But in the end, sending a book off to the printer involves a lot of boring, solitary, not very creative work. Did we catch all the typos? Did we remember to be consistent with the capitalization? Did we insert that piece at the beginning that we keep forgetting about? Are all the page numbers correct and in the right place? By this time, we've all looked at a book so many times that it's hard to really see it anymore. Which is why it's always good to have as many eyes, and hopefully some fresh eyes, look at a book before sending it to the printer. And then we still ask ourselves: Are we SURE we've caught everything? Should we go through it one more time? What if we've missed something? Ultimately, letting the final files go on their way is an act of surrender and trust. We've done our part, we've done our best, and now we have to let go. And maybe that's the hardest part of all.
 
TheIndigoWizard.com: What is the most fun?
 
ES: For me the most fun is that creative, collaborative process, the group working together and building on each other's ideas.
 
TheIndigoWizard.com: How can people follow Anamchara Books and keep up-to-date on the Indigo Wizard series?
 
ES: The best way to get the latest news from Anamchara Books, including book releases and information on all the books in our catalog, is to visit our website, AnamcharaBooks.com. We've also got a blog called Soul Friends on the site, which I write for almost every day.
 
For information about the Indigo Wizard series of books, you can visit TheIndigoWizard.com. TheIndigoWizard.com is a great place to get a new perspective on The Awakening Tales or join the community discussion.
 
In the coming weeks, we'll be posting a four-part interview with Marilyn Gustin, author of the Companion Guide to The Awakening Tales.