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The Story Portal

Inside The Story Portal – Podcast Series

Inside The Story Portal – Podcast Series 1024 1024 Jason Stadtlander
The Story Portal

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Two weeks ago I launched my new podcast series “The Story Portal”. I thought I’d take a moment and just fill you in on what it’s all about.

Over my life, I’ve written somewhere around 300 short stories (and I’m always writing more). They range from sci-fi to thriller, to horror and even romantic comedy. Now, although I have submitted many of my stories to magazines, newspapers, and of course I have my anthology Ruins of the Mind coming out next year – the reality is, most of these stories would normally never reach the world.

I have been wanting to practice my narration skills and a weekly podcast seemed like a great way to bring these stories to you while giving you a little entertainment along the way. Each episode averages 25-40 minutes depending on the length of the story  – the perfect length to listen to on a commute. I happen to know that some upcoming episodes might be as short as fifteen minutes.

At the beginning of each episode, I always try to take a moment and tell you a little about how the story came to be and why I wrote it.

Currently, I have two episodes out there; Surviving the Messengers and The Glass Pyramid (both from Ruins of the Mind).  If there is a story of mine you’d really like to hear, just let me know and I’ll record it for you. I may even end up reading my books a chapter at a time at some point in the near future.

Be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast listening app to hear all of the episodes each week and I hope to hear from you! Let me know what you think, it means a lot to hear what my listeners (and readers) feel about my work (positive OR negative).

You can listen and subscribe to my podcasts directly on my website at http://podcast.jasonstadtlander.com or on any of these audio apps:

Google PlayiTunesSpotify

 

 

Dreams, Heaven and Hell

Heaven, Hell and Everything in Between (Part 2 of 2)

Heaven, Hell and Everything in Between (Part 2 of 2) 1920 1080 Jason Stadtlander

My second part in this two part (see here for part one) series will discuss a little more about [my views on] Heaven, Hell and the what might happen to our soul or consciousness. I welcome any discussions regarding it in the comments below. Some of this may sound like ramblings, but just hear me out and think about what I’m saying and it might make sense. Also, keep in mind – I am not at all asking you to abandon your own religious beliefs, I’m just saying keep an open mind.

I have, in recent years come to wonder if what lies beyond this physical existence may be closer to what we know as our dreams. There is a part of me that believes that when we die, our consciousness goes on to exist wholly in this place and whether or not it is heaven or hell depends on our own quality of mind. If we continually do things to help others or have kindness in our heart or peace in our soul, then perhaps this realm is peaceful and beautiful. If we do things to torment others or have malice in our heart, then we reap what we sow and are treated as such in this dream like afterlife. It may also stand to reason that we have the same free will in this dream-life as well. If we do wrong others in this dream-life, it may be possible even in this dream afterlife to turn that attitude around and find a peace within and with others.

This is all speculative, of course and just a theory.

In the movie; “What Dreams May Come” with Robin Williams, Robin’s character Chris dies and perceives heaven and hell as dreams, finding himself living within his wife’s paintings. His wife who commits suicide is trapped in Hell (a continuous nightmare) and Chris works to bring her out of Hell (thus not being condemned to exist there forever). This is the best embodiment of my theories I have ever seen.

Non-Linear Time and Reincarnation

I believe that there is much more to our existence that we can perceive and that time does not truly exist as linear as we feel it does. It is my thought (and the thoughts of others I’ve met) that time exists all at once, past present and future and it is our own physical existence (corporeal existence) that forces us to perceive it as a linear path. In this scenario, perhaps the concept of reincarnation is not quite how we have been taught it might be. Perhaps reincarnation is more the understanding of “omni-time” and the ability to see all time at once, viewing the multiple corporeal embodiments that already exist for our soul?

My father and many people I know would come back and say, what about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit (I was raised Christian)? And that is a good question. There’s no reason to believe that these constructs are not real, my perspective is that they just may not exist exactly as we are taught. I once had a dream that I was in this place, a train station (that vaguely resembled Paddington Station), with thousands of other people. The people I met were continuously directing me to “the conductor”. When I got there, I saw a man that looked similar to what we have been taught Jesus must look like. In this dream, Jesus was the conductor of souls, pointing people to trains on one track or another. It’s an interesting idea, but it goes against free will, unless we have the power to say ‘no’ when we are told to go to a specific track. And, if our dream-life operates like a train, taking us from place to place, can we simply jump off the train at any time?

Before I let you go, think about one last concept, if each person that dies goes to Heaven or Hell, imagine the actual quantity of people that would be at any of these given locations. We have 7 billion souls on earth (that are living). It has been calculated that there have been 107 billion people born in human history. But that is just the length that we believe ‘human history’ may exist, there is no reason to believe that we haven’t existed even longer or through multiple iterations of our civilizations.

 

Soul-mates: Across The Winds of Time

Soul-mates: Across The Winds of Time 150 150 Jason Stadtlander

A seven year old girl went riding her bike through the woods one day. Enjoying the feeling of the grass hitting her legs and rolling through the dips, avoiding the ruts. The warm summer breeze blew through her blouse. She peddled onward and through a stream to the other side, then along the shallow bank.

The little girl came to a stop next to a large hickory tree and pulled out a small blanket from a backpack she was wearing and carefully spread it out on the grass and sat in the shade under the old tree. The girl pulled out a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and began to eat it, while watching dragon flies playing on the water of the stream a foot below her.

Something glittered across the stream and she looked up in time to see a boy her age, on a bike passing through the trees. The boy stopped his bike, looking at the girl who he had never seen before but knew so well. He turned the front wheel and pointed it at the stream, crossing it and leaning his bike on the hickory tree, he sat down on the blanket next to the girl. She handed him the other half of her sandwich and looked at the boy, the other half of her. In their innocence of youth, all they knew was the comfort of the moment.

“Hi.” She said.

“Hi.” He said

The two sat watching the dragonflies and then laying on the blanket watching clouds float by. Finally the two said the only other three words that they would say that day to each other.

“See you soon.” He said.

“See you soon.” She said.

And off they went on their separate ways.

Soulmates

Years later the girl, now a young woman was walking along a small street in Italy, having traveled for two semesters in college. She felt the cobblestones under her feet, smelled the aroma of fresh bread on the air and saw a small cafe, where she stopped to get a cappuccino. As she stepped in the old worn wooden screen door,the summer breeze blew against her back. Once she had received her cappuccino, she sat at a small table outside. As she sat there, she watched a fountain and two sparrows playing in the water. Looking up the young woman saw clouds listlessly floating by. The door on the cafe opened and out came a young man. He walked over and sat at a table next to her drinking a cappuccino of his own. The man was reading a small brochure about tourism in the small Italian town. He glanced up and saw her pale hazel eyes locked on him. And he knew in that instant that she was that little girl that he had met under that hickory tree. That little girl that he had known for hundreds of years.

His soul-mate, reunited.

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