Black Orchid Night

A  modern-day orchid grower finds herself living in a dream as a black  woman right before World War II. She realizes there is more to dreams  than the dream doctors say. She learns to connect with her recurring  dream at will. She realizes part of her is experiencing another time in  history. She is a different person on the outside, but the same on the  inside.

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This book is absolutely breathtaking! It is intriguing from page  one. The ideas and concepts that are presented in this book are very  real to me. I am always impressed with Hal Manogue's creations of  literature. Each masterpiece gets better every time. This particular  book allowed me to see my self in character. The main character Fiona  draws you into her world so far that you can't help but become a part of  her journey. This book was well written and laid out. As a writer and  author myself I am always grateful to come across work which insights me  from a writing perspective and that intrigues me from an entertaining  perspective. This book did both. I was even able to highlight pointers  as I read, to go back, to take it all in again. Overall this book like  many of H.T. Manogue's books is a great book. I would suggest it as  great read for anyone who is adventurous and has an open mind. There is a  lot to gain from this literature if only you look deeper inside what is  essentially presented before you. Loved it!

This is the second book by Manogue that I have read. I have found  him to be a good story teller. I like the way he has added something  from the natural world to the two stories written by him that I have  read so far. These are like a little something extra which allows me to  learn about something new thanks to his including these as elements of  his style. I also enjoyed the way this book weaves together two  different time frames in an intriguing manner that makes separating  dreams from reality less certain going forward.

Within the mind of Fiona Mistry born to a racially mixed family  their lurks questions that remain unanswered and thoughts that fill her  mind, head and soul each night as she closes her eyes and begins to take  many journeys into different time periods though her dreams. From the  age of 18 after the death of her mother, Fiona discovered and nurtured  her ability to dream lucid dreams. Many of us think about events in our  pasts, even things we hope that will happen in the present and remember  some or parts of the dreams when we get up. But, her life is focused and  centered on orchids and her orchid business and she learns that these  flowers might be sending her messages in different ways to her and to each other.

Throughout this novel the author will  inspire readers to take part in Fiona’s dreams both during the day and  at night when she attempts to sleep learning lessons in life that she  hopes to work through some of her unresolved relationships with her  estranged sister both in the present and her counterpart in another time  period. Some people that she will learn to trust while others she will  constantly shy away from. Relationships are at the heart of this novel  as Fiona begins by telling us about her mother Olivia and her suicide,  learning to use her memories to try and heal the present and cope with  the past. She seeks help from Dr. Knabb who is inspirational and almost  seems like the author becoming part of the story and she learns to open  new avenues, new areas in her life trying to focus on hopefully for the  first time moving on.

The Orchids are the center of her  world and her universe as they seem to live, grow and wither along with  Fiona. Fiona learned that she had the ability to be in two realities and  needed to learn how to come to terms with them both. Her real and her  waking life were different and her therapist Dr. Krapp explained that  her dream adventures soul counterparts “excursions.” It's like she was  taking a private jet or plane to another world without having to pay for  the airline tickets or even using a car as she is often transported  within this novel. Her mother appears first in the past and then she  comes back to the present remembering her brother Geoff and her sister  Sarah. Her relationship with her siblings was tense and when you finally  meet them in different parts of her dreams and her life she will learn  that Sarah and she will never be really and truly family and the truth  behind what happened to her brother. Sarah, Geoff and someone named  Jiggy play an important role within the lives of all of these  characters. Thinking back to her brother and his behavior and how Sarah  covered for him in many ways to avoid severe parental punishments.

Her  mother Olivia is prominent at first and when a voice tells her and  explains about her suicide the reader and Olivia in a note: Death by my  own hand is a birth in another life. Look for more whenever you see an  orchid bloom. Those new blooms are coming from a part of me, her, in  this new life. Olivia’s voice is heard even louder as she explains to  Fiona that she will encounter people and places that exist in different  times, and you will know them. Know that all you experience in those  worlds are real. Everyone you meet and everything you do in dreams  happens somewhere at some time. Flashing to her stepmother Violet who  plays an important role along with Roger her father. Fiona told them  about her dreams and fear took over them and they questioned her sanity  and she explained about her dreams about her mother and the orchids.  Meeting Dr. Schuler who explains to Roger, her father that Fiona has an  unusual ability that they quite do not understand. Within the next few  chapters the author shares the many breeds of orchids, how Fiona cares  for them, feeds them and how the different types communicate within  their own group and with insects almost making Orchids have some type of  human communication qualities. Lucid dreams are at the heart of this  novel as we learn that dreams don’t being or end. Only your awareness of  dreams begins and ends.

The time period is the 1940’s  when African Americans were fighting just to be free within their own  communities and fight for the rights that others have in order to have a  better life. In her dream she finds herself back in time at a bar  called The Black Orchid and she meets several people that are black and  begins to wonder just who she is, how these people impact her life in  the past and the present as she is Jayla when entering this bar not  Fiona. The bar has a mirror and the reflection staring back at her is  not her face but that of someone else. Can she be two people and is the  man she loves African American and how does WWII impact the people she  meets back during the bar and who are their counterparts in the present.  Fiona could be feeding her Orchids, talking on the phone or meeting  with someone and all of a sudden find herself transported somewhere else  or even reliving events that happen to other people in her life to gain  some semblance or sense of certain realities that she cannot understand  or control. Are our dreams real? How much do we remember?

Mimi  is someone that sees Dr. Krabb and has her own fantasies about this  doctor and meeting Fiona she wants to learn more about lucid dreams and  how they might impact some of the things she is beginning to explore and  wants to know. Lucid dreams are dreams that you realize and know about  while you are still asleep. Fiona goes back and forth to this bar and  she meets Myles the owner, Holly the bartender, Shorty, she is Jayla and  Nyla and other descriptive characters of the time period as she comes  back into the present and realizes the Nyla is her sister and Myles is  her therapist. She has personal reflections each time she goes back in  time and the dreams help her to be a place to practice real-life events  and activities and to understand her real self. Krabb tells Fiona that  daydreams are a part of the dream world and they help relieve stress,  foster creativity, and invigorate the body, mind and spirit. Fiona  travels to these many places and begins to wonder and learn about her  past, present and future but at times I think she is trying to find her  real identity and place in one of the worlds and in life.

Entering  the Black Orchid and going back in time she is Jayla and meets Shorty  Longsleeves. Tyrone is someone that is there and as she meets Jake who  is really her brother in the present and Laquisha who is really Olivia  her mother. She tells Dr. Krabb about her visit to the past and looking  back to that time period she seems to think that Myles and Jayla have a  connection in both time periods. Jayla was a woman Myles thought he  wanted to paint until Nyla came. Chapter 10 introduces Amber who is  really Sarah her sister in the past and present and Geoff her brother  who she struggles and wants to find out what happened to him and where  he might be now. Sarah she thinks is married to her own brother and  Fiona’s face seems to appear white in her dreams. “ Dreams have a  personal validity, to them. You dreams are a byproduct of your  existence.” Many people have lucid dreams and when you do you experience  certain dreams to understand that developments are possible because  they have matured in other perspectives. Dreams create suspense and  mystery for those that experience them and they are created within your  own mind and realm of reality it seems. Fiona seemed to not comprehend  at times who she really is and where she wanted to be as she became so  fixed on learning more about the past by revisiting the Black Orchid  trying to make sense of her dreams and what is really reality. Dr. Krabb  is an insightful character mirroring the author it seems as he explains  to Fiona that she is constantly shifting worlds or dimensions and  felling what one of the psychic children or entries of your greater  personhood is feeling without actually looking like yourself. In her  dreams she is Jayla and Dr. Krabb is Myles. Sarah is Amber, and Shorty  is Flip who is her stepmother’s son. Jake the bartender is her brother  Geoff. Each person is experiencing what she is experiencing in a  different way. The relationship that she views and sees and experiences  is soul arrangements so certain issues are addressed.  

Where  do our dreams exists and what are the realities that we experience and  how do they play out in time sequences? When dreaming sometimes Fiona  seemed to be experiencing things, events that would become important  issues back then when blacks were fighting to enter the armed forces and  serve and our country. Prejudice, racism, violence, protests and  characters that are mean, nasty, tough and struggling through life like  Chance who hooks up with Sarah and knows what really happened to Geoff  and manages to endear himself in her life for a while until she tosses  him out and has to deal with the fatal end result. Social status is  brought out in this novel and Mimi and Fiona both seem to be searching  for their own identities and seem to have created a certain fixation  about Dr. Krabb in their own minds.

Fiona chose to go  back to this time period because it included her relationships with men,  her fear of black people even in the present, and her close connection  to orchids. She even had one that was almost the black in color as her  face in the past is black and that in the present not quite as dark. In  her lucid dreams she has relationship issues and she sees blacks as  caring, honest members of society, and Fiona is watching them help the  black movement as it takes shape before the war. She learns how black  people can impact beliefs in a dream. Each of the people she meets in  the past help her to understand her fears, deal with them as well as her  passion, which is connected to orchids and flower awareness. The  orchids he the doctor relates communicate in different ways and tend to  be sexually active but most people do not understand Orchids and how  they communicate with us.

Resolution if vital to Fiona as she goes  back one more time to find out what happens to Holly, the men from the  bar, those that lived, those that gave their lives and the harsh truth  and realities about her family and her relationships. Where will this  road finally take her and where will her next journeys lead? Will she  return to the Black Orchid? Will she finally move one or will she  understand what Dr. Knabb says at the end: Which is why many most of us  only want to know about and live one life! Thought provoking, definitely  informative and will help readers experience first hand lucid dreams  and maybe help you the reader understand why you yourself might  experience them as author H.T. Manogue and Fiona takes us all on many  different lucid journeys in the past and present.