The Mariah Collection

About the Book

This is a compilation of various forms of philosophical writings by Janet Shaw, plus some of her ballpoint pen drawings. These selections plus her drawings entitled "Mariah" and "Zendordin," and her “Ambersand” scenario (that she had published earlier) “came to her.” The first ones only came during meditation or in the middle of the night; but later they came any time. The first part is her 14 poems The International Poetry Society and Noble House published in their various compilations. Next is 39 of her other short poems (24 lines or less). Some of those short ones came from longer poems of hers; so her longer poems are all included since some people like to read the whole poem. The last poetry section is her songs and, since music and rhythm were inherent in their melodies, most of them don’t have rhyme and rhythm of their own. The next part of the book includes 34 of what Janet calls her “poetic prose” journal entries, and three more recent writings, plus what she calls “spinoffs” of her reaction to readings she was assigned. A short fantasy story is also included that, although it fits into her Ambersand Chronicles (published separately), it’s able to stand alone as a short story. Next, she has included notes on near death experiences of hers and a few other life events—ending with the letter she wrote for her Psychology of Adjustment class that started her on all of these writings.

About the Author

With cancer supposedly being caught too late, therefore diagnosed “terminal,” Janet was told she’d be lucky to survive two years or even make it to her 50th birthday. Attempting to cope with that news, she enrolled in some psychology courses: Psychology of Adjustment, and several Seminars In Knowledge and Wisdom classes—including: Death and Dying, Transpersonal Psychology, and Meditation. Those led her to become more philosophical. As an offshoot of meditation, philosophical poetry came to her along with poetic prose and journal notations. When she got her cancer into remission, philosophical fantasy stories came to her that she had published as Ambersand Castle Trilogy and, later (in slightly changed shorter form) as Ambersand Chronicles. She also sent poems to The International Poetry Society. It published 14 of them in various compilations including: several Who’s Who in Poetry, several Best Poems and