Luna Solterra

and the Book of Soul

A children’s book about systems thinking and life-centered design. Luna Solterra, cartographer of complexity, mapping the heart to navigate metaphysical gravity.

Luna Solterra is a mermaid. Her human form lives in the here and now, born in Sumas First Nation territory (Abbotsford, Canada) on September 11, 2001. Everything feels like a disaster waiting to happen—one horrific tragedy after another. In actuality, she has become invisible. She lives with emotional anorexia. She is so competent that people just assume she really doesn’t want for anything or need anything. What she has really been doing is overcompensating for the lack of attention—being ignored and neglected because everyone else’s lives seem to be in such chaos and disarray. By not causing trouble, by being the one who diligently shows up and does what is expected of her, she has disappeared into the background of daily routine. She has become part of the scenery of the water that everyone is swimming in. That water is colonial, capitalist, consumerism driven by an ideological dogmatism that is projected onto the world by every flat rectangular screen that white supremacist and patriarchal men have imposed on the global economic order.

Luna Solterra’s imaginary life is a rich living and organic undersea world that includes no man-made objects, tools, technologies, buildings, or structures. This is the world that existed before the invasive species of human beings overpopulated the Earth.

Luna’s friends are a telepathic and highly sensitive dolphin, Circ, a time-travelling and thoughtful otter, Theodore, and an empathic and emotional octopus, Nueva. They all have different ways of communicating with Gaia—Mother Earth—whose knowledge and wisdom have been gained over billions of years of life and learning as a living planet. In cosmic time, Gaia is very young. However, it is impossible for Luna and her friends to know all the mysteries of life—because there are very real limits to being alive, such as death—yet there are answers to all their questions all around them. Time, energy, and matter contain all of these mysteries. They are the Book of Soul—an embodiment of Universe. Often, all they need to do is ask. And there are no limits to imagination. The answers come through a process of connecting to the qualia (action: body) through exploration (time: senses), connecting to the quanta (cognition: mind) through creation (energy: spirit), and connecting to the quest (emotion: heart) through formation (matter: soul).

By imagining this more beautiful world our hearts know is possible, Luna Solterra transforms the real world by bringing her imaginary world to life.

Please subscribe to support the work of writing the story and drawing the graphic novel, Luna Solterra and the Book of Soul. You can join me on the journey and adventures of Luna Solterra as she explores her undersea world and brings her imagination to life in the real world.

Rough sketches of the book cover and the opening pages are available below for subscribers to this publication.

With gratitude,

Stephen Bau