Fires Eternal Morning - Ruta Johnes

Creating a visual language of free-association and metaphor in the vernacular, Fires Eternal Morning is written to function on multiple layers of allegory, thought, and perception.It is a prose-poem landscape of dreams of the writer 's own childhood, set in a place called 'Paradise Green.' The schematic follows Dante: 1. the Inferno of a nuclear catastrophe;  2. the Purgatory of emotions and political intrigues;  and 3. the Paradise of Mind and Body.

It is 'A Corning of Age story of the Cold War,' reflecting the anthropology of Margaret Mead, in a modem world in which the undercurrent of fear and expectation of nuclear war, and the immanent ruin of the planet, bred into the world's developmental psychology an innate nihilism, resulting in widespread depression and the perpetuation of aggressive behavior.

A generation which tried to evolve itself to 'Make Love - Not War' eventually split into two political camps, one devolved back to the continuity of punitive and intrusive control systems supporting paranoid militarism, privileged exploitation of workers, and social stratification, with a mindset of reductive Behaviorism, trends ' entertainments; while another political camp continues to evolve toward a new ecology, environmental concern, universal spirituality,justice ' compassion, nutrition, artistic expression, and personal consciousness.