About The Author

Melie Smith

Melie Aurel has always harbored a profound interest in world mythology and fairy tales. Over time, her imagination was drawn to a woman ostracized for her unconventionality. She faced scorn from her intellectual family for not being serious enough and for her disinterest in intellectual pursuits. However, the world of myths and magic felt honest and correct to her. Reading these ancient stories opened her mind, giving her hope and creating a gentle, truthful breeze around her heart. It made her believe she could see beyond this realm through a pearlescent veil to a rich, thriving world barely discernible in its subtlety. This belief provided her with hope and a raison d’être.

The story of Mary Magdalene resonated with Melie, reflecting her life of gentle pursuits and simple walking. This tale mirrored her unquenchable curiosity and her inclination toward the heart and what felt correct. From the start, she embarked on a spiritual quest that led to self-discovery and a sense of home. Melie spent considerable time in the L’Aude department in the Languedoc region of France, where she felt the powerful energy of various places. Deeply affected by Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code,” she visited many of the locations described in the book.

Though she often relied on fairy tales and myths to make sense of the world, Melie was fortunate to have a fifth-grade homeroom teacher, Mr. Yates, who taught a full year on mythology. This year was one of the happiest in her life, as Mr. Yates required his students to read all the Greek, Norse, and Roman myths. His lessons also included Native American stories, which made sense of the world for her. Melie never stopped reading mythology and fairy tale fantasy, and her bedside reading stack was continuously refreshed with works from great writers of the 19th and 20th centuries, enriching her imagination.

Her interest in history was evident early on, as shown by her third-grade report on ancient Egypt focusing on Queen Cleopatra. Throughout her life, she dreamed of early civilizations, including many dreams of a Roman soldier arriving by raft at her retreat center on the Nile and then departing without a reassuring goodbye. Visiting the temple of Philae on an island in the upper cataract of the Nile felt particularly familiar to melie, reinforcing her sense that she had been there before and could sense a broken heart from that time.

Inspired by Joseph Campbell’s “The Power of Myth,” Melie believes that life is much deeper and broader than one conceives it to be. According to Campbell, what one lives is but a fractional inkling of what is really within, giving life, breadth, and depth. Living in terms of one’s depth allows for an experience that reveals the essence of what religions talk about.

With a strong interest in history and a love of old stones, Melie first pursued creative studies in costume design and then landscape architecture, ultimately finalizing her career as an architect.