Above the Underground

a novel by Nya Gregor Fleron

My primary motivation for putting this website together was initially to publish my novel Above the Underground and make it available to whomever wish to read it and hopefully gain inspiration from it. As I began the process of creating my website, the project took on its own life and I literally began to see the greater connection between my many passions like a many-petaled and caleidoscopic flower unfolding before my eyes. This is also the image I had in mind when designing the website - something unfolding slowly, multi-colored, yet structured and interconnected.

I am a writer, who is interested in the spiritual side of living and being. Secondly, I am a multifaceted healer who among other things uses writing as her tool. But I will leave that for you to explore as my website, which I see as 'a work in ever progress', unfolds before, and more and more layers are put to it (stories, articles, pictures, etc.). I am sure I will shine through all of the layers.

With my writing I wish to show or convey the knowledge and experience I have gained, and the stories I have lived. I started writing journals when I learned to write in school. It became a way for me to learn to understand and accept myself as a being with infinite merits and inescapable limitations or challenges. As I grew older I discovered that while my writing was helping me to overcome and shed some light on a lot of matters inside, I could also help others by exposing them to the work I was doing on myself. I was polishing the becoming of me and doing so through my writing, I learned to share my story with others. I watched myself becoming an example of how it was possible to change things, patterns, relationships, etc. And I realized that if I improved my writing skills it could become a form of vehicle on a larger scale. Instead of sharing my story with a few I could share my stories with many. I wanted to develop a form of writing that could reach into people just in the same manner as I was already doing when sharing my thoughts and philosophies while also listening and paying deep attention to people. With those diaries, which are now stacked away in a box in my parents' house, I began my journey into the realms of writing. Over the years, I have studied and experienced the art of writing, and my most important practice in this context and all others is to integrate all of my faith, my life's experiences, and my spirit.

Above the Underground is my first novel - but not the last at all - so bear with me as it unfolds. I think you will at least find it interesting if you dare to open that door to your heart. My writing is about listening, paying attention to the present, and most of all being sensual and playful. My stories are about the human heart, its great potentials and its misreadings, while we guard ourselves believing to be invisible when we are not, never were. If there is anything I believe in more it is the heart, and I always make it an essential point of 'seeing' it in people I meet, and if it is too hard to see, I 'imagine' (a more playful way of seeing) it so as to give the person the space and opportunity to be able to live from her or his heart, better still give myself the opportunity and challenge of overcoming my own projections, fears, or insecurities. We create life together, and I want to give the people in my life what I want to give to myself. My book is about how we can always find heart and light wherever we are, no matter the depth of the darkness surrounding us. It is a state of being, a way of living and believing, and it is accessible to all of us no matter where we came from, where we are going, and how we came to be. We all have a center of light in us where we know what is real and true. The important thing is that we allow ourselves to discover and cultivate it. Being true to oneself isn't the same as looking for it. For centuries, we have so easily 'seen' and accepted the darkness as the only way, the only escape. Now, it the time for accepting the light in our lives. It is just as much part of it.

Above the Underground is about young Sera, who comes to New York in 2042 to study. New York has become an underground city since the Final War in 2020, where most of the East Coast of the U.S. was obliterated by bioweapons. NY is still a prominent city tightly governed by a mysterious group of people 'the Ustodians' who are running the city under very strict guidelines. Her real journey of the mind and spirit starts when Sera begins to dig under the surface of this apparently well-functioning city. A number of events and encounters of people throw her unwillingly into a reality and a city, which is much different from the New York she first encountered and gradually her own world and being expands. The book is about a woman's and a city's empowering awakening. Even in the darkest of places a light exists. It is not so much about finding the light, it is about being it.

There are a lot of people I want to acknowledge in writing this book. Friends who have given me great literary feedback, friends who have given me helpful information, friends who have supported me and always believed in my work. My family for helping me form who I am - though they will probably say they had nothing to do with this - encouraging courage, independency, and love in me. Lovers who have helped me become a greater lover (heightening my playfulness, sensuality and imagination) and thus a greater writer, and sisters and brothers who have loved me regardless, teaching me the art of love. And I want to thank the good fortune I have in my life, the joy, the spirit, the love, the divine that fills it in a most delightful and blissful way and helps me overcome and understand the darkness inside me. And come to terms with whom I am, my truth.

My book is divided into seven parts. You can download one part at a time below. All parts are pdf files.

I hope you enjoy the journey as much as I did writing and creating it.

If you have any comments, ideas, stories, or may be of any help finding a book publisher, please contact me at nya@nyagregorfleron.net.