DANCING TO THE MUSIC, In the Spirit of the Word , a prequel in the Misty Mountain Chronicles series, reads like a story, with Poet, Muse, and the Word performing and speaking their parts. The commentary that weaves the book into a whole is humorous and provocative in a fairytale like setting in a literary world of life, love, and revolution. From the first page the author’s presence is reflected through poetry and the voices of the characters in the poetry. For example, the Contents announces the content of the book: “Hear Ye, Hear Ye – It is my honor to introduce to you a cavalcade of players, well numbered and aligned, teeming with mystery, myth, and adventure, totaling eighty-nine, LXXXIX. There is a Prologue and Epilogue to welcome and bid you adieu, an Appendix harboring an inside view, with poignant thoughts and theories, some exoteric information for contact when you return, and a tissue if you are blue. Interludes for a pause and to perk your imagination are spread throughout in auspicious places, like a lens to focus the scene, clarify the action, and expand the theme.” The story begins with the Poet and Muse in a conversation and the Poet asking, "Have Words lost their meaning and now yearn to be reborn and live again, beckoning ingenious bards and musicians to sing them back to life?" And the Muse answering, "I am illusive and always changing, residing in the mists and miraculous void. Find silence and still your mind. I will be there to set the stage, inspire the players and direct the show." The story proceeds as words, thoughts, ideas, and imaginations find their voice, speaking the truth of the living entities that they are. After the story is complete, we witness two participants in a conversation at a cafe. One saying, "It gets me to thinking about things, mixed up in the moment, but entertaining. I am not sure I want to put it back, at least not the way it was." And the other, "It gets me to feeling things and imagining emotions I never felt before. That Words are living entities is something I never imagined, and if it is true how about other things, are they alive as well?" "Exactly! If there is a Spiritual world interpenetrating this one, everything changes, and when we die, we go there and return again and that Evolution depends on us. Did we hear it right?" DANCING TO THE MUSIC as a prequel in the Misty Mountain Chronicles series, MISTY MOUNTAIN MUSINGS, book one, THE MIRROR AND THE MUSE, book 2, and WHEN A PROMISE IS MADE TO THE MUSE, book three. They progress as a mirror and window into the times we live in. This book establishes a foundation through poetic language for the ones to follow. "In life, through our actions, and with an active imagination we are participants in a future world much different than the one we live in now. We have a choice to show up, or not." Nicholas lives in the Pacific Northwest in the USA. His poetry is positive and inspirational, encouraging readers to look at themselves and the world with hope for a future where humanity lives in love, creativity, and freedom.