EPISODE 47: IN WHICH THE AUTHOR GOES FOR SOME WALKS AND WRITES A STORY.

Welcome to my blog which today can’t help but celebrate the arrival of the sun and its warmth. Living in England, especially in times of Tory government, can easily be depressing, especially if one allows one’s attention to be too focussed on the national narrative as dumped on us by the politicians and the media. Fortunate as I am, or sometimes make myself, in my lifestyle, I have managed two good rural walks this week. On one I went up Compton Dundon Beacon, an ironage hill fort with tremendous views of the Mendips and the coast. My friend Crispin’s ashes are buried there by a tree so I visited him there. The bluebells and primroses were out and some teenagers were quietly smoking weed, which Crispin would have approved of. As always, I told myself I must do more walking and more just stopping and lying in the sun. Bearing in mind these are the best bits of life, why do I have to remind myself?

A second walk took me to Windmill Hill near Baltonsborough where, for the first time in my life, I ran away from sheep.

A stroll, rather than a walk, took me to the White Spring at the bottom of Glastonbury Tor. This spot, I am told, is a gateway to the Otherworld. Outside the little cave were a collection of ‘types’; scruffy hippies rather than riff-raff. For a few moments I was judgemental but then I realized that at the entrance to the Otherworld, none of us have much to be proud about. Inside the cave, four  naked men were frolicking (and probably washing) in the pools there.

 A STORY; THE MEDIUM

1.

A voice. Into the silence comes a voice. Until the voice I hadn’t been aware of the silence; hadn’t been aware of anything. When I heard the voice, I became aware of being.

2.

She is in her late twenties; thin, dark haired, maybe of Chinese heritage, smiley with soft skin, wearing a floral red dress. I had watched her, between readings, slowly inspecting the various stalls and studying the cards and pamphlets. Sometimes they have already chosen and the looking is really a steadying of the nerve. In this case I saw someone still making the decision. When she came to me I was a little surprised because the younger women usually feel safer with one of the purple ladies.

“Take a seat,” I said, although she already had. “How may I help? Here I can do you a card reading or a brief trance communication. Alternatively we can discuss an appointment for a longer in-depth session.” I knew I was fidgeting and not looking her straight in the eye. Pretty women affect me like that. I’m okay once I start reading.

“It says mediumship on your card,” she said. “Does that mean you can talk to the dead?”

3.

Where was I before I heard the voice?

4.

“Yes,” I said.  “I can communicate with their spirits. Anyone can. I do.”

“Do they mind?” she asked.

“I don’t think they’d speak with me if they minded,” I said. “Usually they’ve so much to say I can’t shut them up.” She smiled at this but said nothing as she remained very still on the chair with her brown eyes looking at the pack of tarot cards on the table between us. “Is there someone in particular…?” I began.

“My mother. I want to hear from my mother.”

This is probably the request I hear most often in my professional life. Seven out of ten times I can oblige. “Did she pass away recently?” I asked.

For just a moment the smile disappeared and the pain showed. Then it was gone with a small shake of the head. “I don’t think so,” she said, “but I can’t be sure.”

5.

There was a time before the silence when I was. I can remember that. In the silence I didn’t remember that. Because the noise ended the silence, I became aware that there had been silence and to be aware that there had been silence, I must have been there when the silence was. At least for some of the time.

6.

“I never knew my mother,” she said.

7.

Before the silence, I died. Twice.

8.

“I don’t even know her name.”

“Then how do you know that she’s…not alive?”

“I don’t…not yet…not for sure. But I’ve been searching for twenty-five years and I’ve not found her anywhere on earth. Now you can help me find her on the other side.”

9.

The first time was moments before giving birth to my daughter. From the moment I conceived I felt as if I’d been invaded by a devil. Physical pain, emotional anguish and the darkest of dark thoughts filled the pregnancy. Even as I felt our two selves separate, hers into life, mine into death, I felt I had done a great wrong to the world.

10.

I always tell my clients that I never have to contact the dead because they are psychically forewarned and are waiting for them. All I really know is that when I close my eyes and concentrate hard, I hear voices in a certain part of my head and if I tell my clients what these voices say, they are often uplifted and relieved by the messages.

11.

The second time I died, it was after the great journey. I remember standing on a cliff’s edge admiring a palace of gold. And then there was nothing. The unheard silence. Peace.

12.

“How long will it take you to find her? Could you do it now? And give her a message?”

For the first time in my career I lied. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t feel her. It could be that she is still alive.”

13.

Now what? Before the voice, in the silence, there was neither time nor place. Now there is now and there is here and there is fear.

14.

The woman smiled as if it didn’t matter but I saw the blackness in her soul.

EPISODE 46: IN WHICH THE AUTHOR DEMONSTRATES WRITER'S BLOCK

Welcome to my blog which was meaning to begin with an esoteric discussion on mantra but has been diverted by an article listing the security costs of the London Olympic games. When I was a child I loved the Olympics, although even then it was the Athletics that meant something whereas the endless show jumping, swimming and gymnastics always seemed boring. It was then the best of amateur sport (give or take a few underhand payments). Now of course it is a bigger professional event and the athletics, Usain Bolt aside, so tainted by drugs as to not leave any real impact. The idea that hosting this absurd show is somehow meant to make the British people feel good about themselves is being promulgated so hard by the government and the BBC, that it is hard not to end up feeling hostile rather than indifferent. To then spend 24 billion pounds on turning London into a gargantuan middle-class version of the Gaza Strip seems to me to be a victory to Osama Bin Laden. Every day we are dealing with the consequences of our response to that attack in New York. Billions and billions have been spent on defending ourselves and our ways of life and travel have been changed permanently. I have often wondered how a tribe that sacrifices goats to god for comfort decides to change its policy. How many years go by with people saying, ‘Do we really have to bother?’ before the priests agree to take a year or two off, just to see what happens.

How long will we sacrifice goats to Osama?

***

While family life, the visit of my youngest son and partner for the weekend, has continued around me and interrupted any schedule I have, I’ve been racking my brains for something to write about. I have been grungy with myself, under-confident and disappointed both with myself and my results. In part, smoking is something to do with this. I fear oral cancer because my lips, mouth and tongue constantly feel like they are on fire. Yet I do nothing to cut down or stop; not even imagine it. 

My son made me look at the budget of the events I am planning to put on; my main earner in fact. He is right. My idea won’t work. This is quite dispiriting. I haven’t signed the contract for the Mexican band yet and my son says I should at least look to bring them down £200. Having verbally agreed the fee, I am unwilling to begin my business by going back on my word. 

So far my team of volunteers have not been evidently proactive or even communicative. Is this my not making an impression or not directing them properly? Perhaps I’ve not been coherent or direct enough in my meetings. 

Also this GDD creation has taken over my life and is not serving my original goal which was to make £500 a week through my writing. I think now I have to have a good look at what I’m doing and see what I can out right. This dragon hasn’t made a spectacular state to his period of pre-eminence.

***

Today I have spent a fair part of the day chatting to people about football and cricket. Having shewn me how to stream free sport, my son watched India and Pakistan play cricket with me. Although I began by dissing the Olympics and the government’s desire for us to be obsessed by sport, I do have to admit to hours and days of following distant cricket matches. There’s something so soothing and relaxing about watching and listening to cricket. I used to listen in the early mornings to Test Matches from Australia with my dad, back in 1962. I was born in Headingly and I was great Yorkshire fan in my childhood when Close, Illingworth, Sharpe, Padget, Trueman…I can name them all…were the heroes. I even got the autograph of the whole team once. Then along came Boycott, the antihero who taught me that not all my role-models would be flash-harries. He was dropped for scoring a double-century too slowly. What only I could know was that I was in hospital during that innings and the longer it went on the less I worried about my upcoming operation.

These days I support India. And am sad that Dravid has retired.

Football of course is all the rage now and I watch that too. I began with Leeds and now root for Arsenal and Barcelona. Guess I just like winners.

***

Someone told me the other day that they wake-up each morning either feeling like killing someone else or themselves. My own thoughts, as I observed this morning, tend to begin with the question, ‘Is there anything I have to do today?’ I suppose that compared with the majority of the human race, I am extremely fortunate in not knowing that most days I’ll have to do what I did the day before, i.e. go to work. On those occasions where I do have to do something specific, I’ll probably be immediately extraordinarily tired and reluctant to get out of bed. On the other hand if I have no need to get up, I will get up and I’ll come downstairs to meditate. 

This morning there was frost on the ground and the sun was shining in the window from 7a.m. Having guilt-tripped myself about smoking last night, my small aim today was to meditate before smoking a cigarette to see if my body felt calmer without. It did. It wasn’t a spectacular meditation, they never are, but somehow still feels worth it. I still haven’t worked out what I will do today but no doubt as the day goes by I’ll find some focus or receive a phonecall or email message that suddenly gives the day direction. What I want of course is someone or something out there to come and get me. Best would be something from Chris Wafe but I’ll not make the mistake of hassling him again.

Not yet anyway.

EPISODE 45; FACEBOOK AND SUICIDE

Welcome to my blog which today begins with a little irritation because I prepared a piece for here which has now disappeared somewhere in the bowels of my laptop. About a week ago, I noticed on my email a notification from facebook that Bill Forrest had updated his facebook status. Facebook is new to me and I only went on it because I thought I should do something about my web presence. It has been mostly a pointless activity because I have limited my readership to friends and family and we don't need to communicate in this way.

Bill's message read something like: 'Have taken all my pills, am slipping away. Goodbye world, I'm sorry I was shit.'

I did groan audibly when I read the message and my partner called out to me, 'What's up?' I told her, 'Bill is killing himself.' She said, 'What are you going to do?' and I said 'Nothing'.

Bill told me some told ago that there is part of him that is determined  to kill him and would, inevitably, one day succeed so when I read the message I thought, 'Yep, he was right.' Now Bill isn't a close friend of mine. Quite honestly he is too difficult and too depressed to be a friend. I'm not saying depression and difficulty make friendship with me impossible (you would only have to know my friend Phil to know that some combinations of depressed and difficult are manageable) but if you add in 'insatiable neediness' it is, for me, problematic because all I want from these people is to get away from them. If I can't cheer them up in an hour I become frustrated and bored. It isn't overly compassionate, I know, but it is how I am.

So I wasn't personally upset at the thought of Bill killing himself and knew that even if I had known where he was at that moment, I wouldn't have wanted to go to him. I did assume that he wouldn't answer his phone and also that there wasn't any point in replying to the message because if you were trying to kill yourself why would you answer messages from people trying to save you? 

After 17 minutes, friends of his began to put messages on the facebook page asking Bill where he was and telling him not to do it because he had so many friends that cared for him. After about 30 minutes, one of his friend's posted; 'Wherever he is, I'm going to find him.' But he didn't know where he was and that only became clearer 20 minutes later when another friend declared that Bill was in his boat in Wiltshire, maybe 90 minutes and to 2 hours away from here but the friend who was looking for him had already set off and didn't receive this information. 

After an hour, I found out the name of the boat from looking at Bill’s photos and I thought of what it would be like for a friend of his finding him. It is an experience I have had, finding the body of a dead friend and it isn’t one I would want to repeat and in the end you still have to phone the police and ambulance to sort things out. For that reason I did telephone the police and tell them what was happening. I’m not sure they were over urgent but on the other hand the information I was giving them was quite vague. They did find him though, alive, and they took him to the hospital for assessment. I don’t actually think his attempt had been heading for success so it wasn’t a matter of having ‘saved’ him. His friends were grateful to me and Bill himself said thank you for caring but really I don’t think I did care much or if I did care, it was for anyone finding him. In the same text that Bill thanked me for caring he said the police were thugs, to which I replied that I hadn’t expected them to find him alive. Since then Bill has put up other messages asking for help and gentleness and I find I don’t want to respond at all.

Suicide is a tough subject for most people to deal with. According to Stanislav Grof suicide is a misunderstanding and what is really being sought is transcendence or the death of the psycho-spiritual ego, In town last week, a lad of 20 years threw himself out of a window and smashed himself to death in the courtyard of a small block of flats. Horrendous for all concerned. The trouble is, I suppose, that we can’t know that what we are seeking is a spiritual transformation, especially in a culture that doesn’t lay any conceptual groundwork for such an understanding.

When I was fifteen I tried overdosing. I must have been certain I wanted to do it because there was no attempt to forewarn anyone. Looking back, such decisiveness is quite unusual in my life. I know I was an emotional mess (girls!) and that seemed the source of my misery, though I had a bleak view of life anyway. It so happened that when I discovered I wasn’t going to die, I was quite pleased. It took a long long time for life to get better but what really put me off killing myself in the meantime was something I read about Thomas Hardy, that he believed that when you died you were left with the predominant emotional feel of your life without the knowledge of why you felt like that. The prospect of eternal depression without knowing the cause scared me more than anything. 

As I get older suicide is back on the table, not because of misery but out of fear of pain, insanity and dependence. I know that I must resolve this issue in my mind sooner or later. Having argued that suicide probably doesn’t end anything, or end me, how can I then do it? I’m not concerned about morality, or what god might think, just the mechanics of it; i.e. what happens next.

This is what Sai Baba wrote – but I don’t get it.

In regard to every matter, my thoughts are always sublime and exemplary. You must note that Swami's life is in His own hands and not in those of anyone else. If I will it, I can live for as long as I please. I can also terminate it at will. It is my will that decides and not any other person. The reason is My purity, selflessness, and divinity. What other testimony is called for? The life of the pure hearted is in their own hands and not in those of others." Discourse, 3 July 1993

EPISODE 44; IN WHICH THE AUTHOR ADMITS TO HYPOCRISY AND THEN GOES TO CHURCH.

Welcome to my blog which this week will begin with an admittance of hypocrisy. A couple of days ago I was happily writing a piece on compassion when my concentration was interrupted by the sound of my neighbour’s drum which, she tells me, is a djembe. I must admit that it isn’t a loud noise but it is base and somehow the beating enters your head like a headache and there begins to pound unceasingly. When it starts, the only way to overcome it is to make more noise yourself which is doable until the evening but impossible at bedtime unless you’re the kind of person who likes to sleep next to airports or motorways. The other day she played for 90 excruciating minutes and then stopped at about 6.30pm, only to start again at 9.00pm. At 10.30pm I lost my temper, jumped out of bed and went out the front door to remonstrate. Only as I started banging on her window, bruising my knuckle in the process, and shouting ‘For god’s sake Jaya, shut-up,’ did I realize a) how cross I was and b) that I was naked. In fact the noise she was making as she wailed along to her drum made it impossible for her to hear me, so I returned to my house and wrote her a letter saying how horrible it was living next door to this noise and begging her to stop.

In the morning I had a reply from the banshee full of anger an accusations, including the allegation that my partner and I don’t go out to work so that we can stay at home and stop her drumming – this despite the fact that a whole year has gone by without our ever saying a word. The next day my partner, who disapproved both of the noise and my rageful response, saw our neighbour in the garden and approached her to make peace. Immediately the banshee flipped and for the next twenty minutes moaned, accused and abused while all the time my partner was just saying, ‘Look at me, Jaya, I’m trying to make peace.’ I was listening from the house and every now and then tossing in unhelpful comments as I struggled to keep my temper. In the end the banshee said she was too busy to talk and slammed her door.

Now as an annoyed neighbour, I feel very disinclined to compromise – though I’m not sure where compromise could be made anyway. But, as my partner has reminded me, this woman is paranoid and disturbed and for her this need to play the drum is crucial to her ability to live with herself. Do I want her killing herself, or me, because I’m hostile to her playing the drum? Clearly not. Does compassion mean I’m going to have to bite my lip when the drum starts? Maybe it does. Can I?  I suppose so. Will I? I doubt it.

***

I have been waiting for some while for a response to my article about spirituality and Christianity being antithetical which I submitted in place of a previous piece saying they were the same thing. When I enquired as to its progress the editor asked me to resubmit because he’d lost it. The same thing had happened with the novel (and yes, again Mr Wafe has gone quiet but this time I’m not going to remind him). How many masterpieces have gone unpublished, I wonder, because they were lost and the author was too timid to hassle, preferring to settle into the familiar despair rather than risk the wrath of the god-like publishers? The advantage in this instance, however, is that I’ve been able to tidy up one or two points that were bothering me, particularly the lines trying to explain exactly why the Christian narrative is so intrinsically different to spirituality. It was Charley, who put me in the way of Peter Lash’s book in the first place, who nailed it when he talked of ‘the ecstasy of pure cognition’ and of ‘experiencing as god experiences’. 

I admit I’m really curious to see what reception, if any, the article gets. The magazine is a ‘Journal of Holistic Medicine’ which by definition should be sympathetic to spirituality and yet the argument that spirituality was Christianity in another form and that ‘spiritual’ needs were indefinable to the point of non-existence didn’t seem to annoy them. 

***

Ironically, perhaps, since writing the above paragraph I have been to Mass; a liberal catholic mass held in a small chapel in the local cemetery. I went to show some solidarity with my potential colleague on the Day of the Dead venture. Beforehand I did feel some anticipation because it is 45 years since I was a catholic boy and I was curious to see what memories floated-up. In fact not many did, partly perhaps because the chapel is almost denuded of imagery and partly because the liturgy was in English. For all the stripping of dogma however, the service remains bizarre and the described relationship between man and god, quite incomprehensible.

I have to admit that throughout the service I was having a battle with my internal dialogue which was qualifying its mocking of the myth behind the performance with a more tolerant view that admitted Id quite happily participate in equally obscure ceremonies if they were in Sanskrit and worshipped Shiva or Krishna. On the other hand I’d never think of these stories having any literal truth whereas this concoction of a father/son divine dictatorship seems to require a belief to make it valid.

I was reminded also of Barry Long’s contempt of priests and their need to dress-up. My liberal self thinks well, why not if it makes you feel better, whereas another part things for fuck’s sake if the clothes make the difference then we’re truly lost.

I did however gain something from the proceedings. I began this piece on hypocrisy and the epistle, the gospel and the sermon, were all about the tongue, an ‘unruly evil’ ‘full of deadly poison’ which no man can control. Thinking of my behaviour this week I couldn’t help but feel somewhat reprimanded.