POSTCARD #222: Bangkok/New Delhi flight: An awareness of things as they are. The main event was the injection in the head and the constant (PHN) headache gone instantly. Wake up next day and it was still gone, gone as I write this, and it remains gone. So reassuring to know the transformation to ordinary things is possible, the car is back from the garage and out on the road again.

The release from head pain is still held back due to the pain of broken rib but so much easier to cope with now the headache has gone. Walking the miles in airports was thought to be a problem though, so Jiab convinced me to request a wheelchair. Wheelchair from check-in to the lounge then wheelchair to the plane, straight in and the first seat in C class section of the plane. Stewardess puts my bag away in…

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‘Skirting Sentinel Stones’…

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‘ And Ravenous Trolls’…

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‘Where Erratics Squat’…

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‘And Shaped Stones Stand’…

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‘Into the Old-Man’s-Fort’…

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Hello, everyone! Hope you all had a nice weekend 🙂 I’ve been away since Friday with little to no wi-fi coverage, so I’m a bit behind on blog posts and comments – sorry! There have also been a few new visitors and followers here, so I just want to say welcome, and thanks for coming on the journey with me.

My weekend away was at a Silent Eye workshop – I have a great interest in the ancient history of Britain, and this was a chance to get up close and personal with some wonderful monuments left by our enigmatic ancestors. And it was… intense. A lot happened, and I will be writing about it here, but I just need a few days for it to all ripple and resonate until it settles. For now, I’ll leave you with the above photo, taken at sunrise yesterday morning, and a poem…

Part Five of The Unseen Sea

The square in the town is bathed in the kind of mellow light that you get only at the end of summer. Jessica is playing, walking toe to heel, following the lines on the old stone, flags, which were rescued and restored from an historic water mill by the local authority as part of its millennium celebrations.

Grandad Lucca sips his coffee; bought, by his daughter, Alexandra, from the Costa nearby after they elected to stay outdoors to take the last of the glowing gold in the rare pure-blue sky.

“She’s really enjoyed being here,” says Alex. “We should come up more often..”

“You know you should,” says Grandad Lucca, sipping his coffee, “and you know you’re more than welcome, anytime.”

Father and daughter say nothing, each enjoying their coffee as the sun overhead fills their exposed skin with warmth and life. Father closes…

It is early when I wander through to the kitchen… the world is silent except for the little grunting noises Ani makes as I cuddle her good morning. I don’t speak dog fluently, but I have a feeling these short, low grunts are an expression of affection; you only ever hear them during cuddles and that is how we start our day, the small dog and I.

As the kettle boils I think about the headline I’d glimpsed about a twenty second cuddle being good for your health. I hadn’t looked up the science behind it, prepared to agree unquestioningly that cuddles are good for you. Just having someone close enough to open their arms to you, someone you trust enough to be able to hug back… that shows you have affection in your life and that has to be a good thing. Even if the arms, in this case…

“For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length–and there I travel looking, looking breathlessly.”
― Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

Recently a name has kept on cropping up that takes me back several decades. There seems to be a resurgence of interest in the books of Carlos Castaneda, an intriguing figure who, with the unlikeliest of stories, managed to capture the imagination of a generation of spiritual seekers.

The first books to hit the shelves were written when he was an anthropology student. They purported to be true accounts of a meeting with Don Juan, a Yaqui Man of Knowledge of a lineage of Toltec Seers… and of the author’s training and subsequent journeying into ‘nonordinary reality’. Originally hailed as accurate…

As soon as you start to mention the whole mind over matter thing, scepticism immediately cuts in like an automatic safety mechanism to keep you on the right side of reality and sanity. Vague visions of objects floating across a room by the use of telekinetic powers are accompanied by the eerie strains of 70s sci-fi TV and straight away, you are unconsciously looking for the wires.

As an idea, it isn’t quite so far-fetched though. There are good reasons to believe that the mind can influence matter and that the body can influence the mind.

Smiling is a good example. We smile when we feel happy, yet it is equally true that we feel happy when we smile. Even if it is a forced smile, by activating the muscles around the mouth and eyes in imitation of a smile, the brain is fooled into thinking we must have something

To the small creatures that call the tree home, we are no more than a temporary addition to their landscape. Spiders and beetles wander over our legs or drop from our hair as we rest with our backs to the trunk, feeling the sleepy life of the tree through our spines. Our world is in the darkness and we are grateful for the cool oasis of dappled shade. Around us the earth bakes in the noonday sun that saps our energy, while the birds, butterflies and bees reap the harvest of summer.

On a hot day, there is no better place to be than within the shade of a tree, looking out upon a sweltering world without feeling the heat of a sun that blasts and sears. Yet hiding in the shadows is not always the best option. There are many who seek the safety of the shadows rather than…

Nice lads. (Found at Matt Fradd)

Well. I’ve been trying to write the same post since April 2015, and it might (just) be about to be writ… or not… so a little preamble might be in order.

I was at work. The phone rang. It was the wife. She immediately went on a rambling explanation about two clean-cut young men standing on the doorstep. When would I be home to meet them?

Well, it made sense. They were offering something that I badly needed. The comparative religion / cult shelf was missing “The Book of Mormon”. Ironically, I’d seen them sitting in a car on the street the night before. Since they must have noticed me diving through a handily open window in order to avoid them, it couldn’t possibly be awkward when we would finally meet.

Nice pair of misguided lads, with an intensity and fervour which would…