Sue, holding all the strings, of course, sheds some light on Ben’s predicament . . . from afar . . .
Share this:
Stuart takes us deeply into spiritual riddles . . .
Share this:
Ben’s Bit – part five – The Reasonable Dr Grey
The man is calm. His dark-rimmed, circular glasses focus the intensity of his study at me, rather than taking in the light that bounces off my prison uniform, whose monotone colour, resembling a modern warship, bears his name.
“Do you think it’s normal for a person in your position to refuse bail?” Dr Grey asks, reasonably. He knits the fingers of his hands together into an unconscious tight fist, in a movement that reminds me how physically close together two entirely different gestures can be. “It was, after all, a first offence?” he says.
He’s not a reasonable person, though the system, no doubt, judges him to be so. He’s a very person. Very educated, very fair . . . very capable of judgement.
I have no doubt that I am in the presence of evil, very here.
I put my hands on the old metal table that separates us and look back through the glass circles that shield his eyes. Deliberately and slowly, I gather my own hands and pull his attention towards the fingers which interlock gently and lovingly, bringing mind and matter into harmony as I cross the thumbs and breathe the silence of calmness and life into this sterile exchange.
Despite his intent, he realises that I have created a parody of his false tranquility. He separates his own clenched fingers and knits his brows.
“We are not unreasonable people, Ben,” he says, reassuringly; hiding his inner frustration that a renowned Derbyshire psychiatrist could be tripped up so soon in a relationship by a gesture. “I am sure that you . . .” he pauses for effect. “ . . . And your accomplices had your reasons for the crime, but wouldn’t it have been easier to accept the bail conditions once you were caught?” He smiles, and I have to acknowledge that I am in the presence of a very clever man.
I want this to be over, so a degree of cooperation is necessary, though I already know what the outcome will be. I respond with, “The bail figure set by the local judge took advantage of my perceived status as a businessman. It was inflated beyond reasonableness and based on a false value of my so-called wealth.” Then I look him in the eyes and say, pointedly, “Hundreds of thousands is not funny, nor is it justice . . .”
Dr Grey smiles, understandingly, and mulls this over with an opening of his fingers to show that’s debatable for a criminal masquerading as a respectable pillar of the community. For the thousandth time, he clicks the silver ball at the end of his pen, then scribbles some notes in his expensive looking and weather-beaten black leather pad. “So, you weren’t against the idea of bail?” he asks.
“Not at all.” I say. “Do you think I enjoy being in here?”
“I just wondered,” he muses. “If, perhaps you felt like a martyr to your cause?”
“What cause?” I add, pulling my eyes from looking at my crossed thumbs and raising them to look, calmly, into his.
“The cause that took you all out in the late night, dressed and armed for theft, to raid our ancient church?”
I think of Wen’s humble but accurate air rife . . . hardly special forces, even given our impromptu, all-black uniforms. “Don’t you think you’re getting carried away with this?” I ask, reasonably, avoiding any response to his carefully hidden word ‘all’.
“Carried away as in our precious stone . . .” He sneers, proud of his timely quip in the face of the first real response he’s had from me.
“Our precious stone?” I ask. “You’re local then?”
Dr Grey breathes deeply. His body language suggests growing impatience. I’m learning far more about him than he is about me. He has all the power, of course. But I don’t want to show him I know that . . .
“This is an old jail, Ben,” he lets out the held breath. “It is not a pleasant place to be – it has a history of doing strange things to one’s mental state. Wouldn’t you rather cooperate with us and put this behind you?” He drums his fingers on the metal surface; it sounds a lot like the drum roll that might precede a hanging. It’s cleverly done and quite sinister; changing the emotional atmosphere in this room of interrogation. “We can be creatively lenient, too . . .” It’s a chilling statement, given what it really says.
Before I can extract this outrageous mental dagger, he continues, “Conspiring to carry out an act like this – as the stone could not have been stolen by one man, alone – can be considered a serious offence . . . if there are thought to be deeper motives.” Dr Grey smiles, bringing the drum roll to a sudden stop.
“We -when,” I say, shrieking inside that I nearby dropped the ball. “When I moved the stone, I did not steal it, I simply moved it somewhere else – somewhere it had originally been . . .”
“I know,” he says, gleefully, pouncing on the cue he’s been expecting. He pushes another edition of the Bakewell Gazette across the table at me.
The article is an old one. I suspect Dr Grey has been saving it. It is simply an update on the one that Yellow Eyes brought me, but hints that the inhabitants of the nearby village, to which we took the stone, are secretly pleased that their choice piece of sacred history has been restored. Quite how the good and the great of Bakewell are taking it can be read in the determined expression on Dr Grey’s face, as he watches me clutch at this ray of hope.
“Not in a million years . . .” he says, meaning any determined opposition to my incarceration from the villagers, but pointing at the article. “. . . Could you have moved that stone, alone.” It’s a very clever use of English, and even someone studying the videotape of the interview would easily miss it.
“I did move the stone, I used portable machinery. It’s quite possible if you know what you’re doing – and my car is more that capable of carrying that load.” The latter is true.
“Beautiful car, I’m told . . . a BMW?” he adds. “You must miss it?”
I pretend I’m looking back at my featureless cell wall. I miss more than just my bloody car . . .
He leans forward. “Ben,” he says, changing his tone back to Dr Reasonable, “Do you think that the man in the street, in a Bakewell street, say, would describe you as a sane person . . .”
It is, unfortunately and terrifyingly, a very reasonable question . . .
———————————————————–< to be continued-
Ben’s Bit is a continuing first-person narrative of the character created by Stuart France and Sue Vincent, which may bear some relation to the author of this story, Steve Tanham, their fellow director of the Silent Eye School of Consciousness. In the latest of their books, Scions of Albion, Ben is arrested for his overly enthusiastic part in a mad escapade, and the other two are nowhere to be seen . . . For more, enjoy their Doomsday series of books, and the new series (Lands of Exile) beginning soon. Click here for details.
Share this:
Rooted in the Land
No raging storm front tears my roots from ridge
No howling sky will twist and drag my limbs from land
The densest deluge will not wash my will
enduring, rooted here to frame and feed this place.
But one day the lightning may come . . .
And neither rhyme nor reason then resist endurance’s end
©Copyright words and image Stephen Tanham 2015
Share this:
Sue (and the rest of us) recalls one of the most intense and dramatic moments of the Silent Eye’s history . . . was that only a year ago?
Share this:
A haunting photo of Pendle Hill, in my home county of Lancashire; and some deep thoughts from smackedpendtax about one of the sadder periods in that county’s history . . . and the weakness of the human mind in the face of collective fear.
Share this:
+ Consciousness, enneagram, esoteric psychology, Metanoia, Nine Deadly Sins with Coffee, Silent Eye School, spiritual turning around, Spirituality
Nine Deadly Sins with Coffee, part 25 – The Turning Point
by Steve Tanham
I knew it was Alexandra. I could feel her strong presence as she entered the cafe for our Monday morning chat. Even though I could not see it, I could tell, exactly, the moment that she stood still to take in the scene, unmoving by the doorway, gazing across the busy tables, her vision locking on to the spectacle . . .
I had worn the best of my suits. Following a purge of what turned out to be fourteen of them, I had three remaining, of which this plain blue travel suit was the best. It was freshly laundered and pressed. It felt strange to be back in it after three years of living the very opposite of the IT corporate life from which I had departed. Chinos and a good shirt were my usual ‘best dressed’ these days.
But she wasn’t looking at the unusual sight of me in a suit . . .
Around me was a circle of silent people. Despite the usual crush of Monday morningers, as we had come to know them (and us), there was an eerie quiet over several tables on either side. They were waiting, as people often do in this situation. They were waiting to find out why the usual emotional space in which they lived had been ‘stopped’.
You needed the eyes of good friends in a scene like this. Good friends need not be those you already know – in fact, they are often completely new to you; and hence of the moment, which is everything. My particular good friends of this moment of presence were a rotund couple, presumably grandparents of the two red-faced and excited children, both in stripey tops and clutching buckets and spades still in the post-purchase netting. Several minutes prior, the children had caught my conspiratorial wink, and had, gleefully, winked back at me, whispering to a silent and astonished Janet and John senior that there was a game being played . . . Children are wonderful accomplices, if you solicit their help at the right moment.
There is also, of course, the danger of a real madman, so people are cautious, too. But I wasn’t radiating the same sort of vibes you would get in that situation. I was making it comic, but unexplained, and that can be a powerful combination, as mime artists throughout history would attest.
There was a cough behind me.
“It deserved a response,” I said, looking at Janet and John senior but not talking to them. I winked again at the kids, who crushed together and waved their little legs in glee.
“It was that good?” Alexandra said to the back of my neck.
“It was better than that . . .”
“Will I need to help you drink your coffee?” she asked.
“No, but you might straighten my tie, if you would be so kind – I think it has twisted a bit.”
“It has,” she said, leaning over our usual small coffee table and adjusting the oversized, orange knot I had carefully tied an hour ago, before wresting myself into the suit jacket at the back of the car.
“The tie would be one of nine you have left, I take it?”
I laughed at the cleverness of that. “Yes, I used to have nine, but we have only one remaining.”
“Nine of nine?” she asked.
“Of course!”
“Going out in style?”
“A suitable response to that magnificent performance of yours last week!”
I heard her chuckle. “Well, a girl’s gotta graduate some time . . .”
“Can you turn around and drink your coffee?” she asked.
“Can’t possibly,” I said, rolling my eyes at Janet junior who giggled and shook her head, certain that one couldn’t.
“Because the Nine has his head backwards by virtue of a jacket, shirt and tie that cover his back and not his front.”
“Nope,” said the reversed man. “Now, you’ve stopped trying and are getting piqued!”
I heard her sit down and drink some coffee. The whole cafe had dropped into silence. It can be like that, being creatively different or an idiot, depending on your perspective; but, if you stick with it, amazing things can happen.
There was an audible in-breath, the sort you’d take if you were a barrister and about to make your closing address. Then she let it out and giggled. “The suit isn’t turned around – you are!”
“Big difference?” the reversed man asked.
“Huge difference.” I could feel her neck straightening as the point of the charade came clear.
“He’s turned away . . . he’s fully equipped for the best of life if he were just to use it, but he’s turned away!”
“Metanoia.” I said.
“Metawhata?”
“Greek. Metanoia was wrongly translated when the versions of the Bible we use today were being assembled.” I could feel her listening. “Metanoia was rendered as ‘repent’, but its root word means a turning around.”
“‘Unless ye turn around‘ . . .” said my clever and learned friend. “To face what?”
“To face where you came from – our shared divine origin. I looked at John junior’s shining eyes and smiled back, drawing a pretend halo over my head – something quite difficult in a backwards suit. He laughed with me and swung his feet again, enjoying the strangest Punch and Judy show he’d ever seen.
“I get it,” she said, much closer than she should have been. With a strength I didn’t know she possessed, she spun my chair around and I looked up into eyes which were shining every bit as much as John junior’s. “I get it,” she repeated, as I ground to a halt. “Now drink your bloody coffee and let all these people have their breakfast!”
There was spontaneous applause at her actions, as everyone returned to a normal Monday morning. There were tears in her eyes. “But someone from ‘in life’ had to swing you around didn’t they?” she said.
I looked back with tenderness into the tears. Shaking my head, I started to speak, “It’s a mirr. . .” But she hung her head and sniffed, speaking very low; really getting it.
“It wasn’t you that was turned around, was it . . . ” It was not a question.
“No,” I said softly. Leaning forward and planting a small kiss on the top of her head. “No.”
“And you did all this for me,” she looked up and around at a room returned to its normal state.
“For anyone who comes to the gate and asks,” I said softly.
It was a little while later. I had, at Alexandra’s insistence, put my jacket on correctly, and removed my tie. At least I now just looked like a vicar, she had said, leaving for her train.
Rose arrived at my table with a fresh coffee. She had a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. I looked down at the coffee cup. She had placed the saucer upside down on the cup’s rim. On the top of the inverted saucer were a neatly folded bill and a delicately-balanced, heart-shaped chocolate from a Black Magic selection.
“Five coffees and two ice creams.” she barked, smiling into my open-mouthed response. “Three for you and the lady, and the rest for your backstage team behind – it’s the least you can do.”
I could only agree; and turned to smile at the four happy faces grinning at me, tucking into the additional course.
“And the chocolate?”
“Made me cry, too – you idiot; and I’ve no idea why . . .”
Behind me, John junior’s legs were swinging, happily, making the whole floor tremble.
———————————————————–
Nine Deadly Sins with Coffee is usually published on Thursdays.
All images and text ©International copyright, The Silent Eye School of Consciousness, 2015.
Steve Tanham is a director of the Silent Eye School of Consciousness; a place of companionship, sharing and the search for the real in life, using the loving techniques and insights of esoteric psychology. He retired from a life as an IT entrepreneur to establish the School in 2012, and, having persuaded Sue Vincent to . . .
Share this:
Another lovely moorland journey from James at smackedpentax
Share this:
Sue does a wheelie . . .
Share this:
More of Sue’s amazing ability to reconcile the impossible . . .
“Look at it this way… you’ll be dead soon…”
By way of comfort for my insecurities this, I felt, left a lot to be desired. My son, however, chose to expand upon his logic and I have to agree. Worrying about the gradual reshaping of a body over time is no reason not to go swimming. He is right, I may never see any of these people again. He is also right that it will actually help… Although I am constantly in motion, the exercise I am used to has become rather difficult with the increasing stiffness in a variety of joints. And anyway, it isn’t about me. The proposed pool-time is about Nick… he needs to learn to swim again.
There is a reason for this, other than the obvious ones…
The triathlon he took part in a week ago was wonderful. So are the two physios he has…
View original post 398 more words
Share this:
The night time is the worst.
Within a world which contains so little, I find myself clinging to what is there; growing more present to the slightest changes in my meagre environment. When the daylight starts to fade in the evening, which happens earlier and earlier under the gathering cloak of Autumn, I can actually feel the waves of darkness changing the atmosphere in my cell.
Light to darkness . . . an exemplar of the polarity that underlies manifestation of the world of ‘things’. I must return to deeper thoughts on this; but not today. Today I must enter the world of ‘not things’ and try to use the brutal facts of my imprisonment to help me find meaning in my new life . . . it’s a big ask, but the alternative is unthinkable.
The twilight is a portal into that worst time of day, but it can also be the best. The best because the poignancy of the last of the departing light is compelling, but it is so brief; and then darkness follows.
It is dark now. I could switch on my cold light, fixed behind a grill in the ceiling, complete with its collection of dead insects, but I do not. Instead, I sit in the gloom and talk without words to the assembling shadows, half real, half invisible, which I must transform from spectre to friends . . . or lose my sanity.
Where do we start? My emotions are in turmoil. The spectacle of psychic cruelty with Yellow Eyes has finished for the day. He is satisfied with a Friday well spent in which he has succeeded in getting beneath my defences by assuring me that the police have found new evidence that I was assisted in the crime which took place here in Bakewell; and that it will not be long before my fellow ‘conspirators’ are caught. I knew he was lying, but the exchange has prompted longing thoughts, and he registered that, and is well satisfied with his ‘hit’.
Through this haranguing I remained silent, using the stream of vitriol to imagine my friends, Don and Wen, who I know will be thinking of me, regardless of their power to do anything. I pictured them walking the hills, among the ancient stones – perhaps discovering new ones? Happy to be in their native mode of discovery, but sad to be accompanied by the unwanted companion that is the presence of someone taken away . . .
What where we thinking? my mind screamed; but Yellow Eyes saw that – the doubt – and was pleased with his success.
Now I am alone with the unmetered darkness.
This black silence is a strange thing. There is, of course, a traditional and biological unease associated with its return. From our genes and our childhood rises the spectre of this ancient companion.
I think about fear. I am growing used to its weight. There comes a point , though, when some deep part of you can choose to be bored of its company . . . and then interesting things happen.
Some days it lies, cowering and vanquished in the corner of the cell, bettered by a disciplined mind. On other days, it invades the cell like a putrid tide, penetrating and filling the spaces where the thin psychological skin of the solitary human is peeled back to reveal the sliding, dark liquid of unnamed terror. Imagination fuels fear. I know this to be true and it opens the inner gates of deeper contemplation. It is time that I carried out the practice that I hope will keep soul alive in this place.
I settle into the position I have found most comfortable for these journeys of the mind. Seated on the floor with my back to the mattress, I arrange myself cross-legged and buffered by a small cushion, which, during other hours of the day, doubles as my extra pillow. At first, I do nothing but breathe, letting myself become aware of the whole sensation of my body, and its associate tensions. Then, as the purposeful attention grows, I slide one hand into the other as though in a prayer position; but then knit the fingers, leaving my thumbs until last, and locking my awareness into my overlapping and joined thumbnails, which lie on the X-shaped support of my crossed forefingers. It is not a formal approach to inwardness, but it works for me . . .
All my consciousness draws itself from the body into that cross and we leave the confines of the physical cell and enter a world where the very notion of ‘wall’ is nonsensical.
I am far from my ideal – which is to maintain this state without effort; but the other way forward is to follow the chains of thoughts which inevitably surface, without becoming attached to any of them, and this will often suffice to bring out the truth.
I return to imagination – the spectre of what I think of as the first gate – at once the greatest gift and the greatest foe of mankind. The dark in the cell is now so total that I don’t need to close my eyes – but I do, anyway . . . The tide of shadows becomes animated with my thoughts, my presence in the moment of dark entry immediately spoiled by the forms and sensual garments it takes.
I should have expected them to be there; to be just below the conscious surface, since I think about them so often. They are on a hilltop, far away in the bright Autumn sunshine. I am racing towards them across the long wet grass, lush from the faded Summer’s constant rain. Don and Wen hear my breathless approach and turn, delight filling their eyes. He holds out his left hand; she, her right. My heart is pounding as I close the distance between us, my own hands outstretched . . . but then the landscape recedes, and they get smaller and smaller as the range of hills takes them away, and I am left sobbing in the muddy grasses, on hands and knees, feeling the water from the moor seep into my skin.
But this is imagination, fuelled by the emotion of longing. It will drag me down, so I choose No and reject the abandoned image and the harvest of despair it will bring. I let my thoughts become free, again.
Images of dark years ahead rise up, taking hold of my heart in the process. In this image, around Bakewell jail there forms a queue of visitors, clutching the Bakewell Gazette whose favourite pastime is to pay my jailer so they can stand on the other side of the bars and gaze, unmercifully at their corporate captive – the man who dared to interfere with their little-visited heritage. In my mind they nod their approval to Yellow Eyes, their appointed guardian of all things jail and church . . . and pay him in the colour of his eyes.
Jail and church. This thought is different from the last. As though watched from a place of unafraid attention, it is instantly illuminating. I pull back from the early stages of this meditation to lock the newfound fact in consciousness, like a discovered pearl in an oyster.
Yellow Eyes is linked with the local church – the church that was the scene of our crime. I know, now, that this is true . . . from the depths of my unformed terrors the simple fisherman has caught something of immense value . . . I can feel the smile on my face as I cut short the inward attempt and consider the implications of what I have learned.
The shutter in the door slams shut. He has been watching all the time, though he could have seen very little in the chosen darkness. For a second I feel the conditioned response of resentment at this, but every reaction counts, in here; and I reconsider. By spying, he has become part of what I have just experienced; has felt, if not seen, the triumphant smile on my face.
By my not resisting this, and just for a second, Yellow Eyes has become part of my story instead of me being part of his.
———————————————————–< to be continued-
Ben’s Bit is a continuing first-person narrative of the character created by Stuart France and Sue Vincent, which may bear some relation to the author of this blog, Steve Tanham, their fellow director of the Silent Eye School of Consciousness. In the latest of their books, Scions of Albion, Ben is arrested for his overly enthusiastic part in a mad escapade, and the other two are nowhere to be seen . . . For more, enjoy their Doomsday series of books, and the new series (Lands of Exile) beginning soon. Click here for details.
Share this:
Some deeply contemplative Summer poetry from Stuart . . .
Sun in Gemini 
You must be logged in to post a comment.