Squirrel Time, again...

HELLO EVERYONE, or perhaps I should say hello ANYONE, as not so many people read blogs anymore—or mine anyway... Well I moved back to Minnesota a few months back; I am very glad to come back here to the land of art deco buildings and homes and all the squirrels running up and down all the trees. It is strange though, not really being able to go many places and hang around groups of people anymore. That really has hit me (and quite a few other people) pretty hard, as no doubt everyone is tired of thinking about. Don't worry, that's not what I'm writing about! Right now I just have to take each day as it comes: thinking about the future, or the past, only leads to worry and regret: they don't exist anyway. These are not the things I am about. I do find myself greatly changed in the past 5 years, though. I do hope I move back towards the center of my Self again: that, more than anything else, is what I hope for in the coming year and beyond, should I have a 'future'. I recall when I was in San Luis Obispo many years ago and had gone to a music store to browse celtic stringed instruments, I heard a beautiful and familiar voice singing to an acoustic guitar. I went over and listened to him till he was done, then I said, 'You might have a future in this.' And I'll never forget his response, 'I don't know about a future, but I've got a past!' and we both laughed. Somethimes I think laughing at life, 'fate', 'fortune', and the Universe itself is the only (and most powerful) thing we can do: there is this real power to accepting and letting go. Dream well my friends and laugh, yes always that. ~REIFYN <3

The Tales of Baba Yaga

RECENTLY I RECEIVED a request to write about Baba Yaga from a friend I’ve never met. The tales of Baba Yaga appear to predate the written word in the Slavic regions of the world; and her stories have survived into Russian, and some eastern European, folk literature to this day. As you might imagine, much regarding her has been altered by cultural changes, some of which were forcibly enacted by the coming of new religion to the region, and the rest of which has appeared more recently by the irreverent means that is the popular culture, which turns gold to painted tin and truth into meaningless metaphor, and all to glorify the ridiculous notion that humanity has power over everything and is greater than the Universe itself, and which turns gods into superheroes and villains that can be vanquished and explained by human science. Baba Yaga’s name is of great interest, as the etymology of the word Baba has led to the modern Russian word Babushka, which is akin to grandmother. I believe Baba Yaga to be the first and true grandmother of all of us, and so I find the name fitting; it is a role of chastiser and protector who sees, through her wisdom, what our actual needs are even when we don’t know it for ourselves. The name Yaga has received mostly dead-ends in terms of its origins: I absolutely refute the idea that it means ‘evil’, in particular because the concepts of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ did not exist in much of the ancient world: these were ideas that developed over time, largely from religious sources that began to control even sources of folk wisdom, much to the great loss for all of us. Now we have to dig for Inner Truth in everything, even who our great grandmother is, until, rather like a Russian nesting doll, we eventually get to the tiniest self of all, found in the very center of extraneous material: for truth nowadays is always small and hidden, and always worth the trouble to find it. As far as I’m concerned Yaga is a name, her name, and that is enough. That it is synonymous with unpleasantness... well, that depends on why you approach Baba Yaga and what you actual hope for in the meeting. In the tales of Baba Yaga, one discovers that she lives in a hut on fowl’s legs: it is a dancing hut, in fact, as it spins in circles, making entering it rather hazardous. Even approaching it at all is fraught with danger, as it is said to be surrounded by a fence made of bones, having flaming skulls at the top of the bony posts at intervals throughout it. If anyone of bad intention were to try and enter through the gate (or climb over it), the skulls nearest would blaze up and the offender would combust spontaneously, caught in the flames coming from the skulls. You really have to want to visit your grandmother, you know, and not merely to bring her pies in a basket. It is an earnest act and one that demands solemn earnestness on the part of the visitor. If your intentions are honorable and you come with humility, you have little to fear: when not, don’t expect to get away too easily—that fence is not made up of wooden posts! There are meant to be hundreds if not thousands of variations of tales about Baba Yaga, most diluted and polluted by concepts of ‘evil’ and ‘ugliness’. One cannot call the Grandmother a ‘witch’, unless one means a wise-woman of the greatest order; it is a pity that many have recalled the frightening aspects of Baba without comprehending in any way what she truly offers us and who she really is. In some tales, there appear to be three of her, all sisters, and each one more powerful or terrible than the last. I doubt this is actually true: it is a common motif in mythology to have a triune goddess representing young, middle age and elder-hood, but probably all aspects of the same goddess: it is a way for Baba to instruct us. One always has the feeling that when someone escapes her, it is because she has provided the means of escape, as a young man who asks to blow three horns in her house whilst she is getting ready (she says) to eat him, and she allows it, so that a great quantity of birds arrive and he escapes on the back of a firebird; though not before she seizes it by the tail, keeping a handful of feathers. It is as if she was saying, ‘See, I could have got hold of you if I’d wanted,’ as indeed she could. Perhaps the most popular tale of Baba Yaga is called ‘Vasilisa the Wise’, which, when translated by the English in the 19th century acquired the title ‘Vasilisa the Beautiful’ as Victorian men could not get their heads around a wise young woman, and so downgraded her to the merits of her looks (and they haven’t stopped this trend even to this day, mores the pity). So the tale ‘originally’ has no mention of Vasilisa’s appearance, only that she lived with her father after her mother died and she was relatively happy till he remarries and the new wife brings her own daughters to live there. When the father is away, they scheme to rid themselves of Vasilisa, and to that end allow all the lights and fire to go out. Claiming they have no means to relight them, they send the girl through the dark woods on the way to Baba Yaga’s fearsome hut to beg for a light, hoping she would be killed and eaten. One of the skulls at the gate asks her why she is there and she tells it she seeks fire from Baba Yaga. The gate allows her entrance and the hut in the midst of the clearing is very still. She knocks and is allowed to enter. When questioned by the crone, she answers truthfully. Baba makes her perform various tasks, all of which she accomplishes by the aid of her mother’s blessing in the form of a doll left to her, after which Baba Yaga gruffly gives her a bone with a flaming skull at the end and sends her away, quite aware, one can see, of the truth of Vasilisa’s circumstances and the threat awaiting her at the house. When she gets there, the three women are dumbstruck that this pale girl has returned at all. When she raises the fire-skull to offer it to them, flames pour out of it consuming the three and the house alike. The tale ends here, with Vasilisa escaping. The Victorians marry her off to some idiotic prince, but that never happened, here or anywhere. When a comparison was being drawn up of Slavic and classical gods, goddesses and other figures, no equivalent was found to the Baba Yaga: no, she is in a class by herself. She is as old as death. Perhaps she is Old Age itself, with all its attendant horrors, not the least of which is Death itself, waiting there patiently in the end. I sometimes feel that the true lesson from an encounter with Baba is that we are reminded of death simply by meeting her—whether she frightens us by threatening to consume us—or that she gives us a gift we ask for innocently and in good faith, only to find that the gift itself uses fire to purify and exorcise the demons that plague our life. For if Vasilisa had stayed at her home, it would have meant her own untimely end; and it took her Grandmother’s gift to set the place afire and consume those who sought her life, so she could run from it finally, by the light of the burning house. She had no way to know that this would happen—she sincerely brought the fire back that she’s been sent to retrieve. Ah, but Baba Yaga knows best. Baba Yaga is very great, very wise and very powerful. I may have met her once; and I know I will again, some day... Peace always, ~Reifyn

Fluffums

HERE IS A little vid of Fluffums out for a walk back from the shops with his two servants. You may notice that one is carrying a loaf of bread for the kitty's mouse-sandwiches, while the other is carrying Marmalade, Fluffum's favourite pink bunny. When a car arrives from behind, Fluff leaps in the air and performs an amazing acrobatic feat to turn and face the potentially dangerous automobile. A fine day out. Let's hope we too will always land on our feet...

The Old Ways Revisited

TODAY I reposted many of my old blog posts from years past: I just thought they should see the light of day again, and that there may be those amongst my few readers left to whom they may be of interest. ~R

Pursuing One’s Self; and oh am I tired...

HULLO EVERYONE I am still on the Earth, though very tired. I’ve felt like the fate of the world has been in the balance this week...and perhaps it has been. From a personal perspective, it has been a difficult past 4 years or so, for many different reasons. It has truly been hurtful to see the ways other people have been treating one another, when such actions appear sanctioned by someone who shows zero empathy for anybody else. It has made being dreadful acceptable seemingly. But for me, it has been quite sad; especially having gotten stuck essentially marooned due to the worldwide plague. It has made it very difficult to consider going somewhere else I might be happier in. HOWEVER, long-time readers of this blog will recall how I got ‘stuck’ in the smokey west coast and also in the high desert of the southwest, yet somehow, when the time was right, I left those places, and left also my mark upon them, as they did on me. It is always of interest to look back and realise that if I circumnavigate the whole world, I feel that one day I will meet my self in a field somewhere standing alone and tap myself on the back and I’ll turn round and say, ‘oh, it’s you.’

That’ll be a good day.

Peace always and kindness, yes always that,

Reifyn

Yes World, I am still Very Much Alive

Everyone, it’s me! I’m a good deal tireder than I’d like, and a bit older I suppose; but I’m still around. This time I am in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan...it is a somewhat isolated spot, but very beautiful. I just returned from Minnesota; I love the place, but the Twin Cities have changed a good deal since I lived there over three years ago. Neighborhoods that were safe before, don’t seem that way to me now, and it is VERY crowded... I do love Minnesota though, and enjoyed a bit of a tour of some bits. I really enjoyed a small town called Rush City, where the people were really friendly and nice to me. The place is full of rushes, from which it must get its name I’d guess. And Two Harbors was likewise worth a visit. Of course, it did turn out to be 5’F when I arrived in MN, and there was a blizzard when I left... It looks like another loooooooong winter on the way. Brrrrrr!

I’ve been lamenting the seeming demise of blogging: once upon a time when I was trapped in Arizona for three years, if I didn’t have blogs to read and write, I think I’d have gone mad. Now, almost all of the folk whose blogs I’d followed have quit their blogs, which is sad to me. But then, even I have hardly used it—though largely due to only owning an ipad and a phone for the past 4 years or so. I may get another computer, but it’ll have Linux on it. Things have changed so much in the world since that time, especially in terms of technology. But what disconcerts me mostly is the shift in the direction of hate; yes, it seems acceptable in this country and world these days, and I find this deeply sad and concerning.

Sometimes I feel like going to live in a hermitage and spending my days praying and growing food; other times, like Lao Tsu, I want to walk off into the mountains and never come back. I said to someone a few weeks ago that hate seems more powerful than love because it burns so intensely—but in so doing, it consumes the hater until there is nothing left—whereas love is like this constant background energy upon which the truth of the Universe depends: it is constant, consistent, and largely missed or ignored by humans. We feel alone because we’ve learned to ignore it, to pass it by due to the fact it isn’t screaming in our face like hatred is: hate is like noise; love however abides in silence, and requires a silence in one’s soul to truly ‘hear’ its voice. This is the true voice of the Heart: we have it always, but it is buried in the noise, deeper and deeper within us, till sometimes it is never heard from again.

I wish for that quietude in which I can feel my heart harmonize with the silence of love. For you, too.

XOXO Always,
-Reifyn

News from the Land of Overcast and Cold Damp Rain

WELL, SOMEHOW I survived the past 12 1/2 months here in the Northwest...it has been quite a difficult test. It isn't possible to put into words what it has been like...if I put it into colours instead, it would be like the Northern Lights reflecting flowing lava below, with snow and damp, icy cold intermixed with burning trees and smoldering smoke...maybe a primitive version of Iceland. I've really developed a good deal, this life of mine: confronting the worst of all fears, demons and horrors; and opposing the vile, and the worst of humanity that I encounter around me; finding beauty in unsuspected places; lucidly dreaming and waiting to see what happens next; bringing joy to the fragile and mixing Alchemy with good cooking; healing sorrows, but finding the roots of old wounds and being surprised; sometimes lost in chaotic despair only to find sudden friendships that grab my hand at the last moment, when at the edge of an abyss. These long months have often been like that time when you thought you'd lost a precious thing, only to find you're surrounded by gifts no sane person ever dares to dream of.

So business as usual, when we pay attention...but with flourishes and clusters of the finest stars the Universe can offer, and discovering that that very same Universe is smiling quietly, like some mischievous elf hidden behind an ancient oak, laughing in the knowlege that the Best...is yet to come.

Peace always to you all,
-Reifyn

Here I am~!

It's Only Me From Over The Sea

WELL, I'M STILL wending my way through this bright, beautiful world. I spent more than 1 climacteric year in Minnesota...after the years in the desert in reflection, it was a cooling off period, quite literally. My time on lake Superior was rather dreadful; but I realised at last that my struggle in life has always been worth it; and, although I have not gotten to use my creativity in the volumes of tangible work as I had hoped thus far in life, that I have applied that unique creativity in all that I have done, not the least of which has included the help and encouragement that I have given others when they truly needed it and did not expect it.

On this trip I have come to understand my limitations, and my absolute limits also, which has so often surprised me. The winter I spent in a studio, working on a bit of art, worrying a great deal, and reviewing my life to date. The frigid air was unkind to my lungs in particular, and I now know I cannot spend another winter in so cold a clime. With a couple exceptions, I made essentially only acquaintances in Minnesota: surprisingly, despite being very polite people, I must comment that they were not the most open. I lived in a neighborhood with a massive population of folk from Somalia; and by and large they were some of the nicest folk I've ever met. That neighborhood was very safe--I probably could have gone to sleep in the park there if I wanted. There were a large quantity of squirrels in the area, my fave of which was an albino, whom I was not finding easy to see in the winter snow times--except when running along the wires, which did nicely for a squirrel highway. In April I visited the grave site of an artist I admired when young. Although I regained some lost weight over the winter, I've already lost it again, sadly. My hair has been disappointing me by thinning out; though the visible platinum streaks are a bonus. Someone said to me, 'It is a privilege to grow older--think of how many people who don't get the opportunity.' I had never thought of that.

I truly wanted to meet the glam rock musician and brilliant transgender artist Venus de Mars, and was disappointed not to have seen a show by her. Though in the final week in Minneapolis, I was walking some obscure street in the neighborhood taking a shortcut to the local library, and who should I see at a yard sale, but she herself! I told her how she has always been an inspiration to others and that the work she has done has always demonstrated that she has been true to herself, and thus an amazing success: she gave me a hug then and we parted. I realised that the universe was saying to me, 'It's ok now: you can move on if you want to.' It was one of many assurances I got then, and I left.

Life has proven to be difficult, dangerous and beautiful all at the same time: or within proximity of each. I certainly should NOT be travelling: the effect on my body in light of my injuries is truly disheartening and terrifying at times: I am taking my chances almost, with the utter recklessness of the doomed, and I know it. But I also know that I am a traveller and will not go quietly to whatever fate awaits me. I still continue to feel that if I burn with brilliant brightness, I am like to go out suddenly, with only an afterimage remaining: but what an afterimage it will be. I will burn into the retina of all who beheld me, in all the moments of my existence.

Until then, here's a bit of my memories.

Sunset, Grand Marais MN

An Incomplete Fairy Ring

Tiny Library House: Common in  MN

A Kitty Who Came To Visit In Maplewood

The Micronauts Used To Live Here

Tree Artwork On Card Catalog Sheets

We Ravens Have Fine Spirits

Queen On More Card Catalog Discards

Some Lovely Black-Eyed Friends

Clever Fish Catalog Cards, MPLS Lib

Guess Whooo?

TERRY PRATCHETT checked out today, handed in his cards and left the last page of his story. My interest in the fascinating wizard-like individual is not his literary abilities (although his earlier books are quite good), but rather his interminable positivity and apparent complete lack of fear of death. Like myself, he believed he wouldn't allow his condition to regress to an extent that he was unable to create and live his life as independently as possible. Nonetheless, his old friend Death met him suddenly, rather than by an obvious appointment of Mr Pratchett's choosing with his previously unmet acquaintance.

There's a weird sort of mix of thoughts I now have when reading about or watching Terry's views on these subjects...I have met Death, and more than once. I am not sure if this is some sort of curse, or an honour. On the first occasions I began to run; and I'm not sure I ever really stopped. Then I've knocked on Death's door more recently, perhaps louder than was quite necessary...I sometimes think Death has some kind of unfathomable, patient 'compassion' for me, as I have yet to have the door open. It leaves me wondering if I will be able to meet Death half-way, or if I might get a sudden unexpected tap myself. But somehow, given the life I have led, I think my story has no easy ending...but that remains to be seen.

I have this feeling that Terry Pratchett was not afraid of Death because he wasn't afraid of Life. These are such rare people to find; though it is heartening to know that they exist at all. On his fairly recently drawn-up coat of arms, the author made his motto, Noli Timere Messorem, 'Do not fear the Grim Reaper'. It makes me wonder what my own motto would be. How about It's harder to hit a Moving Target—my personal version of, 'a rolling stone gathers no moss'? I don't know...maybe there is a sort of patient waiting of some kind...one that, even in the end, I might become unafraid of Life or Death...I think that would be a noble goal for any of us.

So I have that hope, at least.

**Chasing Winter**

IT IS BECOMING SUMMER here already: 68'f/20'c and blazing sunshine. I now realise I cannot sit here waiting for a hut-on-fowl's-legs to show up and carry me away; and so I've finally had enough of this place—I feel though if I've made it here and the previous place too, 'stuck' in the south-west for years, I can make it anywhere hereafter. Well, we'll see. Recalling the end of Gibran's The Prophet, he says something like 'only a little while and another woman will bear me'; a cryptic farewell...

So I am chasing WINTER, my long-lost friend, whom I'm to follow and grab by the tail as I head to The North just in time for spring to arrive on a calendar only. Some people think Winter is cruel and hard and unforgiving. I do not think so: I believe Winter to be a patient teacher trying each year to instruct us in how to accept what Is and to realise that we don't have to struggle with and battle everything around us, seeking control. If a wild animal chases you, you run away; and if you survive you don't waste time thinking what a cruel or nasty creature that was—but we do waste a large portion of life cursing others and our 'fate' (whatever that means). But Winter is just there...perennially There, teaching. We are not invincible. We do not manifest destiny. We are a tiny cog in a massive Universe. We can be picked up by the winter wind and set down in some other part of the world, or even the Otherworld. It doesn't matter who we think we are, our self-importance, or how many small-green-pieces-of-paper we may or may not possess. 

And so for me, 'A journey of a thousand miles begins at the back of the North Wind'...

Songs of Innocence and Experience

WELL, I HAVE BEEN delayed in going to The North...so, although I'll likely pass other birds heading south, I will try and fly away closer to the autumn. Meantime I have been packing and getting rid of stuff and scanning (one page at a time) all my journals. I'm amazed at so much of the content, some of which I don't recall at all, and many of the passages I read seem like they were written by somebody else. I am aware of so much intense hope that I no longer possess, having become a realist I suppose, perforce. I recall James Branch Cabell once wrote, 'The optimist believes we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears that this is true.' He goes on to relate that the character he was then writing on was a Realist, quite a different person altogether. For me I'd rather be a Surrealist, which you can no doubt tell by reading this blog. I'm surprised I'm still posting here, actually; but I have occasioned some new people reading these days, and I'm glad they have taken an interest. Here are a few pics from my journals.

A Cardinal (Just for Carmine, whom I know likes them)

Yes, I probably do own shares in LARABAR by now

If you've never read THE ARRIVAL by Shaun Tan, you will love it

Ever wonder where bicycles come from? Now you know

This scene is mentioned in one of my earliest posts—'Creature Confrontations'

Baba Yaga's Hut appears in 3 different journals

No caption would do justice to this pic...Amen, indeed

Hope, a bird of beautiful plumage ~ Fear Not, for I am here (those were the days...)

I must have made the above entry in 2010 or so;

but I've only just noticed the 'current' nature of the 

topics: upper right reads 'North This Way Please',

further proof that each person's life is a single unit,

not made up of linear 'moments', and therefore we

can anticipate any point in our existence.
And as such, Hope and Lack-of-Hope are equal and
both present, and therefore neither is any more
important than the other. But our experience
in Life is such that we do not always recall and
treat equal each 'moment' we separate our life
into, which we do in order to understand it as 
a mortal experience.
~
These things are easy to say; but to live them
I find takes considerable courage and a renewed
sense of innocence that allows us to accept all
these 'moments' that make up our life.

Picture Journal: Trees & Things I've Known

 ONCE UPON A TIME I used to keep a picture journal. This involved taking pictures of things I encountered each day, rather than writing in a journal. By and large I did this because I'd injured my arms so badly that I couldn't write, draw or type for months and months. It was terrible. Nevertheless I was able to create works of art by taking photos to remember things by. We so quickly forget the things we encounter and do; especially when one is in pain much of the time, there is sometimes this inability to think of or recall anything but that, which is a dreadful place to be in. The phone company I've been using was no longer supporting picture messaging on my dinosaur of a phone, so I had to download much of the pictures before I lost the ability to do so. Now here are some of the pics, more or less in a chronological order starting around the beginning of 2011, a tempestuous and mobile year.

This is my fave tree from the place I'd been living back then. It has likely been cut down by now by the backward-thinking creatures who live around it (they decimated most of the other trees nearby and built a horrid parking garage across the road). But while we were both there I sat beneath it, like a guru. People would often pass by and see me there, sitting under this amazing full-grown cork tree. I had a good deal of conversations with it and the other creatures that called it home and traversed up and down its channeled, barky surface. And sometimes the people who'd pass by.

Across the road from one of the most horrid places I'd ever lived (which I'd thankfully only lived in for a matter of months) was this small lakeside park that was mostly quite wild, and included a large field of six-foot tall grasses & wild flowers (which was of course mown down, which was quite upsetting, given how much I'd lay in the middle of it, unseen by anybody). The place was right beside a busy road, sadly. But just as you entered the park from my side, there was this huge willow that grew right out of the water. Old Man Willow I used to call it. I like a good willow.

Now along the edge of the lake was this tree that had fallen over in a storm the previous year. You can't believe it, but it had enough soil still attached that it was still alive and flourishing, even fallen over on its side! I used to sit on the trunk of this tree and contemplate the sunset and the dancing light on the water. No one ever disturbed me: you would have to jump on stepping stones and go through poison oak to get to it, therefore I was the only one who went near it.

If you observe the previous picture, you'll see foam under the tree. I can always see a pattern in everything in nature—there is even a sort of pattern made by the movements of humans and where they place things they build in their environment. So here is a bit of the land and the lake with the foam the intermediate bridge between the two.

Driftwood and any sort of leftover bits of anything organic has a new life of its own. This bit I always liked looking at in this picture, as it reminds me of a long face of some creature. When I was a kid I read this comic called Thor. In one plot he loses his hammer to a long-faced alien called Beta-Ray Bill. I really loved that character when introduced—he was so noble, even though scary-looking. So this wood reminds me of him.

In this same park was a memorial cemetery, where some people planted trees with a plaque that commemorated some lost loved-one. Although some trees had been festooned with various tokens, some of them remained neglected. I used often to bring remembrances for those people who may have been forgotten, and even sang songs about the fact they had been alive in the world once. One of the trees was an acacia tree and here are some beautiful seeds, over a rather short and fractured life-line, for those into palmistry: no surprises there.

In the shopping center a block away had been a coffee-shop which was my other refuge. It closed up before my eyes, and I said I'd leave that neighbourhood the day it closed, and I did. This is from a drawing I did there on the cover of one of my journals, maybe some weeks before my arms were too injured to use without great pain. I've still got the blue & purple scarf I couldn't resist putting into this pic. I took it out of a plastic zip bag the other day. Read the journal too not long ago: I was so strong back then.

Empty Places

IT HAS BEEN a long time since I've really given a good deal of thought about being in lonely, secluded places. When I lost those I love, the next thing I knew I was standing on a cold, desolate beach in the outer Hebrides of Scotland in winter, having forgotten how I got there or even the events that led me there. I recall the intensity of wanting to be in places that were empty and had a real sense of private solitude. I'm starting to feel I'd like that again. 

I've asked myself recently what I would really like to do and where I'd really like to be for the next stage of my life. As I look at each place that might be available to me now, I realise they are all a variation on the theme of being in some city or town, surrounded by vehicles and people and noise. I don't want more of that...why would changing my surroundings but not the quality of what's around me make me feel better? But can I live in the middle of nowhere again? Maybe...

Sometimes I look at these photo blogs that have got old, abandoned-looking places featured as their theme. There's something some of us like about those old places. Some of them are in the middle of some prairie, just a house, sitting there by itself in the midst of an enormous amount of flat emptiness. People actually once lived there; now they are gone. Sometimes having left even their very belongings sitting

there, just as they were...I'd love to live in such a place. I'd have a big pipe-organ and a cat called Scruff-Duff who chases the mice and rats who'd show up. I'd light the house with candelabras and have the old,

shabby furnishings, such as swan-backed chairs and a chesterfield sofa that still linger about the place. I'd go outside in the massive thunderstorms of the flatlands and stand there, the tallest thing around except the house, and scream my complaints to some god or whoever would be listening. I'd get soaked, waiting to see if the lightning would reduce me to the purity of ash.

In Eastern Europe, one would come by these amazing manor houses in the middle of nowhere. Just some place, long abandoned. You should have seen the inside of them: all the marble, falling to bits around you. The courtyards are the saddest in a sense: they sometimes had all these overgrown shrubs and sometimes almost fossilised rose-gardens, and once gorgeous sculptures of nudes, now with missing limbs lying about in the tall grasses. 

I always feel about these places a certain kinship with them: they are not as old as they seem; neglected, beautiful, lonely and empty. Their soul still lingers about like they're haunting their own shell, waiting in some forlorn hope that something will happen and they'll wake up from some strange dream of aloneness... It's only just occurred to me that this is why I love them so well. Because they're so like me.

Whatever May Happen Life is Awesome

I'VE BEEN GOING through my belongings, trying to see what I can get rid of to streamline for purposes of relocation within the next 6 months, and I decided to look at my old journals. I still keep a journal, which includes little drawings as well as the stories that make up my life and how I feel. In the sidebar is the word 'Hope' with a heart under it; the size of the heart indicates how much hope I've felt that day; and sometime it is quite minute, and sometimes there's a question-mark within the heart. The rest of the sidebar indicates physical health & how much sleep I've had.

Looking through the old journals (which I've kept since 2009) I'm struck by the different periods I went through, which included in the first journal or two being stupefied by what was happening in life. Then, reading how I dealt with my accident & other terrible losses; all the way to when I'd relocated 2 1/2 years ago to my present whereabouts. What strikes me is that I was really living life back then, to the fullest I was capable. What is somewhat disheartening is that the past year and a half or more has been spent surviving, and not very well. I'm shocked at how strong I had been: how even the most terrible of circumstances allowed me to use my own inner strength and recognise, little by little, that I possessed far more than I had ever credited.

The journals were (and are) always titled 'LIFE' followed by a volume number, then the number 1, as this is (to my knowledge) the only life I've had and likely the only one I'll have. The picture here is the pride of the collection, in more ways than one. I recall drawing this freehand with a pen and then highlighting it with coloured pencil after, tearing the edges, then gluing it on the front. Terrible things ensued at the end of this journal's chronicle—yet I chose the caption only after these events: Whatever May Happen Life is Awesome! I wish & hope that I can recapture these sentiments & feel more like I'm alive again. That's worth a good-sized heart in the sidebar at the very least.

How about you? Do you keep journals? I recommend it highly—it will surprise you or even give you hope when life goes very differently than you supposed.

Naming the Shadow

Recently, a young woman I know of who’s been having difficulty with depression and negative feelings that have frightened her, wrote a blog post explaining how she has coped over the past months. She described this ‘other person’: an old, and dark-thinking woman who is diseased in her soul and that this other person had been vying with ‘her’ for control. I immediately thought this sounded like someone with more than one personality; but I don’t think that’s what she meant: she meant some aspect of herself that had to be locked away or got rid of, in this case by the use of some sort of antidepressants, which otherwise made her body sick, as it rejected the use of them.

So I decided to start reading A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin for the first time since I was nineteen. It’s not difficult for me to recall my first reading as I remember that it was the very first time I picked up a book while standing up in my bedroom and didn’t put it down till it was finished and the light nearly non-existent in the room. I’ve done that a number of times since then—though not in the same bedroom! The story is about a young man who is learning wizardry and discovers a spell that brings this terrifying shadow into the material world. He did not intend this, but was unable to control the spell. He then spends the remainder of the book attempting to outrun this shadow, which he is convinced is a dangerous demonic entity bent on consuming his soul. His main thought is to run away; but each time he tries, he is chased by his demon, till even the other characters whom he meets along the way are in peril and become afraid of his company.

I’ve also been musing on an early episode of the original Star Trek series entitled The Enemy Within in which Captain Kirk, after beaming back aboard the Enterprise, discovers that something has beamed back with him: a doppelganger who looks just like him, but is in fact dangerous, capricious and malicious. There ensues the attempt to locate the imposter and capture him before he can harm others on board, and the captain announces this creature’s presence over the intercom system.

These three situations, one real-life and the other two fictions, have much the same theme: in all of them there is an individual who feels endangered by the presence of something they have either mistakenly called into the world or else that, through some accident or sickness, has unwittingly appeared spontaneously. In all these cases the attempt to either flee from or eradicate the offending person or thing is seen as the best possible solution; and that by successfully doing so, the persons so oppressed will be free.

We too have this idea as people that anything in ourselves that frightens us or makes us feel terrible is somehow personified and that that person is ‘evil’ and to be suppressed, altered or gotten rid of. I find this idea is instilled in us by the society in which we live. In the first place it begins by telling us that certain things are ‘good’ and some ‘evil’. Do you know how many people think spiders, bats and wolves are evil? And the snakes will eat our souls, that’s what I’ve been told. What about darkness, shadows and the cold? Children are taught to be terrified by them; and further, taught in stories that people are all either ‘good’ or ‘evil’. The basis for all of these oppressive concepts is fear. Fear is the foremost motivator for nearly every action taken collectively by the human race; and, largely, by individual people who’ve been indoctrinated by this all-pervading quality (if one can use that word here) of fear. This is why society makes labels for everything: without these supposed names, things terrify us nearly to the point of complete inability to act. That is why people ask us, ‘what do you do?’; ‘where are you from?’; ‘who are you?’; without these names and identifiers, we are afraid of the unknown.

I try always to be mysterious: sometimes I answer questions randomly, vaguely or not at all. When it suits me I wear clothing that does not identify me in any given group—or else do things others would never expect when I fit their preconceived ideas about a ‘type’ of person, such as wear business clothes and carry a briefcase, then stop to talk to and even embrace some homeless person, a snail or a tree. Sometimes I’ll sit in a café in a conspicuous location, open the case and take out my teddy-bear, a re-painted plastic doll, and a plush Tigger and proceed to have a tea party. I do such things to disrupt people’s sense of reality as being something that is set down in stone and that is only ever overstepped by those who are deemed ‘insane’ or ‘rebellious’. I wonder sometime which they think I am? When children see me do such things, they understand; at least those that have not yet succumbed to being encumbered with black-and-white labels for everyone and everything they encounter.

But there are True Names for everything and everyone—these are not labels, but contain the essence of a given being, place or thing; but it is not given us to always know these; and in the Western society, almost never. In A Wizard of Earthsea:

‘Sparrowhawk, if ever your way lies East, come to me. And if ever you need me, send for me, call on me by my name: Estarriol.’
At that Ged lifted his scarred face, meeting his friend’s eyes.
‘Estarriol,’ he said, ‘my name is Ged.’
Then quietly they bade each other farewell, and Vetch turned and went down the stone hallway, and left Roke.
Ged stood a while, like one who has received great news, and must enlarge his spirit to receive it. It was a great gift that Vetch had given him, the knowledge of his true name.
No one knows a man’s true name but himself and his namer. He may choose to tell it to his brother, or his wife, or his friend, yet even those few will never use it where any third person may hear it…Who knows a man’s name, holds that man’s life in his keeping. Thus to Ged who had lost faith in himself, Vetch had given that gift only a friend can give.

In the book, Ged is a Namer: a person who can discover the True Name for another creature or person. Such a Namer has great responsibility and must not misuse this great gift. So in the end, after nearly being destroyed and terrified by the shadow that chased him, Ged is faced with the only way he can to deal with his oppressive demon: name it. So he begins to hunt it instead of running.

All terror was gone. All joy was gone. It was a chase no longer. He was neither hunted nor hunter, now…he had of his own will turned to the shadow, seeking to hold it with living hands. He had not held it, but he had forged between them a bond, a link that had no breaking-point. There was no need to hunt the thing down, to track it, nor would its flight avail it. Neither could escape. When they had come to the time and place for their last meeting, they would meet.

At first it was shapeless, but as it drew nearer it took on the look of a man. An old man it seemed, grey and grim, coming towards Ged…hateful was the look he fixed on Ged across the dark intervening air.

When Ged finally confronts the shadow, he tries to use his magic, which he pours forth as a blinding light to stop his demon—but to no avail; it crawls through the light towards him.

It grew together and blackened, crawling on four short taloned legs upon the sand. But still it came forward…In the silence man and shadow met face to face, and stopped.
Aloud and clearly, breaking that old silence, Ged spoke the shadow’s name and in the same moment the shadow spoke…saying the same word: ‘Ged.’
Ged reached out his hands, dropping his staff, and took hold of his shadow, of the black self that reached out to him. Light and darkness met, and joined, and were one.

In The Enemy Within Kirk eventually discovers that his double is nothing of the kind, but that his passive and active aspects were somehow split in the transporter accident, so that he became two people. In the end they find one another, and he too embraces his other self. They go back into the transporter and become one again, as each was quickly fading without the other.

Have you ever seen a child that is ignored or unwanted and treated like an embarrassment? They begin to act badly—to do sometimes terrible things, as this alone seems to be the way in which they will garner some form of acknowledgement of their validity as beings. So our darker aspects sometimes do when we suppress and hide them: they will do anything only to be given a name. This often takes the form of harm to ourselves and sometimes others so as to hurt our selves. We cannot exist forever divided; the yang needs the yin to survive, prosper and be whole. I hope that we too can become Namers, even if only to give our shadows, which are ours whether we will or no, their name, which shall always be our own.

Good Grief!

THINGS ARE IN a constant state of change; and when I'm reluctant to change, something happens so I've got to in some sense. My computer has been unwell for some time, and 'passed away at its residence' yesterday afternoon. I was able to bring it back to some extent with the ancient system restore, but it turns out too outdated to run any modern software, so I'm left with a sort of adding-machine/ typewriter without printer drivers or internet. I get 1 hour a day at the library computers, so I apologise to those fellow followers whom I regularly comment to: I'm still reading your stuff, but there'll be a delay in comments. I wish I could afford another computer at this time, but it's unlikely. Ah, well. This sort of thing happens at pivotal times; so I'm paying attention to the other side of anything and everything, which is my way. I've become too used to internet and computer access, and mustn't allow it to be a dependence.

I watched the Charlie Brown Christmas this year for the first time in forever, and it struck me the way this boy feels is similar to the way many of us do during the holiday season. I wonder that this isn't to do with very different things than we're led to believe. To me it has come to my mind that having a specific time of the year in which one is supposed to be gladsome and thankful and have 'resolutions' (whatever that may mean), isn't always appropriate to the individual at that moment in time, and so it makes us feel badly like poor old Charlie Brown, who gets rocks for Halloween and brings home a tree because it needs him, and everybody says he's a fool.

I've heard that a number of folk in the north of the US went without any power or electric lights during the whole of the Christmas holiday period. Although this is terrible for those who may be harmed by the cold or become ill, it did offer an opportunity that most folk wouldn't have got otherwise to spend time when one is confronted with one's self and those whom they share their lives with—also to realise how vulnerable the human race has made itself through its dependence on technology. When these things fail, even for a short time, we suffer. It reminds me of the man who once said he won't swim or fly in a plane because he doesn't want to do anything that, if you suddenly stop, you die. Obviously not meaning including things like breathing; he meant something that you don't have to do.

Where were you during the change of years of 1999-2000? Most everybody remembers this who was alive at the time, simply because we all thought maybe the world was going to come to an end or something. My partner and I refused to put on electric lights or use anything but candles and the wood-burner. We sat outside in the bloody freezing damp cold and lit 3 very thin candles we imbedded in the snow and said nothing and didn't even move as the time went by. I can still see the flames fluttering. The wind tried to extinguish them, but they never went out. I wasn't worried the world would come to an end and mostly used candle-light anyway that winter because I liked candles back then. We decided it would be a good idea to run into the freezing cold Atlantic ocean too. It wasn't such a good idea as we'd hoped.

So I really decided to try this year to follow the general feeling of things, but it didn't really pan out quite as I thought—maybe one has to be glad in their own season and not according to an almanac. I still have had glad and grateful thoughts in these days—but the commercial narcissism of this time of year made me feel like a giant cat whose fur was rubbed the wrong way, and made me homesick for the middle of nowhere, to keep my own Holy Days and listen to my Self and the voice of the earth around me. I want to feel free again, not chained up by society to some dependence on some over-priced poor-quality building and questionable food from the supermarket. What if the lights go out here? What if there's a run on the grocery stores? That would have made no difference in past seasons of my life—now it does, though I do not wish it so. I hope I can find my way back to the way I want to live—I did it once, I only wonder if I can again. I hope so.

~

Give up learning, and put an end to your troubles.

Is there a difference between yes and no?
Is there a difference between good and evil?
Must I fear what others fear? What rubbish!
Other people are contented, enjoying a holiday feast.
In spring some go to the park and climb the terraces.
But I alone am drifting, not knowing where I am.
Like a newborn babe before it learns to smile,
I am alone, without a place to go.

Others have more than they need, but I alone have nothing.
I am a fool. Oh, yes! I am confused.
Other folk are clear and bright,
But I alone am dim and weak.
Other folk are sharp and clever,
While I alone am dull and stupid.
Oh, I drift like the waves of the sea,
Without direction, like the restless wind.

Everyone else is busy,
But I alone am aimless and depressed.
I am different.
I am nourished by the great mother.

-Tao Te Ching, XX

Season's Greetings + a rather big cat

YESTERDAY I saw a cat-picture on Tammy's site at ourneckofthewoods.net where she'd said her kitty was getting HUGE, so I was inspired to make this drawing and create an e-card for the friends & followers of my blog. Some of you already received a personalised version right in your inbox...but others I don't have the emails to, or even the names in some cases. There is, for example, someone who follows me using some feed-reader other than google's from Australia—but I don't know who they are! But to you & everybody, I wish all good wishes for this day and each of those that are to come: may you learn from everything you encounter and may you turn your experiences, no matter how terrible or wonderful, into golden words and actions. Remember that one needn't look outside themselves for strength, balance & peace, but can find them all Within.

Dreaming

SOME YEARS AGO just before my life changed forever following a dreadful accident, I began to form an understanding of Dreaming, in particular the manner of gaining insight into one’s life through dreams. (But before anybody thinks dream-imagery holds universal meaning: I really haven't found that to be true. Each thing one encounters in Dream holds specific significance to the individual who dreams it, and is as unique to you as your DNA. So if you possess those books that tell you that rain in a dream means tears and a bear in a dream means you like honey or Whinny the Pooh, I'd use them only to hold down papers on your desk, as they are works of fiction and likely to mislead you in your dreaming.)

There are all sorts of dreams; but the ones I have are mostly those that can instruct me as to issues in my life that I may otherwise be dumbfounded by; and these, I think, are the best sort. There are also what I call ‘memory dump’ dreams: everybody has these—they entail seeing apparently unrelated and absurd imagery that one may have been exposed to recently, whether we wanted to be or not. I think these are the mind’s way of playing it through and getting rid of it, like sorting through a load of junk before a spring clean-up. Another sort that few people master are lucid dreams. Everyone who mentions lucid-dreaming to me usually starts by telling me about it as though I’d never heard of it: ‘If you can make yourself look at your hands,’ they begin, ‘then you can potentially do anything.’ Yes, I tell them, Carlos Castaneda is the one who first came up with that. But as he’s been so often imitated, most have not heard of him. I follow one woman’s blog who is perhaps one of the most remarkable masters of lucid-dreaming I’ve ever seen. She can fly in any direction at any speed at will, change her surroundings instantly, and summon Benedict Cumberbatch, Matt Smith or David Tennant whenever she likes (I won’t tell you why she summons them). For some reason she has been told she’s ‘autistic’, which is society’s way of boxing up people who see reality in their own way instead of some ready-made rubbish. But not one of those who say so can fly, change their surroundings or summon their favourites at will…

‘But they’re just dreams…’ What on earth is that supposed to mean, anyway? Are dreams ‘real’? Can you see, taste, smell, touch, feel, speak, hear, interact with your surroundings? If so, then how could they not be real? No one can tell you ‘where you are’ when you are in a dream. No one can explain what it even is. Even animals dream. I believe that dreams hold the key to whatever we want to know about ourselves; especially if we dream deliberately.

By this I’m not specifically talking about lucid-dreaming, where you get to control things—rather the dreams that explain to us what is holding us back, what is behind our fears, and encourage us to take heart when we have lost hope. These are messages from our inner-self, who knows us utterly; and which our minds, as limited as they are by concepts of linier time, our own ideas about who we are and other fluff, have difficulty communicating easily with when distracted constantly by the day-to-day things of the physical world. If you try, you can understand these voices; and if you fail at first, a new dream will come along and further explain to you what you failed to get from the other. Some themes repeat for a very long time, typically changing shape either subtly or wholly, hoping that we will gain some comprehension and insight.

Often, before I go to sleep, I ask myself to have dreams that can let me understand things differently or encourage me. Sometimes, when thoroughly dejected to the point of not wanting even to get up, I have this powerful dream that pulls me through and changes my perspective, even though there is no physical change in my surrounding dilemma, I nonetheless ‘know’ that things will change and that I possess the power to change, at least how I take what happens in my life, as terrible as those things often are, and as dreaded or bleak as my ‘future’ may seem to be. To me, a person’s life is one whole thing, and concepts of ‘time’ and its passage are the mind’s way of cataloguing events. For this reason it is possible to ‘remember’ the ‘future’; but mostly we choose not to as it alters the human experience, or else our minds are too limited; however, our inner-self knows these things, and from there comes the ability to encourage our waking self.

Back when I was just starting to take deliberate dreaming to heart, I had this one dream. I dreamt I was in this group of people in the mountains of Switzerland. There were a number of us, mostly children of about 10, including myself. We had been rounded up by authoritarian soldiery for no good purpose. Each child was paired with a dog; mine was an Irish setter. The soldiers wanted to see how the children would react if they mistreated the animals. My dog rolled on the ground, started to fidget nervously and make whining sounds; I kept trying to quiet it and get him to stop, but he wouldn’t. He’d attracted attention, and one of our captors came over to us and I knew they would try and harm the dog. I stood up and was now about 16 years old. We were on this sort of platform, right at the edge, and below us were the snowy slopes of the Alps, which also towered above us, with heavy hanging snow. ‘Stop!’ I told the one approaching me. ‘We are leaving this place, and you dare not fire your guns—look above you, you will start an avalanche!’ I then slid under the fence with the dog, and we both began sliding down the side of the mountain together. I was then an adult. No one fired at us and we escaped.

Amazing to have a dream like this. I realised the following upon reflection: much of my life I suppressed my ‘wild’ or animal self. Some of this involved not valuing it, or not believing I ought to express these types of things. Moreover, there is much of that wild-aspect in creativity, and I felt at the time I had not expressed my creativity anywhere near as much as I should have been. By feeling the rigid authority of my practical self was threatening my wild self, I tried to keep it quiet. When it would not be still, I realised I had to act; I grew up suddenly and pronounced that the practical side would destroy the whole if it dared to stop the expression of the wild. When I slid away with my ‘dog’ I was never happier and never more mature. Later that same day I went into the city. When I got off the bus, I had pass by me in less than 2 minutes 3 dogs. Each was an Irish setter. That is called ‘confirmation from the world around you’. If you really are in tune, you will see the same things in your own life, as I'm sure some of you do—we just have to trust that these things are there for us too, and not just there.

More recently I was very dejected. I could not imagine how I would be able to live as I want again since my injuries were getting worse over time and I no longer had money or the ability to do what I wished. And would I ever be able to create some lasting art or complete projects that had too long lain dormant? I asked to have a dream that would somehow encourage me, as I was ready to give up completely. When I had it, it was short and beautiful. I was in this stone-paved courtyard in this beautiful garden. A number of people stood around and talked. I noticed a number of large blue-green beetles wandering about on the ground nearby. A woman who was standing nearby began to speak with me. Suddenly I started to feel some things grabbing hold of my leg and climbing it. It was a couple of beetles, gripping tightly on my trouser legs. I removed one and set it down. The other I held for a bit in my hand. I felt its legs holding tightly to me and felt a humming coming from it. I set it down. Then I looked at the beetles milling about and perceived a pattern to their movements. I did not know what the pattern meant, but knew it was something important for me. Then water began to fill the area around the beetles, and I was worried for them. I went and stood in the cool water of the pool, half-way up to my knees. The water was not harming the beetles. They began to change colour, to these lustrous silvers and golds. The water drained away. There was this sound unlike anything I’d ever heard and which contained all peace and reassurance—it was some type of otherworldly music and I knew it came from the beetles. I woke up with tears.

This was a very simple and clear message from my inner self: it told me that, no matter what, I would be able to use my creativity and make beautiful things again, and that my life had an order to it—a complex and wonderful pattern that my mind could barely perceive; and that, if I paid attention, I could indeed perceive it, and that in the midst of that perception would come a peace and assurance that I stood in the midst of my life till my thoughts and actions became precious and the song of it would sing me awake.

Everybody who knows me well knows how much I adore two animals, the rat and the fox. The other night I had a very disturbing dream of being in the house I grew up in. There was a storm and a hole had broke through in the ceiling above my head as I slept. When I awoke I was looking up into the attic and saw two huge black rats staring down at me insidiously. They wouldn’t go away. I thought of taking the three lazy cats I had there up to the attic and shut them in, but thought the rats could harm them. I then imagined the rats biting me. I woke up quite upset, as I love rats: so why such a dream? I knew if I waited and asked for another on the same theme I’d get it. (Try this yourself and see.)

Next night I dreamt I was leading this group of peasant soldier up a steep hill that was wooded. It was night-time and very dark except the moonlight filtering through. My strategy was that we would move silently up to the crest of the hill, then fall on our enemies from above having higher ground. There was at least twenty paces or more between each person and everyone had swords or bows. I was at the end, guarding the back of my comrades. I suddenly looked back and flanking me were any number of these creatures, something like large foxes. They had two tails each and were a sort of silver white and they never blinked. Each was equal distance from each other and moved along basically in tandem. I was sure they meant to attack us, though none came at me as though they would. Horribly, I decided to attack them; but even then, they refused to attack me. I came upon a sort of derelict old steel shopping cart, inside of which was the only different fox: a smaller one and very agitated. I stopped to listen to it and it was chattering away at me, moving all around. I did not understand the things it said, but knew it was trying to tell me not to fight the other foxes: that they were important and not trying to harm me. They came very close then and I awoke.

In both dreams my inner self did something it had never done before: used creatures I love and consider friendly and wonderful as seemingly frightening or dangerous (to my thinking in the dreams). This took quite a good deal of pondering, but I can now see that using things I’m frightened of to try and shock me into action wasn’t working—so I can perceive the subtlety of my dream-weaver aspect in choosing what I take solace in to scare me instead. It was a similar theme of setting aside my wild-nature and creative force. The rats, though big and scary, were not enough—but the foxes wore the guise of the spirit-fox from folklore, which has multiple tails and is a magical creature. Very importantly too, it showed very clearly that I divide myself within, placing too far a distance between my different aspects, like the difference between a single large mirror’s reflection, and that of a series of smaller mirrors. I think in this western society we often think of ourselves as different bits that are barely related. We’ve got to think holistically (or whole-istically) when it comes to the Self. That’s confusing, as I’m concerned of losing my ability to do physical things more over time—losing one aspect. Perhaps it is that I have to imagine that all my aspects are Me, and that just one is not all there is.

In every society I’ve lived in I take a different name or different version of my name. My Native American name is Dream-Dancer. I like that name because, although just now I cannot dance in the material world, in the dream world I can do anything: and I’d rather dance than most things; and life itself is a dance anyway. A complex and beautiful dance full of wonder and horror and incredible feats.

This has been a long post—thank you for reading it! Obviously, Dreaming is important to me. How about any of you? Do you have some marvellous tales (or tails) of your dreams and things you may have learnt from them?

Kindred Spirits

I DO LOVE the phrase 'Kindred Spirit', which I picked up from Anne Shirley, a very different sort of person who changed her world (though fictional) just by being in it. Whenever I see somebody who could benefit from a gesture of friendship, it is second nature to me to offer it. This never really dawned on me until some of the people I had met had come up to me and somehow reminded me of whatever gesture I had shown them.

The western society that I live in is far from treating others with respect. I wonder that this is part of the 'human condition' or if that is some sort of cop-out that we use in order to excuse ignorance and insensitivity? It has always struck me: the way people around me treat others or myself. This culture has taken breeding the Narcissist to some sort of selective breeding in the gene-pool seemingly. When I see anybody who isn't like that, I immediately try and befriend them. Some might think this is because I seek some sort of company; but I suppose it's really my concern for them.

One time I was on this bus. It was called the 'homeless bus' because it stopped at a homeless shelter, in addition to the awesome health-food store that I frequented at the time. This one fellow got on, in his early 20s maybe. He had a suitcase with him that he could barely manage. The driver was pretty mean to some of the people on there, including giving this guy a hard time about his case, which he said he could barely lift due to some injury to his back. She told him if he couldn't lift it and get it out of the way that he shouldn't have it, and was otherwise quite mean. I went and had a few words with her about this and gave him my place to sit down; though only after he had picked the case up (which he could barely manage to do)—though I tried to stop him.

Months later after I'd been injured severely in an accident, I met him on the street nearby where I lived at the time. When I told him what had happened, he was truly concerned for me and, standing at a busy intersection, he stopped to say one of the most sincere prayers I ever heard over me. 'Every time I've seen this person,' he began, 'they always try to help me in some way; and when I see them, it is like I'm meeting some great friend of mine, which is how I will always remember them...' and he went on to recount different incidences (which I could barely recall) of my helping him find work or get a place to stay. He was an immigrant from some 'territory' or other, and had met me that first day on that bus.

There was this one lady who used to ride around on a tandem bicycle by herself. She was ruggedly beautiful and always very neat and wore a neck-scarf. Most people didn't speak to her much, but I did. I think she had some difficulty with her thoughts, and so would start rambling on about disconnected things—though I knew she couldn't help it. I'd let her do it a bit, but always seemed to have the knack of drawing her back to the thread of our conversation. Once when I was losing the place I'd been living she offered me to stay with her—though it was too remote for me without transport & being injured. I've heard from people who've visited that town over the past couple years that she always asks about me.

I remember this one bearded guy who always had a book by Louis L'Amour with him. He was pretty distant much of the time. Like the other two, he had a fantastic name that I won't recount here—something from a Dickens novel though. He once did me some kindness that I can't recall, but stated that he had deeply appreciated when I'd helped him to figure out how to use some computer software to write an essay for his college course. Again, I'd forgot that entirely. It was around this time that my habit of treating others like I would dearly like to be treated and helping them as a second-nature had struck me for the first time. No, everyone doesn't do it—yes, I do.

It has also developed that I've come to realise that when I do certain things to help others, I'm actually at the same time taking care of myself when I've been in some similar situation or point in my life—perhaps no one cared then, so I do now. That seems strange when writing it—but I've come to understand it though and see that it doesn't lessen the significance of the gesture, but rather strengthens it. 

Maybe people reading this think I'm blowing my own trumpet and trying to say what a decent person I've been: forget it...nobody is harder on me than me. If I want to meet my worst enemy, I have only to look in the mirror. 'I shall chide no breather in the world save myself, against whom I know most faults', so the Bard says.

Many cannot comprehend for what reason anybody would wish to befriend those around us whom society shuns, ridicules or abuses. I suppose they will never understand it, which is to everyone's loss. I do understand it however, because it seems to be in my nature for whatever reason. Perhaps because I have so often been on the receiving end of these same sorts of prejudices. So I've taken that and used to it my advantage and for the sake of others too.

And like I always used to say, 'When lemons give you life, make lifenade'.