G. Michael Vasey's Blog: The Wacky World of Dr. Vasey, page 19

My Way

These days people are either one thing or another. Polar opposites. I find this peculiar and yet intriguing.

I read somewhere that all people who are warming skeptics are Trump supporters. It was a good example of how polarized things have become and I do believe that people sometimes lose their ability to think. Rather they parrot what they have read in their little enclave of social media friends who all think as they do. Or maybe they would rather not think for themselves so as not to face the wrath of the political police? It’s everywhere. If you are not with us, you must be against us.

Well, sorry but I do think. I don’t subscribe to any prevailing set of politically correct parrot thoughts. And I never will.

It is, after all, my life. And, I’m going to live what is left of it my way.

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Art for Art’s Sake?

For a while, I have been thinking that the walls of my rented place look a bit bare. I had a poke around IKEA and places like that but I’m not going to pay $50 for mass produced ‘art’. Then, my friend Walter Novak gave me a couple of his photographs – a beautiful shot of David Bowie, a ‘fan’ photo or two and a picture of my daughter he shot one evening recently. I framed them and hung them. But still – lot’s of white space. What to do?

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David Bowie – shot by Walter Novak and hanging on my wall.

Over the Xmas holidays, my girlfriend and I were visiting Telc – a beautiful town here in the Czech Republic and we visited an art store. Suddenly, I realized you can actually buy real art for less than that mass-produced stuff from IKEA! Then, I discovered online auctions! Art by real Czech artists, verified and validated… I’m hooked! I bought a beautiful charcoal sketch by quite a famous artist for around $3 at auction and have bid on a number of others. I now boast a couple of pieces and my wall is filling up slowly. But I have the bug. I’m collecting – art by Czechs that I like.

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Painting in my collection by Czech artist Libuse Ladianska

I then had another idea – albeit for some temporary art – my own photos! Editing them is fairly easy these days and in minutes you can have some pretty reasonable photos – I am no Walter Novak but I have lucked out on occasion and found myself with a nice shot or two! Of course, I’d like a couple more Walter Novaks too….

I’m now building an inventory with details about the pieces, artists and so on. It’s all very interesting and fast becoming a new hobby.

It struck me, however, that art is in the eye of the beholder. What I like is what I like. It’s perhaps a reflection of my inner self that drives this and my other hobbies – writing and songwriting etc. I bring my inner self to the fore momentarily as if in meditation.

Having had that thought, I had another. I really do need to somehow get the piece that Sue Vincent painted for me over here, framed and on my wall. You know, I do not even have a photo of this work by Sue these days but I saw it for real a few months ago. It is her interpretation of my inner contact – Asteroth – done as sort of a triad of females – a sort of reflection of the Mother, Maiden, Crone triad. It is exquisitely beautiful….. I need it here.

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Asteroth by Sue Vincent

 

 

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Happy New Year

It is a funny thing, but I hate New Year’s Eve. Always have done. I could never quite understand the need to celebrate what is essentially just another day by getting drunk and letting off fireworks? Now, starting a New Year hung over. However, Happy New Year to you all!

I spent New Year’s Eve at home watching Netflix – it was perfect. At midnight, we stood on my back balcony and watched and listened to what seemed to be the break out of a war that went on pretty much all night. It reminded me of visiting the main square in Prague several years back on New Year’s Eve. Hundreds of people – many drunk – letting off rockets and bangers everywhere. Through the clouds of acrid smoke, it seemed to me as if the world was ending as opposed to another year starting. It was downright dangerous, to be honest.

This year, I made no resolutions either as they never last. Instead, I am taking each day as it comes and will act accordingly. For me, New Year is a non-event. A waste of time and money. I sound like Scrooge don’t I? Seriously though, it is a total waste of time.

For many, it represents the opportunity to start afresh. An opportunity to renew and make some changes. Old habits can be consigned to the past and mistakes left behind. New Year’s Eve is symbolic of renewal and cleansing in that respect. But you know, we don’t need New Year’s Eve as an excuse to do that – we can choose to do it anytime, any day.

In the end, maybe it is this realization that has removed the excitement I used to feel on the 31st December each year. The realization that we can experience a New Year, a new beginning at any moment on any day of the year.

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Other Eyes

Sometimes I see things. Its been that way all of my life.

Now, when I say ‘see’, I’m not sure this is an accurate description yet it is the only word I can use. I see and feel all at the same time and the two ‘senses’ are somehow merged as if one. As an example, a few months ago, as two friends and I stood within a stone circle close by the Scottish border, I ‘saw’ a lady step out from behind one of the stones and smile. Her hair was loose and flowing in the wind and she wore a flowing gown of sheer simplicity. As I mentioned to my friends “Oh, we have a visitor!” They both looked down the approach path expecting someone, well, physical. Then, they felt the power of this being almost together and simultaneously and realized what I was remarking on. I don’t think either of them saw what I saw but they felt the sudden energy shift as this being approached – as did I.

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The Stone Circle and Approach

I sometimes wonder if I ‘see’ anything at all really. Maybe the energy that I detect simply takes on a form in my mind that best suits it. It kind of reminds me of the scene on Ghost Busters….. you know, the one where he thinks of a marshmallow man? Maybe that is exactly how it works?

To be honest, I hadn’t realized how strong my ‘seeing’ was until relatively recently even though it is something I have had all my life. Some would term this a ‘gift’. But if its a gift all I can say is for most of my life it has been the source of my fear. These days, I have grown to accept it and perhaps, I do now think of it as a gift. Though, this would be a recent change of heart.

Of course, I cannot prove that I see things. I cannot photograph what it is I see. Others can share the experience with me in some form but that is not proof either. It is intuition and second sight. To me, it is real as the computer screen sitting in front of me. To others, it may be evidence of the grip of some insanity. Yet, this intuition is almost, if not always, correct. In recent years, I have found myself simply accepting it and perhaps even integrating it into my sensory tools. And, for me, this is enough. I do not feel the need to prove it to anyone. I can now simply accept it and make use of it when needed. Trust me, it doesn’t half come in useful at times….

 

 

 

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An Immigrant and His Life – Walter Novak

Last week, I met my friend Walter Novak for a beer and a chat. Walter is a Czech-American that found fame in the US as a photographer and rightly so – he has a unique ability to find the photo. The topic of the conversation drifted to his life story and what he told me I think is very apt given the times that we live in.

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Walter Novak – Photo Walter Novak

He left the former Czechoslovakia two-years after the velvet revolution. When he arrived in the USA, he could barely speak a word of English and he had to gain a green card of course. For a couple of years, he had two jobs mopping floors and he got up and demonstrated the movement that he perfected so well as he mopped for maximum efficiency. These were poor paying jobs you understand! He worked on his English reading newspapers and books as best he could, making slow but steady progress. His home was a damp basement. As he told me, it was full of cockroaches and he could watch peoples feet through the high windows into the street. His sleep was always interrupted by the noise of cracking pavement as cars drove across the road (it was in very poor repair). Yet, he was living his dream in the dark dank basement mopping floors – he was free!

He told me how he was so broke he often didn’t eat or survived on a single foodstuff for long periods. He became so thin and weak, as he was essentially starving, that one day he collapsed and the medics had to come out. Examining him, they inquired as to what he was eating and examined his fridge. Needless to say, it was empty. The medic left with advice to eat and left a few dollars secretly to ensure that Walter would at least get a meal.

Eventually, with the green card in hand and a bit of good luck that sometimes goes with hard times,  he was invited to visit a European style pub/restaurant with a couple of ‘friends’. He told me he loved this place. It reminded him of home and the beer was good – European style. He liked the atmosphere. That night, he was introduced to the owner by one of these friends who told the owner how much Walter liked it and how he would love to work there. To Walter’s amazement, the owner looked him up and down and told him he needed a busboy – when could he start? Walter chuckled a bit at this point. “I didn’t know what a busboy was,” he told me with a twinkle in his eye, “but I said I could start immediately.” The owner told him to show up the next morning.

This job paid better. He could get food there too. He washed dishes, unloaded foodstuff from trucks and anything else he was asked to do. His only issue was that sometimes customers would ask him for things and not yet understanding them, he would get it wrong. However, his English was improving. He made some friends. For two years, he had been essentially alone.

Throughout this time, he still pursued his love of photography with an old, cheap, Soviet-era camera. He would, of course, show some of his work to people and friends. In one example, he told me how the local American Football team’s ground (Browns) was being demolished and he disguised himself as a workman in order to gain illegal access to the site to take photos. He even took one of the old wooden seats from the facility and sold his photos complete with a small piece of the seat attached! Ingenuity and art. It started to pay and his unique style of composition started to get noticed in and around town.

One day, the phone rang and was answered. They shouted his name…… “It’s for you!” Puzzled, he went to the phone. There was a very famous person on the phone who owned a top quality magazine asking him to do an assignment. Walter laughed and put down the phone…. a practical joke by one of his buddies he thought. The next day, the phone rang again…. “It’s for you….”. He answered. Same guy. At this point, he realized it was no joke. He took the assignment!

The rest is history.

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Walter and I. Behind us – some of his photos gracing the pub wall.

He ended up working for outfits like The New York Times, Der Spiegel, The Boston Globe, Cleveland Magazine, Ohio Magazine, Revolver, Sunday Mirror, The Telegraph, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros., Mollie Makes the UK, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Prague Post, Cleveland Plain Dealer, and Discovery ID TV – to name a few. He has won numerous awards for his work and he has photographed just about anyone famous…. including David Bowie, Tina Turner, Robert Redford, The Rolling Stones, Halle Berry and the list goes on….

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Photo (c) Walter Novak

 

He is now back in Brno and still taking photos….. He is actually featured in the Sono Center in Brno – though here, not many know his name….

 

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Sono Center, Brno – Novak’s work

 

He is looking for assignments too….. while he works on publishing his book of Rock Stars… Check out the promo video for the book below. Contact us for more information on purchasing it when out.

 

 

 

Inquire about Walter’s photography

Website

Facebook

Twitter

 

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The Modern Mysteries ~ Steve Tanham

The ‘mysteries’ have been with mankind as long as we have existed. They are a collection of paths that take us inwards; restoring a sense of self deeper than that which reacts, and showing us that mankind is much more than a biological animal – though animals, and their focus on the ‘now’ have much to teach us, too.

The reason these paths work is that we are more than we appear to be. The reactive nature of the self-in-the-world, the personality, fixes it into a certain relationship with its world. This is vital for survival but not so for our potential evolution. Mankind is not a finished project. Nature can only take us so far, beyond that point we have take responsibility for our own self-development, and the power for this comes from within. To begin this, we have to loosen the grip of the world on our reactive self. When this is done, a new space emerges within our mind and heart.; a quiet, creative place that feels wholly our own. Unlike the everyday world, our energy is not robbed in this place, in fact the former reactions, seen in their true perspective, actually feed the strength of this private chamber… there is a bubbling of laughter, a lightness of being.

Developments in psychology over the past hundred years have given teachers of the spiritual a powerful vocabulary to describe the nature of the reactive self, the self-in-the-world. We see that our essential self is not what has grown up, like layers of paint, around our experience of the world. For the first time, we see that what is truly ‘us’ is not only difficult to define, but also not the layers of painted self-consciousness that have developed, year on year, since we came into the world.

Continue reading at The Silent Eye

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Someone is Listening

I got a report from Spotify this week. Apparently, my songs were listened to for a total of 14,000 minutes in 2018. OK – it’s only 9.72 days but, for an unknown guy in his late 50’s, I’m quite pleased. Spotify is only one place to hear my music – it’s available to and hopefully listened to on many other platforms like Deezer, iTunes, Amazon, Soundcloud, and Reverbnation to name a few. Someone is listening.

In the run-up to Christmas, I treated myself to a couple of things to try to get my sound quality even better in 2019. I bought a pre-amp for the microphone to try to beef up vocal quality and a synth keyboard for better keyboard dexterity – I was using the QWERTY keyboard! Some of the songs I put out this year I think are the best quality and compositions I have so far managed. I’m particularly proud of This is your song – an atmospheric love song It’s my life – a bit of a rocker and the melodic mix of End of the world.

I wish I knew how to promote my music better beyond Facebook and Twitter. I know that half my FB friends don’t know about the music as FB wants me to pay to alert them. But, other than that and blogging, I’m clueless really how to promote them without playing live. The problem is that without a band, playing live is a tad difficult. However, in 2019, this is my goal – to find a way to play live even if it is partly using pre-recorded backing tracks.

I also got photographs from a renowned rock photographer to help create a slightly more edgy image than the half-assed selfies I was using.

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Photo – Walter Novak

So, if you haven’t heard my music – do please give it a listen and if you have, please remember to stop by and check out my newer material. I’d like to increase those minutes next year….

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My Personal Ecdysis

So strange

That moment

When you realize

You never lived at all

It was a life for sure

But what was it all about?

Strutting on life’s stage

All sound and fury

Yet signifying ‘not nothing’

Rather lived as expectation

Being what you thought

You should be

But what do I want to be?

Who am I really?

I’ve masks upon masks

So deep, I forget

Which might be the real me

I begin to peel

Layer after sticky layer

I peel so deep

It really hurts

And even now I’m unsure

If I’ve reached the core

Or, am confused myself

As to where my skin

Ends and really begins

Have I reached my true insides?

Is that why I’m feeling sore?

I shed each skin

And then begin

To grow another

So where is my core?

My true inner being

Beyond the skin

Beyond the bone

Flowing like blood

Beyond my cells

Maybe somewhere else?

Maybe not within?

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Motel Hell

Motel Hell is my new book. Here is the beginning of it just to whet your appetite…..

I haven’t written much in recent months as I was lacking the motivation. After writing about the black-eyed kids, nothing much scared me enough to get me interested to write. I began a book early last year on haunted hotels but found the topic was already well-covered and the same old places discussed over and over. Then, I remembered Trip Advisor! I had come across a few reviews by people who spent a terrifying night or two in a hotel that was occupied by something sinister. As I went back over my notes, I began to feel a growing sense of excitement as many of these reviews are both chilling and yet, quite honestly, funny. So, for several days, I scoured that website and Yelp looking for similar reviews and guess what? I found quite a few. I had found my motivation again to write.

So here we go. I present them in no particular order nor have I focused on any particular place. Yet, in this book, you will find reviews that will chill you and some that may make you laugh. The lesson to be learned is to be careful where you book into to –to use a play on the old Motel 6 tagline – Motel Hell – where the ghosts play with the lights for you!

The original idea for a haunted hotel book came from a few of my own experiences. So, we will start with those to put you in the right frame of mind.

 

My Haunted Hotel Stays

I don’t know about you, but when I stay at a hotel, I generally hope and expect to get a good night’s sleep in a certain degree of comfort. I always pray that the couple next door doesn’t decide to be too amorous (and noisy) and that the guy across the hall isn’t going to watch CNN at 5:30 am in the morning at high volume. The room is only to sleep in really and therefore, having paid an exorbitant amount to sleep in it, that is what I expect to achieve. Of course, I habitually check the bed carefully for signs of bed bug infestation. That’s my expectation of a hotel and it is most likely yours. Sometimes, however, the room is already occupied, and it is you that disturbs ‘their’ peace.

I had an interesting experience recently at a hotel I stayed in that resulted in me checking out and finding somewhere else with an ‘unoccupied’ room. I checked into a hotel in the Netherlands and was given a room. The room initially looked good. It was very large and furnished in period style. I took off my coat and began to unpack. However, I heard a sound that was a cross between a tapping and a dripping sound. It seemed to emanate from a big old closet standing in the corner. I went to the closet and listened, but it was the sort of noise that you cannot seem to trace. I opened the closet and it stopped. Thinking perhaps it was from next door or the heating, I resumed unpacking. However, when I closed the closet, the noise started again. By now, I was puzzled, and I investigated that closet and area of the room it was in, pretty closely. I pushed it, rocked it. Looked inside it for a cause – an explanation. Each time, I went close to that closet, the sound stopped. I began to feel the hairs on my neck stand up and I decided I couldn’t stay there.

I called reception and told them about the noise and said that there was no way I could put up with it. They said they would send someone up right away. After 5-minutes of constant clicking or knocking sounds, and an increasingly strange atmosphere, I was determined to fight my case that I simply couldn’t and wouldn’t stay there. The hotel lady knocked on the door peering in at first. I told her about the noise and she walked straight over to that closet and barely 5-seconds later she said “Yes, I couldn’t sleep with that either Sir.”

“You heard it then?” I asked, surprised.

“Oh yes,” she said.

She left promising to find me another room.

After waiting for another 5-minutes in that room, I could no longer stand it and I packed and went back down to reception. Within 5-minutes, they informed me the hotel was fully booked and they had transferred me to another Hotel. I asked if the room was haunted and was told they did sometimes have an ‘issue with that particular room. I was pleased to leave.

To be honest, I travel a lot and have slept in many hotels’ rooms – probably thousands and only in rare circumstances had any issues. For a while, I was an IT consultant for a big firm in London and they sent me to work at a large UK bank’s IT department outside of Manchester. I was there a few months and would commute up Sunday night and back home Friday afternoon. I stayed in a number of hotels in Knutsford and one, in particular, was haunted. Unfortunately, I no longer recall its name, but it was part modern and part older. For most stays there, I was allocated a room in the modern part of the hotel and found it an excellent place to stay. On one trip, however, they gave me a room in the old part.

It was already late when I checked in and I went straight to the room and got into bed. It was a dark room – oak paneled. It didn’t switch off the bedside light and kept the TV on at a low volume as I didn’t like the ‘feel’ of the room at all. It wasn’t long before, I kept hearing a knocking sound. On investigation, this seemed to come from behind the paneling, so I settled down once more believing it to be heating pipes or something. No sooner had I closed my eyes than – whoosh! All the covers were pulled off my bed in one quick movement. I sat bolt upright (as you do), shocked. Now, I’m sorry but I won’t tolerate this type of nonsense anymore. I go up calmly, dressed, packed and went back to the front desk to request a room in the newer part of the hotel. Once again, there was no surprise on the part of the receptionist. She just asked me if I’d experienced something strange in a sort of nonchalant fashion while changing the room allocation in the computer. “It happens,” she told me.

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Motel Hell – Out Now!

Click on book cover to buy

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Rock music ~ the sound of prehistory – Reblogged from SC Vincent

During the summer, I spent a magical weekend with friends Sue Vincent and Stuart France… Here is Sue’s account of a small part of that weekend and a lot of fun trying to make music from a rock….

 

Way back when the world was warm and the sun remembered to shine, our friend, Gary Vasey, came over from the Czech Republic for a weekend. It was to be our second meeting in the going-on-fifteen-years that we have been close friends, and it was a memorable one for a good many reasons. We wanted to share some of the places that had played such important roles in The Initiate, the first of the books Stuart and I wrote together, which Gary had called “a work of brilliance“, sharing our excitement in the journey. So we took him, amongst other places, to Uffington, and while we were in the area, we finally managed to find the Blowing Stone.

 

 

We had tried to run it to earth on several occasions but had succeeded only in finding the pub that bears its name and likeness, where we seemed to recall the stone should be… but it was not there. This time, however, we turned away from Kingston Lisle at the crossroads and immediately spotted the shy little sarsen stone, hiding in a cottage garden. The cottage used to be the old Blowingstone Inn, but now it sits quietly, away from the village, waiting for those who would seek out its secrets.

 

 

It doesn’t look much, at first glance… just a small lump of rock by the roadside…. but between legend, function, and history, it has a lot to say for itself. It was once called the King Stone and although there is speculation that it may have stood on White Horse Hill, near the ancient hill figure that has watched over the valley for thousands of years, being moved to this spot in the mid-nineteenth century, the legends suggest that it has always stood at a distance from that place. It may have been called the King Stone because the Saxon King Alfred used it to summon his army  to fight the Danes at Ashdown in 871, but I think it is more likely to have something to do with the rituals of kingmaking; for the legends tell that he who sounds the stone, making it heard on White Horse Hill, miles away, will be King of England.

 

 

The remainder of the article at Sue Vincent’s Blog

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