G. Michael Vasey's Blog: The Wacky World of Dr. Vasey, page 64

The Cross

Have to admit

I am deeply flawed

And no matter how hard I try

These things so deeply lie

Burn

Scorched Earth

Wash

Scrubbed Air

Balancing elements

Losing irrelevants

In places

No soap has ever been

In places

No physical eyes have seen

Still, it’s not enough

Some habits hang tough

The flaws magnified

Obsessing over scratches

While missing the gaping wound

Bleeding

Pleading

Seeing life ooze away

Nothing left except to pray

Elements stirred

Returned to the point

At which we started

When these four were parted

Burn

Scorched Earth

Wash

Scrubbed Air

Four-lorn, I am

The fifth gets

Short shrift

The Lamb

I am

A Cross

Free of Dross

I am

Yes, I truly am

Tagged: all me, Consciousness

Christmas is Just Silly!

Christmas has many facets. One of them is the never ending commercialization of what really should be a simple family Christian religious celebration. Of course, christmas has in its central theme, much for non-Christians to peruse and consider in terms of its greater spiritual meaning and in terms of other non-Christian celebrations at this time of the year. However, the endless commercialization has really spoiled for me what used to be a happy and beautiful time of the year.

In the Czech Republic, christmas decorations generally still go up around the 1st December. Some of the chain stores with HQ’s overseas start earlier though. In other places like the US and the UK, christmas basically now starts in October or even earlier. It is no longer a religious holiday unless your religion happens to be shopping! Even more bizarre is that the sales begin now before christmas too. Walking around London in late November, I was surprised to observe many company Xmas parties taking place already. The commercialization extends to the internet too of course and the internet begins to be lit up like a christmas tree by mid-October too. I really detest this.

By making christmas last 3-months it’s specialness has been erased. It was a special few days when I was growing up and now its a season all in of itself!

I also have to reflect on Christmas in another way these days too. As we celebrate what is the birth of the Christian savior or avatar and reflect on the values taught by Christ, contrast that with the downright lies we tell our own children! Every year, as parents we concoct a litany of lies about big merry men in red and white sliding down chimneys bearing gifts. He is carried there by a sleigh that flies pulled by several reindeer that can also fly. Apparently, this man lives at the North Pole with Elves and other strange creatures making toys (I think actually, this part is incorrect, it is plainly obvious these days that Santa lives in a place called China. It says so on all of the toys he brings). Any rational and sane person would deeply distrust a man who liked to dress up and be surrounded by elves and children!

OK. I get it. It is fun and it is part of the whole charade we play at this time of year but eventually our own children come to understand that, despite telling them not to lie and fib and make things up, their parents have happily been doing it to them for years… What kind of example does that set?

Then we have the christmas movies, songs and so on. Cynically, just a bunch of people making money out of the holidays.

No, Christmas, is a strange and bizarre time of the year if you really stop to think about it and these days, its a long way from what Christmas was supposed to be. However, I am no Scrooge and I will do my very best to celebrate the holidays this year….

Meanwhile, here is another view of Christmas – a short story written last week and as a seasonal gift, please do download Moon whispers for Free today before its too late….

Tagged: Childhood memories, christmas, christmas is silly, creepy, santa

Medium – From My Haunted Life Too

There was a time growing up when I became quite fascinated by spiritualism. The idea that a person could communicate with the dead—actually see and hear ghosts—was of great interest to me. This was an interest that my mother was actually willing to share with me, and so we ended up taking a couple of trips to a spiritualist church in Hull, England. These sessions were always characterized as demonstrations of clairvoyance, rather than speaking with the dead; but that is exactly what these people did.

On our second trip, my dad decided to stay at home, muttering something about it ‘only encouraging weird activity,’ but he was always interested in what had happened at the meetings, of course. He was, I believe, quite right. It did encourage the strange, ghostly activity that was going on in our house at that time, and it also made me more open to strange phenomena.

Attending a spiritualist church as a teenage boy was interesting in and of itself. The first thing I noticed was that the vast majority of my fellow visitors were female and well over the age of fifty. However, by contrast, the mediums were often younger people. That evening, it was quite a full audience for the demonstration as the medium was highly regarded, and he apparently attracted a more diverse audience. He was two or three readings into the evening when his eyes met mine.

“Young man,” he said.

I gulped and likely flushed, as all eyes suddenly stared at me.

“I have a man here with me in spirit who would like to warn you about that motorbike that you have. He is showing me that you will have an accident, so be careful. He is young, this man, and he is wearing motorcycle gear. He passed some time ago, though,” said the medium.

To be honest, I could barely speak. I just nodded acknowledgement, and the medium duly moved on to his next ‘victim.’

Of course, I was consumed with my own thoughts for the rest of the demonstration. We thought that the young man could have been my dad’s brother who had died long before I was born in a motorcycle accident; and yes, I had just recently bought a second-hand Honda C70 motorbike.

At the end of the meeting, both the medium and the organizer approached my mother and me. The organizer knew us and lived in the same area that we did. It transpired that the medium wanted to spend some time with me. He said that he had some things he wanted to tell me, and so, could I come by the next day around 2 p.m. for some tea?

We went home and told my dad what had occurred. He was understandably a little upset at the idea of his brother coming through, but he agreed that I should go for the tea and see what the medium had to say.

 

 

The next day was actually very disappointing at the time. I had fostered this idea that somehow the medium would tell me something really important, meaningful and deep. In fact, we simply sat in the backyard drinking tea and eating cakes, just chit chatting for about an hour or so. After that, the organizer suggested I should leave so as not to tire the medium, who would be giving another session later that day.

As I was about to leave, however, the medium looked at me and said, “Do you write at all, Gary?”

“Not much. Why?

“Well, I just wanted to say that you will one day write a lot.”

“Okay, thank you,” I replied.

“One more thing, Gary.”

“Yes?”

“Be open.”

“I’m sorry?” I asked, somewhat puzzled.

“Be open to spirit. They will write through you. Don’t be afraid. It will feel quite natural. It may not happen for many years yet, but it will, and I think that you might just sit from time to time with a pen in hand and a bit of paper and see if it happens.”

“Thank you,” I said again, feeling a bitter sense of disappointment. Was that all?

Apparently, the medium put on an uncharacteristically poor showing later that evening. He was tired from meeting with me, he had claimed. I didn’t understand why that should be so, nor really why he wanted to meet with me. At the time, I didn’t believe that he had told me anything very much of value at all.

About six months later, I visited the University of Hull. They had an open day for prospective students. I was seventeen and looking forward to going to university, so I went. Driving back home on my motorbike, as I accelerated away from some traffic lights, I suddenly saw a blur jump out in front of me. I braked as hard as I could, but I hit whatever it was. I heard the yelp of agony as I did so, and then I found myself sliding along the street at about 30 mph, until the handlebar hit a pothole and threw me away, gashing a hole in my knee as I went. The bike was messed up, I was okay (although bruised and bleeding), and the poor dog was dead. I felt bad. I felt terribly guilty for killing a dog. I also felt very fortunate that the light had turned red behind me, and I wasn’t run over by a car.

I remembered the medium then—what he had said in the message—and I understood that this was a sign.

Now, I do indeed write. I write a lot. And the spirits? Well, they do come through. As the boy in the movie said, I see dead people.

This story and others like it in My Haunted Life Too. Out Now!

 

 

 

Tagged: dead people, medium, My Haunted Life Too

Book Sales Dynamics

It’s been an interesting couple of months as sales of my books have moved up a notch. However, what I find interesting is how on any day,my books do well in the US or the UK but not both. There really is a pattern to this. One day, like yesterday, I sold 8 kindle books – all but one from the uk site of Amazon. The day before it was 5 Kindle books and all in the US .com site. Is this a function of how Amazon reports sales or is this real? If it’s real, why?

The My Haunted Life book has been doing well selling 2-4 copies a day for about 6-weeks now and I have given away around about 120 free copies too. My Haunted Life Too is just out and its too early to say but it seems to be selling too…. But since the first My Haunted Life came out, I have seen all of my books start to sell more – great news really. The Last Observer has been the chief beneficiary but even some of the poetry books are selling too.

There is a long way to go before I can say I am doing well on the author front as you really have to be selling multiple tens of books a day to get there but I am encouraged….

Meanwhile, just to knock my own smile off of my face, I found a best selling Kindle book the other day that My Haunted Life competes with. It was #1 on the supernatural list at Amazon so it is outselling my books by a factor of 2 to 3. I downloaded the sample of this book which according to Amazon, has the equivalent of 14 pages yet sells (in quantity) at $2.99. The title was something like How to Train to be a Witch. I opened the sample…. terrible grammar, mis spellings everywhere but here was the best bit. The book said if you want to train as a witch then go google ‘train as a witch’ and read the books you find using that search term!!!!

Wow. I would never have thought of that.

My Haunted Life Too is OUT

I know that by now, you have all rushed over to your respective Amazon sites and procured your Kindle copy of My Haunted Life Too right? No? Why not? Out today!! Scare yourself to sleep for just 99 cents with My Haunted Life Too on Kindle!

Get it here.

While you are there, don’t forget to download my poetry collection – Moon Whispers – for free and grab your copy of My Haunted Life – the original in the series….

Tagged: creepy, horror, offer, Poetry

December 17th – My Haunted Life Too

Tomorrow will see the release of My Haunted Life Too, the follow up to My Haunted Life. It will be available to start only on Kindle either for purchase or loan. Interestingly enough, I will be traveling so I post this today.

My Haunted Life is a collection of true stories of the paranormal – ghosts, the bizarre, demons, nature spirits and much, much more. They are events that I experienced or things that people around me experienced. You may find the book creepy but you will certainly be left with some questions and made to think a bit about the nature of the world in which we live.

It will be priced at 99 cents to start and is actually available now for pre-order and purchase here.

The contents of My Haunted Life Too –

INTRODUCTION

THE IMPORTANCE OF ASKING QUESTIONS

MEDIUM

FOOTSTEPS IN THE NIGHT

A NIGHT IN MY LIFE

THE CHESS PIECE

KEEPING DOWN THE DEAD

DEATH SIGN

MEET MY GUIDE

BEHIND THE WALL

ELECTRICAL FAULT

THE WATCHER

A GLIMPSE INTO THE PAST

THE BLUE ROOM

THE THING IN THE BASEMENT

PLAYFUL NATURE SPIRITS

ALL IS ONE

CLOSING THOUGHTS – AM I ALONE?

It Doesn’t Matter Anymore

It doesn’t matter

Matter anymore

A life lived

An open door

No matter anymore

It doesn’t matter

Matter anymore

Such a stress

Bloody mess

It doesn’t matter

Matter anymore

So serious

What was that about?

So erroneous

I said that

No doubt

Life and death

It seemed so serious

A waking dream

Horrifically delirious

I thought it mattered

I really did

I thought I had to try

I really did

I thought I should be

Like so acute

Like dark glasses

Sideways cute

But now I know

I have just understood

And now I laugh

Like you knew I would

It doesn’t matter

Matter anymore

A life lived

An open door

No matter anymore

It doesn’t matter

Matter anymore

Such a stress

Bloody mess

It doesn’t matter

Matter anymore

Tagged: Life, Reality

Adam and Eve

I have the words

But perhaps I lack the wisdom

Exploration is an exciting game

Especially of those darkened inner regions

As I build my tortuous iron chain

Just like that of poor Mr. Marley

Seeking ever more worldly gain

To take along to my final party

But there are chinks in my armour

That steely shell that I built

To protect myself from me

Don’t need that silly psycho drama

Strutting on a worldly stage

Never to be heard no more

A fool full of his own import

But trapped in the guilded cage

Of his own idiotic nature

Nothing, nothing more to be

Life’s a package of candy

With sticky tangy centers

Pungent tastes in the chewing

Dissolves to nothing but tasty spit

As I fade into the glory

Of a life fell foul

I wonder if he knew

I wonder if he turned

The other cheek

Played hide and seek

In his inner garden

Eve and that bloody apple

Played out once more

Rotten to his very core

But redeemed

It seemed

At the very last bitter sweet

Moment.

Tagged: Consciousness, death, dreaming, Eve

Happy Christmas – Moon Whispers

All this week you can get your christmas gift from me a tad early – its my poetry collection Moon Whispers and it is FREE on Kindle all this week. If you enjoy it, please write a review and check out my others. The paperback version is really cool and would also make a great present!

Get it here in the US and here in the UK.

Reviews

G. Michael Vasey understands the power of the word. In Moon Whispers, he takes obvious care not to convolute a simple message, exercising an economy of words when it is due, to reveal clean, crisp vignettes of his inner landscape. From tantalizing homages to food in “50 Shades of Food” to life’s more existential questions, as in “Touching Emptiness” and the quote inspired “So What Am I?”, readers will be more appreciative of each of their senses and yet wondering what lies beyond what they perceive with them.

Dielle Ciesco, author of The Unknown Mother: A Magical Walk with the Goddess of Sound and Your True Voice: Tools for Embracing a Fully Expressed Life

Moon Whispers is a tender and beautifully-crafted collection of poems that can touch the deepest layers of our soul. Like the sound of a favorite song on the radio or the recognition of truth in an unexpected place, it brings light and happiness into the heart with every verse.

Daniela I. Norris, author of On Dragonfly Wings and Collecting Feathers

I was so excited to receive the anthology, as this will be my first time reviewing poetry! I couldn’t have been offered a better collection to begin with; Dr Vasey drags the reader onto a roller-coaster of profundity from the word go. I can honestly say that I devoured every poem.

While each poem is a text in its own right, the book is held together by recurring themes like God, life and death, media, and current events. His style of writing screams of intelligence, and he invites the reader to join him in his thought processes. That said, you’ll have no difficulty understanding the language; the words have a clarity to them that makes them both refreshing and all the more challenging on a practical level.

The poems vary in length and structure, but as a general rule there is a real freedom to the formatting, and the lines flow beautifully. The writer’s bold candour shines through the rather creative structuring and graphology, leaving us with an airy lay-out that really lets the poems breathe.

While the collection was not as phonologically stunning as I might have expected (or wished), Vasey is very artful with his rhyme and repetition; his poetry is edgy, relevant and probably the most thought-provoking thing I’ve read this month (and that’s saying something because I read a LOT). I put the book down feeling like I could have read more.

That’s a four star rating for Dr Vasey, and I look forward to reading more of his work.

Daniela, Amazon.com

‘Moon Whispers – A new poetry collection’ is the fourth outing into the world of lyric and melody by Michael Vasey. This continually fascinating and ever-maturing writer has succeeded in assembling a cornucopia of new ideas, visions, and comments on his personal universe and the world ‘out there’.

A title like ‘Julia Robert’s Smile’ is typical of the poet’s wry humour. These lines from another piece neatly combine word play and a satirical edge.

Bit by bit

Revelations

Byte by byte

Animations

The combination of the classic and the contemporary is never far away. A line like ‘Forged in ancient fire’ manages to sit quite comfortably with this pair in another poem seen later in the collection.

Houston, I heard you calling

Or am I confusing you with the Clash?

The piece entitled ‘All at sea’ shows Vasey’s optimism is never far away, though he often questions whether he always possesses that quality himself. The depth of his feelings combined with an acute intelligence have, however, produced the joyous lines,

Following a golden sunbeam

Tumbling through life’s dream

Besides his poetry collections, Vasey’s other forays into authorship, a recognised authority on occult matters – ‘The Mystical Hexagram’ – and his splendid novel ‘The Last Observer’ shows a varied dimension of thought and an endless imagination.

Gordon Strong, Amazon.com

Tagged: free book, giveaway, Moon whispers, Poetry

The Meaning of Christmas – A short Story

The scene was a familiar one. The street was filled with people hustling and bustling and jostling with each other from time to time. Their breaths hung in the freezing air like little trails of smoke. The street was lit in the darkness of the winter’s late afternoon by the colored christmas lights hanging from each lamp and in the shop windows. With just a few days left until the holiday, these were the last minuters – those who were ever increasingly desperate to grab their last few bargains and presents.

Phillip watched in silence. The scene had a surreal quality about it. The anxious faces of people who in some instances, could ill afford the presents and gifts they were trying to purchase. He watched with increasing understanding of each individual’s dilemmas. He felt sorry for the single mother, loaded down with two young children. He knew she had little money and little confidence and yet her kids eyes shone with excitement. It would be a meagre christmas for them, but they were excited anyway.

He observed an older man silently gazing into the window of a jewelry shop and he understood that he was crying. He was crying inside because he faced his first christmas alone in over 4–years and he had noticed a ladies watch that looked very much like the one he had bought his wife for christmas the previous year. She had been dead four months and the pain still wracked his heart. He hadn’t a clue how he would get through the holiday without her.

He watched the street entertainer playing the guitar and singing and understood how cold his fingers were in the freezing air. He was hoping that these shoppers could spare enough change for him to have a hot meal. There would be no Turkey and trimmings for him this year. No sitting in the warmth around a brightly lit tree. He would be lucky to find a warm place to sleep and maybe a small bottle of rum to keep him warm through the night.

And yet, in all of the mayhem and the personal stories of life – sadness, happiness, stress, worry and all of those other emotions, Phillip understood something else watching that scene play out in front of him that night. He understood the meaning of christmas. He understood that it wasn’t about gifts; the giving or receiving. It wasn’t about the lights, the trees or the big movie on TV. Christmas, he now knew, was about hope. It was about the hope and the faith that people could learn to love each other. It was about the little things then that came from love and hope and charity. It was about the humanity behind humanity and its potential for good.

He could see this now in the light of love that he could see glowing more strongly or weakly around those people in the street. The brightness of it gave him hope. Even now, the brightness was growing and in that light he could see his father smiling. It was time to go.

He took another look at his body, crushed and deformed by the tram that had hit him moments ago, and at the people gathered around it trying to revive him. Then, he moved towards the light. He grasped the hand of his father and was pulled into a hug as the light enveloped him and the scene faded for all eternity.

 

Tagged: christmas, death, love, the light