Sue Vincent's Blog: Echoes of Life, page 1037

Bloody weird

Sorry. I forgot the ‘and’…

But there are no two ways about it, both applied this morning.

It started, had I but known it, two nights ago. Ani was sprawled asleep on the remains of the sofa, having decommissioned it for the night and reinvented it as a den. It must have been late as the village of Waddesdon slept quietly; the silence broken only by the dogged tapping of the keyboard and a certain amount of snoring from under the sofa cushions.

There was an almighty crack, as if a small stone had been hurled at the window. Except it sounded as if it was in the room. I had a look… flicked the outside lights on… nothing. Except a very alert small dog looking at me accusingly as I ignored her ‘pointing’ at the picture on the wall. I inspected that too. Still nothing. I shrugged and sat back down to finish up for the night, thinking no more about it. Odd things happen here.

Next morning I watered the houseplants and noticed the flowers in the vase must have been thirsty… they had drunk all their water. I was a little surprised… it is a big vase and one I rather like, being a simple design of really thick, heavy glass, perfect for a spring bouquet. Having the plastic jug in my hand I simply topped it up in situ, wondering how long their fragrance would last.

This morning the vase was, I noticed, half empty again… which was really surprising. It isn’t a small vase and there weren’t that many stems in it. Still, I thought I had better fill it before I left for work. I picked it up to carry to the kitchen… the flowers and vase came with me… and the water stayed put. Except, water doesn’t.

It escapes in a great gush.

So I’m standing there gobsmacked with my hands full of wilting flowers holding the bowl of the vase, watching the water, which should have been contained within its heavy glass curves, move ever closer to the laptop and the things I had been working on for the workshop…

You know those eternal moments of utter blankness when the world stops and ceases to make any sense at all? Yep… one of those…

Then all hell breaks loose as I dive for the kitchen, scattering flowers, to ditch the vase in the sink, grab the towel and kitchen paper… rescue the laptop and try to mop up the absconding water before it does too much damage… It was about this point I realised it was running red too.

Here, of course, was the explanation. The base of the vase still sat happily in the centre of the table, its clarity almost invisible in the puddle of destruction. How and why would have to wait.

Further inspection… once the table had been cleared, gadgetry rescued from inevitable death by drowning and fingers neatly repaired with sticking plasters… showed the base to have been neatly sliced all the way round… a heavy, solid glass base perfectly detached from its bowl which is itself at least half an inch thick. My mind skipped back to the sharp crack of glass two days earlier. It must have gone then… though how and why I have no idea. It had simply been sitting there for a few days untouched.

What I couldn’t understand was how the water had stayed in at all… and if it hadn’t, where had it gone and why hadn’t I noticed the puddles?

That at least I could solve… sort of… There must have been seepage, and somehow, instead of heading for the laptop it had been soaked up by a mask on the table. A moon mask I was working on for the ritual workshop and which was now sodden, even though the morning’s flood hadn’t reached it.

It figures, of course… moon and water are intimately linked and the moon draws water… And what with the equinox, a new moon and the solar eclipse, weirdness should be little surprise. Especially in this house.

Even so, I am still no wiser as to what caused the vase to fracture in the silence….

Conversation with the small dog

“It’s obvious, I have to say,

My face adorns the book…

And there are few who can resist

This cheeky canine look.”

“But just a mo,” the writer said,

“I think the book is mine…”

“Without my inspiration

Do you really think you’d shine?”

“You have a point,” the writer said,

“My Muse is black and furry.

But still…my book…I’m fairly sure…”

“That ownership is blurry…

You know the score,” the dog replied,

“Just who owns who’s debated.”

She grinned and threw a tennis ball,

“This ‘master’ thing’s belated.”

The writer fetched the ball as bid,

“Yes, you’re the boss, it’s true,

And reaching the bestseller list

Is all because of you.”

“It won’t take much,” the small dog said,

“To make me number one…

Another half a dozen sales

And then the job is done.”

The writer sighed, picked up her pen

And settled to her task…

The small dog grinned as she complied

“It couldn’t hurt to ask…”

“Laughter Lines” is number 31 on Amazon in its category in Books… the small dog would love to see it climb the charts…

“Laughter Lines – Life from the Tail End”
Available from Amazon UK, Amazon.com and worldwide in Paperback and for Kindle.

Laughter Lines:

Life from the Tail End

Sue Vincent

Take a life with a small dog in tow, add a dash of red hair dye, a selection of crumbling biscuits and a dash of fun… The result is a recipe for laughter.

Hope

Nine Deadly Sins with Coffee – Part Three

Originally posted on The Silent Eye:

Alexandra had texted me to say that she was already at the coffee shop, if I was around . . . the message also said, “Anything that purports to be a Truth Machine is worthy of a little prep.”

Despite this, when I arrived it was just after 08:30, the car park machine having eaten my first lot of change without giving me back a ticket. It was one of life’s little happenings; the sort that could trigger useless anger – something I very much wanted us to talk about, given the stressful life that I knew Alexandra led.

I arrived to find her sitting at our usual table. Spread out before her was a new serviette, a blank CD, a small ruler and a pen. She had reconstructed our previous drawing with more accuracy than the totally freehand approach allowed, yet was still being true to our principle of…

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Hive mind

There are one or two things on my mind at present. Nothing negative …but fairly demanding things I need to deal with. Part of me knows full well that, should all go according to plan, I will enjoy the whole process. I find the possibilities rather exciting. But for the time being, I’m not even certain it will happen. It should… but it might not. Even so, practicalities and impossibilities are whirling around in my mind… a mind that seldom seems to stop just at present.

There is fear there too, regardless of whether I dress it up with any other name… all the ‘how on earths’ and ‘what ifs’ that intrude… all the things you don’t know how to do, or simply can’t manage … and all the emotion that goes with any kind of change…

…Even though you know damned well that all that is going to happen is that you will simply roll up your sleeves and find a way regardless. You just do.

What with one thing and another, my thoughts have been buzzing so hard they have left little room for anything else. Like a hive of agitated bees they seem to repel any intruder that seeks to disturb their dance.

And then you get the stalker. Not some genuinely interested person who simply wants to make friends… Not someone you have come to know gradually online, perhaps. No. The type whose very first point of contact is flowery enough to give you hayfever and about as transparent …and potentially lethal … as a shard of glass. I’ve made myself fairly clear on my opinion of them before after watching a woman break her heart over one of the more plausible of their number.

They too seem to be part of a hive mind of a different sort… a shared wavelength that is capable of drafting almost identical emails and messages, as if they had access to some kind of prescriptive manual on how to con vulnerable women. My disgust at these tactics stopped my internal buzzing in its tracks and had all the little stingers in there firmly aimed in the direction of this predatory mentality, while I resisted the urge to respond with verbal tooth and claw.

It was thus agitated and fair seething that I stepped outside into the garden. Instead of looking at what still needs to be done to get it ready for the growing season, for once I just stood there, holding the rickety rail by the flower bed. The sun was warm on my back behind the shelter of the garden fence; really warm, bathing my skin in springtime. Shadows danced amongst the leaves, rustling the dried stems that still need to be cleared. Tiny shoots and burgeoning buds dot the stalks and twigs through which a huge bumblebee… the first of the year… lumbered impossibly.

I watched its sleepy flight, knowing the science that keeps it in the air, yet seeing only the miracle of those tiny wings lifting the fat, furry body. All thought was adrift in wonder, washed away by the glow of the sun. Taught muscles, crisped against the cold for so long, relaxed in the warmth and inner silence. I was conscious of not knowing the last time I had simply taken time outside of meditation  to not do anything, but the thought had nothing to cling to. I was aware of the detail observed yet it registered as a whole not as parts. For a time unmeasured and unhurried, I simply stood as part of the moment.

It was only later, back at the screen, coffee in hand, that it occurred to me that it had taken the negative emotions to prepare the canvas of the mind for that moment of utter peace. On a bland day I would probably have only seen the gardening that needed to be done… had I gone out there at all. On a good day I would have been beavering away and missed the impossible flight of the first bumblebee. Like children, I thought, sometimes the lessons that are taught through love can begin with less than pleasant circumstances; it is one way to get our attention, after all and the brightness shows all the clearer against the shadows.

None of it sounds of much importance, yet it is through such apparently insignificant moments that we are taught. Their impact on our inner state cannot be measured as we draw from them lessons which, perhaps, we cannot voice. The realisations may go deep, beyond thought, taking time to find their way back up to the surface of consciousness. Such moments out of time we seem to connect with yet another Mind, one that encompasses all we know and all we are and in that utter peace our small cares and even our individuality have neither place nor relevance. We are one tiny sparkle on the endless velvet of eternity, one mind amongst many, yet we are one with the One who is All.

Witness

Dear Wen XX

Originally posted on Stuart France:

Dear Wen…

The dichotomy is between devouring or eating and swallowing whole…

The Moon cycle… being devoured or eaten symbolises ‘earthly time’…

The Sun cycle… being swallowed whole symbolises ‘cosmic time’…

There are some specific iconographies for this.

I am thinking of the Gnostic Eon… or Aion…

A lion headed man entwined by a serpent…

…Which precisely corresponds with and extends the Egyptian conception of Ra and Apophis.

Photo Andreu Abuin

The Leon-cephalic holds symbols in both hands…

From memory, I think one of them may be the ‘dorje’ a double- headed ‘thunderbolt’.

(The same weapon used by Marduk to ‘dispatch’ his ‘adversary’… which starts to look like another symbol for time, winged and looking back devouring…)

…And, again, from memory this ‘fellow’ is sometimes depicted with arms crossed over the chest and sometimes with hands meeting over the heart centre, which are both Osirian postures of course.

Odd you…

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Laughter Lines: Life from the Tail End

You might as well just blame Diana,

It was all at her prompting you see,

‘Cause I thought the humorous poems

Were something I’d written for me.

“But no,” said my friend with a chuckle,

“You really should get them in print.”

So I faffed and I fiddled with typos,

And went on an editing stint.

The small dog looked on all disgruntled,

She would rather be out for a walk.

So we had to sit down for a cuddle

And meanwhile, she said, “Can we talk?”

She strikes a hard bargain, the small dog,

Her face made the cover again…

And as an appearance fee forced me

To take her for runs in the rain.

The small dog would be very grateful…

As she’s after new tennis balls too…

And if we could sell a few copies,

Her tennis ball launcher is due.

So “Laughter Lines: Life from the Tail End”

Is hitting the Amazon shelf,

A collection of rather daft poems,

You might want to read for yourself.

“Laughter Lines – Life from the Tail End”
Available from Amazon UK, Amazon.com and worldwide in Paperback and for Kindle.

Laughter Lines:

Life from the Tail End

Sue Vincent

Take a life with a small dog in tow, add a dash of red hair dye, a selection of crumbling biscuits and a dash of fun… The result is a recipe for laughter.

Plus ça change…

Originally posted on The Silent Eye:

“I have just finished a first complete reading of the ritual drama that will unfold at the weekend workshop in April and, when you see something come together for the first time in grace and beauty, you cannot remain unmoved. When the visual imagination paints a vivid, moving picture, on the screens of heart and mind, telling of something infinitely beautiful, you cannot remain untouched. When that something speaks of the soul’s journey into Light, it becomes intimate, deeply personal, and universal.
It is going to be a hell of a weekend.
Mind you, we have to get there first…”

I could have written that today… but I wrote it a year ago. Almost all of the post remains accurate a year on as we begin the final countdown towards the April workshop. I haven’t read the script for all the weekend yet… as some of it is still…

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Grounded