This business of the mass Koran-burning is a little odd, don’t you think? Is it simply a case of religion demonstrating yet again that it can be, and often is, more about bigotry, supremacism and the politics of hate than any true notions of spirituality? Or is there something we don’t know?
Take the man apparently behind it. If the Rev Jones should elect, by some excessive stretch of the imagination, to call himself a Christian, then one of three conditions would appear to pertain. Either he’s lying, he’s being very creative in his interpretation of the supposed teachings of Jesus, or he doesn’t have any brain cells.
Maybe it really is as simple as that, but I can’t help wondering.
But no; then I’d be getting into conspiracy theories and hidden agendas, and we all know how silly they are. Even at this time of year.
I got some junk mail in the post this morning. Middle aged junk mail. It was from an insurance broker, and said that I deserve to save money now that I’m more ‘careful’ and ‘responsible.’ Really? And it said that if I called them, I would automatically be entered in a prize draw for a Caribbean cruise. There was a separate glossy leaflet to whet my appetite.
It displayed a picture of a big white cruise liner, which looked ostentatious. I dislike ostentation. Among other things, I find it sickly. There was another picture of four middle aged people sitting at a bar. They were obviously meant to be two happily married couples, and were the very image of middle aged stability and contentment. They looked smart and sickly; they had sickly smiles. The barman was young and handsome, and yet even his forced smile managed to look sickly. Along the top of the bar counter were four frothy drinks – two pink and two pale yellow. They looked the sickliest of all.
What are they trying to do? Make me vomit?
Give me a downbeat bar or a traditional English pub any time. Give me a few double scotches or a few pints of best English bitter. Give me a disreputable woman who will say things to make me giggle – for starters. And then leave me alone. I don’t fit the image.
This is what happens when you start the descent from the more rarefied atmospheres. You get things like this running through your head, that’s what. Have you any idea how ashamed I am?
My name it is Susie.
I want a jacuzzi
To end all my troubles.
Just think of those bubbles,
And how I could make them amuse me.
But then, if I might paraphrase:
What is this life
If, wilily nilly,
We have no time
To just be silly.
I have five thousand people coming for a meal tomorrow. What the hell am I going to do with this sliced loaf and two bits of Sainsbury’s smoked mackerel?
According to Google stats, my post ‘Thomasin’ has been viewed eight times today. Why? Would it have been viewed eight times if it had been called ‘Mildred?’
And a little less mysterious, but still interesting. The local farmer’s son came along in his tractor today, to cut the long boundary hedge that runs down the side of my garden and borders his land. I went out and offered him £20, which seemed a reasonable price to me. He said he didn’t want that much; £10 would suffice. Can you imagine a modern young businessman saying that, in a world which believes in charging the highest price you can get away with? I insisted he had the £20 anyway. He did a good job.
Jeffrey’s latest vote for the world’s most beautiful woman is:
Margarita Levieve.
Seems I haven’t quite joined the heavenly host yet.
Still don’t know what’s important, though. Maybe tomorrow. Just keeping in touch with the dwindling number of people still looking this way. And tonight I was the proud recipient of a cyber slap in the mouth.
Many a tear has to fall. But it's all In the game.
I’ve been trying to put some of my latest ‘phase’ into words, but I’ve decided it’s pointless. My experiences are only relevant to my journey, and that’s true of all of us. It’s why I now have even less time for preachers than I did before. And I greatly dislike the fact that I am sometimes given to preaching myself.
Besides, some experiences can only be experienced. How do you describe the colour red to someone who’s been blind from birth? That’s just a simple example. When it comes to the perception of life, and the even greater notion of existence, it gets more complicated. Language, even when used lyrically, is still fundamentally a tool of logic. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my life, it is that logic has its limitations.
The blog seems to be on hold at the moment. That’s because I’m not sure what I think is and isn’t worth saying. I don’t seem to have completely lost my sense of silliness, though, so maybe I’ll pick it up from there eventually. I’m more convinced than ever that life is just a game, and that I’m perfectly at liberty to play whichever bits I want to play and avoid the ones I don’t. The important thing is to be aware of the game.
No more posts for a while yet. Something happened on August 31st, not very big in itself but enough to send the sub-atomic particles that make up my consciousness – or whatever it is that makes up consciousness – flying around in the ether. The result has been a strange week of introspection, realisation and revelation. I get these phases occasionally when I seem to be taken apart and re-assembled a little differently. This one feels big; I think I might have had sight of the first spark of Buddha-mind. Which doesn’t mean I have any intention of becoming a Buddhist, of course, since I don’t function that way, but it does mean that I’m not in the right mental state to communicate until I see what the new me is. It might be little different on the surface, but I don’t know yet. These periods of metamorphosis have happened several times over the last ten years, and the only person who takes them in her stride is Helen.
So, I might resume the blog when I’m ready, or I might not.
I've never had money because I've never been driven by money. I received little formal education beyond the age of sixteen, which isn't such a bad thing since you get a different angle on life that way. Learning what you want and need to learn often reveals things that the system's road keeps hidden.
Anyone interested in viewing the availablity of my novel Odyssey or novella The Gift Horse can do so here.
To Be Retained...
...until death do re-unite or the Priestess return to Avalon.
Khalil Gibran on Children.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
OMAR KAYYAM ON REGRET.
The moving finger writes and, having writ, moves on. Nor all your piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all your tears wash out a word of it.
Herman Hess on Nobility
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self .
Free Fiction
I have another blog called A Handful of Stories on which I've posted some of my short fiction. Most of it has been published by a variety of independent small press publishers, so somebody other than me must have thought it worth reading.
All the permanent pictures and some of the posted ones on this blog are my copyright. Most of them, however, are placed with a picture library which holds the licensing rights. I don't, therefore, have the legal right to grant permission to use them.
An Inhabitant of the Hungry Ghost Realm
This character appears in one of my short stories, and also in the novel. He's sadder than he looks, poor thing.
