Shaman...What’s that?
The word Shaman comes from the language of a tribe in Northern Siberia the Tungus. It is a word that has many meanings the easiest of which is the generic ‘healer’ but the more interesting and probably closer translation is like the tag line, ‘The one with eyes to see in the dark’.
There are as many different types of Shamanism as there are peoples on this Earth and each one has their own unique way of dealing with their people’s dis-ease, problems and queries.
The most interesting thing about this is that it is the oldest belief system on Earth; perhaps even in the Universe (I’ll have to get back to you on that one!)
Cave paintings that have been found dating back about 100,000 years show the primitive lives that were led at that time and the mainstay of that life was the hunt, for without food there could be no tribe.
Across the world there were tribes in the same situations and at the same stage of evolution. The other thing they all had in common was their Shamans, and what they had in common was a central or core belief system.
Shamanism is an animistic belief system. It has all to do with how the animals lived and hunted and fought and survived on this great planet of ours. The Shamans drew parallels and observed closely the animals’ behaviour and their connection with their environment, this also set apart from the others of the tribe because they could do, see and know things that others did not.
An eminent anthropologist called Le Barre once said that there were Shamans before there were Gods.
One story which explains this well is the story of the arrival of the first ships on the coast of what is now the America’s. No-one could see the ships because they had no knowledge of what they were – they could not conceive of a vessel such as a galleon. However, one Shaman noticed a disturbance on the water and he drew from his experience of observing the water for fishing and the strange disturbance grew in size and shape before him and then he saw the new thing and went off to tell his tale to the chiefs of the people.
So it is more a lack of limitation of knowledge. An understanding that perhaps we have not yet seen all there is to see in the world and therefore some of us notice things a little differently.
This way of seeing things comes at a price. The Shaman is called in one of three ways:-
Near death experience
Mental trauma (mental breakdown)
Hereditary calling
The first two are really self-explanatory, the other way the Tungus describe a Shaman is as ‘the one with the mad eyes’. They say that the eyes of the Shaman burn bright in the dark. I suspect that is also when they are in trance. A severe shock or mental breakdown or a near death experience is going to give you a reasonably different outlook and it also is the way of being touched by Spirit. This is why the Native American Indians are very respectful of the mentally wounded and will almost revere them, some likening them to Heyoka medicine men/women whose medicine is to do everything backwards. These are called by the thunder spirits and are equally feared and blessed by their neighbours.
The hereditary Shaman: well you would think would you not that these guys would have a choice in this matter and to an extent you would be correct but not really. In order to refuse the office of Shaman they must take themselves off and be separated from their family and friends until the calling leaves them this separation can result in a mental breakdown so Hobson’s choice really.
So how does all this come to be happening in this neck of the woods?
The modern day Western Shamanic practitioner has experienced some of the above too. Spirit calls and when it does it kind of grabs you by the scruff of the neck and gives you a good shake...at least that was how it was for me.
There are just as many different Shamanic cultures here. Some of us follow Celtic ways or the Norse system, some are more Native American, and then there are the Peruvian/South American devotees and some are a little bit eclectic because the central – core belief is what really counts.
Why are there so many different ways to do this? Because there are so many different people with different needs and it is like choosing your doctor you want someone who ‘gets’ you as much as you ‘get them’.
The Shaman goes on what is called a Journey; this is done in what is called an ecstatic trance, which is a light to medium trance. It is not like meditation, for meditation the focus is inward the Journey trance is outward hence the word ecstatic which comes from the Greek ekstasis meaning outside. The journey is done to the beat of a drum. A particular kind of drum which will enable the Shaman to travel to one of the three worlds, these comprise of the Upper (Angelic, Divine realm), the Middle (the reality ‘next door’ the land of the Fae, healing and other change work takes place here) and the Lower World (where the Power Animals are found, a place of teaching, connection and healing).
The journey is usually made to the beat of a drum, but trance can be achieved in dance or by connecting to nature, stones, the Sami culture Joiks themselves into a journey that is a song with no words but that is another story. We do love our stories, and we use them for healing also. The faerie tales of old are the telling of journeys. They tell of quests and lessons, healings and challenges, rites of passage that we do not honour so much these days.
Also known as Shadow Walkers the Shaman’s task is to traverse the veils of these realities in order to bring back healing or messages for the seeker or client. In the beginning it would have been to find out where the herds would be for hunting, where the best water and shelter would be found and when it was time to move. They will talk to the ancestors and the other peoples who share this world with us. The Stone people, the Standing People, the winged ones and the beasts that crawl and swim. For everything has a Spirit and everything is of Spirit and therefore deserves and demands respect.
This is the dipping of a toe into a vast ocean; this subject spans the Universe, not just the globe.
Our path has taken us as far as Canada where we are part of the Wolven Clan and I have been ordained and initiated within that community. And really that is what it is all about, community. Respecting oneself and ones neighbours, being aware of the consequences of ones actions. Being responsible for one’s own lessons in life and understanding that dis-ease has a spiritual root as well as an emotional and physical root.
It really is all about connection, and a world wide web that is not the internet.
There is so much to tell and so much still to learn. For further reading I can recommend ‘The Sacred Hoop’ which comes out quarterly. There is so much information out there, it is all happening and these days we have no excuse to miss any of it. From the resurgence of the 13 Grandmothers to the exponents of Huna, Shamanic practice from Hawaii, (that is where the term ‘the Big Kahuna’ is taken from).
We at Spiral Heart are happy to provide information and help with enquiries should anyone want to know more. See our website for more info on some of the things Shamanic practitioners can do for you.
+ Leslie Marsh Spiral Heart Healing
A Foray into the Forest,with Leslie Marsh
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Were you a ‘Listen/Watch with Mother fan? Did you then progress to Jackanory on television after school?
There was always a set time for a story, and we would all eagerly await the radio coming out of the cupboard or the walk to the TV room, wondering in hushed tones what the story would be as we made the journey along the corridor anticipating where we would ‘go’ today.
Teachers must have loved it, the only time when the average classroom of thirty boys and girls became one quiet, attentive and enthused body, all at once. Experiencing trance journey and multi level learning by living it. Allowing it to happen due to the safe environment they were in, and retelling the story of their journey to their parents when they got home.
Jacked in to the Universe, the story a scart lead connection to the mainframe of the void, where the unconscious mind downloads information by the mega bite. Boys and girls in a journeying trance, enraptured, enthralled, engaged, being in the story, real time. Get the picture?
The power of metaphor bridging the generational gap and more; we tell our lives through stories.
If we look more closely from our new perspective, as adults, and take one story, you know, the one with the wolf who has the big eyes and the little girl with the grandma who may well be tougher than she looks, and take it in the context of a Shamanic journey, what new lessons would we learn? What if we could take that idea and apply it to other journeys that we take in life? Would we not then have a better idea what stories we would like to tell? When we would like to tell them and how they would better benefit both the teller and the listener; because you know we listen to every tale we tell. What if we could make our story better, truer, like another little girl who found the one that was ‘just right’ or so she thought at the time?
When we journey for people who come to us for help, they tell us their story, we then bring them back another story that they will connect to so that they may continue their journey towards a happy ever after. Not everyone gets there, we know this, but the meat in the middle holds the beginning and the end of a story together; it is always the journey, not the journeys end that our seekers are striving to understand.
As Shamen we tell our truth, we tell our story, your story, his – tory. We find wisdom and learning in places that others have forgotten they’ve been. The warp and weft of the tale makes a rich tapestry that we weave as we go.
So let’s explore this one story of a little girl’s journey through life, she is after all a warrior just like us. Let’s re tell her tale and find out things we perhaps forgot we knew by seeing them through Shamens eyes, and then as we always do, share our thoughts and feelings on the experience.
Shaman eyes – all the better to see you with…
There was always a set time for a story, and we would all eagerly await the radio coming out of the cupboard or the walk to the TV room, wondering in hushed tones what the story would be as we made the journey along the corridor anticipating where we would ‘go’ today.
Teachers must have loved it, the only time when the average classroom of thirty boys and girls became one quiet, attentive and enthused body, all at once. Experiencing trance journey and multi level learning by living it. Allowing it to happen due to the safe environment they were in, and retelling the story of their journey to their parents when they got home.
Jacked in to the Universe, the story a scart lead connection to the mainframe of the void, where the unconscious mind downloads information by the mega bite. Boys and girls in a journeying trance, enraptured, enthralled, engaged, being in the story, real time. Get the picture?
The power of metaphor bridging the generational gap and more; we tell our lives through stories.
If we look more closely from our new perspective, as adults, and take one story, you know, the one with the wolf who has the big eyes and the little girl with the grandma who may well be tougher than she looks, and take it in the context of a Shamanic journey, what new lessons would we learn? What if we could take that idea and apply it to other journeys that we take in life? Would we not then have a better idea what stories we would like to tell? When we would like to tell them and how they would better benefit both the teller and the listener; because you know we listen to every tale we tell. What if we could make our story better, truer, like another little girl who found the one that was ‘just right’ or so she thought at the time?
When we journey for people who come to us for help, they tell us their story, we then bring them back another story that they will connect to so that they may continue their journey towards a happy ever after. Not everyone gets there, we know this, but the meat in the middle holds the beginning and the end of a story together; it is always the journey, not the journeys end that our seekers are striving to understand.
As Shamen we tell our truth, we tell our story, your story, his – tory. We find wisdom and learning in places that others have forgotten they’ve been. The warp and weft of the tale makes a rich tapestry that we weave as we go.
So let’s explore this one story of a little girl’s journey through life, she is after all a warrior just like us. Let’s re tell her tale and find out things we perhaps forgot we knew by seeing them through Shamens eyes, and then as we always do, share our thoughts and feelings on the experience.
Shaman eyes – all the better to see you with…
Monday, October 13, 2008
the Write Retreat
If you are thinking of retreating it pays to get it right, WRITE?
There are times in our lives when, let’s face it, we need to take a step back. We need to take stock. We need to take time to breathe. Far too often our conscious mind says “Well yes, of course you want to do that but let me just say – NO! Not now, not in the next little while and just NO! You have so much to do – there are a hundred thousand things that are all clamouring for your attention when and if I give you a spare five minutes to even look at the possibility of dealing with them.”
Now that is when, and I mean right at that second you really do need to stop.
Serendipity led to meeting @Katherine Parris at a Writing Conference in August this year,
Katherine has a place in France, Brittany to be precise.
Not only does she have a place in France but she is opening her doors to writers and their families who perhaps feel the need to stop for a bit, take stock for a bit, but want to continue to have the opportunity to be writing at the same time – should they feel the urge.
Katherine is the proud owner of +‘The Write Retreat’ and it does exactly what it says on the tin.
On arrival we were struck by the total lack of noise. The air was easier to breathe and the pace was chaotically slow.
Walking into the Narnia cupboard would be similar I think – it is an assault on the senses to experience the total lack of forward motion that is France at its most laid back.
No sooner had we put the cases down than the wine began to flow and we were introduced to the family that would be ours for the duration of our stay, indeed we feel that we have become part of that growing family and are honoured to be so.
There is opportunity here. So much to see and do if you wish it, from the Menhirs to the Dolman, you are never more than two hours away from a coastline so there is ample to do for family who may not share your writing bug.
Perhaps it is your wish to make a full retreat and write that opus or Oscar winning screenplay? Then the annexe is the place for you. Flexible to the extent that it is up to you whether or not you interact with the family or live in splendid isolation, the choice is always yours.
The Write Retreat has to be experienced in all its wonder. The schoolhouse quietly situated on a main street, waiting expectantly for the arrival of the inspired and inspiring. The most amazingly eccentric but phenomenal restaurant bar that is Ghislane’s where in this the 21st Century you can have five courses and a litre bottle of good house wine for the princely sum of 13 Euros. The sleepy hamlet that is Kerivoa where the night sky is as blinged up as a hip hop DJ lottery winner with stars that shine and sparkle as Mozart and the Beatles would say, like diamonds in the sky only so much brighter and so much more beautiful.
Anyone who writes, has written, wants to write or is suffering from white page angst should go there.
The warmth of the welcome is out classed only by the feeling of belonging that occurs as if by magic. The rapport that springs from long acquaintance has been somehow concentrated and added to the air you breathe and the water you drink there.
Go to Kerivoa, get +the Write Retreat and breathe deeply. You will be inspired and recharged and you will return.
There are times in our lives when, let’s face it, we need to take a step back. We need to take stock. We need to take time to breathe. Far too often our conscious mind says “Well yes, of course you want to do that but let me just say – NO! Not now, not in the next little while and just NO! You have so much to do – there are a hundred thousand things that are all clamouring for your attention when and if I give you a spare five minutes to even look at the possibility of dealing with them.”
Now that is when, and I mean right at that second you really do need to stop.
Serendipity led to meeting @Katherine Parris at a Writing Conference in August this year,
Katherine has a place in France, Brittany to be precise.
Not only does she have a place in France but she is opening her doors to writers and their families who perhaps feel the need to stop for a bit, take stock for a bit, but want to continue to have the opportunity to be writing at the same time – should they feel the urge.
Katherine is the proud owner of +‘The Write Retreat’ and it does exactly what it says on the tin.
On arrival we were struck by the total lack of noise. The air was easier to breathe and the pace was chaotically slow.
Walking into the Narnia cupboard would be similar I think – it is an assault on the senses to experience the total lack of forward motion that is France at its most laid back.
No sooner had we put the cases down than the wine began to flow and we were introduced to the family that would be ours for the duration of our stay, indeed we feel that we have become part of that growing family and are honoured to be so.
There is opportunity here. So much to see and do if you wish it, from the Menhirs to the Dolman, you are never more than two hours away from a coastline so there is ample to do for family who may not share your writing bug.
Perhaps it is your wish to make a full retreat and write that opus or Oscar winning screenplay? Then the annexe is the place for you. Flexible to the extent that it is up to you whether or not you interact with the family or live in splendid isolation, the choice is always yours.
The Write Retreat has to be experienced in all its wonder. The schoolhouse quietly situated on a main street, waiting expectantly for the arrival of the inspired and inspiring. The most amazingly eccentric but phenomenal restaurant bar that is Ghislane’s where in this the 21st Century you can have five courses and a litre bottle of good house wine for the princely sum of 13 Euros. The sleepy hamlet that is Kerivoa where the night sky is as blinged up as a hip hop DJ lottery winner with stars that shine and sparkle as Mozart and the Beatles would say, like diamonds in the sky only so much brighter and so much more beautiful.
Anyone who writes, has written, wants to write or is suffering from white page angst should go there.
The warmth of the welcome is out classed only by the feeling of belonging that occurs as if by magic. The rapport that springs from long acquaintance has been somehow concentrated and added to the air you breathe and the water you drink there.
Go to Kerivoa, get +the Write Retreat and breathe deeply. You will be inspired and recharged and you will return.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
connecting the dots
Fae-rly Interesting
So, what is it with the fascination with the Shining Ones? We tell tales of them and wish on them and claim they are living at the bottom of the garden, and some may well be if we are very lucky. All these things and more we tell to our children. Stories of Wicked Witches and Wiley Wolves and quite psychotic mother goats’ who slit open stomachs and place rocks in there before allowing the recipient to drown themselves in a well due to their new weightiness.
Were these the play station games of their times. Was the story of Baba Yaga the equivalent of Grand theft Auto or whatever it is called?
Probably not, because unless I miss my guess there is an element missing in the latter, the moral tale, the warning to all who ‘play’ that they are going to be virtually made responsible for the carnage they make on the screen. Which part of it makes them think about consequences of choices?
If, as posited by Deepak Chopra et al, what we think we project and manifest then perhaps the reason we have so much violence and disharmony in the world is the constant onslaught of bloody adrenalin fuelled imaginings of one person that is connecting with the punters who play their game. What does one win with these things anyway? If it is a sense of achievement that is the prize surely it is society at large who should be thinking about just how low the bar of this particular achievement is set.
Instead of finding things to do it is an automatic response to get to a games machine or a computer, this is not just restricted to the younger end of the spectrum either, so in the morphogenic field it is not surprising that we are in the midst of scenes from Mad Max.
This sounds like I’m preaching that this is abnormal. Unfortunately being human kind of predisposes us to violence. We are after all the biggest predator on the planet.
The idea that what can be imagined can become manifest in the physical is nothing new; look at the communicators in Star Trek, good old James T. Kirk getting out his prehistoric mobile phone to get himself beamed up by Scottie. We already have the mobile phones and they have been working on the beaming up thing for quite some time. The boffins are busy boys particularly since the Quantum Theories came into their collective consciousnesses.
String theory now there is a fascinating one, but the Quantum theory small as it is… well now it is throwing up some very interesting posits of its own. It is proving the faerie tales of old, it is challenging the scientists dogmatic grasp on what reality is.
It is proving Magick exists and that it has been with us since we began to ‘string’ two thoughts together (pardon the pun).
So if that is the case and the Shining Ones exist in the Universe adjacent to this one, and they have areas of overlap couldn’t we perhaps concentrate on filling our younger minds with adventures in Quantum land where just any and every permutation of any given situation is possible and is happening in another Universe concurrently with this one.
Get a large Kit-Kat and cup of whatever you have and discuss that at tea break – see what happens.
Then just for fun, think about all the other ways the conversation could have gone and it will have somewhere. My head is now opening up to possibility and it’s a bit of a rush you should try it – no drugs required just imagination and if I can imagine it well – let me tell you a story about that…
So, what is it with the fascination with the Shining Ones? We tell tales of them and wish on them and claim they are living at the bottom of the garden, and some may well be if we are very lucky. All these things and more we tell to our children. Stories of Wicked Witches and Wiley Wolves and quite psychotic mother goats’ who slit open stomachs and place rocks in there before allowing the recipient to drown themselves in a well due to their new weightiness.
Were these the play station games of their times. Was the story of Baba Yaga the equivalent of Grand theft Auto or whatever it is called?
Probably not, because unless I miss my guess there is an element missing in the latter, the moral tale, the warning to all who ‘play’ that they are going to be virtually made responsible for the carnage they make on the screen. Which part of it makes them think about consequences of choices?
If, as posited by Deepak Chopra et al, what we think we project and manifest then perhaps the reason we have so much violence and disharmony in the world is the constant onslaught of bloody adrenalin fuelled imaginings of one person that is connecting with the punters who play their game. What does one win with these things anyway? If it is a sense of achievement that is the prize surely it is society at large who should be thinking about just how low the bar of this particular achievement is set.
Instead of finding things to do it is an automatic response to get to a games machine or a computer, this is not just restricted to the younger end of the spectrum either, so in the morphogenic field it is not surprising that we are in the midst of scenes from Mad Max.
This sounds like I’m preaching that this is abnormal. Unfortunately being human kind of predisposes us to violence. We are after all the biggest predator on the planet.
The idea that what can be imagined can become manifest in the physical is nothing new; look at the communicators in Star Trek, good old James T. Kirk getting out his prehistoric mobile phone to get himself beamed up by Scottie. We already have the mobile phones and they have been working on the beaming up thing for quite some time. The boffins are busy boys particularly since the Quantum Theories came into their collective consciousnesses.
String theory now there is a fascinating one, but the Quantum theory small as it is… well now it is throwing up some very interesting posits of its own. It is proving the faerie tales of old, it is challenging the scientists dogmatic grasp on what reality is.
It is proving Magick exists and that it has been with us since we began to ‘string’ two thoughts together (pardon the pun).
So if that is the case and the Shining Ones exist in the Universe adjacent to this one, and they have areas of overlap couldn’t we perhaps concentrate on filling our younger minds with adventures in Quantum land where just any and every permutation of any given situation is possible and is happening in another Universe concurrently with this one.
Get a large Kit-Kat and cup of whatever you have and discuss that at tea break – see what happens.
Then just for fun, think about all the other ways the conversation could have gone and it will have somewhere. My head is now opening up to possibility and it’s a bit of a rush you should try it – no drugs required just imagination and if I can imagine it well – let me tell you a story about that…
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
I want to journey you a story...
Were you a +‘Listen/Watch with Mother fan? Did you then progress to Jackanory on television after school?
There was always a set time for a story, and we would all eagerly await the radio coming out of the cupboard or the walk to the TV room, wondering in hushed tones what the story would be as we made the journey along the corridor anticipating where we would ‘go’ today.
Teachers must have loved it, the only time when the average classroom of thirty boys and girls became one quiet, attentive and enthused body, all at once. Experiencing trance journey and multi level learning by living it. Allowing it to happen due to the safe environment they were in, and retelling the story of their journey to their parents when they got home.
Jacked in to the Universe, the story a scart lead connection to the mainframe of the void, where the unconscious mind downloads information by the mega bite. Boys and girls in a journeying trance, enraptured, enthralled, engaged, being in the story, real time. Get the picture?
The power of metaphor bridging the generational gap and more; we tell our lives through stories.
If we look more closely from our new perspective, as adults, and take one story, you know, the one with the wolf who has the big eyes and the little girl with the grandma who may well be tougher than she looks, and take it in the context of a Shamanic journey, what new lessons would we learn? What if we could take that idea and apply it to other journeys that we take in life? Would we not then have a better idea what stories we would like to tell? When we would like to tell them and how they would better benefit both the teller and the listener; because you know we listen to every tale we tell. What if we could make our story better, truer, like another little girl who found the one that was ‘just right’ or so she thought at the time?
When we journey for people who come to us for help, they tell us their story, we then bring them back another story that they will connect to so that they may continue their journey towards a happy ever after. Not everyone gets there, we know this, but the meat in the middle holds the beginning and the end of a story together; it is always the journey, not the journeys end that our seekers are striving to understand.
As Shamen we tell our truth, we tell our story, your story, his – tory. We find wisdom and learning in places that others have forgotten they’ve been. The warp and weft of the tale makes a rich tapestry that we weave as we go.
So let’s explore this one story of a little girl’s journey through life, she is after all a warrior just like us. Let’s re tell her tale and find out things we perhaps forgot we knew by seeing them through Shamens eyes, and then as we always do, share our thoughts and feelings on the experience.
Shaman eyes – all the better to see you with…
There was always a set time for a story, and we would all eagerly await the radio coming out of the cupboard or the walk to the TV room, wondering in hushed tones what the story would be as we made the journey along the corridor anticipating where we would ‘go’ today.
Teachers must have loved it, the only time when the average classroom of thirty boys and girls became one quiet, attentive and enthused body, all at once. Experiencing trance journey and multi level learning by living it. Allowing it to happen due to the safe environment they were in, and retelling the story of their journey to their parents when they got home.
Jacked in to the Universe, the story a scart lead connection to the mainframe of the void, where the unconscious mind downloads information by the mega bite. Boys and girls in a journeying trance, enraptured, enthralled, engaged, being in the story, real time. Get the picture?
The power of metaphor bridging the generational gap and more; we tell our lives through stories.
If we look more closely from our new perspective, as adults, and take one story, you know, the one with the wolf who has the big eyes and the little girl with the grandma who may well be tougher than she looks, and take it in the context of a Shamanic journey, what new lessons would we learn? What if we could take that idea and apply it to other journeys that we take in life? Would we not then have a better idea what stories we would like to tell? When we would like to tell them and how they would better benefit both the teller and the listener; because you know we listen to every tale we tell. What if we could make our story better, truer, like another little girl who found the one that was ‘just right’ or so she thought at the time?
When we journey for people who come to us for help, they tell us their story, we then bring them back another story that they will connect to so that they may continue their journey towards a happy ever after. Not everyone gets there, we know this, but the meat in the middle holds the beginning and the end of a story together; it is always the journey, not the journeys end that our seekers are striving to understand.
As Shamen we tell our truth, we tell our story, your story, his – tory. We find wisdom and learning in places that others have forgotten they’ve been. The warp and weft of the tale makes a rich tapestry that we weave as we go.
So let’s explore this one story of a little girl’s journey through life, she is after all a warrior just like us. Let’s re tell her tale and find out things we perhaps forgot we knew by seeing them through Shamens eyes, and then as we always do, share our thoughts and feelings on the experience.
Shaman eyes – all the better to see you with…
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Expertise in Exercising Futility
And the rest is history…
I fell in love once, just the once. It was that gut wrenching, brain melting, breath stealing, swept off your feet thing.
You know that one, the one that the romance novels make a ton of money out of telling you about. Describing it is very unsatisfactory for a writer – and I hope that some of the above is recognisable to most if not all who read this, cause it should happen at least once in your life.
But be aware that it really doesn’t happen the same way twice!
So that initial thing is like the first hit of a drug and I’m told that is why it is called ‘Chasing the Dragon’,
Afterwards your body and brain remember the feeling, it is no longer something new, so maybe if we change the recipe slightly…?
The recipe, the dose the ingredients all play a part in how we get hooked on things.
So does the timing. Mr Jagger once posited that ‘you can’t always get what you want, but you might just find you get what you need’.
Great sentiment, very wise words the problems arise when we don’t recognise the thing that we need when we need it and go of like Parzival looking for something perfect, just what we think we want, that if we can just get hold of it everything will be just as it should always be.
That one time love thing…it lasted a very long time and was not entirely reciprocal. Not entirely, he was very fond of me, how crushing is that?
Amazingly if you are in the brain zapped stage of the neural peptide explosion (which is the chemical reaction of the brain to the new stimuli) you will find that you can forgive such insignificant things and resolve to wait it out until he or she suddenly realises that you only draw breathe because they are in the Universe.
I had an excuse…I was only twelve.
Mind you that excuse was only viable for the first year or so, all the way through adolescence if the hormone thing is the driver of these debacles. There are other more insidious drivers that push on beyond what hormones can do.
The rest of it, all thirty odd years of it, waiting and wondering, being patient and saving my heart for him and him alone, led to my being very alone a lot of the time, which wasn’t a problem really I had my work and my writing and my love for him stronger than ever and re-enforced every so often with a call or a postcard with more words on the address than on the message. If he keeps in touch he must love me…So I can’t really be with anyone else, not seriously cause it wouldn’t be fair to do that and then when he turns up on my doorstep…
Maybe he did love me; maybe it was his ego that was being stroked, maybe if I’d been a little more…
He did say to me once, ‘if only you had been older when we met…’ this was when I was 17 – it took him that long to crack on he’d been seriously interested at all, but then he was 27.
Ah those words were worth another five or six years of devotion easily!
And so it went on. Until over the course of time when he’d finally cut me off completely and I could only wonder where in the World he was and if he was doing alright, if he was still alive even.
Eventually I began to do my own thing and to get back into the world step-by-step, bastard-by-bastard.
I was lucky, I have a very strong will, that helped me through the ‘knight in shining’ phase, and the fall out afterwards.
That is possibly why we should change the endings to some fairy tales and say that the happy ever after doesn’t always come the way you expect it too or when you expect it to, and sometimes if we are totally blind we miss it completely and keep on looking for holy grails.
Some of which are very promising until looked at up close… when you find the tarnished and not so perfect parts off you go again.
What happened to me? Oh well, I stopped looking and went off and did something else instead and interesting things started to happen.
I don’t really regret the time I spent locked into the dream, I learned a lot about human nature there, and I learned how strong I could be. I also learned a lot about men… some of it was even good!
I never did have that neural peptide rush again, quite possibly I never will, I think I prefer to be able to actually talk to the man I’m with not just sit there in awe totally ga-ga! Waiting for him to say something profound like ‘geez the sauce’
In saying that, men can and do get themselves tied up in the most amazing situations. Sometimes they don’t want to take responsibility for themselves so they take it for you, if you let them!
They can be led on just as easily as we, even though they know it’s really putting their heads on the block, if this would just happen, if that would take place and until that time I can wait. Wait for what, a person to love you so much they can’t bear to be without you for a nano second longer…?
If such is the case, where are they? There should be no obstacles human or otherwise that would stop you from being together and certainly nothing on this earth or off of it would entice you to be with someone else in the meantime, unless deep down you know that it is just stardust and dreams. Perfection is what we make it.
We make ourselves happy or we make ourselves miserable – the amount of work is the same, so says Carlos Castaneda, and he is absolutely right!
Anyone who professes to love another to the extent that they are soul mates, and meant to be and anyone who accepts an offer of such magnitude, by the very nature of the love they profess to share would move heaven and earth to be together right NOW! It is their responsibility to each other, and to the Universe that is putting them together, or is it just that there is a lesson to be learned…
Ah, once upon a time…
I fell in love once, just the once. It was that gut wrenching, brain melting, breath stealing, swept off your feet thing.
You know that one, the one that the romance novels make a ton of money out of telling you about. Describing it is very unsatisfactory for a writer – and I hope that some of the above is recognisable to most if not all who read this, cause it should happen at least once in your life.
But be aware that it really doesn’t happen the same way twice!
So that initial thing is like the first hit of a drug and I’m told that is why it is called ‘Chasing the Dragon’,
Afterwards your body and brain remember the feeling, it is no longer something new, so maybe if we change the recipe slightly…?
The recipe, the dose the ingredients all play a part in how we get hooked on things.
So does the timing. Mr Jagger once posited that ‘you can’t always get what you want, but you might just find you get what you need’.
Great sentiment, very wise words the problems arise when we don’t recognise the thing that we need when we need it and go of like Parzival looking for something perfect, just what we think we want, that if we can just get hold of it everything will be just as it should always be.
That one time love thing…it lasted a very long time and was not entirely reciprocal. Not entirely, he was very fond of me, how crushing is that?
Amazingly if you are in the brain zapped stage of the neural peptide explosion (which is the chemical reaction of the brain to the new stimuli) you will find that you can forgive such insignificant things and resolve to wait it out until he or she suddenly realises that you only draw breathe because they are in the Universe.
I had an excuse…I was only twelve.
Mind you that excuse was only viable for the first year or so, all the way through adolescence if the hormone thing is the driver of these debacles. There are other more insidious drivers that push on beyond what hormones can do.
The rest of it, all thirty odd years of it, waiting and wondering, being patient and saving my heart for him and him alone, led to my being very alone a lot of the time, which wasn’t a problem really I had my work and my writing and my love for him stronger than ever and re-enforced every so often with a call or a postcard with more words on the address than on the message. If he keeps in touch he must love me…So I can’t really be with anyone else, not seriously cause it wouldn’t be fair to do that and then when he turns up on my doorstep…
Maybe he did love me; maybe it was his ego that was being stroked, maybe if I’d been a little more…
He did say to me once, ‘if only you had been older when we met…’ this was when I was 17 – it took him that long to crack on he’d been seriously interested at all, but then he was 27.
Ah those words were worth another five or six years of devotion easily!
And so it went on. Until over the course of time when he’d finally cut me off completely and I could only wonder where in the World he was and if he was doing alright, if he was still alive even.
Eventually I began to do my own thing and to get back into the world step-by-step, bastard-by-bastard.
I was lucky, I have a very strong will, that helped me through the ‘knight in shining’ phase, and the fall out afterwards.
That is possibly why we should change the endings to some fairy tales and say that the happy ever after doesn’t always come the way you expect it too or when you expect it to, and sometimes if we are totally blind we miss it completely and keep on looking for holy grails.
Some of which are very promising until looked at up close… when you find the tarnished and not so perfect parts off you go again.
What happened to me? Oh well, I stopped looking and went off and did something else instead and interesting things started to happen.
I don’t really regret the time I spent locked into the dream, I learned a lot about human nature there, and I learned how strong I could be. I also learned a lot about men… some of it was even good!
I never did have that neural peptide rush again, quite possibly I never will, I think I prefer to be able to actually talk to the man I’m with not just sit there in awe totally ga-ga! Waiting for him to say something profound like ‘geez the sauce’
In saying that, men can and do get themselves tied up in the most amazing situations. Sometimes they don’t want to take responsibility for themselves so they take it for you, if you let them!
They can be led on just as easily as we, even though they know it’s really putting their heads on the block, if this would just happen, if that would take place and until that time I can wait. Wait for what, a person to love you so much they can’t bear to be without you for a nano second longer…?
If such is the case, where are they? There should be no obstacles human or otherwise that would stop you from being together and certainly nothing on this earth or off of it would entice you to be with someone else in the meantime, unless deep down you know that it is just stardust and dreams. Perfection is what we make it.
We make ourselves happy or we make ourselves miserable – the amount of work is the same, so says Carlos Castaneda, and he is absolutely right!
Anyone who professes to love another to the extent that they are soul mates, and meant to be and anyone who accepts an offer of such magnitude, by the very nature of the love they profess to share would move heaven and earth to be together right NOW! It is their responsibility to each other, and to the Universe that is putting them together, or is it just that there is a lesson to be learned…
Ah, once upon a time…
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
The Hundredth Monkey
Mariko Makes a Discovery
Mariko sat by the tree line looking onto the beach; the rest of her family were foraging for food and the younger members were larking about, as they were wont to do.
As she sat there just dreaming of nothing in particular a thought occurred to her.
It would not be long before the tourists would come, and in order that they would have contact with Mariko and her family the boat men would carry buckets of potatoes cooked and ready to eat. Mariko’s family were getting quite lazy with all this free food around, this was Mariko’s honest opinion; it did not bode well for the future of the little ones she thought. One day they would stop bringing the potatoes and what would they do for food then. There was not that much variety on the island, and the potatoes were a very welcome treat. Hot and soft they filled the belly nicely till tea time; beyond that even sometimes, having eaten too much the youngsters would flop to sleep until the next morning.
Mariko was very wise. Her Great, Great, Grandmother had been very wise too, and it was said that Mariko most resembled her from all her relations, Mariko would do great things, she realised that depending on the boat men to bring them potatoes was not a good thing. Lately they had begun to be late, and there were less people with them to visit with the family. Mariko knew that something must be done to encourage the people to come back so that they would have potatoes every day, all summer long.
The great water lapped at the shore, and the sun twinkled on the wavelets, and Mariko sat and watched and waited for the thing. She waited and she watched, still and silent as the noise around her lessened and her focus of attention was just so, and then it happened. She could see the answer, just as Great, Great Grandmother had seen in her time. All at once Mariko knew what to do.
It was time for the boats to come, bringing the people and of course the all important potatoes.
Mariko waited for the optimum opportunity to present itself, and perhaps she would make it happen should that be necessary.
There they were, coming around the headland.
She was very excited, but knew that she must appear totally at ease. The element of surprise was tantamount.
As the boat men climbed down from the prows of their crafts and lifted the buckets full of potatoes onto the sand the people left in the boats all stood waiting expectantly – and oh today would be a wonderful day for them and for us Mariko thought.
Distributing the potatoes was not a beautiful thing to see, they were more or less thrown on the sand for the family to pick up when they emerged from the tree line as they were doing now.
Unseen, Mariko made her way along one side of a boat and picked a beautiful potatoe from a bucket. Making sure she was in full view of the people on the boat she showed them the potatoe and sniffed it, wrinkling her nose she dipped the potatoe into the water and washed it.
The people loved this – there was a little macaque washing her potatoe before she would eat, how divine – quickly take photos!
How clever it was this little monkey – how entertaining to see – quick, quick give them more, make sure they are all sandy and gritty so they will wash them. They are so like us when they do these things are they not?
The rest of the family saw what was going on and copied Mariko after a while, some not all; it would take a while to convince them all.
The most wonderful thing though that Mariko found, was that dipping the potatoe in the water gave it a better taste. Very savoury – little did she know but she had just salted her potatoe! What a discovery, they tasted better after they had been in the water.
Later just before nesting down, Mariko thought of her Grandmother, who had discovered the hot springs so long ago. Using them to sit in when the snow was deep and the temperature so low that her old bones would hardly move without singing a terrible shrieking song.
So on an island off Japan, there is a troop of Macaque monkeys who wash and salt their food in the sea in summer and who bathe in hot springs to lessen their discomfort in the winter.
Mariko, just as her Great, Great, Grandmother had been, was the hundredth monkey.
Mariko sat by the tree line looking onto the beach; the rest of her family were foraging for food and the younger members were larking about, as they were wont to do.
As she sat there just dreaming of nothing in particular a thought occurred to her.
It would not be long before the tourists would come, and in order that they would have contact with Mariko and her family the boat men would carry buckets of potatoes cooked and ready to eat. Mariko’s family were getting quite lazy with all this free food around, this was Mariko’s honest opinion; it did not bode well for the future of the little ones she thought. One day they would stop bringing the potatoes and what would they do for food then. There was not that much variety on the island, and the potatoes were a very welcome treat. Hot and soft they filled the belly nicely till tea time; beyond that even sometimes, having eaten too much the youngsters would flop to sleep until the next morning.
Mariko was very wise. Her Great, Great, Grandmother had been very wise too, and it was said that Mariko most resembled her from all her relations, Mariko would do great things, she realised that depending on the boat men to bring them potatoes was not a good thing. Lately they had begun to be late, and there were less people with them to visit with the family. Mariko knew that something must be done to encourage the people to come back so that they would have potatoes every day, all summer long.
The great water lapped at the shore, and the sun twinkled on the wavelets, and Mariko sat and watched and waited for the thing. She waited and she watched, still and silent as the noise around her lessened and her focus of attention was just so, and then it happened. She could see the answer, just as Great, Great Grandmother had seen in her time. All at once Mariko knew what to do.
It was time for the boats to come, bringing the people and of course the all important potatoes.
Mariko waited for the optimum opportunity to present itself, and perhaps she would make it happen should that be necessary.
There they were, coming around the headland.
She was very excited, but knew that she must appear totally at ease. The element of surprise was tantamount.
As the boat men climbed down from the prows of their crafts and lifted the buckets full of potatoes onto the sand the people left in the boats all stood waiting expectantly – and oh today would be a wonderful day for them and for us Mariko thought.
Distributing the potatoes was not a beautiful thing to see, they were more or less thrown on the sand for the family to pick up when they emerged from the tree line as they were doing now.
Unseen, Mariko made her way along one side of a boat and picked a beautiful potatoe from a bucket. Making sure she was in full view of the people on the boat she showed them the potatoe and sniffed it, wrinkling her nose she dipped the potatoe into the water and washed it.
The people loved this – there was a little macaque washing her potatoe before she would eat, how divine – quickly take photos!
How clever it was this little monkey – how entertaining to see – quick, quick give them more, make sure they are all sandy and gritty so they will wash them. They are so like us when they do these things are they not?
The rest of the family saw what was going on and copied Mariko after a while, some not all; it would take a while to convince them all.
The most wonderful thing though that Mariko found, was that dipping the potatoe in the water gave it a better taste. Very savoury – little did she know but she had just salted her potatoe! What a discovery, they tasted better after they had been in the water.
Later just before nesting down, Mariko thought of her Grandmother, who had discovered the hot springs so long ago. Using them to sit in when the snow was deep and the temperature so low that her old bones would hardly move without singing a terrible shrieking song.
So on an island off Japan, there is a troop of Macaque monkeys who wash and salt their food in the sea in summer and who bathe in hot springs to lessen their discomfort in the winter.
Mariko, just as her Great, Great, Grandmother had been, was the hundredth monkey.
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