December 6, 2020 · 4:17 pm

… Morocco adventure, second part …

21st Dec,. 2007. Ulla and I head to Tiznit, and on to Playa Aglou, where I book into a hotel at the beach for two nights at reduced price. I sleep well after two glasses of red from the bottle I brought along from Agadir. We have a morning walk under spectacular skies along the coast.

Here happens the image for the title of my novel, ‘Course of Mirrors,’ with clouds brilliantly reflecting on the water. The dogs race on the moist sand. Late afternoon it rains a little. Next day we make a short trip south, exploring hidden bays with otherworldly rocks.

22nd Dec. We go shopping in Tiznit, for candles, water, yogurt and postcards. The souk is empty, maybe because of the holiday. Afternoon we walk along the coast, with two, three, four bands of surf under a misty sunset with pink clouds, and also stroll along Aglou promenade.  We contemplate renting a flat for a few days. A Moroccan scout suggests a few, but they’re all in a dire state … half functioning appliances, smelly and dirty, nothing that couldn’t be righted with a little effort, but we are in conflict whether to commit to one place or push on.

23d Dec. Massive rainfall, through which I run to make it dry to the breakfast terrace. The sky clears quickly. By lunchtime we drive on towards Sidi Ifni,  stopping in Mirleft for lunch. As only customers we are served like royalty.

Later on I hold my breath, while Ulla, seemingly fearless, navigates the heavy van descending a scary steep rubble track, the last stretch bringing us to the legendary Legzira beach. This heart stopping moment brings back a time when I had my own, smaller VW bus, and got stuck ascending a vertical narrow road in the mountains of South Tirol. I was younger then, with more guts. I relied on my handbrake to exit the car and put rocks under the back tires, mainly to gain time and catch my breath. In the end you do what needs doing. Once you’re on a sheer slope you keep your nerve. Gliders have most excellent nerves around here and, for us, Legzira’s red rocks were well worth the  effort.

Sidi Ifni was relinquished back to Morocco by Spain in 1969. The beach is massively dirty, yet overall the place has an odd charm, and seems to have escaped mass tourism.

I book into Suerte Loca. It’s a full moon night. My room is shared with one lazy fly, which, in my dream, I pursue with a formidable army of girls, equipped with arrows.

The terrace with a view up the road is lovely, though it connects with three other rooms, something I feel uneasy about. There were once plans to build an airport here, but the designated area remained empty. I like this photo I managed to take. Developers overestimated Sidi Ifni’s attraction to tourists. Some months after our visit there were violent protests by the unemployed, who blockaded the port. Maybe things changed.

24th Dec. No tinsel or jolly Christmas bells for most Moroccans. French people living in Morocco tend to spread the tradition, though not in the Oasis where we arrive today. Domain Khattab has camping facilities and a few small bungalows, all set in a desolate landscape not far from Goulimine, the gateway to the desert. I rent a little bungalow. Before bedtime Ulla serves a vegetable stew done on her camping stove. We share reminiscences. Happy Christmas, I say, with some irony. Ulla believes in nothing, and why not. Traditions that lose symbolic value degenerate. When I think of how Christmases have changed since my childhood, I despair at the monster enterprise it now stands for. It is bitter cold, hard to sleep, even under several layers of blankets. Dogs are barking on and off during the night. The place has a filthy kind of allure. Only a trickle of water in the bathroom, and the toilet doesn’t work. A helpful man brings a bucket of water, and then another for the next flush. Unfortunately the toilet bowl leaks, which I discover in the morning when I step into ice cold puddles that soaks my leg warmers. Despite all these discomforts, there is something refreshingly disorientating about travelling along unknown roads.

25th Dec. Christmas day. The sun brings a little warmth. I pay what I think is sufficient for the lack of much, which is accepted. Breakfast is delayed, because someone overslept. We meet a Swedish woman who travels alone via public transport. I admire her good faith. We are off to Goulimine to get some shopping done. A young man shows me the one place that sells wine, in a dark corner of the souk.

For our next destination we drive a dangerously bumpy track to Fort Bou Jerif. The stillness among the bare hills is eerie. Not a soul for miles on end. Lost in the desert, the fort attracts visitors because of its stunning ruins. The guest quarter, including a camping area, run by French people, has a Disney feel and lacks authenticity. Only mad tourists like us attempt this arduous journey, which should require a 4×4 vehicle. The room I book is expensive, sigh, but since everything is clean and well cared for, I anticipate the unique pleasure of a hot shower. Close by is a river with a palm grove oasis. We opt for a tagine dinner in front of Ulla’s van, prepared traditionally on a wood fire by a clever trader hiding among the bushes. It tastes delicious, and we enjoy the sunset with a full moon rising. Tomorrow we’ll explore the ruins.

26th Dec. A fairly comfortable night, for Ulla in her van, and for me in my snug room, where I sketch some furniture details. We set out to explore the crumbling ruins. Apparently the fort was built by the French around the 1930s and abandoned once Morocco obtained its independence in 1956.

The hot shower was overstated. To safe costs, I opt for a tent for the second night, spreading a sea of tiny tea lights around me for comfort. Still, the cold prevents me from sleeping, until Ulla saves me by supplying a cashmere blanket, which I wrap around my neck. It also helps to muffle the noise of barking dogs.

Choosing images is difficult, there being so many, in different folders. I hope the ones chosen add a taste to the journey. More adventures to come, hopefully to cheer those of us in lock down.

The lone warrior at Plage Blanche, back to Goulimine, and on towards Tan Tan via Ksar Tafnidilt.

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November 22, 2020 · 3:15 pm

… Morocco adventure 2007, first part …

Marrakech airport, 16th Dec 2007 … new arrivals are greeted by hundreds of placards. I scan the display showing names of people, Hotels, and Riads, until I spot Dar Pangal, my Riad. In the rush my top heavy case topples and grazes a man’s toes. He shouts an avalanche of abuse, in French. I say, ‘Sorry,’ which raises his blood pressure even more. My understanding of French being embarrassingly basic, I do grasp the questions he hurls at me like projectiles. ‘Where do you come from? Why do you come here?’ His insolence finally riles me. ‘Why do you want to know?’ I ask. He snaps back in English, ‘Shut up.’ Young Saladin, who will bring me to my Riad in the Medina, casts his eyes to heaven and shrugs his shoulders, so do I.

Anything on wheels ages well here. Old bangers zip through the buzzing crowd. Some cars, and bikes, have well-fed goat tied up in the backseat. ‘Feasts are ahead,’ Saladin says, in perfect English. ‘Sacrificing goats for celebrations and sharing their mutton with family, friends and neighbours is an honoured tradition in these parts of the world.’

Turning into a narrow backstreet, we arrive at Dar Pangal. The inner courtyard is an island of peace. Julio offers a warm welcome. He’s South American, but spent years in Paris, working as a designer. He likes Werner Herzog films, and once met Klaus Kinsky. Eccentric people fascinate him. I reveal how I worked for some of these eccentric people in the past. On that wavelength we share reminiscences over mint tea. Using a mobile and texting is a new experience for me. Somewhat nervous, I practice sending messages to Ulla, Ruth and Zohra. Connections work well. A hot shower also works well, and helps me to sleep after a long day.

17th Dec. 2007 … A knock on the door. 7 am and pitch dark. Latifa opens the shutters and invites me to have breakfast. Later I explore Julio’s roof terrace, with sweeping views over the medina roofs, which carry a field of satellites. Seems Marrakech is well wired up through gold vision orbs.

I find an exchange office to buy dirham cash, and then stroll through the Souk, taking my time, feasting on spicy smells and deep colours. An exotic trance battles with my intention to look purposeful, to avoid harassment. Charmed by a timeworn caravanserai, I calculate the exchange rate in my head and bargain over a holdall made from a Berber saddle back. In the process I lose a knitted hat I’d bought for my son. His taste in clothing has become refined, so maybe I should find a different present. I notice that most people don’t like to be photographed without permission, which I respect. The plenty starved cats have no objection.

18th Dec. 2007 … Saladin learns there are no places on trains to Agadir on the Atlantic coast, where I am supposed to meet my friend, Ulla, with her VW bus and her two dogs. We manage to find a seat for me in a grand taxi, an old Mercedes already cramped with Moroccan men heading to Agadir for family gatherings. To ease their fare the men wedge me into the backseat. Pressure of time cancels choice, so I trust the arrangement. Magnificent white clouds over the Atlas Mountains compensate. A short cigarette stop provides a memorable photo. After an hour being cramped together, the men invite me to mint tea and pancakes. We communicate in made-up language, hand gestures and smiles.

I meet up with Ulla, her van and her dog family, a Dalmatian, Leila, and an adorable adopted Moroccan street dog, Ali, in the parking area of Marjane Shopping Mall. I had visited Ulla’s home a year earlier, refreshing a connection from eventful past decades that combined in our memory. Besides, there was our joint mother tongue. Mine had become rusty. Being challenged to speak German brought not only forgotten words to the surface, but also forgotten experiences. Where I can be hesitant and avoid conflict, she has a no-nonsense manner, often with an edge I admire. Shouting the name ‘Ali’ down the road for your dog to behave, is potentially asking for trouble, that is, in Morocco. The predictable raised eyebrows before the penny drops remind me of childhood pranks my mother used to censor. We make an interesting pair of travellers.

Two friends Ulla met on the road, Peter and his partner, have their camper parked nearby. Peter knows everything there is to know about Morocco, including where to find my rolling tobacco, and how to achieve reduced deals for lodgings. Useful, since Ulla’s dog friends own any spare space in her van.

19th Dec 2007 … We are en route through the Anti-Atlas Mountains and along steeply winding roads, with an almost invisible turnoff towards the hidden Berber oasis of Tafraoute. I sign in at Hotel Salama. We have a fabulous meal at a tiny Berber restaurant. The owner, I learn later, married an English Writer, and back in the UK, I discovered by chance a proof copy of her novel in a charity shop. I wrote a spontaneous review.

 

 

 

 

 

The landscape surrounding Tafraout is littered with spectacular rocks. In 1984, a Belgian artist, Jean Verame, painted a cluster of rocks blue. I prefer land-art created with earth materials, not tons of paint. Still, it was done, and these rocks look as if the sky dropped a spot of its blue on them.

Our next destination was Tiznit, and from there on all the way to Tan Tan, near Mauritania, and up again along the Atlantic coast to Essaouira. Given the present surreal lock downs, I may share more episodes of this adventure.

Photography fans may like my album on Morocco at  https://500px.com/p/ashen?view=galleries

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November 8, 2020 · 1:54 pm

… Trump – a prologue asking for the proper story …

       The seed -painting by Silvia Pastore

Stories inform, entertain, inspire. They make us think, dream, identify, or divert us from reflecting about what is going on inside us or in our present situation. Images and story lines reinforce each other. If we can’t detect the symbols images hold for us, be they evoked in paintings, literature, in the frame by frame images in cinema, or in the media, a story may grip with sensational elements, but remain otherwise flat. Feedback can vary, to use comic extremes, from, ‘What a thrilling yarn’ to, ‘What the hell was that all about?’ Stories that hang in the middle might satisfy both contemplatives and the sensationalist, and occasionally become best sellers.

A story well told acts like a seed in the psyche, is subtle and opens cracks in the unconscious with contradictions to ponder upon. A story well told is often mysterious, far from obvious at first impression. A story well told takes deep questions into our dreams. Then, out of the blue, we’re struck by an insight, and a door to the imagination opens.

I’ve been wondering about the Trump story. How many of you have had an inner voice saying, ‘You can’t make this up. It can’t be, how does he get away with it?’ even while chapter after chapter the public across the world was spun into a nightmarish trance. The surreal and sensational element the Trump protagonist brought to the world stage has wrought continuous fascination and cravings for the next cliff-hanger. ‘Wow, he says it like it is … a kind of superman who gives a fuck about good manners or political correctness.’

No Aha moment, no insight, no transformation, just point by point affirmations for the disenchanted, the frustrated, to let it all hang out, a continuous clowning spectacle, embodying, well, possessed by the archetype of the sulking child whose gratification is denied, the Id with its breath-taking rages. No contradiction here. No subtle narrative, more like an attention-demanding prologue. The meanwhile addicted public won’t take kindly to the sobering. Where does it go from here?

For this prologue to develop from a catalytic incident into a worthwhile story begs the questions, and not just from ungratified Americans, but from ungratified people all over the world … and though I could dare answers, they’d only resonate with a few psychologically aware, the already converted.  So I include myself as curious as to where those vital questions will find ground to grow:

What is denied, and by whom?

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October 17, 2020 · 12:46 pm

… story codes in nature and psyche …

Over time, shifting seasons leave strata in matter that can be studied like pages of a book, be it in air, water, ice, earth, rock, stones, fossils, bones, or in more short-lived material. Take the rings of a tree, spiralling upwards, normally hidden, but clearly readable when the trunk is cut. Even a single hair tells a story of the duration of its growth, likely composed of fluctuating water and nutrients intake, but nevertheless showing an overall pattern of fairly consistent data within a slice of set time, like a snapshot of nature’s heirloom, whose treasures our runaway culture seems hell bent to recklessly damage.

When it comes to psychic codes, we must enter a different sphere and use a different language. Let’s say being cognizant of our changing thought patterns gives us our mythical code? What image might depict the Spirit of a generation, developed by a mania for progress, but also formed through individual and collective archetypal demands, via symbols and dormant dreams that pop up, shifting outlook and direction?

I’m spinning here a few thoughts into nowhere, or maybe the kind of noo-sphere, a term used by Vladimir Vernadsky & Theilhard de Chardin, which was later seen as an early vision of the internet. The concept resonates with the ancient concept of Akasha. Jean Raffa on her blog  https://jeanbenedictraffa.com/blog/   recently reminded me of Lynne McTaggart’s book, The Field, collating more recent scientific discoveries, again affirming how our minds are influenced, and vice versa, by an interactive field spanning the cosmos, from where we connect up and process thoughts and feelings through our body and brain (call it our radio stations.) Frequently, the purpose of anything is established in hindsight. So one could say events happen for reasons we don’t know of, and we assign meaning only at a later point in time, stretched to hours, decades, centuries or aeons.

A medley of my inner crowd, the seeker, philosopher, writer, artist and poet, all receive and transmit through slightly different wavelengths, following their interests, but affected by the media, the weather, moon phases, astrological constellations, vaguely remembered dreams, company, and my body’s metabolism. In that process I jostle for meaning that could gain purchase towards a cohesive point of view. Alas, cohesive points of view can be tricky. While keen to learn and unlearn, when I encounter a fixed point of view I sense a false solidity, while my truth seeker floats, suspended, like the protagonist in my novel, ‘Course of Mirrors.’ https://twitter.com/mushkilgusha

C G Jung suggested the mind has been developing over a very long time, and keeps developing from as yet hidden seeds that rest in the unconscious, holding ideas that will slowly grow and unfold, which implies the seeds already exist, waiting for fair conditions to be recovered.

This process is the theme of a brilliant epic, ‘Involution,’ published by Philippa Rees.

INVOLUTION- An Odyssey

We know that when gifted individuals dare to go public with an insight that rocks or contradicts the Zeitgeist, they get vilified. The list of such intuitive people, historically and up to this present time, is long.  We owe a great debt to their insights and efforts, bringing us understanding from the unconscious. New decoding is looked at with suspicion and hardly ever welcome, though small sections of society receive and embrace new ideas and nurture their meaning until collective acceptance happens. There are also those who clearly understand a message but fear the implications. They will try to shoot messengers that threaten their profits or their hard won reputation.

Myth & stories, the most reliable cultural codes, are treated with moderate tolerance by players attached to short term gains, who may lack the imagination to grok the symbolic significance of fresh and life-enhancing interpretations.

Returning to my interest in changing thought patterns, I checked the archive of my website, going back to 2011. It shows that for more than nine years I’ve been jumping about a lot, which makes the content of my postings consistently random. But do my posts have an underlying code that relates to this past decade? Some vague answers bubble up. I’m waiting

C G Jung wrote in ‘Men and his Symbols’ … ‘We have obviously been so busy with the question of what we think that we entirely forgot to ask what the unconscious psyche thinks about us. …

Placing this writer here into the third person … considering the time slice of a decade, and given the random themes of the posts, do Ashen’s readers depict a pattern, a code? Anything like a famous elevator pitch authors should have up their sleeve, and which she seem incapable of formulating. She knows it’s cheeky to ask, but sees it as a reality test.

she must keep alive

the rare glimpse and utter awe

that consigned her fate        

a timeless moment

of totality that won’t

fit reality

only a fresh one will do

Inspired by a dark moon thought, this is a new moon post.

This image should have been on top. I admit to be totally lost in regard to the new editing format wordpress has installed. Lost as how to place images, how to do elegant links, or how to escape back to the classical editor, since I can’t open the plug-in zip. I hope to figure it out somehow. Tips are welcome.

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October 1, 2020 · 1:04 pm

… turning a stone – compelled to look deeper …

The year before the millennium, a then dear old friend of mine, Sitara Brutnell (I wrote about her in another post) found a stone on West Wittering beach during one of the little outings we did together. We both loved stones. I sometimes invest my finds with magic power. Those who have read my novel, ‘Course of Mirrors,’ will know a black shiny stone becomes a vital talisman to my protagonist.

As we wandered close to the purling waves brought in by the tide, mesmerised by the sound of pebbles tumbling over each other, we were open for treasures to signal us. I had already discovered a few smooth stones, white, marbled, pink and black, for my collection.

selfie that day, with Nikon suspended exposure

The one stone Sitara picked was uneven, jagged, with the odd spot of glassy flint shining through. Folding her palm around the slimmer end, it could have served as a tool to spark a flame with. She stood a long while contemplating the contours and varied colourings of the stone, turning it over and over.

I became intrigued with Sitara’s jagged stone, which seemed to me a metaphor of her concern for others, their troubles, their sharp edges. An exceptional friend in my life, her special grace was the capacity to forgive, always seeing a person’s character from many sides. The urge for genuine forgiveness shaped her personality, was her path.

Feeling prompted to explore her stone; I was given it on loan, to attempt a few drawings. The recent comment by a Swiss friend, regarding stones, made me dig up my sketches of Sitara’s stone, which explored its charming irregularities.

An ancient story came to mind, probably of Asian origin:

The two Pots

A water bearer in China had two large pots on the ends of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, while the other pot was perfect and always delivered the full portion of water.

At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. This went on daily, with the bearer only bringing home one-and-a-half pots of water.

The perfect pot was proud of his accomplishment. But the cracked pot was ashamed of its imperfection, and miserable about accomplishing only half of what it had been made for.

Two years it endured its bitter failure, until one day it spoke to the water bearer by the stream. ‘I’m ashamed of myself, because the crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.

The bearer said to the pot, ‘Did you notice that flowers grow only on your side of the path? That’s because I’ve always known your flaw and I planted seeds there, and every day while we walked back you watered them. So I’ve been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house.

So, all dear crackpots, myself included, we have functions we know nothing about.

Enjoy the full moon. And if your sky is clouded, enjoy at least the special energy.

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September 20, 2020 · 12:39 pm

… the value of inner conflict …

Democracy starts inside us. One way to explore our inner crowd is through allowing the different aspects of our personality to have a voice, including ones we dislike or suppress, like parts burdened with shame, self-loathing and self-hate. Together with their inner persecutors and defenders, they tend to pop up involuntarily with strong emotional force during stress, or an experience that all too often had its first traumatic installment way back in childhood.

During a 1980s training with the Psychosynthesis Institute in London, we gave names to what we called our sub-personalities. The concept encapsulated what I had sensed for a long while, that I host various distinct entities inside me that can spring to live with their unique voices, interests, sensitivities and defenses in response to circumstances.

Take a dwelling that houses a family of all ages. From day to day there are debates, intimidation, fights, making up, tenderness, fun, humour, but always reoccurring conflicts, like an angered sibling can easily spark a massive row. Then ask who is in charge? A family with conflicting needs lives inside each of us.

As baby, toddler, teen, young adult and so on, we succeed or fail in overcoming obstructions. We learn, or unlearn. Ideally we mature and the understanding of ourselves deepens. Some memories we cherish, others we bury. Yet each time a traumatic condensed experience re-occurs, dormant anxieties may explode and cause us to overreact to situations out of all proportions.

The needy child seeking attention is easily recognised. Where early hope for safety and acknowledgement was frustrated, the inner child in the adult draws on an arsenal of acquired strategies, be it nagging, crying, pleading, pleasing, withdrawal, or, equally, rage. Stonewalling and sarcasm can serve as defense. The little person in us may have been confused by contradictory demands, manipulated by a toxic parent or severely damaged through abuse, yet still struggles for acceptance and love.

Another well-worn sub-personality opts for control, a no nonsense character, who detests, let’s say, hesitation and vulnerability. So when a firm response to a present situation is required, this despot may simply order the child to pipe down and shut up. End of story. You get the drift.

Internal conflicts can be harsh. Without awareness of the warring cast in us, we tend to blame others for our upsets. Alternatively we punish ourselves. Identifying and befriending judgmental players is vital before we can reach the vulnerable and fearful part that has become numb and possibly unconscious, or discover the creative dreamer that was ridiculed. Or, indeed, lift a dis-empowered warrior, who must learn to say ‘No!’

Without a mentor, this awareness journey is a daunting task.

Unable to afford Jungian analysis, my spiritual search became an escape from what I saw as our revengeful, destructive and corrupt world.

Meeting a remarkable, brilliantly creative Sufi teacher, who embraced psychology as a basis for the spiritual quest, was my turning point in the mid 1970s.  Grounding and digging started with a workshop called ‘Earthing.’

I had had a wild life up to then, a path I don’t regret. My empathy and patient listening lacked skill, but attracted interesting and eccentric people into my life. However, I needed to accept my limits, and better understand myself, others, and the absurd world we are born into, with the inherited traumas from our parents’ and generation before them.

World objects from my sand tray

A welcome to my inner journey was imaginative play, giving voice to the different parts of myself through monologues, imagery, objects, drama, art, sculpting, painting and writing, etc., all effective in daring to acknowledge conflicting needs. Due to choices enforced by my early environment, I host a philosopher and poet at odds with each other, as well as a cynic and a romantic. Their conflicts are as creative as they are intimidating.

In the digital realm people have come to make up aliases based on their ambivalent shadow aspects, like appearing in different disguises on Twitter, sometimes for the sole fun of contradicting each other. As a writer one might contemplate publishing trash genre that sells well, under pseudonyms, though it seems crass, like a soloist hijacking the performance of a symphony.

Stepping aside from internal conflict, invites my unbiased mediator. My quick route to self-remembrance is saying ‘hello’ to my body, whose every cell holds a record of old wounds. The body (the earth by implication) has endured horrendous exploitation, and to call it into awareness, with all its scars, is a huge challenge for some people.

‘You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves … ‘ from Wild Geese by Marie Oliver  

In the present global turmoil, my inner child craves empathy and compassion to endure the pain of the world, including pain I feel observing how some public figures ignorantly out-ward their inner stress through creating enemies – divide and conquer – a steely defense, and a betrayal of the heart. Then again, truth to  the face rarely convinces, it lacks depth, and blunts out the whispers from the dark.

Many brilliant books facilitate psychological understanding, but when it comes to moving through a dark tunnel (also called the Night Sea Journey) it is best to seek a skilled companion as guide. In my therapy practice I came upon heart-breaking stories of abuse, especially sexual abuse. The last few decades have shown the full horror of such deeply intrusive and traumatising incidents, and how widespread they are, across all social settings.

‘You’re not alone’ … is the message by Tim Ferris, in a recent very moving and powerful podcast he conducted with Debbie Millman.

PRESS HERE for his Healing Journey after Childhood Abuse (including an extensive resource list)

He ends with a beautiful re-framing of suffering … The obstacles are the path.

This attitude brings meaning to our mysterious existence, to our individual and collective journeys. Obstacles force us to question rules, habits and behaviour. Suffering through adversity, hardship, ignorance, injustice and violence teaches us empathy for each other, and expands consciousness towards our interdependence and essential wholeness.

I could add a list of books here, but if the above concepts speak to you, click on the Tim Ferris link, even if you choose not to listen to his podcast, scroll down his page and find a list of books and resources.

To end this post, despite all grounding over the years, I’m still at heart a space cadet, exploring time travelling in ‘Shapers,’ the sequel to my first novel, ‘Course of Mirrors.’

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September 6, 2020 · 7:30 pm

… a rare social outing at a small car boot sale …

The weather was a little unpredictable, but, just in case, I made small preparation. A night without rain settled it. I got up at 6 am this morning. As a last thought I took a few copies of my novel, ‘Course of Mirrors,’ along. I sold seven copies, at half price. My entry catch phrase was, ‘Do you read?’ The lovely exchanges and the personal signing of copies gave me much pleasure.

I regret not having simply gifted a mouth harmonica to a little boy wandering around alone. He showed keen interest. ‘Oh, it’s a musical instrument,’ he said, after I told him how easy it was to play by just using breath, how many musicians and songwriters played it, how Blues was associated with it – though I should have introduced him to Bob Dylan, too. I burned to play it for him, but didn’t want to put my lips to the new harmonica, Corona and all. Next time I must take a second one to demonstrate the magic. It’s such a shame that children are not introduced to this small and relatively inexpensive instrument. So there, that’s my regret of not thinking sharp, not listening deeply enough, not chancing on a significant moment for a little person.

Otherwise I engaged people in conversation. A retired teacher with an amazing knowledge of history – a retired librarian whose life is still all about books – a retired builder who cycled all around southern England and still cycles every day. He also fixes ‘anything,’ and may be my saviour regarding small jobs around the house.

I had images of some objects I did not take along, an Edwardian shelf, an Art Deco vase, which caught the eye of interested buyers. I can do with extra cash, since there’s no end to things that need attention around the house.

Friendly neighbouring stalls made the whole morning very enjoyable. I realised how starved people are, including me, for social contact.

The car boot sale happened on the premises of an agricultural museum, adding charm. A fabulous steam train travelled up and down behind my stall. When there were children on it I waved, and they waved enthusiastically back.

News that cheer, my son, whom I haven’t seen for six month, will come for a visit next week, and a Swiss friend, who recently read ‘Course of Mirrors,’ loved the novel and is supporting its promotion.

And I finished another editing round of ‘Shapers,’ sending out fresh text copies to my beta readers and my editor for hopefully a final feedback re: polishing the text, before a copy edit. It’s my intention to publish ‘Shapers,’ the sequel to Course of Mirrors, initially as an e-book, unless I can find an agent or publisher. Wish me luck.

I hope you, my readers, have some light moments to help you during these surreal times.

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August 19, 2020 · 3:27 pm

… using – or being used by algorithms …

The morose question of whether to be or not to be has moved on to whether to appear or not to appear. Appearances can deceive according to context. Or as my spiritual friend, Fazal Inayat Khan used to say, ‘Form is a relic of eternal potential.’ Things that have lost their former function have joined the archive of icons, metaphors.

Could the function of our individuality become no more than a statistical entity during our lifetime?

Today’s institutions and corporations share knowledge, advice, wisdom, stipulate laws, or instill fear via alerts. Ultimately, they accumulate information but are not necessarily held accountable for how this information is used. Priests used to claim this power in the name of God, as well as sorcerers and witches, who made it their business to converse with spirits. Many people project power onto an all-knowing agency, though today’s most consequential agency has moved on into the next clan of power holders – those who collect and control data … our data, our location, movements, activities, political leaning, looks, habits, likes and dislikes.

Our existence is being whittled down into digits that tumble about in a sea of algorithms, and wherever they perk up in statistics they could fix our fate, since temporal data can be adjusted to any setting a bureaucracy chooses as being predictive. This, mainly unchecked, development is running into problems, with the recent U.K exam result fiasco only being the latest example. Bless our young people for revolting.

Power of information equals control, for your own good, maybe, depending, of course, on who is in charge. Distorting and withholding knowledge, be it intentionally, through ignorance or through expediency, endangers democracy when used unchallenged as manipulation tools by governments. At worst, it enables profit seekers to accelerate the exploitation of earth’s resources, maintaining poverty around the globe.

Those involved in research, students, scientist, and writes, know the challenges of filing and stacking information. My own filing mirrors the ad hoc workings of my brain. To find stuff again is a matter of focus, luck and intuition. While occasionally frustrating, I trust my larger self and the collective unconscious. It is my oracular method, circumventing any too strict measurements promoted as our new saviour, algorithms. I value rationality, just not when it discounts spontaneous human creativity, heart felt compassion, and the inspiring moods of nature.

Belonging has never been easier – not belonging has never been more difficult. How does one evade the pressure of countless unfair impositions our systems prescribe via algorithms? In Walt Whitman style one could say … every ‘digit’ belonging to me as good belongs to you …  But wait, there is vast space in the One, space between atoms, between digits, between the many of us, where one can belong and be eccentric and separate at the same time.

Where do algorithms lead? How do they influence our values? Yuval Noah Harari in his book Homo Deus, describes ‘dataism’ as a new religion, a potential digital dictatorship that could shape our reality. Who would aspire to such a stagnant future?

I was fascinated and encouraged by a recent discussion between Yuval Noah Harari and Taiwan’s digital minister, Audrey Tang. (click here for the YouTube video coming up on a separate page)

They discuss code, including, at the start, the issue of non-polarized gender, going on to the negatives and positives of human hacking and the democratic fairness that can potentially happen when transparent data sharing and plural viewpoints are allowed.

Audrey Tang says,

‘Technology should be utilised to promote freedom, democracy & human rights.’

In Taiwan, this hugely influential young trans woman is making this happen.

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July 30, 2020 · 11:47 am

… other-worldly Cornwall’s clay pits …

Some call it a lunar landscape. Wrongly. For lack of atmosphere, as mentioned in my recent post, the moon has no blue dome with cloud beings.

Years ago, my friend, Rahima (aka Elspeth Spottiswood/Milburn,) enticed me to visit the clay pits near St Austell.

While living in Cornwall as a young mother, she often marvelled at the white phenomenon seen from the road. Glowing on the horizon, the then white hills left a deep impression, bringing to her mind a city of temples, namely Ezekiel’s prophetic vision of a New Jerusalem.

This in stark contrast to the black slag heaps of coalmines, which, as a painter, and having grown up in Scotland, visually fascinated Rahima just the same.

In uniquely attuned spiritual warriors mode we conducted many seminars and workshops together, on dreams and archetypes and the imagination.

One day, off to visit the St Austell Clay Pits, we were searching for an entry to the site. During an adventurous process of getting lost among dusty criss-crossing tracks, circling on forever, we finally found ourselves in the heart of and atop the excavation site.

Luck was with us in another sense, the dramatic Cornish light on that day inspired the series of photographs I am sharing here.

I love clouds in any form and shade, regally resting, floating or racing on the breath of the wind, seen from a valley, mountain or plane. Clouds story our skies with magical creatures. Here one of my posts celebrating clouds. 

Human industry values the hidden treasures under the earth, black stuff, white stuff and golden stuff … Cornwall supplies white gold, the clay prized for porcelain, paper, paint and rubber.

Traditionally, china clay was extracted from the kaolinised granite by “wet mining”. High pressure jets of water were used to erode the working faces and wash out the kaolin. The slurry produced would flow down to the base of the pit from where it was pumped to the surface for processing.

In St Austell this process has moved on to dry-mining. In recent years, locals have taken to re-greening the scars of industrial excavations around mining sites, and, in a way, are making the scars less spectacular.

The China Clay Museum, Wheal-Martyn, provides information about Kaolin history and research.

The museum is planning a celebratory exhibition this summer …

There exist more dramatic images of the day, but I leave it as is for now.

Be aware that it may be illegal to enter the Clay Pit site without prior arrangement. We were naive and plain lucky, guided by my friend’s love for the place.

Later that day, Rahima and I travelled along narrow, sun-speckled  Cornish lanes towards Lamorna Bay at the coast.

That’s another story, for another day . I wrote about missing my friend in 2017.

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July 12, 2020 · 2:05 pm

… speed – falling upwards into spatial & temporal bewilderment …

Always keen to bridge and connect seemingly unrelated intellectual territories, I tend to dip into essays of poet-philosophers and cultural theorists stacked near my bed.

Paul Virilio’s ‘Open Sky’ is a recent addition, translated by Julie Rose in 1997. Not an easy read, but the analysis of the social destruction wrought by modern technologies of communication and surveillance drew me in. The last chapter, Escape Velocity, relates a striking experience by Buzz Aldrin during the Apollo 11 mission. I share it here, within a short excerpt from the chapter, curious to discover what my readers make of it:

… Inflated to fill the dimensions of the world’s space, the time of the present world flashes us a glimpse on our screens of another regime of temporality … Outrageously puffed up by all the commotion of our communication technology, the perpetual present suddenly serves to illuminate duration. Reproducing the alternation between night and the solar day that once organised our ephemerides, the endless day of the reception of events produces an instantaneous lighting of reality that leaves the customary importance of the successive nature of facts in the shade; factual sequences little by little lose their mnemonic value …

… In his memoirs of the first moon landing, Buzz Aldrin in his own way confirms this disqualification of sunlight. Listen to what he has to say from the surface of the night star:

‘The light is also weird. Since there’s no atmosphere, the phenomenon of refraction disappears, so much so that you go directly from total shadow into sunlight, without any transition. When I hold my hand out to stick it in the light, you’d think I was crossing the barrier to another dimension.’

It is as though, for the astronaut, shadow and light were two new dimensions, inasmuch as any kind of transition no longer exists for him. The loss of the phenomena of atmospheric refraction produces a different perception of reality …

Virilio draws a comparison to a similar loss for earthlings … the different degree of illumination which, before the invention of electricity, still marked the hours of the day or the days of the year has become of diminished importance. Under the indirect light from screens and other control centres of the transmission of events, the time of chronological succession evaporates, paving the way for the instantaneous exposure time as harsh as that floodlighting of which Aldrin tells us:

‘On the moon, the sun shines on us like a gigantic spotlight.’

All three astronauts of the Apollo 11 mission had problems after their return to earth. Spatial and temporal disorientation are not easily reconciled with one’s reality identification. Virilio writes … as for Aldrin, after two nervous breakdowns, several detoxification treatments for alcohol abuse and a divorce, he was to wind up in a psychiatric ward.

Struck by Aldrin’s experience, I thought about the increased screen time, especially now so many of us engage in since the corona virus changed our rhythm of interaction with nature, local environments, family, friends, and the wider world.

I first pondered the cultural implications of the digital advent during  a mid-1990s film degree as a mature student. For those interested – my post from 2018 gives a flavour of my dissertation – click here for ‘Body Electric- – it’s worth a visit.

John Wheeler came up with the idea of the universe as self-observing system (being.) Light travels at 186 000 miles per second. When we look into deep space we are seeing galaxies over ten billion years old. In that sense everything we see is in a past, which our observing consciousness creates. So I ask myself what realities do we envision during this surreal corona time, individually and collectively?

Is Paul Virilio’s bleak vision justified? Is the hyper centre of present time becoming the sole reference axis of worldwide activity? Is the individual of the scientific age, with diminished positional reference, losing the capacity to experience him/herself at the centre of energy?

Click here for an article from the Frieze magazine.

And if you’re brave, read this fascinating & sobering interview of Paul Virilio by Caroline Dumoucel.

Or – can we create enough pockets of stillness to counter the acceleration of the fall upwards, of progress propaganda, and instead re-connect to body, earth and roots?

P. S. All links in the post open a new window.

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