Cabal of Mirrors | Course of Mirrors

Tag Archives: Cabal of Mirrors

May 20, 2013 · 10:14 pm

… consciousness – the mystery …

People who engage in therapeutic work with me often ask – why dig up my past, it holds pain, why look at attachment patterns, why explore the theme (myth) of my life? What a waste of time. I only want to get rid of my symptoms.

We all, without exception, suffered injuries. The creative question to ask is – how has the injury shaped my life, and what purpose does it serve? Many years ago, during a group dialogue following the inspirational talk of my Sufi teacher, we discussed three basic kinds of injuries. I connect my own experience to the third injury.

1 Having experienced physical injury can result in fight and flight behaviour – it brings a heightened sensitivity and develops a sharpening of the senses.

2 Having experienced sexual, sensual and emotional injury can result in escape from one’s self into others, estrangement from self, lack of differentiation and boundaries – the great challenge is to accept one’s self, differentiate as an individual from the tribe and take responsibility for one’s unique potential.

3 Having experienced injury on a cognitive level accelerates individuation – the escape is into deeper realities, a search for authenticity and truth and the development of symbolic reality – universal reality.

My novel, Course of Mirrors, is the fictionalised account of an aspect of my personal myth made universal – in the sense that memories of events don’t have to be real for a story to be true.

@ Natasha Tonkin

Even the most die-hard materialists among us grok that life is animated and guided by an all-pervading spirit? We are vessels, psychic switchboards for the spirit that animates and records all life.

An ungraspable phenomenon we try to name in vain.

Mental states pass through us. We call in and then process thoughts and feelings, seeking coherence, and – given we assign meaning to what happens to us – are gaining wider perspectives and deeper insights. With every new connection made and every little light brought to what is forgotten and unknown – collective consciousness grows.

Our body knows, if we care to notice, what stirs in our psyche, what wants to unfold and emerge. When energy flows freely through us our essential nature is uplifted, and our desire is aligned with the potential in us that seeks actualisation – in the way a cocoon reveals the butterfly. Our life has many cocoon and wing stages. The proverbial flutter that causes a stir in all spheres of the universe is like yet another love-transcended aspect of us emerging from yet another cocoon.

Presence, responding to situations, accepting differences and contradictions, frees energy that is ghosted and stagnant. While blocked energy creates frustrations and often painful symptoms, it is totally inevitable, since every organism evolves through condensed experiences. Life enhancing and life destroying events subject us to a pattern of repetition in time until we embrace change.

‘A truth outgrown crushes you under its weight.’ Fazal Inayat-Khan

To bring a repeating pattern to a higher level of flow requires a kind of quantum leap of consciousness. Small leaps occur frequently, especially when we befriend the unconscious and allow fresh symbols into awareness. The released light/energy brings new meaning and allows the self-actualisation of new potential.

‘It is obvious that the percolation of a timeless NOW is penetrating everything!’ – Philippa Rees

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The image above is by Natasha Tonkin, my son’s partner. It was done two years ago as Christmas card and gift idea towards illustrating my novel, to help bring it to life. I scanned and inversed the image for the mirror to appear light. Natasha’s animation website: http://pandahorse.com/

Link to a book I co-edited about the Sufi teacher I mentioned above, Fazal Inayat-Khan. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Heart-Sufi-Inayat-Khan-Reflections-ebook/dp/B00BFUO0T6/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369084226&sr=1-1&keywords=heart+of+a+sufi

Link to ‘Involution,’ an exceptional book by a kindred spirit, Philippa Rees. http://involution-odyssey.com/ her book will soon hit the market. Her site is being developed.

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Tagged as awareness, Cabal of Mirrors, consciousness, dreams, energy, Fazal Inayat-Khan, frustration, imagination, individuation, injuries, involution, metaphors, mind, my novel, mystery, myth, Natasha Tonkin, patterns, Philippa Rees, psychology, spirit, spirituality, stories, symbolic understanding, truth, wisdom

April 3, 2013 · 1:39 pm

… healing sounds …

Healing sounds at the hub

Round and round … the cyclic drone underlying the melodic scale reverberated in Kala’s bones, re-rearranging the cells in her body. The sound of the reed organ embraced her like a cradle, made her feel held, warm, secure. The melody climbed upwards. There it was again, the wonder, the curiosity, a desire – the impulse to stretch her limbs and reach out towards a colour, almost touching it, then, with the tune circling around that pitch, the slowing down to uncertainty, with only a longing left. From a faraway place an echo sounded as if in response, people she could not see called out to her. She was restless with anticipation of a discovery, anxious too, of its beauty. The sounds kept flowing through her, or she flowed through the sounds, and the cycle repeated. Or was it a spiral lifting her to the light she desired, and equally dreaded?

From an immeasurable distance she heard him shout, ‘Run, Kala, run, run … survive. Promise me to free the forbidden words.’ A band of men dressed in black were tearing her away from Liam, towards a thicket. Others rounded her up, sneering, ‘We’ll help her to free the forbidden.’ They dragged her along to the river and tossed her into the reed, like a puppet. A hand muffled her screams. She bit the hand, scratched the man’s arms and tried to pull her knee up, to kick him in the groin. He spat at her, hit her hard across the face, over and over, calling her names, laughing. Four other men wrenched her arms and legs apart and then she was crushed, and all went dark … a faint voice, a woman’s voice, reassuringly familiar, ‘I’m your mother …’

‘No!’ Kala screamed. Her eyes snapped open. A gentle hand folded over hers, reached out to brush her brows. Kala blinked, trying to understand what she was seeing. Were these her own eyes looking back at her? Was this her mob of unruly amber curls? An ideal vision of her, mocking – strong, spirited, more substantial, more beautiful, more …

‘Hi Kala, welcome, I’m Mirre,’ your sister.

Oruba reduced the volume of the musical scale on his reed organ and let the last chord slowly fade until the tune lingered on in silence. He nodded to Mirre and left for the next room, where Zap looked up from his absorbing work. He had explored every minute feature of Kala’s lovely face, had re-composed its bone-structure from every angle. He had depicted his new love in imagined action, dancing in a meadow, drinking from a fountain, stepping from a doorway, all in the sincere belief that he could bring her back into the present that way. Oruba bent over Zap’s shoulder to look at his latest creation – Kala, her eyes open, verdant as spring. ‘Good timing,’ he said, ‘she’s come round.’

Zap jumped from his chair and hugged Oruba. ‘Can I see her?’

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This is an excerpt from chapter 19 of Shapers (sequel to Cabal of Mirrors.) I post a snippet on my blog for a change, since visitors tend to not look at my excerpt page, where I used to rotate writings from my novels.

Kala did not know her mother, who has now been murdered, nor that she is a Shaper, people of a scientific, mystical community, admired and feared. They live in underground hubs, generously funded by the super controlled society of Rhonda, under one condition, that they keep out of politics.

The main protagonist in Shapers is not Kala but Mesa, the re-embodiment of Ana from Cabal of Mirrors. In this sequel Mesa returns from the future to collect a darkness lost. I’ll introduce her some other time. For my Beta readers, Zap, in the excerpt above, is the re-embodiment of Little Snake.

Feedback is welcome. And questions, of course.

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The image was taken by my son, Yeshen. I only gave it a photoshop treatment.