‘You hit me back first.
My predictions always come true.
Don’t dare to invalidate my reality.’
Nuances of paranoia affect all of us.
We may be well-balanced and trusting
folks, but out bodies still hold the
fears and traumas our parents experienced,
and the generations before them.
When safety fears are triggered, we tend
to slide from anxiety to paranoia.
In today’s culture this has become a normal
disposition, a challenge to be alert and patient
with the love and hate conflicts inside us.
Yet when fear splits the heart from the head
our bodies go numb to feelings, and empathy.
the spiritual potential of our being is arrested, and
one’s world turns into a hostile and lonely place to be.
Collective paranoia spreads like a virus,
flowing into already anxious minds,
feeding on irrational fears of danger
and the need to blame somebody.
When public figures act out their paranoia,
they become super-spreaders of fear.
Does this virus have a remedy? Depth Analysis?
Listening to Bach? Wilderness retreats?
The occasional pinch of hemp oil, known
to free blocked wires in the brain that
channel superior cosmic insights?
Sadly, when magnified fear has eroded trust
in fellow humans and silenced the whispers
of affection from our hearts, truth is walled in,
and seeds of hope fall on barren ground.
While paranoia can carry a kernel of truth,
suspicious hunches are easily twisted and
inflated to surreal proportion. I grade my own
paranoia from anxious overload – to irrelevant –
to useful. The latter protects me from harm.
There is a Sufi saying …
Trust in God but tie your camel at night.
Night also holds the hidden content of our neglected
unconscious, where fears and desires entwine
as archetypal forces that can take us over when
entitlement and apathy have made us careless.
Clearly, our inner narrative needs witnessing with
constant re-adjustment, so we remain grounded and
balanced in human values – among them – integrity,
humility, friendship, humour, and reverence for life.
Once upon a time Khidr, the Teacher of Moses, called upon mankind with a warning. At a certain date, he said, all the water in the world which had not been specially hoarded would disappear. It would then be renewed, with different water, which would drive men mad.
When he saw, from his security, the waterfalls again beginning to flow, this man descended among the other sons of men. He found that they were thinking and talking in an entirely different way from before; yet they had no memory of what had happened, nor of having been warned. When he tried to talk to them, he realized that they thought that he was mad, and they showed hostility or compassion, not understanding.
And then consider Carl Sagan’s tender reflections on the pale blue dot, the Mote of Dust, as in a sunbeam, the home we all have in common, a selfie, seen from afar. “Where everyone’s love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.”
I hesitated posting this, since a deep sadness resurfaced and took hold of me while pondering Soul and Spirit. What’s the point, why exist, to what end? I asked this as a child, having been shown horrendous images in the wake of the Second World War, meant as shock treatment in my German primary school during the 1950’s. A poem I wrote about this experience I still don’t feel confident to share. I turned iconoclast, explored philosophies, religions, myths, literature, searched for exceptional minds, and resisted prescribed beliefs in favour of direct experience.
Unfortunately this parent and school-supported project received no support from the Government. Still, at times I felt I was making beneficial contributions to society. Of late, no new question has arrived to kick off a renaissance in my poetic imagination, or shed light on the collective mood of futility, which seems to confirm the scientific view that reality is determined by numbers.
From my desk I see the crowns of a few massive beech trees on the hill beyond my garden. Come autumn, tons of leaves used to smother my mossy lawn until, thankfully, the branches were cut back last year. Wood pigeons value the majestic view across town from up there, as much as they like gobbling up my Stella cherries before I ever have the slightest chance of harvesting them. And yet, I like the pigeons’ cooing code by which they talk to each other in spring, and I find their peculiar waddling, neck-pushing walk in search of worms 
amusing. Presently the bare branches of the beeches show the pigeons’ constellation throughout the day, bringing on some thoughts … and a Haiku.
and debate migrants
Having succumbed to waves of nostalgia, I’m unsure what will emerge next, which is fine for now. My father’s death at 99, while sad, is also a relief. During the last two years I’ve been on tender hooks, waiting for the telephone call, and the prospect of sorting and processing a left-behind-part of my life. As anticipated, the reality of it was exhausting. There’s no financial reward, since what’s left of my father’s estate will just about cover the bills. His furniture was too damaged to be accepted at auctions, and anything else of value he had given away to people whose support he appreciated. He resented me for not living up to his ideas, and I resented him for his total lack of support. He had fun, spending a fortune on years of luxury cruises around the world with his second partner. While often justified, resentment is entirely useless. I tried my best, so I’ll drop my misgivings and wish my dad’s soul a good journey onwards. It frees up my life.
It’s ironic, because my Dad had artistic leanings resembled my own. We only occasionally clicked, for a short while, especially when he needed me, after which he retreated into his controlling paranoid mode. He may have been jealous of the self determining freedom available to my generation. I should add that his psyche was injured by the last horrific war.
The scene takes place on a sunlit peninsula, set in a glittering sea. I play with white cubes, each feather light. The childlike part of me experiments with the beauty of forms and the building of imaginative structures that mirror colours of the sky and surrounding landscapes. Others join in, and not just friends, strangers too. We have fun, laugh and toss cubes to each other. We are building a temple to celebrate play.
After all, there are walls and walls.
virtues of Plato’s top-down and Aristotle’s bottom-up metaphysical arguments. I explored question such as – do the aggressors in my dream represent the judgmental part of me that inhibits the creative impulse of the child that shrinks when it feel unwelcome? … Yes.
exasperation, when anyone uttering, ‘Calm down,’ deserves a punch.
moment arrives when black and white spaces inverse and clusters of stars shine from another dimension. The background has moved to the foreground. A tiny shift in our outlook can result in a new interpretation of what we see, like in the 
irritate us lie foremost in a person’s unique temperament and inherent tendencies. Background does not explain the mystery of characteristics we are born with, the random mix of evolutionary records in our bodies, a wisdom our minds expand upon through resonance with the 
How come I’m invigorated by rushing waters, calmed by a smooth stone, a golden sunset? How do I sense the pulse in a tree, or what life is like for a boar, rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog – unless all nature’s qualities also reside in me?
At social gatherings we may come upon clusters of meerkats grooming each other, turtles plodding through the crowd looking for a mate or a fresh salad leaf, peacocks, obsessed with their splendour, blustery cockerels, loving old dogs, sharp-eyed falcons, enchanting robins, and so on. …
with a butterfly nature tying up with a partner who occasionally roars. Given the rich lore of sensibilities mixing and battling in the human psyche, strangers should be less strange than we make them out to be.
The Persian translation became the Fables of Bidpai. Lovely collections of 
Course of Mirrors 