You and I have secrets so well hidden in dark corners of our psyche; the only chance of discovery is us bumping into them through some synchronistic event. Angels may be involved. Secrets keep us under a spell, just like we get needy for the absent puzzle pieces that prevent a scene from completion, which nags on our sense of cohesion. Depending on the temperament of any given day this can result in restlessness, procrastination, or apathy. The pieces exist, we know that much. But in our lives the missing pieces represent holes, patches of nothingness that beg to be filled. And some will never be filled, unless imagination enters like a grace, and offers fresh possibilities.
Beneath this yearning for cohesion chimes a faint drone. From that drone a vague theme, image or a melody we can’t place may arrive from nowhere, persisting in teasing us.
I sum this sensation up as ‘waiting.’ Waiting for the fog to clear, waiting for a connection, a response to a question, waiting for a birth, waiting for a death, waiting for the heart’s eye to light up, waiting for inspiration, waiting for a door to open, a hint … like in Samuel Beckett’s absurd play, ‘Waiting for Godot,’ where the passive Estragon and the impatient Vladimir are adrift in their minds, hoping for a meaningful sign. Some early viewers angrily left the theater. Maybe it annoyed them that the play exposes the absurd inner dialogues everyone experiences at times. Critics have voiced fascinating interpretations. For me, the philosophical variance between Aristotle and Plato comes to mind.
Years ago, my dear Sufi friend/teacher, Fazal Inayat-Khan, introduced the term ‘psychogenic secret’ during a workshop he instigated. The term could be understood as the distorted or buried memory of an incident that compels our behaviour in ways we cannot fathom. Consequently, shadowy aspects of our personality may appear in relationships, when others see us in ways we cannot comprehend. Consistency upholds our mental habits until their significance wears down. But once we discover and acknowledge a twist in our interpretation of relational events, a thread will untangle and jingle the famed ‘aha moment.’
It is tricky to share a personal experience, though an example of twisted psychology is in order here. Far back, at primary school, a triangle of girls was jealous of me for having as friend and neighbour the favourite boy in our class. He had train sets and lots of Enid Blyton books. They alleged I had been stealing stuff from their and other pupils’ desks. Their concerted accusation required me to empty my schoolbag in front of the head teacher and the whole class. The crafty girls had planted a fancy pencil, a sharpener, a metal ruler and a pop-star image between my notebooks. The items were quickly claimed by their owners. Disputing the abhorrent deed was hopeless. I felt deeply humiliated. And my parents were unable to refute the evidence. The insult sunk deep and festered.
Much later, during student years, I casually stole a chunk of butter from a shop to round up a meal for friends. Observing my lack of conscience, and the ease, even pleasure, with which I stole the butter mortified and shamed me. It took a while to process my turmoil until I drew the connection which stopped me in my track towards becoming a bank robber with supernatural powers … I realised it was my irrational comeuppance, a kind of revenge for being once wrongly blamed and shamed.
My example might spark your imagination. Intricacies as to how psychogenic secrets can operate, be they based on humiliation, small or big traumas and betrayals, frequently appear in fairy tales, stories, novels, including mine, notably in the forthcoming sequel to Course of Mirrors, ‘Shapers,’ to be released in spring.
I’ve learned to tolerate psychogenic secrets I’m ignorant of, the holes in my life, by allowing my dreamer to use the empty patches as frames for stories that humour the unknown.
of impact and send the pain back, assuming the wood tolerates it better than my soft tissue. It’s a long-honoured small-scale experiment with disentangling subtle vibrations. It works for me – pain and swelling ease miraculously. Try it, for fun.
As in receiving and sending waves, I converse with my body, with trees, shrubs, flowers and creatures. I caution spiders not to come near my sleeping space. I have heart-to-heart chats with my house, laptop, car, and all manner of things. I say thank you to what I value and depend upon and even use little mantras conveying something like – all is well – I hear you gasp. I do this to disrupt mindless automatic response patterns. With people, I admit, it’s way more complicated.
During recent centuries, western cultures developed multiple viewpoints. But what is happening to this wonderful diversity, given the hyper connectivity of the internet, where the masses turn for guidance, where people empowered by visibility offer opinions that swing back & forth in dramatic ways? Is this the dawn of a new tribalism that blanks out the unique contexts and realities of individual minds? One has to have one’s wits about these days.
The flashing mirrors of the media blind me at times. Wary of the hive, I also like to belong. When fed up, in need of digestion, I retreat to a cave in my mind (once real) where I attend to what bubbles up from the unconscious in that zone between dreaming and waking, until I emerge from my cave into the light of a new reality, new beauty, new meaning and new questions.
16/17th September 2016 was a strange night of wild dreams – one of a big old mansion of which I occupy a part (I actually live in a semi,) while the other part is lived in by an aging famous actor, Jeremy Irons. In the dream he collects antique furniture, art objects and frames. Some large pieces, including a massive empty frame, he fixes onto a wall in the courtyard. We mainly meet in the wide inner hall of the mansion. He seems a little absentminded but quite amicable and kind. He likes that I talk to him.
Course of Mirrors 