Being born, we bring along a smile, which, when being mirrored over time, becomes the signature of our face. Not the cheery or cheesy smile, but the unique one, always remembered by those who know us well. Why? Because something is loosened up in the face … a happy heartbeat sneaks into an authentic smile and, if only for a fleeting instant, a glimpse of heaven is revealed. Mostly, the magic lies in the spontaneity of the smile, and its short duration.
Actors in movies convey touching smiles, at times. Meryl Streep comes to mind. In a photograph or painting this can happen, though less often. There are of course many exceptions, the most famous being Leonardo da Vinci’s enigmatic portrait of Mona Lisa. Her smile seems slowed down in time and keeps resonating with one’s own internal smile … and both linger on. Apart from Da Vinci’s excellent study and understanding of anatomy, and his accomplished painting techniques, the reason why Mona Lisa’s mysterious smile seems eternally fresh, may also have been due to the deep rapport between model and painter. And, interestingly, Sigmund Freud theorized that Leonardo imparted an approving smile from his mother, Caterina, onto the Mona Lisa and other works.
Each smile tells a story, open to interpretation – the smile of intimacy, friendship, reconciliation, condolence, seduction, pity, revenge, conspiracy, the haughty ‘I told you so,’ or simply bliss. It is a long list.
Can one’s authentic smile fade? Can trauma, sadness, or despair about humanity impact the signature of one’s face? Maybe, though I think even if you’re disillusioned with life, lose your teeth, or have ill-fitting dentures that change the physiognomy of your jaw and cheeks, the essence of your smile remains somehow. Maybe in the eyes, or sometimes, irrespective of a facial expression, a person radiates a peaceful atmosphere, a loving presence, which Hazrat Inayat Khan called ‘the smiling forehead.’
Doubt is generally considered a weakness, but it can also be strength, and a function of renewal.
We seek approval. We like to belong with people/groups that resonate with our ideals. We are trying to order the puzzles of our experiences into some coherence that guides our purpose and actions, and gives our life meaning. And who does not cherish the moments when all feels perfect? Yet only traces of perfection live on in the heart, because life moves on.
An invocation by Hazrat Inayat Khan used to intrigue and troubled me …
‘Towards the One
The perfection of Love, Harmony and Beauty
The Only Being
United with all the illuminated souls
Who form … the Spirit of Guidance …’
Perfection is not of this world, I told myself. And yet, the above invocation gains power in the context of how Hazrat Inayat Khan defines ideals:
‘The ideal is the means – its breaking is the goal.’
His grandson, Fazal Inayat-Khan, put it in another way:
‘With faith one attains and realises peace and harmony.
With doubt one destroys and gains freedom to move ontowards.’
It could be a safe space we aspire to, since once expelled from the warm womb, we struggle to find a similar space in this world. Whatever else we aspire to, it takes discipline, consistency, and perseverance to work towards one’s ideal.
Through discipline we acquire a basic understanding of things. In spiritual terms, this is also the challenge of the Buddhist Hinayana and Mahayana practices.
But what if we have proudly gained a level of certainty, be it about our achievements, identity, position, faith? And what if we cling to that certainty – at all costs – numbing the chattering of our minds? How do we escape a stagnant reality, the prison of certainty?
Chögyam Trungpa, in his lectures on Tantric Wisdom says doubt is ignored on the path of discipline, but during a further stage, Vashrajana (Crazy Wisdom,) confusion, and creepy questions about our truth are legitimised, and offer enormous potential. Allowing doubt – and including that doubt is part of our progress.
In a book of gathered lectures, ‘Journey Without Goal,’ Trungpa points to a fearless attitude.
My former Sufi teacher and friend, Fazal Inayat-Khan, operated in the realm of Crazy Wisdom. Some of his students understood where he was coming from, while others were super annoyed. I’m still inspired by Crazy Wisdom, but having lost my Sufi friend, I lack the courage to travel this goal-less path alone.
Teachers of that kind, who live life with fearless intensity, move on as soon as their purpose is done, they never grow old.
The theme of Crazy Wisdom, in the sense of stepping into the unknown, is challenging my imagination now in the third book, ‘Mesa,’ I’m writing in the Odyssey of Course of Mirrors. It’s about Mesa’s return to her future perfect world, where time has come to a near standstill. Against all logic, but understanding the truth in her heart, she is tasked to bring back history, and friction, as a cure.
Photo: The image was taken by son, Yeshen Venema, during a visit to Vietnam. I added the clouds 🙂
I had several themes in mind to write about, but a vivid dream last night brought life to 2 special friends in my heart.
Hope and Franz were our farming neighbours in Somerset, in a hamlet where our little one was born in a 17th century cottage we rented. This hamlet had only five properties. We arrived insisting on a home birth for our son. Sensational, I still marvel how we made it happen, arguing that home births were very normal in Holland 🙂 Well it happened, in mid winter. Through frozen roads, the police brought in the midwife, Sister Heney, to help us with, by then, a rare home delivery, before her retirement. She called him her sow-baby and sent him birthday cards until she died.
Our little one had five exceptional years of country life, and everyone in the hamlet adored him. Hope and Franz were most loving, and special.
Franz had arrived on the farm as German prisoner of war. Hope fell in love with him. How could she not 🙂
For some reason they could not have children, so they became second parents to our son. Hope used to have dreams about Tibet, a culture I feel strongly connected to. Her dream was to become a journalist, impossible given her responsibilities and circumstances, yet she had an incredibly inquisitive mind.
Life is a labyrinth. Things happen that have no explanation other than grace.
I remember Hope and Franz fondly, and so does my son.
In Haruki Murakami’s novel, ‘Killing Commendatore,’ an artist is on the run from himself after his wife told him she does not want to live with him anymore. Not having had success with abstract paintings, he settled for painting portraits on commission for a living. His clients were not required to sit still for hours, days and weeks on end, just a confessional interview, supplemented by a few family snapshots would do. To maintain the integrity of his work, the artist looked for what was shining from within a person.
While driving aimlessly north, to gain distance from imagined scenes of his wife in the arms of a lover, he occasionally stops at roadside restaurants. In a restroom he finds himself staring at his image in a mirror, and wonders …
‘Who the hell am I … were I to paint myself, would I be able to discover even one thing shining within me?’
This is not a review; I haven’t got far into this long novel, just to say, I like how Murakami masters the slow and subtle development of a theme.
I read in printed books in bed for an hour before sleep. At pivotal points in the text, like the one above, I close the book and take the thought into my dreams. Once I hit the cushion and allow my muscles to relax, my mind holds the thought that made me stop reading.
As for the above thought: what shines from within, I pondered that this shine, or whatever else one might choose to call it, is what I’m looking for in nature, in art, in friends, or new acquaintances, and in myself. These moments when I glimpse something shining, visibly or just felt, without or within, are of essence, and leave a deep impression, adding a thread of light to the tapestry of my existence. These are also moments when associations, informed by my senses, flow like a sparkling mountain stream.
When such impression fades it upsets me. Distance and time are not at fault. My intuition tells me that the conscious fabric of my existence extends way beyond space-and time. Where people are concerned, the fading could be due to a lingering hurt or misunderstanding. Once I’ve been able to perceive an inner shining, I grieve the loss of a dimming connection.
It made me think how in relation to a few people in my life I’ve let my heart mirror collect dust. Maybe the other begun to let my shine fade, but that’s no excuse. I can’t change how people mirror me, but if so inclined, I could bring clarity to my own heart mirror.
How do we resurrect that shine, the light which illuminates who we are from under the debris of relationships, within ourselves, others, nature? I guess much flows from the first gaze that beholds us.
In Sufi terms this is polishing the mirror of the heart, which generates life and beauty.
You, dear readers, may have more or other thoughts on this search for what ‘shines’ from under surfaces If so, please share.
It warms my heart to think that readers of my novels might come upon a sentence that makes them pause and ponder a meaning for themselves, a bit like finding a jewel in a generous setting.
I was always drawn to subtle light, not the blinding bright one, but the humble light that searches and elevates hidden beauty in the shade … the stray beam on a patch of peeling paint, a spark of sun in a puddle, the amazing transformations of shapes and colours created by a tiny shift of its direction. I love how light sculpts the garden through morning mist, how it paints cloud landscapes, how it slips through the frame of a window, teases the shadowy folds of a gauze curtain, or how it honours leaves by flooding through the gaps to jewel the ground. When I took to squinting through the branches against the sky, I discovered their negative pattern – appearing like a distant universe.
Even as a toddler I’ve been mesmerised by the musical dance of light across the forest floor, any shifting shadows on surfaces, and, occasionally, I imagined strange new forms in a light and shadow show. This was not particularly encouraged by my parents, who thought my weird imagination was a bit over the top, too vivid. So obviously I shut up about these impressions, and any odd thoughts that crossed my mind..
Maybe my angel was annoyed that I wallowed in being lonely, but lacked the grace to acknowledge her being there, all the time. Anyway, she decided to introduce herself. The vision came while I was under deep anesthetic trance for a life-saving operation to remove a dysfunctional appendix.
I was around eight years old.
Waking up in in pristine white room, wrapped up in pristine white bedding, the first thing that flooded into my mind was the crystal clear memory of meeting my angel.
She invited me to follow her along a corridor; she was luminous, with translucent wings. She opened a door. While I was reviewing this instant in the pristine white room, I had a physical sensation or relief. She had opened a door.
The scene repeated itself in that there were many doors dividing the corridor, and one after another was opened with a soft nudge by my angel. She was basically telling me, ‘You don’t need keys; doors will open for you, if and when you want to, be it forward or backwards, future or past.’
The vision relieved the pressure of rejections; foremost felt from my father’s secretive psyche. My grandmother had warned my mother that her son was a closed cupboard. My angel suggested I had a choice as to what door I opened, and when. Opening a door backwards, I eventually I found that my dad’s cupboard protected a deeply sensitive romantic.
My next door is ahead, and it entails fully embracing the process of continuing with the writing of my third novel – ’Mesa’ – the most challenging project yet, especially since I’ve no idea where it will lead.
To come back to my angel … a spirit guide every individual has, though not necessarily perceived … it is a being (no matter what you call it) offering intimate rapport. In various cultures there are different terms for this guardian, be it angel, the Green One, understood as an ancient pagan spirit of the wild woods, or ‘Khidr’ in mystical Islam – appearing from nowhere when help and advice is needed, most often not the rational kind.
G. Jung says Khidr reveals not just the greenness of the chlorophyll within the leaves, not just the sunlight / water responsible for their nourishment and liveliness, and not just the (secondary) green ray of light that is refracted as the “middle-pillar” within the light spectrum, but also the (primary) undifferentiated light of a pure and altered consciousness. For Jung, Khidr resembles the inner self.
In that sense, one could say, Khidr helps us to adjust traditional maps to our present individual territory. When you think a little about it, you’ll probably recall the moments in your life, tiny as they may have been, when an angel being changed your life for the better, even when it required a disruption of your expectations. And think of the angels of dear friends who are on a wavelength with yours and support your best intentions.
Ideally, we find our kin over the years. My use of the imagination, distinct from fantasy, was often affirmed. Particularly the ‘The Creative Imagination’ Ibn ‘Arabi reveals as The Science of the Heart, influenced the writing of my novels (info. on my book page.) Meanwhile, you may like my short essay on the subject.
Exciting … If you type … Ashen Venema, Shapers … into google, you’ll find several platforms that allow you to pre-order #shapers. The e-book link will follow once the paperback is released.
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The image above is a painting by Cynthia Holt, inspired by some of my poems. I lost contact. Can’t find her now
Imagine your brain functions like a psychic radio, tuned to a self-reflective universal mind, the field of consciousness of a cosmic being that gathers, transmits and receives information (aka Noosphere in Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s sense, or the Akasha in Indian cosmology.)
We interact with this field. Some thought waves are fuzzy, others strong. We exchange thoughts woven from strands of routine interests, be they based on curiosity, fear, obsession, faith, doubt, novel ideas, myths, facts, dreams, wisdom … Let’s assume the way our brain radio communicates with this field shapes the smaller sphere of our individual mind.
I depict my mind as an island in a tumultuous sea, operated by an idiosyncratic stranded pirate, me.
On rough weather days, when the radio emits white noise, my pirate feels moody, lacks motivation to tackle survival chores, and vacantly skims across the crest of waves spanning towards the horizon. On other days the pirate is energised, be it by rage about world events washed up at the shore of the island, or the sun’s beauty shimmering back from the moon. On occasions the pirate is inspired to dive under the surface, where reflections are held in silence and darkness. Dream-stations may reveal the whereabouts of treasures deep under. There is a reoccurring rhythm to this process. In recent years my pirate has developed a bizarre humour, and tends to favour the dream stations, especially when the quest for coherence and meaning among the debris washed up at the shore seems a tad too tedious.
Maybe it’s the backward arc of old age, but memories pop up suddenly, before and after sleep, succinct impressions, lucid images of past and future events, faces, gestures, objects, the unspoken, and concepts too … associations are sought. A revision of the pirate’s life narrative is feeding surreal dreams. Intuitive hunches chase relevance. How do these images of people, landscapes, houses, objects and concepts, familiar and unfamiliar, relate to now?
Could the restless question be trivial as well as dangerous?
Calm returns when my pirate observes plant life and the movement of animals, then a wonderful symbiotic symphony resonates from cells within the body. Intimate knowledge arises, which also subtly confirms that my pirate has this intimate sense about people, too, and, well, just about anything. I’m hesitant to give weight to this phenomenon, since those who share deep knowledge without collectively approved evidence were and are often crucified. I don’t know about you, my readers, but with some controversial subjects my pirate is a little reticent.
It can’t be denied that our conditioned individual mind has access to primal clusters of knowledge, as well as intuiting visions of the future? What do we do with this information? It’s frustrating to realise that we have limited control over what we attract and reflect. A higher intelligence is at work, perpetuating divisions while consciousness expands.
The universal mind and its network of individual minds remains a complex mystery.
we all use thoughts which
once animated travel
to destinations
distance seems irrelevant
a wide open mind
may suffer indigestion
mirroring too much
spook actions from far away
thoughts are absorbed or bounce back
harmonise or clash
our energy in motion
signals at high speed
intention matters
‘Thoughts are beings that generate … One thought of kindness, gathers a thousand beings of love and kindness around one.’ Hazrat Inayat Khan
I’m very pleased with the cover art of ‘Shapers’ and have been hugging it like a baby, though it’s time to share it with you. The process started with a few imaginative designs done by Rachel, a designer colleague of my son. One early sample was based on the image of an ammonite fossil, which I photographed some years ago at the house of a friend. The image, while relevant to the time-travelling aspect of the novel, turned out too heavy, overpowering the text of the title. My son sourced a paler fossil and photographed it in high resolution. Rachel’s new design has now a mythical quality. I love the subtle and delicate details.
The design resonates well with the cover of ‘Course of Mirrors’ the prequel to ‘Shapers.’ Both novels can stand alone, as immersive adventures with a timeless psychological theme depicting the journey of individuation. Once the sequel is published, I hope readers will be curious enough to explore the prequel (see book page,) which sparked this odyssey through time.
I’ve previously shared small excerpts of ‘Shapers,’ but here a short description …
* * *
Shapers – an underground community of scientists and mystics – must take subtle action in a time of political tyranny in Rhonda.
Continuing her search for the Real, the rebellious young Ana recasts as Mesa, centuries ahead to Rhonda, AD 2450, where Governors uphold a law that inhibits emotions as the solution to crime. As anarchy looms, Mesa navigates her soul bond with Ana and Cara.
Mesa, an agent of the Ypocs, a genetically enhanced species, is re-called by Cassia, the Shaper oracle, from a future timeline to alleviate the crisis in Rhonda. As Mesa aids the survival of Rhondeans and Shapers, she must also explore the origin and myth of her being and her tribe of Ypocs to find clues as to why time is slowing in her utopian world.
Time is a bridge that Ana, Mesa and Cara traverse towards the realisation that they are a triple soul, existing in different places at once. Each bears the urgent task to mend relationships across parallel epochs.
As they encounter each other, they must explore the myth of past, present and future …
* * *
The text of ‘Shapers’ is presently going through a last proof check, helped by my faithful editors, who seem to never tire reading the story – a most precious gift to my confidence.
I’ll update my readers here as to the publishing date. Thank you for maintaining interest in my projects and thoughts.
I feel excited, because a first cover design idea for ‘Shapers,’ the sequel to ‘Course of Mirrors’ has arrived. I like it a lot, though more ideas are worked on. My son found a wonderful designer, Rachel, who also likes my writing … a bonus. Not yet, but sometime soon I’ll post a cover reveal. The manuscript is presently being formatted by Matador/Troubador, a high-quality self-publishing imprint. I’m too old to wait months on end for agents or publishers to respond to queries. It’s their loss.
View from my workspace
In Shapers, time is a bridge that Ana, Mesa and Cara traverse towards the realisation they are a triple soul existing in different places. They each have an urgent task to mend relationships across parallel epochs. As they gradually come to encounter each other so they must explore the myth of past, present, future.
From the prologue … The underground community of Shapers – scientists with a mystical bent – take subtle actions in a time of political tyranny. Their shape-shifting Oracle, Cassia, can call earthlings from any time or space into the present when a catalyst is needed …
In AD 2450, Cassia calls back Mesa from a future time to alleviate a crisis in Rhonda. Mesa is an agent of the Ypocs, a genetically-enhanced species. Answering the call, Mesa uses her intuitive powers for a double task of assisting the survival of Rhondeans and Shapers and of exploring the origins of her tribe of Ypocs to find clues about why time slows down in her tribe’s utopian world.
I thought I treat my readers to a segment from the first chapter of Shapers …
Chiming Worlds
“Wake up.” I nudged Luke, alerting him to the pale mist pouring over the rim of the sea, like the kind that swirls up when warm milk hits a cold pail.
Luke rubbed his eyes and frowned. “I don’t like the silence,” he said, peeling himself from the sailcloth covers of the small lifeboat Captain Jacko Ponto had granted us as sleeping quarters, since all cabins were taken at the time of our late booking.
We were sailing under three square-rigged masts towards the Western Isles. For weeks, since leaving Itaka, our journey on board the impressive Engrail had been favoured by lively currents. This morning, water stretched deadly calm like liquid silver, a novel and beautiful surprise which also struck me as ominous. The stifling air mystified everyone on board. Sails hung slack. Sailors assembled and stared vacantly across the waters that lay flat and deceptively serene. Luke joined them.
The sailors had tolerated Luke’s interest in their acrobatic feats, but they did not permit him to climb the riggings, to trim or adjust sails. He kept fit by practising martial arts, while I became the ship’s mascot. Elevated on coils of rope, with paper and charcoal in my lap, I drafted impressions of Luke, which were blurred with recollected gestures of his twin, Rufus, who burdened my conscience. I churned out sketch after sketch of fellow travellers, men perched on masts pencilled into the sky, and glittering currents and blustering sails.
Luke and I counted time by the ascending sounds from the ship’s bell, until eight rings called for the watch to change. Last night, as every night, we had cuddled together in our snug lifeboat under the gleaming fabric of stars, into which we wove our dreams. Salty breezes flavoured stories we shared, secrets that troubled our lives.
Today I pondered our reckless exit from Rusk towards open horizons, spurned by the mysterious quest proposed by Cassia, the prophetess, as Luke called her now, and, as it turned out, the Oracle of the Shapers, a secret organisation that endured across time. Cassia once told me: You are the bridge, Ana.
My musings were broken by the noisy splutter of an emergency engine, which promptly ceased to function. Luke returned. “Sailors grumble, they’re called below deck and use oars,” he said. The monotonous creaking of oars did nothing to lift our mood. Passengers wandered aimlessly, gaping in vain to distinguish sea from sky, which had blended together into grey mist. Soon people congregated in groups where plenty of rum was shared. Cheering each other with rude songs, shrill enough to chase ghosts away, some people tumbled into each other’s arms as if a puppeteer had tangled up the strings.
I escaped to our lifeboat, to re-read my latest journal entries of Cara, my soul companion. Luke stayed nearby, keeping watch. He thought Cara, whose messages I transcribed into my journal, was a reverie. I had omitted to mention that she lived in a time alien to ours, centuries ahead. When I grew up lonely at Katun Court and sensed the deep wrong in my family, Cara spoke frequently as a voice moving through my head. But once the world unravelled during my river journey between Nimrich and Katun provinces, her presence became sporadic. A few days ago I chose to initiate contact by addressing a message to her. To my delight, she responded. Sentences appeared as if written on air, fragments of events, which I recorded in my journal. Cara’s journey had assumed an uncanny resonance with my own:
I thought I had lost you, Ana. Like you, I accompany a lover on a quest. Let me tell you about us. Your Luke is my Dillon. We are crossing the Atlantic by plane to America. Four weeks from now they’ll elect a new president. From my window seat I watch Canada’s lakes far below – pink mirrors strewn among purple damask. We have been chasing the sunset for hours, bound for Washington D.C., with a stopover in New York to change planes.
An icy wind greets us. I wear a coat sewn by hand from a charcoal-coloured blanket, trimmed with blue velvet. I could be a successful designer instead of a poor seeker with expedient philosophies, such as money obstructs the spiritual quest. My coat has rustic elegance but scarcely keeps out the fierce cold of Capitol Hill. Our charming escort delivers us to one of our hosts. My limbs quiver like frosted leaves. It is Christmas Eve.
We have a festive lunch with students who share this spacious house beyond George Town. Our host’s mother is old and ailing. The door to her room beyond the hall of the dining room is permanently open. From her bed she listens to our table talk. Imagine – all of a sudden she sits bolt upright and points a finger at us. ‘You don’t have to do anything. I don’t have to do anything. They were the first words God yelled out loud when he made the universe.’ With that she slumps back into her pillows. Some of our party smile, knowingly, others gaze absentmindedly at the white turkey slices on their plates, adorned with glaringly red cranberry sauce and green sprouts. While our chatter about spiritual matters resumes, I ponder whether the ultimate clue to our search has possibly just come from the ancient woman across the hall. But it can’t be that simple.
The scenes and places Cara described felt alien, but the incident with the old woman made me laugh and lifted my spirits over conditions on the Engrail:
Dillon avoids talking about his quest. Yet our eccentric status, partial to the arcane path of the fool, and our credentials, arouse curiosity. As Dillon elegantly steers the table conversation away from us, we end up listening with growing amazement to a rapid succession of expositions – on Crazy Wisdom versions of Buddhism, Gurdjieff, Tantra, Zen, Kundalini, Agni Yoga, Theosophy and various Sufi paths. Everyone in this house follows a different teaching. America has supermarkets for everything, including exotic tastes of the divine.
But let’s assume you know deep inside something that does not correspond to what is accepted as possible. Should you express your truth it would be ridiculed. On Boxing Day we meet the main host we came to see. Imagine someone of high standing in society who radiates authenticity and talks with natural ease about experiences you tend to doubt you ever had; imagine that someone drops the end of his cigar into your half-empty coffee cup to jolt you from one dream into another. This someone is our host.
Here’s some feedback re: ‘Course of Mirrors,’ the prequel, on my website:
I’ve not yet mastered the fancy new design features of WordPress, so any high-lightened links will lead you away from this post, and you need to backtrack to return to this site.
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.
Course of Mirrors 