mercurious

Automatic for the people

One of the spiritual processes that should have fascinated me but never really has is automatic writing. The other night, however, I found myself compelled to it, and what came up was interesting, so I thought I’d share.

I had my word processor open anyway, because I’d intended to broach the subject of the Law of Attraction and it’s connection to magick. It’s one of the big ideas floating about at the moment, and I want to make a start looking at its implications for real life. But I can’t write while I eat, not unless I’m in a cafe, for some reason, so I put on a film while I demolished a particularly fine soup concoction. I just picked up the nearest DVD to hand and it turned out to be La Dolce Vita.

I haven’t seen the film in about twenty years, so I only had very vague recollections of it. Is it me, or is it unbelievably long? It just seems to keep going and going; but then perhaps that’s part of the point of the film itself. The days when films had a point beyond entertainment, eh..? Anyway, I got to the bit just before Steiner makes his famous speech to Marcello (recounted in translation in The Divine Comedy’s wonderful song ‘The Certainty of Chance’ - itself the suggestion the title for a later post) and suddenly felt this compulsion to express something welling up within me. It must have been the dialogue about Marcello’s writing that did it, but it was building before then.

I knew it was something about writing and much more beyond it, but I also knew that if I stopped to think about it my conscious mind would get in the way. So I flipped the laptop from the DVD player to the word processor, took a deep breath, and just started banging away at the keyboard. No idea what I was typing. Just breathing and typing. I wasn’t looking at the screen, but up at the wall in front of me, as though I was near the front at the cinema. I just kept going until I knew that most of the feeling had emerged. There were traces left, but the main emotion was clear, and it was time to make some tea.

So I got up and put the saucepan on the gas, and made some. Pulled some coko piskoty malinove (raspberry jaffa cakes to you) out of the fridge, and went back to the film. I think part of me was worried that what I’d written would just be random gibberish. That there is a reason my conscious mind edits and filters the ramblings of my deeper self. So I thought I’d watch the last bit of the film and have a look at what I’d written later, before I hit the sack.

Finally, finally, at just the perfect point, the film finished. I made another tea, ejected the DVD and switched to the word processor.

Shock one was that it definitely made sense. Shock two was that there was only about forty typos.

Something about the tone and content embarrasses me slightly. And that’s why my conscious mind would have edited it. So I want to share it, because it’s Truth at a real level. This is not something I would sit down and write in the normal course of things, nor think because my internal voice has neither the tone nor the timbre of this, so I have gained something authentic about myself that I could not have learned in another way. If, when reading it you too can sense that authenticity, then it opens the possibility that it could be a useful tool, and I want to share that possibility.

What would come up for you? Might it lance a boil or reveal a treasure? I think I want to broaden the notion of automatic writing from the sole domain of spirit communication at a macro level and open it to soul communication at an individual one. I used typing, because my fingers to some extent know where the keys are. But most people seem to use pen and paper. The standard method is to keep it by the bedside and if awoken with the need to write, just bang it down without really waking up. Then when you do wake in the morning, have a read and see what Spirit says. What I’m suggesting is that another way might be to use the same technique when an emotion is surging or washing around and you know that thinking about it is going to miss, suppress or destroy the real nature of it. Grab paper, grab pen, stare at the wall and let it go. Who knows, half of it might be in pictures or doodles, but I think you will know what they mean.

Give it a go, and do let me know if something interesting comes up, or if you find some method to add to this.

Here is what I wrote:

I want to write. I want to write with such force and heat and fury that is in my heart. And yet still I cannot bear to hurt anyone, to change anything; I see the perfection in everything, even the things I despise. Beauty and wilderness, untouchable by me; I can only reveal it, and let it speak through me. When I was young I was outside. I was your awestruck observer, biographer, ghostwriter, mirror. Glass and alchemy. I opened wide and drank in gulps. You touched me and tore through me. Like a surgeon’s scalpel in the hand of a curious child, going deep with shocking ease, mind spinning in its implication and delivering its lifelong effect.

But now I am become subtle. I am mercury zephyr and stroke with a lover’s practiced feather, while for long years the sharp end of that quill carves unfathomed lifelines and fine skeins into my palm.

What heat is this? What fury? How am I to express what is within me? The wounds of a thousand sunrises, the beauty dread of countless private tidal walks of lunar torture. Mine, all mine, and rising up to meet the day - how can I carve this upon what I see, this perfection that will go on without me, when I hide away beneath quiet grasses in centuries to come? Who cares what this heart holds? How can I sweep the hair from your eyes, caress the line of your cheek to hold your chin to face me? No you shall not look away - look at me - look at who I am: that which nature has made of me. How can I weave such careful porcelain subtlety when such storms as you have laid within me are scalding urgent and seeking such physical expression? Magma; I inherited no mantle.

Let me write it – you can hold the lens, now. I cannot take any more in, I am full, and it is sharp not swollen, there are no soft curves here, only bright arcs of sweeping scored intention.

I will leave a mark. I have no need of posterity; who will remember me? But I cannot be present without this. There is nowhere left to retreat to observe from. My presence is now express force, and that must and shall affect.

I must touch, and I must love. But I shall hold your face in both my hands and I shall look you in the eye. Your heart shall beat or stop, eyes wide, changed forever and you shall know me. Nothing and no one that comes close can remain unchanged now. Too close now for measure and perspective. It is part of me. And I have fire in my moment.

All Good People

Three people have now written to me saying it would be really handy to have some kind of repository of trusted services here, as it's increasingly hard to wade through the hype and nonsense to find good people. So if you do have anyone whose praises you wish to sing, let me know here, or by email, or send me a link or whatever. Only people you really rate! If you could write a little bit about them and your personal experience of them, even better. Herbalists, healers, readers, teachers - wyrd practitioners of all persuasions please. Let's help each other!

Colour

No, really, I promise I'll sort out the colours soon. You do know I'm colourblind, don't you?

I was just goofing around design wise when I put the blog together originally, but hey, it's up! I'll do a spot of design during the week.

Though Renee (see her link on the left) tells me that in Aura Soma terms my colours are to do with Fear, Joy, Justice and the Ascended Master (Mistress?) Lady Portia. So there you go.

By the way - do let me know of any practitioners or great sites that you think should be linked here - only stuff you have actual connection and experience of - but anything that might be helpful.

Thanks again!
T x

Man's search for meaning

Thanks for all the positive feedback you've given since I put this blog up. The level of relief and whatever that heart-risey tearful emotion is that happens when encountering kindness have shown me how much I'm putting myself out there with this. I guess I'm most comfortable expressing my deeper self in photographs; some of you who have known me a long time will remember me hanging my soul on the wall in exhibitions of my land/sea/skycape photos.

So let me introduce one of our little community of coolness that some of you will know and many of you are about to. Tim's a drummer of fairly awesome musicality, looks like a giant malteser (geeeezer...!) and thinks taking pictures of my hair in the morning constitutes European Contemporary Art.

However there's nothing I need to say about his post. It says it all.

The good, the bad and the meaning of it all (A rant from Tim Heymerdinger)

Reading Tomas’ blog has made me think about adding some stuff about purpose and meaning – our motivations for getting out of bed each day. So much of our happiness depends upon it. I’m writing in the hope my ramble helps someone reading this.

Tomas and I touched on meaning when we last met in Prague. In looking at what purpose and meaning my life has had, I have looked to my experiences, and my behaviour relative to each situation.

It’s become clear to me that the search for meaning is everything. Everything has meaning. Including all the negative aspects, experiences or suffering we all inevitably have to deal with. Because they lead to you where you are now, what you have learnt, who you have become. (Aware now that I sound like Yoda training Luke Skywalker. Sorry). Therefore – it follows that even the bad stuff is useful, if painful at the time you experience it.

Viktor Frankl expresses this far more eloquently than I ever could in his book ‘Man’s Search for Meaning.’ (And hey – Viktor would approve of Tomas’s Mercurious site without doubt!). Frankl was a WW2 concentration camp survivor, who felt he owed his survival to the attitude he chose to take to his experience. The Nazi’s could take all from him but the attitude he chose to his fate. This was ultimately empowering for him and changed his mentality from being a victim of cruelty and happenstance to someone who had hope, who did not act like a victim, appeared to the Nazi’s as someone able to endure the terrible rigours of a work-camp, and was therefore not gassed. He had something to live for. (But I should add he had ultimate admiration for those unfortunate people who died there – many of whom chose to die with dignity – in choosing their attitude to death, they robbed the Nazi’s of the ability to strip them of everything).

Carrying this forward, he used this knowledge in his role as a psychologist post-war, developing ‘Logotherapy’ (‘meaning’ therapy) to help his patients develop a different attitude to a problem, issue or illness, by presenting a wider context in which the patient could get beyond themselves and deal with, or in most cases cure their malaise.

Meaning and Attitude.

Let me turn this to my own experience. I tend to regard myself as an optimist/realist. Rooted to reality but forever striving to learn more about the universe. My recent experiences have placed this under enormous strain and caused me to put esoteric concerns aside while I switched to ‘survival/fight/cope’ mode. Oddly though, throughout felt I would not fail, at all times used whatever resource around me to cope. Because I felt I had no choice.

My wife Dee was diagnosed with terminal bowel cancer in March 2007. She herself worked as a fundraiser for the UK cancer support organisation MacMillan, and had been inspired to change career years earlier following the death of her mum from the disease.

We took the initial news very hard as any couple would. We’d been together 25 years, and had been very happy. We had faced enormous challenges within our family together and dealt with them as a team. Now our little team was to be no more.

Dee never read Frankl. But she had a strong instinctual understanding that the attitude she chose to her illness and treatment was the key to how she experienced her remaining life. The day after we had received the diagnosis, I stepped out of the hospital room to get us both a drink. When I returned, Dee was sitting looking out of the window, staring into the garden.

After a few minutes of contemplation, she turned to me and said: “Let’s make this the best time. Let’s live like we always dreamed of and never got round to. Let’s blow our cash, go on holidays, party, do stuff with the family.”

Dee knew that even the most advanced treatments could not help her given her medical situation, her cancer was too aggressive. But the attitude she chose gave us the chance to enjoy what turned out to be the best year of our 25 year marriage. And we got to ‘live the dream’ as they say. And not selfishly either. Dee continued fundraising until she was physically unable to, using her plight to draw attention to MacMillan’s fundraising efforts. I was privileged to be her carer, and in our last year together, learnt so much from her and from life.

We didn’t focus on the future, we lived in the moment - the cliche most of us read about in self-help books on the 6.40 from Milton Keynes to Euston, then wistfully put aside as we trudge through life, was suddenly very very real to us.

Dee left this world in February 2008, peacefully. Like many partners left behind would feel, I felt anger at what I felt to be an appalling injustice. But, 9 months on, I feel that her death, like her time on earth, had meaning. This gives me tremendous comfort. There are the obvious elements people ascribe to someone’s life purpose – the children and grandchildren – but the effects of her passing are much deeper.

For one – the overwhelming comment from those attending her funeral was that Dee had inspired them to do something differently in their lives. This varied from person to person. To make a positive change, to do the stuff they’d always talked about, to improve a waning relationship and not take it for granted, to have real conversations and say stuff that needs to be said. To remove blockages. To live more in the now. Many of them have done what they said, painfully sometimes, but ultimately positively.

Since then, the example of my wife’s extraordinary life has caused our family to examine how they live – and to take huge steps to improve. Her death wasn’t in vain – far more than that - like her life, it had meaning and purpose. We just couldn’t see it, and perhaps to our congenitally selfish minds, still feel it was a massive price to pay. We humans are just unable to grasp the bigger scheme of things sometimes, aren’t we?

I have fair reason to believe that she continues her supportive and inspirational role in the spirit world. Maybe that was part of the reason for her leaving us too…

Where am I going with all this? Perhaps to say look for the value, the meaning of each of your past experiences, no matter how painful - or how good! (This is not easy, and I do not mean to trivialise the work involved if the pain of suffering from a recent life experience is just too intense).
I also want to say that I believe fear is irrelevant. Fear nothing. Choose your attitude, like Tomas has tried to show us he is doing in his blog, and you have control, you have power over your life – no-one else. Striving to live this way genuinely allows me to start each day renewed. I hope you can too.

(“There’s always something” – Lemony Snickett’s Series of Unfortunate Events.).

Love, Tim

The Fear (part 2 and counting)

When I originally had the idea for a blog for the spiritual and personal side of my life I thought it would be great if all my friends chipped in. Because what a repository of wisdom that would be!

And then I forgot about it. Life stuff took over.

Then the other day I had a dream about doing this and thought - hey I should do that. That's a Good Idea! And then realised it was a good idea I'd had before, started and forgotten about.

So I thought - ok, let's bang up one honest post about today, and then tell as many friends as I can - then I can't wuss out and let it slide. People will be watching! (Not that I haven't wussed before a studio audience before; just that it's more embarrassing...)

And then the realisation of what I've done: invited my friends to a site of my personal musings in dayglo colour. The Horror...

So. 'Tis done. I'll try to add to this as I can. I honestly don't know why it's important to do this now, but I have an overriding feeling that it is. So I'm going to have a go.

If anything resonates with you, or you feel I'm missing something or avoiding something, please write. Comment, or send me something longer. I really do want to put as many helpful links on here as I can, and get as much thought and personal experience as possible in the widest range of esoteric subjects.

Want to give me a hand?

The Fear

It’s morning again, and my alarm is twisting through my dreams, gently breaking and constricting, deconstructing them and my connection with their reality, until I’m left with a wide pallet bed, a high ceiling and rainy morning light filtering in from Prague outside.

The tense panic is slow to kick in today. I’ve done well recently. Not only have I done some work recently, with the prospect of some more in the near future, but I’m also getting better at catching this pointless worry. I’m a magician. I have a personal spiritual connection with my Universe. So much of my life is as I would like it. So why the hell do I wake up with the funk every morning?

I don’t want to dwell on it, but I do want to sit with it today, and gently get a sense of what it’s about. It really is counterproductive, starting my day in entirely the wrong state, so that everything that follows is a catch up, a rectification.

I’d like to share some of my days with you. I want to engage my spirituality with my daily life properly. There’s been times in the past, and good ones at that, but I want to integrate now; I want to become a fully spiritual man. Because dang, people! If we are the ones, if we are the hope, if we think we have a solid foundation with all that is, and a personal relationship with Spirit, we really oughta have our shit together, right?!

Yet most mornings I wake with this urgent discomfort.

It’s something to do with being behind. Being late, and running to catch up. I can think of many reasons for it, psychological and reflective of my perceptions of my life at the moment. I have what many people would regard as an idyllic lifestyle, but I do it on less than a quarter of what they would regard as a reasonable income. I am living well beyond my means; in such a good way, but good grief, it’s deeply uncomfortable sometimes. And if I can only close that gap a little, the quality of my life would improve to a great degree. I could pay my bills on time, and I love the feeling of that.

So just do it, right? Physician, heal thyself! I’ve done magick for others, and I’m connected to Spirit - why don’t I just sort it out?! Come on - either this stuff is real or it’s not! Is it some kind of confidence trick, wherein others believe more in my power to help them than I do? Or maybe I like the struggle? My alternative lifestyle that counts out the good bits of more conventional lives along with the nonsense?

Hmm. I don’t think that’s what it is. I’m beginning to think this is just down to bad habits.

I want to catch that early morning tendency to build angst into my day. Nip it in the bud straight away, and build something more positive in. Something that begets other positive thoughts, feelings, inclinations, people and situations. I deserve what I allow. Why am I allowing these demons space and resources in my day?

Yeah, there’s some Spirit work I can do, and spruce up the altar and so on. But let’s start with something practical. I bought a plain notebook - one of those really thin flimsy ones with a buff cardboard cover and about twenty plain pages in it. I wrote ‘Life’s a breeze’ on the cover. It sits by the bedside, and when I take off my glasses, wig and teeth at the end of my day, and place them beside my mobile they’re on top of the notebook.

Today when I finally managed to disable the snooze function within me, and found the corresponding button on the mobile, I put on my glasses and picked up the notebook. The urgency of the day was already building within me. What time is it? How much of the day has escaped already? I read the cover. Life’s a breeze. Mm. Yeah. I suppose. Feel like I’m trying to convince myself a bit. I open the cover to the first page and find:

“You’re already doing great. Now go and put the kettle on.”

And somehow that did it. It has to work. It has to resonate and change the focus.

I looked around, at this place where I was waking up at 10am because I could and put a pot of water on the gas. Slipped on some jeans and trainers and a Russian navy jersey and dropped downstairs to the cobbled street and the fine misty autumn rain and disturbed the newsagent’s cigarette to grab a pint of milk and a croissant. Back up to the flat where the tea was ready and the espresso macchina was on its way for the follow up. I opened the great wooden windows onto the courtyard and trees, and put the needle onto the vinyl. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. So I’m a hippy - like your taste’s so cutting edge! - would you admit to anyone what you’re listening to right now?! And Neil says “Here’s a new song that’s guaranteed to bring you right down. It’s called ‘Don’t let it bring you down’. It sorta starts real slow and then fizzles out altogether...”

And I’m laughing, looking at the album covers on the wall, eating fresh bread and butter with local ginger honey and making a start on that espresso, breathing the rain on the air and writing this. I look back at the next page of my notebook, and it says:

“You’re alive. That’s a great start to the day.”

Some everyday magic. It changed the mood of my first hour of the day. And over time, who knows what difference it might make?

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I want to use whatever I’ve got to make my life the best for me that it can possibly be. Don’t you? We’re the guys, aren’t we? I’ll let you know how I’m getting on, and try to share what worked and what didn’t along the way. I’ll be as honest as I can. But I feel that we should not only be totally digging our lives, but somehow leading the way. I suspect I already have the answers. But for many reasons I’m not using them as actively as I could. How about you?

Let me know. I want to share a little of my daily spiritual practicalities and proactivities, but it would be so much better if you could add to it. Pool our knowlege and experience(es).

I might even make this page look nicer!

Have a perfect day.
Tomas x