Dear friend
The skies have cleared of cloud, the morning light makes the blinds in the front window glow and cast bars of on Mam’s elephant plant. I woke up with the word mother repeating in my mind.
We spoke together yesterday as I walked with Zara along the banks of the river Lea. It’s always a little surprising when I realise how much time passes without thinking about her. My first question is usually about myself.
“Hi Mam, how’m I doing?”
I figure from her vantage point in the astral worlds she has an angel’s eye view.
“Call your brother,” she answers, in her own voice.
It’s not hearing in the way I can hear the keys tapping now as I write. Nothing to do with vibrating air. It’s another medium of communication that I can’t account for by my layman’s understanding of science. I hear her inside, and feel her presence.
Sometimes I long for her to be here in her physical form, but it’s not something to put much energy into. You can’t go back. Our visits are fleeting like this, but she is always available. It’s down to me to remember.
Zara encountered a beefy young mastiff in one of her favourite spots by the river. Marly is ten months old. We walked awhile with his human.
We’d not met before but fell into easy conversation. I felt immediately comfortable with her. I had the sense that she’d been through some difficult stuff. A woman with a youthful energy, she might have been in her forties or fifties.
She told me about her new flat.
She’d waited fifteen years to be housed by the council. Before that she’d been in hostels and before that on the streets.
“I’m happy now, I’ve got my one bedroom flat and Marley.”
I asked a little about life on the streets. She told me that you’ve got to stay put in one place long enough to be seen by the council’s outreach team. Once she had a key worker they were able to get her into hostels.
I’d heard that the hostels can be horrible places.
“Yeah, but it’s a room and a bed.”
“Candice,” she said as we exchanged names . We parted ways as Marly lay down in protest at his walk nearing it’s end. His huge muzzle resting on lion sized paws.
I’d told Candice about Santy. We were trying to work out how big Marly would be when he grew. I described Santy with my hands, her form briefly emerging in my interior world. Candice understanding loss, smiled and let it pass.
I felt so tired on the walk back home, as we crossed the cranky old railway bridge I toyed with the idea of sacking off the day and catching up on some sleep, but there’s always work to do and the tiredness past with the aid of an espresso or two left over from the mornings coffee pot. I also didn’t want to miss the day.
When you’re living in a body, you think you’ll be in it forever, but you won’t.
One day everything physical will be unavailable. No hugging, no espressos, the way I can no longer rub Santy’s ears and breathe in the biscuit barrel smell of her paws. Her stinky breath, the silk of her fur. Those soft brown optimistic eyes. You really gotta spend time appreciating the physical world while you’ve got the chance.
No clinging.
However you can, keep a clear head and stay in it. Life. This moment.
On the second side of Kate Bushes album “The Hounds of Love” she plays with stereo placement.
“ I put this moment here” she whispers in your ear, “I put this moment here” and you feel like she’s running around you like a nature sprite.
I found that tape at the bottom of a box I was baling in Woolworth’s warehouse when I was 17. The plastic had a crack in it, but the tape worked fine. I took it home and played it to death. It was the first time I’d heard anything arty in that way. Talking about moments in time.
Voting day today.
I’ll put my mark on the paper.
Will a change of political party bring in a new era of peace and prosperity?
That’s what we want isn’t it?
Infrastructure that’s a pleasure to use.
Services that make life more pleasant.
An end to oppression, the exploitation of the earth and all her children, no matter what tribe or species.
We are in the early stages of a new era. The old world is giving way, hence the horrors of conflict as the dragon tears at the world.
The you who is in a body, is eternal.
Realising that you are the indwelling eternal spirit, the animating energy that makes the difference between alive and not alive. You, the light of the world.
This is the change that we must all go through, in this life time or the ones to follow.
Might as well be now.
Stay open to it and it will find you.
It’s up to us.
Till tomorrow
LOve
Mikey