Cosmic Cheating

I felt bad when I got back my physics homework, with phrases like, ‘Good understanding’ or ‘Clearly explained’ written in red pen and random ticks in the margin.  I felt bad because I had cheated.

Each week I sat in the school science lab and made some slight effort to understand what the poor man was trying to teach us.  Not one word of it made sense to me.  I diligently copied down the homework assignment and stared at it for a while.  Nothing.  Then I did what I’d always done.  I went to my friend Cathy’s place and asked her older brother what I should write.  He told me, in simple language, and I wrote what he said in my own words.  Then I handed it in and guiltily received the accolades I did not deserve.

As soon as I could, I dropped physics classes and took no further interest in the subject until I was far older and wiser, and by then it was too late to make up all the lost ground by anything approaching conventional means.

For me to sit here now and plan to write about the cosmos and its composition – to explain dark matter, the many worlds interpretation, parallel universes and dark energy, then, would seem to be the height of stupidity.  My ignorance of such matters is palpably clear.  My credentials are non-existent.

Certainly I have worked my way through many a volume of what bookshops call Popular Science, but I’m not foolish enough to believe that this qualifies me to be an expert.  No.  I’ve cheated again.  I’ve done exactly what I did over half a century ago.  I’ve sought out an authority on the subject and written down their wisdom in my own words.  At least this time I’m admitting it up front, though.

So, you are wondering, where would she find such an authority?  Can anyone explain these things?  There are theories, of course, but truth…?  The greatest minds in physics are still arguing and pondering.

 

All that is quite true.  When I was a teacher, I told my classes I was not going to teach them all they needed to know, but I was going to teach them how to find it out.  I did my very best to do that, although I stopped short of teaching them my own particular method – mainly because it would have seen me instantly dismissed from the profession.

I discovered my method by what I would call ‘chance’ if I believed that anything in life is random.  You may believe me or not as you wish.  I shall simply set down what happened.  In my next post, I’ll share the cosmology and leave you to draw your own conclusions.

 

At the end of the last century a dear friend of mine passed away, leaving me with instructions to watch over her little aspie son who at that time was a pupil of mine.  I did my very best.  The child was at times a true delight: brilliant, fascinating and eloquent.  At other times he was silent, angry, sullen and secretive.  And there were – especially as he reached adolescence – times when he sought to numb his pain and loss by engaging in dangerous and frightening habits.

I knew my feeble efforts weren’t enough.  I needed back up.

I consider myself to be the most fortunate of individuals.  I only have to put out a strong desire for assistance and the Cosmos provides.  It so happened that I was experimenting with dowsing around that time.  I quickly discovered that, with just the right degree of concentration tinged with an ability to relax into whatever came to me, I could pick up rudimentary messages from the child’s departed mother, from spirit guides and even from angels.  The messages from the mother were easy to verify.  Those from spirit less so, but I gradually came to trust them and to rely on the guidance I was given.  By modifying my methods, I learned to pendulum dowse over a computer keyboard so that I could record my questions and the answers.  I began to read White Eagle, Conversations with God, Seth and Jane Roberts and realised that I was doing something called channeling.

Meanwhile the child had grown into a young man with astonishing insight and an inner knowing quite as profound as the material my guides offered.  When he was inclined to interact with me, he shared his knowledge freely and we experimented fearlessly with metaphysics, wrote books together and pushed the boundaries of our knowledge.

Quite suddenly though – a couple of years ago – he returned to his silent, brooding self.  The conversations ceased and I all but lost touch with the extraordinary young man I’d watched over and learned from for so long.  My guides and angels, too, seemed to withdraw.

As if on cue, the vacuum this left in my life was filled by a family disaster.  Unexpectedly, I found myself whisked across the country to support my child and her children.  For a year my focus was firmly fixed in the physical world of survival, all thoughts of cosmic wonders pushed aside.  It took me the best part of another year to recover from the horrors of that time.  It wasn’t until September of 2019 that I turned once again to my pendulum and sought some guidance from spirit.

I had little idea what I was searching for.  I just had a few questions I wanted answers to.  The answers to one deceptively simple enquiry took me on a wild and wonderful journey, deep into aspects of reality I’d barely dreamed of, although – when I looked back – that very special young man had left me a trail of breadcrumbs to follow.

So finally I’m ready to share some of my new-found discoveries here.  Next time, I’ll explain the cosmology I’ve been given and after that…  Who knows?

It’s good to be back.

I’ve got sunflowers on a cloudy day

They’ve not flowering quite yet, but the buds are forming.  I can see them still – just – if I reach up on tiptoe.  These are strong, sturdy plants, growing by inches every day, almost as I watch them, and they make me feel so PROUD.

Why?

Because the person who gave me the seeds, back on my birthday in the early spring, is one of the people I’ve watched and nurtured since childhood.  There are quite a few of these brilliant, shining young people – my own kids and grandchildren as well as pupils and youngsters I’ve mentored or just been there to listen to, on the right day.

Oh yes, they’ve caused me plenty of headaches along the way.  Sometimes I’ve had to watch patiently (and often very impatiently) as they ventured off into dangerous friendships or relationships, harmful habits and addictions or endured heartbreaking, life-changing challenges.  I’ve tried to get the balance right – deciding when to intervene and when to allow them to make their own choices, when to offer suggestions and guidance and when to keep my mouth firmly shut.  Sometimes I got it wrong; sometimes I got it right.  Sometimes I helped; sometimes I was a confounded nuisance.  What I’m most proud of, though, is that I hung in there, even when the going was really tough.  True, I’d sometimes retire to a safe distance while the fireworks exploded, but I always made it clear to them that I’d be there if they needed someone to talk to, someone to scream at, someone with a shoulder to cry on and that nothing they told me would shock me enough to make me pull away.

I hope my firstborn won’t mind me sharing this.  There were times I despaired of ever reaching her.  She was sharp-tongued, harsh and so materialistic that I often wondered how we could share a blood tie.

I once spoke to a very gifted psychic who said, “Oh, your daughter!  That bond between you!  That closeness and connection is so wonderful.”

I stared in amazement.  “Sorry, no.  I wish it were true, but that’s not the way it is.  I really struggle to connect with her on any level.”

The psychic pondered for a moment.  “No,” she said.  “It’s true.  Maybe further down the time line, but I promise you it will come.  There will be a time when you are so close.  She shares your values.  You have rubbed off on her and you will be so proud to be her mother.”

Many years later, when she became a mother herself, she started to change.  She retrained as a relaxation and massage therapist.  She was a wonderful parent.  Still, though, I could see the ruthless, hard, brittle personality traits and at some level I sensed that something had to give.  There was a storm brewing.

When it finally broke, my daughter’s life splintered and cracked beyond all recognition.  Horrified, I rushed to help.  I was fearful, and not just for her.  I worried that she would vent all her fury and spite on me and I wondered whether I was strong enough to take it, because I loved her so deeply.  She didn’t, though.  Slowly and gently we worked together to rebuild her life, to protect and nurture her children and to move her into a new and unknown future.  The spite and anger dissipated.  I watched in wonder as she worked so courageously through the pain and anguish and was transformed in the process.

Materially, now, she’s far worse off.  She has a very modest home and has to work ridiculously hard to keep even that roof over her children’s heads.  Spiritually and emotionally, though, her growth has been miraculous.  I watch in awe as she reaches out to help others and to improve their lives.

As well as working as a freelance reviewer and a therapist, she has opened her own online shop, selling beautiful resources to promote mindfulness, calm and happiness for children and teens.  I am incredibly proud, so I make no excuse for promoting her new project here.

I’m proud of all of them, these young people whose lives I’ve touched and I’m so happy when they come back to me and show me how their lives have changed and the progress they’ve made.

I’m looking forward to the days when my sunflowers bloom and pour so much beauty and light into my life and I’m grateful to the lovely young person who put them into my life.

 

 

 

In Your Heart

Here we are in March, getting on for a quarter of the way into 2019, and I’m getting a feel for what this year is all about – for me, anyway.  This seems to be the Year of the Heart.

When I first moved to Glastonbury (known in some circles as the Earth’s Heart Chakra, although I didn’t know that at the time,) ten years ago, I’d neatly packaged my heart away – stuffed it deep inside myself and decided that just surviving from day-to-day would be a major achievement.  In those early days, it was.  I’d been – I felt then – betrayed, abandoned and let down by just about everyone and everything I’d given my heart to and for the first few months, those betrayals just kept coming, thick and fast.

I remember renting a tiny annexe behind a shop with my fast-dwindling savings, rooting around in the short-dated reduced items at the supermarket and having no income, no prospects and no friends here.  It was a true dark night of the soul which lasted well into 2009.

Eventually I stopped wallowing in self-pity and reached out to others for help.  I found a lovely, intuitive life-coach who helped me to heal my dried-up, fragile, damaged heart, to begin to love myself and to expect and accept the love of others.  That turned my life around.  Soon I felt resilient, hopeful and learned to put out to the Universe for what I needed and wanted.  Paid work, new opportunities, acquaintances and friends soon appeared.  By the end of 2009, I was in a better place than I could ever have imagined and life was good.

It was around New Year of 2018 that I agreed with the Universe that I was now stable enough and ready for the next phase – for new challenges.

They arrived.

It was not an easy time.  I needed to stop sitting in front of my computer pondering metaphysical conundrums and to get up and deal with very physical problems.  It was all lower chakra stuff – root survival and safety for people I loved, followed by the gut-wrenching sacral issues connected to parenthood and the deepest emotional ties.  Depression and anxiety ricocheted around my family.  Gradually issues of power and control surfaced.  I worked to establish and maintain a safe and fair life for those who had lost everything, helping them to regain their inner sun.  It took bravery and resilience I didn’t realise I’d built up, but that’s the way life works.  We don’t get the challenges until we are ready to cope with them.

Then it was back to Glastonbury – back to the heart, in every way you can imagine.

Two people very close to me have had their lives changed by heart disease in these past few months.  In both cases it was very sudden, very unexpected and is throwing up massive challenges to their lives.  It brings up issues of mortality, of independence and dependency, of life-changing choices and ways of managing day-to-day.

At the same time, a friend and I have been working our way through Gregg Braden’s ‘Human by Design’ book and some workshops based around this.  It’s all about using the heart’s intelligence – the ‘little brain in the heart’ – and aligning it with our mental processes.

Then, as the final piece to the puzzle, I realised (as I said in my last post) that my ‘muses’ – the spirit guides, channelled messages and special intuitive humans I’d come to rely on for answers were closing the doors.  I tried one last time to contact Koimul, the Spirit Guide/s who helped me through so many difficult times.

JAN YOU CAN PICK UP ALL YOU NEED IN YOUR HEART

I was told. And when I asked why they were all moving away and leaving us alone, I was simply told,

YOU HAVE ALL YOU NEED FROM US

When I asked if they would return, there was no answer.  The crystal pendulum swung in a wide, empty circle, indicating that there would not be a reply to that.

So we lovingly took our leave of one another.  Now I need to trust that my heart and heart chakra are ready and strong enough to move me on through the twists and turns of this new chapter in my Game of Life.  They are, or I wouldn’t have brought myself here.

 

Making Peace with the Enemy

Not sure what prompted this – maybe all the poppies and remembrance day events, standing in an entire city brought to silence on the eleventh day of the eleventh month at the eleventh hour…

Anyway, this story is about another war – one that raged inside my father until almost the end of his life.

Tony was a young man in his twenties when the Second World War broke out.  He joined the RAF.  He serviced planes and was posted to some little island in the Far East – some little island that the Japanese army overran.  He became a prisoner of war.

I don’t know much about the details of his detainment.  He wouldn’t speak of the worst things to any of us.  I know he saw all his close friends die.  I know the camp staff would open sacks of mail, read out the names of the recipients, wave the envelopes before them, then toss them on the fire.  I know he grubbed in the ground for peanuts to add to the meagre rations of rice they had.  I know when he came home he looked more skeleton than man.  That was where his war began.

It raged throughout my whole childhood.  He was a sweet, kind, generous man as a rule, but if that button was pressed, heaven help anyone nearby.  The fury was astonishing.  Nothing made in Japan was allowed in our house.  Any passing reference to the country on TV or radio was instantly turned off, amidst angry mutterings.  When a neighbour mistakenly referred to my best friend (Chinese) as ‘that little Japanese girl she plays with’ they were shocked by the fury unleashed in Dad.

In my teens (oh, the foolhardiness of youth) I took him on one day.  I tried, calmly and reasonably, to point out that one couldn’t hold an entire nation responsible for the behaviour of a single group of sadistic prison guards.  I pointed out that a whole generation of Japanese had not even been alive during the war.  My mother and younger brother cowered in the corner as he lashed me verbally – and very nearly physically.  I came close to being disowned by him that day.  It took weeks to reestablish a relationship with him and I didn’t try to raise the subject again.

Many years passed.  Dad’s war continued unabated.  He reached retirement, moved to a new area – Glastonbury – and developed the closest friendship he’d had since I’d known him, with a man of similar age.  This man was sweet, wise and gentle.  He invited Dad to visit his home regularly and taught him all about his new area,  He told him legends.  He showed him the wonders of ley lines on maps and walked them with him.  He taught him about Bligh Bond and Wesley Tudor Pole and the heritage of Avalon.  Every time I visited, Dad couldn’t wait to share his new discoveries with me.  It was beautiful to see – like a flower, so long in the bud, finally unfurling.  He was happier and more peaceful than I’d ever known him.

This friend, though, had one further gift for Dad – the greatest of all.

“Tony,” he said one day, “There’s going to be a change in this house.  We’re going to be taking a young lodger.”

He went on to explain, very gently and patiently, that he and his wife had some dear friends abroad – people they’d known for many years.  This couple had a daughter who was very keen to visit England and work here.  Her English was good, but the culture would be very different to what she was used to.  Her parents were worried and had asked if their English friends would take her into their home.  Willingly, they had agreed.

“Well of course,” Dad said.  “I’d have done the same.  Good for you.”

“Yes,” his friend smiled, rather sadly, “But I don’t want this change to drive a wedge between our friendship, Tony.  I value your companionship very deeply and I very much want you to continue to visit our house and spend time with me as usual.”

“Well of course-” Dad spluttered, but his friend interrupted him.

“The young lady is Japanese, Tony.”

 

It took more bravery than he had ever showed for Tony to make that choice.  He, too, valued this friendship and determined, despite all, to continue visiting his dear friend.

I wasn’t there to see how the visits went.  Perhaps he was cold and reserved towards the girl at first.  Perhaps he ignored her.  He was battling an entire lifetime of bitterness and hurt.  All I know it that on my next visit, he described the young lady to me in the most glowing terms.  He praised her gentle, sweet nature, her grace and charm, her kindness towards him, and he shook his head wonderingly.

I hugged him and felt such overwhelming gratitude towards the Universe – and his wise friend – for providing him with this wonderful opportunity to lay down his arms and finally experience peace.

 

Talisman

I have a friend, here in Glastonbury, who we’ll call Mark.  He’s a talented wood carver and one of the most generous people I know.  Every time we meet, he has some lovely trinket or other which he wants to give me.  Apparently he does it for all his friends.  He comes into the story later, but I had to put him there before I started.

Now for the story.

There’s a lovely lady I met several years ago at a conference.  She’s a spiritual seeker, a lover of trees and nature and a very caring, sensitive person.  She adores Glastonbury, and despite living in a city in Switzerland, she comes here for short visits whenever she can.  We always meet up when she’s here, usually in town for a meal, but this time I felt a strong urge to invite her to my home.  I never question such feelings any more – just act on them.

She only had two days to spend here this time and she’d spent the first hunting for a special object that would remind her of Glastonbury and embody the spirit of the place for her when she was far off in her own country.
“It could be anything,” she said. “Maybe I’ll find it in a charity shop. Maybe it will be just a stick or something simple.”

She showed me an egg-shaped stone she had bought, carved from local crystal.  I could tell that, much as she liked it, she wasn’t convinced that this was the special object she had come to find.  Now she had a dilemma.  Should she spend the next day – her last – hunting for The Object or should she relax and enjoy the delights of Glastonbury while she could?

“Would you…  I feel bad for asking, but could you ask your Guide?” she asked.

Then I knew why I’d needed to invite her here.  She’s had advice from, Koimul, my spirit guide before.  I opened the computer and asked Koimul if it would be possible to seek advice for her.  Koimul said it would.

I typed:

“Did she find the object that will allow her to remember Glastonbury when she is at home, or should she search for it tomorrow?”

Sometimes the responses I receive come ‘out of the blue’.  Sometimes I can feel them – or snatches of them – just before the pendulum spells out the replies.  I certainly knew what the first part of Koimul’s reply would be before it came.  I also knew that it wouldn’t satisfy my friend.

MUCH OF GLASTONBURY LIVES IN HER HEART

It was true.  We all carry the essence of the places we love within ourselves and can draw on feelings and memories whenever we wish to.  In my mind – because I knew my friend wanted more – I asked for advice on an object.  Koimul was ahead of me, though.  Without pausing, the message continued and I became aware of the word ‘talisman’.  It was a perfect way to describe what she sought.

Slowly, as the crystal wheeled around the keyboard, I realised what was coming.  I started to laugh with utter delight.  My wise guide had the perfect solution!  The words that were spelled out said:

BUT IF SHE WANTS A TALISMAN IT WILL BE GOOD TO GIVE HER THE RUNE

This is where ‘Mark’ re-enters the story.  Once, he and I had been discussing Dion Fortune – a writer and occultist who had lived in Glastonbury early in the last century.  He told me he had recently been asked to cut down an overhanging branch from a yew tree which had been in Dion’s former garden, just along the road from my cottage.  He had, he said, used every scrap of this very special wood to make a wonderful set of runes and other items, because he felt that something of her presence remained in it.  He had given me a tiny pendant, carved from a fragment of the branch and hung from a leather thong. It bore the symbol for the letter I in Ogham, as well as the word for ‘yew tree’.

The strange thing is that although it had been given to me and was a lovely object, I had never felt it was mine.  I’d worn it once or twice, but always I felt uncomfortable – as if I had no right to this, and it was meant for someone else.

Koimul’s message made perfect sense to me.  This little pendant (she’d said it might be a stick!) encompassed all that my friend loved about Glastonbury.  I rushed upstairs to find it, hurriedly told her its background and joyfully handed it to its rightful owner.

When she had stopped crying, she slipped it over her head and it looked perfect.  It belonged with her.  There was just enough light left in the evening sky for me to take her down the road and show her the tree it had come from.

Another reminder of how magical life can be when we let go and allow it to gently unfold.

 

 

When Worlds Collide

A three hour coach ride passes so much better when you find yourself seated next to someone interesting to chat to.

My neighbour yesterday was, it emerged, travelling to London for a brief, bittersweet half day with her daughter.  It was the girl’s birthday.  She’d booked herself into a posh hotel in the West End.  They were to have champagne, then lunch somewhere luxurious.  The daughter would unwrap her presents then – ‘a comfort sack’ with such items as a thick duvet, pillow and covers, hand warmers, hot chocolate mix…  Tomorrow the young lady will take all her spoils and return to Greece, where she works for the UN, caring for the refugees.
“It’s so desperately cold there, Mum,” she’d told her mother. “Just so desperate”.

I wondered how it felt for that young woman to move between those two quite different worlds – her opulent English lifestyle and the squalor and tragedy of the transit camps.  How must the smells, the sounds, the sickness and pain feel to someone who has grown up in such a different culture?  How, indeed, must it feel for the inhabitants of the camps, wrenched from their lives in such violence and terror?

 

“And you?” my neighbour enquired.  “Why are you going to London?”

“Oh,” I said, with a slight smile, “I’m probably going to enjoy a few hours in the British Museum.  And I might be meeting a friend.”

Well it was a long journey, so gradually my story came out too.  If we did meet, it would be no less shocking and difficult a transition for my friend than her daughter’s move to Greece had been.

Just as the refugee camps would seem overwhelmingly disgusting and sickening to us – their sights, smells and emotional charge far beyond what we feel able to cope with – so our world is, for people like my friend.  For him, and so many other super-sensitive people who live with autistic spectrum perception in its many and amazing forms, our world – in all its raw, visceral physicality can be almost too much to cope with.  Their senses are easily overwhelmed by what, to us, would seem trivial.  Their anxiety never sleeps.  Their fears grapple constantly at their throats with sharp, threatening fingers.  Small wonder so many would prefer to remain in the insular, relatively safe surroundings of the worlds they have built for themselves.  Why – given the choice – would they venture out into the uncertainties of our unfamiliar and terrifying world?

The answer is the same as for the young lady working for the UN – compassion, humanity, generosity of spirit.  They want to help us.  They want to build bridges.  They want to reach into our world and show us their perspectives.  If they manage it, we will be so much richer for it, but if they don’t, we have no right to criticise them.  Every single day, they struggle to do what they can to reach into our world.  And there will be days they just can’t.

When I reached London, he was still at home, holed up in an agony of indecision.  If he managed a meeting, it would be the first for many years.  The least I could do was to make it as easy as possible for him.
‘No rush,’ I messaged.  ‘I’ll head for the museum. Text me later if you feel able to meet somewhere.’

An hour later I was a stranger wandering in the world of the Abyssinians: huge bas-reliefs of Kings and courtiers.  ‘Spirit helpers’ with the heads of eagles and small handbags held objects like oversized pine cones against the backs of the humans’ heads.  Why?  Pineal gland connection perhaps?  What was in the bags?  What favoured realm had these beings descended from, to help their human counterparts?

Then my phone pinged.

‘I’m going to come.  I’m in central London.  Shall I meet you at the British Museum or elsewhere?’

‘The museum’s crammed with people,’ I told him, when I’d had a moment.  ‘Let’s meet in one of the squares nearby.’

On my way out I paused to stare in awe once again at the Rosetta stone, that magical jigsaw piece that had given the modern world a way into the world of other races at other times.  For me, at that moment, the stone became a talisman, allowing my world and my friend’s to come together for a short while.

Bloomsbury, like much of London, has many lovely, peaceful squares – small oases of calm and greenery amidst the hubbub of traffic and commerce.  I selected a calm, pleasant open space where I felt he’d be most comfortable, sat on a bench and waited.  I sat at one end and placed my bags beside me, knowing he’d need more body space than most would consider normal for lifelong friends.  I remained seated when he arrived.  No exclamation of delight, no bear hugs or grasping of hands.
“Alright?” he said simply.
“Yes,” I said quietly.  “And well done.”

Old friends.  Old friends.  Sat on a park bench like bookends.
Paul Simon’s song echoed in my mind from another of my distant worlds.

I’d written much of what I wanted to say on paper.  He finds the written word easier to handle than speech – less unpredictable.  So for the first few minutes he sat and read in silence.  Then we talked.  He kept his eyes fixed straight ahead; body language and facial expression are confusing for him, so it’s easier if he cuts them out.  Still there were deep discussions and moments of humour, with both of us laughing out loud.  There were connections and shared memories of times when we’d spent so many days and hours together.  It was wonderful.

And because I know he finds transitions difficult, I made the decision on when to leave.  Or perhaps the weather did, as the rain that had been threatening all afternoon eventually began to fall.

Neither of us said, “See you soon.”  Who knows?   And what does it matter?  Our worlds had come together for that short while without any explosions or disasters and we are closer for that experience.

Not very

I can’t remember when our last meeting was.  If you don’t know it’s going to be the last time, you don’t take particular note of it, I suppose.

I remember my last meeting with his mother.  It was in the hospice.  That meeting is easy to recall, because we were both all too aware that she’d have moved beyond her body within a few days.  We had a rather surreal conversation about this and that – mostly her plans for the funeral and what she wanted me to do to help care for her little boy.  I kept asking whether she was tired and would prefer me to leave and she kept saying, ‘No.  I don’t want you to go yet.’  But eventually she was tired and she did need to sleep and we hugged and cried a bit and said none of the things people usually say when they are parting: ‘See you soon’, ‘Keep in touch’, ‘Take care of yourself’.  It was an adieu moment, not an au revoir.

When I last saw her son – the little boy who had grown up to be a man and who had become just like one of my own children to me – he DID say, ‘See you soon.’  I distinctly remember that part, although I can’t quite remember where we were.  He was waving me off on a bus or a train or something.  He’d been anxious, awkward, twitchy – more so that I’d seen him before.  He’d kept wheeling around and looking suspiciously about him, as if he expected an assassin to come lurching out of the crowd.  He’d looked awful.  There was an unhealthy pallor to his skin and much of his hair had fallen out in untidy clumps.  Alopecia, he told me.  Stress, the doctor had told him.  It might grow back or it might not.

He didn’t see me soon, nor I him.  The months became years – probably six or seven.  I feel I should be able to remember.  Each time I suggested meeting, there was a flat ‘No.’  If I pestered for a reason, I’d get, ‘Can’t do it’ or ‘Too stressful.’

Last week, I suggested it again.  He’s been coming out, I feel, agonisingly slowly, of the deepest slough of despair, social anxiety and depression.  His texts and emails have been far more chatty and even shown flashes of the old sense of humour.  He accused me of being paranoid about something, adding, ‘And yes, I know that’s rich, coming from me.’

He didn’t say ‘No’.

True, he didn’t come anywhere close to saying ‘Yes’, but he was far more concerned that he wouldn’t be able to commit to a meeting until the day itself, and that as we live far apart, I might have a wasted journey to London.

I told him I love London – in small doses – and that I’d enjoy a day trip there in any case.  I told him I’d plan a trip to the British Museum, another old and much-loved friend.  I told him that if he felt able to join me, that would be great, but I’d have a great day in any case.

You don’t get sighs in texts, unless they’re intentionally written in those silly little arrow things (<sighs>) but I could feel his as he replied, ‘That’s up to you but I don’t want to get your hopes up.’
So my coach ticket is booked.  Next Saturday I’ll begin the 3 hour trek to London.  I’ll be caught (as happened so often, when his mental state waxed and waned throughout his teens) somewhere between assuring myself that he’ll be there, in order to manifest the reality, and stoically preparing for a pleasant day wandering through the delights of the museum, just in case.

Whatever happens, though, I’m jubilant.  When I asked how likely he was to be there, he replied, ‘Not very.’  That’s a long way past ‘Not at all’.  There will be other chances, other days.  Just as his mother begged me, all those years ago, I’ve never given up on him, never thrown in the towel, and nor has he.  I’m proud of us both for that.

Communication – another way?

I’m aware that I’ve gained a few new followers recently – thank you so much and welcome to my ramblings and wonderings – so I thought it might be a good time to briefly explain the William connection before launching into another post about him and autistic spectrum perception.

William is a young man in his mid twenties, whom I met almost 20 years ago.  He began as a pupil in a class I was teaching – a class for kids with speech and language difficulties.  A set of circumstances which might be considered very strange, if you didn’t believe in pre-planned soul contracts, caused our paths to cross and re-cross in many ways, so that even now we are the best of friends.  Despite the fact that he is only able to communicate with me through text and email at present, I still have longer and deeper communications with him than with anyone else I know.

So yes, to begin with I believed my role was to teach William to communicate.  He had oral dyspraxia, which meant he had a very limited range of speech sounds.  Additionally he was on the autistic spectrum, which meant that social communication – reading body language, facial expressions, tone of voice etc. was challenging for him.  He made excellent progress, no denying that.  However at the same time, he and a couple of his classmates began teaching me other ways of communicating – ways I’d never dreamed of.

Alan could ‘beam’ states of mind into my head.  I didn’t have to be facing him, or even thinking about him, to find that I was aware that he was feeling angry, frustrated, impatient or in need of help.  Martin’s speciality was sending words to me.  I could ‘hear’ what he was saying, although no words had been spoken aloud, sometimes from across the building.  Once I spotted him and made eye contact, he’d give the briefest of nods, meaning, “Good, you got it.”

William was on another level entirely.  “I think,” he told me, rather deferentially, one morning when he was about eight, “I should tell you that I’m telepathic.”
He waited, a slight smile playing around his lips, for the full impact to sink in.
“You mean you can read my mind?” I asked, suddenly feeling horribly exposed.
He nodded, allowing the smile to break loose.

Of course the children used this form of communication amongst themselves all the time.  I’d often wondered how a bunch of kids with only the most rudimentary verbal language abilities were able to engage in imaginative games, with each of them understanding their role perfectly.  Once William twigged that I was sometimes able to pick up snippets of their telepathic communication, he took it upon himself to tutor me in these skills, although never overtly.

It’s subtle, this hidden communication – infinitely so.  By comparison, spoken language is crass and imperfect.  Our labels and descriptions, no matter how extensive our vocabulary, are often open to misinterpretation or simply inadequate to convey our true intent.

Having spent a lifetime closely observing children of all ages, and in particular watching my own three and my two grandchildren develop language, I firmly believe that all humans begin life with the subtle, non-verbal language.
“Oh, she understands so much of what we say,” parents will tell you as they cradle an infant in their arms.
Maybe. I suspect the tiny person is understanding far more of what the parent thinks. I also believe she is using this telepathic (for want of a better word) skill to communicate her needs to the mother. Most would not put this at more than a ‘close bond’ between mother and child.  What, though, if it’s something far greater?

Once they had learned to speak clearly and to follow the conventions of conversation, my little students more-or-less ceased using their telepathy.  Our society places great value on effective spoken and written language.  The children – Will included – worked diligently to improve these.  I was busily congratulating myself on our success and only dimly aware of what we had lost in the process.

As I’ve said, though, this was a soul contract, and although the children  went their different ways and I moved back into mainstream teaching, William and I still had far more to teach one another.

We stayed in touch.  Sometimes we’d have long, rambling, fascinating conversations that would last for hours, and I’d be amazed at how brilliantly he’d picked up the ability to speak.  At other times, though, he’d withdraw for days, weeks or even months at a time.  Conventional language caused too much stress and the best I could hope for was a single word text to let me know he was still alive or a ‘beamed’ impression of his state of mind.  Not great, usually.

Now it’s come full circle.  Yesterday, William sent me a draft article for inclusion in his second book.  It’s a stunner.

He begins by explaining how it is for people on the autistic spectrum to attempt to learn social communication.  Ruefully, he says:

Having to learn such skills is generally very difficult and time consuming. An analogy may be learning a second language which for the vast majority, autistic or not, is again very difficult and time consuming. And even then, few who learn a second language can match the fluency and competency of a native speaker whose language skills developed naturally as part of growing up.

He bemoans the fact that, despite this, the non-autistic population expect perfection from those challenged in this way.

Later, he begins to consider the reason computer-based language is easier for ASP people to manage:

Many autistic people demonstrate a good level of competency with computers – likely to be linked to their operation depending on clearly defined protocols and mathematics, things which are very different to how social communication and interaction works.  Most communication between people which occurs via computers is in a written format, offering a greater similarity with the clearly defined operating protocols of a computer, since written communication often takes a more formal and literal interpretation of language than face to face communication.  This also removes the need to attempt to understand body language and tone of voice – things often problematic for those with autism.

Only in the final paragraph does he allow his thoughts to wander into that other type of communication – the early ‘telepathy’ and our more recent forays into ‘remote viewing’.  William isn’t certain that either of these terms fully encompass or describe what is actually taking place.

[ASP people] have a naturally different method of accomplishing [communication].  What exactly that method is I don’t believe is fully understood at present by either autistics or non-autistics.  I don’t believe the correct words have been attributed to autistic matters to describe or explain it properly.  I suspect at some point this will be achieved and hopefully will allow for autism to be harnessed to it’s full potential and remedy the blindness of so many.

I hope so, William.

 

We are still compiling The Words of William Volume Two.  Volume One is available via Amazon as a paperback in the UK, Europe and North America and as a Kindle edition worldwide.

 

 

Spectral Friends of one kind and another

I’d been looking forward to my one-to-one with Higgins for ages.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with them, Higgins is a group of beings, both physical and non-physical, who answer questions and guide those of us ready to listen through Cheryl, a lovely lady who lives in the north west of the United States.  They chose the name Higgins because it would be easy enough for a child to remember and they wished their messages to be clear enough for a child to understand.

I’ve asked questions on the Ask Higgins blog before and been able to join in group meditations with them, but this was my first opportunity to engage in an individual Q&A session.

I had all my questions prepared, but it was Higgins who brought up the subject of my friend William.  I hadn’t any questions planned concerning him or his work.  I was stunned.  How did they even know about him?  Gently, Higgins explained that they are aware of everything ‘the Entity’ (Cheryl) experiences.  Because she had read Will’s book, they knew all about it, and about him.

William, they told me, and all those on the autistic spectrum, represent an evolutionary step forward.  They are able to connect differently and feel differently to the rest of us.  They are far more sensitive than the rest of us.  All this, they conceded, I already knew.  However many people make the mistake of believing that those on the autistic spectrum have something missing or lacking and treat them accordingly.

They went on to talk more about the special sensitivity of those on the spectrum.  They asked me to consider those most sensitive of all humans, the schizophrenics – people who pick up the thoughts of others so freely, they hear them as actual voices in their heads.  The autistic population has a sensitivity akin to this, which means that although they are not hearing our thoughts as words, they are picking up on the general ideas we project at them and about them.  This can create a density – a kind of fog – around them, making it far harder for them to break through negative expectations and create a good life experience for themselves.  Mixing with the non-harmonious population is difficult for them at the best of times.

I’d never heard it expressed in those terms, although all they were saying was very familiar to me.  Higgins encourage those of us who connect with the autistic spectrum to keep seeing these people as fully fulfilled.  In this way, our positive thoughts lessen the density they have to move through.  At one point they referred to physical life as ‘wading through molasses’ when compared to the non-physical.  It seems that our friends on the spectrum are somewhere between the two.

Next Higgins expressed great enthusiasm for the book Will and I had put together (The Words of William Volume One).  They said he used different vocabulary but was giving the same message that they were.  Also, they felt it enabled people who read it to recognise the understanding and knowledge of those on the spectrum, while enabling William to get positive feedback from those who read and appreciate it.  “Keep going!” they said, and encouraged me to work with him on producing Volume Two.

We spoke about the remote viewing William and I have been engaged in for the last year or so.  In this, they said, we are ‘pressing into the future – the unknown’.  By moving our experience on in this way, we are expanding All-That-Is.  They suggested we keep moving forward and explore further, as it is of great benefit.

Looking at Light

7:56 in the morning.  I turn on my phone and a text message arrives almost at once.

I get a few normal texts – the ‘C U at 3.30’ type – but not so many.  Most of the texts I get are more like this one.

‘Earthman will soon discover that he is not a unique, independent creation but one of many forms of intelligence fashioned out of multi-dimensional light.’

I’ll call the sender Lucy, because it means light and she is full of the stuff, and light is what we were discussing when she came round yesterday.

She arrived clutching The Book of Enoch, a white primrose plant and a couple of custard tarts.  Within the space of ten minutes, she had given me the plant, eagerly seized one of my spare copies of The Words of William (“I just opened it at random, and he’s talking about something that links to this…”), shared the cakes, and settled down with a cup of herbal tea for one of our long, rambling discussions.

Ideas bounced and ricocheted around the room like cosmic ping-pong balls.  For about three hours, we quoted books, dreams, visions and images.  We spoke of life, death and everything between; we spoke of other worlds and dimensions, paranormal experiences and what-it-all-means.  It was exhausting and invigorating, all at once.

We’re not walking the same path, Lucy and me; we’re not even heading in similar directions, but we are finding enough synchronicities and similarities on our routes to make discussion well worth while.

Then, this morning, that text, followed half an hour later by another, insisting that

…it is important to teach the scientists that matter is generated from Light…

I’d been telling her about my thoughts, you see, about our Selves (I mean the whole divine holofractalgraphic  – Nassim Haramein’s word! – Selves) as beings of Light creating physical human selves and the matter around them.  I couldn’t say how, exactly.  I was describing this great stream of white light consciously and intentionally moving through something like a prism, or a rainstorm… the ‘veil’ perhaps? … and separating into a spectrum of rainbow colours.  I get lost in physics, and need analogies to help me find my way.

So now I had the Light Self vibrating into these different frequencies – very high vibrations up at the purple end and lower ones down at the red part.  Could that, I wondered, be where we get the idea of the subtle bodies from – the ones nested inside each other like rainbow-coloured Russian dolls?  Was that what the chakras were – aspects of our shining Light, stepped down so that we could spend a while experiencing physical life on this planet?

Not, of course, the only way that Light could be separated out: she spoke of other types of being our Selves could try out. Our imaginations conjured star beings in dimensions overlapping ours, glimpsed as orbs or flashes of light or quite unseen by us, but quite real and solid to themselves, just as we are to ourselves.

The conversation made perfect sense to us.  To others?  Not so much, perhaps.

I’m lucky to have friends like ‘Lucy’.  I’m lucky that conversations – and texts – like that are part of my everyday life.