Following, Euclid and Writing

The weirdest thing.  I'm as egotistical as the next guy.  I want to be liked.  I want to be interesting. I want to be read.  I want someone, anyone to follow my blogs.  But I'll be the first to admit my sphere of writing is small, my ideas smaller, my voice, tinny.  No grand vision here although I do venture out on the metaphysical branch now and again until I hit the wall that words and my tiny little brain can't breach (as well as mix my metaphors).  So imagine my surprise when I found I had a follower.  No, not here.  Not where I do take occasional flights of fancy but on the Balthazar blog.  Even I don't find the Balthazar blog interesting.  It's a record of where we are in our training.  Balthazar, dear redheaded boy that he is, is a horse! 

Have gone to this chap's blog.  He lives in Manchester.  He's a bit of a philosopher, well read, writes a hell of a lot better than I.  Can't see what possible interest he's got in my horse.  Did he make a mistake?  Did he mean to follow this blog and push the wrong button?  Or, as I see he's listed The Dice Man as one of his favourite books, did he just roll it, and go with the outcome because that's what you do no matter how little sense it  makes at the time?  I don't know.  It's a puzzle.  Almost feel like writing him to tell him of his mistake but really in hopes that he'll explain what his interest is in an off the track thoroughbred of no particular distinction.

Here's another puzzle.  Was half watching an Alan Davies documentary on mathematics.  I know.  Mathematics, about as interesting as watching dog poo turn white (of which there's a word for that, dog poo turning white, but I can't remember what it is).  The only reason I had it on was I was working on the latest drawing (that's a whole 'nother post) and I like Alan Davies.  Anyway, this professor was enthusing about prime numbers and how Euclid discovered something really amazing about them.  Euclid devised this system to show that prime numbers are infinite.  The professor had Alan multiply 2 x 3 x 5 x 7 x 11 which comes to 2310.  Euclid adds 1 which makes it 2311 and a new prime.  Isn't that amazing?  Isn't that wonderful?  By adding 1 to multiplications of prime you get a new prime.  I think that's what he said, what he meant (otherwise what was the point?).  So I multiplied 11 x 13.  !43 + 1 = 144.  Wait a minute.  That's divisible by 2.  What have I done wrong.  Does it need to be more than two primes then?  No, that doesn't work either.  I think what was meant but not explained is that this equation always starts at the beginning, with 2 and goes on ad infinitum.  

Which just goes to prove my equation, me plus math equals mind numbing boredom.  Finer minds would say that what cannot be understood is bound to bore.   I agree.

Was a bit rough in my criticism yesterday of poor Gyles Brandreth and his Oscar Wilde book.  I haven't changed my mind but recall that old adage, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.  I wasn't in a foul mood or anything.  Wouldn't normally waste time reliving something, if not unpleasant, at least not memorable.  What's the use of that - rather like taking a fingernail to that blister on your heel just to check that it's still there.  Anyway, in a salve to my troubled conscience I vow never to critique, as in criticize, another book. 

Sometimes think about writing another book.  I'm not driven to write as I am to draw.  I wasn't one of those children who made up stories to entertain her friends.  I drew.  I wanted to learn to read and write so I could make the illegible marks my older sister made legible.  I loved the varied shape and size of them.   I used to pretend I knew how to write and would make lots of marks on a sheet of paper.  Found that if I lay my head on the table and looked at the scribblings from that angle they looked like real letters.  Once I did learn to read and write, the world of books opened and I soon forgot the magic of the making of letters.  Even so, every once in a while there's this itch, an idea, a vision.  The problem is that's as far as it goes.  Starting a book, having an idea, is easy.  Finishing, that's another story.

Not the Oscar Wilde

How can one body create so much fluid?  As a somewhat grosser reflection of the rain we're (finally!) getting, I am filling tissue after tissue with ... stuff.  But I wear this head cold proudly.  It's the first since I quit smoking 7 months ago.  I'm whizzing through the stages like greased lightning (or like a phlegm slick greasy pole); sore throat, done, sinus and dripping nose, in progress, congestion and coughing, got it.  If I was still smoking I'd be in real trouble.  As it is I'll have this sucker licked in a few more days.

Was pleasantly surprised to find yoga helps alleviate symptoms.  Maybe it's all the inversions that stir things up.  Haven't practiced today as I tackled the weekly verandah clean so feel a bit grungier and gummed up than usual. 

Must be easily bored in my old age.  Just finished reading a mystery with Oscar Wilde as the detective and found it wanting.  Stumbled on it in the library and thought, hey ho!  This should be a ripper but it was as dull as the daily bed making.  Managed to drag myself to within two pages of the end and then gave up.  Expired of boredom. 

So why?  Why did I find this book so awful?  The book is called Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man's Smile and the author is Gyles Brandreth.  I think it was awful because I didn't believe it.  They were like pawns being moved around the stage (and much of the action took place within the theatre) to advance the story but I didn't care.   They didn't elicit empathy or sympathy.  There were just there, moving here, moving there, saying this, doing that.  Even references to incest, opium, laudanum, hashish, Sarah Bernhardt and self flagellation couldn't whip this dead horse to life. 

Just looked up Mr. Brandreth and see he's very well known in the UK as an entertainer, politician, writer, broadcaster and one man show.  Well, gee.  I'm obviously out of step.  The reviews of his Oscar Wilde books are Wildely complimentary.   So pay no attention to me and my opinion.  I'm in the minority.

As a contrast, I finished Stephen Fry's The Fry Chronicles and loved it.  Funny, erudite, painfully honest (who admits publicly to picking their nose?) yet tinged with  melancholia that his humour can't quite hide.  I am prejudiced of course.  I've had a crush on Stephen Fry since his Blackadder days, notwithstanding his homosexuality (he did say in the book he was only 90% gay so there's always hope).  Last year the ABC ran Jeeves and Wooster, which predates Blackadder, and Fry as Jeeves was understated perfection. I was fated to love Jeeves and Wooster even without Fry as I discovered Wodehouse years ago. It's a love Fry and I share.  Isn't that touching?  Of course I'm happily married and he's (90%) gay so it won't happen but I still adored his book. 

Signs and Portents

Unless you've been living in a cave, you know the world is supposed to end tomorrow.  I'm not sure how that works with the time zones.  Does the end start as a wave and work its way around the world?  Australia is a day ahead of America.  Does the world end tomorrow for us and the 22nd (Oz time) for the US?  I'm glad I'm not in charge for it's a conundrum.

Saw the psyhic John Edwards on Dr. Phil.  He was asked whether he thought the end of the world was nigh.  He thought not.  What he did think was that a major shift in our perceptions would occur.  I would like to believe that we are waking up to what we sow, we reap.  The Newtown massacre of children has become a wake up call for Americans in a way that the other massacres did not.  It was the slaughter of innocence.   Shooting college kids or teenagers at the cinema while a tragedy, well, they've been around a bit, they've seen a little, they had some life behind them.  But these babies had it all snatched away.  And the ones spared will never be the same.  How do you explain that kind of evil to a 5 year old?  To explain is to destroy whatever wide-eyed trust is left.  I suspect some of those kids don't understand much more than a 'bad man' took away their friends and classmates. 

Now in India a 23 year old med student was gang raped on a bus by 6 men, beaten with iron rods, stripped and thrown on the side of the road.  She is on life support because of the severity of her injuries, many of them internal.  The mind cannot comprehend.  India is the worst place in the world to be a woman, worse than Pakistan (which is pretty bad) and Afghanistan.   Twenty thousand women were raped in Mombai?  New Delhi? last year.  The judicial system is so grindingly slow that it can take 10 to 15 years for the case to go to court.  Many cases of rape go unreported because of the supposed slur or because of the length of time required to go to court.  I'm not sure I could maintain the rage for 15 years.  It's been an ongoing problem  because of the way Indians view women.  Now, spontaneously, the populace has risen up and demonstrated, even protesting in such numbers outside some high official's home (the article didn't say who) that water cannon were used to disperse the crowd. 

We have the Arab spring (which has slid into winter in some places), we have America talking gun control (finally!) and India examining its opinion of women.  Germany is going all out to meet their energy needs with renewables, animal welfare is in the headlines almost on a daily basis, climate change, while stalled as far as world governments are concerned, is riding a groundswell of public opinion (because the public cops the fallout) which will result in real change.    Although sometimes I despair that we will ever rise above the heavy dross of our gross corporeality and be and behave as the Shining Beings we are, I do see, with the signs and portents of great good in reaction to great evil across the world, that we will Arrive. 

I keep thinking of the opening monologue of the movie Love Actually.   When the passengers on the planes of 9/11 knew they were doomed, they didn't ring their enemies to have the last word, they rang their loved ones to speak of  love.   In times of great crisis we strip away the superfluous and become our essence, which is love.  But we forget, we get distracted, we believe ourselves to be our ego rather than our spirit.  It is not hopeless but it is hard.  I hope the End of the World is the end of blindness, that the scales fall from our eyes and we see, really See.

The Meaning of Life...yeah right

Dice living today and blogging (number two in my list of six) came up.  Previous to that I've yoga'ed, cleaned the bathroom and laundry sinks, and worked on the current drawing.   What hasn't come up yet is vaccumming, cleaning the kitchen window and painting the second coat on the ceiling in this office. 

Have always found dice living fascinating.  It must tie in with Tarot, I Ching and various other things which make a connection between the energy sheet and the energy strings (my poor and for the moment unexplained version of the Universe) for what is chosen (or read in the case of Tarot and I Ching) is too appropriate to be explained by Chance.  Jung had it in synchronicity but I suspect it goes far beyond that.  If everything is connected and time, as the linear illusion we perceive, does not exist then everything is happening all the time and all at once.  Why not pick and choose appropriate (for this particular conscious collection of energy ganglia) bits that help to fill or flesh out the purpose of the current Consciousness?

So much I don't understand (a bit of an understatement) but I have always been confused by the seemingly discrete forms of consciousness we take when we become human.  I suspect I have lived and am living elsewhere so why am I only perceiving this particular consciousness?  For a reason.  When we die do we remember other existences, do we experience them?  Does our Oversoul live them all at once?

Just looked up oversoul with Wikipedia.  Emerson wrote about the oversoul and said  (1) the human soul is immortal, and immensely vast and beautiful; (2) our conscious ego is slight and limited in comparison to the soul, despite the fact that we habitually mistake our ego for our true self; (3) at some level, the souls of all people are connected, though the precise manner and degree of this connection is not spelled out; and (4) the essay does not seem to explicitly contradict the traditional Western idea that the soul is created by and has an existence (?) that is similar to God, or rather God exists within us.

1.  The human soul is immortal, vast and beautiful.  When I live and think with less than normal dross, I feel lighter, wider and yes more beautiful.  Even though....
2.  Our conscious ego is slight and limited in comparison despite the fact we mistake it for our true self.  Yes, but what is contained within the larger is still 'of' the essence'.  Still, I had the minuteness of the ego demonstrated years ago.  I'd gone to a movie with my then husband and fainted.  No one knew I'd fainted so when I came to I had no one fussing over me which meant no distraction from where I'd been to where I then found myself.  I woke up with a terrible sense of loss.  Where I'd been had been vast and beautiful and true.  To returnn to my'self' I had had to shoehorn this great being into a tiny ego.  I was grief stricken.  What a disappointment it was to be me when I had had the faint taste of Freedom.  I am coward where pain is concerned but since that moment I have not been afraid of death.
3.  All souls are connected.  All energy is connected.  Quantum mechanics, etc.  What one is we all are.  The difference is in the choices we make.  Energy can be directed.  Energy is just as much thought as 3 dimensional objects.  What we think we make.  It's a heavy responsibility which few of us take seriously, me included.
4.  The soul is created and has an existence, is similar to God who exists within us.  The riddle of this is not whether there is a god and how s/he exists but what makes up the barriers between small ego-constricted us and God?  Was it Aldous Huxley who postulated that the mind functioned as a filter so that we would not be overwhelmed by the reality of What Is?

So, what does it ALL MEAN?  Greater minds than I have not been able to decisively answer this.  What hope have I?  Sometimes I am sure it is only so that we may look and love the beauty we have created.  At other times I suspect it is a game, a trick we play on ourselves, a quest and puzzle that we must solve to arrive laughing and breathless back at the Source saying 'didn't think I was going to get it this time!'

Natalia sitting on the desk atop a spiral notebook (cats have to sit on something, even if it's a postage stamp, for their bottom requires something between it and just plain floor or just plain desk top or just plain carpet.  It's a bit ceremonial, like a comic hobo who ostentatiously dusts off his park bench with a dirty handkerchief).  Now she's moved to watch the Wild Bird show through the window.  Life is one delight after another.  There is the captive 24 hour a day entertainment of the Verandah Birds Floor Show which she can watch from either the top of the television cabinet or from the bedroom, or the ever changing unscripted ad lib show of the Wild Birds from every window in the house.  Because we have so many trees and a bird feeder and native birds in aviaries we are at the center of a whirling maelstrom of feathers. 

In this photo Natalia has opted for the soft grandstand seat from which she can watch the computer screen and the windows.  

When we sit outside in the morning and have our coffee we are entertained as much as the cats, although I suspect our motives for watching differ.  I've discovered that galahs and Little Honeyeaters play tag with the galah always being 'It'.  I've watched galahs shooting past Little Honeyeaters until they give chase.  Acting like a galah, an Australian phrase of derision, actually means one hasn't lost he capacity of play.  A grown galah, strutting with comic dignity beneath the torrelianas, will suddenly throw itself on its back screaming with delight and kicking its legs in the air.  If one does it, it doesn't take long before every galah in the vicinity is also upside down.  

     Every time I kill time by playing computer games I could be writing drivel here instead.  Often think of things I'd like to write but they pass off into the ether without taking hold - which might be a good thing!  Suppose what's prompted this entry after more than a month of silence is a dream last night in which my father informed me that he was reading my journals.  My old journals.  I told him that perhaps it wasn't a good idea.  Those old journals are full of sex, drugs and rock and roll, well, not rock and roll I preferred classical music even then but there was definitely sex and drugs.  It didn't seem to bother him.  He was driving, fast as usual, down some night cloaked rain slicked city street taking people to a party.  I was in the back seat and climbed into the front after we'd dropped them off.  (Did I want to stay at the party?  Went and had a look but it was all 30-somethings.  Did like the ancient white aga with decoupage butterflies however - and the room full of everyone's shoes).  I and my Invisible Companion managed to find ours and rejoined Dad at which point the I.C. disappeared.
     The random thoughts are things like a) I bought a packet of eye makeup applicators, little double ended sticks with sponges on the end, and thought, 'these will see me out' meaning I'd be dead before I ever wore out five of the buggers and b) Death is more or less a constant companion now.  Not in a morbid or fearful way, it's just a part of my mind map.  I'm no longer immortal like I was as a youth.  There is a definite end in sight made more real by the death of my uncle on my birthday and the death of a neighbour at the young age of 51 of cancer and c) the world and all its dramas sometimes seems more like a stage set where we can act out every and anything we can think of.  Prem Rawat asked why people needed to go to the movies.  Around us was suspense, adventure, drama, pathos, humour and tragedy (my adjectives, his idea).   He's right of course.  Syria is on self-destruct, as is Egypt.  The climate change summit at Doha is again doomed because money is more important than survival and our politicians are no better than we are or we wouldn't allow this farce to continue.  There's a part of me that takes this all very seriously and another part that says, wow, how interesting!