My Life Through 33 Dwellings: Introduction
I have often jokingly said that I could write about my life based around the many different places in which I’ve lived. There is nothing wildly glamorous or adventuress about my life, such as travelling the world, jet-setting, living in the wilds, spending time navel-gazing in a monastery on top of a mountain. Well, that is if you don’t count running away from home at 17, working in a night club, marrying and divorcing an eccentric writer by the age of 23; becoming an opera singer, touring in the US and in Europe. Then there are the ordinary things of life that are never actually ordinary. Having children is life-changing, as is divorce and career changes and all the inner shifts we undergo that are hard to pin down – bound as we are by the limitations of language to do justice to expressing the densely-populated world of feelings each of us has. It’s more about how my many moves informed my life; the reasons for moving and the shifts in what I did and how I became who I am and who I may still become. Life is never over until the last breath is drawn and in between birth and death life itself is always on the move!
Me and my brother Chris circa 1952
It started young. My parents weren’t in the army or anything like that.. They simply moved a lot. Then there were the 4 years at Boarding School. I worked out recently that for each year I was there I only spent 16 weeks at home. I was an opera singer, famous in my small world for a short while, I have taught singing, co-run an arts company, been married twice, written, have a son, but most significantly I’ve moved and moved, to the point that it’s become the one certain thing in my life.
To be continued…
The Absence of Poetry
The absence of poetry in oneself
denotes a time of incubation.
The mystical has rested for a while
laying its head down
in the green, turf
or mud, or sand
whichever prompts the weary muse
to sleep to dream;
words suspended
in a place where inspiration cannot go.
And yet the moist incubation
of seeded words
pushes upwards to the light,
grows green shoots and later
rainbow heads
that speak of riches in the dark
of dreams that never end
of life that holds them up
like mirrors to the sun.
The Renter’s Rant
*My rental story is all too common, particularly in this current climate. It is a story with a happy ending, preceded by one of the most angst-laden periods of my life.
I’ve always been an inveterate mover. I have owned properties in the past – if you call having a mortgage owning. Fifteen years ago I decided it was time to go back to renting after I sensed, correctly, a change in the property market and got out a week before the collapse in 2008. As a single freelancer working in the arts on a fluctuating income, I have always aimed at keeping my outgoings as manageable as possible. When looking for a new place to live, I’d put the word out through the grapevine as well as looking at private rental adverts. It was a system that worked seamlessly until this recent episode.
For six years, from 2016, I lived happily in a quirky little sea-view flat in Central St Leonards at an affordable rent. It was owned by an elderly friend who lived below me and I kept an informal eye out for her, sharing a gin and tonic now and then. I was aware that I would most likely have to move when she died, but as I’d always found places to live easily, it didn’t concern me. After her death in 2021, I was informed by her family that it would be two years before they did anything with the property, giving me time to plan my next move. However, eight months later, I was given six months notice to leave, just as the rental prices started to go through the roof. Nobody could have foreseen what was going to happen.
As soon as I was given notice, I put the word out through the grapevine. I went to see a pokey one bedroom flat in the process of being done up, which would be let at £695pcm, nearly £300 more than I was at that time paying. This seemed extortionate for what was on offer and I turned it down, feeling confident something better would show up. Then the prices started rocketing upwards. I couldn’t get my head around it. Being self-employed, and with a basic state pension, I earned what I considered enough to live on comfortably.. As it began to sink in that the extortionate rents weren’t going away, my disbelief turned to anger. How did anybody in the property game think that those on low to average incomes could suddenly magic a further £300-500 out of thin air to pay for a roof over their head? It simply didn’t add up.
I began to actively put the word out and contacted Citizen’s Advice, and other agencies who could only offer suggestions of staying put, waiting out the section 21 period, getting evicted and being re-housed that way. Call it stubborn or what you will, but I wasn’t ready to be packaged up and put through a failing social system that was crammed with people far worse off than me. I persisted with my way and through somebody I knew I was offered a temporary studio flat at a rent that was just about affordable. It had been refurbished with Air B&B in mind, and was perfectly acceptable as a place to lay my head whilst I looked around for a permanent solution.
When I moved I let go of a lot of my furniture, keeping my basic belongings with me. I felt deeply disempowered, and it took me some time to readjust to the new climate that we had entered in the UK. I call it “Nouveau Pauvre”. Then out of the blue, a friend told me of an empty property near where I’d previously lived and suggested I put a note through the door saying I would be interested in renting it. I knew the owner by sight as I’d passed the property many times. Even though it was a wild shot, I wrote a note, put it through the letterbox and forgot about it. Four months later he contacted me and asked if I was still interested in renting the place. I went round to see it, liked it and said yes, if I could afford it. He told me he just wanted a good tenant and didn’t care to overcharge. I held my breath as he suggested the rent. It was exactly what I could afford! After ten months in transit I finally moved into my new home.
I consider myself fortunate, and my heart goes out to those, and there are many, who are in positions far worse than mine. What I feel about the current housing situation would warrant an article all of its own but I suspect what I’d really like to say would not be printable!
*I was asked to write this article for a local newspaper about my personal experience of being evicted from my flat just as rents escalated into the realm of ridiculous. To add some context, I live on the south coast of England, where earnings are lower than they would be in, say London, where earnings and rentals would be considerably higher.
Going With The Flow
We may think it’s strange how Life takes us unwittingly down endless diversions. Just when we think we’re all set, on the path, ok where we are, headed in the right direction etc; or the opposite, forever pushing to get ourselves better placed, for material security, to find the love of our life and so forth, we find ourselves thwarted in our goals time and again. But either way, there’s a constant – albeit covert – striving to get Life to align with what we think we want. Life, in the meantime, is sublimely unaware of this. It is just doing its flowing thing. It is we who do the diverting.
When we start to look at what is, rather than simply living reactively, we begin to see that Life is like a great river simply flowing on towards its final destination. We may discover that we’ve been clinging to the bank or trying to swim upstream. Neither of these positions lead anywhere. 
Flowing means being flexible as the current dictates – hence the popular saying, “going with the flow”. If the flow leads you to an obstacle, a seeming interruption in the flow – a dragon to slay, or a monster to wrestle with – then you deal with it. Dramatic analogies? Not really. I find the “creatures” that loom up in my life always provide challenges of a positive kind. To stick with the river analogy, no amount of treading water helps. Deal with it; face it out; do what you have to do with eyes fully open. Avoidance is the way to mediocrity, foiled expectations and disappointment at death. Be like an action hero in your own personal story. Learning to go with what is brings its own particular rewards. A master of Martial Arts goes with the natural flow and overcomes all obstacles. We can be secret masters of our own lives – never arriving, always in the process: arriving in one moment, to flow with the next.
Retreating
I recently spent five days at The Krishnamurti Centre, a non-denominational place of stunning natural beauty and retreat. 
Founded to celebrate the work of the philosopher, speaker and writer Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986), the centre is located a few miles from Petersfield. in the glorious depths of the Hampshire countryside. I was in need of peace and beautiful surroundings – somewhere for my tangled thoughts to slowly stretch themselves out, freeing my mind from their incessant jostling. It is a place I go to to unwind, to return to my sense of unsullied wonder at the gifts of Nature, as well as to my own true nature. Back to the hurly burly of life, I came across some notes I jotted down on my phone on one of my many rambles.
The water falls incessantly on stone. A waterfall, but if you didn’t see it you’d think it was heavy rain – the sort that just tips down from the sky, as though God were emptying his bath, I used to think as a child. The sound is soothing. The sun is shining, as incessantly as the water. A drought they say, but the sound of water confounds this statement.
Can a place be so beautiful in all senses as to make one want to be a part of it permanently? 
That word stretches on into the distance, carried over the yellow stubble of freshly harvested fields to the line of oaks beyond other fields and unseen roads. The only permanence is now arises in my mind. Quite so.
Later I will travel back to the place I call home, that is shortly no longer
to be that. Where will I go? It is both at once scary and exciting. I have the chance for new ventures or to seek to recreate the same. I am older now, I tell myself; not so resilient. Be safe, go the route others try to map out for you. They want you tucked up in the neat bed of their minds. Well I won’t do it! What is a life if we plan for its end?
Life is, in fact, like the water falling, the sun shining. Incessant. Insouciant.
Living in the Present
Life, with a capital L, has been somewhat chaotic in the past year – as indeed it will have been for many of us. We – as in globally, country-wise, personally – are in a period of extreme change, such as has perhaps not been seen since WW2. Certainly not in the West. It reminds me of a great giant turning in his 100 year sleep. We who built our dreams on his sleeping body tumble as he turns, clutching at anything we can hold onto as we fall. But the new, the unknown, beckons us on to perch, fall and grasp again, on and on. It is part of the unfurling thread of time.
Enough of whimsicality. Much has changed for me personally. I have lost a long-term friend on a seeming whim. She spat me out like a wad of flavourless gum. What did I do “wrong”? Nothing that would seem to warrant the termination of twenty years of a deeply rich friendship. Perhaps I was part of her own fall, let go of in the emergency of no-man’s land. Nonetheless I miss the person I was once so close to. I have been given notice by my landlord and find myself entering the arena of inflated rental prices beyond most averagely-waged people’s means: desperately looking outside of the box for somewhere to rent that will leave more than a few quid to spare for a pauper’s meal. So I live in limbo at the moment waiting for the next piece of magic to appear left field. Don’t get me wrong, I am not flakily lazing about in cloud-cuckoo land. I am seeking a solution to an equation for which an answer is currently unavailable – as the term goes for faults on the line, or a temporary disconnection from the internet. My definition of being poor is in the process of being rebooted.
In the world of consciousness-raising, self-improvement, spiritual seeking, we are invited to “live in the present,” the meaning of which evades us until we are simply forced out of some mental idea we have of what living in the present means, as in, how to strive for it. In short we attempt to make living in the “now” another valuable asset to notch up on the post of psycho-human achievements. When seeking the present moment in the vaults of the past fails, as it inevitably will; when all the mental gymnastics cease, then we discover that everything occurs on one level, like a moving walkway at an airport. Just by taking a step Life opens the next door and the next. There is no arriving. No destination. Now is always and ever just what it is, now! Clever words? No. simply stating the impossible in as clear a way as possible! Tautology no doubt…
In the meantime I work, write, plan, laugh with friends, swim in the sea and wait for the new version of my book to come out any moment now. Life in the present is not all bad!
The ParkinSongsters – Ten years on and still looking on the bright side
It is widely acknowledged that singing is good for you. It lifts the spirits and brings people together. Being part of a singing group, small or large, gives the individual a sense of communality, well-being and achievement. And of course it is well-documented that singing is particularly beneficial for people whose physical and mental functions are impaired. There’s just something about giving voice in song that sharpens everything, as I have discovered through a decade of running The ParkinSongsters.
Set up as a therapy group in 2010 by Parkinson’s UK – Bexhill, Hastings and Rother branch, the initial aim was to provide healthful voice and breathing exercises for people with Parkinson’s to help with the speech and swallowing difficulties that affect so many with the condition. We soon discovered that the most effective way to consolidate the exercises was through singing, and thus The ParkinSongsters was born. 
The group first met on a snowy November afternoon in an ice-cold hall along the Bexhill Road. None of us knew quite what to expect. Founder member, Allan Barfield, had enjoyed singing with The Hastleons until Parkinson’s made it difficult to continue. Determined to keep himself active for as long as possible, he persuaded the local Parkinson’s UK branch to set up the group and I was approached by Allan to run it. Reluctant at first, despite years of facilitating voice workshops for Music Therapy students, Allan’s persistence won and I agreed to give it a go.
Right from the start it was obvious to me that those who came along to this first session shared Allan’s enthusiasm. They entered into the spirit of it all immediately. It is this determination and the subsequent sense of enjoyment and achievement that has kept not only me but the group going from strength to strength over the years. People have come and gone but an essence of each of them remains with us and, I like to think, inspires people who have joined at a later date.
In 2013 the group was asked to sing at a lunchtime concert in Holy Trinity Church and it was such a success that we have not stopped performing since. 
Over the years we have sung in all sorts of situations, from churches to care homes, to supermarkets, a flash-mob in Morrison’s and, until recently, an annual Christmas stint in the minstrel’s gallery at Conquest Hospital, serenading visitors with a programme of seasonal songs. In 2016 we made a film about the group, funded by The Big Lottery: “The ParkinSongsters ~ A little film about the large benefits of singing for people with Parkinson’s.” You can watch it at: www.parkinsongsters.co.uk
The group has tackled pretty-much all styles, our repertoire ranging from Nursery Rhymes to Crooners songs, folk, opera, humorous and much more. We like to send ourselves up in a light-hearted way. Always Look on the Bright Side of Life being a favourite encore.
Some whacky things go on in the name of exercises but we don’t believe in doing things by halves. Everything we do counts in small but meaningful ways towards feeling better and more confident. Above all, when we sing in front of our always enthusiastic audiences, there is a sense of self-validation.
After an 18 month gap we booked a date to meet in early September to practice for our delayed tenth anniversary concert. As I helped set up chairs, I wondered if many would come back, but when the hall doors opened at 2.30pm, thirteen keen “songsters” entered, making a beeline for their seats. Despite the freshly-painted hall, glossy floor and smart new clock that told the correct time, everything was back in place for our first live session, and a round of our favourite “wacky” Name Game began…
The Anniversary Concert takes place at St John’s Church, Pevensey Road, St Leonards-on-Sea; Monday 6th December; 3 –4.30pm; With guest tenor, Gary Marriott.
Free entry but donations invited in aid of Parkinsons UK – Bexhill, Hastings & Rother Branch.
The ParkinSongsters meet Mondays, 2.45-4pm at St John’s Church Hall, Brittany Rd. For more details please visit: www.parkinsongsters.co.uk
Who and what are our friends?
What is friendship? Who are our friends and what and why do we choose people to spend precious time with? 
Friendships are based on so many different things. Some people are casual friends with whom one meets now and then, accidentally or planned. These friends are often quite “clean”, in that you haven’t smelt each other’s bad breath or shared a heavy emotional time with them. They are duck egg blue friends – which doesn’t demean them. We like a bit of froth or relief from the stain of life. We need levels of friendship.
In at the deep end; there are friends that have stayed the course; have stuck with you through trial and tribulation; who know your guts and your soul and your heart. These friends will never fade like minor stars do. They are bright evening stars in a velvety sky friends. You know that they accept you for your many flaws and have stayed with you over the years, like long-term cell-mates, or partners without the added complication of sex. They get the world in a similar way to you. They have been in the dirt as you have, loved to distraction; been lost in the desert of meaning; have sought spiritual nourishment in various guises and decadence, as you have; sworn by therapy, by play, dance, tai chi, singing, swimming, laughing, crying, giggling and loving passionately. These are the friends who, when the decades have flown and turned into giants, are still there, sharing a prosecco or a nettle tea; a walk in a windy wood; a call that lasts a whole morning; typo-ridden messages on what’s app or telegram that come when you’re busy but you take the time to read and respond to because you love them unconditionally.
These are Friends. Capital F friends in vermillion. 
Kanagawa wave friends. Others are polite friends that you meet in cafes for an hour, with an oatmeal latte to comfort you when connection falters; friends you know somehow will always hover like beautiful butterflies or moths around the light of your being, but will not, were never destined to dive in; to get too close to the light. True friends risk everything for you – even your friendship. They tell you the truth when you are being an arse, or deluded or egotistical or in love with a hopeless creature. Your friends love you for who you are, there are no caveats, no secrets; no hang-ups.
This is authentic friendship. Warts and smooth skin are adored and celebrated equally. The mountain of real friendship is climbed without ropes. It is unto itself the most profound thing you will experience in your life. Like the proverbial penny, you or they may roll away, but without trying, you find your ways back, like stars touching in eternity. You meet always in time and out of time. Friends are the loves of your life; not the romanticised ones; but the down in the dirt ones. True friends say I love you and mean it time and time again. You know who they are because they know who you are…
Francesca Inskipp – Intrepid Explorer of Life.
I had known Francesca for many years before more recently moving into the flat above her in Market Terrace. I would drop in on her most days to say hello. If it was anywhere around 5pm she’d say, with a twinkle in her eyes, “Would you like a drink?” If I said yes, which I invariably did, out would come gin and tonic for her and white wine for me. It was known as “gin-o’clock.”
After she turned 100 last year, I began to think that Francesca was quite possibly the oldest living person to have been born and brought up in St Leonards-on-Sea and I asked if I could formally record her memories. She agreed and we made a good start, but it wasn’t easy to find the right moment to continue. Then on the 24th July, aged 100 years and 8 months, Francesca died peacefully in her sleep.
During our many chats she shared fragments of her childhood growing up in St Leonards during the 1920s and 30s: roller-skating, tea dances and afternoon theatre on the long-demolished St.Leonard’s Pier; Greek dance classes at the Queen’s Hotel wearing the special silk dress made by her mother. There were walks to Crowhurst with one or other of her many boyfriends. “We started young in those days” she said with her customary twinkle.
Francesca Inskipp was born Frances Mary Dupree in St Leonards-on-Sea, November 26th 1920. Her mother was sent down from London, as single mothers often were in those days, to give birth to her baby. Her father was a Malaysian Prince who met her mother whilst studying in London. Had the child been a boy they would have taken him back to Malaysia, but as a girl she was unacknowledged and remained with her mother. She never met her father and was brought up by her singularly determined mother.
“My mother ran her own Guest House on Seaside Road, where we lived. Later she sold up and bought a house in Kenilworth Road which she turned into flats. There was a flat in the top and a ground floor flat, a garden flat, which were let out and we lived in the middle. She was amazing really I think because she did all her own decorating. I left school in 1935 when I was 15. I was doing well there, but I left because my mother couldn’t afford to keep me. She had been a shorthand typist in London and was very keen on me doing the same thing. I did a course with a woman in Warrior Square and I could take dictation quite fast. I went to work at a solicitor’s office in Silverhill.”
Over the years Frances became known as Francesca, or Cesca. I can’t help thinking that Francesca’s heritage, her mother’s single-mindedness, contributed towards her own strength, determination and fearlessness. As a successful woman, Francesca was many things to many people: from husband John, who died in 2007, to her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren; to the army of friends, students, clients and carers – all who loved and respected her and played their part in the changing seasons of her life.
There is no room to write about all that Francesca achieved in her long life. Publicly she will be remembered for her pioneering work in the field of Counselling; for the part she played in bringing this more immediate talking therapy to England in the late 1960s. As a teacher in schools she recognised its value as a more succinct tool in times of crisis than other lengthier approaches. She went on to introduce counselling skills into many different fields, working closely with her two beloved friends and colleagues, Hazel Johns and Brigid Proctor.
Privately Francesca and John loved to travel and explore different cultures. She was happy camping and trekking, tackling mountains and much more; travelling and staying in their VW camper van. She adored dancing – something she took to as a small girl and explored in adult life in many diverse forms.
“During the war there was dancing in the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. They took the chairs out and turned it into a dance floor with an all-girl band playing on the stage. We would dodge bombs to get there, so much fun we had!”
Francesca shared a love of birds with son Tim. He’d drive down for the weekend and take her out to Dungeness or Rye Harbour to bird-watch. She loved listening to the chatter of sparrows as they grubbed around for insects on the Terrace. She’d often be found sitting outside with a book in hand, and hat, if it was too sunny. 
During the first Lockdown I would share my delight in the walks I was taking through the newly discovered (to me) footpaths in Upper St Leonards. She knew the paths well and remembered the variety of plants, trees and flowers that grew there and so every week in the absence of cut flowers, I would bring back a modest selection of whatever was in season to brighten her living room. Her favourite was the bluebell and in late March, impatient for sight of them, she’d ask, “Is it time yet?”
Francesca above all was a people person. She gathered them up like one might gather stones and shells from a beach, finding each one unique and fascinating. She embodied the myriad experiences that go along with a life spanning a century: a life lived to the full. She was a nature lover, sea swimmer, climber, trekker, abroad and at home; she camped with John, returning to Ireland many times to stay on their much loved Omey Island.
Francesca was always reading. Apart from the layers of the daily Guardian spread over the table, she had a pile of books on the go: novels, philosophy; poetry in particular – a love she shared with John; biography; books on spirituality and angels. She wasn’t religious but she had the enquiring mind of a mystic, always looking for the meaning of it all.
A few years ago I had a friend staying with me who was a former Trappist monk and hospice chaplain. Francesca asked if she could meet him. Without much ado she said, “I’d like to know how I can prepare myself to die well,” He looked at her for a few moments and said, “I think you already know how to do that.”
Francesca loved the company of women. Every year on her birthday she would have a “girls only” celebration and we would drink prosecco and toast her with slices of rather rich fruit cake, baked, iced and decorated by a friend. On her 100th birthday, determined to celebrate it, we all stood out on the Terrace on a chilly, dry November day in the midst of Lockdown and toasted Francesca as she sat with her subjects around her, the card from the Queen in one hand, a glass of prosecco in the other. She made it. Not just made it. She made it special. All of it.
Sing! Sing! Sing!
A couple of nights ago I went to my second live performance since the world’s axis slowed down 16 months ago. Singing, we were told right from the start, was a potential virus-spreader, and as such was banished forthwith to the screen, along with theatre, concerts, and indeed anything live.
The first concert I went to late last year was in one of the periods, somewhat akin to the principles of parole, that was supposed to lead to freedom, but didn’t. Two young and vibrant classical singers took us on a vocal journey celebrating the sea. 
It had been a joy to witness these young professionals and their smiling accompanist, ply their trade in living, breathing person. It reminded me how powerful it is to experience live performance (of any kind), where the performers’ desire to give to the audience becomes a gift to both. It says something when the performers emotionally thanked the audience at the end for being there. It was a teary moment.
The second live performance was given last Friday by my dear friend and singer, Rosie Ashe, a colleague from my days in the business. We got to know each other when we were part of an act for a couple of cruises in the early 1990s and have stayed friends ever since. She is a darling woman with immense talent, ingenuity and integrity, who has made her mark in main and character roles in the West End. 
Here she was in a clever one woman show devised by her in which she told the story of Ethel Merman. The performance was peppered with passionate and funny songs between salty tales of Merman’s four marriages. It was a triumph, and we, the socially-distanced audience, clapped and whooped Rosie and her excellent accompanist at every opportunity.
I was reminded once again just how much I miss the real transmission that takes place between performer and audience. In my performing days we’d talk about good or bad audiences. We’d often say things like, “the audience is hard work tonight”, or “they love us; they’re on our side”, or occasionally, “we might as well pack up and go home now”. But without an audience, whatever the size, or state, performers are nothing. Singing is a glorious, joyful means of communication cut down to the root by some unfortunate research that for many of us didn’t make sense.
For these past few years I have taught singing to people who love to join with others in amateur performance, either as soloist or choir member. I also run a singing group (in days we once called “normal”) for people with Parkinson’s that helps improve not only vocal function, but quality of life, not least of which is the joy of sharing with others. Now we – well the few members who can face it – are banished to Zoom. We battle with bad signals and other technical hitches, doing the best we can with a technology that is an unsatisfactory experience even at best. We do not mute our mics and sing to ourselves as so many choirs do. Personally I don’t see the point of that. Instead we take a verse each and sing to each other, thus making the best of a poor deal. Roll on live meetings.
We are not just meat and bone walking around, as our forefathers once were, trying to avoid death at all costs – a fact that has so far proved to be as unavoidable as paying taxes. Who we really are is fired by the many natural wonders that spring from being a fully-functioning human that is far from being just a body. Collectively we are mind, body and spirit, which provides the potential for boundless creativity. We feed one another on so many levels, singing being one amongst many. Whether as performer or audience, writer or reader, artist or viewer, we need each other to inspire and be inspired.
This is not meant to be a post about politics, policies, truth, lies, right or wrong, but what I personally feel about the handling (aspects of it) of the current situation, naturally spills out onto the page in my desire to communicate my passion via the less challenged act of writing – though even speaking one’s mind these days can lead to a metaphorical muzzle. Now don’t get me started on that one…tra la la!
Raison d’être
What a gift this time is – albeit a heavily disguised one. We are forced to reassess, to think on the hoof; to revise any ideas we have of what is “normal.” Time provides us with an opportunity to view life with different eyes: to wonder where it might take us, what the future holds. 
Some days it can look like a dystopian nightmare and others a utopian world full of natural wonders, peace and harmony. Such is human nature that we will inevitably swing between the two: dark and light, bad and good. There is a richness to being embroiled in both sides. Though a soaring of spirits may occur with the lighter vision or a plunging into the depths with the darker one, this accelerated roller-coaster of feeling has the potential to lead to the rediscovery of our raison d’être – individually and collectively.
The French phrase “raison d’être”, long absorbed into the English language, takes on a visceral meaning when uttered by its native tongue, as it slowly growls its way out of the mouth, like a black panther ready to spring into action. in English, raison d’être means purpose. Translated word for word, it takes on a deeper meaning: “reason of being”, as in, here, now, on earth, in space, in mind, body and spirit. We are like individual players in an orchestra, each one of us masters and mistresses of our own instruments. Singly and collectively we have the potential for extraordinary communications. There is magic in our “voice”, whether spoken, sung, sighed, written, played, painted, danced, sculpted, built, etc. Our “voice” is the word given meaning in form. Even in seeming dissonance there is harmony to be found.
As I see it, it is where we come from in our “being-ness” that gives true reason, or purpose, to expression. The sounds and frequencies of the whole universe are inside of us. They just need calling out. Dig deep, persistently deep, and your raison d’être will unfurl slowly until it comes roaring out of you like a panther! It may be through your simple everyday communications, where you gladden another; not an outspoken voice, but a necessary silent voice – such as the pregnant pause before the finale of a piece of music blazons out. Or it may be the voice that comes crashing out of the silence, reaching the masses. Dark, light. Silence, noise. Yin, yang. Nature is beautifully orchestrated, its seasons giving meaning to what was and is to come, willingly dying to give life to each one that follows: Never fixed, always dancing to the frequencies of Life.
It is of paramount importance, particularly at this important juncture of our existence, to hone our own instrument, to find our true strengths and gifts. In short, to find our purpose, our raison d’être. Together we have the ability to take the next leap away from relying on the outside to tell us who we are, to allowing our inner voice to reveal our true reason for being and the part we can play in orchestrating the evolution of humankind and what lies beyond…
World Without Words: Lockdown Walks, 2020
Day 49
There’s something easy about chatting to strangers. You feel close to them in a way that you don’t always in longer term relationships. 
There is no baggage, no history. You chat about dogs; the wonders of living in St Leonard’s. Many are DFLs (down from Londoners) who have a born-again texture to their joy. I remember that same sense of wonder 35 years ago which has been rekindled in this time of apparent deprivation. They talk about the sea, the clean air, but most of all about their dogs and the things dogs get up to; all shared communality. This morning a man with two border collies was being dragged forward by the young one and back by the old one. “Gilbert sit or stay whichever command you like!” he shouted jovially. Gilbert did neither. Later I saw him again and asked if the old one was called Sullivan. “No” he said, ‘but he should be.”
I didn’t get photos of them. I like to snap when nobody is looking. This is all so innocent. And yet… in the other world, the one I collectively inhabit, untold horrors unfold.
In the plant world you see what we call garden flowers standing next to wildflowers and what we call weeds. In truth they all flower so are part of the tribe of that which grows out of the earth. There is no sense of I’m better than you.
Words give meanings to things that were born wordless. We separate them with our definitions. We learn from the cradle. As you stuff mud into your mouth cos it looks like the mashed up food you eat, Mummy shrieks, “Uh uh. Dirty. Mustn’t eat that.” You talk to a stranger, Mummy runs out and drags you away. You don’t understand but you learn to avoid these things.
They say weeds multiply and their roots kill off the more worthy plants. A poppy is a kind of weed, an interloper. Each year in my tiny garden a poppy or two or more grow in a different spot, or out of the cracks between the well-worn slabs on my walkway, their random seeds impregnating the earth without a by your leave. And I love it. Can’t wait to see what will appear each spring and where. But disharmony injustice, marginalisation of animals, plants trees humans, has at its root cause the idea of one being better than the other. Celebrating difference rather than fearing it is our greatest fear. We’ve learnt to stamp out the different: I’m a flower you’re a weed. No. I live and you live and we are equal.
What horrors are committed in the name of individuation
In the park there is a sense of harmony. It is hard to be aggressive surrounded by the all-inclusive sheltering arms of this aspect of Nature. In the jungle I would be afraid. There is savagery there. Fight or fly. But “Man” is supposed to be superior. Man developed reason. Some reason..!
Yet here I am, my senses fed with every step I take; newly born beauties nodding their heads at me as I pass.
It is important we keep the balance between that which transports us and the bitter pill of the human story. Removed from an actual event, rather than disempowering ourselves with justifiable anger, we may be of more help by remaining sane, by examining where our own aggression towards those we meet daily lies. The raising of our own awareness and consciousness leaves its energetic imprint on the world.
As I see it..
For the Love of Poetry and Nature
I have a great love for poetry. It conveys so much in such a compact way – aside from those long tone poems we were made to study in days of yore! Even then stanzas leapt out at you. Tennyson’s Morte d’Arthur and Coleridge’s Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, appealed to my dramatic temperament and lit up a love for verse that has never been extinguished.
I have written poems at various times of my life, when moved to do so. I never know when the muse will strike. In earlier days I carried a notebook around with me in case a fit-of-the-poetics came over me. Now I use the notepad on my mobile phone. How times change! Yet the place from where the inspiration to write arises – heart and soul – never does. That, thankfully, cannot be tampered with.
I go through periods where poetry is all I want to write and other times when I need to leave it be for a while. 
In the first Lockdown last March I spent many hours walking through the footpaths and surrounding countryside in Upper St Leonards. All through that time I watched nature press up from the earth, stretch the fingers of bare branches, plump out shrunken hedgerows and everyday I saw walls and fences sprout little flowers from infinitesimal cracks. I wrote about it – not poems as such but with a lyrical turn of phrase that one might call poetic. I posted these almost daily walks, with accompanying photos, to Facebook. I had never used Facebook in that way before, but it gave me a focus, a raison d’être, and I believe gave some pleasure to those who came across the posts. The plan is to publish these walks on my site at some point.
In the meantime, I was looking through my poems, spread out over many folders at different times in my life and the one below leapt out at me. It was commissioned for Where the Wild Flowers Are, a project devised by Clare Whistler for The City of London Festival, 2012, celebrating all the wild flowers that used to grow in the City’s churchyards. Each poet was designated a single flower. Mine was Wild Mignonette, a flower I had never consciously seen. A humble little flower that might be passed by without a second glance. Each poem was either set to music or performed and danced to in different City of London churches. A Wildflower Anthology of all poems was published for the event.
Reseda Lutea* Returns to the City 
*Wild Mignonette
Nature sows, earth grows
wind carries, seeds tarry
ground accepts, water wets
time roots, plants shoot
earth powers wild flowers
green stems, yellow hems
clump together, summer weather
bees alight, butterflies white
mignonette – dry steppes
meadow grass, stony paths
wasteland, clay, sand
train tracks, between cracks.
In the city, what a pity
law sours wild flowers
man weeds, roots cede,
stone stark, nature dark
flowerless, years pass
man sees man’s needs
very pretty, in the city
man sows, nature owns
time roots, plants shoot
hand in land, land in hand
nature sows, earth grows
The Antidote
I was looking for some images to use in a project and came across a folder of photos I’d taken in America in 2015. I had been accompanying a spiritual teacher on a series of events in Northern California and some of my photos were randomly taken in places whose location I no longer recall. 
This quote from Maya Angelou was on the wall of a modern church – one of those independent churches that was roomy and filled with light. Pictures with quotes on them like this one were scattered all over the walls, which is all I can remember of my time spent there.
For all the thinking we do,
Love is always the solution,
however or whenever
or wherever it shows up.
On another day after a weekend mountain retreat in a modest yoga centre, where we slept in tiny individual log cabins surrounded by pine trees and a rushing river, we visited the Ananda Centre, an international Yoga centre on a much grander scale . Set in Nevada City, it is part of a vast estate flanked by the tallest of trees. Nothing modest here, including the vision of it’s founder, the somewhat controversial Indian monk, Paramahansa Yogananda, who brought yoga to America in the 1920s and is known for his deeply inspiring book, Autobiography of a Yogi.
The architecture of the sacred buildings and the almost sculpted gardens give you a sense of peace and majesty. I would like to have stayed there, not to have taken part in one of the intense yoga courses, but to walk amongst the trees and sit on a terrace in the tiered gardens, or round the little pond overlooked by a modest stone Buddha. I am reliving this visit as I type and a sense of the trees, soft light and space settles in my heart, heightened by the atmosphere engendered by a place dedicated to spiritual practice.
On a blustery January afternoon, six years and thousands of miles away from my physical visit, the gift of this memory rises up at the perfect moment, becoming an antidote to the world “out there”. 
What’s the Use of Fear?
Walking along the footpath with the trees leaning down as if wanting to join in the conversation I was having in my head, this question popped in: What’s the use of fear? 
Good question. Earlier, as I sat with my coffee on my window seat watching the light seep in and the sea silently pawing the shingle, I pondered the fact that a person not skilled in psychology, a politician playing a part of a this or that Secretary, had told the entire population of England to act as if they had the virus! The fact that this was a serious directive given to the masses to actually practice made me contract inside. Where is the positive psychology in that?
To give the above statement some context, let me share something that changed my life.
Many years ago I had cancer. The moment I was given the diagnosis I saw my life in a succession of speedy flashbacks (much as it is for some people in the midst of a serious accident). My life was out of control. I had run, like the proverbial hamster on the wheel, from one drama to another. As I stood with the telephone in my hand (yes, I was given the news over the phone!), I knew in an instant that this was not a disaster but an opportunity. A sense of relief flooded through me. The ‘why me’? question forming in my head, swiftly became, ‘why not me’? This is not the place for the whole saga of my journey to health, but it was in all senses, quite miraculous. Through hard work, good intuition and a lot of support, I transformed my lifestyle, mental, emotional physical and spiritual. In truth those different aspects are not separate; they are all contained in the mandala of each individual life. As the planet turns in space, as night becomes day somewhere else, so are we in ourselves reflections of those cycles. One earth, many different components. In that instant I saw that I had two choices: to be a victim, to give in to the pull of fear or to say No.
I learnt a lot from my journey at that time. Much I knew intuitively to be right, but I had been caught up in my story, of fulfilling my perceived “needs” emotionally and physically: a roof over my head, someone to love me; making a living. All these things are grounded in the instincts of survival, but there is so much more to life than this! When I rediscovered the “more”, that which had been hitherto left out in the cold, life became richer – not always without pain and disappointment but it became easier to see situations, feelings etc in a deeper context; not to be utterly driven and disrupted by outside events.
Our immune system does a very good job at keeping us healthy, if we give it a chance. Fear makes us more vulnerable. Of all the aspects that go to make and keep us healthy, such as good nutrition, exercise, and the various stress-busting practices, finding ways to disperse fear when it arises, is of prime importance. Fear is part of “jungle nature”. It spells danger. 
You watch a cat when it senses another cat, or a dog. It freezes and then, depending on the degree of threat, will fight or skedaddle. Simple as that. The same goes for us. If a man is following us, or a car swerves towards us, we run. But if fear is not imminent in a physical sense, but only ‘hearsay fear’, it becomes fuelled by imaginary situations that may or may not happen, and the energy or adrenaline of fear has nowhere to go but inwards where it has every chance of weakening our immune system. Undispersed fear becomes dread and impedes the flow of life. Living a life in fear and dread literally stops life in its tracks.
Yes a conundrum indeed.
So in this current situation, however restricted you are, there is much you can do to disempower the three related states: fear, stress and anxiety. I practice tai chi and qi gong, but if that isn’t your thing there are many types of exercise that will work. Fear has its place, but don’t invite it to stay in your house!
Now: What’s Next?
All sense of what we call normal, as in habitual, is fast disappearing. On social media platforms people from every nook of the world share their views and feelings, pontifications, rants and fears, alongside a constant flurry of videos offering help and guidance, ranging from spiritual, to meditation methods, Ascension (aka moving from third to fifth dimension) to planetary disruptions (astrology), plus a Heinz variety of what the pandemic is or isn’t. The earth has cracked open like a walnut, revealing the mechanisms of a vast unfathomable brain at war with itself. The divide is becoming bigger by the day. Look down through the crack and the chasm is as bottomless as deepest space. Is this the end of the world as we have come to know it?
We hold Earth in our hands. We
have diced with it and thrown it up in the air again and again… Where will the pieces land and what numbers will we get this time? Do we advance, step back, win, lose? In truth, hasn’t it been like this from the first syllable of recorded time? In essence Life is a game of chance, an adventure, a struggle, a road trip that each of us has taken from the dawning of individuation to the climax of now. We stand at the crossroads asking the question of ourselves: Where do we go from here? What’s next?
My thoughts make a coded rhythm on the keyboard and, as if by magic, appear on the screen in front of me; thoughts from a mind whose own sense of perspective has become scrambled. Not that I see this as a bad thing. 
It’s a process that is a part of being human. As I look into the chasm of our broken world, the phrase, “the darkest hour is just before dawn”, springs to mind. New beginnings start when the old expires. It is hard to see because we are so busy fumbling about in the dark for something known to make us feel safe. But is it possible to let go of all past ideas and just be present to the unknown? In the fields of spirituality, meditation, mindfulness, presence, whatever the practice, aren’t we invited to live in the ubiquitous “now”? But how many of us really do that? We have a concept of the now as something solid, something known. But it isn’t. Now is full of unknown potential and what’s next is yet to be born.
Amidst the doubt and uncertainty, the breaking down of the old, is it possible to let go of our fears of change? Whatever we have been asked to do by governing bodies, we can still, as individuals, be present to or own being, the world that is inside us and not “out there”. 
If we invite harmony and rest into ourselves, however disorderly external events appear, we may have a chance of finding a sense of peace in our own personal now. And then, even though we may not be able to physically hold somebody else’s hand, we can join together in a sense of communality that is freely available in every moment above the battlefield of the story. The future is as much a foreign country as the past.
Lasting Landscapes
I need to see trees on a daily basis, if possible. My horizon is smaller for their absence.
At some point growing up I was struck by the story in the Bible of the blind man healed by Jesus, whose first words were “I see men as walking trees.” In some ways we are like trees. If you half close your eyes and watch people moving you get a sense of what the newly-healed man saw in the first haze of sight. After all we have a trunk and our limbs are branches of a sort. When I stand facing a tree and focus my attention into the ground, I can sense the roots beneath my feet; if I raise my arms I am one with the rising growth of branches. In the Taoist practices of tai chi and qi gong you are asked to observe both the earth and the heavens; to feel the downward and the upward energy as you move through space, maintaining contact with both. That is a diluted description of that which takes time and practice to become second nature. We are far too much in our heads, ignoring, or blocking out the many energetic expressions of earth and sky. Words drive our existence when the swirling energy of the eternal now is constantly inviting us to dance. Words have their place – which I acknowledge as I use them like a palette of oil colours, in order to convey a sense of my walk this morning.
Winter, and the scene in St Leonards Gardens is a timeless picture; a 19th century Masterpiece that has barely changed amidst all the modernisation of the current age. It was landscaped by architect James Burton in the early part of the 19th century. He turned a village backwater into what became known as ‘a conceited Italian town’. Far from that now in much of St Leonards, but in the Burton St Leonards area of which I write, the houses and trees, the glimpses of sea from the gentle slopes that rise to upper St Leonards, remain, I suspect, much as it was when it was first created. I walk most days along the unexpected footpaths further up the hill that never fail to deliver little wonders of nature; such as fallen branches that snap easily after days of lying around and pop into my carrier bag as kindling treasure for my fire. Another gift of trees, that their death may still provide warmth to others.
In the summer there are bushy, pushy nettles and wild garlic, and a variety of delicate wildflowers sprouting from the edges of fences… All too much to mention in one fell swoop…
But now it is winter and just past the shortest day, the sun glassy bright. like a waning star, scrambles half up the sky, making a song and dance at bedtime, splashing the clouds with fiery red, like a child’s weary tantrum..
Today and today and today
I resonated with Macbeth from the time I first came across the play at my co-ed Quaker boarding school in the Cotswolds. My memories of Sibford are sharp only for the things that made an impact on me – good and bad. I don’t recall much of the teaching being that inspiring, aside from Music, Art and English. I guess Religious Instruction was okay too because it was the closest I got to philosophy at school. I was there from the age of 10 to 14. But in that time, despite the misery of sub-standard vegetarian food, lumpy mattresses and boys (I was never interested at that stage of my life), my future was undoubtedly inspired by the three aforementioned subjects, at which I excelled. 
I was known for “sleepwalking” in the dorm with my sheet wrapped round me, spouting Lady Macbeth’s famous speech: Out damned spot; out I say! The melodrama of it appealed to me more than the cerebral side of things. I was never destined to be an academic.
I soon gravitated towards Macbeth’s speech on the futility of the human condition. We had to learn it by heart in English class. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace….. Oh how those words strike me even now! Perhaps it is the best known speech from Shakespeare, along with the one from As You Like It spoken by the sanguine Jacques: All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players…. He then proceeds to “nail” the human condition in the seven stages of man, leaving us nodding sagely, though, as a young girl, with a deep sense of alarm.
Is that what I have to look forward to: Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything? Both speeches share cynicism, truth and wisdom in equal portions, depending on which way you look at them.
This brings me to the reason I am writing this. Life is brief, it is tomorrow and tomorrow, we do age and wither. And yet and yet… as a haiku about a drop of dew trembling on a blossom that I have now forgotten the rest of, ends. The “and yet”, is a reminder to live for today as if there is no tomorrow. Life is indeed a drama in seven acts, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. We have mewled and puked and we will end up, if not sans eyes and teeth, nodding at the fire or rambling in our minds. Today, what is happening now; the restrictions we are all living under, whether we like it or not, are a sharp reminder that we are only able to live in the moments as they unfold. Thinking about life is a distraction from actually living it. It isn’t very long and yet it is an eternity… There is always much to gladden us.
As Feste the Jester sings in the finale of Twelfth Night, there will come a time when our play is done. But not yet, not yet…
A great while ago the world begun,Autumn Concedes to Winter
Morning walk
This is the day when autumn officially concedes to winter..yet decides to hang around just a bit longer, showing off the leftover scraps of its colourful dress. 
My hands are stuffed in my pockets when not stealing this last gasp with my camera. Light, like the rheumy eyes of an elder, glances at my own, sharp with morning sight. A robin on the path doesn’t fly away as I pass, but huddles, like a lost child, close to the wall, its breast a starker red against sandy grey stone.
The toe-capped wind pecks at my head as I walk, briskly now, nearly late for what’s next in the world of doings. Here, I know myself reflected only in this scene of non-human goings on that changes hands in a seamless dance of grace. I return here every day taking its nameless beauty back with me to float imperceptibly behind my eyes, ready to remind me when linearity threatens to take over my mind.
Afternoon walk
Later the sun pastes fragments of itself on the stones in the alley, echoing the leaves of earlier. Over the sea, like some glorious sign of hope, the same sun brazenly exposes itself to passers by, bedding down on stripling clouds, as it prepares for its final exit. We will rise again, it shouts with flaming tongue. We will! We will! 
Three men stand on the beach like silhouetted sentinels, mirroring my inner warrior. I meet two friends: one I haven’t seen for years, a woman who always wanted a man and is now walking clutching the hand of one. Some people – but by no means all – disappear behind a screen when they’ve found another life to make them whole for a little while. The single ones, like me, wander around the couples like visitors at an exhibition of Rodin lovers. Next, a more recent friend with whom I resonate. My heart quickens. We agree to meet up. This strange time we are living in brings some friendships closer. They are always the ones where innate truths are shared, who I leave carrying more riches than when I entered.
The natural world is more powerful than us. We are always losing our way and always being found…
The Lockdown Walks – Connections
Back in March when we suddenly went into Lockdown number 1, it was a shock on many levels and yet it brought with it unexpected rewards. I had not taken such a long time off work for many years, apart from a month in August, invariably filled with people to visit and things to catch up on. So an enforced break was entirely different. It gave me “permission” to do what I love best: to walk and contemplate; to indulge, guilt-free, in photography, writing and reading. The result of this was a series of posts on my facebook page writing about what I discovered on my walks, accompanied by photos. You could call it a diary. It is a kind of unfolding of my experience, inner and outer, of that unprecedented time, when life as we knew it suddenly stopped My intention is to publish it at some point, but publicising my book, Things in Heaven and Earth, is my main focus at the moment. However, I thought it would be nice share to my walks now and then. Here is one about my favourite tree:
After most of the previous day without water due to a faulty pipe in the main reservoir, I woke up this morning to sputtering taps clearing their pipes, much the same as I do first thing before my breath flows smoothly. It was raining and I felt that little slump of disappointment in me after weeks of sunny walks. By 10.30 it had turned to drizzle and off I went. I was immediately struck by the plants: sharp and glistening, as thankful to bathe in water as I had been earlier.
There were very few people out. I went into the park to visit my favourite tree for a spot of tai chi (an unintentional rhyme). Afterwards I was marvelling at the strange vein-like streaks in its trunk. I hadn’t noticed them before. Then at the base was a little patch of foam emanating from the point where trunk met earth. I bent down to look and of course took a photo. As I walked down the path a man with an elderly dog, who was dutifully sniffing at a plant, asked why I was taking a photo of the trunk base. I confessed to being curious. He said there was probably some damage and this was the sycamore’s reaction. Sycamore! I hadn’t known! Now my favourite tree had a name! We talked at distance for a while as he waited for his 18 year old dog to finish her foraging. “She doesn’t like to come out” he told me. He spoke wistfully, as though feeling the imminent loss of her and, perhaps too, of his excuse for leaving his four walls behind to dwell awhile in this – Nature’s open-plan house.
I love this peek into people when they reveal quite unintentionally a good heart, a passion, a sensitivity that calls to me on a deep level. This is real connection.
I stopped to look at the drops of rain fanning out between the lily pads on the little lake then on to the seafront and a half tide with four cormorants lording it, each on their own reptilian rock. And finally this lone man gazing out to sea.
Rain. Water. Sea. Connections. Where would we be without them?
A Truer Evolution
I find myself once again using the analogy of Alice in Wonderland for what continues to unfold in our current reality. I am by no means the only one calling on Alice’s adventures at this time. In my book – my reality, my interpretation – Alice fell down a rabbit hole and popped into a histrionic version of future adulthood. Faced with the whole panoply of the human condition, from the ravings of a power-crazed Red Queen, to the wry observations of the creepy Cheshire cat, she witnessed a world of anomalies closer to reality than she might have imagined. Although it was Lewis Carroll’s (aka Rev Dodgson) commentary on Victorian society, it equally applies to any period in the history of societal man. If you want to observe the generic condition of humankind with a degree of detachment, what better way than through the eyes of a child, before the mores of the world have ruptured her innocence?
In truth Dodgson was a seer, a consummate philosopher. Why does Alice still hold such appeal? Because it strikes a chord! Today we literally do know what’s going on all over the world, gratis of the all-seeing eye of modern technology (a step forward or back?). At the click of a button we can enter Alice’s world from wherever we are on the planet. But we are not just observers; we are part of the collective surge moving towards growth and evolution, whether we like it or not. It’s just that now, it all seems to have taken a nasty turn… Surely we should be growing in stature, in wisdom, in deed? Shouldn’t that be the true objective of evolution?
Near the end of the book, when Alice is in court on trial for her life for daring to speak the “truth”, she suddenly feels a peculiar sensation and realises she is growing again. She could leave the courtroom but decides to stay where she is for the time being:
“I wish you wouldn’t squeeze so,” said the Dormouse, who was sitting next to her. “ I can hardly breathe.” “ I can’t help it,” said Alice very meekly : “I’m growing.” “ You ’ve no right to grow here,” said the Dormouse. “Don’t talk nonsense,” said Alice more boldly: “you know you’re growing too.” “Yes, but I grow at a reasonable pace,” said the Dormouse: “not in that ridiculous fashion.”
I can’t help feeling that now is the time, like Alice, to grow in a ridiculous fashion. Then the next natural leap for mankind might be better than the chilling vision W. B. Yeats’ presents in the last two lines of his poem The Second Coming:
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
We have no option but to grow too big for this nonsense. Then perhaps, when the hour has come, we can rise up and exclaim:
In The Lion’s Den
I have periods when I need to go into myself, to assess the confusion that arises from the conflicting information that presents itself in the form of opinions and beliefs. Who is right and who is wrong? Why do I lean towards one side more than another? This is a perfect time to be in the arena of the world. We have been thrown to the lions with no audience but ourselves. We watch from our tiered seat as we use all the tactics we can to avoid being snapped up in the jaws of the lion. It is a slow motion scenario, so there’s time to calculate our chances of survival, and that means questioning deep-held beliefs: on the surface and under the surface and above the surface. In short,a holistic approach to problem solving. Let’s be clear, if we are thrown to the lions (and we are on a daily basis!) do we have time for being right or wrong? And yet it is here where the opportunity, the potential for change occurs. We are in the arena now and always have been.
Where am I in all of these fine words? This is the point. My thoughts about life – what’s happening on many levels in the world right now – are just thoughts about it. They are not “it”. They are based on old drivers of belief, of childhood versions of right and wrong, both individually and collectively; political and spiritual. They beg the internal question: Who am I in all of this? I find when I look at my day to day life and the encounters I have, whether in person, phone, Zoom, or the written word, who I am is revealed. I don’t act from a belief. I act from a deeply visceral response to each situation as it arises. I don’t use a fine mathematical problem to calculate my response. I may use shielding techniques that make for a shallow connection, but if I act from what arises in whatever present moment I’m in, I find there is a seamless sense of joining. In short, the rampant lion becomes my best friend. Not an enemy to be feared or to fight. These are just inadequate words to express something that is so present that it cannot be conveyed by the words themselves. At best a whiff of it will stop us looking for something to believe in or an opinion to hold on to, but rather, by looking deeply at the learnt beliefs we hold, we can free ourselves to act in the presence of danger (which, let’s be honest, is around us all the time!) and to be seamlessly connected.
Having said, all of this is about our own inner integrity. If we can court and marry that, we cannot not change what is going on “out there”, whatever our beliefs and opinions! When called upon, we simply need to be prepared to respond with our deepest connection to one another. Even in duality we can act as if we are one…and then the lion will lie down with the lamb.
Remember, remember…
I sit here at my laptop on a chilly autumn afternoon, the sun making Chagall patterns on my wall and bookcase. It is a particular light that I am used to in late Autumn: a hint of winter brightness, far more intense than summer’s softer, Turneresque touch. 
The night before last, November 5th, was bonfire night. Despite a second Lockdown, the English tradition of “celebrating” Guy (or Guido to give him his proper name) Fawkes and comrades’ failed attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605, went ahead. The night sky was periodically shot through with fireworks: a symbol of the unlit gunpowder.
The tradition includes a bonfire that, in my younger days, was not illegal. People had them in their gardens, or on village greens, as did my Quaker boarding school, accompanied by Catherine Wheels and Bangers and all sorts of fireworks that are now banned. The Quaker principle of pacifism didn’t deter the school from building a huge bonfire and placing a straw Guy dressed in a collection of old rags on top. I recall watching the token Guy benignly seated at the pinnacle of this tipi-shaped pyre. In my first year I and another boy, as the youngest pupils in the school, were given the task of throwing matches into the stacked wood until it caught. I was mortified by the applause from schoolchildren and teachers as the wood sputtered and crackled into life. I hated watching the Guy sag and disappear in the flames. Is this why I have always retained a dislike of the tradition? Who can tell. But I can still see my small self mortified at being watched by the whole school. Little was I to know then, as an extremely shy 10 year old, that I would become a singer and perform in front of thousands of people. But now that I am past my performing days, my shy self has returned and my “performance” is on the page, to an unseen audience. As I write I throw the matches of imagination from mind to fingertips until the page bursts into flame in a shower of words.
As for the political implications – the unrest in 1605 compared to what we have now… well, that’s a discussion I prefer to leave as I enjoy my newly-lit fire.
Wondering…
This is a time for wondering as well as its first cousin, pondering. As everything changes on a daily basis, I hear people saying things like, “Just when I thought it was getting back to normal”, or, “How am I supposed to live?”, as yet another draconian ruling is made that seems to solve nothing except cause more distress and economic ruin. It is becoming ever more clear that those setting the rules are shooting in the dark, perhaps prompted literally by darker forces (take that as you will, but I do a lot of exploratory reading and viewing). It seems that there are two camps: those who follow the rules and perhaps even believe this virus to be as deadly as the Spanish Flu, and, in the other camp, the so-called conspiracy-theorists (an absurd term clearly ascribed by camp one to cover anything that doesn’t fall in line with their narrative!) who believe a wide range of things from the “sensible” end of holistic health, to the furthest, Blade-Runneresque end of a global re-set. Social media of course is, as ever, a tapestry of voices that are as multi-coloured as Joseph’s famous coat. We are literally dazzled by this constant array of, to quote the bard, voices “full of sound and fury”. if you know the rest of that quote then mentally add it now! Yes we now all know – and if we don’t we haven’t been engaging with any social media – that George Orwell’s vision is apparently coming true. Most writers of what we call science fiction, have predicted events or states (in all senses), often well into the future at the time of writing. But when that future meets the present, we see how visionary many of these writers were. I recall watching 2001: A Space Odyssey in the late sixties when it dovetailed somewhat with the moon landing. Both are indelibly stamped on my memory, as I felt something momentus had happened. It was like dreaming a fabulous or insightful dream where one actually says to oneself from within the dream “I must pinch myself so that I remember it.” Invariably that works. One sort of knows when a truth – however and whatever type of “truth” – shows up before it’s happened.
Alice and her pack of cards…
I have been following a writing guru. Not for writing. That bits done. It is all about how to reach a targeted audience. The idea is that you build up a list of fans and get them hooked! Well, it’s not as simple as that of course. There are steps, and it is those steps I’m learning in the videos. I have read and listened to a lot of writers-cum-how-to-sell- your-book entrepreneurs and given up on them after being bombarded by emails that made me feel like Alice with the pack of cards falling on her head! Perhaps after 2 months I am just in the right place to methodically work through a process that I may as well trust. I like the way this young, successful, hype-free writer/entrepreneur delivers his spiel. And what the heck? So far his information is free and I DO want to reach more people with Things in Heaven and Earth, otherwise, once I’ve exhausted my own contacts and everyone’s got tired of seeing it in Facebook et al, I would like to stretch my readership with some of this good man’s suggestions. Well, I have nothing to lose, but time. Speaking of which, the sun is shining in and a walk along the seafront beckons…
Maiden Voyage: Things in Heaven and Earth is sailing…
On Sunday 13th I held a launch for my book in my home town. Despite the current climate I felt I wanted to mark the occasion and what better place to hold it than a large open garage-cum-art gallery, directly beneath where I live? Funky Art was recently transformed from a storehouse for an upmarket junk shop, to a gallery that represents a spectrum of local artists. With so much space and room to stand in the open, it was a perfect venue for social distancing requirements. I invited 40 and prayed for good weather. My prayers were answered: the sun shone, nearly everybody turned up, some from far and others closer to home. Prosecco and goodwill flowed equally. People were glad to responsibly mingle the day before further restrictions would have prevented the launch from happening. The highlight for me was the performance of the two charismatic actors who brought excerpts from the book alive in a semi-staged reading. We are so blessed in my neck of the woods with creative talent. Hastings was once described as “a poor man’s Brighton.” Interestingly it is that very fact that brought a host of creatives to its threshold. It was (not now!) a cheap place to live, and its biggest attraction was the sea. Yes, Brighton had captured that market too, once upon a time, but soon became known as “little London.” And now, here we are in the crazy little towns (separated only by an invisible demarcation line a short walk East from Queen Victoria’s imperious statue) of Hastings and St Leonards. But I digress.
The launch was a focal point for me; something to help Things in Heaven and Earth sail into the world on its maiden voyage. I have no idea where it will go and how many it will reach, but so far the feedback has been, on the whole, positive, the story clearly capturing the imagination of some and intriguing others. I have been a little apprehensive about reader’s reactions to the sections that are of a deeply spiritual nature, but it is this, in my mind, that gives true value to a story that highlights the different levels of human connections and interaction. In my ongoing quest to define the book, I have come to see that overall it speaks of a love beyond the limited definition of human love. We have only to fall in love to know that something utterly overwhelming has ripped us out of our habitual life and given it meaning. It’s what happens after the fuss has died down that challenges us and we may find ourselves yearning for a more meaningful, deeper, ever-present love. It is the restrictions of being human that frustrates, and yet Colin and Dee’s experience reveals the potential for”meeting” this all-embracing love. As someone wise once said: if it’s happened once, it can happen again. Simply put, the story of Colin and Dee and what happened after their initial explosive meeting, gives love a whole new meaning.
Those who are not engaged by Things in Heaven and Earth keep silent. And that is fine. Reading it prompted one reviewer on Amazon to write, “The book is interesting in that it is able to be read purely as a romantic story about two people on one level and yet it has far deeper things to consider almost constantly as one reads.”
Next up is another learning curve – the business of serious publicity!
The author finds time to laugh Funky Art Gallery – the stage is set
Rachel McCarron, starry-eyed as Dee Jonny Magnanti embraces the text
Things In Heaven and Earth – beyond the words
Some people who have read the book are coming back to me saying how insightful they found it; that it made them think about the ways in which they respond to life. I open my introduction to the book with these words: “Life is an assumption.” This statement reflects what is constantly brought home to me when I meet strangers or even people I purport to know. If I “feel” my way into the heart of what they are saying, rather than simply listen with my ears, I get far more of a sense of who they are. Language is a means of communicating agreed ideas, but the meaning behind words is far more revelatory. We learn to hide what we feel for all sorts of reasons. It becomes a modus operandi, a face we put on in public, revealing ourselves only to a chosen few. But if you listen carefully to the feeling behind what someone is saying, whether it’s a friend, shop assistant, stranger on the bus; politician etc, you are more likely to experience them from a deeper perspective, rather than simply “taking someone at their word.”
Who is the actress…?
I realise that there is an elephant in the book that has to be addressed: who is the mysterious actress? Let me explain for those coming to this with no background knowledge of the book. Things in Heaven and Earth (a more apt title for this story you will not find!) is about an extraordinary meeting that took place between an unknown British playwright and a famous actress at a private dinner party on a sultry evening in Beverly Hills. The meeting turned their world upside down as it did for many of those who witnessed it. We are used to stories set in the realms of fantasy, science fiction, alien abduction and so forth, where the imagination can run riot. Yet sometimes – perhaps more often than we know – fantasy meets reality, and then, as the playwright writes, “…all kinds of strange things begin to happen.”
So to the actress. She had a very high profile in Hollywood at that time. Because of her fame, she knew that the press would wildly misrepresent what had happened. Those who witnessed the event, her friends and family were bound over to keep both the incident and her identity a secret. To this day her identity remains hidden. Part of the story involves how I came to be in possession of the material that makes up this book. In the telling of that I explore all the reasons why she remains anonymous, as well as my own search for her identity. There were clues, and indeed these are included in the text in a subtle kind of way. If you keep your eyes peeled, you may be able to travel the path I trod in my attempt to uncover her identity. Do I know beyond doubt who she is? I believe so. But ultimately it is still a mystery waiting to be solved. I hope one day it will be. But for me it has always been the story of what happened between the actress and Colin, my first husband that held the greatest interest.
If you want to read the book, you will find it in both kindle and soft cover form on Amazon platforms in a number of countries.
The Official Launch – Things in Heaven and Earth
Being new to the art of publicising a book I am taking it a step at a time. Firstly it was by word of mouth and next came the publicity newsletter which went out the other day to nigh on 500 people from all walks of life. One of the issues I constantly have to overcome in myself is, I am sure, common to all creatives: Will “they” like it? Is the subject matter too specialised for some? The answer, of course, is either yes or no in both instances. I can liken it to my performing days. In more traditional operas and operettas we played to audiences who applauded enthusiastically (mostly) whatever it was, because they recognised tunes and traditional musical forms. Of course there were the individual curtain calls where you wondered if the applause would go up or down when you took your bow. Then there were the experimental pieces that were met often with far less enthusiasm, with somewhat perplexed applause. When you put your all into something, there is a natural desire, once you’ve shared your work, to want it to be liked. On the other hand a feeling of detachment quickly follows where you disentangle yourself from its feverish grip and begin to wonder why it caused you so much grief. Hmmm. that sounds like a relationship of sorts, which it is: with you and yourself. It is how it is, whatever the creative form. So now, I watch as a part of my self goes forth into the world and I wonder….
Love, Mystery and Transformation – and no fanfares!
A week ago I quietly published my book, Things in Heaven and Earth, knowing that fullscale publicity would follow on later. Life has its own agenda and the more life-experience there is behind me, I see that taking new ventures at a steady pace is better than rushing headlong into a series of mistakes. So I am quietly (sometimes noisily!) planning the best approach for getting the book “out there”, starting with what I know and who I know, before venturing into the marketplace of a world that is unfamiliar to me. Where better to begin than by sharing my thoughts on the book; the process? I am part of the story, one of its characters, not only in the book but as a living “afterword”; a continuation of the past into the future; that which is both in time and out of time.
As I begin to get feedback about the book, questions are asked, such as: Why is the subtitle: “A story of love, mystery and transformation”? The simple answer is that it is about all three of these topics, each one being inseparable from the other. Overarchingly it is a love story that breaks the boundaries of conventional love stories and reaches far beyond the limitations of time and description. On the face of it two strangers meet and fall instantly in love, but it turns out to be far more than that which happens to most of us at some point in our lives. Whatever our beliefs about spirit, soul, essence, life-force, there is clearly an energetic impulse that sometimes collides with another’s energetic impulse. Once this happens changes occur for the two people involved. In this instance, what happened to these two profoundly influenced not only their own lives, but those of others who came into their orbit. They seemed to radiate an energy, “like two poles of a rather strange battery” as one person describes it. Hence the mystery that, though felt, is indescribable. That it transformed the couple for the remainder of their lives is beyond question. A section of the book is devoted to interviews which demonstrate the deep insights and wisdom they both imparted long after they met. That it appears spiritual or mystical in content is more down to the questions of the interviewer, labels of which they never claimed for themselves. Whatever it was, the imprint of what happened and what they say is still acutely alive now.
So although I may have waffled a bit here, you can perhaps get a sense of the reason for the title Things in Heaven and Earth, and the subtitle: A story of love, mystery and transformation.
You may enjoy checking the book out on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Things-Heaven-Earth-mystery-transformation/dp/1527265811
Things in Heaven and Earth – a remarkable story
When I first heard the story that inspired the writing of my book, Things in Heaven and Earth, I was immediately drawn in. However improbable it sounded, I felt a sense of excitement bubbling just beneath the surface, as if something of great importance had come my way. I was no stranger to unusual events. I’d experienced some of my own: powerful meetings that changed the course of my life; sudden flashes about people and situations that turned out to be true; encounters with strangers who felt like old friends. I believe these are common to most of us, whether we admit to it or not! They are what I call slips in time. But this story is on a level all of its own. It hints at parallel lives and precognition and dissolves the boundaries between people and their personal stories. To quote somebody who was present when the couple first met, “It overturned the norm so dramatically that nobody knew, or would ever come to know, what had happened. As a witness, it was, without doubt, the most remarkable event of my life.”
From singer to writer
I have always written. It was my first love at school. I wrote stories and little plays for drama club, until I discovered singing. Aged 14 I was cast in the role of Mrs Noye in Benjamin Britten’s children’s opera Noye’s Fludde. Blessed with a good natural voice I fell in love with classical music from that time on. I was fortunate to become an interpreter of all that wonderful repertoire: opera, oratorio, art song, and lighter songs, bringing life to the union of word and song through the incredible organ that is the human voice. But later, through having cancer, I found my writing inspiration again, expressing my joy of being alive. There is nothing like a crisis to open one up to self-expression. My first venture, back in 1990 was a collaboration with the composer Jonathan Dove, writing Three Healing Songs for a Conference on Holistic Therapies, which I sang and added to my concert repertoire. That was the beginning of my writing years….
Jane Metcalfe
The Bristol Experience
In the early 1990s I spent a couple of years working for what was then The Bristol Cancer Help Centre and is now The Penny Brohn Centre. It was one of the first Centres to open in Great Britain offering holistic or complementary therapies to help people optimise their recovery from cancer. I had grown up in a household that veered towards alternative solutions to disease so when I was diagnosed with cancer in 1989 I actively sought natural therapies to go alongside my treatment. Going to the Centre and immersing myself in tasters of psychotherapy, healing, art therapy, group therapy, diet and more changed the way I lived my life. I was so inspired that I spent a couple of years doing outreach work for the Centre, talking about my own healing process at Cancer conferences etc. Through contact with writer/journalist, Liz Hodkinson, I explored the possibility of writing a book about the Centre. I wasn’t confident that I could write about it on my own, so we pitched a suggestion to Liz’s Agent that was partly my healing journey and partly about the Centre and what it offered. It was accepted and published by Vermilion in 1995 as: The Bristol Experience – a Personal Assessment of the Unique Life-enhancing Programme for Cancer patients and Carers. What I learned from that experience is that sometimes in the editing a book can turn from one’s initial vision to one that is entirely different. It was not a great seller and is no longer in print. But I learnt a lot from that period. Next came the beginnings of really finding my writing voice through creative workshops in the community…
MA in Creative Writing
It’s strange, but I always thought I’d learn how to write better when I did my MA. I had taken a one year introductory course to creative writing and it had fired me up. We were encouraged by the tutors to try all sorts of styles, genres and share them not only with the tutors but with one another. We were an eclectic group with very different “voices” and writing styles. But there was an enthusiastic generosity about us as we read and critiqued each other. It was perhaps one of the most exhilarating courses I have taken! I rediscovered my love of writing poetry and started writing short stories – some (as an exercise) in the style of famous writers, which was a helpful way of getting inside the head of another’s voice- much as one does as an actor. So I happily went off to my MA course. I found it, by comparison, to be stodgy, worthy, controlling. Still I learned a valuable lesson through that experience: there is no such thing as a right way to write. I simply learned to spot my own excesses, and became a ruthless self-editor. Much as a classical singer learns to extend and hone their natural voice, so must a writer. When people ask me: What did you learn from your MA? I reply: How not to write.
No experience is ever wasted – particularly for a writer!