re-reading "The Return of Merlin"

[this is me at Stonehenge, in case you did not recognize it, in 1980]



i'm re-reading The Return of Merlin" by Depak Chopra which i first read in March of 1996; here is a short excerpt for your reading enjoyment:

"Chapter 3 - Dragonflying

Melchior woke up with a dim, darkened mind. He felt hazy -- or was it just a hazy day? Into his head a soft word entered like woodsmoke: Afire. He stirred sleepily, feeling too heavy to rouse himself. "This is a sleep I could sleep for ages," he half-spoke to himself. But the word-smoke seeped into another chamber of his brain: Afire.

Sudeenly he was wide-awake. Trembling with anxiety, the apprentice knew what the word meant. The tower is on fire. Where had he been? He became aware that he was lying alone in a moist grassy field. The morning sun was warm on his back. Brilliant points of light dazzled his eyes from a blue pond nearby.

How did he get there? Hastily he looked around for Arthur's castle, only to find that looking around didn't work. His neck felt rigid and stiff; it wouldn't bend in any direction by as much as an inch, and his back was as immobile as if he had been tied to the rack. He fought the impulse to panic; instead, the same urgent thought returned, this time clamoring in his head like a brass bell: The tower is on fire!

Using his stomach muscles, which seemed to be working, Melchoir jerked around as hard as he could. He felt a stab of pain as his body twisted perhaps ten degrees, but it was enough. He now saw, hovering in the hazy distance, that his clamoring thought was true. A tower half a league away belched furious black smoke against the sky like a dying dragon.

"Master!" he thought in anguish. He was overwhelmed by an impulse to fly to the wizard's side. To his amazement, his wish came true. He found himself flying through the air, and not with the clumsy hops he was used to from his flying lessons, which as often as not dumped him into a prickly hedge of may or upside down in a pig ditch. He was truly flying, about ten feet off the ground, aimed straight and steady toward the burning tower.

Wherever it came from, Melchiour was too anxious to appreciate the joy of his new accomplishment. "I must go to him or all is lost!" he told himself. "The battle must be over, since there are no soldiers in sight. But why is the tower standing all alone like that? There should be walls and buildings. Where are the pennants and guerdons to signal that the king is inside?"

Above all, however, he wondered why he felt so odd. His thoughts sounded uncommonly strange in his head. "What is this?" he wondered, and the s at the end of this thought turned into a long, droning zzzz. He began to wish that life wasn't full of so many emergencies piled one on top of the other. He could barely comprehend the last crisis before a new one pelted him on the head. Becoming a wizard required the passage of many trials, and he could confess moments when he only wanted to rejoin common mortals in their world.

"And do what?" Merlin would snort whenever he spotted Melchior in one of these sloughs. "Eat toast and get jam on your face? Remember, it's better to be afraid with me than o be happy with them." Melchior wasn't so sure. He had no time for reminiscence, yet in a flleeting image he recalled the face of his grandmohter years ago, smiling and crying at the same time, the day she had smuggled him to the coast disguised in his flowing blue robes. "These fold do not know what you are, magical boy," she whispered mysteriously. "It's not your family's fault. You are a strange wonderful creature, yet they will turn you into a donkey, enslaved in the fields. Even your mother would, but I will never allow it."

He recalled the looming masts of the barkentine at barbor, his grandmother's trembling hands as she released him to the captain, finally to be alone, rocking in the dark as he tried not to cry out for his mother or his soft bed at home.

The Irish sea captian who had taken his grandmother's bribe would not permit the boy to come on deck for fear that the sailors, who were little better than pirates, would attack him. Melchior lay in the hold day after day, suffocating beneath a pile of moldy straw and jute. Once the ship's cook, rummaging for a barrel of salt pork, almost stepped on him, and others must have heard him sob in his sleep, for the crew began to shisper darkly of a ghost that climbed the mainmast and threw burning pitch on the heads of unsuspecting tars.

The stowaway grew sick and soon delirious. The captain held a dirty piece of mirror up to his face. "Look!" he whispered hoarsely. To his horror, Melchior saw that his skin had turned bright yellow, even the whites of his eyes. "Ye're turnin' jaundice on me," the captain muttered, vexed that he might lose the second half of his bribe if the boy died. That night he permitted Melchior to stagger out of the hold so he could stand in the cool sea breeze. The sky was spangled with a banquet of stars, which he already knew by their liquid Arabic names -- Rigel, Betelgeuse, Althazzar -- but gazing upon the distant beacons only made him feel more alone, coldly alone on the wide sea.

The next morning frightened the captain within an inch of his life. He crept down to bring Melchior a flagon of stale water. The boy was on his knees, looking up with a rapturous smile. A faint flow of peach-gold light was ll around him. The captain turned as green as a sick parrot. "Gad! a mad faerie it is," he cried, throwing the flagon behind him as he rushed up the ladder. Melchior noticed nothing, for his grandmother had come to him in a vision. She smiled at him and blew the sacred breath, the baraka, gently in his face.

"You will learn many spells," she said, smiling, "but none greater than this, the spell of faith. Only the wisest know that it is no spell but life itself." From that moment the jaundice disappeared, and Melchior knew that he came from a sorcerer's line.

These recollectionf of the long-ago past were struggling slowly to rise in Melchior's brain, like bubbles caught in honey, when a horrible shudder shook his body. An irrestible terror flooded him, and in an instant, with the life-or-death reflexes of a rabbit feeling the fox's incisors raking his back, Melchior dove to his left in a sharp swoop. He was just in time. A huge, dark mass zoomed past him. Monstrous claws grazed his right side. Melchior expected to feel his heart bound out of his chest in fear, except for some reason he felt as if he didn't have a heart. Strange.
"Safety! I must find safety," he thought. With incredible speed he turned a somersault in midair, hovered for a second like a doubtful helicopter, then dove straight for a round green landing field immediately to his right. The shadow passed overhead. His ears were filled with a loud angry "Kraw!" that almost deafened him. Then as quickly as it had come the danger disappeared. The air fell quiet, and Melchior was clinging to a green landing field with all his might.

Terrified as he was, it began to dawn on the apprentice that he wasn't in human form. The buzzing in his head, his stiff neck, the feats of acrobatic flying that came by instinct -- no, this wasn't him. What was he, then? If the village children had been there, they could have told him immediately -- he was a devel's darning needle, the swift menage of all smaller midges, moths, bees, bluebottles, damselflies, yellow jackets, and the rest of the buzzing clan.


[baby dragonfly - i took this photo last year]


[so i taped a dime to the window to give an idea of the size of the wee insect]

In plainer words, he was the first dragonfly of May. His brilliant bronze-green body dangled airily from a sycamore leaf as he slowly realized his strange predicament. The buzzing clan are not endowed with intellect, so it is no surprise that Melchior could not recall that this day was his birthday, the very morning he was born. He had crawled out of the small blue pond when the dawn light first slanted on it, wrapped in crumpled moist wings that feebly unfolded to dry in the breeze. (Before then, he had spent considerable time underwater as a ferocious dragonfly nymph, one of the terrors of pond life, hiding in the ooze amog the reeds waiting with a greedy pincer mouth to gobble up a passing minnow, tadpole, or anything else. But of this Melchior remembered nothing.)

The apprentice had no way of guessing that he had been put under a protective spell by Merlin after the battle for Arthur's kingdom was lost, transforming him into a minute dragonfly egg with its seed of life sleeping inside. Heedful to kill all magic and smash it to ruins, Mordred had blasted the castle to rubble and wasted the surrounding fileds with fire, yet the infinitesimal egg was borne safely over the terror on a breeze toward the river Severn, where it washed for miles downstream (narrowly missing being eaten by a hungry hook-jawed trout) landing in the murky swamps that then circled in all directions.

And there Melchior slept through history. Sleep is a risky business: whe first you crak your eyelids to wake up again, you can't tell for certain how long you've been alseep. It could be twelve hours or twelve minutes or twelve years. In Melchior's case, the spell had lasted twelve full centuries, and two more, until he woke up in a different world, where even the ruins of magic left by Mordred had turned to unremembered dust. What he had spied as Merlin's burning tower was the smokestack of an iron-smelting plant, and the reason he couldn't see the battlements of Arthur's castle was that they had long ago crumbled to mossy rubble that peasants had gathered and taken away to build sheep pens.

At present, now that his maiden flight was over, he was still quite confused. Exhaustion filled his body, and although he hardly felt safe swaying on the underside of a leaf, the gentle rocking, added to the heat of the sun, soon put him to sleep. He had no idea what time it was when he cam around, but long shafts of afternoon light reached under the foliage where he had hidden. Again the imppulse to take off gripped him. I must go to my master. And despite his fear of the giant shadow, which was in point of fact an ordinary hungry crow, he took wing. Only this time he didn't get anywhere. The burning tower was still straight ahead, due east. Yet as hard as he beat his crips, veined wings, he made no headway. If anything, he found himself alling backward, bounced hear over heels by the hard air.

"I've got a beaut!" a thunderous voice calle dout. Melchior fought against what felt like an invisible stone wall. It did not good. With a deafening clap the lid of a jelly jar slammed down over his head, and in two seconds he was a bottled insect, trapped by a gigantic little boy who peered at hi curiously. "Yeah, you are a beaut," the boy murmured, drawing his monstrous face right up to the side of the jar. "Do you fancy coming home with me?" The gigantic little boy who was Melchior's captor started to turn the jar over, admiring the bold black bars on Melchior's wings, whose tracery was as intricate as a cathedral window. The boy's huge pink face was so terrifying that the apprentice was sure he had dropped back in time, to the age of the giants that Merlin had vanquished as a boon to humans." ...

Does anybody else see anything wrong with this picture?

"Tasty tips for dumpster dining" shouts the headline, "FEEDING THE HOMELESS: Pamphlet offers advice to binners on how to find the best meal" article by Elaine O'Connor and Peter Severinson (Staff Reporters)

This newspaper article appeared in The Province on Thursday, July 6, 2006 and got buried in my office. I have been meaning to Post about it since then. In part the article reports: "A support organization for the homeless is giving out tips on how to dumpster-dive for food. Dumpster-diving is an "important way for people to access food in Grandview-Woodlands." the Grandview-Woodlands Food Connection coalition says in a pamphlet funded in part by the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. [HEALTH Authority - can you believe it]

It continues: "James Brookes (pictured above) agrees. He gets most of his meals out of the garbage and says it's better than the free food at most shelters. The sheer number of binners is the biggest challenge, Brooks said. Yesterday morning he got lucky, spotting a store worker throwing out a bag of day-old doughnuts. He also found a box of Pop-Tarts past their expiry date and two yogurt cups. ... 'You more or less have to smell-test it,' Brooks said, stuffing the plastic cups into his vest pocket... For Brooks, dumpster-diving is a choice, not a necessity. 'I won't eat at the Salvation Army', he said. 'Too many people going through the line, [portions] aren't all that big, and it usually tastes like shit.'

hmmmm....last week i was driving my daughter home and we saw a huge rat running accross the road, and last summer we had to get the Pest Control guy in to get rid of a swarm of rats living behind our building. We also had to plug up the bins to keep the rats out. Almost on a daily basis we have dumpster divers rummaging around in our bins, even tho' we have posted "no trespassing" signs and on one or two occasions phoned the police to come and chase them away. I once saw a man eating right out of a bag as he and his buddy undid the big black plastic bags to root around in them and remove what they wanted, leaving the rest strewn all over the place. I told them to get out, but they just hurled obsenties at me. I just shook my head and sighed, recalling that the bag i had just thrown in the trash was filled with my cat's used Kitty Litter that i had just cleaned out of her box! Not to mention all the other used bathroom items and moldy kitchen stuff that had probably been sitting there for the past few days.

So when i read that "The coalition's Connecting the Dots brochure lists food banks and sources of free meals, and offers advice on the best ways to salvage from dumpsters." i was furious! AND further, "About 1,000 brochures - targetting low-income, immigrant and homeless resiidents - were printed in English and Spanish and distributed last week to centres such as the Multicultural Family Place, MOSAIC and Britannia. The project received $15,000 from the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority as well as funding from VanCity, The Vancouver Foundation and Simon Fraser University." Tring Tring....answer the Clue Line fellas, IT'S GARBAGE! ...sheesh!

In a time when we are seeing the comeback of polio and tuberculosis, not to mention new and unknown viruses that mystify health authorities, this is the best solution that an intelligent group of individuals can come up with to solve the problem of feeding the poor.

It is DISGRACEFUL that $15,000 + has been spent to encourage people to engage in such a shameful and potentially dangerous activity. People who for the most part already have compromized immune systems should not be rummaging around in garbage bins, for the most obvious of reasons.

Even as i write this, i sit and shake my head...and i think about the rate and how they were exterminated, using rat poison, causing a horribly slow and painful death, and i wonder if they had contaminated the food in our bin before they died, and then i realize i have not seen one or two of "our regulars"... and in particular the one thin, dirty man who i saw sitting in the bin, stuffing a handful of something from one of the ripped-open bags into his mouth. I have not seen him since the summer, and i wonder if he is alive or dead, or lying sick somewhere, and i wonder what we can do, in this nation of extreme wealth, to make sure that people don't feel compelled to rummage in the garbage bins of the nation to meet a basic need that most of us take for granted.

Random Ramblings when i don't have a lot of time to spend on a Post

You probably cannot read the print, so here goes:

Coming into God

"be careful in casting out your devils that you don't cast out the best thing in you" - Neitche

libido = impulse to life

(and in pencil below - the Hebrews, particularly, wipe out The Goddess)

so, the image is a compilation of pictures that i like, that "speak to me", alternately making me feel good and then inspiring me to "hold my own truth". I just found it tucked away in another pile of papers, so now it is up on the wall where i can see it, and hopefully it will inspire me to be more creative.

guess who?

Our Best Friend

It's never too late to teach an old human new tricks. Fiorenze Albert-Howard of West Vancouver sent along this little something he saw on the Internet, called "Things We Can Learn From a Dog."

> Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride

> Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstasy

> When loved once come home, always run to greet them

> When it's in your best interest, practice obedience

> Let others know when they've invaded your territory

> Take naps and stretch before rising

> Run, romp and play daily

> Eat with gusto and enthusiasm

> Never pretend to be something you're not

> If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it

> When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by and nuzzle him or her gently

> Avoid biting when a simple growl will do

> On hot days, drink lots of water and lie under a shady tree

> Bond with your pack

> Delight in the simple joy of a long walk

"True Love" = Passion, Passion, Passion

"The Moon is in My Heart" by Dwayne Edward Rourke

True Love is irresistible;

True Love moves you;

True Love is the adventure of unexpected things; you have to be brave to accept the randomness of love, be open to the alchemy of love.
True love is cruel, it is blissful, amazing, maddening and frightening, all at the same time; it makes us do crazy things.

True Love is not negotiable.
True Love is full of lust, combined with a deep spiritual yearning.

True Love demands unbridled intimacy. It demands that one surrenders all control, surrender self to the moment, to The Other.
True Love knows no bounds ~~so say i, pj [a.k.a. "dragonflyfilly"]

"Fish gotta swim, hearts gotta bleed" - Molly Ivens (1944-2007)

Soul Merge 5(2005) - graphics by "dragonflyfilly"

Happy St. Valentine's Day Everyone

Neon Love Note - photo by(2004) "dragonflyfilly"

...and love and Light to all!

A "must see" - Part 1

If you live in the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD), or, if you are visiting between now and March 4, 2007, you must absolutely get over to the Surrey Art Gallery on 88th Avenue!

This is by far the best exhibit i have seen at this Municiple Gallery. I loved all of the sculptures on display, but one or two i favoured. Here is just a small sample to view, and i will continue this Post as the weeks go by.



unit tea 2000

Artist: Michael Massie


"Massie is of mixed Aboriginal-European background and has become notable for his synergetic joining of Western art influences and techniques with Inuit imagery. His symbolic use of the ulu to probe his identity and understand the Inuit cultural origins of his mother defines his conceptual approach in his work. The teapot form was inspired by memories of his maternal grandmother. In unit tea, the two come together, but are transformed beyond easy recognition. We recognize the resonance of the ulu shape but the arched teapot seems more suggestive of the sleek curing body of a narwhal. Because Massie's work resists categorization, it calls into question existing definitions of Inuit art. He is conscius of this: 'All I really want to do is express what I see. If it comes out as being Inuit, then I think that is fine: if it comes out as being contemporary, that is also fine. I think that a lot of times I have a tendency to put the two of them together to see what happens.' [Fox 1996.p20; p. 21 inuit sculpture now, National Gallery of Canada,2005] "



Shaman Beckoning Spirits 2004





Artist: Abraham Anghik Ruben


"The flat front of Shaman Beckoning Spirits communicates the idea of a barrier between everyday life and the spirit world. Represented by the masked face and outreaching hands, the shaman is the intermediary who approaches animal spirits on behalf of the people. The joined and flowing forms of the bear, seals, and birds hidden behind present a lively contrast to the austere frontal view and convey the richness of the spirit world. A second interpretation offered by the artist relates to how the introduction of Christianity changed the status of the shaman, reducing once-powerful leaders to beggars in their own community. By extension, the shaman here is begging Inuvialuit Inuit not to discard their respect for traditional ways and knowledge." [p.27 inuit sculpture now, National Gallery]





This is my #1 favourite: The Shaman's Vision (1999) is one of Nasogaluak's most striking sculptures.





Artist: Bill Nasogaluak

"At first glance, the large void and missing eyes are disturbing" -- actually i did not find this so at all, rather, it instantly struck a cord deep in my soul -- "despite the beautiful proportions of the lower face. Part of the challenge for the artist was to make such a void the central part, yet when one recognizes that the figure is seeing through the eys of the bird, the reliance of shamans on the spirit world of animals becomes potently clear. "It's about a shaman getting his vision, his direction, and his thought from the bird. He doesn't see as the man. He sees as the bird." The subject is a recurring one in the artist's work relating to Gooblualooq, an important shaman whose spirit helper was a hawk, and who was known and respected around the turn of the century. Because this depiction of a shaman is related to a specific historical figure, it underscores the actual place of shamanism in the Inuvialuit Init belief system." [p23, inuit sculpture now, National Gallery of Canada]

(....to be continued...)

DISCOLOURATION - Part 11

Listening to Cross Country Checkup, thoughts are streaming through my consciousness. I have not been exposed to any of the English Tabloid Press coverage, but it is said that it is being disrespectful to the victims and their families.

But then i am also reminded of when i was 9 years old. We were playing in the veld and we came accross a young man lying in the dry brown grass, moaning. We all tentatively drew closer and could see that he was bleeding from several wounds over his body. One of the boys ran home to get his dad (a tailor who worked out of his home); the ambulance was called and we all gathered around him watching helplessly as he lost consciousness, as the blood coagulated in bright red pools around him. I remember being mezmorized by his face, which, unlike the rest of his black body, was a strange pasty greyish yellow. I squatted there in the blazing sun, wondering why the ambulance was taking so long to come, and eventually when it did, about an hour or two later, the young man was dead! For weeks after i puzzled with the question of WHY the ambulance had taken so long, because just weeks before, when my dad had suffered a fatal heart attack, it was said that the ambulance had arrived 15 short minutes after the first call. It was explained to me that the ambulance had had to drive from one of the Townships, (a long way away) but i still did not understand. HOW DID WE ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN?

For years i pondered this question, and as i grew up, and when we moved to Canada, i started to understand the apartheid system, and the fact that because the man was Black he could not be transported to the hospital for Whites (where my dad had died) and soon the proverbial penny dropped, and i became very angry. Angry because the man had died, angry because he could not be taken to the hospital for Whites. All i could think about that this young man had a mother somewhere - i wondered if he had a wife, if he had children who, like myself, would never see their Dad again. I was sad and angry all at the same time.

Now, the memory surfaces again because the only reason these women are dead is because they were sex-trade workers, and they were women, and they were First Nations women. The only reason it took so long for this to be acknowledged by the Justice System, and for an arrest to be made, is because these individuals were part of a group who are hugely margenialized. These women were daughters, sisters, some of them mothers. They have family who grieve their deaths. This makes me angry and sad. HOW DID WE ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN?

But tears are not enough! What are we going to do to make sure that this does not happen again?

[see below for Part 1 of DISCOLOURATION]

DISCOLOURATION

Listening to the news coverage of the impending Picton Trial, and specifically a program on Sunday morning, called “Voices Lost and Found”, regarding the women who were murdered by Robert William Picton, triggers memories of my ill-spent youth, I wonder how women ever manage to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives.

As the melancholy voice seeps through my radio, the names of the Lost Women echo through my unconscious, and the memory of my own brush with death is resurrected.



I guess I must have been about 23 when I went down to Albuquerque, New Mexico as the Delegate for the 1st Vancouver Toastmistress Club. Vibrant, energetic, full of myself and the eternal optimism of youth, naive and totally convinced that everyone shared my ideal of equality for women (the women’s movement was in its first bloom) I strutted around the Hotel and Conference Hall, rushing from meeting room to meeting room, oblivious of the impending danger.

In the whirl of Workshops and Seminars, voting at the Annual General Meeting, Lunches and Networking, rushed showers and quick changes (I used to be a real fashion Diva back then), I was absolutely in my element. I loved the hugeness of this event, meeting people from all over the world, and the importance of being the Delegate for my Club.

On the second evening of the Conference I was having dinner with one of my new found “friends”, a woman who was about ten years older than I; she was from one of the southern United States. She was with a man who I believe was either her husband or her boyfriend, and another man who was a friend of the man she was with. He asked me to dance, and of course I said “yes”. As the evening wore on I learnt that this person, whose name I have since forgotten (although I shall never forget his face), had been to Vietnam, his wife had “put him through law school”, that he was happily married, and lived in either North or South Dakota (can’t remember which); anyway, as I said, I was full of myself and the notion that men and women could be “just friends” (without the complication of sex); we could be intellectual equals …and so on and so on…and when the discussion of the Vietnam war came up I of course expressed my opinion firmly and without fear of censure. In retrospect I think how silly he must have thought I was.

His wife was one of the five contestants in the Speech Contest, so she had gone to bed early as the final competition was taking place the next morning. We were all still wide awake when the restaurant closed, so when he suggested we go elsewhere for some coffee I agreed and quickly went to use the Ladies Room. I returned to the table, quickly downed the remainder of my drink, said goodnight to the other couple and went with him to his vehicle which was parked in the guest parking.

We drove out into the sultry night. It was warm and quiet, with not one single restaurant or cafe in sight! I was starting to feel drowsy and said we might as well head back to the hotel as it looked like everything was closed for the night. The next thing I remember was waking up and when I peered out into the darkness all I could see was sand and scrubs, a bright moon and lots of stars! We were in the desert! Sleepily I looked around me, and then at him, and said: “What the hell are we doing here?” I don’t remember if he answered me or not, and even as I type this I feel sick to my stomach and vaguely uneasy. I can feel my skin begin to prickle. (it was only about 7 or 8 years ago i realized that maybe he had slipped something into my drink when I had left it unattended).

He stopped the car and put his arm around my shoulder and drew me close to him. I pulled away. He grabbed me again and tried to kiss me. I pushed him away and shook my head and said: “I don’t want to kiss you what the hell are we doing here take me back to the hotel” or at least something to that effect. I don’t really remember every detail, it was such a long time ago. But some details I can vividly recall. I was wearing red polyester slacks that I had made myself, with a matching top – a skimpy little triangle of cloth with straps that tied around my neck and my back – and jacket which I had removed before I had fallen asleep. He reached over and untied one of the straps and again tried to grab me and kiss me. I pushed myself away and told him I wanted to go back to the hotel. He yelled something at me and I burst into tears. He then started to talk to me in a cajoling voice, telling me how unhappy he was, and how pritty and sweet I was, and how bossy and controlling his wife was, and that his in-laws dispised him. I said I felt bad for him but that I was not interested in having intimate relations with a married man. When he realized that his pathetic stance was getting him nowhere he got angry and tried to grab me again. I don't know how long this crazy exchange of him badgering me one minute then cajoling me the next, went on, but suddenly he reached down and before I realized what he was doing he grabbed the sandals off both my feet. I became angry but my anger quickly turned to alarm when he said, very softly: “You’re a stupid girl, getting into a car with a complete stranger”. I tried to speak but my throat felt as though it was filled with sand. It seemed that this cat and mouse game went on for an eternity, and I remember thinking to myself: “he is going to rape me”….and…."even if I comply I think he is going to kill me”. My mind was racing. He got out of the car and went to the trunk and I could hear what sounded like plastic being removed, I hurriedly retied my top and put my jacket back on because now I was freezing cold. I do not remember at what point I saw the plastic and ropes he had laid out on the desert floor. I looked into the darkness and I could see a couple of vehicles miles away, but I was too frantic with fear to even think about trying to approach them. I do remember at one point I got into the driver's seat with the intention of driving myself away, but he had removed the keys from the ignition. I remember him laughing at me then.

My heart was thumping so loud it was making my ears ring. I don’t even remember what I was thinking, but at some point he was back in the car next to me, holding on to me tightly. He repeated what he had said about trusting a complete stranger, and then added: “I could bash your head in with a rock and leave you here and no one will find you for days, maybe even weeks.”

I had a picture of myself bound in rope, wrapped in plastic and left in a shallow grave, and in a flash I knew that if I did not attempt to escape he was going to kill me. All of a sudden I was filled with an immense feeling of peace and calm and I completely relaxed and when I did he released me. I sprang from the car and started running. I could see the twinkling lights of the city way off in the distance and ran towards them. I ran and ran and ran as hard and as fast as I could. I heard the slamming of a car door. I kept running. A few minutes later I heard the slamming of the trunk. I ran faster. I heard the second slam of a car door. I looked back and saw the headlights of the car blink on. I quickly removed my cream coloured jacket, knowing it would be easy to see, and rolled it into a little ball with the plan to lie down flat on top of it in the hope of maybe avoiding the lights of the car as I knew he would soon catch up to me. My lungs were on fire, and I remember thinking: “Come on girl, remember all the times you have run for a bus, you can do it, pretend you are late for work and this is the last bus of the day, you are running to catch that bus, run run run…” Just as I though my chest was going to burst right open I came to a “fork in the road”. It was not actually a road, just two tire tracks, as one finds in all deserts. Briefly I hesitated, not knowing which way to go. I must have looked up into the starry night and begged for help, then quickly decided on one path. I continued on, running as fast as my lungs and legs would carry me, but by now my feet were stinging with pain. I could only imagine what my bare feet looked like. When I looked back I could see the car stop where the tracks divided. I could not believe my luck when I saw it take the track that I had not taken. I continued to run as if demons from hell were chasing me.

I only stopped running long enough to see the car head down the other track a short distance….I continued to run, a little slower now to catch my breath and gather my thoughts. I could hear a dog barking in the distance and I saw a clump of houses, what looked like a fairly new sub-division. My heart sank when I saw the lights of the car come to a stop, and as the car turned around I tried to run faster. My terror mounted as I saw the car approach the fork again, saw the headlights veer around and point directly at me, and I tried to run faster. By now my feet were numb and clumsy. The car was getting closer and closer, and I was exhausted. I could now see the colour of the car as it moved menacingly towards me, and it was about two city blocks away from me when I reached a strip of tarmac and pavement. I could now hear the engine and a wave of desperation swept over me. Just as I was thinking “oh my god this is end” I looked up and a few yards ahead of me was a huge utility vehicle, and as I got closer to it I saw two men working on a hydro pole. I could not believe my good fortune and ran up to them quickly. I cannot remember exactly what I said to them, something about calling me a cab. Just then the car pulled up beside us and he reached over and opened the car door and told me to get in. I then remembered that my handbag and sandals were on the floor in the car (it amazes me now that even in the face of danger I remembered that my passport and hotel key was in my bag) so I went over to the car and reached in for them. But as I did he grabbed my other arm, and said: “Get in the car and I will take you back to the hotel”. Immediately I quietly replied: “ok”, and relaxed my arm, he slackened his grip on me and I wrenched myself away, backing out of the car. (Still to this day I cannot believe that he fell for this a second time). I had succeeded in retrieving my bag and sandals, and ran back to where the two men were.

He got out of the car and came towards me. When the two men saw him they stepped away from me and one of the men said: “Does he have a gun?” I could not believe my ears! I replied in disgust: “NO, just ropes!” - And I know this sounds like a ridiculous thing to have said but by this time I could see the dawn approaching and I was exhausted. In an instant I realized that the two men were assuming that this was merely a domestic squabble and they were not going to interfere, so I grabbed a hammer that I saw lying on one of the boxes and brandished it at him, shouting: “Stay away from me, if you come one step closer to me I’m going to bash your head in with this!” One of the men came up to me and took the hammer out of my hand! Aghast, I blinked and shuddered as I looked around. Seeing that he had the sympathy of the two men he again used his cajoling tone of voice, saying: "Come on, let's go back to the hotel." As I wondered what I was going to do next I saw a big rock which I picked up, and grasping it firmly I threatened: “If you think I am going to get back into that car with you, you are crazy! Stay away from me. Just DON’T come any closer! I’m warning you!” Now that I was feeling somewhat safer, my fear turned to anger. I was as mad as a snake disturbed from his summer slumber, and I was fully prepared to smash him in the face and I think he knew it. He backed away, returned to his car and drove off. Now I was shaking and crying, but managed to ask the men to call me a cab. I only had travelers' cheques in my purse, but fortunately the cab driver accepted them. It was light when we arrived back at the hotel, but it was still too early for anyone to be up and about. I hurried quietly to my look, startled my any sound, fully expecting him to jump out at me. My heart was beating fast when I got back to my room. My room-mate was sound asleep and I sat down on the bed and looked at my feet. They were filthy and covered in blood. I got into the shower with difficulty and was comforted by the heat of the water. I wondered why I had managed to choose the correct track and why he had taken the opposite one, knowing that his decision to take the "wrong" one had given me those precious extra minutes that had probably saved my life!

When I stepped out of the bathroom my room-mate was sitting up in her bed looking at me quizzically. I told her what had happened to me and I said I was going to call the police. She said: “Are you crazy? What are you going to tell them? They are going to ask you why you were out with a married man. You are a Canadian in the United States. You are a young, single woman, he is a lawyer. Do you really think they will believe you? He is just going to deny it and you will just be a swack of trouble! Trust me; you really do not want to go that route! AND besides which, don’t forget, we have to pick up that car we have contracted to deliver to San Francisco, and we cannot afford any delay.” Well, there was that to consider, and I did not have time to argue with her: it was nearly 6:00 a.m. and I barely had time to get downstairs for breakfast and head off to the Banquet Room for the Speech Contest.

Walking was extremely difficult. My room-mate had helped me “bandage” up my wounded feet with a dozen Band-Aids, and I had covered them with nylon stockings to keep the Band-Aids in place. I took a couple of Midols to ease the pain, but the medication had not yet kicked in. I somehow managed to find my seat at one of the round tables, as the “Executive” of Toastmistress International were introduced, and then the Contest commenced. The morning’s proceedings passed in a haze, and when his wife was introduced and commended as “a mother of three children who had put her husband through law school” there was a ripple of laughter and a hum of approval, but I cringed.

Her speech was all about her accomplishments as a mother and student of psychology, with a strong emphasis on putting her husband through Law School. More Laughter. She quoted B.F. Skinner several times in reference to the importance of firm discipline for children, and keeping errant husbands in line. Another ripple of laughter. The phrases “behaviour modification” and “operant conditioning” slithered off her tongue like sun-warmed honey. Anecdotes about her children and her husband were interchangeable and frequent, to the point where husband and children became one little case study. The audience was dazzled by her knowledge and humour. Images of the night before danced menacingly through my head, and her words sounded like a strange echo in my ears, the air became electric and I began to sweat profusely, my heart pounded and I felt dizzy. Somewhere in the recesses of my intelligent brain I wondered what her husband was thinking, I wondered how the laughter of the audience was making him feel. Was he, like me, recalling the previous night? I tried to catch my breath as I realized that I had had a narrow escape. I could not make any sense of what was going on around me as I re-lived the nightmare of a few hours earlier. Only the sound of loud applause brought me back to the huge banquet hall, and I took a sip of my cold coffee. I stumbled to my feet as the hall emptied, people buffeting me as they all chatted and laughed. I nodded politely when people spoke to me, but I did not really understand anything they were saying.

Lunch. Eat. Breath. Walk. Talk. Laugh. Breath. The Midol was starting to wear off and it was difficult to walk.

I was heading off to one of the big Lecture Rooms for one of the many workshops I had scheduled; as I walked down the corridor to the escalator, there he was, a few short feet away, his wife on his arm, tittering gaily. He looked right at me, leveling me with his blunt gaze. I stood transfixed, and my eyes met his. He did not flinch as he penetrated me with eyes of steely battleship grey. I felt my heart jump into my mouth; it was like looking into the eye of a shark as he rolls to claim his prey. An icicle slammed into the back of my neck, and a sharp chill cut through my spine.

In that instant I knew! I knew as sure as the sun rises every morning that if I had not run I would not be walking through that air conditioned corridor on that hot day in July. I took a deep breath and hurried past him and his wife. The rest of the day was a bit of a blur, but somehow I managed to attend to the business at hand. Only in the quiet times during my necessary visits to the Ladies Powder Room would I see those frozen eyes, would I feel them stabbing at my brain like a bloody dagger, and know, with dead certainty that he HAD PLANNED to rape and kill me.

The memory of this still haunts me, and piled upon the garbage dump of previous and subsequent encounters with men who have been less than gentle in their behaviour and language towards me, it has discoloured my life. Even thought I think that I have “moved on” ( and I have, by and large, thrived) I do believe that my anxiety with regard to the safety of my daughter stems from my own experience, and I don’t really know if I will ever be able to have any peace with regard to this.

(For a lighthearted break check out the post below)

...and now for something completely different...

A weird "potporri" of photos, just for the hell of it!


my right hand being scanned by left hand
(actually, i took this photo to email to my daughter just to show her the size of some bead i had that she needed for a project)


Boobies near Christmas Island


Customized pony named Cheshire - by Susan


a night time fruit stand in Singapore


some women just "pose" with cigarettes



Pressie from Sissy "lites" upon my living room lamp (i told you i was "into" alliteration!)

to all, a Happy New Year!

Waiting for One Child

"Black, White Yellow, no one knows...

All accross the land dawns a bright new morn...
A ray of hope filters in the sky...

This comes to pass, when a child is born."

-~~ Boney M.

Merry Christmas All!! - Love, Light and Peace,
and JOY, in whatever form it takes


































...and she's Baaaaackkk...
Persephonie wants everyone to get into some kind of Christmas Spirit, no matter how small. She may not put up a Christmas Tree this year...instead she will go out and gather a remnant from the Windstorm and put up a Christmas Twig with some delicate twinkling lights.

Persephonie in her Chirstmas Attire, complete with Healed and Healthy Heart (phew, just in time too!)

Get ready for a Twinkly Christmas Everyone.

images of Christmasses Past

AND, congratulations to Sister Madonna Buder, who finished The Ironman at one minute before Midnight!

She is 76 years old and this is her 20th Triathalon


Fantastic!

POWER + CONTROL + FORCE does not equal "PEACE"

On November 9 at the Tricycle website The karmaqueen@tricycle.com asked: "Are we responsible for the President we’ve got even if we voted against him? Do we bear some karmic burden for the war in Iraq just by virtue of being Americans? Is there some sort of karmic swap we can make so we can continue to drive our SUV’S in good conscience?"

The last question is easy for me to answer as I do not think that karma is negotiable, so no, if you know or think that driving an SUV is somehow not a good thing, then continueing to do so will undoubtedly “put you in the red” as far as what I like to call, your “Karma Account”.

Where Mr. Bush and the Presidency is concerned, this is a little more complicated for me. I have long felt that the history of war-mongering in the United States would one day come back to “bite” the American’s “in the bum”, and so it has.

Unfortunately whether or not you voted for Mr. Bush does not mean that you are “innocent” in the overall scheme of things. “Not all Karmas rebound immediately. Some accumulate and return unexpectedly in this or other births.” [ Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami – Dancing with Siva]

As tragic as it was, I do believe that the devastation of the twin towers on 9/11 was a direct karmic consequence of the years of mindless slaughter of innocent women and children, by the US government and her agents, and in turn, the “terrorists” will themselves accumulate negative karma due to their actions. I compare Mr. Bush to The Stupid Husband, who makes bad decisions and forces his wife and children (the people of the United States) to suffer the consequences. He continues to compound negative karma upon negative karma, and so it goes.

No one is innocent: if we are born onto this planet it is for a reason.

Also I would like to remind some people that Hitler proclaimed that God was on his side when he ordered the mass-murders of millions of people. And so, each megalomaniacal dictator in his time declared that the Almighty has condoned their slaughter. And his armies have marched mindlessly to their deaths, only to be re-born into another minefield of negative karma. The bombs of bloody karma and the shrapnel of stupidity continue to blow to bits the young bodies of “innocent” sons and daughters of helpless mothers.

We forgot that we are the government. We control the protectors of our state by our votes. We control corporate America and Canada by our willingness to buy the products that they produce. If only we could understand that we do control our destinies, just as we control our appetites for material possessions and “creature comforts”, and our desire for numbing pleasures.

Not until everyone understands the nature of Karma, and its irrevocable influence, not until then will there be Peace on Earth. Even a little new born Child knows that.

~~ nameste