Follow your bliss. Joseph Campbell

I snap the Guildhall looking foreboding under a rain cloud yesterday. I notice that it's slightly at an angle. Must be some kind of subsidence.

Kate and I turn up at singing practice, breathless and late, after sitting too long in the Peace Cafe and forgetting that we are starting early this week in order to be filmed by the BBC. The atmosphere in the room is nervous electric when we arrive and we get changed, fall in with the others and begin to practice.

I am deeply relieved when the two men- a film-maker and his cameraman - arrive and break the tension. They explain that the film is about Stan, one of the only men in the group. They are following him over a few days of his life as part of a feature for BBC South Today.

The cameraman is a smooth NLP operator and soon has us all dancing to his tune, with the women giggling delightedly at him.

He decides he wants to do a circular shot, sweeping around us all as we sing. There is only one problem. Me.

"You're very short," he announces, as the camera reaches me. He puts it down and stares.

I'm a double water sign and sometimes we don't take criticism well.

"You're overweight," I throw back, glaring.

Then he left the room and returned a few minutes later with a pile of newspapers.

"Try standing on these," he instructed.

I stared at him with a complete absence of compassion for a moment.

"Tell me you're kidding. Please."

Five minutes later, I'm standing on a pile of newspapers and the cameraman gets his shot. And a sworn enemy for life.

Later, the cameraman wants a high shot from the corner of the room and instructs us all (with a particularly unnecessary glance at Kate and I, I thought) to 'look as though we're having fun." Of course the thing about fun is that once you try to look as though you're having it, you start to resemble a slightly nervous day release patient with a concealed weapon.

"I'm going to shove that bloody microphone..." I hiss, turning towards Kate.

"I know, I know," she soothes, "He's demanding, annoying, and rude."

I would have added smarmy, but it's not the right time to be picky so I leave it.

"If we look at each other when we're singing," she suggests, "We'll smile and look natural!"

So, the music starts and we begin singing Halle, Halle, Halle. Halfway through, I glance at Kate and we both smile. Then I chuckle. Then Kate chuckles. Then I can hear the 'Halle' that's supposed to be coming out of both of our mouths turning into "Ha! Ha! Ha!"

Before either of us know what's hit us, we're both seized by a terrible fit of the giggles that lasts for the remainder of the song. By the end, we both have tears streaming down our faces and I realise that we have both regressed back to school age. Kate even had to leave the room to calm down again.

The entire shooting took two hours, for what will only represent approximately 20 seconds of film in the finished piece. I now know that I will never want to be a film-maker. It's a strange medium and I have a new found respect for actors, who must love their trade a great deal to spend so much time being treated like talking mannequins. It also takes a lot of energy to obey commands like 'Look Happy!' 'Look Sad!'

I think the only expression I managed with utter sincerity was, "Look like you want to see the cameraman's heart being ripped out by a rabid badger with a personality disorder, while you shout commands like 'Look Happy!' at him."

I'm not sure how suited I am to being before the lens. I think I'll stick to sitting behind the keyboard.

Many thanks to Gentle Sir Michael of the Museum, who has recommended a YouTube video:
500 Years of Portraits of Women

The Writer Pauses

My head is swimming this morning, desperate to dwell on the gentle light of a rising sun, the embrace of cotton sheets (the Chief will tell me they are man-made fibres, and that one rarely finds cotton in the rental sector), even the diesel hum of the daily work run as people pour themselves away from sleeping peace, to work.

I am more in the mood for meditation than the Ministry, but Robert Frost would tell me I have promises to keep, and he would be right. Besides, Philosopher Jagger once said that you can't always get what you want. Fortunately, however, he did mention that if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need. So I'm going to work.

I had a blog entry written for this morning (well really for yesterday, but one conversation leads to another, leads to another, leads to long past midnight and sleep), but I am shying away from a diary-style entry this morning. Sometimes this happens.

The Land Lord, who runs an estate agency on Castle Road, is intrigued by my diary.

"Stick that it your book!" he announces at the end of our conversations.

It makes me laugh, and oddly, always leads to an immediate compulsion to do just that. Although, if I did, I might end up writing about the Land Lord so often it would become more his diary than mine. And what could be stranger than ghost-writing someone else's diary?

The Land Lord has an antique typewriter in his office that I am utterly in love with. Although I don't need more objects, I am envious for a moment. The typewriter is my symbol for a writer, my grail. It was the first machine on which I wrote as a child, and the place I first conceived that I could do this for a living, for the rest of my life.

Perhaps I will steal it when he's not looking. Or break in under the cover of darkness like a commando. Although as I write this I appreciate that it may not be the wisest plan to post that intention on the Interpipe. Or maybe it's a double bluff........

I would also like a t-shirt with that as the main slogan - Stick that in your book!

I think it could catch on.

Karen Pommeroy: Are you saying that the death of one species is less tragic than another?

Donnie: Of course. The rabbit's not like us. It has no... (keen look at something in the mirror), it has no history books, no photographs, no knowledge of sorrow or regret... I mean, I'm sorry, Miss Pommeroy, don't get me wrong; y'know, I like rabbits and all. They're cute and they're horny. And if you're cute and you're horny, then you're probably happy, in that you don't know who you are and why you're even alive. And you just wanna' have sex, as many times as possible, before you die... I mean, I just don't see the point in crying over a dead rabbit! Y'know, who... who never even feared death to begin with.

Donnie Darko (2001)

What we are looking for is what is looking. St Francis of Assisi

Portsmouth City Dreaming - flowers near the Bandstand

A big welcome home to The Chief, who has been sorely missed over the last week during his holiday in Turkey. I met with him this afternoon for coffee and the man has a tan that is actually illegal. Not that I'm envious. I doubt it would suit me, and besides, I was recently told that I must be descended from Vikings, and that's good enough for me.

Every time I sit before this screen to write lately, the first sentence that comes into my mind is usually something like - Where do I start? It's becoming ever more clear that it is almost impossible for me to post at weekends at the moment: a current combination of summer sun, lots of great people that I want to spend time with and most recently, the emergence of a Gemini birthday every few days!

This weekend was no exception on any of these fronts. Until today, I thought that nothing could top the laughter, conversation and positivity of the last few days (I'm deliberately paying no attention to the crazy hangovers), until I saw a film today called What the Bleep Do We Know?

Unsurprisingly, I was led to this film by the Peace Cafe and it's ever interesting owner, who was kind enough to lend it to me. I'd mentioned that I planned to spend the day working and as James handed me the film, he hesitated.

"Maybe don't watch it before you work though," he warned me, "You might not be able to concentrate."

So of course, I watched it.

This movie was highly controversial when it came out, and a brief search on the internet tells me it continues to be, with some or many of the film's scientific evidence and experts being raised for criticism. If you're interested, you can read a great article about this on Wikipedia.

But there's no doubt that the film raises some amazing questions about state of mind, consciousness, 'hard sciences' and personal power. I found the film exceptionally unlifting, thought-provoking, and in lots of ways, I believe many of it's central points could actually have an enormously beneficial effect on a lot of people. I don't know enough about quantum physics to test any of the science in this film, and I'm never likely too, but I do know that the film has stayed with me for the whole of today, and I imagine it will stay with me for a while longer. Watch it, and tell me what you think!

I went for a soul-searching walk along the beach this afternoon to think about some of the points raised in the film. Three complete strangers (and a small dog) spoke to me in less than an hour, including a traffic warden that I was watching from my balcony this morning, who complimented me on my smile.

"Hey!" he called from a side street, "You look very happy with yourself! More people should try that!"

As he spoke, I realised that I had been walking along with a beatific grin on my face, which was all the evidence that I needed. Any film that can do this to you after one viewing has to be worth watching.

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity...and I'm not sure about the universe.
- Albert Einstein

Love is the difficult realization that something other than oneself is real. Iris Murdoch

View from The Cottage, Mull, March 2007

"The shoemaker on earth that had the soul of a poet in him won't have to make shoes here." Mark Twain, from Extract From Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven

Last night, I had dinner with Kit Kat and the magical Pixie~Sue (whose partner has now been nicknamed Dixie in honour of her new found virtual fame). We ate fajitas, drank wine and put our lives to rights from the safety of the Heights. We talked a lot about the future, and about our plans (if you want to make god laugh...), and as ever, the company and conversation - ever softly spiritual - left my head reeling today with possibilities.

This afternoon, working in the Peace Cafe, I remembered something Kat posted to me on the blog after my uncharacteristically long absence last month:

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection. (Buddha (563-483 BC)

I thought about how many offers I make to assist the creative work of others, how often I have bowed to the needs or desires of others whilst sacrificing my own duty to myself, and I thought about my past loves - how I got there, what I gave, what I lost. Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that I should limit what I give out to the world, but I think that the spirit in which I give is increasingly important. The three of us talked last night about the significance of honouring yourself, and that until you do so, your attempts to honour others - whilst of enormous benefit - can often be spiritually false.

For example, last night we talked about the act of apologising. We all confessed to being frequent apologisers, and how sometimes, apology acts as a way of accepting blame that isn't yours and can be an attempt to pacify others.

"I apologise all the time," said Pixie Sue.

"Me too!" announced Kit Kat, "In supermarkets, people bump into me and I apologise."

I confessed I was the same, "Sorry! Sorry you bumped into me! Sorry I exist, sorry if my presence on the planet is disturbing anyone! Sorry!"

We all laughed. I told the other two, "The only way I've ever been able to stop myself from apologising all the time for my very existence is to think of the apology as a request for verification from other people. That way when I apologise for something stupid, I hear it in my mind first as, 'Please will you make me feel better about myself?' and that usually stops me saying it when I don't need to."

We tried this for the rest of the night and there was a lot less apologising.

It strikes me that in many ways, much of my life, my interactions and particularly my loves, are like this. I am so busy requesting verification for myself in one way or another that I quickly lose my ability to see where I really am, and to construct an idea of what I really want. With my current focus on self-acceptance, I am certain that, as ever, the only way to change the world for the better, or to help, amuse or love others, is if I'm coming from a place that is holistically self-embracing (after all, everyone needs to embrace themselves once in a while. Not too much though, or you'll go blind).

This has been, even in its early days, a strange summer for me, so far. Beauty and pain have been dancing through my spirit in an offbeat, oddball tango, tripping together memories of the past and experiences of the present, to make a gossamer trail of emotion that wings behind them through my days. Perhaps life is just like this.

Today, the sun is shining, I'm half in love with lemongrass tea, people I meet seem filled with beauty, goodness and creativity. My mojo has returned and all is tight and right with the world.

And the acid is starting to kick in. Clearly.

The sound of a whisper

Firstly, I’ve just looked on the comments and found one from the lovely Karen and Ian, from the Peace Café! It’s so lovely to see you guys here in cyberspace and can’t wait to catch up again. Karen, can I also say that the memory of you reciting poetry to me in Welsh will undoubtedly remain one of my favourite and most enduring memories! It was great to meet you guys too and well done for tracking me down – the Peace Café really is magic!!

I’ve had a couple of down days since the fabulous weekend of birthday plenty. Admittedly, some of this was pure hangover – or as Rodders put it, “praying to the ceramic god.” But the last couple of days in particular felt like a blue funk after a sunshine haze. Then last night, I think I worked it out, with the help of a three-hour documentary, some Cistercian monks and the difference between discipline and practice.

Last night, I went to the No 6 Cinema, one of our city’s still under-discovered cultural gems - so please make an effort to frequent it, soon and often – with Kate to see the Phillip Groning documentary, Into Great Silence. We were lucky enough to bump into Dean, a friend of the ever-loved Peace Café, in the queue. With a little trepidation, and unsure what exactly to expect from three hours of silence in the cinema, the three of us headed in.

On the website, Groning also writes that it was his intention to shoot a documentary that examined: “The physical world and the turning away from that world.” He uses shots of the Grande Chartreuse Monastery and its lands, weather, fields, and machinery, but also shows extensive scenes of prayer, chanting, services and the faces of the monks themselves. It’s the first film of its kind. As the website states, there is, “No music except the chants in the monastery, no interviews, no commentaries, no extra material.” Groning waited 16 years to make this documentary, the time it took for the Carthusian Monks to prepare to be filmed. The result is a stunning meditation of a film that makes the viewer for once as aware of themselves as they are of what’s happening on screen. The silence – or rather, the human silence; there is sound, but rarely voice – is at times overwhelming, uncomfortable, painful, but made us sharply aware of each image, sound and movement that took place on screen.

But the real power and fascination of the film for me centred on the dedication of the monks themselves, ranging from the very young to the very old, to lives of almost complete austerity and discipline. It reminded me of something I recently read on Peter Clothier’s website, concerning the difference between ‘practice’ and ‘discipline.’

“People sometimes ask me where I get "the discipline" to sit down at the computer and punch out something every single day. Well, almost.

It's just that I don't call it "discipline". I call it "practice".

Practice is not hard. It means quite simply showing up every day and sitting down. It means getting in touch with that part of myself that wants--and needs--to write, and listening quietly for what it has to say.”

When I read this, I realised what the source of my recent down days might be.

I stopped practicing.

Caught up in the joys and excitements that have followed my decision to self accept, open up and say yes more a few weeks ago, over the past week, I’ve been enjoying myself so much that I forgot to keep doing these things. I’m hoping this realization, along with a much-awaited dinner with the Psychic Peace Pixie tonight may well spur me back on track.

And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.

And after the fire the sound of a whisper.

The One with All the Birthdays...

I find a wonderful blog, called simply Jenova's blog, on one of my many hunts for other things over the weekend. One of the first posts that I look at is titled Animanity and introduces an amazing clip from YouTube.

It's long, about 7 minutes, but I'm asking you to have a look. It's important. And amazing.



Whew. What a weekend. A lot of babies are clearly born in June, because the world and his mistress seemed to be celebrating birthdays this weekend. I hit a major coup of celebrating two birthdays on Saturday (other people's, not my own - I'm so obviously not a Gemini): the beautiful Rodders from the Ministry (aka She of the Glamorous Nails), who was celebrating with her beautiful people (including the Already Missed Lyds, who has just left the Ministry) and the lovely James of the Peace Cafe, who hit the big 30 this weekend.

Needless to say, I spent most of yesterday staring the Death of Hangovers squarely in the face, and, at one point, passed a pretty half hour gazing at my own reflection in the toilet bowl. Ahem. If there hadn't have been a damn good reason (two, in fact) for being so ridiculously drunk, I'd be booking myself into the Priory.

So, today's blog is dedicated to the many Geminis who have already or will celebrate their birthday this month: Dad, my grandfather, James, Rodders, Scott and Dawn.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Not just a dream of clouds

Hope you're having a Doris Day!

From 'Love Letter (Clouds)' by Sarah Manguso
For B. H.

I didn’t fall in love. I fell through it:

Came out the other side moments later, hands full of matter, waking up from the dream of a bullet tearing through the middle of my body.

I no longer understand anything for longer than a long moment, or the time it takes to receive the shot.

This kind of gravity is like falling through a cloud, forgetting it all, and then being told about it later. On the day you fell through a cloud . . .

It must be true. If it were not, then when did these strands of silver netting attach to my hair?

The problem was finding that you were real and not just a dream of clouds.

Thanks to Kerrie for the invitation to the South East feminist group, I'm definitely planning to join and I'll be in touch. I also had a lovely email from Stephen of the Salford Star this week checking that I'd received some back issues he kindly sent me last month, which I've been gradually winging my way through with a view to writing an article all about the Star and my own ambitions to start something similar in Portsmouth.

In fact, my main problem at the moment is that I have a thousand ideas for things to do, but I'm not so hot at organizing my time well enough to do many of them. My short story is still in the making, my novel for young people the same, and I have so many 'backburner' projects on the go, my metaphorical literary oventop is positively overflowing. Still, it must be better to have too many ideas than too few, but I have decided on a tactic to improve my concentration and focus.

So, it's back to meditation I go, followed by several sessions with my diary and timeplanner.

It's been a beautiful sunny day and despite an early stage lurgy (I've been around too many people with colds this week not to catch the bloody thing) threatening to descend, I've managed to enjoy every minute (once I managed to rouse myself from my coma like state this morning) of it. I met my neighbour, Alan, for coffee this afternoon, to bring him up to speed with a residents meeting that was held in my flat on Sunday.

The meeting was surprisingly well attended by almost everyone from the Heights (and the small number that couldn't were working). I know most of my Heights-mates anyway, but it was a great afternoon, and at the end of it we all decided to meet up again, but next time with wine rather than tea. I've set up a provisional date for a social gathering next Saturday night and I'm hoping everyone can make it.

As ever, it's been important ot me to remember that there is a silver lining to the recent news that the building is to be taken over by someone else and the chance to socialize with all of the Heights community at once (we are all accustommed to meeting up with each other in smaller groups and cliques) has definitely been one of them. Another one has been the chance to get to know each of the residents here better, and it's interesting to discover that so many of us have used our time here at the Heights to pursue our creative endeavours.

Alan (my next door neighbour - we've just discovered that our connecting fire door allows for notes to be passed between us) invited me into his flat when I popped round later to drop off his invitation. His flat is identical in shape and size to mine, but his flat reflects the individual facets of his personality just as mine does. However, my flat is a warning to visitors that you are entering the territory of someone with a chaotic mind, whereas Alan's flat feels like walking into the most delicious, light-filled houseboat. Alan is a former sailing man, and still sails boats around the dockyard in summer. He's also an artist and a sculptor, whose flat is lined with pieces of his own work, which are stunning. In fact, I may ask him if I can photograph some of them and post them here for you. They're all for sale, too, so if you're looking for a piece of nautical sculpture, Alan's your man.

Most impressive to me, however, was a model that Alan showed me of a huge public art sculpture that he liased with the Portsmouth City Council on many years ago. It would have been made using an old submarine from the scrapyard at Tipner and utilised the shell of the submarine and some amazing water-based pieces, to create what Alan described as a 'nautical cathedral.' The original idea was that people would be able to move through the structure in the same way they would a building. Unfortunately the project with PCC fell through, and the sculpture remains only a model. But you never know....

What continues to be impressed on my mind at the moment is the power of embracing events to spark unforeseen changes in my life. At the moment, meeting new people seems to be the order of the day, and encountering new experiences, opportunities and challenges never seems far behind. For the moment though, I need to harness my newfound enthusiasm into a better balanced Council work/my work equation so that I can better manage the changes ahead, particularly financially.

The wonderful Clarky though, sent me a wonderful exercise this week that I'm hoping will help. It's too long to post here, but post me a comment if you're interested and I'll forward it to you stat.