'One' begins with a portent, the compulsive stomp of a dance pulse. Throbbing, pushy and as musically directed at you as the lyrics that now unfold are - 'I've come to know the taste of dirt, The rejection upon my tongue' These words, though eliptical, not about any specific incident, nonetheless elicit a strong emotional response. Clearly defiant in tone, and a declaration of a human presence unbowed and unfolding into a new strength.
An obvious association here is the death of George Floyd. But a broader point is about anyone who for whatever reason - race or gender or sexual orientation is being kept down, kept periferal, kept oppressed - 'Held Down, Head Down' its compelling listening.
ANOHNI's vocals have a strength and defiant power not really heard from her before. She really means this, this is her feelings and her experience. Hercules & Love Affair here are a musical force and a gathering rhythm, accessible but edgy, that also breaks new ground for them. 'One' comes from their new album In Amber which is an altogether different beast to what either of them has produced before. ( review coming soon )
I've come to know the taste of dirt The rejection upon my tongue Oh, I know my coat is black I've been a threat since I was young
Held down, head down Held down, head down Held down, head down Held down, head down
Turning, twisting of words Tracing my essence towards the Sun Magic in my infancy I was perfect, I was one
Held down, head down Held down, head down Held down, head down Held down, head down
I break you with my nature Mouth and volcano, one My arms screaming with branches Womb of ocean and all Feeding upon my own flesh Eyes firе with what I've won Swallow you in tsunami Wild forces overrun
I kiss thе gift, I kiss the stone And love the damage that's been done A child's blood was drawn from me My river drools communion
Held down, head down Held down, head down Held down, head down Held down, head down
My body crushes yours now I'm burning with the Sun Swallow you in tsunami Wild forces overrun Rise up girl, rise up Speak your truth speak your truth Fear none and walk without shame Remember, no more dying
Most of the time knitting projects arise from meeting a need. Sometimes they also come from being presented with an irresistible impulse. At a recent craft fair I encountered a stall selling absolutely massive hanks of aran style wool for a tenner a hank. After wandering around for a bit simply to think what on earth I could do with it. I returned and bought a mega amount of mottled charcoal grey wool. My mind roughly set on knitting myself a meditation blanket. Leaving with the wool hank slung over my shoulder like a cowboy's lasso.
Rituals, everyday or otherwise, are invariably born of a mixture of these informal impulses. aspirations, desires, leaps of faith you might call them, and the finding of a recognisable formal structure to hang them upon. Knitting is no different. I had the impulse - bought this hank of wool - then the aspiration - to knit a meditation blanket. There then followed a period of deciding what form that would take, what would be the structure of its pattern, what size would it need to be, and did I have enough wool and patience for this likely long running ritual of knitting a blanket
The essence of any knitting ritual is the turning of a long string of wool into a wearable fabric. But first my large wool hank needed to be in the more manageable form of balls of wool. In my childhood I have memories of sitting by the fire, my Grandma sat in a chair winding wool. Whilst I sat on the floor with a small hank of wool stretched between my tiny hands, doing a gently rocking motion in time with her speed of winding. This time it was on a whole different scale. Hubby and I took turns at being the wool winder or the standing human, rocking in a wobbly side to side motion. Its really a test of how in tune and synchronous you can be, keeping time, and not getting ahead of each other. Maintaining mindfulness of them, as well as oneself. Not getting peeved with one another for 'not doing it right'.
On such a large project, the sheer size and weeks of effort involved in executing it has to be considered. The pattern you chose needs to be relatively simple, appropriate, not too elaborate, or yarn hungry. Had I not bought this huge amount of wool for a tenner, I would not be attempting knitting a meditation blanket in the region of 40 x 60 inches. It would be frighteningly expensive in this quality of wool. The pattern I chose is called Cashew, I know not why. But it is the definitive simple four row pattern
Row One - Knit across the entire row
Row Two - K 5, P an infinitesimal number of times, finishing with K5
Row Three - Knit across the entire row
Row Four - K5, P1, *K2,P1, an infinitesimal number of times, finishing with K5.
Repeat - again and again and again and again and again and again......
What comes out of the variation in stitch and stitch tension of just the fourth row of this pattern, is to my mind a minor miracle. A lovely waffle like, basket effect.
Repetition is the staple ingredient of many rituals, whether that be in the form of incantation or mantra, or the structure of a knitting pattern. Keeping engaged, mindful and present with whatever you are doing or saying, is vital. The moment the minds attention drifts of, you lose track of where you are, you go into automatic, you drop a stitch or do the entire row in the wrong pattern sequence and have to pull the row back. Maintaining presence in the moment is crucial. When its going well, and there is no emotional resistance dragging its feet behind you, knitting can become this one synchronous flow of mind, hands, needles and heart. This moves any ritual beyond something that you are consciously driving. In my experience this happens only on very rare occasions.
Most of the time knitting is a lot of conscious effort. It gets tedious or boring. And it gets so for very obvious reasons. You've become this person, single-mindedly focused on a mission, to complete so many rows or inches of pattern or the whole damn thing, ASAP. This leads to impatience arising, the repetition becomes perceived as mind numbingly endless, you want the fix of having achieved something, to reward yourself for all this effort. You want it all over and done with and to move on to a newer, fresher more interesting project. So you can get your life back.
Rituals, whether meditation or knitting, can become just another task we are doing in a very heavily scheduled list of task driven days. And maintaining regular and meaningful connection with what you are doing, your longer term vision for it, cannot be emphasised enough. There is no urgency, only in your mind. You've been living without this hand knitted meditation blanket all your life, so give it, and yourself, space to breath in. Take a step back and do the opposite of being goal driven. Come back to doing knitting in small regular but containable amounts of time and effort. Come back to the quality of what you are doing, not the quantity. Everyday Rituals all too easily become elaborated, with lots of extraneous personal wants and needs hanging off them like limpets.
I understand all too well myself the scurge that is wanting a sense of completion. But think of it more like watching a very long but beautiful film by Tarkovsky, you have to just go with its open ended sense of time and the unfolding journey he's set you out upon. Death will happen all too soon, but one never finds oneself chasing it as a destination. In fact its the opposite. Our activities, tasks and rituals, our sense of achievement, completion and goals reached are driven by an often unconscious impulse to hurry and get them done lest we die before completing them. As if completion was a way of thwarting death.
A completed task list is what we'll leave behind, no one else will care one jot about. No one will say at your funeral he left no task list uncompleted. Its who you were, not what you did or achieved that will matter. If anything we do matters at all.
Everyday rituals are often better carried out with an emptiness of purpose, utility or meaning. The suchness of this ritual moment, the knittingness of just knitting, this is worth learning to calmly abide with.
Ever desire less, one can see the mystery Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations These two spring from the same source but differ in name; this appears as darkness. Darkness within darkness. The gate to all mystery.
Taken from the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu Translated by Gia-Fu Feng, Publisher Wildwood House, 1974
"The name that can be named is not the eternal name The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. The named is the mother of ten thousand things."
Taken from the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu Translated by Gia-Fu Feng, Publisher Wildwood House, 1974
I owe my husband for this. Who scrolls through endless amounts of crap on his phone in the early hours searching for anything funny. Think of it as a substitute for having breakfast. Nourishment for the soul, particularly when he comes up with gems like this.
Meg Stalter is an American comedian and actor. This video is deeply impressive. She is some sort of genius. Its all in the awkward reading and misreading of a prompt script off camera. The self conscious fiddling with her pig tail. The gauche, naive to camera stuff you'd expect from an amateur attempting a promotional video. They're just trying to cash in on 'the gays' and sell more butter and candles, after all. No one has done this type of thing quite this well since Brett Domino. - Turn it off Willard.
Ah, yes, one forgets quite how addictively good Drew Droege's arty know it all Chloe can be. Not even remotely based on Chloe Sevingy. The character over the years has developed a whole load of affectations, like the hunched posture, that have almost become her catch phrases, the affected mispronunciation of words - it has recently come to my attention that I love - ToAst - the name dropping of people and brands that only those in the know would know who the hell they are - the bizarre composite lists of things which are now 'IN'. If you think he makes them all up, think again.
Can you devour just one episode? Don't be a fool, gorge on them.
Eloise ( Thomasin McKensie) is an aspiring fashion designer obsessed with the sixties and reliving the adventure of her mother's youth. She travels from her rural home to the vibrant city of London. Unused to an urban lifestyle, its cruelty and cynicism, she feels lost and a fish out of water. Leaving her shared dormitory room, she finds herself a private rented attic room in a house in Soho, owned by the elderly and crotchety Miss Collins (Diana Rigg)
Yet when she falls asleep in her new room, Eloise finds herself literally slipping back in time, transported to the world of sixties swinging London. Inhabiting the body and life experience of a would be singer Sandie. ( Anya Taylor-Joy ) Initially these night time adventures feed into her fashion creativity, emerging as reinterpreted versions of Sandie's fabulous cloths. But each night the experience begins turning more and more disturbing as Sandie's life goes seriously, dangerously off the rails. Eloise, begins to fear for Sandie's life, and that Eloise herself will lose her sanity, like her mother did. Meanwhile the attic room becomes increasingly crowded with vengeful male ghosts from the past emerging from its walls.
Edgar Wright's psychological horror story, fizzes with all the creative tension it can muster, between having fun and leaning it in to fearfulness. Evocative music, period details, and inventive set pieces, capture the confident ebullience, the snappy style, the seedy behaviour and mores of this classic, but very different era. Featuring cameos by acting stars from that era such as Diana Rigg's last film appearance, Rita Tushingham and Terence Stamp. It has all of Wright's usual sharply timed edits to music beats, his feel for the zeitgeist of this era's pop culture, with talismanic nods and knowing references. As we effortlessly slip from our own era back to this iconic period in British culture. An absorbing, cleverly executed homage, whilst also being a horror story, and a pointedly moral tale with a human heart. One that finishes with a truly surprising twist to the tale. Loved it.
Sages set up symbols as a means to point to traces; Understand outside of symbols, and you get to the mystical. You must find the intent of adepts outside words; Originally the absolute has no sphere. To forget the symbol once you get the idea is still nothing special; Forgetting even the idea is the ultimate rule.
13th Century Taoist Master
taken from The Book of Balance & Harmony Translated by Thomas Cleary, Published by Rider, 1989.
Spiritual knowledge comes in two forms according to Taoism, the 'conscious' and the 'real'. What is believed to be true and what is actually true. Buddhism would couch this as relative truth and absolute truth. In recently re-reading The Book of Balance & Harmony I came across a paragraph I found intriguing. So here I'm going to lightly rummage around in it looking for golden nuggets.
Sages set up symbols as a means to point to traces
What are these symbols,? In a very broad sense they are any spiritual teachings, whether they be a meditation, an ethical practice, study text, ritual or ritual implements, concepts, beliefs or visualisations. These are all symbols that point at the traces. These traces being the elementary fragments of what is 'real' in our current 'conscious' experience, or are dormant within that 'conscious' experience, or are a 'skillful means' to take you to a place of receptivity to 'real' perceptions. Symbols and signs are meant to function as intermediaries between our conditioned perspective, riddled as it is with misperceptions, and pure unconditioned reality. They cross the gap between these. They are the raft to take you to the farther shore. After which symbols will no longer be of practical use.
Understand outside of symbols, and you get to the mystical.
When I read through a Taoist text or something by Dogen from The Shobogenzo, I cannot grasp it fully. Because its frequently written with the deliberate intent to misdirect or block you from deriving any intellectual certainty or satisfaction from it. Therefore I find myself oscillating between my conscious understanding and a feeling for something merely being hinted, implied or intuited in the imagery or the teaching. Whatever is being unconsciously communicated bypasses rational or intellectual tendencies. It speaks from the heart of the matter to the heart of our matter. My response often being an elated, inspired or fizzily intoxicated sense of understanding, that I can never quite put into words.
Symbols or signs, are what Taoism refers to as 'the mysterious pass' they can take you into the vicinity of a mystical perspective, of an insightful, more enlightened state. After any fleeting moment you are there, the heart races and the sense of knowing or perceiving something better, lingers vaguely. Eluding the clarity the conscious mind wants and grasps for. This is what I take to be 'understanding outside of symbols'. The longer you abide there, steering clear of analysing it, the stronger I imagine that felt impression would become.
You must find the intent of adepts outside words;
Zen talks about ' a special transmission outside of scripture' that 'does not stand upon words'. This is similar to what 'understanding outside of symbols' is referring to. But 'understanding' is not a given outcome, not contingent upon doing specific practises, rituals or studies. These simply fertilize the soil, making it suitable for seeds of insight to germinate in. Otherwise anyone could mechanically go through the motions of practicing them, and open sesame - Insight. They are not a car manual. The role of our intent as the driver is crucial.
It says ' find the intent of adepts'. So its not about copying in exact detail what past sages have done, but sourcing the spirit of their intent, will and volition within yourself. At some point this has to become 'real' by locating a depth of response in oneself, an intuitive feeling, that follows an undeliberated path. Little can be sourced just through close examination of the grammer and syntax of words alone. Spiritual paths in the end are experiential and intuitive. As likely to be found in the aesthetics of tone and sound, a gutteral utterance, the silence that echoes and ripples through a valley. Encased in voids and empty spaces. Its in the expression of lichen growing upon stone. Meaning lives in the sheer poetry of it all.
Originally the absolute has no sphere.
The absolute, well its a word with a dictionary definition. Its not really describing an actual experience, but an abstract principle. Absolute doesn't actually exist. It is in the realm of the 'real' beyond our 'conscious' understanding. We may have given it a name and a rough and ready conceptual framework, a sphere. But it isn't knowable through concrete analysis. Originally the 'real', the absolute, didn't have this sphere of understanding within which it is now couched and surrounded. It simply was. Something the Zen term 'suchness' is suggestive of. 'Suchness' expresses the chimeric nature of 'the real'.
To forget the symbol once you get the idea is still nothing special;
There comes a time then to start abandoning words and symbols, all conceptual frameworks, even descriptions of things beyond 'conscious' and 'real' understanding. Abandoning all these 'rafts' prematurely would be foolhardy idealism. You cannot speed date your way through 'the mysterious pass'. Any idea we may hold of special mystical states of attainment, needs to be left behind too. All the conceptual and imaginative things that once motivated our practice need gently to be dropped and forgotten. Its like arriving in a culture that is entirely different from our own. Imagine they don't even speak or understand English!
Forgetting even the idea is the ultimate rule
Any idea, concept or imaginative metaphor will form some sort of expectation, implied or simply stimulated by its very existence. From here on, none of these things will be of any help. Spiritual progress, so it appears is composed of a series of ever more refined levels of forgetting. Forgetting about things, forgetting about symbols, forgetting about the self, forgetting about notions of the absolute. Nothing will be how we ever imagined it to be. So let it all go, forget everything you might have once been told or believed was true. What you were told works at the beginning, will be useless in the middle, what seemed helpful in the middle is redundant by the end. Here Buddhist ideas of levels of sunyata inform what you perceive - eventually even emptiness forgets itself. As The Book if Balance & Harmony states in its concluding sentence:-
'Turn over the legs of nothingness, smash cosmic space to smithereens, and only then will you be done.'
'Who can wait quietly while the mud settles? Who can remain still until the moment of action? Observers of the Tao do not seek fulfillment, Not seeking fulfillment, They are not swayed by desire for change.'
Taken from Lao Tzu - Tao Te Ching Translation by Gia-Fu Feng, Published by Wildwood House, 1973.
Before Soft Cell called it a day ( the first time ) and Marc Almond went off to explore Brel, duende and flamenco stylings. One of their last hurrahs was a single Soul Inside. It was more of an EP really as it has a number of tracks on it. Two in particular have become favourites.
The first is a late sixties classic Bond theme song written by John Barry and Leslie Bricusse. The latter a lyricist who wrote songs for Broadway, Hollywood and two Bond songs, this and Goldfinger. Here Almond really relishes the song, as it gives his vocal prowess something to get its teeth into. What he brings to it is a sense for the pathos in the song. Highlighting the desperation and pain in its lyrical subject matter of failed dreams, as he repeatedly sings - make one dream come true. Dave Ball's electronic rearrangement maintains a lot of Barry's grandness and sweep but there is an added aspect of melancholy, a romantic brokenness here. Its written in the lyrics, but easily overlooked in John Barry's original heroically orchestrated theme.
'You only live twice, or so it seems, one life for yourself and one for your dreams. You drift through the years and life seems tame when one dream appears and love is its name. And love is a stranger who'll beckon you on, don't think of the danger or the stranger is gone. This dream is for you so pay the price, make one dream come true, make one dream come true, You only live twice'
The second song is one Almond and Ball composed. It feels like a much sadder accompaniment to You Only Live Twice, as its about someone who can only dream. The song called Her Imagination, at first appears to be your archetypal Almond song about an isolated person society has rejected. A woman forced to live on the seedier fringes of society, because there is the only place where she can be who she wants to be. Here she can dream the life she wants. In the song, her imagination lives in a more Dickensian, almost gothic lifestyle, with a sense of a past tragedy living on, like Miss Haversham. Everyone in her neighborhood knows what her secret is, but you live and let live don't you?
'She slips in and out of her dull imagination, that floats around the twilight of her tomb, clutching her little treasures, that represent a happy moment, displayed with sad affection in her room.'
'Now its those futile bitter feelings, that clutch you in the middle, you were never really given a chance. And the spite that jabs your mind, hides a heart that's really women kind, and the pulse that races with, each over inquisitive glance.'
The feelings present are placed within a bleakly atmospheric style, with a strong sense for her loneliness and predicament. You have to remember that this is 1984, where being gay might be legal, yet was still barely acceptable. Anything else on the gender - sexual orientation spectrum hardly registered at all. Soft Cell, were unique at that time for being willing to write songs about outsiders, living within our society but not part of it. People few wanted then to acknowledge had any right to exist at all.
'Candle light, candle bright, wont you light my way tonight.'
The first Venom film was no great genre shift in the superhero pantheon. Altogether underwhelming. No chemistry on screen. So what we have here with Let There Be Carnage, directed by Andy Serkis, is an attempt to reboot it by sharpening up the script. Developing the relationship between Eddie Brock ( Tom Hardy ) and the vicious alien Venom that inhabits him, into a variety double act of quick fire repartee. Along the lines of a bitchy bro-mance comedy. There is wit on show, but it requires better timing and pointing. But this film is too overeager to keep up it's hyper speed, to leave space for a punchline to land fully. Move on, there are heads to be eaten.
Its essentially a similar story line to the first movie only with bigger flashier set piece confrontations with snappier dialogue. As I said it moves along at a pace, it never really sags, which is good because this is the sort of film that shouldn't overstay its welcome. I have seen so many CGI animated fight scenes I am now as stone towards them. No tension or peril, they happen, they do not amaze, they overstimulate your visual senses. Put your mind to sleep, and still your heartbeat. Consequently never grabbing you emotionally, so devoid of feeling and meaning are they.
Hubby and I kept saying 'this is very silly' as if it would at some point cease being so, and reveal an as yet hidden but profound truth that was underlying its frothy insubstantiality. Much as I love seeing Hardy, an actor capable of great sensitivity and intelligent gravitas, playing a dumb ass waster built like a brickie, it really doesn't work. Eddie Brock would make more sense if he were some pigeon chested dweeb, not a very very handsome hunk who you'd forgive anything to wed. Is his ex- girlfriend blind or something?
Woody Harrelson, an actor not afraid to chew up the scenery in the exact same way he has done in every single film he's ever in, does his thing here. You know, a menacing creepier version of Shaggy from Scoobie Doo. You can't help but feel everyone is wasting their time, us included, by entertaining this dreck. But there is obviously money to be had in an empty headed film franchise, that has not even the irregular murmour of a beating heart. No matter how much they camp it up. Its just very very very stupid. It happens. Then its over. Cue Credits.
The Empire runs on Spice, it powers its industry, fuels its space exploration and funds its colonisation. That the Emperor has given the contract to run the planet Arrakis, the only place that spice can be found, to the House of Atreides, is then a very big deal. This entails the House of Harkonnan losing their lucrative contract, which does not go down well. Soon the House of Atreides is betrayed by one of its own, Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Issacs) is murdered, and the House of Harkonnan takes back by force control of the spice planet. Everyone left wondering if this was part of a convoluted plan by the Emperor.
Paul Atreides (Timothy Chalamet) is the deceased Duke's son. His Mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) is member of the Bene Gesserit, the mystical order of female soothsayers, who can make people bow to their will using their voice alone. Told to only have female children, Lady Rebecca has nonetheless had Paul. He already is having visions and premonitions concerning Arrakis and the secretive Femen who live there. His Mother is not alone in suspecting that her son may be the figure, long expected by the Bene Gesserit, of the Kwisatz Haderach.
This film version of Frank Herbert's Dune is the one fans of the books have long been waiting for. Denis Villaneuve, the Director, gets the level of detail required, just right, tending to 'show not tell' you about the complex relationships inherent to the story. Even on a home plasma screen the immense scale of its vision and execution is utterly fabulous. Stunning visual follows stunning visual. The soundtrack by Hans Zimmer is pitched so perfectly, with a similar grand imposing stature to the panoramic beauty of the pictures you are seeing. Performing as though an important character in the storyline. This makes everything enveloped in it additionally impactful and potent.
This is a superb film, and a high point in Sci-Fi movie making, this raises the bar near to art. Already decided the next installment has to be seen on the biggest screen Norfolk can offer.
With the best will in the world I am not as equanimous as either I imagine I am, or would wish I was. I can tell myself till I'm blue in the face that it serves no purpose to get mentally tense over the unpredictability of shop takings. Most days these turn out to be OK or Not OK regardless of the degree of internal fretting I've put myself through. It would be so much better if I could hang loose with it all. But that appears to not yet be happening. I remain on some level beyond my current conscious control, too attached, too self identified with there being a beneficial outcome. The beautiful financial sunset at end of each day.
I can start off with a sense of vaguely awakening dread, a fog bound fear for what this day will bring. Emotionally bracing myself to hold and contain this uncertainty over the next hours. All this exists on a gut level of experience. My practice during the day is to pull my mind away from inflaming this further by layering negative personal thoughts onto the bone of it. I can tell myself its far too early to call the nature of the day. I recollect those days when most of our daily sales happen in the space of an hour mid afternoon. I also need to have a task to focus on, cleaning, merchandising or making, something that brings my attention into the moment more. Something that demonstrates a welcoming creative optimism.
We open at 10am, but it's a rare day when our first sale happens the very moment the shop door is put ajar. It can often be a few hours later before the till springs open for the first time. At that point I breath an inner sigh of relief, ' at least we've taken something' and ' its not going to be a complete disaster'. I appear then to relax into the day, access some equanimity, and be more prepared to let it just unfold. I have still to be aware that my mental attachment can then shift from -' will we take anything today?' - to - 'how much will we take today?' Again having to resist the gravitational pull towards the ideal beneficial future. All this effort of containing and pulling away from unhelpful mental and emotional states, well, this can be tiring.
The underlying emotion, is a disaster filled one, of fear that 'it's all about to go wrong - again'. This sits in the background waiting to pounce the moment a bad day in the shop is confirmed. This familiar personal story I am better at resisting engaging with these days. Its not rational, I know, and I also know rational ways of dealing with it bounce off like heavy rain on an umbrella. Logic or rationality have their uses, but they can be quite harsh commanders, tending towards ignoring, repressing or burying completely when faced with some intransigent emotional response that will not comply.
Even though one poor days takings don't make a disaster in retail. I can teeter on the edge of responding as if they were. There are days which have for whatever reason proved particularly exhausting. As soon as I'm no longer in the shop, and able to relax at home, a wave of despondent feeling can fall upon me. Its as though that fear of 'it all going wrong- again' will find its moment for being consciously experienced no matter what. When my emotional guard is weaker or vanished for a while, it grasps the opportunity to come up for air. That, is what I've been working with lately.
What concerns me now as I re-read this is that this doesn't sound like there's much enjoyment or fun to be had. Whilst I don't think that is entirely the case. If I were being honest I do wonder if I allow myself enough space and time for enjoyment and fun to fully emerge into. Perhaps I do spend far too much time in 'battle mode' even to step out of it briefly. Trying to examine these anxious states, how they arise and vanish in closer detail, can, through giving them greater attention, fall into amplifying, reinforcing and justifying there existence. I do appear to lean existentially towards a view of life as being about averting one catastrophe after another. Recent weeks have been additionally physically challenging with a tricky back flare up to manage too. Given favourable circumstances I can lighten up with the best of them.
Yet I am always on the look out for fresh ideas or approaches, a phrase or practice to encourage the cultivation of a different landscape to inhabit. If the gratefulness/blessing practice helps, its because to be truly grateful you have to be contented, satisfied with whatever you have. Dissatisfaction fuels restlessness and fidgeting. To be constantly on the move, searching for contentment somewhere else, other than right here. And if this feels too painfully familiar that I avert my gaze, its because it describes the action of a good deal of my life. Of moving. Mostly away from sources of disaffection. However habitually externalised and focused, dissatisfaction has roots in a sense of oneself. Not content and satisfied with who you are, or have become, you cannot stay still for long. All your memories appear to show you running off towards a new horizon.
Though currently I'm bringing to mind a Taoist phrase - 'To restore the primal wholeness of the mind, one must know how to remain unmoved and innocent.' There is then something in this state of immovable innocence, that seems entirely fitting. It speaks truth through the mirror. Stay put. Take off your filter. Practice without expectation.
So much mental proliferation and fretting is founded on wishful thinking. A feeling that if we believe something strongly enough it will happen. And if we know exactly what will happen, we can manage the future and be in complete control of it. Its essentially a wrong view of how reality works, but a persistent one nonetheless, because it offers a future with hope in it. The possibility of certainty, is always tempting.
However, to cultivate a state of immovable innocence, of not knowing, seems to be more in line with how things actually are. We cannot know what is just around the corner. A delight, a disaster or an unexpected opportunity. What we believe we know about our past, well that is what we must let go of, be forgetful of. To no longer be always bringing something to mind is to create a space for the state of innocence. A sort of spiritually sourced dementia. A state of not knowing. The absence of any mitigating history, the self justifying stories you tell yourself, the habitual responses, the fixed ways of seeing. To be free of those accretions is to return to a type of innocence I guess.
The Korean teacher Seung Sahn's perennial spiritual injunction was 'only don't know' as any other response would be considered egotistical and hence delusionary. This has associatively brought back to mind Padmasambhava's famous teaching phrase - 'I do not know, I do not have, I do not understand.' Yeh, tell me about it Vajra Guru!
The most practical way I've found of smoothing turbulent emotional states is to be out in nature. Watching the sun rise in the morning, taking a walk in the countryside, or strolling by the sea. All of which I am truly blessed with easy access to here. So that is not really rocket science. Though this isn't 'the cure' for anxiety or insecurity, it applies a healing ointment to the scuffed knee of it.
In the sleepy village of Upper Sheringham, not a lot of note happens. All of which I'm perfectly fine with. That's why I live there in a rented terrace house with my husband. Generally referred to as 'the boys'. Readily taking advantage of the glorious Humphrey Repton designed landscape of Sheringham Park. Always to hand, literally five minutes walk around the corner from our home.
Though it has the look of an 18th century estate village, Upper Sheringham is of a far earlier origin. It used to be a thriving fisherman's village, and before that a Viking hamlet some way in from the coast and hence better sheltered. But over recent decades its lost most of its village accoutrements, the pub, its corner shop. It still has an active church and village hall, though the spectacular vicarage is now a posh hotel. It is really a dormitory village to its sister seaside resort just a mile down the road.
The development of tourism in North Norfolk in the nineteenth century led to the fishing hamlet of Lower Sheringham shedding its prefix. Transforming itself into Sheringham, the much larger prosperous seaside town. In this town, just off the main road, there is a small shopping mall called The Courtyard.
Here is where David and I run Cottonwood Home, our shop. Its small, as are all the units in the mall. The low overheads mean its an excellent starting point for any business. Its certainly been good for us. Though we do wonder if its small size will eventually limit its potential.
We sell handmade homeware and gifts, the majority of which we make ourselves. The rest we buy directly from an ever changing roster of craft makers. Our aim is to buy from Norfolk or East Anglia makers, but if not locally then from the UK. The general style and aesthetic of Cottonwood Home is mid 20th Century modern. Everything we buy from craft makers has, at the very least, to be in sympathy with that.
A tourist town is a strange retail beast. Bustling in the Summer season, semi hibernating the rest of the year. At the beginning of June 2022 we completed our third year since opening. Hurrah! We have done extremely well to thrive, let alone survive, those trio of years, of what have been extremely testing economic circumstances. Not without an ongoing level of concern and stress though. Every shop in Sheringham survives because of the Summer trade, and, if they are open at all, just about cover expenses off season. Despite our optimism that our seasonal pattern might be different, the prevailing on and off season applies to our business too. Though we are always looking for other ways to boost off season sales.
We make a lot of our items whilst in the shop. Lampshades, make up bags, door stops, key rings, hand bound jotters and notebooks, etc. Jnanasalin has made over a thousand face masks during the length of the pandemic, it was one of our most in demand lines. People do enjoy seeing us making the stuff we sell, it more effectively demonstrates our ethos than any mission statement. Also, when it is quiet, and boy can it be quiet, its good to have something else to focus on other than the evident lack of custom that day. When it's an obvious 'beach day' or stormy weather has blown in, its easier to relax with. The harder days are when there appears to be no discernible reason at all for the descent of the deathly hush.
This is an aspect of seaside retailing we hadn't anticipated would be so emotionally challenging. Its understandable that we search for explanations, to wonder what on earth is going on. But such speculations always prove to be a complete waste of effort, you end up in a maze of possibilities still without any coherent pattern emerging. Like Norfolk beach shingle, things shift about all the time. This is part and parcel of the shopping dynamic here. The conditions affecting it are just so complex and multifarious they are really beyond fathoming. If you try and work it out you'll just tie yourself up in ever tighter emotional knots. It is whatever it is.
I part prep items before I take them in to finish off behind the counter in the shop. I make the wooden bases for clocks, mirrors, or sand back upcycled furniture in my petite workshop in our back garden in Upper Sheringham. I call it a workshop, but really its a converted coal shed. It has no natural light and no heating to speak of, so I hardly go in there in the winter months. Then I use a desk in our craft room in the house. Particularly if I'm doing paint or varnish finishes where the atmosphere inherent to a dusty workshop is not helpful. Tools and materials, however, are never where I want them to be. If I'm in the workshop, what I need will be in the craft room, or vice versa. So there is often a lot of, sometimes semi- frustrated, tooing and froing.
Like any job, running a shop or making handcrafted items, it has its joyful and its duller more routine aspects. Its always a pleasure to interact with our customers, who are generally nice sociable folk. Its also enjoyable when someone just gets what our shop is about. I find it artistically satisfying working out how to make and complete a new item. Its a pleasure if this then sells to someone who appreciates and loves it too.
When you are making an item for the umpteenth time, artistic satisfaction has long gone. The creativity lies in the refining of the production process, to improve the overall finish or speed in the making of it. Its also in continuing to make them to the best of your ability. Learning how you stay emotionally engaged with that all too familiar repetitive process, to not disengage or go into autopilot. Yet with the best will in the world even hand making things can have its tedious moments. Most days I do feel lucky to be able to make a living from what I do. Though as with any day job, its important to be able to put it down, walk away, and do something entirely different for a while. Like take a walk in Sheringham Park.
Originally broadcast in 2008, this compilation of Air Afrikaans sketches are amusing, so darkly embedded in their satire as to feel inherently wrong when you view them. They were part of a short lived five episode Beehive sketch series for E4, devised by and featuring female comedians - Alice Lowe, Sarah Kendall, Barunka O 'Shaunessy, Clare Thomson.
The Air Afrikaans sketch stars the superb Alice Lowe and Clare Thomson? as the two passive aggressive air hostesses Jadine & Marla. Whose means of control is -how can you speak or behave like that (pointing )- in front of this disabled child.
If you don't eat beef and don't eat cow, how are you even alive?
So the Queen's Platijube arrives. Such is the inherent traditionalism and conservativism in our village,our Parish Council have bought each household a celebratory Jubilee mug, to be delivered to you whether you want it or not. No one pausing for one second to consider whether this might not be universally welcomed. You will be taking part, you will be celebrating, you will have this mug.
It is one of the downsides of running your own shop, that you are generally there on your own. This leaves you vulnerable prey for any nutter who may just be passing through, to come talk at you. Of late some of the shopkeepers in The Courtyard have had a visitation from 'The Polish Lady'. She comes in looking like she is going to buy the card that's in her hand, but this is just a ruse. Before you know it you are in receipt of the following:-
' 5G you see, it has been specifikally designed to rot your brain so you won't rebel against the take over of the world in the great reset. A race of synthetics will den eradicate us. Dey have already replaced the queen and family. Everyone of dem - all synthetics! And this is just the fust phase of complete takeover. Here, I show you this on my phone, what does this tell you. Uh? I tell you what this tells you, we are all being a controlled and a manipulated, but, we are unaware!. What do you say to this?'
'I don't believe a word of what your saying,'
'So, you would let it happen, be unaware, be ignorant, Uh?
'Yes'
'Do not say you were a not informed, soon it will be too late, my friend. - I am doing dis to help you, I could show you more intricate detail'
'No, please, I've heard enough'
'I have the proofs'
At which point she went into the off licence next door.
Think I made this up? Its near verbatim.
Takings in the shop this May have resembled a sine wave oscillator. Up and down, good day, bad day, very good day, very very bad day, unexpectedly good day, bad day, and so it goes on. All within a very tight band, never excessively high, never quite zero, but occasionally close. Our average spend per day fluctuates between what we'd usually expect and between half and a third of that. No two good days are alike, one day will consist of a handful of really good substantial purchases, another will have a similar total made up of numerous single sub £5 purchases.
Money is certainly tight, but more importantly confidence is weak. An awful lot of window shopping is going on. It all depends on what income bracket/ demographic is predominately in town on any particular day. The working poor or those still with surplus dosh to service their impulses with.
I am currently attempting to establish a new early morning routine. I've tended to have breakfast vegetating in front of an episode of Deep Space Nine or a posting by The History Hit on You Tube. But if I'm not careful I end up bookending my days with successive waves of a passively viewed TV or film.
This is not a great set up. My new routine consists of sitting on a chair in our doorway watching the sun rise, or clouds role by, or the early morning rain. I have my breakfast, I read something spiritually uplifting, currently a Taoist text, and do a simple meditation. If I do this I find I am often in a more evenly balanced state through out the day.
I try not to engage with social media or the news until later in the day. First thing in the morning after waking then rising, I don't know about you, but I'm in too delicate a state mentally and emotionally. Being bombarded with the latest atrocity by Russia in Ukraine, the horror of yet another school shooting in America, or the latest in the on going farce from Boris & The Incompetents.- well, at five in the morning I'm just not ready for that. I'm bound to overreact, get angry or despairing. Because all these events also communicate to you there is very little you can do about them. A feeling of impotency and powerlessness feeds into the start of your morning, and from there can establish the complete ruin of civilisation into your daily routine.
I'm trying not to engage with any of this sort of thing until mid day, or at least until I know I'm ready. By which time I'm usually up and running, better able to process and keep in perspective such events. So far this appears to be helping support a more resilient mood. The length of my sleep has been noticeably much better. It also provides me with a bit of writing time which is always a good thing. Tuning in with where I am currently at.
Finding and doing the truly good things, the ones that sustain, provide satisfaction, pleasure and imaginative stimulation. This I find is forever an ongoing endeavour Running your own business can completely occupy your life, if you let it. Overtime it is bound to encroach. All those other things you love doing get easily curtailed or sidelined by business deadlines and imperatives. Sometimes I just have to re-draw the boundaries and pare down what I expect myself to do or be capable of. The worst Master can be my own neurotic imagination, feeding the desire for approval, fear of disapproval, of what will happen if I do or don't do this. Basically fear of failure.
There are of course the evenings when you are just too tired, or emotionally drained by the day you've had, to take any initiative. That's when we both avidly indulge in watching Antiques Road Trip, and its malformed cousin Celebrity Antiques Road Trip. The best of the latter being the episode with Danny Dyer and his daughter. Where Danny attempts a cockney shmooze, to obtain a large discount on an antique out of an elderly lady proprietor, who doesn't really know who he is. Its diamond, yeah, diamond TV.
A very young little boy, carried into our shop in his Mother's arms, head resting sleepily on her shoulder. She was taking him around the shop, and pointing things out to him, she said :-
The book begins by explaining how Dr Penny Sartori, as a registered nurse, came to be interested in Near Death Experiences. Eventually setting up a research project that this book summarises. Most of the book gives you plenty of examples of NDE's and Out Of Body experiences. How these differ or are the same in other cultures. And how the nature of NDE's, the transformative effect they have on patients, the clear way they are described is so different to the scientific explanations. Which all fall short of the mark.
NDE's are not like hallucinations, nor drug induced, malfunctions of the brain or due to lack of oxygen. They share some characteristics of these explanations, but essentially the results of these do not produce the NDE's experience of deep love, compassion, interconnectedness or feelings of being at peace with one self and the world. NDE's change peoples attitudes to their life and death, not just for the patient but for those who listen to their recounting of the experience.
And yet our health professionals dismiss them still as little more than fantasies. Dr Satori believes this originates from a particular scientific view of what consciousness is. The traditional view is that consciousness is a function of the mind, the brain, and from this view NDE's can only be some form of malfunction. Whereas her view is that NDE's can be more coherently understood if we view consciousness as being managed by our mind and brain, but is not fundamentally of it. That consciousness is something we share and is interconnected with everyone and everything else. The NDE's give a person an experience of this interconnectedness which is why it is so life enhancing and deeply transformative in its effect.
The beginning of the book is very thorough, though I found it a bit heavy going wading through pages and pages of testimony. The final chapters where she draws her provisional conclusions are what really capture the imagination. The parallels that her findings make with spiritual teachings, such as the Tibetan Book of the Dead etc, are illuminating. She also advocates for the need in our death averse culture to write a fresh Book about Death. Because in our rush to save life or prevent suffering, we can ruin the process of death. Sometimes only prolonging the agony of death or make the process of death an ignominiously poorer and painful experience for all involved in it. Preventing the dying person from saying goodbye to their loved ones, because they are too drugged or sedated to the eyeballs.
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