These-days, my blog can be found here: http://adelecosgrove-bray.blogspot.com/



Note to the idiot who keeps posting spam here: don't bother, it's screened from public view so no-one can read it anyway.

Chester, yesterday; arrived at via a 'short cut' which actually took us almost an hour longer. The shops have already plastered themselves in Xmas tat but, despite this thankfully temporary aberration, Chester remains one of my favourite places. Not that I actually bought much: one bottle of artist's varnish, and a copy of Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Angel's Game.

Today the house smells of varnish. Both Portrait of an Anunnaki and Vlad were long overdue a protective layer of artist's varnish. I've already warned Richard to wear a gas mask when he comes home. He should be used to it by now though! Our home always smells of something - linseed oil, turps, spicy cooking or heady incense. Or various combinations of these.

Portrait of an Anunnaki: http://hubpages.com/hub/Portrait-of-John

Vlad: http://hubpages.com/hub/Portrait-of-Vlad-Dracula

The park is in full autumnal colour now, as I found when the dogs took me for a walk. I needed a break from typing up Fabian anyway. When my computer had to be wiped to be freed from a virus a while ago, I lost various files including around ten chapters of Fabian. Fortunately I had printed-out versions, but having to re-type these has reminded me of how laborious the old manual typewriters were, when a writer's only recourse was to re-type an entire MS - no doubt several times in succession as any editing process requires. Just re-typing these few chapters has been tedious enough; I'd much sooner be doing something more creative.

My sister-in-law is now home from hospital. Read about her fight with cancer here: http://2e0dtoeric.livejournal.com/

Photos from Parallel Dimensions can now be seen here:

http://adelecosgrove-bray.blogspot.com/

You'll have to scroll down the webpage a little way to reach them.

Participating on the day were: Carol Falaki, Tim Hulme, Peter Caton, Adrienne Odasso, Colin P Davies and myself - along with Chris the Shaman, who brought various traditional flutes and a digeridoo, plus some percussion instruments. Never let it be said that the event wasn't diverse!

I've already been asked by Wirral Libraries to organise a 3rd Parallel Dimensions for 2011.

Fun and educational, this free Hallowe'en quiz offers fifty questions (with answers in italics) about one of Britain's most popular traditional festivals.

From the easy to the tough, this range of puzzling questions should challenge even the most knowledgeable of Hallowe'en experts. Great for seasonal parties!


http://hubpages.com/hub/Halloween-Quiz

Final line-up for Parallel Dimensions (16th Oct, 2pm, West Kirby Library): Carol Falaki; Adrienne Odasso; Colin P Davies; Tim Hulme; Peter Hurd; Peter Caton; Adele Cosgrove-Bray.

Parallel Dimensions returns for its second year to bring together some of the UK's strongest emerging writers of the Fantasy, Horror and Science-Fiction genres.

Colin P Davies, Adele Cosgrove-Bray, Carol Falaki and Adrienne Odasso will share new fiction with their audience. Last year's lively Q&A session, which followed the readings, proved very popular.

Colin has seen over forty of his short stories published in anthologies and magazines. He is the author of The Bookmole, a novel whose sequel is due out soon. His illustrations have also appeared in international genre magazines.

Adele Cosgrove-Bray's short stories appear in various anthologies published by Hadley Rille Books and Dark Moon Press. Her non-fiction writings have been featured in Prediction Magazine and Your Future. She is currently writing her forth in a series of Dark Fantasy novels set in Wirral and Liverpool.

Carol Falaki's first novel, Birth in Suburbia draws on her professional experience as a midwife. She has also enjoyed publishing success with her poetry.

Almost fifty of Adrienne Odasso's poems have been published in a wide variety of magazines, chapbooks and anthologies. Her six published short stories have also aded to her growing reputation as a talented writer.

This event is part of the third annual Wirral Bookfest. Tickets are already on sale from all Wirral Libraries. Entry costs just £3 and includes refreshments.

Parallel Dimensions takes place on Saturday, October 16th, 2010 at West Kirby Library, Wirral. Doors open at 2pm. Be early to ensure a seat, as last year's event was very well attended.


More About the Authors...

Colin P Davies: http://www.colinpdavies.com/

Adele Cosgrove-Bray: http://www.adelecosgrove-bray.com/

Carol Falaki: http://www.writewords.org.uk/carol_falaki/

Adrienne Odasso: http://ajodasso.livejournal.com/

"Raimon Panikkar, priest and philosopher, died on 26th August at the age of 91, at his home in Tavertet."

More information: http://www.raimon-panikkar.org/index.html

Hmm, well, my official blog is moving house, anyway.

There are a number of reasons for this change of cyber-location.

However, may I invite you to visit my new home: http://adelecosgrove-bray.blogspot.com/

http://www.learn4good.com/games/kids/ufo.htm


'Tis silly, but deliciously so.

This video by Kevin Carlyon offers an introduction to tarot cards and explains how spot a genuine tarot reader as opposed to phone scams.




If you're interested in learning more about how to read tarot cards, then visit my Hubpage here:- http://hubpages.com/hub/Tarot-How-to-Read-the-Minor-Arcana

Conversation between a door-to-door schoolleaver salesman and me:-

Me:  Can I help you?
Salesman:  Don't worry, I'm not a salesman.  This is free.
Me:  Oh?
Salesman:  All it is, is that we're doing roofing....
Me:  Free roofing?
Salesman:  Erm, no.  I mean the quote's free.  Someone will come out to you to give you a free quote.
Me (with evil grin):  Ah, so you're the sales guy to has sell me a sales guy!
Salesman:   Erm, well, erm, yes, I mean no, I mean...
Me (putting the poor kid out of his misery):   No thanks!  But thanks anyway.
Salesman (smiling with relief):  Oh, ok then.

What is your ideal home?

Mine would have ancient forest on three sides, and look out over the ocean. It would also have a large underground section.

I’ve always been fascinated by underground homes, and by grottoes natural or man-made. The attraction is not simply that of the ecologist - some contemporary eco-homes are built partially underground for insulation and to enable the new-build to blend in more readily with its environment. This plays a role for me, but is not the whole story. An aura of secrecy and mystery surround underground homes, and the child in me revels in such atmospheres.

Imagine, then, an entire city underground.

We tend to think of such places as backdrops for Fantasy and Science-Fiction stories, but there are historical precedents. Edinburgh had an underground city; so did Liverpool. Tourists can visit the remains of these places.

Picture an entire community of 20,000 people or more, living together beneath the Earth’s crust. Fresh air is carried down via long vents. Water is conducted by underground streams, wells and cisterns. The temperature stays around a comfortable 63 degrees. Flights of carved stairs and corridors link various storeys together - even otherwise separate underground cities together. This is exactly how Turkish people were living during the Bronze Age through to the Byzantine Age.

Personally, living in close proximity to another 19,999 people sounds close to my idea of hell. But on a smaller - much smaller!!! - scale, the concept holds great appeal.

Discover more about Turkey's amazing ancient underground cities here: http://hubpages.com/hub/Turkeys-Underground-Cities

The mysteries of Ancient Egypt were not part of the conversation over the last two days, but the mysteries of life and death certainly were. While pharaohs built pyramids to ensure the preservation of their physical remains, Mum’s had a ground-floor bathroom and bedroom built to ensure that she will be able to remain in her own house should ill-health strike. She’s 81 and increasingly frail, and worried about any challenges which her future may hold.

Where once was a long dining room, now are the two new rooms. And the builders seem to have made a good job of things. The only unfinished task is that of installing a new bathroom carpet, and that’s already on order.

However, meanwhile during the building process, the entire house had swiftly disappeared under a thick veil of gritty grey dust. Mum has already cleaned up some of it but was nervous of lifting things off high shelves as she has vertigo. So yesterday my sister Evelyn and I shoed her off to her beloved Ladies Club (so she couldn’t keep “helping”!!) while we blitzed the kitchen.

Every single item of kitchenware - plates, cups, casserole dishes, pans, glassware etc. - needed lifting off shelves and out of cupboards, washing, drying - and also the shelf or cupboard they had come from needed cleaning - and then putting back again. We must have gone through a dozen tea-towels and at least half a bottle of detergent. We lifted the sideboard from the garage, where it had been temporarily stored, cleaned that and put that in the bedroom. Then we unwrapped two large boxes containing Mum’s teapot collection, washed and dried all those and displayed them on the top shelf.

And, of course, meanwhile we had three tea breaks, including one with an elderly neighbour, who’s known the family for close on forty years, called in to say hello. And Evelyn and I had time to tell each other our mutual experiences of Dad popping back to visit. (He died three years ago, but we’ve both seen him since. In fact I’ve seen him three times now.)

No dish or ornamental kitchen item is in its original place, and I’m sure Mum would have put some things back differently, but that can’t be helped. When she returned home, her face lit up. She couldn’t stop walking around looking at everything.

Evelyn kindly took us out to dinner at the Toby Carvery at Lane Head, and that was very good - traditional roast dinner with vegetables and a dessert. Evelyn and I were ready for a rest (and a re-fuel) by then anyway!

An interesting comparison between British life forty years ago and now:-

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/1970-vs-2010-40-years-when-we-got-older-richer-and-fatter-2017240.html

The key to change... is to let go of fear. - Rosanne Cash

This entire globe, this star, not being subject to death, and dissolution and annihilation being impossible anywhere in Nature, from time to time renews itself by changing and altering all its parts. There is no absolute up or down, as Aristotle taught; no absolute position in space; but the position of a body is relative to that of other bodies. Everywhere there is incessant relative change in position throughout the universe, and the observer is always at the center of things. - Giordano Bruno

"An academic at the University of Manchester claims to have cracked a mathematical and musical code in the works of Plato. Jay Kennedy, a historian and philosopher of science, described his findings as 'like opening a tomb and discovering new works by Plato.' Plato is revealed to be a Pythagorean who understood the basic structure of the universe to be mathematical, anticipating the scientific revolution of Galileo and Newton by 2,000 years."

Read the rest:- http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/29/plato-mathematical-musical-code

“The more we have the courage to walk new paths the more we must remain rooted in our own tradition, open to others who let us know that we are not alone and permit us to acquire a wider vision of reality.” - Raimon Panikkar.


Bright sunlight filtered through the curly leaves of the contorted hazel tree to cast green-gold dapples over the Grove. I’d been meditating for a while, trying to fend off the hen which kept pecking at the beads on my sandals. And the dog whose nose was edging ever-closer to my cup of tea. Ah, blessed solitude. No wonder the Buddha didn’t have a menagerie with him beneath the Bodhi tree.

Or maybe he did, hmm?

My fluffy and feathered buddies follow me around the house and garden, constant companions who demand to join in with everything. They tread the same ground beneath the same sky as me, but who really knows how a chicken, cat or dog views the world? How do human lives seem to them - magical, perhaps? Godlike? Bewildering? Largely irrelevant so long as regular food and an affectionate cuddle comes their way?

Take the hens, for example; their whole universe consists of this garden. The concepts of motorways, trains, space exploration or Gucci handbags are totally beyond their range of experience. They don’t need to know this stuff to survive. They’re perfectly happy without these things. And if they were to experience them, they’d react by evaluating potential danger then figuring out if they could eat any of it. That’s pretty much all they’re interested in.

Our cats have a broader world view. They come and go as they wish, their territory ranging beyond our legal property. They explore other gardens, know other cats, and in Jazzy’s case we strongly suspect she has a second home as she’ll vanish for days then stroll in, dry despite the rain and not in the least bit hungry. They hunt, they kill, they laze around in the sunshine, they groom their fur until it gleams, they demand attention on their terms. Their idea of reality is very different from that of our hens. Their awareness of possibilities is much greater.

The dogs are different again. Their activities are more controlled, and they certainly are not allowed off our property by themselves. But their experience of the environment is far more advanced than that of the cats. My dogs know various woods, the beach, the sand dunes, several parks and the village. They know their own way home from any number of locations - in theory, at least; I’ve never put this to the test and never will. They know how to have fun and to play, to be cheeky and obstinate, and how to bark like crazy when the postman arrives. They demand cuddles and a big fuss even if I’ve been out of the house for only a short time. They react to us a part of their family. Their experience of life is very different from that of a cat’s. They know it’s a much bigger world, filled with far more potential.

What, then, of our world? Is my experience of the world the same as yours? Of course not; we know different people, have seen different places, done different things. Our minds work differently; we’ve memorised different kinds and levels of academic knowledge and encountered situations which might sometimes be similar but will never be entirely the same.

We may have both walked round the same city, but we’ll probably have chosen to visit different aspects of the city. You’ll have seen things and encountered people which I didn’t, and vice versa. Your expectations will be exceeded, met or left wanting in ways which don’t effect me, and vice versa.

As our experience of the world differs, our worlds are not the same.

How much potential experience do we miss? I’m thinking of the video in the post directly below this one, which illustrates this point so clearly.

I’ve been fortunate enough in life to meet a number of remarkable people who’ve helped me to become aware of experiences or potential which I’d previously remained asleep to. I haven’t tended to share this aspect of my life, and yet maybe I should - to a degree, at least; there are some things I’ll never share. My legendary insistence upon personal privacy is one reason, and one that’s entirely rational.

However, while sitting in the Grove after meditating, I began reading through some of the writings created by one those remarkable people I just mentioned, and one section seemed to glow on the page. This passage was about the author’s intention to embrace change - and the author freely admitted to feeling both unnerved and enervated by their own new freedom from old bonds. It’s an attractive prospect. Wider visions, and the desire for them, hold ever increasing appeal.

asato mā sadgamaya
tamaso mā jyotirgamaya
mṛtyor mā amṛtaṁ gamaya

From the unreal lead me to the real,
From darkness lead me to light,
From death lead me to immortality.
(Brihadaranyaka Upanishad)





Have you ever stopped to wonder just how much of reality you simply don't notice?

Gurdjieff used to talk about "buffers", and how people block out reality in accordance with their own mindset. He termed this semi-aware state "sleep" and insisted that the vast majority of people live out their entire lives as slaves to this condition of automatic self-hypnosis.

He developed what he called the Stop Exercise, which was a method of bringing each practitioner into an awareness of their own state of “sleep”. He devised all sorts of irritating, annoying and seemingly pointless tasks for people to do with the sole intention of jolting them from their unconscious habits.

This wasn’t a new idea, of course. Many monastic orders and religious teachings have used similar methods. Zen koans, for example, were designed to present the person meditating on them with a baffling puzzle which removed their thought patterns into unfamiliar territory. The answers to these verses are said to be flexible, their real purpose being to demonstrate the student’s ability to reach greater levels of awareness.

So what didn’t you notice today?

The Song Of Ganymede

And under my feet
no more the sacred land of
my father. Mute on the sand
remained
the delicate garland of violets that crowned
my head.
Severed
In the furious battle
The battle
That I've lost.
In a spiral of feathers
The implacable eye of
Immortality
Lusting for my defeat.
Tender my limbs
Weak
So weak under the pitiless gaze
Of an enemy with
The face of god
sweet
Fear purified my blood
my mind expanded.
Naked,
In the claws of his
violence until
it became
Love.
His smile the unique
Purpose
Among the exteriority of the banquet
And in the ardor of a
Thirst which only
I can
Extinguish.

by Tristan, AKA Antinoos, AKA...??!!