After you see the cat with the third eye you know that life is going to be a little different, how you are probably never sure, but for certain there will be a change.
It’s difficult to work out how much to take from the things you have seen, how much the clues from mother nature are of value to your choices, but there has to be something in it. The energy you take from pacha-mamma must affect you in some way, like the sun for plants, for every action there is a re-action, all the cliches.
Difficult to say, but the cat was beautiful that’s for sure and there seemed to be a clarity to the shapes and colours with current thoughts. I suppose you take a little of this and a little of that and hope you have the right balance.
It’s hard to say, I could stop and some days I decide today I won’t, but then something happens, friends call me up and we’re off again. I tell myself I don’t have anything better to do so I might as well enjoy now, and it takes the edge of things. You know calms the mind, dulls the mind… you don’t have to think so much. And look I once stoped for two days so it’s not like I can’t.
We arrived late at night, the process was simple, we all knew how to put it together and it was not long until we were out of the sun and the food was on the table.
I looked around at the faces of those that I loved and wondered about what was enough. What was needed or what was wanted. I looked back at my plate the flavour was the same, the same as always, but the smiles were there too, same as always.
I suffered a lot with my own thoughts, couldn’t keep up with them. They rolled around in my head like a separate entity, like they had a mind of their own. Sometimes I felt clear, confident, in control and then the next minute I was inventing stories, dreaming up a narrative of other people’s behaviour and those stories hurt. They were completely fictional, but to me they were a stronger reality than the truth.
Did any one realise that below the surface my thoughts were complicated, had anyone asked the question, ‘how are you?’. I needed someone to ask, to relieve the tension, because if they didn’t perhaps the spring would snap, perhaps I would break.
Things moved fast, life didn’t change much, but there never seemed to be a moment to pause. There was always someone to chat to or laugh with, and you were always close to them, parked up next door or across the road. You could drive somewhere else, but inevitably someone would turn up and then play would resume.
The funniest times were when crews with children turned up, two little rat-bags running around the wild, covered in dirt, but beaming with smiles. It was great to see them play, their imaginations were alive, their toys broken but ingrained with evidence of many stories.
It made me think about our own family, maybe we were all just a bunch of big kids and moving fast wasn’t such a bad thing, maybe it kept our own imaginations alive.
‘Watch them closely… and listen it’s a very interesting form of communication’
Jeremy was teaching his favourite class showing footage from the beginning of the digital age, it was a time when the power of internal conflict was not fully understood but was being used very effectively.
‘But it doesn’t make us any money’ Sasha demanded while pointing adamantly at the pool of ideas spread out across the table. ‘We need to focus on the sales in the bar.’
‘But it draws people into the bar in the first place, without the events we don’t attract as many people’
‘We do, the climbing attracts the people and we don’t have to have any investment in that, it’s here already’
Elizabeth laughed, but it was a sarcastic laugh, meant to impose her intellect. ‘We have invested thousands in the climbing’
‘And made money back’ Bernard added smartly.
‘Yea but times are changing.’ A row was simmering.
Jeremy stopped the tape and turned back to the class. ‘Okay can anyone tell me what what’s going on?’
Lucy raised her hand, ‘Yes Lucy’
‘Well the Co-op has made it’s money from the the climbers coming to the village and Elizabeth wants to diversify but Bernard thinks she is just spending the money made from the climbers on her own arts events.’
‘Great that is what’s happening on the face of things, but what is going on internally?’ The class took a collective breath, some bums shuffled in seats the eyes turned away from the professor back to their tablets. ‘Shall I continue?’ The class nodded in unison, Jeremy pressed play.
‘The main reason people keep coming back is not because of the climbing, it’s because of the people.’
‘You mean the climbers’
‘Shut up Bernard, stop being such a pig headed fool. The community is what makes it, you admit yourself that the parties and the bar create a cool atmosphere in the village.’
Bernard was quiet he agreed with her but wasn’t about to admit it. He just wanted more routes.
Elizabeth continued ‘If we want to keep the profits in the bar, we need to keep our audience hungry.’
Jeremy paused the tape again. ‘Okay internal conflict anyone?’
John raised his hand ‘The more they eat in the bar the more money they make?’ The class burst into laughter.
‘Very amusing John, can anyone expand on John’s words of wisdom?’
Joe put up his hand
‘Yes Joe’
‘Elizabeth wants the knowlege of the experiences in the bar to act like the social media frameworks.’
‘Good, quickly explain the social framework’
Joe paused for a moment… ‘You keep your audience by showing ‘the hero avatar’. Posts show your best life, so followers buy into you.’
‘Good so how is that playing out here?’
‘I am not sure if they are doing it digitally yet, but Elizabeth wants the the public to know about parties and art as the hero avatar. Perhaps she believes the diversification is more of a hook than just climbing.’
‘Okay good, that sounds like a hungry audience and what about the internal conflict? Yes Lucy.’
‘There are two, Bernards refusal to believe in Elizabeth’s art community makes her more adamant that it is right, Bernard effectively keeps her hungry. And the people coming to the village see or hear about the parties and climbing and want to be part of it.’
‘Great so what do we call that?’
The class answered in unison, ‘positive internal conflict and negative internal conflict.’
The children sat on the grass and watched their dog mooch around. Sniffing the tree trunks, bushes and the corners of the strange white building that didn’t seem to house anything. Perhaps it was a storeroom in times gone by.
‘Imagine being a dog’
‘Woof’ Rebecca replied
‘Very funny, no imagine, not having to think’
‘I am pretty sure dogs think Sarah’
‘No, like just thinking now… oh smell that, oh that smells better, oh actually I think another dog is coming.’ She mimicked the nose of their dog sniffing the air. ‘Just thinking of what is in the now, what is there.’ She paused as Muji came back from around the white building carrying a stick. ‘See look, he just lives for the now.’
‘And your point being?’ Rebecca asked
‘I just wish I could live for now and not have to worry about the future or the past. I just want to hunt for sticks.’
‘Hmmmm…’ Rebecca mused. ‘That’s what all those self help, meditation apps tell you, live in the moment, but it’s not really that easy. You have lots of stuff going on, exams, Brian, Mum’s birthday, A-level choices, things as simple as what to wear to church next Sunday. Muji just has, where is my next meal coming from?’
‘But that’s my point, what if we could stop worrying about all those things and just work on instinct, you know stop questioning if one way is better or the other. How cool would that be?’
Rebecca smiled, ‘I reckon we would end up with a lot of bad decisions!’
They giggled together… ‘Like splitting up with Brian.’
‘Or buying Mum tickets for Spice Girls’. They laughed louder.
‘I think she would actually quite like the Spice Girls concert.’
‘Yea your right… See perhaps instinct is a good idea.’
We were promised everything. It had never happened to me before but we walked into the room, ready for a fight and… There was no resistance, no maybe, no we will think about it, no no’s! Just yes… It was unerring.
Before we went into the meeting we had discussed what we were willing to give up and what we wanted to fight for, but when all of those things were granted, I have to admit, we were a bit weak asking for more, timid. But they granted us more anyway. We were basically promised the world, so we gave in, we just accepted that all things were going to be great and signed.
And it was not like they didn’t deliver, for the first three months we couldn’t believe it, we were given everything that they promised, all the tools we needed and all the extra resources we asked for, we were swimming in luxury.
But then it changed, however it was not them who changed things, it was us, we had been drowning in the good stuff and it was suffocating. We just didn’t have any fight, any edge, we lost our spark, our willingness to think creatively, we just expected things to be there in place and for people to get it.
We had it so we expected everyone else too as well. But that’s not how it works. Some people out there are still fighting, searching, they have the edge. We were just stuck in the honey pot with all the others who have it, or at least think they have it.
‘What are you looking at?’ Mum asked Nathan as she tucked him into bed. Nathan didn’t reply he just wriggled a little lower and pulled the covers to his chin. ‘What did Monkey do today?’ Mum changed tact.
‘He is very old isn’t he?’ Nathan replied in reference to his pet monkey.
‘He is you are right. He used to belong to your Daddy.’
‘So he is older than Daddy?’
Mum stopped to think for a moment, ‘I think your Daddy got him when he was about 2 or 3 years old, so Daddy is a little bit older but not much.’
Nathan paused for thought. ‘Have you looked behind his ear? Look at the colour of his fur.’ Nathan pulled Monkey’s ear back to reveal soft yellow fur. ‘Did his whole face look like that once?’
‘I am not sure, you will have to ask your father that.’
‘It feels like Muji’s fur under his chin its soft and cuddly, will Muji’s face change like Monkey’s?’
‘Maybe, Muji is a puppy still and he will get older, but I think he will always stay cuddly’
‘I don’t want to get old’
Mum laughed and hugged her son, ‘I don’t want you to get old either, shall we make a promise to stay young forever?’
‘Yea like Monkey’s ears and Muji’s fur.’ Nathan turned to his mother and smiled his big smile. Mum kissed him on his forehead, tucked the duvet around him and Monkey and agreed.
Life From the Dirt 