Search Results for 'loss'

It was a pleasant walk to the Academy from Ann’s student digs, the leafy suburbs of Poubelleville were dappled with sunlight and sweetly scented with lilac blossom. Bird twittered in the trees and miniature zebras nibbled at the grass verges as Ann made her way to class. As she walked past a sidewalk cafe she spotted Monica, or rather Monica spotted Ann, and called her over to join her for a cup of rhubarb tea. Ann had forgotten she was late for class, and gave Monica the customary seven kisses ~ three on each cheek, and a final one on the nose ~ and pulled out a chair.

True to form ~ for Monica was the Academy’s best known gossip ~ after the inital pleasantries, the conversation soon turned to the latest scandal. Max the janitor, one of the students, and Professor Moose had been caught engaging in a menage a trois in the broom cupboard.

“All in aid of an assignment, so they said” explained Monica. “Who did you choose for your menage a trois, Ann? You’re in old Moose’s class, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t translate the assigment that way.” Ann frowned. “Gosh, I wrote a haiku about slobber instead, everyone will think I’m all prim and prunes.”

“Well, we only need one more” replied Monica with a sly grin.

“What?” Ann blushed as she cottoned on. “Oh!”

Monica wriggled about in her chair, revealing an expanse of lean tanned thigh, not altogether accidentally.

“Mind if I join you?” asked Good God Gordy, calling to the waiter for a cup of Hornygoatweed tea.

Yoland was inordinately pleased with her purchases, trifling though they were. She smiled at the little bottle of cherry red nail varnish, imagining how it would look on sun browned and callous free toes. Painted toe nails was one of life’s simple pleasure, she reckoned. Nothing fancy or expensive or uncomfortable, like her new brassiere, which had never the less given her spirits a bit of a lift, as well as her breasts, with its bright blue moulded foam shape. She wondered if she could suspend the brassiere and its contents from something other than her shoulders for once, but couldn’t see how it could be arranged and still allow a modicum of freedom of movement. Perhaps some of the new scientific discoveries that she was eagerly awaiting would include some kind of gravity and weight defying device, possibly helium filled foam support. Perhaps even in the future, anyone with a high squeaky voice would be described as a bra sucker. Or perhaps one day breasts worn on the waist would be fashionable. This thought made Yoland a bit uncomfortable, as she hadn’t really believed she was following fashion, but maybe she was after all.

Yoland wondered if she was verging on the ridiculous again, and decided that it didn’t matter if she was. There was something rather splendid, she was beginning to discover, about the mundane and the silly. Something serenely pleasurable about ~ well about everything she’d been taking for granted for so many years. The things she hadn’t really noticed much, while her mind was busy thinking and pondering, replaying old conversations, and imagining new ones, sometimes with others, but often with herself, inside the vast jumble of words that was her mind.

It was always a wonderful change of pace to go away on a trip, with its wealth of new conversations and words, events and symbols to ponder over later at her leisure, the many photographic snapshots providing reminders and clues and remembered laughs, but it was the renewed sense of appreciation for the mundane that was ultimately most refreshing about returning home.

The word home had baffled Yoland for many years. For most of her 51 years, if the truth be told. So many moves, so many houses, so many people ~ where, really, was home? She’d eventually compromised and called herself a citizen of the world, but she still found herself at times silently wailing “I want to go home”, but with the whole world as her home, it didn’t make a great deal of sense why she would still yearn for that elusive place called home.

Of all the words that swam in her head some of them seemed to keep bobbing up to the surface, attracting her attention from time to time. That was the funny thing about words, Yoland mused, not for the first time, You hear them and hear them and you understand what they mean, but only in theory. The suddenly something happens and you shout AHA, and then you can’t find any words to explain it! Repeating the words you’ve already heard a hundred times somehow doesn’t even come close to describing what it actually feels like to understand what those words mean. That kind of feeling always left her wondering if everyone else had known all along, except her.

Yoland was often finding words in unexpected places, and these were often the very words that were the catalysts. (Even the word catalyst had been one of those words that repeatedly bobbed to the surface of her sea of words). Her trip had been in search of words, supposedly, channeled words (although Yoland suspected the trip had been more about connections than words) and yet there had only really been one word that had stood out as significant, and oddly enough, that word had been watermelon.

That had been a lesson in itself, if indeed lesson is the right word. Yoland had been attempting to exercise her psychic powers for six months or more, trying to get Toobidoo, the world famous channeled entity, to say the word watermelon ~ just for fun. She couldn’t even remember how it all started, or why the word watermelon was significant ~ perhaps a connection to a symbol etched on a watermelon rind in Marseilles, which later became a Tile of the City. (Yoland wasn’t altogether sure that she understood the tiles, but she did think it was a very fun game, and that aspect alone was sufficient to hold her interest.) By the end of the last day of the channeling event Toobidoo still hadn’t said the word watermelon which was somewhat of a disappointment, so when Yoland saw Gerry Jumper, Toobidoo’s channel, in the vast hotel foyer, she ran up to him saying “Say watermelon.” The simple direct method worked instantly, where months of attempts the hard way had failed. Yoland felt that she learned alot from this rather silly incident about the nature of everyday magic, and this particular lesson, or we might prefer to call it a communication, was repeated for good measure the following day in the park.

Wailon, the other world famous channeled entity who was the star attraction of the Words Event, had proudly displayed photographic evidence of orbs at the lecture. Like Yoland had tried with the watermelon, he was choosing an esoteric and unfamiliar method of creating orbs, suggesting that the audience meditate and conjure them up to show on photographs, rather than simply creating physical orbs. Yoland and her friends Meldrew and Franklyn had chanced upon a beautiful glass house full of real physical glass orbs in the park, underlining the watermelon message for Yoland: not to discount the spontaneous magic of the physical world in the search for the esoteric.

It had, for example, been rather magical and wonderful to hear Gerry Jumper explain how he had mentioned watermelon to his wife on the previous day in the dining room ~ mundane, yes, but magical too. It would have been marvellous to create Toobidoo channeling the word watermelon for sure, but how much more magical to create an actual slice of physical watermelon in the dining room and have Gerry remark on it, and to have an actual physical conversation with him about it. Who knows, he may even remember the nutcase who spent six months trying to get him to say watermelon whenever he sees one, at least for awhile. It might be quite often too, as his wife is partial to watermelon. Yoland wondered if this was some kind of connecting link, perhaps the connection to Gerry and Cindy started in Marseilles and watermelon was the physical clue, the pointer towards the connection.

Perhaps, Yoland wondered, the orbs were the connecting link to Wailon, although she didn’t feel such a strong connection to him as she did to Toobidoo and Gerry Jumper. She had been collecting coloured gel orbs for several months ~ just for fun. There was often a connecting link to be found in the silly and the fun, the pointless and the bizarre, and even in the mundane and everyday things.

In the days following her return home ~ or the house that Yoland lived in, shall we say ~ she felt rather sleepy, as if she was in slow motion, but the feeling was welcome, it felt easy and more importantly, acceptable. There was nothing that she felt she should be doing instead, for a change, no fretting about starting projects, or accomplishing chores, rather a slow pleasant drifting along. Yes, there were chores to be done, such as watering plants and feeding animals and other things, but they no longer felt like chores. She found she wasn’t mentally listing all the other chores to be done but was simply enjoying the one she was doing. Even whilst picking up innumerable dog turds outside, she heard the birds singing and saw the blossom on the fruit trees against the blue sky, saw shapes in the white clouds, heard the bees buzzing in the wisteria. The abundance of dog shit was a sign of a houseful of happy healthy well fed dogs, and the warm spring sun dried it and made it easier to pick up.

It was, somewhat unexpectedly, while Yoland was picking up dog shit that she finally realized what some of those bobbing words meant about home, and presence, and connection to source. It seemed amusingly ironic after travelling so far (not just the recent trip, but all the years of searching) to finally find out where home was, where the mysterious and elusive source was. (Truth be told, some printed words she found the previous day had been another catalyst, by Vivian channeled by Wanda, but she couldn’t recall the exact words. Yoland had to admit that words, used as a catalyst, were really rather handy.)

Wherever you go, there you are ~ they were words too, and they were part of the story. Now that Yoland had come to the part where she wanted to express in words where home, and source, was, she found she couldn’t find the right words. In a funny kind of way the word vacant popped into her head, as if the place where the vast jumble of words was usually housed became vacant, allowing her to be present in her real physical world. It really was quite extraordinary how simple it was. Too simple for words.

Tina sat for some time in the cafe after Becky had left, pondering the implications of Becky’s secret. Becky was right, it was quite exciting in a way, however the repercussions left her reeling … honestly you would think a time traveler would have more sense …

She scratched her head absentmindedly, her scalp had been very itchy lately. She wondered if she had better stop using her homemade egg hair shampoo. Well that was a bugger. She had been planning on marketing it through her business… HEGG FIRST SHAMPOO, with cute little egg people wearing shiny glossy wigs on the label … and, as a special limited time offer, she had been going to give away free Holy Water Conditioning Rinse as well. Sam had kindly agreed to bless it for her with this didjereedoo.

She looked up just as a female entered the cafe, straight jet black hair, large dark sunglasses, fishnet tights and knee high boots. A black trench coat completed the stunning ensemble. Wow! thought Tina, She looks amazing, so eneggmatic and sexy. As though she had heard her thoughts the woman turned, and upon catching Tina’s eye, hurriedly looked away and walked quickly out of the cafe.

How odd, thought Tina.

Later, as she was researching black wigs on the internet … of course she could change the colour and structure of her hair through mind techniques, but that was still a bit slow for Tina, Al entered the room.

Tina, are you busy?

Uh Oh! Tina knew that tone of voice. She braced herself. Could Al have heard about Becky’s news ??? She told Becky there were no secrets!

Your latest comments in the reality play are really really great. Most entertaining and unusual.

Uh, thanks …. Tina said cautiously.

I was just wondering however whether you had considered the time frame of your characters?

Oh yeah course … you know .. give or take a few years .. or so …

There are a few discrepancies I noticed, he went on, and it really does become rather problematic, some might say “messy” even.

Tina rolled her eyes and grunted non-commitedly.

Thanks Sweetie, I knew you wouldn’t mind sorting it out, said Al.

When Sam explained gently to Becky about the essences waiting for an entry point into this dimension, the ones that had chosen her, Becky, she was at a loss as to know what to think.

Well I don’t want to let them down, Sam, she said mournfully.

Sam laughed and said, You won’t be letting them down, silly. They’ll find another entry point. There’s no shortage of pregnant women in this dimension, you know.

But I feel like they’re mine already, Sam, I feel responsible for them now.

Laughing loudly, Sam reminded her that resposibility was her own core truth, and not an absolute one. Other essences are not your responsibility, you daft goose!

I know that, but I feel somehow connected to them now. I’ll always wonder about them, worry that they made a bad choice and chose a horrid entry point…her voice trailed off, and then she giggled. I’m talking absolute rubbish aren’t I?

Frankly, yes, dear, winked Sam. Anyway, aren’t you confusing two separate issues here, Becky? In the future probability that you viewed, Sean was a drunkard, and you had many children. They are not necessarily connected, you know. Sam winked again, and Becky blushed and whacked him over the head with the cushion she’d been clutching.

Oh stop! I haven’t even been on my honeymoon yet!

Stop it, STOP IT! Becky shouted, clamping her hands over her ears, It was a futile action, as the voices were inside her head, and not likely to be halted by her pointless automatic reaction.

She lit a cigarette with shaking hands and picked up a magazine in an attempt to calm down. She opened the copy of Crisp at random, her eyes unfocused.

I’ll think about this later, she said to herself, when I’m feeling a bit better. Relaxing her tense hunched shoulders, she focused on the glossy pages. She had opened the magazine to the Essencopes page, and read the Borledim forecast for the month ahead.

That’s it! She said excitedly. I’ll change my alignment! I’ll change it to, um, let me think…..
Becky sighed, muttering to herself, How on earth does one change ones alignment?

You said you were going to ‘think’ about it tomorrow, said the voice.

Bugger off, you. Becky snapped. Good point, though.

She picked up Crisp again, this time noticing that the scopes were written by her old schoolfriend, Luce Mong.

Luce! Well, I never! exclaimed Becky with a smile. Luce Mong! Last I heard she was in Long Pong with Leah Muir. I wonder where she’s living now?

After a look in her mirror, Patricia M knew she was perfect.
Her honey blond hair was enhancing the fascinating power of her green copper gaze.
She pouted outrageously and put some more lip gloss on. Yes, she was highly satisfied with her appearance.
She stretched her short tightly fitting deep pink dress and admired her silhouette. A surge of excitation filling up her body.
She was ready to do her next move.

Bea was drifting off to sleep on the patio, the gentle spring warm on her face. A stork glided past, and she noticed the first amethyst wisteria blossom against the blue sky. Dreamily, she heard a limerick forming in her mind:

There was an old crone called Wisteria
Who was prone to bouts of hysteria.
She fretted and flapped
Til her energy sapped,
And then she made friends with Deliria.

The crone called Deliria hailed from
The unsettled realms of the maelstrom;
But she learned how to float
With the help of a goat
And considered it was quite a brainstorm.

When Wisteria met with Deliria
She said “My! but you seem so familiar!
I admire your hat
So let’s have a chat
About goat floating maelstrom criteria”

So then, said Franiel sitting down beside a small mound of earth, what now?

The top of the mound of earth was smoothed flat, and with a twig Franiel began to form small spiral patterns abstractedly in the earth. He felt no desire to go back to the monastery and face Aum Geog with the news of the loss.

He held the twig high, and then released it to fall to the ground. It fell without sound, landed unharmed on the mound of earth. He closed his eyes and in the dark at the back of his mind, he heard the voice of his grandmother whisper; Spirals make more sense than crosses Franiel my boy, joys more than sorrows.

Spirals make more sense than crosses….

None of it made much sense to Franiel. The feeling of freedom he felt momentarily slipped away. He was left looking at the space where it had been, feeling empty. The task given him by Aum Geog had given him a feeling of purpose, for a short time had allowed him to forget how lost he felt. Yet now the task had been taken from him, and he was in no hurry to retrieve it, he saw it for the illusion it had been.

What would it feel like to want to go somewhere? Or to want to be something, to want to be a monk, to want to be a teacher, to want to be the father of a family? To be able to arrange oneself neatly in a box and say I belong here?

Spirals make more sense than crosses …. day becomes night becomes day, lives come into being, and go out of being … there is always new life coming into being …… around and around

He began to walk along the path, away from where he had already been …. towards something new? He caught sight of a dead blackbird lying in the long grass to the side of the track and knelt down to look at it.

It is quiet and still.

He dug a hole, scraping in the dirt with his fingers and then using a stone to lever the lifeless body into the hole. The bird’s brown eyes are still open. Franiel covered it with dirt, looking deep into it’s eyes, until there is no sign of it, just a mound of earth.

He traced a spiral in the dirt.

Joys more than sorrows…

He sat back on his heels, and keeping his mind empty, he sang to the dead bird.

Franiel awoke, it took him a few moments to get his bearings. He stretched, and slowly adjusted to his waking state. He wondered how long he had slept, it was quiet and dark. Although he couldn’t see much, he could feel that dawn was not far away. The ghost hour.

He must have slept for hours.

Remembering Leonard he looked around and softly called out. There was no reply, and unless Leonard was sleeping, Franiel was alone. “Aye” he sighed, and finding the blanket from his pack, fashioned it into a tent over his head and took shelter in it. It was nearly day, another day.

Thinking of his encounter with Leonard, the strange dancing and especially the sweet taste of the nectar, Franiel reached into his pack again to retrieve the chalice.

It is no longer there

Franiel was not quite sure if he heard a voice utter these words, or if it was just a strange sense of knowing. He still felt around, taking out each item carefully and methodically, emptying the pack, not really wanting to believe the chalice has gone, nor to consider what the implications of this loss might be.

Perhaps he did not put the chalice back in the pack after all? He crawled around his surrounds, squinting into the half light of the morning, feeling the dew damp ground. Deciding to trust what he knew in his heart already he sat back and quietly watched as the sky eventually flushed brilliant crimson.

Red sky in the morning. A warning ….it is only weather words but ….

Reluctant to consider his options, he instead considered some dandelions, how luminous they looked in the morning light.

A small sync that hits me now I re-read it…
In Francie’s comment about Elizabeth of the Ooh-dimension a reference is made of the “clooh-box”.

Funny thing was that yesterday, we were talking with Tracy of one of the tiles which she felt linked to Francie, with the sense of natural magic it conveys. It reminded me that Jib told me it made him think of a magical girl scepter.
During spring in New-Zealand, so that must have been around October, we discussed cherry blossom (or さくら sakura in Japanese) with Francie, and had some syncs with Sakura, who is a “magical girl” with a winged scepter.

And, as I explained a bit the concept to Tracy, I told her about the Clow cards (here’s my entry for a sync ).

Tracy found Dash interesting (its form is a blue, fox-like creature with long rabbit ears) —even more as it appears in episode 53

today I learned Anu’s essence name is Pashi. I thought i had a “Pashi” synch but when I came to write it out i realised it was not the same word. Well the feel of it made me think of Anu, it is about a young girl who writes poems ….. so I am including it here:yahoo_laughing:

It is from a book I picked up to read:

“She had gone on a nature walk and collected plants and flowers she needed help naming. When she didn’t like the names one of the Science Nerds provided, she decided to name the plants and flowers herself. She drew a picture of a leaf or a blossom in her journal, and then what sex she thought it was, and then give it a name like ‘Jim” for a simple-leaved plant and ‘Pasha’ for a more downy flower”

Dr Bronkelhampton gazed at the impassive bandaged covered face of Sasha Goldenwort propped up in the corner of his office.

Stupid fool, she said. What a bloody mess you are in now.

I know, it’s all gone horribly wrong really. What shall I do?

Sasha snorted. What! you are asking me? I let you perform your stupid untested experiments on me, clearly I am not the sharpest tool in the toolbox. No, don’t ask me for advise, I see my main mission in life, oops sorry in death that should be, is to haunt you for the rest of your sad little life.

Don’t be hard on yourself Sasha, and in a way you died for a noble cause. Others won’t have to suffer the way you did.

Oh Bugger off, said Sasha

Chris? Nurse Bellamy popped her head around the door. Are you busy? I thought I heard you talking.

“Dr Bronkelhampton!”, Nurse Bellamy, please for God’s sake, can’t you get anything right!

Nurse Bellamy flinched. Dr Bronkelhampton was acting so peculiar, she was worried about him. And It was all the fault of that little upstart, Veranassessee!

Veranassessee wished she had thought to ask her boss to remind her what Plan B was. It had sounded good at the time, but now she found herself somewhat at a loss. She sighed. Sometimes she felt like chucking all this secret agent business in and marrying her devoted boyfriend, Mahiliki, on the neighboring island of Fukitupi.

Well she was just going to have to play it by ear!

He did recall his name in a dream. Jarvis.
A strange dream actually.
There was that woman… whose name he couldn’t recall though.
Her face was beautiful but he hadn’t felt any sexual attraction toward her… it was different, like he knew her.
Well, with his memory loss, he possibly knew her, someone close assuredly.
She was asking questions about this land he had beached on… and in the dream it appeared he knew many details, again that he couldn’t recall now he was awake.
It was more like a legend, not facts.
But now it was quite real to him.
It’s been 2 days since he opened his eyes on this purple beach, and he’s been busy collecting driftwood to make a fire. He didn’t dare venture into the forest, and if the legends about the inhabitants of Kandulim were true, he wasn’t welcome here.

Wow he was feeling dizzy. His head was pounding repeatedly like one of the vangor drums. He dropped the twigs he had collected on the sand and took his head in his hands. The pounding was so loud that he began crying.

A flash, a soft feminine face surrounded by a fiery red hair and blue liquid eyes. She was smiling at him.
The pounding ceased at once, and he just had the time to see a movement in the forest. All was still now. His mind would suggest it was a hallucination fostered by that head ache… if his thoughts weren’t so scattered.

Who was in that vision? Who was in the forest?
Was it the woman in his dream?

He began to recall the strange vision he had before awakening on this beach.

Franiel offered his congratulations to Aum Geog along with the others. He did not mind that he was not himself chosen to succeed Hrih Chokyam, and neither would he have expected it, however he felt the physical absence of the Old One keenly. His powerful presence had cloaked the whole monastery in a sweet warmth, and even though Franiel had only been there a short while, he had felt close to the Old One. Of course his spirit will always be here, but the same time Franiel knew change was inevitable, and he was unsure of his own place within the boundaries of the monastery. Happiness and fun were valued highly by Franiel, they were more important to him than all the spiritual ideals others would speak of, and he had felt a slight greyness of late. He found humility difficult and did not enjoy following rules, neither did he enjoy listening to the wisdom of the other brothers. At times his sense of humor would cause them to frown upon him. He knew the Old One had understood this, but now he was gone he wondered how he would fit. He pulled out the note Jog Lam had given him from Hrih Chokyam, Listen to your heart…. it began. What was his heart telling him?

Brother Franiel!. He heard the voice of Aba Tane calling him. The Brothers were shortly meeting to hear Aum Geog speak, presumably to announce the new direction for the monastery.

Brother Franiel, Aum Geog has requested you take this chalice to the Village, so the silversmith may engrave it with these words. Aba Tane handed Franiel a cup, and a piece of paper with a seal. He requested you should go right away and that you should remember that the cup is precious. He requested also that I sprinkle you with some Holy Water to safeguard you on your way. In customary manner, Franiel knelt and Aba Tane sprinkled the precious bottled water on his forehead. Love and Light, Brother Franiel. Blessings for your journey.

It was several days walking down the mountain to the Village. To be honest though, it was a task Franiel welcomed, perhaps to be away from the monastery at this time would give him a chance to better hear what was in his heart, and to miss the meeting was no loss for him.

He wondered at the haste, and at what the words might be, however it was not his business to question the directives of Aum Geog. He remembered also his dream of the silver goblet. Many things to ponder, he mused, a feeling of excitement growing within him.