21. A Grammar of Human Relations

You are thoughtful pause in my inner space, a semicolon, a dash, but never a full stop. As future is now so uncertain, I could put a question mark at the end of that hesitant moment, but a question to which there is as yet no answer is like a sound that cannot be echoed. There is no point in shouting when our mountains are steeped in silence. Human relationships have their own secret grammar and knowledge of pronouncing its words. One wrong accent, one slurred syllable and such words as “love”, trust” may come out as “lust” and “distrust”.  A pause is a focus, time for reflection and a close look at ourselves and others. It should not be prolonged by hesitation or cut short through impatience. A pause has its own inner timing and it will move again when its clock strikes at dawn to welcome to rising sun of hope. 

20. Big X Means Having A Big Choice

A day of strange coincidences and happenings. It was a lovely summery Sunday and the date had a nice rhythm to it: 28 -9 -2008. On the spur of the moment I went for a walk on Parliament Hill, a popular beauty spot in Hampstead, with an impressive panorama of London from the top of that ancient meeting place of Britons. When I came back the sun was already setting down and I opened the window to watch the last pink graffiti of the disappearing rays. Right in front of me was a large pink X drawn in contrails by the arriving or departing planes. It did look like a special message which waited for me outside the window. But what was the message? Big X for the Great Unknown? Or, X to cast my vote in some cosmic or systemic election? Was this the reason for my dashing to Parliament Hill? In voting X means that I have a choice and can exercise it as a free agant. Well, I suppose that the same principle applies in anybody’s life. We have free will and we can make choices. But as of now I have absolutely no idea what I have to choose until I get another big message on the skyboard. PS. I have just realized that X also stands for Roman numeral 10 and that October is the tenth month of the year. But to make it even more intriguing – October was the eighth month of the Roman calendar and eight being my birth-number…Watch this space. dJI

19.The Face of Mist Dwarf Nibelung

I got up yesterday morning to see a misty world outside the windows. Grabbed my digital camera, took a couple of shots and when I looked at one of them in photoshop, I discovered the Face of  the Mist Creature in profile. It was using the top of an old poplar to create its image and all it needed was an Eye, which I duly supplied.

“Mist” is a proto-indoeuropean word *migh-/*meigh- which described something our ancestors must have been familiar with – clouds and mist of their world. From that came Gk. omikhle, O.C.S. migla,Pol. mgla, proto-germanic *mikhstaz and English mist. Another meaning is something that obscures our sight and makes clear sight difficult eg tears or mental confusion. Human beings have an innate tendency to get lost in all kinds of mist. Another Germanic name for mist was Nebel, which gave rise to a poetic poem “The Song of the Nibelungs”, a race of Norwegian dwarves, “Children of Mist”, who owned a hoard of gold and a magic ring (Tolkien’s “Lord of the Ring”?). Latin “nebula-mist” came from a different PIE root “nebh-“ which covered such meanings as steam, cloud, fog and sky (Pol. niebo=sky, paradise) and is preserved in the astronomical term “nebula” – cloud-like star clusters. And thus one late September morning provided me with the presence of magical Nibelungs, cosmic star-clusters, a glimpse of death (mist of death) and afterlife as well as a mystically misty world outside my windows. dJ

18.Illusion Is The Only Certainty…

But as there is nothing certain in this world except death, then certainty is also an illusion. Actually, I am not a pesssimist, but I am trying to be realistic. For the past five weeks I have been living in a spin-dryer. Everything I have been hoping for, planning and forecasting for myself dissolved in a whirlwind of illusions. Mercury retrograde started its backward journey on the very day when I was booked to get cable connection to my phone and internet and what happened I reported in the previous entry. It looks now that my plan of freeing myself from 600 spams a day was an illusion. Virginmedia (ruled by Mercury?) cannot give me  (a Virgoan) any date when the cable box outside my house will be repaired. I am laughing. Mercury retro has never proved to be anything else but retarded mischief-maker. As for all the other plans and forecasts, they will have to wait till 15 October, when Merc goes direct. All this may sound like a dark superstition but, believe me, it is nothing of the sort. Planetary movements have their own secret agenda and we can only arm ourselves in a heavy armour of patience, play Freecell, hum some cheerful tunes and WAIT. The mercurial spin-dryer will eventually come to a halt. I will come out, shake myself dry and start moving ahead again, as planned. Unless that will also prove to be an illusion. Like everything else. PS. the weird dancer in the photo is actually a dried out stalk of a tomato. ♫J♫I

17. Mercury Retro In, Cable Out

Wise people will tell you that when Mercury goes retrograde, don’t have anything to do with any kind of communications. Telephones, computers, internet, mobiles and ordinary conversations become almost impossible. Today was the first day of Mercury going into a reverse gear and I chose that fatal day to change my phone and net to cable. The smooth transition was supposed to happen this morning between 8 -13 am. Two young men wearing Virginmedia jackets arrived before 10 and inspected my premises, trying to decide which would be the best route for two cables to trail around skirting boards and picture rails to my computer/phone den. They took little notice of my timid suggestions for alternative routes and, in the end, went to their van to consult their supervisor. This stage took about 45 min and then one of the men came to the door to tell me that the cable box outside the building was blocked and they couldn’t do it this morning, but will come back in the afternoon. Mercury retrograde was already busy, disconnecting anything he could put his nimble fingers on. To make matters worse, Mercury rules Virgo and the company I chose to instal the cable is, of course, called Virgin. So, now you can see how it works. Virgo cablemen arrive, Mercury goes retro, they cannot do anything else but follow their planetary leader and withdraw. And I am without cable. I tried to phone the company, but the line was so bad that I asked him if he was in England. “No, sir,”he mumbled, “ I speak to you from Bombay.” “Bombay?!” “Yes, sir. I virk for Vurgo.” Well, that explains everything. Mercury will not go forward again until 15 October. Batten your communication hatches and avoid blugging, cause Merc likes to mess about with spulling as well. “K“

16.Go With The Flow of Probability

It is nice to discover something that could make my life easier. As a journalist, I have been always terrorized by deadlines. That awareness of dates also became a habit of attaching magical importance to various anniversaries, birthdays and other calendar events which, for one reason or another – mathematical, numerological or personal – I regarded with the same nervous expectation as publishing deadlines. As my birth number is eight, I have always been paying attention to dates which had 3, 5 or 13in them , all of them terms in the Fibonacci series which, in turn, are linked to the idea of spirals, pentagrams etc. I have noticed , more than once, that various dates which I anticipated to augur changes or unusual happenings in my life, quite simply did not fulfill their illusory promises. Only after brooding on these mysteries for a long time, I came to the conclusion that, in the world of subtle, subatomic forces, calendar is irrelevant and non-existent. Seconds, minutes, hours, days are, in fact, as elusive at higher vibrations as subatomic particles. Fritjof Capra put it so well in his book The Tao of Physics: “ quantum theory has shown that particles are not isolated grains of matter, but are probability patterns, interconnections in an inseparable cosmic web.” Substitute time units for particles and the same quantum theory could apply. From now on, my days are simply probability patterns, dynamic happenings in our space-time reality. “Go  with the flow” means nothing else but becoming part of those continuous energetic processes which we call days, weeks, months and years. I am a web of probability patterns, a process of continuous changes, transformations and new patterns. Tomorrow has already happened; yesterday was only a little bubble on the crest of September which had burst and is gone.

15. At Equinox I Stooped To Conker

I am not a squirrel and I don’t think that I look like one. But when the horse chestnuts start coming down, hitting the pavements as their spiky coverings burst open, releasing those lovely bronze nuts, I cannot resist picking them up and bringing them home. I can say that I am squirreling them away for my friendly squirrels. Aesculus hippocastanum – common horsechestnut – is a magical tree with its medicinal properties - seed extract is good for swollen ankles, varicose veins and similar symptoms of leg veins not working properly. But in spite of its name, horses should not be given these nuts to eat, because only squirrels and deer know how to munch them without getting poisoned. However, there is some good news because horses can be called chestnut if they happen to adopt the colour of those shining brown “conkers”. Women can be either born with that lovely colour hair or can have it coloured with all the variations that a chestnut can offer. I was heartened by a gleaned sliver of information from the depths of the web that putting chestnuts under your bed guarantees steady flow of energy and generates a feeling of well-being. Perhaps, this is why I  like the sound of castanets (Spanish for chestnuts) especially as accompaniment to flamenco music and dancing. Ole! Today’s equinox was playing its own melody on the pavements of my streets and I stooped to fill two pockets with their shiny presence. When my granddauhghters were small I used to make for them all kinds of animals and chestnut gnomes, but today it was really my own infantile nostalgia that drove me to make two strange chestnut “renifers” whom I called Equinox Twins. I will put them under my bed and hope to wake up tomorrow in a world full of autumnal magic. ☼J♫

14. Third Eye Camera Snaps Geisha

The sun acts on me like a magnet on iron filings. It draws me out and about. A warm and sunny Saturday was ogling me magnetically from the moment I opened my eyes. In the end, I couldn’t resists any longer the pull of his magnetic power and holding the bunch of golden rays in my hand instead of my walking stick, I went out.  Ever since my cracked ribs I have been careful not go out without my faithful stick, but today I felt safe without it. That’s what magnetic sun can do.  I took my digital camera with me as on a day like this it would have been a sin not to snap something for my trophy album.  I wonder if digital camera built in a microform into our forehead between the eyebrows wasn’t predicted by Jesus when he said (Luke 11:34) “the lamp of your body is your eye; when that eye is single, your body will be full of light”. Well, with microtech wizardry the third eye may be just a blink of the eyelid away.  On my way home from the supermarket, where I dropped in to cater for humdrum needs of my body, my soul spotted a glimmering red light of a Japanese cherry-tree in its full autumnal dress, looking like an elegant geisha in her festive kimono. The camera blinked its eyelid and in the next second the geisha was to be my honoured guest on the blog. The camera was glowing with self-righteousness and so was I. Some Saturdays are like that – very special and magical.

13. Autumn Shadows Passing Through

Autumn – time for bringing home the harvest of the year, for reminiscing and balancing the books. Credits – debits – profits or losses. The Day and Night forces are close to their standstill when, in perfect balance, Light will retreat to give way to Darkness. A silent procession of pale shadows from the past slides silently through my unquiet mind. So many journeys, adventures, people, sights and sounds, sunny days and dark nights. Rain splashing gently in the becalmed canals of sleeping Venice; the miaouwing of hordes of homeless cats in the ruins of Colliseum; the fountains of Alhambra murmuring long-forgotten prayers of old muezzins; a narrow street of Toledo where my car got hopelessly stuck; driving along the crazy virages of the Swiss Grimsel Pass in a downpour, pierced by zigzagging lightnings and the Alps echoing one thousand thunders…Memories are surging in, but the past is time running in reverse gear and it makes me dizzy. I much prefer my present time and I like Fridays like today – warm and sunny with a whiff of a relaxing weekend ahead. I will cast a quick glance over the last eight months of the eighth year of the XXI century, making a mental note to remember only those events that had taught me something. Life is a long-term school. We are always learning something – often painfully. I can leave only when I get a diploma for further studies in the Academy of  the Fifth Dimension. Once there, I will take exams in many abstruse subjects and receive a degree of Magister Ludi with Pegasus Wings as a prize. I am not in a hurry to continue my education for planetary recalcitrants elsewhere, because the angelic pop groups singing nonstop the latest hits from the Black Hole producers of Harmonious Discord can be a bit too much.

12. Dinosaurs Playing Domino Game

In the Jurassic Park of Very Big Banks something is happening that could be described as a Domino Effect. One starts falling and they all follow in a sort of a helpless chain reaction. Maybe it would be even fun to watch, if  it wasn’t my hard earned and saved money they are playing with. My bank was in a dangerous slide towards bankruptcy, but it was saved not so much by the gong, but by another dinosaur, which swallowed it up. So, there is now just one very bloated Bank in place of two. I am not very impressed by that cannibalism among Jurassic monsters, because it will not stop the chain reaction around the world.

I can get my small savings out of the munching jaws of the dinosaur, but what to do with it is quite another matter. Putting it in another bank would be like hoping that the last domino won’t fall. Buying a little bar of gold? I can’t pay with it for my living expenses. Finding a safe country that can withstand the biggest depression since 1929? In this global village even piggy-banks are vulnerable. It’s a diificult time and I am now beginning to wonder whether I should have sent that chain letter to ten banks in the vain hope that I will get some idea how to rescue my money from the greedy hands of the Jurassic Park Domino Players.