On the night of 2.3.14 I dreamt one of those ‘back at school’ nightmarish dreams, which for me as an ex-teacher are twice as bad. A 63 years old schoolboy taking GCE/GCSE. I was supposed to paint a portrait which I was very confident of doing but dream-time circumstances conspired to make it difficult with all manner of tings ganging up to prevent me exhibiting my prowess. Weird. A smarmy man (similar to one I knew when I worked as a teacher and to Master Cameroon PM) offered me ‘help’ but I suspected it came with strings attached. Then, when I awoke, I needed a pee. OF COURSE dreams seem to occur (at least in my case) when my belly is full, seemingly as a result of pressure on …well I don’t really know…cerebral cortex? (Cerebral codex, that’d be a good title for a book, oh shut it Pete you have plenty of titles, too many by half.) Surely someone out there has done research into the link between the bowel and dream instigation? I am aware that ‘they’ (the scientists, whoever they are hmph) say that the light people report seeing on returning from the brink of dying/near death experience (NDE) is ‘only’ a function of the brain closing down, chemicals doing what they do naturally as the system closes down resulting in these apparently miraculous visions. ‘They’ seem to be putting a dampener on the idea that when we die we move toward the light and in some cases of NDE the returnees say they see folk they have loved appear, maybe beckoning or just welcoming them. Tosh say the scientists, or at least they used to. My friend Sophia Psychiatrist says that a lot of thinking is at present going into the idea that the theories on the dying process coming out of ancient times in some cultures like Buddhism are being given a lot more credence. I do not know from research or even reading the results of research, but it wouldn’t surprise me. I still have a lot to learn. Whereas I can see the logic of there being no life (mind/spirit) once the body has ceased functioning and is clinically dead. Of course there would then be no operating machine, no route for thoughts to take from brain down cerebral cortex to operate parts like mouth and voice box, so it stands to reason the spirit has no operating system. The wonderful better than a computer mind has no speakers, no receivers, no transmitter, no fingers to type his blart any more etcetera so how can it live on in a ‘mind’ or ‘spirit’ form? That is reasonable but the universe/existence is not all reason-able. There is a lot to say it is run by chaos. William Blake called the god of the Jews and Christians Urizen (You Reason) and likened ‘his’ advocates, (apparently Blake thought Newton to be one), to the Gnostic demi-god, a god who was created by higher forces but who had created the physical realms (by mistake)> against this ‘REASON’ Blake had Imagination, or an intuitive creative process untrammelled by the prison of reason. Pirsig in ‘Zen & The Art Of Motor Cycle Maintenance’ talks of the romantic mode (primarily inspirational, feelings rather than facts predominate) and the classic mode (proceeds by reason & laws). ‘They’ talk about right and left hemisphere tinking. The right side is the creative one and the left side is the rational. The right hemisphere drives the left hand and the left hemisphere drives the right hand. Many ‘artists’ tend to use their left hand. Leonardo even used to write back to front. He was one of the rare specimens who seemed equally at home in both hemispheres so he designed helicopters and submarines whilst giving the Mona Lisa a Hitler moustache. Oops, no, that was Duchamp who exercised his right hemisphere by doing Dada actions and his left brain doing chess moves. Duchamp once said (lecture 1958), “To all appearances, the artist acts like a mediumistic being who, from the labyrinth beyond time & Space, seeks his way out to a clearing.”
Buddhists talk of the Middle road, which in an ideal world I would traverse but sadly I am a romantic thinker. This is evident in my frequent forays into mis-spelling (breaking the code), my constant returning to making art with its subsequent financially poor outcomes. The ‘artist’ invariably needs an accountant. I do not make art as an accountant. I don’t assess the market for a gap, I do the tings I see fit at the time. These have often proven 20-40 years ahead of the field. Which usually does not put butter on the bread as the world is mostly conservative (wit a small ‘c’) or distrustful of innovation, unless of course it serves a purpose. I know someone who makes stained glass tings. Beautiful geometric patterns on hexagons. But nobody buys them. If they were made into cuboids and had a light fitted in then they would sell at stores like Harrods.
what do you tink about this then?
I took a sleep-break after the word ‘Harrods’ and guess what? I dreamt. I dreamt we were in a car between our home and Chompsferd on a hunt for our son. We had allowed nay encouraged him to go on a ‘walk’ in the hills which were snow covered but looked more like the hills around the Pennines than the hill at Danbury. He was only about 6 years old in my dream, he’s older than that in ‘reality’. He was stuck out there and we were making frantic efforts to reach him. All manner of obstacles were preventing it. (In fact he does need rescuing at present so it wasn’t such a stupid dream.) Another dream about being thwarted too. I do get to feeling thwarted in my waking hours. I often feel, ‘If only they would do this then I could do that’. But NO! No no no, don’t say no say YES, yes, I CAN. I was down the garden t’other day doing some totally stupid self-imposed task which most of the whole wide world would say, why on earth is he bothering to do that? When I had a moment of realisation. It’s not that important what you do, or what what you do’s seeming relevance is. Whilst I wer doing that ting I looked at the trees, I heard the cackle of the woodpecker, I soaked in the freak high temperature for mid-March. I was in fact relaxing from all them tasks which we (seem to) ‘have’ to do. I was in fact enjoying myself doing ‘nothing’ (nutting at all babe). I mean, I am 63 and retired, so I don’t have to do nuttin.Notwithstanding double negatives and returning to ‘reason’; do giant squid and blue whales reason? Of course they exist and they die and return to atoms as do hu-beings. Hey, maybe we call our type of creature hubeings, that’d get rid o the stupid gender issues, hey that may be the first great idea. Or, maybe ube-ins?
I’m not just an ugly face. This ting in me what drives the pen. Some of the action may be instinctive? I’m not sure putting words on page with a mark maker biro is instinctive? It is nurture not nature. Communicating maybe natural? But, inside my head, as well as tinitis, seems to live a tinking entity. The ego, the id in me is a Gurdjeffian Idiot.
(Did yu know that Kate Bush’s family were into the big G.?) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfNtPbHkp0U
So this entity tells me you gotta do tings today. Go to Hadleigh book fair, send those books to the british Library archives, drink anudda gulp of that tea from that cup. It appears the Buddhists say that ispart of the monkey chatter, it’s also necessary for planning & directing this ube-in machine, put your clothes on have a wash, oops wrong order, that’s age fer ya. But, there comes a moment when all the monkey chatter stops, the heart stops, the blood don’t pump round no more. Dead to this world. Or not? NDE’s tell stories of floating above the dead body and watching grievers (or celebrators, ‘good the Idiot’s gone I can have his empire. What no money, only…writing and drawings. Spirit or no spirit a ubeing lives on in the works, this you being me, moi-meme, mySelf, I Am! And D H Lwarence lives on his work being one of my original inspirators, and that other Hopi admirer, Maxt Ernst, good ole Lop Lop himsen.
apulhed tingling 