Horus - The Sky God

Resurrection is a common theme these days whether its Easter honouring Jesus Christ and his crucifiction and resurrection or how we gain back our own lives from the brink of sadness, depression or loss of some kind.

I occaisonally get glimpses of something "other" not fitting into what should be but rather a sense or feeling that words cannot often convey the meaning of. It goes back to the heavy footsteps down the hall - ghostly presences in a way triggered me to delve past the obvious, the ordinary and the mundane. There is more to life than just "being" isn't there?

Consequently my thirst to learn more, to question what this "reality" is about led me to delve into astrology, numerology and the Tarot. It was really a quest to understand something intangible and obscure.

I started reading cards well over 35 years ago and from time to time I pick them up again and see what happens. I was thinking about transformation and I was instantly given the flash - Horus - the child conceived by Isis from the phallus of her dead husband. I wont go into details - you can read the story here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horus

These thoughts led me to explain out loud, "how do you change" how does one move from one position to another. How do you transform, move beyond what you think and feel to a new and clearer, more mindful self.

Think I had better find those cards and see what they trigger.....

G is for GHOSTS

I definitely believe in ghosts - losts souls who don't know they are dead. For without death there cannot be a ghost. The predominant reason I believe in such things is that I have experienced the presence of one who has passed. I have never seen an apparation but for several evenings around 8 pm in the evening I heard one.

This happened a long time ago when I was a mere 14 years old and one could put it down to hormones or auditory hallucinations I suppose; but I know what I heard.

In Tibetan Buddhism there is such a thing as a "hungry ghost", it is a metaphor one might say for those who have not lived their lives to their satisfaction and crave physical desires above all else. They try to fill a void that cannot ever be filled.

I think that I lived with one such creature. She was large and fearsome to me and much despised in my family. I knew that she was old, large and rarely bathed. She lived in a part of my house and looked after her brother, my grandfather. My father did not speak to her - they hated each other and my mother was forced to share a kithen with her and they had several heated arguments while trying to share the space. I really did not know what to do, how to act, to speak or not to speak. I trod a precarious path as I often would encounter her in the hallway of our large Victorian brick house.

Picture this house. When you walked into the house there were large "drawing rooms" on either side and directly ahead a large staircase going up to the second story (the house had 3). To the left of the staircase was a hallway which ended in a pantry directly ahead, a stone floor kitchen to the left and small living room to the right.

My grandfather and his sister, whose name incidentally is Auntie Bette enhabited the room to the left of the frontdoor but we (Mum and Dad and me) used the small room to the right of the hallway as our living room and dining room as the front room was too cold to live in and costly to heat.

Houses of this kind are damp and uncomfortable though they sound quite romantic on the surface they are incredibly uncomfortable to actually live in as a human.

One day Auntie Bette was carted off to the hospital and she never came back. She died about a week later. Well in a sense she did come back, or never left - I have never been quite sure.

Auntie Bette was in the habit, in true English tradition of making a pot of tea before bedtime and every night at about 8 pm she walked down the hallway with a distinct and heavy footstep. The problem for me was that she continued to do it for some time after she died.

At first I was, as one would say in todays vernacular, totally freaked out and went to my parents and told them --aah Auntie Bette's walking down the hallway - but they said the usual, "don't be silly" and "she is dead" and other profound responses to my feares. She continued her nightly voyage down the hallway for some time - at least two or three weeks and my fear level subsided a little to a mere utterance of, "there's Auntie Bette again" but my parents paid no attention to me.

Eventually she figuired out she was dead I guess but I could never go near her room - it smelled of her and it terrified me. I was sure she was still around. Perhaps she still is but its a rented house for students now - I bet there are some unexplained footsteps in the night from time to time.....

F is for Friendship

He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.
Oscar Wilde

I am not a particularly sentimental or maudlin creature except where cats and 1940s movies are concerned so I embark on this particular concept with some trepidation and hopefully a little humour.

I think of the "friends" I have known and ones that have passed, literally and others who have just passed me by and I sometimes feel a small stab of regret: not a guilty form of regret but rather a sense of having lost something.

I recently "lost" a friend to that evil cancer and years ago another friend to the same evil disease and I always wished that they had the freedom to blossom in their lives. I hoped I had in some ways agitated, provoked and cared enough about them to inspire a little adventure or even - yes brought some joy to their lives as they did to mine.

I also think of those friendships I tried to rekindle and failed miserably - you can't go back and pick up your friends as often you have changed and they haven't and it is glaringly obviouse. I don't live the lifestyle of the young and foolish anymore but rather prefer to curl up with the cats and watch tv or read a book.

As I age I like meeting people here and there but have more faith in the "accident" of friendship, the karma or fate of the connection. I don't want to be everybody's friend dashing around being entertaining.

Marlene Deitrich said, "It's the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter" and I get her point. I can think of a handful of friends I could do that with and it feels good. The Dalai Lama is very pragmatic about it all and I will end on his quote. Perhaps that is the story of my friendships - they begin with Oscar Wilde and end with a monk's.

"Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend - or a meaningful day."

E is for England

I say England but I really mean NOT Ireland, Scotland or Wales. Since becoming almost Canadian I still find it difficult to understand this concept of "Britain". I actually cringe when people talk about having been to "Britain" - it usually means they went to London and not for long either.

No body would ever say they were from "Britain" but rather they were English, Irish, Welsh or wait for it...Scottish - that's not Scotch which is a drink.

Now I hail from an odd place - for those of you who know me there would be no eyebrows raised. no questioning furrows of the forehead or quizzical glances. No - rather a nod of the head and an understanding "aha". In other words - no surprise whatsoever. I digress. Hailing from Scouseland one's lineage is a tad distorted. There is the Irish and the Welsh who somehow came together in one place and created a culture, an accent and a heritage that is distinct and different from anywhere else in that place called England.

Death and Dying - some ideas on surviving it - or not

All my mother wishes to talk about is wanting to die.  She says she has had enough.  I try to cajole, encourage and incite her to try and enjoy her last days, months and quite possibly years.  It does no good - she is not going for it.   She is stubborn and fixed.

Mum suffers from depression - at least that is the diagnosis.  On occaison I have spoken to her health care workers who become somewhat evasive, reticent and use true Scouse humour to deflect me from an actual "naming" of her condition.  I have been given responses such as, "she's complicated" to "hasn't she been pretty much like this for years", so I really don't know what she suffers from apart from a "chemical imbalance".

To use another "D" word she is difficult, depressing to be around and definitely demonstrative in her denial of the world offering her any joy.  She holds on tight to her depression and wraps it around herself like a well-worn cardie.  She wants to have a fight about something - it's a family tradition so I chant inside my head and try to remember to be mindful and gentle with her - it's darn difficult.

To be honest I have my own doubts as to her true desires.  Manipulation, downright lying and guilt-tripping are definitely areas of behaviour that could win her an Oscar - well maybe an Obie as she can be very convincing.  My grandfather, her dad, was quite similar in his theatrics and was a rather successful moocher in pubs.    

I have thought of bringing her to Canada but there would be no health insurance for her, she cannot get sponsored as she has a list of stays in mental hospitals.  Mum seems to like hospitals as they pay a great deal of attention to her.  One of the care  home attendants once asked me if my dad spoiled her - in some ways he did but that's another story.

So I tell mum not to worry - she will die one day but maybe not today so perhaps there could be something to do.  She adamantly denies there is anything to do and that she is bored stiff.

I blame the War #2.  Her brother died, much loved, sweet soul and I don't think the family ever recovered from their grief....

so when I see her I ply her with alcohol - well a half of bitter shandy anyway and hope I am able to enjoy my older years - its not genetic is it?

So what's your lineage?: C is most def for CATS

So what's your lineage?: C is most def for CATS: "Continuing this fragile thread of survival - cats n books also have a close affinity. They are the dyad of comfort and nurture. ..."

C is most def for CATS

Continuing this fragile thread of survival - cats n books also have a close affinity.  They are the dyad of comfort and nurture.  The absolute pleasure of a warm little body curled up against your back and a can't- put- down book in hand is a particular joy that has kept me safe for many a year of my childhood and my adult life.

It seems as I progress through the A to Z of this challenge that I am going through the years and its is becoming a useful and reflective tool. 

My first cat, Sandy was orange and white and petite in stature but he knew it was his job to sit on the front step overlooking his terrain and keep all intruders at bay.  There was a rather nasty little brown and black dog that lived down the street - small like a jack russell and his owner a rather large and bombastic woman would pass by our house on their frequent walkies.  Of course a scuffle would ensue quite frequently.  One day there was a knock on the door and the owner complained quite vehemently about our cat - who weighed at least one quarter of the weight of the pooch - to say that our lovely sweet little cat was constantly slashing her dog's nose and it had to stop.

If you knew my  mother you could probably  imagine how quickly the aforesaid dog owner was despatched back down the street.  I think Sandy might have had a special treat that night.  Now folks - this is the same cat that allowed me to dress him in my christening outfit of bonnet and dress in a particluarly lovely white satin and push him up and down my street in the lovely pram I had been given for xmas. 

I share this story in order to allow those feeble minded, cat-haters of the most despicable kind to perhaps have an inking of the multi-faceted nature of the feline vairieties.  For all thos lovers of the species I hope you enjoyed the "tail",

B is for Books

I would definitely not have survived childhood with a microscope upon me, without diving into the world of literature - from Charles Dickens to Ian Fleming and everything in between.  No phone, no TV to speak of and very few films to really get lost in reading became the salvation - I itched to read and I dove into the depths of the great storytellers of the 19th century. 

Do you know that feeling where you actually inhabit the characters, you can taste what they taste and feel their emotions with the depth of the writer - OK maybe James Bond didn't have much depth but the stories were great pieces of a time machine that I sometimes think is now lost to the kids today.

If I was reading I was escaping and if I was escaping I was free.  I sometimes think that part of my adventure is to visit the great shrines of Bronte world, Austin and George Eliot.  To catch another flavour of their worlds so that I can really and truly join in their imaginative journeys.  I remember visitng Howarth, the Bronte family home and seeing where the children - Emily, Charlotte, Anne and Bramwell all drew pictures and wrote on the wall of their playroom, their imaginatarium and I absolutely felt blessed by them.  Strange.

http://www.visitliverpool.com/site/heritage/hidden-liverpool/the-mystery

A is for adventure

The first house isn't really the first but it may as well be because I don't remember much about the real first house.  I knew for a long time there was something wrong with my family.  I never - not for a moment thought that it was me, you know, my fault that things weren't quite right. I could say it was reading the Midwich Cuckoos or Marilynn Duff down the road (who told me all about babies and what you had to doto get them) or the fact the the Williams kids were badly brought up - compared to me that was, who was obviously from a much classier background. I digress.  The adventure really began in Wavertree playground which was actually called the "Mystery" as there were rumours of murder, in fighting and debts that lingered over the place like a black cloud of intrigue.  We met there and escaped prying eye's of parents and hung about doing nothing and talking about all the things we daren't mention elsewhere. I passed that park a few months back and I thought of all the adventures or escapes of over fourty years ago and reckoned I had done OK.  I escaped my roots but my lineage still haunts me.