Oops - wrong about Borders banning the Northern Lights. They just aren't 'promoting' it along with the banned, sorry censored, books of the past. I was a bit tired yesterday - is my excuse!
Today I have as much energy as a gutted haddock. I think it's something to do with the drop in temperature outside. Or delayed reaction from the excitements of the weekend. My life is normally so dull.
1 Oct 2008
30 Sept 2008
Pullman's my man!
In an article in todays Grauniad Pulllman says how delighted he has been with reaction to the 'Northern Lights' trilogy which is causing big protests in the good ole USA. To my sorrow Borders has banned it. Not so funny that - I like Borders.
Pullman has revealed he was delighted to discover his novel Northern Lights was one of the most "challenged" titles of the year in America, with numerous calls made to have it removed from libraries.
Pullman said that banning a book on religious grounds was "the worst reason of the lot".
"Religion grants its adherents malign, intoxicating and morally corrosive sensations. Destroying intellectual freedom is always evil, but only religion makes doing evil feel quite so good," he said.
Pullman has revealed he was delighted to discover his novel Northern Lights was one of the most "challenged" titles of the year in America, with numerous calls made to have it removed from libraries.
Pullman said that banning a book on religious grounds was "the worst reason of the lot".
"Religion grants its adherents malign, intoxicating and morally corrosive sensations. Destroying intellectual freedom is always evil, but only religion makes doing evil feel quite so good," he said.
Back to reality.....
.... and boredom. I still have to get the books back onto the shelves but as no-one is coming through the door there isn't a panic over that. The new Phil Rickman has arrived and I would really like to be able to curl up with it somewhere warm. There's been an appreciable drop in temperature over night (snow is forecast for the higher places) so cocoa in my warm living room with the latest spooky goings on in Ledwardine, Rickman's fictional Hertfordshire village in the Welsh foothills, is almost irresistable.
I suppose I should press on with packing orders and re-organising. There will be time enough for curling up later, if the creek don't rise.
I suppose I should press on with packing orders and re-organising. There will be time enough for curling up later, if the creek don't rise.
Book Fair Finale
It was a succesful fair for this tradesperson at the PBFA fair in Aberdeen at the weekend, mainly because I offered huge reductions to the other sellers. From the public the trade was slow all round; I didn't hear many paper bags rustling - i.e. not many books were being wrapped. Nobody actually owns to be feeling the pinch yet so I have to assume that whatever is happening here is peculiar to this shop and this High Street. Despite their insoucience several dealers did say, in response to my news, that it was probably a good moment to be making a move out of the business and their thousand yard stare got even longer as they spoke, so possibly there HAVE been signs of a slow-down. On a day when the world economy teeters round the U.S. decision not to bail out Wall Street fat cats I'm not sure it's worth worrying much.
I forgot to take my camera but there wasn't much to capture except the purple face of a certain querrilous old queen when I tried to borrow the hotel trolley to take my boxes to the car. He actually shouted at me! He still had several bookcases to empty and the driver he had hired to help him was very ready for a rest, he had no boxes ready at that moment, my trip would have taken three minutes maximum but - 'You leave that trolley there! I got that and I'm paying... ' Er... for what? The hotel trolley?
It's the first time I have EVER had anything unpleasant happen to me at a book fair, although this chap , who feels himself to be King of the castle in the organisation (and to give him his due he has worked hard for it over the last few years) had been ignoring me studiously throughout the two days because I cancelled myself from one of his fairs earlier in the year (I suppose!)
Unfortunately I react badly in these moments and instead of being grave and reasonable I laugh. I laughed rather a lot as it was all so silly. A lock of hair was tossing above the enraged face in an agitated Hugh Grantish way. It only wanted the stamped foot. Laughing didn't help the situation much. Two other much more gentlemanly dealers put my seven boxes (no bookcases because I had sold them and two less boxes than I arrived with) onto their trolleys and steered me out of the room before the prima donna could burst an artery.
Oh well. At least I went out with a bang!
I forgot to take my camera but there wasn't much to capture except the purple face of a certain querrilous old queen when I tried to borrow the hotel trolley to take my boxes to the car. He actually shouted at me! He still had several bookcases to empty and the driver he had hired to help him was very ready for a rest, he had no boxes ready at that moment, my trip would have taken three minutes maximum but - 'You leave that trolley there! I got that and I'm paying... ' Er... for what? The hotel trolley?
It's the first time I have EVER had anything unpleasant happen to me at a book fair, although this chap , who feels himself to be King of the castle in the organisation (and to give him his due he has worked hard for it over the last few years) had been ignoring me studiously throughout the two days because I cancelled myself from one of his fairs earlier in the year (I suppose!)
Unfortunately I react badly in these moments and instead of being grave and reasonable I laugh. I laughed rather a lot as it was all so silly. A lock of hair was tossing above the enraged face in an agitated Hugh Grantish way. It only wanted the stamped foot. Laughing didn't help the situation much. Two other much more gentlemanly dealers put my seven boxes (no bookcases because I had sold them and two less boxes than I arrived with) onto their trolleys and steered me out of the room before the prima donna could burst an artery.
Oh well. At least I went out with a bang!
25 Sept 2008
Hair not growing - government to blame?
I have a new conspiracy scare. Chloë went to get her hair cut yesterday. I commented that it hardly seemed worth having it cut because it was still looking really short. "It's three months since I was last at the hairdressers" she said "I booked this appointment as I left last time." I was shocked. In three months mine has usually got from collar level to the pointy bit of my shoulder blades. Is there something wrong with my daughter?
Apparently not. Chloë reapeated all this to the hairdresser who said calmly: "I've been noticing that nobody's hair has grown much this summer."
And she doesn't think this calls for investigation by Agents Mulder and Scully?
Apparently not. Chloë reapeated all this to the hairdresser who said calmly: "I've been noticing that nobody's hair has grown much this summer."
And she doesn't think this calls for investigation by Agents Mulder and Scully?
Home thoughts of 'abroad.'
It has been a week for visitors, some of them seasonal and therefore a sure sign of autumn, like the geese and the migrating swallows, some more of a surprise like Tom, who got married, said goodbye to us and tried living in Brazil with his bride. Now he's officially separated from the bride and also from his much loved dog who flew out with them but would face a long lonely quarantine if brought back. Tom likes Brazil, had spent plenty of time there to get to know the country and his new in-laws who he likes very much but long-term it wasn't possible to adjust. In his younger day he travelled a lot, even living in Australia for some years, but now has the feeling Scotland is home and this is where he feels complete. It's a feeling I understand from my 13 years in Belgium. I went with a good will, prepared to adopt another country and excited by the challenge. When I returned, or rather when I came to live in this part of Scotland, there was a moment when I felt myself coming back into my body fully from some place slightly to the right - it was an almost physical sensation.
After Tom, by some strange synchronicity (the week isn't over apparently!) Crawford came by to talk about the preparations he and his wife are making to live in Spain. They are booked on a ferry at the end of next month. He shared his growing nervousness at leaving this country 'for ever.' It's one thing thinking about it but quite another actually doing it. Crawford lived in South America for many years, and loved the continent. He speaks Spanish fluently so in many ways it should be easy for him to contemplate living in Spain, but it isn't. Perhaps it's something to do with our age - I don't like thinking that way. I reject the idea that I'm not as adaptable as I once was. Nevertheless perhaps our vision of the future is linked to the amount of time we once assumed we had to look forward to in which we could change our minds and return, and also the ease with which we could earn money to facilitate the moving around. The reality is that European borders are open - but that doesn't make the rest of Europe automatically 'home' to us.
After that conversation Miles and Vanessa arrived and we talked books, writing, mushroom poisoning. Miles had more news of the poor funghi-eating laird now facing dialysis for the rest of his life. The media have swooped on him asking him to 'raise awareness' of the dangers of picking wild mushrooms but as he ruefully said he has his own readjustments to make and recovery to concentrate on for the moment.
Then the bi-annual visit of two book-collectors from England, a jolly pair who bring me news of other shops and the odd morsel of enjoyable scandal in the book trade. They even bought some books. 'We'll be back next May' were their parting words. I pointed out that when May arrives they should ring first as I probably won't have the shop open by then but will certainly have books. Cries of dismay -'but we love coming here and talking to you..' Flattering. Not enough to spare the axe though. I'm enjoying my first free Thursday right now and although I am sitting in the place I usually sit when the shop is open there is a world of difference. I heard the door being tried just now and sighed with pleasure. I won't have to say 'no' to their books, value their books or order books for them. I won't have to make conversation with anyone I don't want to make conversation with for two whole days!
After Tom, by some strange synchronicity (the week isn't over apparently!) Crawford came by to talk about the preparations he and his wife are making to live in Spain. They are booked on a ferry at the end of next month. He shared his growing nervousness at leaving this country 'for ever.' It's one thing thinking about it but quite another actually doing it. Crawford lived in South America for many years, and loved the continent. He speaks Spanish fluently so in many ways it should be easy for him to contemplate living in Spain, but it isn't. Perhaps it's something to do with our age - I don't like thinking that way. I reject the idea that I'm not as adaptable as I once was. Nevertheless perhaps our vision of the future is linked to the amount of time we once assumed we had to look forward to in which we could change our minds and return, and also the ease with which we could earn money to facilitate the moving around. The reality is that European borders are open - but that doesn't make the rest of Europe automatically 'home' to us.
After that conversation Miles and Vanessa arrived and we talked books, writing, mushroom poisoning. Miles had more news of the poor funghi-eating laird now facing dialysis for the rest of his life. The media have swooped on him asking him to 'raise awareness' of the dangers of picking wild mushrooms but as he ruefully said he has his own readjustments to make and recovery to concentrate on for the moment.
Then the bi-annual visit of two book-collectors from England, a jolly pair who bring me news of other shops and the odd morsel of enjoyable scandal in the book trade. They even bought some books. 'We'll be back next May' were their parting words. I pointed out that when May arrives they should ring first as I probably won't have the shop open by then but will certainly have books. Cries of dismay -'but we love coming here and talking to you..' Flattering. Not enough to spare the axe though. I'm enjoying my first free Thursday right now and although I am sitting in the place I usually sit when the shop is open there is a world of difference. I heard the door being tried just now and sighed with pleasure. I won't have to say 'no' to their books, value their books or order books for them. I won't have to make conversation with anyone I don't want to make conversation with for two whole days!
23 Sept 2008
Mind/Body/Spirit
Just lately there doesn't seem to have been as much interest in the M/B/S section except on the internet. That is surprising living as I do close to the Findhorn Foundation, but maybe they just circualte the books around themselves. There is a definate 'fashion' for the books that spin off from the healing systems and therapies that arise and wane in their turn. So many books come out in that genre that just reinvent the wheel so to speak - going over and over the same stuff, giving it a new twist or simply a new name. I have become somewhat cynical over the years but don't deny what it has given me, or what it gave me when I first entered that world nearly thirty years ago.
It took a long perod of illness to start the excursion into the New Age and adventures in consciousness.
At a certain point in my life I had recurring dreams of being entombed in a stone sarcophagus, trapped with my child in my arms. I knew that to struggle would take me faster into death; that survival lay in stillness. Struggle would lead to panic; panic would lead to destruction. The way out was to escape my body through - not my mind but that level of consciousnes beyond mind which I had no name for.
In the daytime I thought about the dream. It was a metaphor, I could see that. I was trapped without hope of escape. I was running short of oxygen and that was no more than the truth as I lived with chronic asthma. Not the kind that comes and goes in ‘attacks’ but the kind that is always present making it hard to walk across the room, waking me in the night to face suffocation, with no assurance that another breath would ever make it's way into my lungs. I needed constant medication, which itself did strange things to my vision and divorced me from the world.
There was another cause for the dream imagery so cleverly put togeher for me by my brain. As a child I spent a lot of time ill and my favourite browse was through a set of Brown’s encyclopaedia in which I found photos of old archaeological digs showing men in plus fours digging up sarcophagi. In one photo the archaeologist was standing by a tomb within a tomb within which lay the mummified corpse, like a set of Russian dolls. The body lay in the last stone cell and the person once entombed in the body had escaped.
I began to read. Unable to leave my bedroom, with a baby, a toddler, a four year old and a crippling lack of oxygen, I relied on my husband for my choice of reading. He brought me Jane Roberts and Seth. For the first time I read the channelling of a discarnate being. It didn’t matter to me whether or not I believed in the Seth personality, what he said was fascinating: There are other levels beyond the material and this is how it works. This is how your soul comes into being and this is how you are attached to an oversoul which has far greater capacity to understand and see than you do from this single focus point in space/time.
Even the pocket psychology course at college hadn’t given me any glimpses of these levels of consciousness (no transpersonal psychology in those days, or if there were it wasn’t allowed to disrupt our thinkng.) Christian religion had, if anything, stifled such possibilities in shallow history, moralising and vague allegory.
None of it was entirely new, there was an innate knowledge I remembered from being very small that the visible material world was not the whole truth. I suppose we all have ths knowledge but like many childhood gifts it usually goes unnoticed. If noticed in my day it would most probably have been discredited. The paramormal was dangerous land; the territory of the Devil, no less. Strictly speaking it wasn’t the paranormal I had discovered, it was a form of meditation but it certainly separated me from my body. When I had asthma in the days before inhalers I lay on my bedroom floor and ‘went inside.’ Of course I didn’t know that’s what I was doing, I had no words for it, but the difficulty, almost impossibility, of breathing put me in that place from which no escape was possible except in stillness and reaching beyond the body which I instinctively understood was fine left to itself. It had a enough oxygen to survive. Panic would have made heavy demands on the system but stillness meant it could tick over and slowly recover whilst I floated free, sometimes in nothingness - I remember the strange pull of that ‘nothingness.’ Sometimes I roamed in places I had never seen where I could run and play unhampered by the material form.
Now I discovered there was a word for what I had been doing - in fact several from which I could take my pick. Meditation. Out-of-Body experience. Samadhi. The Oceanic state. I read a book written by a women who had had experiences of meditation in different cultures. I wanted to follow this path myself although it sounded more goal-directed than my childhood moments. I began to want the mind-opening, consciousness awakening flashes of which she wrote. As a young woman in the 60’s I had never tried LSD. Drugs had hardly come my way and apart from a few puffs of marijuana which took me into my body rather than out of it and heightened my physical senses. I had never had any of the wild trips which others had been through, nor, to be honest, had I wanted them because I was something of a pragmatist (some might say coward) and Ididn’t want to let go of reality in such an uncontrolled way.
Mainly I wanted to escape the present. At that period of my life when my physical movements where so constricted I began meditating again and one day discovered the nothingness state which as a child I had found so welcoming. This time it frightened me. I’ve no explanation for the change except that maybe I was more ‘in’ my body, more fully incarnate than I had been at six and the need to feel my attachment to the material was linked to the primary survival drive. Who knows? I changed my meditation technique to keep myself from the abyss..
---------------------------------------
I also read further. So many books by so many wise people. A few remain in my memory now, the others have presumably been assimilated and given me the belief system that keeps me more or less sane.
It took a long perod of illness to start the excursion into the New Age and adventures in consciousness.
At a certain point in my life I had recurring dreams of being entombed in a stone sarcophagus, trapped with my child in my arms. I knew that to struggle would take me faster into death; that survival lay in stillness. Struggle would lead to panic; panic would lead to destruction. The way out was to escape my body through - not my mind but that level of consciousnes beyond mind which I had no name for.
In the daytime I thought about the dream. It was a metaphor, I could see that. I was trapped without hope of escape. I was running short of oxygen and that was no more than the truth as I lived with chronic asthma. Not the kind that comes and goes in ‘attacks’ but the kind that is always present making it hard to walk across the room, waking me in the night to face suffocation, with no assurance that another breath would ever make it's way into my lungs. I needed constant medication, which itself did strange things to my vision and divorced me from the world.
There was another cause for the dream imagery so cleverly put togeher for me by my brain. As a child I spent a lot of time ill and my favourite browse was through a set of Brown’s encyclopaedia in which I found photos of old archaeological digs showing men in plus fours digging up sarcophagi. In one photo the archaeologist was standing by a tomb within a tomb within which lay the mummified corpse, like a set of Russian dolls. The body lay in the last stone cell and the person once entombed in the body had escaped.
I began to read. Unable to leave my bedroom, with a baby, a toddler, a four year old and a crippling lack of oxygen, I relied on my husband for my choice of reading. He brought me Jane Roberts and Seth. For the first time I read the channelling of a discarnate being. It didn’t matter to me whether or not I believed in the Seth personality, what he said was fascinating: There are other levels beyond the material and this is how it works. This is how your soul comes into being and this is how you are attached to an oversoul which has far greater capacity to understand and see than you do from this single focus point in space/time.
Even the pocket psychology course at college hadn’t given me any glimpses of these levels of consciousness (no transpersonal psychology in those days, or if there were it wasn’t allowed to disrupt our thinkng.) Christian religion had, if anything, stifled such possibilities in shallow history, moralising and vague allegory.
None of it was entirely new, there was an innate knowledge I remembered from being very small that the visible material world was not the whole truth. I suppose we all have ths knowledge but like many childhood gifts it usually goes unnoticed. If noticed in my day it would most probably have been discredited. The paramormal was dangerous land; the territory of the Devil, no less. Strictly speaking it wasn’t the paranormal I had discovered, it was a form of meditation but it certainly separated me from my body. When I had asthma in the days before inhalers I lay on my bedroom floor and ‘went inside.’ Of course I didn’t know that’s what I was doing, I had no words for it, but the difficulty, almost impossibility, of breathing put me in that place from which no escape was possible except in stillness and reaching beyond the body which I instinctively understood was fine left to itself. It had a enough oxygen to survive. Panic would have made heavy demands on the system but stillness meant it could tick over and slowly recover whilst I floated free, sometimes in nothingness - I remember the strange pull of that ‘nothingness.’ Sometimes I roamed in places I had never seen where I could run and play unhampered by the material form.
Now I discovered there was a word for what I had been doing - in fact several from which I could take my pick. Meditation. Out-of-Body experience. Samadhi. The Oceanic state. I read a book written by a women who had had experiences of meditation in different cultures. I wanted to follow this path myself although it sounded more goal-directed than my childhood moments. I began to want the mind-opening, consciousness awakening flashes of which she wrote. As a young woman in the 60’s I had never tried LSD. Drugs had hardly come my way and apart from a few puffs of marijuana which took me into my body rather than out of it and heightened my physical senses. I had never had any of the wild trips which others had been through, nor, to be honest, had I wanted them because I was something of a pragmatist (some might say coward) and Ididn’t want to let go of reality in such an uncontrolled way.
Mainly I wanted to escape the present. At that period of my life when my physical movements where so constricted I began meditating again and one day discovered the nothingness state which as a child I had found so welcoming. This time it frightened me. I’ve no explanation for the change except that maybe I was more ‘in’ my body, more fully incarnate than I had been at six and the need to feel my attachment to the material was linked to the primary survival drive. Who knows? I changed my meditation technique to keep myself from the abyss..
---------------------------------------
I also read further. So many books by so many wise people. A few remain in my memory now, the others have presumably been assimilated and given me the belief system that keeps me more or less sane.
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