Jane Wharam on......

Tools of the Trade

I recently gave a talk about creativity and one of the things I suggested was to keep a notebook handy and write down anything interesting which might be useful in future writing.  The previous blog, "Chanelling' was a case in point. I first write that in 2006 while in a form of trance.  I called it 'Channelling', as some people would describe it as coming from another sphere.  My mind is open as to its provenance; I just know that when I read it, I didn't remember writing it - and no, I wasn't under the influence of anything!  Having been doing some 'spring cleaning' today, I thought that parts of it still resonate today and that I'd give it an airing.

While I was on holiday, I took my own advice and scribbled copiously. I'm not sure what I'll use in future writing but here are a few snapshots of the sort of thing I mean:

The family at the lake with the baby.  The baby's mother, little more than a girl herself, is English and speaks to her child in whispers of delight at the joy the baby is exhibiting.  The father, a much older French man, is sitting drinking wine with his mother, who evidently doesn't like her new daughter-in-law (?). The man probably appears very romantic now to the young English girl but my friend and I are convinced that it won't last once he runs to seed and she gains in experience of living in France.  No-one takes any notice of the older child, presumably from n earlier relationship, who is trying hard to be invisible, while her body language screams 'look at me!'  Now there's a whole novel!

A Proustian moment - apt, as it happens in France.  When I lived in Aix I would often take the train from Marseille to Paris.  Several decades later and I find myself on a TGV whistling through Provence. The sights and smells instantly transport me back to that time, when I was young, intrepid and so full of hopes and dreams for the journeys to come.  I wrote screeds on the train - this time - but that's for another day.

Thoughts on the train, as I look at my reflection in the window and remember doing similar thirty years ago.  For some reason I was thinking about freedom and wrote ' freedom means being able to be happy, wherever one is, whatever one is doing.  Freedom is a state of mind, always within reach, if not in sight, as we see what we want to see.'

And 'Some people read about life or watch the lives of others play out on a screen.  Some people just live.'

Sometimes re-reading scribbled notes is rewarding, sometimes embarrassing but always useful.  Hopefully I've made some headway on my next book but mainly I used the time to think and be.  As another aid to creativity, I would certainly recommend a holiday and, if that's not possible, just organise an escape from everyday life, if only for half an hour or so. Switch off the 'phones, the internet and other people and just breathe.  Try it, you might like it! 

A Channelling

 Where has it all gone?  Where is the girl in the picture, whose eyes are the soul of the world?  Is there layer upon layer of hurt and anger, mistrust and fear or do those eyes still shine out?  Forgiveness is there, certainly and love, so much love.  Enough love to give to everyone but maybe not to herself.  Who has she to turn to but herself and is she there for herself?  She had thought that she was wrapped in love, physical and emotional.  She had translated those strong arms into soft, billowing safety but the arms turned out to be hollow and the safety was as sawdust in a stuffed head.

 What does she now?  She hopes she will find the soft, billowing safety in herself, the Godhead; the pure, shining diamond whose lights are soft, not sharp, twinkling and welcoming not cutting.  That diamond needs polishing but still it grows brighter every day.

 All will be well.   All will be.  There is no gainsaying that being is all.  Too much doing.  Let her be left alone to be.  She was not strong enough to want to be of her own volition.  Doing had to be taken from her.  But now, being can exist, as can harmony, forgiveness and love.  Love will radiate throughout her being and the being of those around her.  Too much doing has been done, too much, too much.

  Let us just say, then, ‘Well met.’ And in the passing, move on.  There was something there for the taking, which we took, but let us not confuse the taking with the meeting or the destination.  Taking is taking is taking  and there can be nothing else in the absence of love.

 

‘I loved you once’, she said.  ‘Now,

Love me in return.

Love me with the forgotten ways.

Love me as a father does his child.

Be my rock, my shield, my stay.

For in the memory of those times

Can only come peace.’

The unborn child, which now

Will never be

Is like that love.

Prepare for it, nurture it, Care for it.

For when it is old and wise

It will say

‘I was truly loved.’

 

 We see in pictures but snatched fragments of memory and what will be and our shape of what is.  How to paint those shapes when one is no artist.  How to build them when one is no architect, how to hear them when one plays no instrument?

 And yet - we see them and the clarity of the seeing is in each one’s heart.  Only the heart knows the truth of the picture and only the true heart sees clearly.  There is no room in the heart for clouds or veils that cannot be lifted.  The light is bright, uncomfortably so, but it shines nonetheless.  And once the veil is lifted, if only briefly, the way ahead is brightly lit.

 They must wonder at my writing.  What does she write?  What keeps her scribbling?  How disappointed and puzzled they would be to read this.  But not you, not you.  You will read the words the pictures make in your heart.  And you will say ‘I understand.’  How great it is to have the gift of understanding.  And how rare.  And that is what none of them could understand, what caused the perplexed looks  and more.  It is the gift of understanding wrapped in a rough cloth, with many stains and fingermarks, but the gift is inside, undisputedly and I saw it.  Even when you didn’t.  And I hung onto it for grim death.  For it is so rare, so valuable that to leave it unwrapped, unseen in that old cloth would have been tragic.  And even when the cloth has obscured the gift or even when it has been forgotten, it has still been there, quietly glowing, waiting to have the  fabric parted and to be taken out and used.  And I knew it was there when no-one else did.  But who else has this gift for me?  Who else can see into the eyes of that child and know her?  Will it ever happen again in this lifetime?