The Mysterious loneliness at Sunset Woods

                          
I went for a beautiful walk with LouLou, only the second since her stitches have been taken out. The sun coming to rest behind the hill gradually, filling the sky with wisps of primrose yellow, orange and a fiery pink brushed across in threads and tufts. Blossom bursting into flowers everywhere. Bright yellow daffodils in abundance, despite Jack Frosts icy fingers painting everything with chilly lace the other morning, extending their cheery faces as if to be noticed each and every one of them.
It was fresh, the air biting on my cheeks.And then suddenly, the stake went through my heart. I doubled with the pain. I felt the empty space beside me, where JH was meant to be. Each step became heavy, dark swirling mist swirling around my ankles. Tears rolling down my freezing cheeks, stinging. Heartbreak lumping in my throat, breathy gasps for air. The woods became suddenly bleak and I could barely see the sunset glow and colours through the murky mist, the air quite poisonous and the busy bird songs became distant.
When oh when will this leave me? When will my heart mend? When will the wilderness left by his absence fade away and I will feel complete with me?

Spell of the electric blanket

1954 by Sharon Olds


Then dirt scared me, because of the dirt
he had put on her face. And her training bra
scared me—the newspapers, morning and evening,
kept saying it, training bra,
as if the cups of it had been calling
the breasts up—he buried her in it,
perhaps he had never bothered to take it
off. They found her underpants
in a garbage can. And I feared the word
eczema, like my acne and like
the X in the paper which marked her body,
as if he had killed her for not being flawless.
I feared his name, Burton Abbott,
the first name that was a last name,
as if he were not someone specific.
It was nothing one could learn from his face.
His face was dull and ordinary,
it took away what I’d thought I could count on
about evil. He looked thin and lonely,
it was horrifying, he looked almost humble.
I felt awe that dirt was so impersonal,
and pity for the training bra,
pity and terror of eczema.
And I could not sit on my mother’s electric
blanket anymore, I began to have a
fear of electricity—
the good people, the parents, were going to
fry him to death. This was what
his parents had been telling us:
Burton Abbott, Burton Abbott,
death to the person, death to the home planet.
The worst thing was to think of her,
of what it had been to be her, alive,
To be walked, alive, into that cabin,
to look into those eyes, and see the human



Burton Abbott was condemned to death on circumstantial evidence but as the switch was flicked, a stay of execution came through. His case raised the question about the validity of the penalty of death being given based on circumstantial evidence.
He was tied for the murder of 14 year old Stephanie. And the bra relates to her personal possessions being dug up including her bra.

I have in my mind two murders that I cannot shift. One was when I was about 14 or 15 I think and I read in the paper about the Black Panther. I recall there being reports of a girl being buried underground but no one knew where. I have not found details of this despite researching it. And the other is the Soham girls. I have been troubled by the murder of these little girls. I spoke with a Buddhist monk visiting from India. He had said earlier in a talk that he thought most things happen to create lessons. After his talk I spoke to him about my trouble with innocent little girls being murdered as way of teaching. He answered me by saying that there were two things to consider. 1. was that in the Western world there is the commitment to seek out murderers. He reflected on how in India and other parts of the world there is no such determination and murderers do not get caught. 2. Was that the murderer would be a tortured soul (I think at that time no one had been convicted). I saw his point.
BUT
I still have the dilemma of why bad things happen to good people. And a lesson is not seeming to console my distress with this issue.

August 2002
It seems tricky to try and reconcile
This most complex of life dilemma
Why bad things have to happen
To the innocent, good and young?
The hunter in Ian Huntley
Perplexes me right to my core
What world can go on
behind his cold eyes?
What kind of connections
Justify barbaric and tragic decisions
To take the girls as they walked by?
The hunt on for thirteen days
And upholding shocked citizen Ian
Spoke out for the stunned community.
But his bonfire did not burn
Police can confirm from forensic evidence
That Ian Huntley had killed those girls.
He told how he knocked Holly down
Causing her to drown in the bath
And suffoctaed poor Jessica's screams
He said it was all by mistake!
He claimed he felt mentally ill.
It's not normal to behave in this way
When anyone acts with such chill.
So sanely he serves his sentence
Waiting to survive his life term
Hoping no one will get to this throat.
He will be out when he reaches 68?
What lessons are we to have learnt?
We are grateful he was hunted and caught!
But two little girls are still dead
And will not know what it's like to grow old.

Bliss
XX

Experimental writing

Grace, honour, praise, delight,
Here sojourn day and night.
Sound bodies lined
With a good mind,
Do here pursue with might
Grace, honour, praise, delight.

Rabelais French Renaissance writer. He has historically been regarded as a writer of fantasy, satire, the grotesque, and bawdy jokes and songs.

What is experimental writing? I should like to know more - Angela Carter is considered an experimental writer acconrding to ML, who has a theory that many experimental writers end up committing suicide. Interesting for some research there -her dissertation perhaps?? 

On the trail of the adventurers

London tomorrow with AB. The British Museum and I hope we will take in "Afghanistan: The Crossroads of the Ancient World".

11th April ML and I are going to the Vaudeville to see:


Nice tio have things planned -

The cat in the hat ....

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.


- Dr. Seuss

Ancient Blog of cornucopia

Marc Chagall





Tudeley Church - the only church to have all it's stained glass windows designed by Marc Chagall. Commissioned by Sir Henry d'Avigdor-Goldsmid and Lady Rosemary after the death of their daughter Sarah aged 21yrs. Dhe died in


   

I had heard mention of his stained glass windows in the past and he was recently brought to my attention in a different way. When a writer said that she was inspired by maby things including trying to bring Chagall paintings to life. She was a writer of magic and mystery. I am not sure which paintings particularly she was referring to .....


Angela Carter -   Taken by Jane Bown
Journalist, novelist, poet. Apparently a prolific writer but mainly discovered after her death ....

The lady and the skull
The skull
Picked quite clean
And bleached by the sun and wind
.... is starting to speak to me

The poem is about the woman trying to solve the mystery of the skull she has found
I love this idea and the rhythm of the solution ...

To give to the unnameable
The name of the unnameable
Is to give to the unnameable
And so to fix it.

Extract from The Magic Apple Tree

In the West,
the apple-trees grow
under a blue sky.
The apple trees founder
on their knees in the grass,
Toppling with fruit.
Apple is round as the round world, red
as heart's blood, fat
as my two fists together. This,
the very first apple of all,
wet, still,
with the first of the dew.
Snake made the first apple,
laid a red egg and said:
"Eat me."

Reference to the devil again?? Purifying imagery according to Andrew Motion.


Untitled

My cat
Is the snow queen,
This frigid virgin four
Winters old crooks
Her paw to wash a face
White
As starlight, twice
As cold.
She puts back
her ears like spoons
to listen to the wind
behind her.
She eats
For breakfast, hearts;
For supper, northern lights.

Quotes
You must realize that I was suffering from love and I knew him as intimately as I knew my own image in a mirror. In other words, I knew him only in relation to myself.

Aeneas carried his aged father on his back from the ruins of Troy and so do we all, whether we like it or not, perhaps even if we have never known them.






Jane Bown
I have been looking for some of her photography other than portrait photos. I guess when you become so fanout for a particular genre the "other" falls into insignificance. Poor "other"....

   

 

   

Well I do like them - she captures something in the shades or non shades. Essence of real.

I need coffee - I need to study! STUDY STUDY STUDY!!

Accidentally I came across this photographer ..
http://www.janebrownphotography.com/Gallery_new.html
Lonely!

Bliss
XX


weeeayyyy - London tomorrow.

Oh yes - Iwas supposed to meet with my friend visiting from Australia yesterday. She was out when I called and so I had to come home not knowing what we would be doing - by the time I got home it was late and the idea of driving to Osterley - and I was disappointed that she hadn't called me back. Poo. Anyway she had called me but of course all it was all muddled up because we hadn't anything definate organised. I will need to call her now but reluctant as I am feeling lazy today!!

I must I must improve my busted up commitment to my studying!! he he

Practice, practice, practice

William James said
"...if pratice did not make perfect, nor habit economize the expense of nervous and muscular energy, man would be in a sorry plight." (1890)

A Landslide of emotions

I would like to tell the story of my meeting JH.
It may seem a strange encounter to the uninitiated. A slave in SecondLife, I adored my master Senor Dante. But in his long absences I had a sort of secondary Master who was less considerate. Actually less able to develop the adoration a slave is capable of.
When I saw you sitting there JH, silently observing, I felt such warmth and an admiration. You seemed strong and yet gentle. Your very simple comment  ....

It's too early - some time I will write our story.
As I started to write I just cried and cried and cried - all the beauty and wonder of our encounter. It seems so cruel that all that is lost and gone forever. More grief. Time will heal all.

Bliss
XX