The Lychway is finally in print, and I am so excited. Not only is it in print, but it is now available on Amazon, both in the UK and the US. It feels like a huge achievement, and as I have always been someone that puts vast amounts of energy into quite big projects that then never quite make it to fruition, I never quite finish what I have started, so to me it feels like a milestone. To actually get past all those blockages that have stopped me in the past, and push through the (invisible to anyone else) boundaries feels good. 




So far I have written two novels, and in my dim and distant acting past I made lots of short films, and a feature length film, and none of them made it outside into the world for other people to see. When I had my piece published in Abraxas a couple of Months ago, I happened to comment to the publisher at the launch party that he was the first person from the outside world to read my writing, and that was a big deal for me. He laughed and said, "and several hundred other people are reading it now too!".

This took me off guard and shocked me at the time, because I just hadn't thought about it like that. I think I agreed to publish it and just blocked it out of my mind, and forgot that people I didn't know would be reading it, reading something that had a large piece of of my soul on display in it. I think it links in with my general fear of attention, the very middle class feeling of "I don't want to make a fuss". I always hated having birthday parties as a child, as I didn't like being the centre of attention. I didn't ever want to have a wedding for that same reason, so when E and I eloped to Cairo, it suited me fine. There was no white dress, no flowers, just me and him and no one looking at us and scrutinising what I was wearing, or what we were doing.

I guess publishing the Lychway has been like that too, publish by stealth. Do away with all the parts that have stressed me out in the past and caused me to give up, the part where you have to put yourself out there to be judged by an unknown person. It was the same when I was acting. So this time I took the self-publishing route, because that way I get to be the one who decided if it is good enough or not, I get to call the shots and decide when my work is good enough to be read by the outside world. It is my book and my choice. 

And yet, like any other artist, a part of me does crave some recognition for my efforts. I do want people to read it, and like it. I do want it to have the chance to take on its own life, to make its own way in the world, but maybe this is just my way of doing that. Give it it's freedom and let it have a chance at having it's own existence apart from me, not to be held back by my fears and limiting beliefs. I know there is snobbery about self-publishing in certain circles, but this poor baby did the rounds, and was sent out all over the place, only to discover that unless you know someone in the publishing world, it is unlikely that you will experience the miracle of getting discovered and published, so this way at least I don't get the angst of having to do that. I hate that process, and it drains me of energy and makes me lose touch with what is beautiful about writing. 

For me, writing is a creative journey where I get to express what is going on in my world, I get to connect spiritually, it is a joint effort with me and the Great Creator where we work hand in hand to produce something together. It is my spiritual life manifested in front of me, and to reduce that to a letter to an unknown agent or publisher dims it's light and mine, and drains me of energy. This way I get to share it with anyone that wants to share it, but I don't get the downward energy spiral with it. 

So now, maybe I will take the plunge and let Conversations With My Mother have the same chance of a life...

Well, the book is almost finished and I am really excited. It has been so long in the writing, and all of a sudden, like so many other things I have been really working hard at over the last period of time, it seems to be coming into flower.

Last night I had a meeting with my Editor and I got some really lovely feedback. She is the first person to have read the whole manuscript from start to finish, so it was really nice to hear her impressions. When you are writing a manuscript, particularly one which is so deeply personal, it is very difficult to know if the story hangs together, if the pace is right, if the character's work. For all I know it could have been a very self-indulgent wailing session, but the feedback is positive. And that means the world to me.

So now all that remains is to integrate her adjustments to the manuscript, and then I have a final draft.

Now all I have to do is work out what to do with it next!

Islamic Cairo.

So we step away from the Pharoanic period for a while, and go and visit the Citadel of Salah Al-Din and the stunning Mosque up there. This one is quite an eye opener for me, as in all of my training I have never been inside a Mosque. We visited religious houses of all the great religions and attended religious services in every one, but never a Mosque. In the UK I never get the feeling that I would be that welcome if I turned up and asked to be shown around. The last time I set foot in a Mosque was probably the same year that I last visited Giza.



This time I have the luxury of also having my very own Muslim guide, who is willing to tell me about things, to show me around and share a litle of what goes on with me. We sit together on the carpetted floor of the main chamber, lit by beautiful stained glass windows and lamps, and Habibi tells me about the process of praying five times a day; where it comes from and how each one is a slightly different process.

He promises to allow me to be present when he prays later on, and to show me the process of ablutions and preparation. This is where I feel we are really starting to build new ground for ourselves, as it is these things that one day will be so familiar, but for now are totally unknown.

We then walk around the palace of the Turkish rulars of the 1800's, and from there on around the rest of the citadel, which includes various museums and shops and more mosques tucked away behind different walls.



It is pretty and peaceful, and quite hot. The only negative we conclude about this time is that people charge Habibi three times as much as they normally would for everything as he has a Western woman with him. They assume that he is the guide and I am the Tourist, so every time we want to buy anything from here on in, I have to hide around the corner.

On Monday we awoke early and the driver came and took us out to Giza. It was lucky we made the early start, because the site soon started to fill up with people. I came here once when I was 14, and on a school trip. It was one of those week long whistestop tours around the Mediterranean, and gave me one day in Egypt. Ever since then I have been desperate to go back to Egypt, so October's trip was my final fulfilling of that ambition. And then look what happened!

We started by climbing up inside the great pyramid, which I have never done before. We made our way up to the buriel chamber at the top. The way is very hard going as it is a slope at about a 45 degree angle all the way. Luckily modern times have brought wooden treads and handrails to stop you sliding all the way to the bottom. The wooden handrails are blessedly worn smooth by all the countless people that have made this climb before, so there are no splinters coming up or down. Habibi tells me that this passage way would have been sealed off with sand after the burial was complete. It is dark, narrow, hot and very stuffy, and once you get to the top, all that remains in the burial chamber is the granite sarcophagus (and a group of German tourists that Habibi quite enjoyed scaring with a smattering of unexpected German dialogue). Inside the chamber is blessedly cool, and by this time my thigh muscles were screaming at me, and my head was spinning a little. By touching the walls, I couldn't get a sense of any of the stories like I did in Luxor, maybe it is because so many more people have passed through. Who knows...

By the time we made out way back down the slope to the plateau outside, a large number of coaches had arrived, and the queue outside the great pyramid was quite long. We then walked around the plateau, trying hard to avoid the very persistent camel drivers and horse drivers, who were not even put off by Habibi showing them his guide's licence and telling them to leave us alone in Arabic. I remember very little about the site from when I was 14, but then it was a very long time ago, but it feels very different to Luxor, harder somehow, with a much more unfriendly edge.

We then made our way down to the Sphinx, which was far more stunning that I remembered it being. We got shown around by a man working on the restoration project. He showed us the beautiful mummification temple with is alabaster floors from Luxor, and its granite walls from Aswan, and then more or less demanded money with menaces on our way out. By the time we left Habibi was a bit fed up and tired of all the negotiating and constant haggling that has been going on, and we both agree that Luxor feels a lot more friendly. But it is beautiful, and stunning and we are both glad we have been here.

We arrived at Cairo airport on the 2.30 am flight from Luxor, and stepped out of the airport just as the Mosques started the dawn call to prayer. The sky was still dark as we stepped into the now familiar diesel stench of the black and white official cairo taxi, and started to drive towards the city.



The sounds of Cairo were as deafening as before. A mixture of dull engine roar, the cacophony of car horns, with a little background music of grinding tools and the odd shout and siren.

I can't contain the excitement... after several long torturous months, I now have only a matter of days before I board the plane and get to go back to Egypt.

So, on Wednesday morning at 5am think of me trudging down the road with my wheelie suitcase (of course you won't be thinking of me as you will all be sleeping then). I am not sure how I will be able to contain the excitement and stay in my seat for the five hours of the flight. I get to spend two whole weeks with my love, and we will be doing the grand tour of the temples again. Hurrah!

Strange how things go. The sun has just moved into Aries, along with the Moon and a few others, and all of a sudden the novel, which has been blocked for a few months, is now finished. No straining, no gnashing of teeth, just three more chapters knocked up one morning to finish the story off.

Now what to write next?!

I find myself being in a time of endings again. The Death card has come up again this week for the first time in a long time, except this time he isn't signalling my Mum's death, he is pointing out the fact that my life is changing beyond all recognition at the moment. He is signalling the death of the old self and the birth of something new. I know I am going through one of those transformational processes, and it feels a little as if I am deeply immersed in it and experiencing every excruciating detail, but another part of me stands off at a slight distance just quietly observing the process and wondering where it will lead to ultimately. I think it is a demonstration of what Terry Pratchett refers to as a witches first thoughts, and second thoughts. While my first thoughts are feeling a little stressed out and scared by what is happening and trying to deal with the veritable mountain of bureaucracy I must engage with at the moment, my second thoughts tell me things are just as they should be, and everything will be just fine.

So my old life has ended, I have left the place I thought of as home and I am now living with my brother. My favourite hairdresser has now departed to go back to New Zealand after four years of me going to see him and talking about life, the universe and everything. Psychic school now only has one more lesson left. I now have a more steady confidence in my ability to pick up and pass on information from beyond the veil. My teacher will be leaving for San Francisco in the New Year, and through this process I like to think that she is not just my teacher, but my friend also. The routines that I had carefully built up around my life have been disrupted, and thrown out of sync, and mostly they are just stopped in their tracks. The challenges I once thought were so traumatic at work now just seem like part of the old routine, and really not that important in the scheme of things.

Most nights are spent on the phone to Egypt at the moment. There is a skeleton of a routine that has evolved over the last few weeks, whereby the first thing I do when I wake up is check my phone for a message. Most mornings there is one waiting for me. A few words to brighten my morning, and then I have to get ready for work, and try and pretend that everything in my life is normal. By lunchtime I am desperate to hear the sound of his voice, so I sit or walk around Lincoln’s Inn Fields, listening to the voice of my beloved, and talking about our plans for the future. After work signals the next time we can talk, sometimes on my way to the station, and sometimes only when I get home after classes. Sometimes we talk via Messenger, when I can see his beautiful face as he sits in an internet cafe in Luxor, and sometimes it is just a crackley long distance line. Last night he sat there for an hour and a half waiting for me, as I did not know he was there. Sometimes he can be impatient and demanding, and other times he has the patience of a saint. Then once again, when I turn in for the night, we will talk until the early hours. Sleep does not get the pride of place it once had in my life. Sometimes there are more important things to be thinking and talking about.

Sometimes the topic is the future, and sometimes it is the past. At which point in my time in Egypt did we both know that we liked each other? At which point did we wish the other would take our hand? At what moment did I first wish that this magic would not have an ending? When did I realise this was not a fickle passing crush, and why did I not say anything to him sooner? Life for us still has to move forwards, so I know that whatever happened developed in the way that it had to. And the most consistent thing I can see is that I am so lucky I found this person, and that he made me be honest and speak from the heart instead of wrapping the truth in the muffling blanket of “It is just a holiday thing, it is not serious. People don’t really run away to Egypt”, and just in the nick of time. (I took my decision to stay just an hour or two before we were due to leave for the airport) From here we have to plan forwards and trust that the gods will be on our side. I am busy asking Jupiter to help with impossible tasks, and so far he has not let me down.

At first I tried to keep my loved ones up to date with exactly what was happening, and what decisions had been made. But as the days have gone on, it has become too stressful. I was trying to balance between not worrying people, and knowing what I really wanted, and because circumstances keep changing and the status of events keeps metamorphosing into something unrecognisable and strange to the outside observer. This week I decided to just talk to my love, and not worry everyone else, and since then, my stress levels have reduced greatly, and a gradual calm has descended. Life is now more loving, and less of a battle with worrying about what other people think about what I am doing. So now I must follow my heart and let it be the compass that guides me, instead of trying to juggle different thoughts and opinions and judgements. Maybe it signals that I have gone mad, or maybe I have just grown up at last.

So while the rest of my life is looking at endings, this part is now very much focussing on beginnings. For once in my life, Death really is signalling “Death and...” death and transformation, new beginnings, the death of the old self and the start of the new. Even my Egyptian is telling me he wants me to forget the heartbreaks of the past and start afresh with him. He will not behave as my people of the past did. He will not be unfaithful, or lie, or break my heart. At first I found this difficult, as my inner cynic was busy telling me he was just spinning me a yarn, and that people aren’t really that honest and that good. The voices of the doubters would ring in my ears telling me this is what men like him do, find a stupid woman and ensnare her in a web of deceit. But if that were true, what would he have to gain from me? I have no money, I have no house, he doesn’t want to leave his family and job and life in Egypt where he can earn more money than he can here, and yet he wants to be where I am and so is willing to leave those things for an uncertain future in a strange and cold country he has never been to before. So my death is now the death of the cynic. The death of the ego that whispers “fear” into my thoughts. Be afraid of him, don’t trust him, he couldn’t possibly be telling you the truth, because what would someone have to gain by being honest? These thoughts have gradually over the course of the days turned into the thought that maybe, if I just trust him, and myself and my gods and leap into the unknown, the future could be a warm and loving place to be. For me and for us the future starts here. It will be hard work, and there may be difficulty on the way, but now we have a partnership of two to face these things. Maybe this time Death will be my ally, and give way to the Sun instead. Either way, I still cannot help but marvel at how our lives can be so magical and transformational, and I believe it is all as it should be.

So, to a someone like me a series of strange coincidences shouldn't really come as a shock, but sometimes you just have to sit back in admiration for the signs that were there that I chose to ignore.

Last year my sister-in-law gave me a Reiki treatment. She often picks up on stuff while she is doing Reiki, so when we have finished we usually have a de-brief. "I was picking up things about Egypt being extremely signfiicant over the next few years," she said, "There is something about an Egyptian Guide coming in." We both assumed she meant an Egyptian spirit guide. My new love is an Egyptian Guide.

Also last year, another friend gave me a reading, and told me that a young man would be coming in to sweep me off my feet. "But what will I tell my partner?" I asked, before promptly deleting this particular nugget of information from my brain, only to be reminded this week.

Walking along a road with my most beloved teacher last week, she asked me, "So, what is his name?" I told her his name. "Ah!" she said, with a knowing look. "Very similar to Aiwass, which was was the name of Crowley's Guardian Angel, who dictated the Book of the Law to him and came out of the great Pyramid.! "ah!" I said. "But there are so many challenges to get over before we can be together" says I. Need somewhere to live? Sorted by Wednesday. Need an immigration lawyer? We have one of those too. Need to find him work? No problem.

Later that night another very dear friend texted me to say I needed to ring him as he had had a very interesting conversation with someone which he needed to relay to me, just hours after I had been desperately petitioning for a sign to say I was doing the right thing. When I called, he told me of a conversation he had with a random stranger that night, who had told him that he had spent the evening with a friend who was going through a seemingly massive change in life and direction. "Tell her from me that she is doing the right thing," he told my friend. "Although it feels frightening at the moment, everything will be fine". Ok.

So, how many signs do I really need to be given to understand that all is well, and as it should be?

One of the reasons I love this path is that (on good days) I feel like I have an uninterrupted connection straight into the universe, but my seemingly innocent visit to Egypt has just unleashed something that confirms several things for me. Firstly that life is never fixed and stable; change is always waiting in the sidelines.  Secondly, that you have to follow your heart as often as possible, because it speaks a truth that your head just wouldn't understand. And thirdly, expect the unexpected. Listen for the signs, and pay attention, because if you don't listen the first time, the gods will just shout louder, and if you don't hear them then, gods help you when they unleash things on you that you can't ignore! Fourthly that the restrictions we see around us are largely self-imposed, and nothing is ever as fixed as it seems. And lastly? Never say never. Post a journal entry about how sad and pathetic the idea of a twin flame is, and you may just get a shock that you were not expecting.

"So, what happened in Egypt?" I hear you wondering... What didn't happen in Egypt might be more to the point. In short, I found myself in the position of Shirley Valentine, but in Egypt instead of in Greece, and at the end of the film, my Shirley Valentine did not find the Greek waiter trying it on with another tourist, she found herself falling headlong in love with him. Not that he is a waiter, he is a very well educated and cultured man who stimulates my brain as much as my heart strings. He is a guide, and it was while he was showing us round all the amazing temples that this whole thing began. He spoke to my absolute inner soul. We would be having conversations where he would ask me a question, and tell me the answer before I had even managed to think what my answer would be. Before I had even formulated a response, he had already read it on my face and told me if I was telling the truth or not.

Now for someone who has always been quite cynical in affairs of the heart, there is something deeply disturbingly ironic about this prospect. Falling in love at first sight does not happen in my world, or at least it didn't. But now I find myself questioning all those deeply held beliefs I once had about love and relationships.

"I am not the marrying type" - actually yes, I am.
"I will never get married" - actually, yes I will.
"I am not sure I want children" - actually, I beg to differ. My previous partner refused to have children, but I actually want them. Very much.
"There is no such thing as love at first sight" - why not?
"Things are never simple" - why aren't they? If you love someone, and they love you back, who is to say it won't work out just fine, even if there are some challenges along the way.

Now I have no illusions that I have chosen the seemingly hard path. There is geography and cultural differences against us. But when I speak to this person my heart sings and I feel so much lighter about everything. When I went away, if I tried to look into the future all I saw was fog and drizzle. Now when I think about the future I feel excited, and positive, and hopeful and full of plans.

So, if I seem illusive in the coming weeks, it is because I am trying to piece my life together and make some very big changes.

However, just to re-assure you all, I am very much of sound mind, and sound heart. I have thought this through from as many angles as any person can find. But I have to say that once I started following my heart, everything seemed to start clicking into place. I have a long journey ahead, and things may not be straightforward, but I feel really positive about the future, even if it doesn't work out with my Egyptologist. (God forbid)

"always throw salt over your left shoulder, keep rosemary by your garden gate, plant lavender for good luck, and fall in love- whenever you can."

Maybe this will be my motto from here forward....

Ok. So this is one of those posts that I thought long and hard about before posting but when you read the next one you will see why I thought fit to include it.

We are doing readings for "Guinea Pigs" at the moment, on a fortnightly basis. This is great news for me as I really lack confidence, and the only way to gain confidence is to practice over and over again. But tonight was very challenging to say the least. My second guinea pig managed to block me at every opportunity, having already blocked one of my class mates into a corner. I know the point of psychic stuff is that you are supposed to draw the information out for them, but when someone sits there with their arms folded and a petulant expression, it doesn't give you far to go...

But my first guinea pig, well, she defied all attempts to come out with anything constructive, I thought I had finished with that behaviour when I completed coaching someone who would only enjoy the coaching session if she got to complain for two hours flat and then block every suggestion I made with a "I can't because..." response. Yes, she lives very firmly in Victim-ville and is not interested in catching the high speed rail link out of there... Mrs Guinea pig tonight started the conversation with "I want to know about my career or my love life, I am not sure which." The cards came out all muddled and unclear, the way they do for me if someone has been muddled in their thinking when they are shuffling. Every card I explained then became a "But why isn't it talking about my love life?" So we re-shuffled and dealt again.

So then, she came out with the million dollar question that she had really wanted to ask all along... "Where is my twin flame? Why isn't he here yet? I am forty next month and I am getting really frustrated that he hasn't arrived". Err... *ding dong* How about not smelling the desperation at fifty paces? So I gave her the standard response as taught by my teacher (who is very good) "Well, the future is  not fixed. You have free will to change the future, so we don't do future predictions here as that will interfere with your choices". No one can really predict the future, and if they did, where would be the fun in that? What about life being about the experience and the lessons and not the destination? Her response was a very confused "But this is about fate. My twin flame is fate, so how does free will come into that?"  The cards said you won't be meeting anyone until you have cleared up the mess your last Twin Flame left behind... but that she didn't want to hear either.

Interestingly, she went off for a second reading with one of my class mates (a man) who told her exactly the same as me. That Mr Twin Flame is likely to get stage fright and not show up until you have cleared up your emotional issues with your last man. She then proceeded to tell him that she wanted a nice white middle class man, just like him *cackle*

When I came home, my partner suggested I should have told her that Mr Twin Flame doesn't exist and then asked "what about what your twin flame wants?" but somehow I don't think that would have helped.

So in a world where "Perception is Projection" and we cause our own fate instead of just reeling with the effects of a mean and harsh world which is out to get you, what did I do to bring her into my world?

I haven't posted anything in a while... not that I haven't been doing things, I just haven't found the words to describe my thoughts at the moment... Perhaps it is because I am working with water, and have mercury in pisces... that makes for a very reticent writer!

Anyway, I am just back from Copenhagen and trying to get my London Legs back. Today I posted some of my Copenhagen pictures on facebook, and have been really enjoying the input of one of my Danish friends. I have always thought that if you can travel to a place in the company of someone who lives there, you get a unique insight into how the place really is under the pristine facade of the tourist guide books.

On one of my walk-abouts I took a photo of a fountain that I was really struck by, but at the time we didn't know who the lady in the fountain was. All I could see was this muscular, feisty looking woman driving her oxen through the water, amidst the spray and foam. The drama of it was so spectacular, I was compelled to bring a photo of her home.

Last night I got a really clear sense of why I have been going to Psychic school. Overall I have found it to be quite an challenging process; I know I am learning a lot, but I have continued to battle with my conscious mind which still insists on telling me it is all in my imagination, and that I should be more realistic. My unconscious mind however is in its element, is having fun, and is hanging on to every word.

I had one of those Psychic artist drawing's done of my "Guide" a few months ago and at the time I really railed against it as it showed a very kind-faced Buddhist monk. What's wrong with a Buddhist monk? Absolutely nothing, but why are they always Tibetan monks, or mysterious figures from China, or Ancient Egypt? Why aren't there more painter and decorator's from Norf London - aren't their lives as important?! I haven't worked out yet if the drawing is accurate, and if he really is a Buddhist Monk, but I like to refer to my own guide as "Bob" now. It seems suitably plain and humble and ordinary)

The other thing I have gained which I first hated but now love, is Psychometry. But anyway, I digress... Last night we had a class on Automatic or Inspired Writing, and it really answered a lot of questions for me. It seems there are two main ways of doing Automatic writing. There is the one where you sit there, pen in hand and wait for spirit energies to move the pen and write something (which after a lot of straining usually gives you a series of illegible squiggles, since the effort involved for a spiritual energy to move a physical object is quite intense) or there is the other way, which my teacher refers to as "Inspired Writing". This is the one where you take something like a picture of something beautiful or interesting to keep your conscious mind happy and occupied, and then you start to write. Eventually what happens is that inspiration starts to take over and give you a helping hand.

So I sat there in class with my pen in hand and my little notebook, and what do you think came out? Was it some jargon-filled nonsense?  Was it something out of nowhere? Nope! It was three more chapters of my book. Long after everyone else had finished, I was still sitting there scribbling away quite happily, whilst still listening to the class and interacting fully with what was going on in the room. And the other great thing? I have been suffering from writer's block for the last few months, having reached a natural pause in the narrative, I had no idea where to go next, but the picture I was letting my conscious mind be occupied by gave me a new direction.

And when I asked my teacher if I was "normal" as I have been writing like this since Christmas, convinced I am not doing it all alone, and wondering why wherever I am, whether it is standing on the tube, or sitting on the bus, or walking back home I sometimes have to be standing notebook and pen in hand scribbling away furiously, she looked at me and smiled and said, "yes, that is normal. I have written a lot of things like that".

In Psychic school terminology, when this happens you are in touch with your Higher Self, or Divine energy. In the other side of my life, it is the literal "Breath of God(s)". It is the reason I keep Inspiration books and journals. It is the reason I love my creative life. It gets me in touch with my own traditions. It gets me in touch with my own creative energy and gives me an outlet for it. It is not that I am not doing the writing myself, it is just that I have been given a helping hand. It is just what happens when you get in touch with those feelings of deep inner peace and give space for your creative energy, it is when you are in the zone. It is doing what I do naturally when I am at my most peaceful, when I am at my happiest. In NLP terms it is what happens when I am "in purpose" and literally expressing my Life's Purpose.

At last my three worlds have joined and merged, and they fit beautifully together.

Not the kind of subject line one would normally expect (or I wouldn't anyway...)

I think if I had to pick my favourite thing about Psychic school, it would be that my lovely teacher has taught me how to do Psychometry (where you get stuff psychically by holding an object while you are reading for someone (a ring, a watch, a necklace etc).

In the beginning I thought this was a colossal waste of time. We started with "bum psychometry" where you sit on a chair for a few minutes and then swap with your neighbour. Then both of you has to see if you can literally pick anything up from the chair. In the early days I didn't get much at all, other than a sense of how warm the other person's bottom was... But more recently, I have managed to pick things up that you couldn't possibly explain in any other way.

The convincer for me came when my dear friend rebeccawood met me for dinner and brought along a wooden object, to see if I could get anything from it. It was a strange looking thing, about seven centimetres long, and obviously very old. As we sat in the Real Greek in Covent Garden, she asked me to see what I could get from it. Knowing her interests, I knew it was something crafty (no surprises there). She told me that it dated back to World War One, and from there on I was on my own.

Over the course of the next few minutes, I got a sense that it had belonged to a woman, but that it had been passed down to her from someone else (possibly her Father). I got a sense of it having had a connection to France, and that at one held of the object where some wooden guides were, thread had once been wound round. I got a sense of wheat fields blowing in the wind, and a connection to a farm. Woody confirmed these details, some of which she had obtained from the person she bought it from. It was really affirming for me as I had a particularly difficult class that week, in which I fell very firmly on my face as a result of not listening to the quiet voice inside me was telling me, as it was not logical.

Then last weekend, on a weekend away, I was able to touch the walls of a very old building, and get a sense of the people who had used the building in the past, and what they may have used it for.

The thing is, none of this is logical, none of it can be proved or disproved scientifically because the frameworks with which you could test it are not there. Sceptics would scoff and dismiss it as a load of bunkum, but actually I don't think I really care. For me, it comes down to the fact that in this "rich tapestry of life", it is something which adds colour to my world, it makes what I am experiencing more vivid. I have always believed that knowing the history of an area brings it to life, and history is really a form of story telling. When I hold an object or touch the rough surface of an old wall or a wooden beam, what is really coming through is a story about who may or may not have lived there, what they felt, what they experienced.

It may be true, or it may not be true, who is to say. But what harm does that do?

I am having a bit of a ditsy week, which is probably a good thing. As if I had thought too hard about what was going to happen last night, I might have disappeared into the night never to be seen again.

When I was growing up on Dartmoor, I used to spend a lot of time reading ghost stories. The moors are full of it, Conan Doyle knew what he was doing when he set the Hound of the Baskervilles there; it can be grey, misty, dark and a bit scary at night if you are not used to it being dark as a cow's guts (a wonderful Dartmoor expression) and hearing strange noises through the night. Most people freak out the first time they hear a vixen scream, as it sounds so eerily human. There are tales of the hairy hands that drive unsuspecting motorists off the road (usually on their way home from the pub), ghostly groups of monks seen walking the Lychway, and the mysterious Jay's grave where fresh flowers appear daily on the grave of a young woman who was murdered by her nobleman lover who had got her pregnant outside of wedlock

 As a child I went to school in Princetown in the shadow of the prison, which as the highest point on the moors is usually shrouded in thick fog. My friends and I used to love going ghost-hunting (as well as UFO hunting and generally running amock on the moors.) It was built by French and American prisoners of war, so it has quite a strange atmosphere. We used to scare ourselves silly by walking around the churchyard telling tales of a person who could be seen haunting the top of the church tower, having thrown himself off to an untimely death,  and footsteps heard behind us on the gravel in the church yard. This would then be followed by lots of screams as we raced to the gate, hoping not to be the last one out, before holding on the the bars of the gate and looking back  to see if you could see him on top of the tower, standing silhouetted against the grey sky.

I used to be very impressionable, but in later years I have put this down to my imagination, and tend to steer clear of the whole "Most Haunted" stuff, as it scares me silly. But then last night I turned up at Psychic school as usual, and suspecting I was in the wrong place for some reason but without my diary, I decided to sit it out and look out for my teacher. When I found her, I was greeted with "What are you doing here? We are in Baker street tonight! Come on..." so we set off to Baker Street to a pub called the Volunteer, which is just down the road from the Sherlock Holmes museum. The exercise for the evening was for all of my Teacher's students to collectively see if they could pick anything up from the pub, as apparently it has quite a colourful history. This is the kind of thing I would normally avoid like the plague. I haven't even nailed my colours to the mast to say if I believe in ghosts (or my own psychic ability for that matter!), but keeping a fairly open mind seems to be working for me at the moment, so I thought I would just try and see what happened. I have to say it was really quite good fun!

We duly filed down the rickety stairs to the basement in groups of five to see what we could pick up. The atmosphere down there was quite amazing. It was hot and damp, and you could tell it was very old, as parts of the floor were actually pavement stones. It was winding and a bit like a catacomb, as it wound around on itself and was full of things - storage space for the pub, bits of machinery and dark corners that didn't look like anyone had touched them for years. The atmosphere was definitely spooky, and every noise made us all jump, every sudden movement made us squeal. We had to touch the old walls and see if we could pick anything up. I immediately got several things, one was a small boy playing down there, another was a sense that people had lived down here in the past and that it was not just a storage, and thirdly the idea that someone had fallen down the stairs. My colleagues picked up a range of things, from also getting children sleeping down there and the figure of a man. Once we had done a bit of glass divination (contacting the "spirit" and then asking some questions; the glass told us he was a man who had lived and died there), and a bit of table-tipping, which was quite startling, we all filed back upstairs and waited until everyone had taken their turn, and then we were told the history of the building.

It was once owned by the Neville family, who were a local mob. Richard Neville was very feared by everyone around, as he was the local godfather of the day, but in 1654 it was mysteriously burned to the ground, and the whole family died. Richard Neville is said to haunt the basement to this day, dressed in a surcoat, breaches and an outlandish pair of stockings. It makes me feel quite sad really. Surely he must be lonely down there after all this time? I am not quite sure that is what I am supposed to be thinking, but then I always did feel sorry for the baddies and think they were just misunderstood. Later on the cellar  was used as an air-raid shelter during the Blitz, which accounts for the sense of people living down there.

I don't think I would ever make it onto Most Haunted.... but it was certainly a novel way of spending a Tuesday evening.

Well, this week saw the start of my fourth term of Psychic school, and I found myself joining the advanced class. Who would have predicted that?! Certainly not me that is for sure....

I still feel a bit of a fraud, despite having psychic things happening far more frequently than they used to. In the last few weeks I found myself receiving some information from "out there" and as a result knowing that an old character was about to come back into my life whilst not understanding how. the next day at work, after my boss had been to a meeting with a rival organisation, he came back and said to me "You will never guess who their Manager is?!" and sure enough, she is back. Then there is the thing where I can tell as I leave my building where my bus home is... that one is quite useful actually. The cards seem to flow more easily though my mind, and the meanings come easily to my voice, even the dreaded court cards that always used to leave me speechless. But somehow the sceptic in me never quite believes it is happening, so often it gets dismissed as being a fluke, or a chance guess, or just a coincidence.

But in the break this time, I found I was actually missing the classes. I was enjoying having some time back, sure, but the writing has stalled and it felt as if it would not pick up again until the class continued.
So on Tuesday evening, I found myself standing in the hallway outside the class waiting to go in, and my stomach was doing back flips. But once we got in the room, and people started to file in, there were a few familiar faces amongst the unfamiliar ones. And dotted throughout are the really advanced people, the ones who have been doing this stuff for a lot longer and sit with a steady self assurance that I just do not feel yet. But I think I will learn lots from them. It gives me a bench mark to aim for, a sense of where I need to be heading.

I think this one might just be the most exciting one yet...

As usual I have had a pretty action packed weekend... When I am at work I find a lot of the time that all my creative energy gets pent up, so by the weekend I am about ready to explode in a frenzy of making things... this weekend has brought sewing lots of things, candle making, soap making. And on top of all that I had a party to go to with my beloved's oldest friends, and a day trip out yesterday to go on a bit of a light-hearted Duck Tour  and then go to visit an exhibition entitled Life Before Death at the wellcome trust.

Any of you that have read any of my past blog entries will know that Death and I have had a pretty close relationship over the last few years. Since I have been writing the new book, this relationship has mellowed rather; I no longer have the raw red scars of his fingers across my face, but the traces are still there nevertheless. We share a companionable silence these days, and I find it easier to go about my daily life without wailing all the time. But the exhibition took me to a different level and made me see a new perspective.

The nice thing about being at home is that you can get out into the wilds and just walk. There is something so cleansing and so fulfilling about being so out in nature. A friend of mine refers to it as plugging into the mains, but sometimes here, the feeling is so intense it is more like sticking your finger in a socket.

Yesterday we walked out to Wistman's Wood, because Mary (Everyone, meet Dad's lovely new wife, Mary) thought she would like to see it, having been so enchanted by Satish Kumar's wonderful recent programme, "Earth Pilgrim - A Year on Dartmoor". (He is wonderful and it was stunning - but why wont they release it on DVD?!) Wistman's Wood is somewhere your imagination can really take flight and come up with some wonderful stories (in fact, I can say it was single handedly responsible for me starting to write the Lychway when I read a description of the wood in a book about Folklore, and it took me back to my childhood of family walks and picnics amongst the rocks there)



It is Devon's oldest woodland, but it is not quite what you would expect. The trees are Oak, but they are stunted, so even now after so many hundreds of years they are only about 6 or 7 feet in height. They are all covered in a thick layer of moss, and have an amazing abundance of plants growing in amongst the branches, like ferns and mistletoe and ivy.



And amongst their gnarled and mis-shaped trunks, the granite rocks are so wildly strewn about you can barely find a path through. In 1620, some well intentioned person tried to survey the wood, but gave up very quickly as he could not find a way through.

 

But when you sit amongst the tree trunks and touch the thick carpet of moss that grows on the tree trunks, you really get a sense of something very ancient and very powerful just sleeping, and biding its time until Spring makes its merry way onto the open moor and wakes all the trees up again.




And if you are wondering why, several weeks after the Equinox I am talking about Spring not having reached here yet, it always seems to arrive several weeks later here. This is what I have woken up to this morning (It is now 2 degrees and snowing quite hard):

A few months ago I started some Psychic Development classes at the College in South Kensington. Part of me went out of curiosity to see what it was about, and part of me wanted to go as I was desperate to get some sense of what was happening to Mum now. Originally I went with two friends, but gradually they both dropped out as they found it wasn't for them, but I kept going. If nothing else it has been really useful background research for the book. As I don't prescribe to the organised religions but instead follow my own tradition, I don't have those pictures of the god with a beard sitting on a cloud looking over heaven to fall back on. My path doesn't have a prescribed vision of the afterlife, so I was curious to see what other people do.

Well, I am now three weeks into my third (and possibly final) term of Psychic development classes. The thing is I really don’t know why I am there, other than that during divination with an upturned glass, someone asked “who should sign up for intermediate level?” and the glass shot straight over to me. That was just after I seemed to have a silent conversation with my "guide" as they would not allow me to ask any questions out loud. It seems they felt they did not wish to discuss anything with anyone else in the room but me, so I had to ask the questions silently and then they would give me an answer… And several other people keep telling me I should be doing it.

But every week I go and sit in the class, hope no one talks about my Mum and makes me cry and wonder why I am there. It is literally like having constipation, as nothing gets through. I strain and strain and nothing comes out except a feeling of panic every time we have to do any practical work. I love the talking, I have infinite respect for my teacher and I am learning loads from her in terms of life stuff, I just don’t get on with the bit where you have to try and be psychic.

This week, I finally decided I had had enough.

“Right then, you lot,” I instructed as I took my seat. “I can think of a million and one other things I would rather be doing than going through the excruciating mortification of psychic constipation. Either something happens tonight, or next week I will be at home watching America’s Next Top Model.”

The strangest thing happened… As soon as we opened up, I could feel someone standing with their hand on my left shoulder. This week the exercise was to start with some psychometry. As I sat with my class partner, she made me burst into tears by immediately telling me that my Mum hadn’t wanted to leave me either, and then after I had mopped myself up and sat holding her watch, I had a sense of someone lifting up my chin and giving me a big hug, so I told her,

“I get a sense that someone is saying keep your chin up and giving you a hug,” and it worked. She nodded and replied that it made sense to her.

The second part was then to stand up in front of the class and do a platform reading. In the end I just got up and told myself I was just going to see what it looked like from up there. It was weird, but all the faces went misty except one, and I ended up blurting this message to him. And he took it.

I have been building a new website to give myself somewhere to put my Non-soaping stuff. I haven't felt like writing fiction in ages but I thought I should keep my book up somewhere on the ether. I have also had some "notes" of a story I have been meaning to write up for ages, and I thought I should really sit down and type them into Word. So I did. No time like the present.

Now I find I am on chapter sixteen.

Should I be suspicious?

Strange how the universe works...

Well, thanks to my very talented friend Anthony Robins aka Tomas, aka Phoenix (yes, he is a man of many names) I now have a new up to date set of head shots, and I am really pleased with them.

But it is a funny one. I have spent the last five years ignoring anything acting related. Not just ignoring it but rather burying it in cement and erecting a six foot electrified fence with armed guards and dog patrols around it. But now, all of a sudden, it is seeping back in. I think the dam has cracked. I wonder where it is going to lead me next?

Having had a morbid fear of the camera lens, I think this is the first time I have seen a photo I have liked in about five years... most significant events in my life have been recorded with me taking the photo, and the few I have seen with me in it I have not liked. But these ones have grown on me. At first I felt a bit nekkid,a bit exposed, as I think Tomas has done what a great photographer can do with a headshot - he has managed to capture me on film. It doesn't look like someone else, it is not a character; it looks like me. Eek!

Ok. Now i am beginning to feel really paranoid. Ever since I lost my Mum, virtually everytime I lay out the cards, Death pops up. Sometimes in the past, sometimes at the root, but always there, waving at me with his toothy grin. As my tarot teacher and my friends can attest, all I have to do is be told to pull out one card at random, and he pops up.

Now we are living in the dark half of the year, I have discovered I have a very love-hate relationship with Osiris. I feel somehow protected knowing that life must live and die, and a simple glance up at the stars will show me Orion standing strong and true attesting that this is so. The Nile floods and brings fertility, just as death and rotting gives us fertiliser. But nevertheless, he took from me that which I loved the most, and will continue to do so as the years pass. It is as it must be.

So this morning I spotted something on a friends blog - "Which of the Major Arcana are you? Take the quiz and find out!" So I did.... Lovely!

Result of Quiz :: Which Major Arcana Tarot Card Are You?

created by Cirrus

You scored as XIII: Death.

Death is probably the most well known Tarot card - and also the most misunderstood. Most Tarot novices would consider Death to be a bad card, especially given its connection with the number thirteen. In fact this card rarely indicates literal death.Without "death" there can be no change, only eventual stagnation. The "death" of the child allows for the "birth" of the adult. This change is not always easy. The appearance of Death in a Tarot reading can indicate pain and short term loss, however it also represents hope for a new future.

Twenty months ago, death let off a nuclear bomb in my soul. My Mum was taken from me by cancer of the pancreas, the same cancer that also took my grandmother in the same decade of her life. My gandma's name was Violet.

I have lived with death for some time now. I dont mean that death lurks in the shadows and jumps out in the middle of the night when I am not expecting it, I mean that he follows me around every minute of every day, and breathes his hot breath down my neck. Every tarot reading he is there, scythe in hand, waving at me from the spread. I see his features imprinted on the faces of people I walk past. He pisses me off, big time. Not just because I cant quite get rid of him, but because he stands between me and my Mum. I cant quite make her out though the thick cloud he leaves behind him. I want to picture her face, but some days all I see is his. I tried to paint my grief, and all I had was a deep dark midnight blue canvas. i tried to write my grief and all I spat was anger onto the page. So now I brew like a demon and hope that one day I will have brewed enough soap to wash all this away.

I want to write about my mum, but somehow I can't quite manage it yet. I want to remember her as she was when she was well, the fun we shared together, the things she taught me, the compassion she had for people, the talks we had, but somehow I can't quite do her justice. All I can do is occassionally pluck up the courage to see the pictures of how she was, and hope that somewhere she is still dancing on the beach on Violet's island...