Tales from another universe

Oneness - spoken on 11.11.11.11.11

2011-11-20T09:51:00.000-08:00

The time has finally arrived
For our world to come together as one.

Centre yourself on the moment and
Bring your thoughts to a loving place.

Join our minds and our hearts to create a ripple effect
For all to feel
Across the world.

In this moment of peace and love
Let realisation of the awakening that is happening
Around the world
Join our hearts and hands and heads
Now!

With a peaceful mind picture Mother Earth
Surround our planet With loving energy
Embracing all creation in the universe

Send your loving healing energy with every breath
And trust that all your loving intentions
Are being heard and felt
By every living being in the world

Let go of any fears
And trust that by the love and peace we are creating
We are helping each other to heal within
And working for our Planet's healing.

Deeply from our hearts
Thank you for sharing this moment with us

Love and peace worldwide!
I love you

From World Meditation for 11/11/11 by the Awakening Code
Photograph Earth Mandela by Ana Castilho

Imagine Child

2011-11-13T12:06:00.000-08:00

Imagine, child,
How foolish we once were.
Having low opinion of ourselves!
That we would ALWAYS fight
We would compete
And some would die
And some would kill
And some would starve.
Our thoughts were prisons
Blocking all our hope!
Imagine, child
How foolish we once were!

Imagine, child,
How difficult it was
Back then, for those
Who said that "This is all wrong
This must change!"
Those first imaginers
Who dreamt the future.
Some were cut down,
Some ideas were killed
Some mocked into silence
And some dreams starved of life.
Imagine, child
How difficult it was!

Imagine, child,
How hope began to grow
When we connected up
Across the world.
When we found others
Working for the change
Ended divisions,
Dropped competition, nationality, money stuff
And shared our talents freely,
Shared our dreams.
Imagine child
How hope began to grow!

So look around you, child,
And see our world - so wonderful!
Our people good and loving,
All the beauty they create,
And how our minds play with ideas.
We keep our gardens lush and thriving.
Yes, we came through!
Imagine, child
That step we took together
To come to this beauty
We took the walk of union
We won this future!

CC Medora Chevalier

Among the shifting breaths of the virtual world

2011-10-14T17:47:00.000-07:00

Where will she go?

2011-04-13T14:21:00.000-07:00

She walks forward onto the path.
She will never see the end.

She has hope in her heart,
Passion in her mouth,
Power in her hands.

She shakes the dust of what was,
Of those dark days, from her feet.
She throws away her shoes.

She will walk bare foot into her future.
It will hurt her gentle feet
But she chooses it.

She chooses her own way now.
It will have night and day
But the glow inside her will never dim.

The music of her pulse is in her ears,
The pulse of her music is in her heart,
She hears life singing:
Love is the answer
Love is the answer
Love is the answer

Elements

2011-04-02T10:35:00.000-07:00

O Earth, my love
What treasures here you bring me!
At night the soil breathes out aromas dark.
The rustle of the trees' dance in the breezes
The day is brought awake by the joyful lark.
So I would, if I saw all, fall down gasping
And, drunk with so much glory, grasp
Your lush grasses in my fist
So all afire with so much living
Bury my face deeply in your sweetness
And breathe your perfume in the mist.

Oh Sky, my love
How deeply generous you give us
Your sparkle with a trillion, trillion jewels!
If it would happen just once in our lives
How we would rush out breathless and unsleeping!
Open our eyes and minds to take in all!
Or in the days azure and glowing,
Or when the moist sweet clouds begin to fall
You are greater than we ever come to know you!
So my mouth now is wide to drink your juice in
This purest rain and sweetest nighttime dew
Cease not to flow, tho we suck you dry and thin
You're greater than we ever come to know you!

Oh Air, my sweetness,
You caress my senses!
Your ever changing touch upon my skin.
Your lover’s breath tousles my hair strands
You warm or cool me with your every whim.
Warm you bring moist glows to me
Cold you stand my every hair on end
In every breath you, generous, still fill me
And in your raging, howl to thrill me
Oh keep your light, bright purity, my friend.

O Sea, your tides run through me
And make me, waking, surge under the moon!
Salt in my mouth, sweet on my body
All waters reach and swell you, late or soon.
Here as I breathe your seaweed savours
I feel my ancient ancestry so well
When tiny, bright and perfect earth life forms
Pulsed and appeared as living cell.

How can I, a human, stand by quietly?
How can I close my eyes and let you die?
How hear my cousins’ children raped and slaughtered
Closed to immense grief, without cry?
If I would never here betray a lover
So even less should I neglect your pains!
So should I stand, defend you to the end
Most sweet, generous, eternal lover
The least I can do, is to defend you, friend.

Dragon Emoticon Poetry Book

2009-08-30T16:45:00.000-07:00

24 haiku for the 24 emotions. Thank you to Velazquez Bonetto for making the online book for poetry by Medora & for the beautiful world within which the four dragons danced their emotions to music by junivers Stockholm

Amazement
Darkness Sundered
Teeth break shell
Life! Light! Hunger!

Broadcast from United4Iran in Second Life

2009-07-26T17:11:00.000-07:00

Junivers stream

Part 1 Jilly's film

Part 2

Part 3

The Bull and the Sea - presented at United4Iran event

2009-07-26T05:35:00.000-07:00

Hot breath behind her
Rank odour of sweat
The pounding of feet
Her fear running wet

She fell, and the bull's horns they tore
At her sides, revelling gore.

He bellowed his triumph.
A feeble foe dead!
The land all was his,
All opponents had fled.

Hate laughed and bellowed its win
Captured souls held the grief and the sadness within.

No magic was left
It was crushed in the hand.
Its sweetness and glory
Driven far from the land.

But pounding away was the thunder of hooves
As their anger at blood split impelled them to move.

Sea green were their manes as they leapt from the sea!
Sea roar as they sang their desire to be free!
Beneath them the Green Sea so ancient and strong
Gave a depth and a strength and a heft to their song.

The bull paused a moment
Then turned his broad back
And cried like a calf
As he fled the attack.

From the sky's far horizons
They raced out of the sea
And shaking their green manes
They made their land free!

Hope rises across the Sea of Green

2009-07-11T18:32:00.000-07:00

The Place with No Name - presented at 18 Tir event

2009-07-11T13:19:00.000-07:00

The place where they take you
Has no name
The pit where they hold you
Has no name
The person who rapes you
Has no name
The pain as they scald you
Has no name

The man who decreed this
Has no name
The spy who betrayed you
Has no name
The victims who bleed this
Have no name
Confessors on show
Have no name.

But the mothers who circle in black at the gates
Shout your name for the world
Hossein, Naser, Fatehmeh, Ali
And we across seas, raise our voice with them too
Faizollah, Siyamak, Mohssen, Borhan

Your names are with us
And our thoughts are with you
These voices will not let you fall out of view
Of our coomon humanity
God still sees you
Your names are with us
And our hearts are with you.

So Evin, that dark place
May think it's a name
But it's Stink and it's Stench
Just corrupt power's Shame.

The day is not far
It is closer to hand
When your torturers' walls
Will be smashed into sand.

Neda, Clotilde, Mahmoud, Mansoor, Mohammad
Your spirits soar bright
And out of such darkness
You lead us to light.

Beautiful piece by Hossain Zaman – Parandeh DETAINED IN IRAN

2009-06-29T17:25:00.000-07:00

Poem for Neda

2009-06-28T15:54:00.000-07:00

"I’m here. I also voted. And my vote wasn’t counted"

That day, the music singing in your head
You played so sweetly that your teacher said
“You will go far my dear”
And your name be known so far from here”.

You always were a girl with dreams.
You saw Turkey's wonders, flowing streams
In other countries, flights of fantasy:
A world ahead of you

You did one small thing,
A step about which we don’t even think,
You cast your vote and raised your voice
It was your future, You made a choice

Your voice was soft and low
Your love and sweetness left to grow
Until the bullet, deep and slow
Cut your thread. The whole world knows.

Some say that spirits choose their life
A quiet life with family, wife.
The best choose more, to give their blood
If, through it, they will change the world.

What if you, bright spirit, made this choice,
Prepared that your sweet face, known to the world
In showing marks of sluggish , bloody tracks
Forever tells us – Hear our voice!

The Sea of Green - poem for the brave people of Iran

2009-06-28T15:47:00.000-07:00

The beach was dry at first and hot
It burnt the feet that dared to stand
The rocks were sharp and pitiless
The blood of ripped soles spread along the strand.

Silent, scarce seen, the sea began to swell
The purest waters with slight fingers
Began their gentle probing of the edge
Of rocks, where ancient nature lingers

"Remember there is more than strength
And heat and hardness" ripples whispered
Remember there is love and sweetness too
Remember there is freedom!" The rocks blistered.

Yet still more waters came, more joining more
Waves foamy, shining, splashing
Flowing, life giving, laughing. Then
Huge waves upon hard rocks crashing.

The sea swelled in its glory
Glorious, the loveliest ever seen
All who saw were filled with wonder
From far and wide, a Sea of Green!

The rocks resisted. Made the waters break.
Their stony harshness left the waves to die
The waters falling trailed their tears behind them
The waters ebbing sounded soft their cries.

The tide turned once again, and deeper yet
It turned against the rocks and battered.
So many droplets, strong together, crashed
In power, the old rocks shattered!

The Sea of Green will shine more brightly
Spread far and wide through freedom's land
And deep below, the fish will play
Where harsh rocks now lie smashed to sand.

Elements

2009-06-08T13:55:00.000-07:00

O Earth, my love

What treasures here you bring me!

At night the soil breathes out aromas dark.

The rustle of the trees' dance in the breezes

The day is brought awake by the joyful lark.

So I would, if I saw all, fall down gasping

And, drunk with so much glory, grasp

Your lush grasses in my fist

So all afire with so much living

Bury my face deeply in your sweetness

And breathe your perfume in the mist.

Oh Sky, my love

How deeply generous you give us

Your sparkle with a trillion, trillion jewels!

If it would happen just once in our lives

How we would rush out breathless and unsleeping!

Open our eyes and minds to take in all!

Or in the days azure and glowing,

Or when the moist sweet clouds begin to fall

You are greater than we ever come to know you!

So my mouth now is wide to drink your juice in

This purest rain and sweetest nighttime dew

Cease not to flow, tho we suck you dry and thin

You're greater than we ever come to know you!

Oh Air, my sweetness,
You caress my senses!

Your ever changing touch upon my skin.

Your lover’s breath tousles my hair strands

You warm or cool me with your every whim.

Warm, you bring moist glows to me

Cold, you stand my every hair on end

In every breath you, generous, still fill me

And in your raging, howl to thrill me

Oh keep your light, bright purity, my friend.

O Sea, your tides run through me

And make me, waking, surge under the moon!

Salt in my mouth, sweet on my body

All waters reach and swell you, late or soon.

Here as I breathe your seaweed savours

I feel my ancient ancestry so well

When tiny, bright and perfect earth life forms

Pulsed and appeared as living cell.

How can I, a human, stand by quietly?

How can I close my eyes and let you die?

How hear my cousins’ children raped and slaughtered

Closed to immense grief, without cry?

If I would never here betray a lover
So even less should I neglect your pains!

So should I stand, defend you to the end

Most sweet, generous, eternal lover

The least I can do, is to defend you, friend.

Inspired - Poem for for Second Pride at Space Park

2009-05-29T13:27:00.000-07:00

There was a time

(It seems so long ago)
When deep inside the cave

I paced the earth.

Dark, secret, damp

Safe at home in jail.

Sometimes I'd venture

To the upward path

But then I'd hear the sound

Of laughter or of pain

I'd turn and choose

My cave again.

The swirling fires grew stronger

And waited for the call

One moment when a single note

Rang out. Down fell the wall!

And, free at last, my whole self sang

And reached out to the stars

Swimming in star dust rivers

Dancing on solar winds

Laughing at the deep dark mirrors

And - seeing Time as our true toy -

Reached out to weave the starry way

To futures filled with joy.

The Future - Poem read at Into the Light

2009-05-10T11:02:00.001-07:00

Looking at the evening sunlight
Spy the shadows growing.
High up on the mountain ranges
Feel the sunset glowing.
As we breathe the chilling air in
Know above all knowing,
Every time we draw a breath in
That the future here is flowing.
Every time we draw a breath in
That the future here is flowing.

So it is our choice to make here
In our one brief flowering:
Shall our dust die fruitless, pointless,
Shall our death be cowering?
Or shall we walk the path of danger
Shall we take it take it knowing?
Every time we draw a breath in
See the future here is flowing.

Feel your wings spread in the dark winds
Feel their sweep, their power.
Feel each feather take its own place
Feel your spirit tower.
Greater than the greatest tempest
Smaller than the smallest orbit
Here's the force deep in your being
If you only reach to touch it
Reach and touch and taste and love it
Fly upon it - knowing
It is all you are and can be
See the future here is flowing.

Is it wildness still to think so?
We can lie here sleeping.
Why should life be any other
Than the life we're keeping?
Yet, we know our fingers reach out!
Reach out still in wonder!
If the dream is shining there
If it is calls us, glowing there
See.. it can be wonderful..
See the future here is flowing.

Dancing in Light

2009-05-10T10:52:00.000-07:00

AuraKyo's work

2009-01-07T13:16:00.000-08:00

This wonderful artist creates states of being in virtual worlds that take us deep. Deep into humanity's and the worlds challenges - where does cruelty come from? will we survive? how do we face our own mortality? She asks us to answer the big questions in life - what is the future we should dream? what is our manifesto for life?

Here Bettina Tizzey shows a video of the beautiful Viva la Vida that was at Rezzable.

Aura made a deeply unsettling exhibition for the Human Rights Festival. It shakes us with its passion and anger but ultimately lifts us to see that there is an answer if we can grasp it.

The Golden Child arrived for the start of the New Year on the upper stage.

Reconstructing Rights was on display

Rings stories: the Forest

2008-08-06T08:38:00.000-07:00

Heat. He was so hot he was almost a dry stuck smear on this red rock. There was no shadow under the red rock. If there had been shadows they would have shimmered with fears. The fears that drifted in the hot dust of shattered cities. The fears that gripped your heart so tight that you could yell at the red sky in pain. Howling like the once living wolf, now dust. Howling like the once lonely ghost in the wilderness, now joined by a seething multitude of ghosts.

He gazed out at the mountains of his time. The tumbled towers of the city. Jagged, twisted. All that pride lost! All that triumph dust. Dust that hummed its evil tunes. Dust that swept in the seering winds to scour his lungs, to burn his skin. And his soul. Dry, dry, arid, dry.

Like a small tickle in the mind a sound. No! A bird? Where? He found he could move. And stood, with pain. From which other living universe had this forest come? Its strange deep shade. Its great green canopy blocking the seering sun.

He moved without volition. His feet heard the call. His toes laughed to feel the dampness, the little wriggling lives beneath them. He had hungered for this. He danced, he skipped, he ran. Shadow and light. Green and gold. Green and gold and blue.

And the waters! He heard them first. Laughter for the soul. Playing little heatbeats of joy. The blood of life, the blood of the natural world. Clear, unpolluted, clean, fresh, new born from the source. Out it bubbled, filling the glowing dark green pool. Life in all its beauty. Oozing mud between his toes. Feeding the rich profusion of the plants. Shady, shiny, sumptuous , amazing! Little things, big things.Living, loving, eating, mating, making, BEING.
In the pool all else dissolved - the past, the loss, the pain. He was there in the moment. His skin new born, his eyes open, his mouth full of soft sweetness. He was entering a place inside himself he had thought lost.

And there he found her. Nature, Gaia, beloved, goddess. Huge, elemental, powerful, glorious, terrifyingly potent. She was survival and hope. She was the entry gate to the future. She was rich, moist, fertile, giving. She rose from waters. He knew, without being asked, the answer to her question. He spread his arms and legs wide, floating free. His eyes and mouth open. Like a woman surrendering to her lover, he surrendered himself. Through every part of his skin and soul, he soaked in the force around him.

Gifts of Parting

2008-06-26T09:36:00.000-07:00

All the long day they lay in the high tower of Apollo, watching the light change across the far seas. They spoke softly of deep things and light ones. And sometimes they did not speak at all but let the silence speak for their hearts.

The bright skies stretched out beyond the turrets, tinting them golden. At length, she breathed a long sigh and rose to her feet. Behind her silhouette, the skies took on a blush of red.

She spoke:"The hour is soon upon us when our worlds must part. You know that I can never return to these lands. But I leave you three gifts of parting."

She raised her arms towards him as he stood silent and thoughtful. In her hands was a small cast bronze box, a casket finely wrought, and on its lid was deeply etched the symbol 0. He took it and opened it, letting a warm glow spill out over his hands. "In this casket are all the kisses we had; those that we meant to have and those that we will never have. May they warm you on cold and lonely days." He felt his his emotion catch in his throat. He placed the box away close to his heart.

Her hands offered a second small casket. It was silver, though it caught the sky's fire, and on its lid was a deep star *. "In this casket are the tears we have shed and those we have yet to shed". He opened the lid to see the shimmering of silver liquid - or was it his own eyes? The shining drops spilled out as his hands shook, covering his fingers. But after some moments something strange occurred. As the drops fell they disappeared. Music, sweet melancholy music, rose into the chilling air of the dome. A small smile, sad and sweet, entered his eyes, as he saw into the future and the work he would make.

The light was fading. There was little time left, enough for one embrace. Close to him she gave to his keeping her final gift. The little box was golden and on its lid was carved :). It opened. Inside was light. Light glowing, golden, radiant, warm and living. The waves of light poured gloriously through his hands, illuminating all the tower and singing with music. The gathering night filled with beauty.

"In this casket are the smiles we shared and those we will share in memory. Last and most precious, one secret smile. One day it will be yours when, in the face of the woman you will love, you find something that, for an instance, reminds you of me".

With that she turned, looking out into the deep night, and was gone. The worlds sundered for ever.

Inside the Cave

2008-06-01T06:19:00.000-07:00

Inside the breathing earth sings of dark profound things. It sings of caves where eons back they lived and loved and birthed. Feeling their place within a larger round they knew the dark lived around and held them.

Painting their sense of spirit on the walls with hands daubed in red pigments bright they shouted out they lived!

And we with pixels paint our own freed spirits boldly on the walls of our imagination. In our own cave we feel them glowing deep. Humanity in its deepest self connected to the brightness now and always.

Dissolving into oblivion

2008-05-26T14:30:00.000-07:00

Each drop of water onto the stagnant shallow lake awakened the vast echo of the temple. The tiles were of ancient days: dark times when obscure victims lay face down while others chanted for their sacrificed lives.

There was no living thing to stir the chilly waters. Only an obscure granite sarcophagus marked the passing of one more noble than the nameless multitudes. She passed her hands along the smooth surface wondering at the craftsmen's hours dedicated to molding the shape of nature's hardest rock.

At that a hiss emerged. A gasp of air? A secretive serpent? A cold jet of steam? Whatever it was, it hit her nostrils and lungs like an icy thread, insinuating itself into her head and her blood. She swayed, sat swiftly to avoid falling and found herself adrift in the waters. Her thought floated away and her volition. The last slight glimpse of an idea was that this vast cold beauteous place was as fitting as any to be her mausoleum.

Out of body

2008-05-10T02:38:00.000-07:00

And when we, so reluctant, leave these fleshy, weary bodies far below, to melt (as one day so we will) throughout the universe - shall we, triumphant ,soar in gleaming flight as, singing songs of joy, we pass the glowing planets in ecstatic light?

Before its time

2008-05-05T10:41:00.000-07:00

In his last delirium he remembered it. That strange twisting shape sketched by the hand of the master he had treated as a servant. Weirdly intriguing. The shape of the inner space of a shell crushed beneath his foot. In the gloom of his battle tent he had been tempted: tempted by the fervour and self belief in Leonardo's eyes. "It will fly! Man will fly! Soaring above the battle, seeing it all as it develops". The Borgia had hesitated, gnawing the tidy hairs under his lower lip with his teeth, worrying at it, worrying that he would miss something fantastic, something he, Cesare Borgia, would always be remembered for. A revolution in warfare. A bird's view of war guaranteeing him the prize always.

Now the picture ducked and dived around him. That strange ugly little contraption like an ungainly sea snail flying. He had laughed. Now in his final hours it buzzed around his head, mocking him like a devilish insect; stinging his pride and his hope of glorious memory.

The sound grew louder, repetitive, making his head throb. Then something that told him he was delirious, even in his delirium. There was a woman, leather clad, laughing. Alive but yet a painting like one by that prattling Botticelli. She rode the little flying shell, its spiral turning and twisting. She flew into the volcano and laughed.

The Ogre Wakes

2008-05-02T01:10:00.000-07:00

The ogre, as always, slept soundly in his shuttered and barred room that blocked all light and sound from the aggravating city. The storm had passed him by. So, when he opened the shutters to take his morning view of his perfect garden, to see instead devastation, his anguished yell rose to the skies. Nothing but mud and battered shapes of plants and trees in the slimy sea of brown.

He ran down and burst through the front door, groaning and moaning. As he strode desolately the length of the garden, he saw his precious and rare specimens from around the world beaten and dying,their roots in the air.

He called his wife,normally barred from gardening in case she made mistakes. "Help me, we have to get them back in the soil". So they began.

An hour in he stopped and looked around. The few they had saved were nothing next to the wreckage. It was hopeless. He held his head in his muddy hands. Moaning he staggered forward, looking up sharply when he barged into the bars of the gates. And met the fierce gaze of two dark angry eyes glaring at him.

"You did this" said the dark boy, cradling the little cat with its bandaged stump of a tail. The ogre was thinking of his garden. Somehow he knew is destruction was the whirlwind sowed by his selfishness. Why should the innocent plants pay? "Help me!" he begged the accusing boy "I'm sorry".

That apology was enough to break the anger and to bring the boy's friends (with their enthusiastic pets by their side) to help right the garden and rescue the trees.

By nightfall the worst was over. The ogre's wife nervously brought bread and drink. "What are you doing woman?" he exclaimed. Let our guests come in, turn the baths on and prepare the best of dinners for them!"

No one cared about muddy footprints and paw prints. A happy contented glow lay over the kitchen as, with every stomach filled and every plate empty, they rested their tired bodies. Each sighed and muttered and snored in their nap happily. The dogs wagged tails and the cats purred. Even the little mutilated one now rested content on the giant's knees, stroked and petted.

From that day the giant was no longer an ogre. The gates were open to the children and their pets. The garden was never pristine again. But it was lovely and lush and loved and filled with laughter. And the spirit of the garden settled in her earthy bed and smiled secretly.

The Spirit of the Garden

2008-05-02T01:04:00.000-07:00

The garden was pristine. Cleaned, cleansed, scrubbed. Not the smallest speck of dirt or sprinkle of blood remained. The ogre has done his job to the highest standard he could set himself.

The flowers stood straight in their showy lines. Their hues reflected from the neatly raked gravel paths. The dark low box hedges were trimmed back and not a stray leaf marred their lines.

The ogre locked the gate firmly and looked up at the walls. He smiled at the higher sharper line of broken glass defence. Any cat foolhardy enough to venture back would dance no more on newly lacerated paws! Satisfied and secure he entered the enormous mansion and pulled all the locks secure for the night.

As the moon rose, tired and gloomy at what she had seen these last nights, the gravel shivered and shimmered. There was no touch to move it but nevertheless toes gleamed and a delicate heel rested infinitesimally above the tiny white stones.

The spirit of the garden stood at the centre and breathed in. She drew to herself the clear murmuring waters under the perfect arch of the bridge and gravely nodded at their tales. Her fingertips brushed the tall straight plants. At the touch the regimented petals sighed and relaxed into their own natural varied shapes and shades. Some blowzy made ready to drop to sleep. Others curled for a dawn snooze to start a fresh cycle with the flush of dawn.

The spirit breathed deep and unsmilingly. It was a constant charge on her to give this garden its free authentic life. All her life force went into it.

Her soles moved soundlessly along the smooth shorn grass of the law. Then she stopped. Ahead was one tiny mark. A speck. A taint in the air. Bending her alabaster knee her palm outstretched she called. An almost inaudible murmuring gentle call. Like a mother cat calling her kittens. But no kittens came.

Eyes darker than a moonless sky bereft of stars opened wide. In their gaze her hand and what rested on it;tenderly held, bleeding - the tail of a tiny cat.

Starlight shone fleetingly on the tear that fell from the spirit of the garden. It fell delicately and softly on the tender stalks of much mown grass. They received it gratefully, shivering with gratitude. Then curled, twisting betrayed as the tear turned to acid and poison.

The spirit of the garden stood on the bridge. She was preparing for her Calvary and calling all her rocky elemental strengths to her.

Above the first fork of lightning. Then the thunder drummed its anger down deep in the ground and reached up in an arc to roar its power. The winds began to rise and writhe, carrying in their embrace wet wicked promises. Then like a heavenly hammer the hailstones fell.

When she left for her earthy bed the spirit walked knee deep in mud. Muddy rivulets scored her cheeks as she surveyed her dead and dying children. She had done what she must.

The Ogre Acts

2008-05-02T01:02:00.000-07:00

Seething with rage buried deep and pressured the ogre laid his plans and waited.

The nights came and went and the moon travelled across the heavens.

Now the full moon makes us all a little mad. Our noses twitch, our souls call us out and the soles of our feet itch to dance.Cats are sensitive beasts. They get it worse than most. MUCH worse than us! Their paws skitter and scatter.

The boy slept fitfully while his little loving friends scampered to their playground. There they scattered soil,joyfully leaving their special scents and offering t nature. And they danced. HOW they danced! Paws flailing in moonbeams, chasing moths, fireflies and their own tails! What a pandemonium and caterwauling of feline purrs and yells and song!

Until the ogre leapt from behind a tree and with one swipe of his cleaver severed the proud waving soft tail of the sweet little special cat friend of the boy!

With a screeching and scrabbling and bloody paw marks over the wall the garden was free of all signs of animal life. Even the moths left the walls.

The ogre sighed. He was content and at peace.

The Ogre's Garden

2008-05-02T00:58:00.000-07:00

Now the ogre did not see an ogre when he looked in the mirror. Like many of us he saw something wonderful and fine. He saw himself as a friend of nature and beauty. His soul beat with joy as he looked high up into the trees or into the heart of a tightly curled flower. And so he spent long hours making a garden.

There were long paved walks along the avenues of tall linden trees, their scented flowers perfuming the air. There were perfect fountains where the waters murmured through the hot days. There were wonderful complex beds of flowers woven into shapes of Euclidean geometry, where the shades of petal and foliage carefully merged to decieive the eye that they were one bloom.

The ogre delighted to walk in his garden alone, at peace. No one else was welcome, not even his ogre wife, who toiled and laboured inside his large mansion. He had no friends, not even acquaintances he would deign to invite to visit his perfect world.

His love for plants was equally only by his antipathy for anything human or animal. When he sat by the fountain and spyed the mess left by a bird he lip curled in revulsion and he hurried to wear gloves and scrub until every spot was gone. When a red squirrel curled up and had the temerity to die in the shade of a great oak, he picked up the body with disgusted tongs and only felt at peace once the flames had devoured the tiny corpse.

Imagine how he felt when one day, and then the next, and then the next, he discovered his perfect beautifully designed formal flower beds damaged, distorted and polluted by the diggings and leavings of a bevy of feral cats!

City of Contrasts

2008-05-02T00:54:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, in a universe far away, there was a city. It was a city of contrasts. Beautiful palaces and gardens for the few and tiny jumbled slums and tenements for the many. #

In one small space high up above the poorest part of the city lived a boy. Well, I say a boy, but this cramped tiny box was home for one small dark boy and dozens and dozens of his friends, the animals. There were cats, puppies, birds and mice, living in easy peace and comfort based on his foraging for scraps and handouts. In rusting tin cans and broken pot jumbled a brilliant confusion of trailing and bursting plants sprouting out from wild seeds and quickly seized cuttings.

From his window, high above the slums, the boy's dark eyes looked out at paradise. Paradise in his eyes. There was a beautiful garden - so large it was a park. Even so high the perfumes of the scented trees drifted high in the breeze and wafted the scents of heaven to the high little room.

But strangely, the garden was the home of an ogre...

Drifting in Spacetime

2008-04-29T01:10:00.001-07:00

What strange stuff we are made of! We come from the heart of stars when they explode; blown away at a speed faster than light to shoot out across the universe for aeons.

Then here we land in our little selves, sensing ourselves as separate and alone. Yet we are Spacetime, part of it; linked to the rest of this universe and the others. We could faint at the mystery and power of it; weep at the small portion of our potentiality we use; glow at the possibilities before us.

Here we drift, in touch with the rest of our Spacetime and dream of how we will use that power - the power of a heartbeat to change everything.

Where the sea and the sky meet

2008-04-28T01:26:00.000-07:00

Glassiness laps your ankles. The arch above is huger than your eyes can comprehend moreover more lovely than your soul can take in.

Yesterday you saw only an old pot discarded after some giant crustacean was taken and a ladder climbing, like the Indian rope trick, high into the stratosphere. And the sea and the sky.

Now some creative god has grown a tree in the salty brine. Not a mangrove but a healthy vibrant all leaves bustling and rustling tree: a strange arboreal traveller uprooted from its comfortable, companiable loamy forest to stand proud and confused in the eddies.

And beneath it an invisible musician's concert grand plays hauntingly. The notes ripple across the slow lapping tides and turning them into music and turning your heart over and over in peace and connectedness.

Your feet carry you through the waters as if you are drawn by the invisible creator. You do not know the end of your journey but you give yourself up to it totally and with surrender.

Far away

2008-04-25T00:58:00.000-07:00

The sandy dust rose in a cloud over the prairie. The sky stretched from one earth's edge to another. Just the bleached sunshine of the straw stretching to meet the skyline. Silence when even the sea's edge was voiceless.

Then the sudden whinnying of the mare; disturbed by the oddity in the nothingness. What great heavenly hand has dropped this giant's toy there to rust into the red earth? Eons ago the ground had growled and shaken as some vast toddler threw his erstwhile favourite plaything out of his celestial playpen.

The rusting red train stood; home only to the rats and rattlers of this desolate lonely place. Then far in the distance she saw a figure and heard the thin trace of a melancholy song.

Music and colour in a grey world

2008-04-22T10:50:00.000-07:00

The grey was comfortable around the boy. The warm walls were where he felt at home and low hum of distant machines were as familiar to him as his own heartbeat in his ears. Looking out the window through the constant fog he saw grey forms moving - the city's grown ups moving about their work. Who knows what they did all day while their children were in the creche; they never spoke of it. Without interest he noticed the grey soft ball rolling to his feet and the grey faces of his little companions, bland and uninterested.

The new adult at the door in the pool of light was different. Her hair gleamed and her eyes too, smiling. Her hands were cupped. The door closed and she opened her hands. Out flew a speckled moth, round and round the room. The children followed intrigued, enlivened, enchanted. They couldn't catch it and they really didn't want to. Their running, leaping chase was almost a dance. The woman smiled. These at least were not yet set in grey. But there was only a tiny window out to freedom. A window so small it needed strengthen and subtlety to make the path wider. Then these little ones could pass through. She went to the window and smiled out through the fog.

The boy was the first to hear it. A small sound, a wisp of a sound, a thread of music. Maybe it was one long note, maybe more. The boy heard a breath sing to him. If he had known what magic was he would have recognised it. It opened his ears; they opened his eyes and they saw a shimmer; the shimmer gained a hue that was not grey. He didn't know the name but it made him smile widely. then another and another. they turned and twisted and shone. All the colours within light, prismed and shimmering. "Look!" he laughed, pointing at the opening space that shone invitingly.

Through the tunnel of lights spun colours and the growing music of the flute, calling them on. Wonderingly the children found the sounds and colours that greyness had muffled. Their eyes and faces and hearts opened. They stepped through.

Universal Connectedness

2008-04-16T03:41:00.000-07:00

"A human being is part of a whole,called by us the "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest-a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

Albert Einstein

Truth is found in strange places

2008-03-28T02:11:00.000-07:00

"But it's not real" cry people who hear about second lives. They lack imagination. When we enter the pages of a book; watch a great film; close our eyes and are swept away in the moment of the music or feel our spirits lift with the gesture of a dancer - where are we? Is it real?

Our experiences and sensations of our real life are often at the surface, following the conventional tracks. To dive deeper below the surface and to feel the part of ourself that is spiritual, soulful, resonant with the universe we need something other. For some it is meditation, religion, philosophy. For some nature, the connection to its majesty and stillness or rage.

Virtual experience can be like any art, where the mundane is left behind or transmuted into something richer. Our imagination, sensitivity and sense of connected to the other are the keys.

It's not all like this. Many avatars remain at the surface. But I travel in search of the others, seeking truth in strange places.