Something to Crow About...

There is no doubt about it in my mind. Choosing a title is harder than writing the book. I have always had a title for Book Two of The Camino Chronicles, but I never thought of it as a working title. Compostela was the title I had chosen and that was that.

More recently, though, I have learned something of the skill of SEO: that's Search Engine Optimisation to you. I have also learned a thing or two about spiders: Google spiders. It seems they are very choosy and will only pick up words that are linked back. One or two people liked the name Compostela, but said that it might easily be confused with a non-fiction title while others said that it would never end up on the first page of any search about pilgrimage books. And I had to agree they were right.

But now what? Because the story has not one but two timelines (as does Pilgrimage to Heresy) it made it much harder to pick something snappy that would be appropriate to both. I needed something to grab peoples' attention.

Then the other day I was reading one of my many reference books and I found just the very thing. In a novel by Gallego Ramon Otero Pedrayo, one of his characters refers to Bishop Diego Gelmirez as El Gallo de Santiago. Now everything I know about Diego Gelmirez (and after three years of research I know a lot) tells me that was a man who - as my mother would have put it - wasn't backwards in coming forwards. Almost single handedly, Diego put the Santiago into Compostela. He was tireless (and ruthless) in making Compostela one of the three most important sites of Christian pilgrimage in the world. He was, most truly, cock of the walk: The Rooster of St. James.

So it's official. And you read it here first!

And the morning after...

For some time now, I have been receiving messages from the Universe. No, I am not hearing voices or anything like that. My messages are relayed through Mike Dooley who somehow or another seems to know what I am thinking about! Mike Dooley is in Texas, I believe. We have never met and although the Universe very nicely addresses me by name, Mike doesn't know me from Eve.

Twenty years ago, my daughter and her best friend organised my 40th surprise birthday party. The theme - and the banner which adorned the wall - was Happy On Top of the Hill. I had no idea that these teenagers had been contacting my friends secretly and was astonished! I also liked the idea that at 40, I was "on top of the hill".

I was completely wrong.

Now I am sure that I had scaled a few foothills up to that point (abnd a few Sloughs of Despair), but I am not sure that I had really scaled The Big One.
I'm not even sure now, but the view from up here sure is nice. (Are those more mountains I see in the distance? Great! I've got my best hiking boots on...)
Anyway, the reason for two posts in two days is that the Universe has surpassed itself today. Having considered whether I was actually enjoying some sort of summit yesterday, here was my message today...

"Tracy, one of the greatest things about finally reaching the 'top of the mountain,' - gazing about at the magnificence of life through tears of joy, thoroughly understanding every inch of your climb and its many unexpected setbacks, and grasping the dazzling perfection of it all - is looking back down at those still climbing (no, not what you're thinking, there's more...), still struggling, still lost and confused, and realizing with absolute certainty that they, too, will reach the top, in just a whisper of time."

Have WikiLeaks been telling the Universe my top secret information?

Enjoy every day of your climb. The view really is magnificent!
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Thoughts on becoming a little old lady...

I never thought it could happen to me! Today I officially become a "little old lady". That is to say that it is my 60th birthday and when I was a teenager I thought that anyone over 25 was incapable of having fun or really aware of the important things life at all. Well really: look at all the responsibility! Not to mention wrinkles and as Prince Phillip candidly put it recently, "bits starting to fall off". He is 90, I believe. By that time I shall be surprised if I have any bits at all. Not that I want my life in any way to be compared with Prince Phillip's, with or without bits.

And anyway, I am not 90. But nor am I 25. However, you know what? I think I am really going to enjoy my 60's - something I NEVER expected to be able to say. I wouldn't trade this day for my 25th birthday for anything in the world.

Why?

A couple of years ago, I posted my "Lessons from the Camino". I have since adopted them as lessons for life. I don't always succeed at remembering them, but I do try and I am grateful for all the little things the Universe sends me.

In fact the Universe did send me something today. I'll share it here with you. It said:

"Someone like you doesn´t come along very often. In fact, there has never been a single one like you, not is there any possibility that another will come again. You are an angel among us. Your eyes see what no eyes have ever seen before; your ears hear what no others have ever heard or will hear. Your perspective and feelings will never EVER be duplicated. Without you, the Universe and all that is would sadly be less than it is today."

Put it that way, and the very uniqueness of a human life - my life, my granddaughter's life, my children's lives as individuals your life - is an extraordinary thing.

Have you ever stopped to consider the very miracle that YOU are here at all? My father could have been torpedoed in his little e-boat off the Guernsey coast; my mother could have died in an air raid in Swindon. My grandfather could have fallen down a brewer's hatch, or my other one blown to smithereens in a Welsh coal mine. My German grandfather could have been killed during the First World War instead of living just long enough to sire my father in 1920. My German greatgrandfather could have had some horrific accident while he was chauffering the Kaiser's car (which of course could have wiped out the Kaiser too come to think about it). And then you can go even further back: if someone related to me hadn't survived the Battle of Hastings, or the Inquisition, if someone had been on the wrong side in the French Revolution, or the war of Caesar against the Gauls, I would never have come to be! So a big "Thank you" to all of them for the simple act of surviving long enough to procreate...

It's true! I am AMAZING!

And so are you.

Celebrate it! The Universe really wants you to.
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P.S. If you want to know what the universe really thinks about you, it speaks through a very nice man in the USA. See: www.tut.com

A Happy Heretic takes on the White Man's Burden...

I received an e-mail forward a few days ago. It was called "I'm 63 and I'm tired", written, purportedly, by an ex-government official with a lengthy service record. It was from someone I have known for very many years. That she had sent it to me came as a surprise since she and I have acknowledged (or so I believed) that we are poles apart politically. It was full of the old "White Man's Burden, all Muslims are terrorists, and why am I supporting all of you scum" sort of crap which I had hoped was only limited to Tea Baggers and those unfortunate enough to believe that Nick Griffin is the Messiah. I certainly am not going to dignify it by repeating it here.

To make matters worse it ended: "If you don't send this on (to at least five other people) you are part of the problem".

Excuse me?

I fumed for a while; I muttered to myself; paced a bit; made myself a strong cup of tea. And then I decided that I would not be silent. I sent the following to everyone on the list of addressees including the person who had sent it to me.

Two strangers, to my surprise, wrote back and thanked me for my "thought provoking" response.

So I thought I might share it with you. Perhaps it makes me even more of a heretic... but somehow, I don't think so.

I'm tired.

I am very tired that people who I would have thought would know me better would think that I would agree with a single word of this hate provoking diatribe let alone further the racial divide by forwarding it on.

I'm tired of reading bigoted, racist and ignorant statements designed to provoke prejudicial reactions which somehow I am supposed to "send to friends". I wouldn't dirty their in-boxes with the shit I have received here today.

I'm tired of people in the developed world whinging about how bad they have it when they should visit the slums of Dar es Salaam and Calcutta.

I'm tired of the so-called Silent Majority heaving collective sighs of not-so-silent discrimination, most especially when they are not even the majority.

I'm tired of hearing people speak about Muslims as if everyone of them were a terrorist or keeps his wife in a Burkah. Traditionally Islam has been FAR more tolerant than Christianity. Read your bloody history books.

In particular, I am tired of the ignorance which serves only to promote the Anglo-Saxon White protestants' so-called work ethic when it was on the backs on the fuzzy- wuzzies in the colonies that we all got rich enough to have anything to complain about.

I'm tired of hearing so-called Christians assume that somehow God must belong to them and that gives them carte blanche to trash every other religious perspective without ever taking the time to study them or the people who practice them.

I'm tired of people who are blatant white supremists but who hide behind their supposed political correctness while seething underneath about how things were all so much better in the good old days (of ignorance; the rigid class system; apartheid; women's subjugation; slavery; lack of education; lack of sanitation, and religious intolerance...oh, sorry that last one is still with us.)

I am tired that people cannot see how their hatred is being manipulated by the media and hate-mongerers and in their ignorance they simply pass on mindless propaganda they have not bothered to investigate for themselves.

I am tired of hearing how the poor White Man still has to carry the Burden of paying for everyone else. Just think about that the next time you need to use some form of social services. What did your last by-pass cost you? What nationality was the surgeon?

I'm tired of hearing how X ethnic group treats its women and children. Do you think that no white man ever beat and humiliated his wife or deprived his children of dignity?

I am very tired of people who criticise the idea of global warming, mostly because I believe they must have their head up their arse!

I am tired of people who think that they have the right to blow smoke in my face because it's a "free country".

I am tired of wondering if some of the people I have known for many years are planning on voting for Nick Griffin in the next election.

And I am deeply sorry for the writer of this diatribe I have received today, Robert A. Hall, because one day he is going to realise just what his grand-daughter truly thinks of him...

But

I am glad:

I am glad I live in a multi-cultural world where I can learn and grow.

I am glad for the education I have received which allows me to think for myself.

I am glad that I have Muslim friends, Jewish friends, black, yellow and brown friends. They bring me joy!

I am glad that I was born in the western hemisphere where I don't have to worry about hunger or disease.

I am glad that I have a home, work, and family who haven't had to go to distant countries to earn money they have to send home to me so that I can live in squalor, but at least live.

I am glad that I know enough about deep ecology to know that we are heading for climatic disaster and I can do my very little part to help and encourage others to do theirs.

I am glad I can look at the foibles of this celebrity cult world we live in - and laugh!

I am glad I have studied Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism and seen the beauty in each while not remaining blind to the horrors of religious fundamentalism.

I am glad that I can work with children and help them to see beyond self-righteousness, and show them how they can intelligently weigh up the pro's and con's of each idea before making it their own.

Oh and for all you self-righteous catholics out there...I am glad I can see through the Roman church and its 2000 year old out-and-out lies - yes, and write a best seller about just one of them! You think paedophilia is the Catholic church's only sin....? !!!

Prejudice and hatred will destroy the world if we let it. If someone sends you a hate-filled forward. don't just delete it. Write back to the person who sent it to you and tell them just what you think. It may lose you a friend. But do you really want those kinds of friends?
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State of Grace

Here we are at the end of January and your Blogger is recognising that she should be sending out pearls of Gnostic wisdom to the Universe, but is struggling out under the combined mortal coils of making a living, writing, and getting over flu.

How to continue stimulating ideas that you might find of interest without taking them away from other areas in my life? We have been together for a while now and I don't want to let you down.

Sometimes the answers to these questions come from areas we would least expect. Let me explain.

A goodly number of hours of my life right now are dedicated to working with a child who has somewhat extensive learning disabilities and who has for various reasons not had a lot of formal education. It is a blessing and a burden. A blessing because I can do what I have dreamed of doing probably since I taught my teddy bears at age 7: teach what I think is important in the overall scheme of things. Sift through "general knowledge" for reasons for our being, here and now. In that we are doing incredibly well and both of us are learning at an advanced rate. It means that I have to look at new ways in which to teach as the national curriculum is of little use to me. We are voyagers of discovery in a learning world where music might give us adjectives, and adjectives an insight into feelings and prejudice. I love it.

But it is also a burden in that I know that I have fewer and fewer hours now to dedicate to writing "Compostela". Sometimes, telling yourself at 8 at night: "right...now... get on with it!" just doesn't seem to work when you are writing historical fiction and you are too tired to think about the present, let alone immerse yourself in the past. And my usual 10pm to 4am late nights are compromised by having to get up at 7:30 with new and challenging teaching ideas.

Excuses for not having this year's scintillating blog? You betcha!

But...

In the course of this week, I came across this video from Disney's Fantasia 2000 re-make which frankly I had never heard of. I found one of my most favourite pieces of music: Stravinsky's Firebird.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FWq17CT6Cs&feature=related

This of course, would prejudice me in favour of this piece, but the first time I saw this, I was simply stunned. "This has a message, but beyond the obvious, what is it?" So I watched it again.

And again. And the last time I had tears truly rolling down my cheeks and I think that rather than hollow sentiment I truly understood why.

Please, do watch this and then as you do, mentally (or literally) slow this down. You are at 8 minutes 42 seconds. (8:42). Go slow. I know it is counter to today's pace but do it anyway!

There is far more symbolism than just forestry re-generation at work here. Go deeper... Challenge youself to the inner - and very spiritual - message.

What is going through her mind as this happens, and his at what follows? Who are they supposed to represent? Does it matter anyway?

Is this Bliss? Is this in Christian terms a "State of Grace"? Is it a glimpse into the Taoist world? Is nature created, or "Emanated"?

What is all the other stuff about?

Is this the ultimate that we all crave from the moment we are born into a magical world full of opportunity and potential only to become cynical, practical, and ultimately preparing for and ready for death? From a teacher's point of view: what happens between grade 4 and grade 8? Where does the wonder go? Why does cynicism win out? Why is it only small children and philosophers ask the "right" questions?

Your answers, comments, confusions are always welcome...
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The Butterfly Effect...

If a butterfly moves its wings in Brazil, can it set off a tornado in Texas?

This question is at the basis of the Butterfly Effect: the idea that even the tiniest changes in the atmosphere could have far reaching effects many thousands of miles away. The term itself is based on the work of Edward Lorenz who while investigating chaos theory said that there were implications for meteorology. The effect in a line of causation may seem to have nothing to do with the cause which may occur far away either physically or even metaphorically. Anyone who has seen the brilliant though disturbing film Babel will know exactly what I am talking about.

I will shamelessly quote Wikipedia on the subject of the butterfly effect:

“Recurrence, the approximate return of a system towards its initial conditions, together with sensitive dependence on initial conditions are the two main ingredients for chaotic motion. They have the practical consequence of making complex systems, such as the weather, difficult to predict past a certain time range (approximately a week in the case of weather), since it is impossible to measure the starting atmospheric conditions completely accurately.”

A film called The Butterfly Effect met with mixed reaction when it was released in 2004, although it did go on to win some more obscure awards. The implications for the butterfly effect seem to me most obviously demonstrated in deep ecology where the introduction of just one member of a species, one plant, even one seed can cause disastrous and long-term consequences for the environment. But in my case, I am hoping that one positive and optimistic act can set off a positive chain of events, as in another excellent movie Pay It Forward. I have a friend in Canada who regularly, while in line at the drive in, will buy a cup of coffee for the person in the car behind. Her rationale is that we are all trying to do the best we can and this might really make someone's day.

I have special friends...

So now you know…
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"Endquote"...

And so finally we are back to the original question: why do I "like" Gnosticism?

Did the Cathar belief leave with the last to die? I don't know. What I do know is that there is a hunger in the world today. A hunger to release us from the chains of econotheism, and the wholesale worship of technology: of the Easy Option. A spiritual hunger? I don't know. Perhaps it is a hunger of the developed world which ignores or pays mere lip service to the real hunger of countries like Eritrea, Haiti, Pakistan...

But whatever it is, it has a hold on many of us.

Perhaps you recognise yourself here: wondering just what it is that you were put on this earth to do, or the even more difficult question: in terms of science, does my life count for nothing? Will I make no real mark on the grand scale of the existence (chaotic existence or...?) of this planet? Am I just a spread of time between birth and death? Am I a "waste of space"?

I hope that what I have written here on this blog in recent months and before will persuade you that you are UNIQUE and VALUABLE. Your very presence on this earth can affect anything you wish it to. All you have to do is to push just one domino...and you will affect everything that happens in the world after that. Every single thing! You are a butterfly. Flap your wings!

I was asked not long ago, why I “liked” Gnosticism. This was my brief when I was asked to speak at the Gnostcism conference at Brock University last September. I laughed. I mean I can tell you why I like high-heeled snakeskin boots, sushi, movies starring Sandra Bullock, and old Volvos. But as to why did I like Gnosticism? It just had me giggling.

But I am going to try: I like Gnosticism because it respects me as a person, a spirit, a flight of occasional fancy, an intellect, a once-in-a-while penitent, a craving, a light, a dreamer, a child in the clearing. I like Gnosticism because it respects my questioning mind; it does not seek to chain me to irreconcilable paradox to which I am told I must believe because it is absurd.

I like Gnosticism because it gives me liberation from the world, resurrection of the body, restitution of the Spirit in this life. It allows me to see the beauty of the world but not the need to identify with it in order to find my true home.
"It restoreth my soul"

I like Gnosticism.

I hope you do too.

(Beautiful photo of Tarifa beach by Rebecca Saunders)

And so this is Christmas...

...and what have I done?

Certainly another year older though not necessarily wiser. Occasionally more cynical and that's one to go on the Resolutions list. This has been the year that I have lost one friend, and seen the nature of a relationship change. I have driven almost 3,000 klms of the Camino in retrospective, and flown to Canada to be a keynote speaker at a conference on Gnosticism based on Pilgrimage to Heresy. I have let go of things. I have come to treasure the peace and quiet of my home. I have overcome Writer's Block and am well into Compostela the second book in the Camino Chronicles series.

And I have become a first-time GrandMom and that's the very best of all. I love my little Puppy with all of my heart. I can watch her for hours just learning about the world.

And I hope that I too am continuing to learn about the world as I progress with my home schooling project and find that trying to condense "general knowledge" into a relatively short curriculum is a real challenge and one that we are enjoying immensely. I have seen my client base wax and wane and wax again following "El Crisis". Who knows what 2011 has in store for debt ridden Spain with our 20% unemployed?

Next year I will be blogging less frequently for the simple fact that I have a book to finish and a deadline to meet. I began these pages writing a history of the Camino, in particular the story of how Santiago and Compostela came to be linked together. I shall be continuing with this and the fascinating story of Diego Gelmirez, first archbishop of Compostela and the main historical character of my novel. I hope you will come along for the ride.

Happy 2011 to everyone who visits these pages. I hope the new year brings for you everything you wish for yourselves. For myself I ask for a chance to continue to write, to help adults in my psychotherapy practice and children in my Learning Centre. I ask for the chance to mellow and enjoy the pleasures of the Ordinary and remember that Yesterday is History, Tomorrow a Mystery,

but Today is a Gift.
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God is All Good...

Such reasoning only led me to the conclusion that either:

God is not all good - because he either denied his creation access to their true natures, or else put temptation deliberately in their way so that he could exercise his power over them whether they transgressed or not. A God who wishes to keep his creations in the cave of ignorance cannot be all good.

God is not all knowing or else he would have realised that his creature was no fool. "God" is blind to the true nature of his creation, and blind to the fact that he is neither good nor powerful. His name is Samael, the Blind One, and he is evil personified.

God is not all powerful - he could have prevented them from having the longing for knowledge had he wanted to.

Strong words...? Try these on for size:

slavery, genocide, terrorism, poverty, environmental catastrophe, paedophilia, sex slavery, ignorance, squalor, domestic violence, rape, the exploitation of the weak majority by the rich minority, and the inability to free our minds from religious institutions which in order to secure our loyalty must keep us in a state of perpetual fear!

If man is responsible for all this, how can he have been created in the image of a Perfect God? Perfection cannot admit evil or it is not perfection. If God is responsible for this, well, he has one hell of a lot to answer for!

Who created evil? Satan? Perhaps. But who is the Devil and how did he get to have such a hold over us?

There is only one conclusion, that which we have been taught to worship as God, even knowing or perhaps despite the horrifics of the Old Testament and the evidence of our own television screens, is not God. This god is deeply flawed, malicious and insecure, ignorant of his own weaknesses and caprices, jealous of...?

In fact, God is indeed all good etc., but there is another God who perfectly fits this description. And once we realise this, the heaviness of the world, the imperfections of our bodies, the torment of our minds as they strive to make a sense of this life we have been thrown into, all assume their proper place as subservient to our true nature and are allowed to return to our true home, not as the Catholic church will tell you, after death, but in this life. We can be resurrected in the flesh as pure spirit.

Master, when shall the kingdom come? And he answered us straightways: It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying Here it is or There it is. Rather the kingdom of the Father is spread upon the earth. But men do not see it.

You will not find this is the New Testament; you will not even find it exactly as it is written here in the Gnostic Writings. It is an excerpt from The Apocryphon of Jesus the Christ which Kieran in Pilgrimage to Heresy is translating. As far as I know, no such gospel exists, yet the words are pure Gnostic, pure Priscillian, pure Cathar, and they are what I have come to believe in myself.

The world came about by a mistake. For he who created it wanted to make it imperishable and immortal. But he fell short of attaining his desire. For the world never was immortal; nor for that matter was he who made the world.

Who would ever have thought to find Jesus saying these words? Yet in the Gnostic writings they are repeated many times.

The disciples asked Jesus: Lord, when will the New World come? And he answered them: What you look forward to has already come and you still do not realise it.
The disciples entreated him: Lord, how shall we know truth from falsehood?
The saviour answered us thus: woe to those who are captives. For they are bound in caverns. In mad laughter do they rejoice in what they think you see. They neither realise their perdition,. nor do they reflect upon their circumstances. They do not realise that they have dwelt in darkness and death.
Some will say the lord died first and rose up, they are in error for he will rise up first and then die. If you do not attain the resurrection first then you too will die.

First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is...
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A Child's Garden of Gnosticism - Revisited

So, I suppose that brings me back to me.

If God is All Good...
If God is All Powerful...
If God is All Knowing...

Why do evil things happen?

The problem is, as has been pointed out by the Rev. Doctor Stephen Hoeller of the Los Angeles Gnostic Church, that it is impossible to reconcile these premises one with another. Personally, I think I may have predated Dr. Hoeller since I figured this out at the age of 16 around about the time I dropped God. My reasoning went a bit like this:

If God is all-knowing, then God must be aware of human fragility and weakness so that any attempt at testing humankind is expecting man to be Godlike: pure and omnipotent etc.

Either that, or expecting man to fail. If that was the expected outcome, it hardly seems fair to put us through a test that we are by nature (God-given nature at that) destined to fail. We are either perfect and able to withstand temptation, or we are not. Or some of us are...although that would make us less than human, and more like God.

God-like...Like God?

It's getting tricky already! Especially if that God is jealous by self-proclamation.

If God is all good but allows catastrophe and evil to exist then he is not all powerful. If he is all powerful and allows such things to happen, then he is not all good at all.

Ah, but I hear you say: Evil came about because of man's original sin and we have been paying for it ever since. The sins of the fathers and all that. According to Saint Augustine, who turned tailcoat against the Manichees the minute he realised what had happened to Priscillian could happen to him: "sin" is a sexually transmitted disease.

Saint Augustine, however, was writing not far from 400 years after Christ was born. And nobody else had ever suggested such a thing as the idea of children born tainted with sins of their species.

What a horrendous idea! I am tempted to say: "Jesus would turn in his grave".

There...I said it.

Yet somehow, we have been fed this as "Gospel Truth" since the time we were able to understand speech...Generation after generation of newborns cursed to go through life with the greatest of guilts weighing down their innocent souls. And what was that guilt? Wanting to Know!

Let's take the proposition that God created man in his own image. This begs the question: "What image?" If we are speaking of a physical image, well all well and good. But if that is so then God must suffer the same decay as we do, and the same bodily inconveniences which I will leave to your imagination. If however, we posit that this may have meant "in God's intellectual image" (the Nous), then we have to assume that not only does man have free will, but the right to use it. That being so, it is hardly surprising that Adam would have found Eve's gift of interest. And what if man was not exactly created, but partook of the spiritual image of God? Then surely that would make man Godlike, or perhaps even God as a piece of a hologram is the whole hologram.

Even though holograms didn't exist when I was sixteen, this was the form my reasoning was taking.

Is it possible, I thought, that God might not be the good, powerful, knowing being that we have been told to worship? Suppose, having created man, God found out that his creation somehow was smarter than he had expected him to be? Or conversely, is it possible that God thought man his creation simple and foolish and unlikely to give Him any trouble? It all boils down to the rather more plausible possibility that either man was intended to be an automaton, created to serve a lesser God who being All Good should not have debased his creation in such a way in the first place, or else, man proved to be too smart for God to handle hence the prohibitions about trees and apples and all that. Man, he found, was investigative: he, and she, seeks knowledge as a way to truth, and having found the means to that truth becomes all knowledgeable, all powerful, and good. What is the nature of that truth? Could it be that man and woman, realising their bondage to their earthly bodies, recognised that within them was a heavenly spirit, forever at one with and a part of the true God? Could it be that this investigation led Eve and Adam to the conclusion that the one they have been told to worship "above all others" is not only jealous, but deeply flawed!

What would be the one and only outcome of this conclusion? Atheism. Apostasy before religion had even been created. Now obviously "God" couldn't have that and so to punish Adam, Eve and all humankind to come for daring to challenge his orders, they would be forever removed from this paradise he had created for them where they had been expected to remain forever in ignorance of their true origins.
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