I sense Raeonis is starting to feel playful. There’s a mischievous glint in his eye. (Surely not...!) With one hand he crumples up the now blank piece of paper and somehow conjures it into a ball made from elastic bands! (You know the kind of thing bored office-workers make?) He throws it t
oward me. It’s quite heavy.
oward me. It’s quite heavy. We chuck it back and forth between us for a while. We’re getting more animated with the rhythm of this movement. It's getting heavier, though. And heavier.
Then he suddenly stops; grasping the elastic-band ball in his right hand.
[“Now, you know what this is about, don’t you, Mark?”]
Oh, not a drama game, for godsakes?
"No, Raeonis, no. No, I don’t."
It’s to do with drama though, isn’t it? And then, as if to help me, from nowhere he conjures an orange. Another orange.
It's a real one this time. He begins to show off, juggling (very UN-angelic behaviour this!): coolly throwing the two spheres in a very deft and dextrous manner from one hand to the other, all the while continuing to stare right at me.
I resent him thinking I might find his clowning entertaining. (It only occurs to me as I write this, several days later, that maybe that was the very point he was trying to make, revealing just how dull and irritating watching a performer demonstrating his 'amazing' skills can be!) My own gaze resists connecting with his. I choose instead to follow the trajectory of the elastic-band ball over the orange, anything rather than allow him the pleasure of believing he's impressing me. I’ve always been drawn- against my better will it has to be said-to things like elastic-band balls; juggling. I guess I’m intrigued by the patience and skilfulness that can make these things happen, and at the same time vaguely annoyed by them too, wondering how on earth anyone could justify wasting so much of their precious time on that stuff.
Raeonis drops the elastic-band ball.
Clomp!
He interrupts my perplexed gaze with that wise, inquisitive peering he does.
[“I know you understand the meaning of this. After all, this is what you do!”]
Me? What? I don’t juggle. And I’ve never made an elastic-band ball! What does he mean?
I grope for handles, none quite fit. Let it come to you, I tell myself. The homemade elastic ball symbolises- what? Play?
[“Not really play, no.”]
What?
Time-wasting?
A riddle?
[“A riddle.? Yes, kind of. Compare it with this orange!”]
Erm… getting caught up in artificial stuff instead of what’s natural…er?
["Again. Try another fit!”]
Inner tension, neurosis, worry?
[“No… colder..”]
Teaching… school?
[“Getting warmer, warmer…”]
… What’s the word????… The word… is…-
Formulation. Formulations!
[“Bingo!”]”
Formularising.
[“And? What else??”]
Idle theoretical work! ... Man-made, cleverly constructed stuff... all that thinking about the natural creative will that strives for a foothold in art, to gain the status of ‘practical application’ but cannot ever be the thing itself, which in fact strangles it instead. Impressive, attractive, so clever-clever and in the end utterly pointless!...
Raeonis nods slowly, sagely, forlornly. [“Yes. Yes... Yes”]
Ouch. I get it. How much time and energy I waste! Wrapping ideas round and round and round themselves.
Raeonis makes a gestures of admonishment. Cease! it says
[“Calm down, Mark! Stop beating yourself up. You’re being too hard on yourself,- as usual!”]
Raeonis is always so compassionate and forgiving but here he is comparing my thinking self- that educated, egoic self- with my natural creative gut-feeling ,God-given instinct. And I'm pretty sure I know which side he's on! It's the old ‘Science’ versus 'Nature' thing. I feel guilty, even though he tells me I really shouldn’t.
Of course I know guilt’s a waste of time of everyone’s time and it's going to tie me up in even more knots. He lifts the elastic-band ball, and I can see that it has become even heavier now. Well, that'll be my guilt, I realise.
Raeonis decides to be playful again. He holds up the ball, and announces in a piss-taking, declamatory tone,
[“Introducing The Professor!”.]
Professor?
He holds up the Orange. [“…And The Possessor.”]
Possessor… ?
What’s that? Professor...? Possessor…?
"You mean like the Talk versus Walk?"
[“Precisely.”]
Why must he communicate in this irritating code? Why can’t he just tell me this stuff, instead of making me work so hard for meaning?
A pause. I’m suddenly tired, tetchy.
I follow his eye-line to gaze at the Orange more carefully, trying to be interested by it. I’m failing. I feel just like a schoolboy in a Maths class; frustrated that I’m being slow, not really getting it. I’m feeling chastened, impatient. What now?
[“Bear with me a little while longer, and then rest.”]
He kicks away the elastic-band ball, which has now grown into a medicine ball. It scoots away at high-speed snapping off vicious elastic bands as it goes whooshing away, out of sight into the mist of turquoise.
I'm relieved it’s gone.
[“Not much longer now, Mark. Focus on the orange. Shine your light, go inside. You know how. Let the convoluted questionings go. Just flow into it right now; let it happen. Trust you’ll remember whatever you’ll need to remember. Relax your head…”]
He has confidence in me. I start to regain confidence in me! I trust him, and so relax into a sort of warm, liquid weariness, looking into the Orange, awaiting my inner light to absorb, breathe in and assimilate... Sensing it like a true synaesthete. I know how to do this, I know how to do this, but Lord I’m so tired. Still I surrender (or I’m being surrendered!) to this experience.
And then....
It’s as if a deep sensation of density that I’d never been conscious until now has melted away. I feel very light. At the same time the orange is flopping open into 6 equal segments (Like a Terry’s Choclate orange, or those pieces you get in Trivial Pursuits I realise afterwards!) in Raeonis' hand. I spasm into a chuckle. The pieces are shining, all the various colours of the rainbow. Uh? My six senses? Yes. The six stages of focusing? Inner knowledge? Yes. The rule of six? (What on earth’s that?!?)…. It's- it's Creation.
["Yea!"]
God created the world in 6 days?!
[“Yes. All of that! But just stop all your questions right now. Just watch! You're gonna love this...]
The pieces are rising up out of his open hand and they’re gliding towards me one by one. They’re merging with me just like the words and the cartoon -orange did before. Each piece taking its place according to its colour where my first six chakras are, lighting them up. Raeonis smiles again turning to leave, and as he does my final crown chakra just bursts into a sun by itself, bathing my whole body and as far as i can see in a violet aura, beyond me and way out into the blue. Oh wow.
I am reclaimed. Reclaimed by a full, extraordinary energy and power. It feels so... so intensely joyful, so invigorating.
[“Enjoy,”] says Raeonis
[“And don’t forget… Write it down!”].
He’s gone.
……………………….
It's several days later and I reckon now, although much of this could indeed be a gift from the divine- and one which still fills my heart with an intense gratitude to my Source- that bits of it might also be the products of my overactive imagination! A blend of the two perhaps, who knows? Well, whatever or wherever it all came from it really astonished me with its eidetic clarity, its amazingly vivid colours, how moved I was by it all. If it was just some kind of manic episode during a meditation, it was all so incredibly positive, so salutary, and really, really helpful too. I don't feel like questioning it.
I mustn't be tempted to analyse it to death. I think this ‘vision’, if that’s what it was, was actually warning of the dangers of cerebral analysis, and instead telling me just to trust my own ‘creative genius’. I believe I was being told to take that 'instinct' back into my teaching when I return to school next week, and also into my directing of Tally's Blood.
In the end I'm convinced that must be why ‘Raeonis’ communicated with me in imagery and symbols instead of words. It was because what he needed me to grasp was in the end much too ineffable and subtle for words alone. And he needed to bypass my 'Elastic-Band' brain! I do know he had some very challenging and profound messages for me, ones that I really don’t want to blench or strangle with rational thinking.
So, you know what…? I’m just gonna simply allow it all just to seep into soul at its own pace, granting the profound significance of it the permission it needs to work at a deep unconscious level.
This much I do know-
It’s good.
:-)
End
Then he suddenly stops; grasping the elastic-band ball in his right hand.
[“Now, you know what this is about, don’t you, Mark?”]
Oh, not a drama game, for godsakes?
"No, Raeonis, no. No, I don’t."
It’s to do with drama though, isn’t it? And then, as if to help me, from nowhere he conjures an orange. Another orange.
It's a real one this time. He begins to show off, juggling (very UN-angelic behaviour this!): coolly throwing the two spheres in a very deft and dextrous manner from one hand to the other, all the while continuing to stare right at me.
I resent him thinking I might find his clowning entertaining. (It only occurs to me as I write this, several days later, that maybe that was the very point he was trying to make, revealing just how dull and irritating watching a performer demonstrating his 'amazing' skills can be!) My own gaze resists connecting with his. I choose instead to follow the trajectory of the elastic-band ball over the orange, anything rather than allow him the pleasure of believing he's impressing me. I’ve always been drawn- against my better will it has to be said-to things like elastic-band balls; juggling. I guess I’m intrigued by the patience and skilfulness that can make these things happen, and at the same time vaguely annoyed by them too, wondering how on earth anyone could justify wasting so much of their precious time on that stuff.
Raeonis drops the elastic-band ball.
Clomp!
He interrupts my perplexed gaze with that wise, inquisitive peering he does.
[“I know you understand the meaning of this. After all, this is what you do!”]
Me? What? I don’t juggle. And I’ve never made an elastic-band ball! What does he mean?
I grope for handles, none quite fit. Let it come to you, I tell myself. The homemade elastic ball symbolises- what? Play?
[“Not really play, no.”]
What?
Time-wasting?
A riddle?
[“A riddle.? Yes, kind of. Compare it with this orange!”]
Erm… getting caught up in artificial stuff instead of what’s natural…er?
["Again. Try another fit!”]
Inner tension, neurosis, worry?
[“No… colder..”]
Teaching… school?
[“Getting warmer, warmer…”]
… What’s the word????… The word… is…-
Formulation. Formulations!
[“Bingo!”]”
Formularising.
[“And? What else??”]
Idle theoretical work! ... Man-made, cleverly constructed stuff... all that thinking about the natural creative will that strives for a foothold in art, to gain the status of ‘practical application’ but cannot ever be the thing itself, which in fact strangles it instead. Impressive, attractive, so clever-clever and in the end utterly pointless!...
Raeonis nods slowly, sagely, forlornly. [“Yes. Yes... Yes”]
Ouch. I get it. How much time and energy I waste! Wrapping ideas round and round and round themselves.
Raeonis makes a gestures of admonishment. Cease! it says
[“Calm down, Mark! Stop beating yourself up. You’re being too hard on yourself,- as usual!”]
Raeonis is always so compassionate and forgiving but here he is comparing my thinking self- that educated, egoic self- with my natural creative gut-feeling ,God-given instinct. And I'm pretty sure I know which side he's on! It's the old ‘Science’ versus 'Nature' thing. I feel guilty, even though he tells me I really shouldn’t.
Of course I know guilt’s a waste of time of everyone’s time and it's going to tie me up in even more knots. He lifts the elastic-band ball, and I can see that it has become even heavier now. Well, that'll be my guilt, I realise.
Raeonis decides to be playful again. He holds up the ball, and announces in a piss-taking, declamatory tone,
[“Introducing The Professor!”.]
Professor?
He holds up the Orange. [“…And The Possessor.”]
Possessor… ?
What’s that? Professor...? Possessor…?
"You mean like the Talk versus Walk?"
[“Precisely.”]
Why must he communicate in this irritating code? Why can’t he just tell me this stuff, instead of making me work so hard for meaning?
A pause. I’m suddenly tired, tetchy.
I follow his eye-line to gaze at the Orange more carefully, trying to be interested by it. I’m failing. I feel just like a schoolboy in a Maths class; frustrated that I’m being slow, not really getting it. I’m feeling chastened, impatient. What now?
[“Bear with me a little while longer, and then rest.”]
He kicks away the elastic-band ball, which has now grown into a medicine ball. It scoots away at high-speed snapping off vicious elastic bands as it goes whooshing away, out of sight into the mist of turquoise.
I'm relieved it’s gone.
[“Not much longer now, Mark. Focus on the orange. Shine your light, go inside. You know how. Let the convoluted questionings go. Just flow into it right now; let it happen. Trust you’ll remember whatever you’ll need to remember. Relax your head…”]
He has confidence in me. I start to regain confidence in me! I trust him, and so relax into a sort of warm, liquid weariness, looking into the Orange, awaiting my inner light to absorb, breathe in and assimilate... Sensing it like a true synaesthete. I know how to do this, I know how to do this, but Lord I’m so tired. Still I surrender (or I’m being surrendered!) to this experience.
And then....
It’s as if a deep sensation of density that I’d never been conscious until now has melted away. I feel very light. At the same time the orange is flopping open into 6 equal segments (Like a Terry’s Choclate orange, or those pieces you get in Trivial Pursuits I realise afterwards!) in Raeonis' hand. I spasm into a chuckle. The pieces are shining, all the various colours of the rainbow. Uh? My six senses? Yes. The six stages of focusing? Inner knowledge? Yes. The rule of six? (What on earth’s that?!?)…. It's- it's Creation.
["Yea!"]
God created the world in 6 days?!
[“Yes. All of that! But just stop all your questions right now. Just watch! You're gonna love this...]
The pieces are rising up out of his open hand and they’re gliding towards me one by one. They’re merging with me just like the words and the cartoon -orange did before. Each piece taking its place according to its colour where my first six chakras are, lighting them up. Raeonis smiles again turning to leave, and as he does my final crown chakra just bursts into a sun by itself, bathing my whole body and as far as i can see in a violet aura, beyond me and way out into the blue. Oh wow.
I am reclaimed. Reclaimed by a full, extraordinary energy and power. It feels so... so intensely joyful, so invigorating.
[“Enjoy,”] says Raeonis
[“And don’t forget… Write it down!”].
He’s gone.
……………………….
It's several days later and I reckon now, although much of this could indeed be a gift from the divine- and one which still fills my heart with an intense gratitude to my Source- that bits of it might also be the products of my overactive imagination! A blend of the two perhaps, who knows? Well, whatever or wherever it all came from it really astonished me with its eidetic clarity, its amazingly vivid colours, how moved I was by it all. If it was just some kind of manic episode during a meditation, it was all so incredibly positive, so salutary, and really, really helpful too. I don't feel like questioning it.
I mustn't be tempted to analyse it to death. I think this ‘vision’, if that’s what it was, was actually warning of the dangers of cerebral analysis, and instead telling me just to trust my own ‘creative genius’. I believe I was being told to take that 'instinct' back into my teaching when I return to school next week, and also into my directing of Tally's Blood.
In the end I'm convinced that must be why ‘Raeonis’ communicated with me in imagery and symbols instead of words. It was because what he needed me to grasp was in the end much too ineffable and subtle for words alone. And he needed to bypass my 'Elastic-Band' brain! I do know he had some very challenging and profound messages for me, ones that I really don’t want to blench or strangle with rational thinking.
So, you know what…? I’m just gonna simply allow it all just to seep into soul at its own pace, granting the profound significance of it the permission it needs to work at a deep unconscious level.
This much I do know-
It’s good.
:-)
End
2 comments:
Well there are schools of thought that say the imagination is connected to the Divine...so I wouldn't worry! I think you're right to let it sink it, there may be more things that will occur to you as time passes and who knows? There may be more from Raeonis!
Yeah, I was being timid again- not wishing to own up that I knew every bit of this had its origins in the divine! Of course it did! I would not be an artist of any integrity if I did not secretly believe that imagination ALWAYS holds the deeper, truer, reality. In actual fact I’d probably be a darn sight BETTER artist if I had more courage and affirmed my own soul identity more often!! :-) Unfortunately I don’t trust my deepest truth enough; it makes me feel too vulnerable, or it seems incongruous with the person I think I am, or feel I have to be. Hence my Inner Critic is often very quick to discard these 'visions' as ridiculous, frivolous or worse, as boring- or still worse, downright mad!
Posting these blogs is helping me face down those fears- and so are your own encouraging comments. So thank you, they really are appreciated. I'm really enjoying the honesty of your blogs too.
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