Views Of Newcastle Upon Tyne From The Top of Grey's Monument

A week ago today I was fortunate to be able to climb to the top of Grey's Monument in central Newcastle.  At this moment it's raining.  It's grey.  A week ago the weather was perfect.

Through the summer months Newcastle City Guides offer trips to the top of the monument for a few hours on one Saturday a month.  They offer a wide range of guided walks in the city too based around a variety of historical, architectural, and cultural themes.  For more information about the walks or to book your own visit to the monument click this link.

I hadn't been planning to visit.  I'd been hugging people nearby and noticed that the little door at the bottom of the monument was open and people were outside.  I asked one of them how I would be able to go to the top.  I'll be totally honest here.  I didn't even know that tours were offered to the public.

The guide told me about the tours and the website and said that tours were always booked up well in advance.  At that moment the other guide said she had just realised there was one unbooked space.  In ten minutes time.  They wondered about this, because it never happens.

It happened to me though.  So would else could I do?  I paid my four pounds - all city tours currently cost four pounds for adults and two pounds for children - and said farewell to my new friends who had been sharing in the experience of hugging strangers.  Two recent posts on this blog are related to that experience.

Photos were taken.  Many photos.  Some of them were attempted selfies.  Newcastle Upon Tyne is an amazing city.

Grey Street

Grey Street

St. Nicholas Cathedral

In the distance, The Baltic & Millennium Bridge

Looking East

Underneath

In the far distance, Byker Wall

Towards Newcastle Civic Centre

Emerson Chambers

St. James Park

St James Park & Eldon Square

Emerson Chambers Roof

Part of Eldon Square Shopping Centre

Over the roof of Grainger Market

The steps leading back down

Grainger Market

Grainger Street to Newcastle railway station

The Baltic & Millennium Bridge

55 Degrees North with The Sage beyond and All Saints Church

Grey Street. Theatre Royal on left

Grainger Street

Eldon Square

Good to see one of these flying at Monument

Newcastle Castle Keep, St Nicholas Cathedral

Grainger Street

Theatre Royal

Free Hugging In Newcastle - Part 2: The Experience

To begin with it was difficult.

I arrived early and anxious aiming to participate in the offering of hugs to people in Newcastle.  I sat on the steps at Grey's Monument.  I worried.  Could I really do this hug thing?  Or would I just get up and go home or go and sit with a drink somewhere?  Hugging is hard for me, as I said in the previous post.

I watched as Andrew arrived.  He's the brains of the operation.  The one who started the Facebook group through which this activity is organised.  He's the one who knows to come with plenty of free hugs signs.  I watched him get out a sign and stand there.  I watched as people came and accepted the offer.

That's an important sentence.  "People came ..."  We're not militant about this.  We're not accosting every passing stranger and telling them they should be hugged.  We're not about forcing people into anything they wouldn't appreciate.  Nothing like that.  We just make an offer, mostly just through having those signs, and people accept or decline as they wish.

I watched as a second hugger arrived.  Still I sat.  Fighting the anxiety.  A big part of me just wanted to get on a Metro and go home.  But then stubbornness set in.  "I came here to hug and I'm bloody going to hug and all this anxiety can just piss off rather than heading into greater panic or a shutdown.  This is part of my recovery and I'm not going to run away."  Sometimes being bloody minded and stubborn has its benefits.

So I got up.  Said hello to Andrew.  Accepted a sign.  And do you know what?  It was okay.  It really was okay.  More than okay.  I had a really good time and brought smiles to lots of people too.  At least on that occasion I overcame stories I told myself about the things I can't do.  I overcame fear.  And discovered for a while that there hadn't been anything real to fear in the first place.  My story tells me that I cannot stand on a street with a sign saying "Free Hugs".  Yet I've now done so three times.  My story tells me that I'd never even hug a person with a "Free Hugs" sign.  I've done that too.  I don't know who I hugged, a lone woman on a Newcastle street who I've never seen again.

The stories we tell ourselves are stories.  They're made to be challenged.  When we say "I can't do this" we should ask ourselves whether we are just telling ourselves a story, setting a script for our lives that's as fictional as a soap opera.  I should know.  I have a lot of stories.

A friend would have me ask myself, frequently, "What's the worst that can happen?"  Well what would have been the worst?  Discovering that the activity wasn't for me.  That wouldn't have been a bad thing.  Plenty of activities aren't for me.  Experiencing them and finding that out is a good thing.  Much better than refusing to try.  Unless they're dangerous or abusive or ethically terrible.  In which case refusal is a perfectly good idea.

In the end five people stood with signs underneath Grey's Monument on Saturday.  Let's set the scene and then mention a few people I talked with.

Monument is a site of protests, of markets, of buskers.  It's a place of variety.  On Saturday we were surrounded by the following:

The Revolutionary Communist Group

Not the Revolutionary Communist Party.  Don't make that mistake.  They don't always get on with each other very well.  And don't you dare mix them up with the Socialist Worker Party.

The RCG didn't seem to smile much and I was told they didn't like hugs when offered them before.  Theirs is the language of war.  We'll smash them.  We'll fight them.  We'll break them.  And the Labour Party are racists and the Tories are fascists.  We'll crush them.   It's a shame.  They were there with a main message of welcome for refugees but that was quite lost among the war cries.  Being presented with a petition and being asked to "Sign against racism" is all very well but the statement on the petition was more complicated than that.  It didn't just say "I'm against racism."

I've been to some left wing meetings.  When someone from the RCG or the RCP stand up to ask a question pretty much everyone curses under their breath!  They are so extreme and ultimately what they propose in their questions and counter questions doesn't make sense to most people.  What follows in the discussion doesn't seem to do anyone any good at all.  Not the communists.  And not those others on the left wing who disagree with the communists.

Then again, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me how anyone with good intentions can still be a communist.  If we look at the way communism has worked out in every country it's been tried how can we want it?  Capitalism may not be perfect - I'm not keen on it - but it's generally less authoritarian, controlling, and repressive than any communist regime.  How could I want communism?

I'd quite like a positive demonstration.  I talked about this with Andrew.  The idea of having a positivity stall on the streets of Newcastle or a full-blown positivity march.  Yes, I'm anti-racism, anti-homophobia, and so on.  But how about a positive chant?  "What do we want?  To love and accept people!  When do we want it?  Now!"  Maybe I'm just a hippy born into the wrong decade.  I could even take a Jesus quote like "Love one another" or a Buddhist slogan of "Let's be compassionate."  Fighting the "Tory scum" is all very well and I'm sure chucking out a government has its place but I've not seen much in the way of positive demonstrations.  Hmm. I wonder whether that idea is going to percolate and then happen.

Palestinian Rights

There is often a Palestinian rights campaign at Monument on a Saturday.  I agree with much of what they say and see that much of the way Palestinian people have been treated by the state of Israel is terrible.  While I can't condone violent reactions and abhor the way both sides have talked about "maintaining the balance of terror" I can understand the desperation that has led to such violence and I can see that more diplomatic solutions have had a seventy year history of not working very well.  The whole situation is more complicated than most campaigners say and I confess I don't understand it very well.

Animal Rights

This is a group of rights protestors with costumes.  Until I read the words they chalked on the pavement and saw the words they wore I wondered from the design on their tops whether they were some kind of far right group.  The logos seemed similar in style of design - though happily not in intent.

On Saturday they were calling us all to give up dairy products on the grounds of animal mistreatment and slaughter within the dairy industry.

They turned out to be a good bunch of people.  Far more smiling than the communists.  One of them took the hugging photo.  I have sympathy with their views too.  I doubt that I'll ever be vegan but I do want to eat less meat.  It's even tempting to see whether there's an alternative milk I can have in tea or on cereal.  I recognise the animal suffering and I admit that I do feel bad that I don't know where my meat comes from or the condition in which animals are kept on those farms.  Perhaps I should do something about that.

On the radio this morning a priest said that humans deserve dignity and respect because he believes that humans are made in the image of God.  I have two problems with this.  Firstly it assumes that if you take God out of the equation there is no reason to give each other dignity and respect.  Atheists have many reasons to raise up humanity that don't rely on a supernatural being or a statement in an ancient religious book.  Secondly, what does that statement say about anything the book does not say is made in the image of God?  Animals aren't made in his image.  Plants aren't.  The planet isn't.  Just humans.  So if the starting basis for a view that humans deserve dignity is that we are made in God's image we imply that nothing else deserves the same consideration.  We all know instinctively that this isn't the case.  We see someone hurting a dog and we react because we believe in treating that dog well, that it is worthy of dignity and care.  But perhaps that Imago Dei is also part of why many people instinctively find the vegan to be weird, fringe, extreme, and a bit annoying; because we have grown up in a society based on that Judeo-Christian view.  Perhaps it's the meat eaters (people like me) who should be seen as extreme.  You eat cows?  You drink cow baby milk?  You're an oddball!  Hmm.  Perhaps I need to make some changes to my own life.  Perhaps not - this long, unintended paragraph is very much "a thought off the top of my head."

Busking

Wow!  We had a treat on Saturday.  At least I think so.  There are usually buskers at Monument.  They range from singer-songwriters to jazz saxophonists.  Percussionists to rappers.  Solo performers to full bands.  Guitarists, bassists, even an expert harmonica player.  I think we're really fortunate in Newcastle to have so many good musicians busking on our streets.

On Saturday we were treated to a solo acoustic guitar player.  He was good.  Seriously good.  The way he plucked and hit those strings and the body of the guitar was pretty special.  I've listened to similar music for fun - the music of someone like Estas Tonne is a relaxation for me.

At times I was dancing a little to his playing and when he played a song I sang for a bit too.

Marketing

On Saturday we had people around handing out leaflets and cards about local services.  We also had some football skills thing related to a company.  I didn't take in what that was about but plenty of people seemed to be scoring goals in a tent.


Guided Tours

The Newcastle City Tour Guides were offering trips to the top of Grey's Monument.  You have to book for these trips online and they're booked up long in advance.  Usually.  But more of that in another post.

So that's the scene at Monument.  People walking by.  Shopping.  Chatting.  Hurrying.  Sitting on the steps with their lunch.  Waiting for friends.  We weren't treated to any religious input.  Unless you count the various socialist and communist groups as a religion.  Which in many ways they are.  Often church groups are there praying for people to be healed.  Or a Christian evangelist might turn up, of the kind who wouldn't appreciate me much.  On many weekends an Islamic group are there too and sometimes a group from the local Hare Krishna temple will be chanting and offering books for a fee.

We stood.  We chatted.  We hugged.  We appreciated the sunshine.  And we hugged some more.

People smiled.  They came asking for hugs.  They enjoyed the experience, one more chink of sunlight in their day.

People frowned.  They turned at wide angles to avoid any possibility of hugs.

People stared.  People took photos of us.

People asked us why we were doing what we were doing.  Were we from a religion?  Did we want money?  Why offer hugs to strangers?  Why indeed?  Simply to add something positive to people's days.  Something to bring a smile and often a laugh too.

Some of the people talked.

A couple who came for hugs were wearing big rucksacks for walking.  I asked them whether they were walking far.  They were.  Very far.  They were three months into a six month walking trip around the whole of the country.

A man approached me and started complaining at me.  Almost shouting.  He was quite cross with me.  He thought I was one of the Communists.  It turned out that the man was a refugee from Venezuela.  He had been forced to flee the country because of the repressive actions of the socialist regime led by Hugo Chavez.  Chavez wanted a workers' paradise and did do a lot of things that were good but there was a downside too.  And then it all went wrong, with consequences that continue today as we've seen in the news within the last week.  The refugee told me I was awful for supporting the Chavez government and now the Maduro government and the policies that meant he'd had to flee.  I can understand his anger at me.  I don't think I managed to communicate that I wasn't a communist at all.

A few people asked us, "How do we do this too?"  A fair question.  There's a Facebook group for this particular group of huggers.  https://www.facebook.com/HugNewcastle/  There are other groups across the country.  Anyone can start another or just go out on a sunny day with a Free Hugs sign and spread a little bit of love and acceptance.

A group on a hen weekend were very pleased.  They had a list of tasks they had to achieve and one of them was to hug a stranger.  We were pleased to tick that from their list.  Andrew also gave one of them a piggy back because that was on the list too.  It looked like they were going to have a good day ticking off items from their list.

Then it was time to stop hugging.  Two hours is enough.  Awwwww!  The opportunity was there to go out with everyone for lunch and I'd have loved to do that - thus ignoring another one of the false stories I've often told myself, that I'm bad at social, bad at people.  Alas, I couldn't go and spend more time with the crazy huggers of Newcastle.  Hopefully next time.

Not this time though because ten minutes before we were due to stop I noticed the town guides I mentioned earlier and asked one of them, "How do I get to climb to the top of the monument?"  I didn't even know that people were going up there.  I was told that there was a booking process online and that they offered the opportunity once a month.  But it was always booked up well in advance.  At that point another guide said "I've just realised we have a space today.  In ten minutes time.  That never happens."

So instead of lunch I climbed Grey's Monument.  I'll share the photos next time.  Newcastle is a very lovely city.

The Cyclone - The Thoughts And Voices I Hear, The Hell of Mental Illness

The Cyclone

Click Here For the Introduction And Contents Page

Contents

Click Here For the Previous Chapter

Life in Kansas - Before the Cyclone

Click Here For the Following Chapter

The Wicked Witch Of Oz

Trigger Warning: Mental health problems. Self harm. Suicide.

The Cyclone - The Wizard of Oz

You've had a good day you say? Met with friends? Climbed a tower? You're happy with your life are you? No you're not. Idiot. You can't do it. You can't keep going like this. It's all going to go wrong you know. Come crashing down around you. Tonight. Now. It's all gone wrong already. You just haven't found out yet.

It's true. I had climbed a tower. Grey's Monument.

Get that feeling in your stomach? You know it so well. Let's start to ramp up your heartbeat too shall we? Just try to tell yourself it's not real. Try to say it's anxiety and that it's not rational. Yeah, go on. Be rational. You can do it. … Of course you can't. So have a few more beats per minute just for attempting.

You're useless. Never going to amount to anything. You can't do people. Can't do skills. Can't keep up appearances. Can't keep up pretending to yourself that you'll be able to keep those friends or develop those relationships into something meaningful. You can't. Because you're a useless piece of shit aren't you?

She's going to leave you too. Look. She didn't say that in just the right way. She's not said enough. It's obvious. It's over. Christ, you might as well call it off yourself because she's going to do it for you eventually. You're going to be abandoned. By her. By them. By everyone. As soon as they see through you. See just how evil and twisted you are. You're going to be alone so what's even the point of keeping on trying? Remember those friendships that didn't work. The people you don't see. What's that? You don't see them because you moved town or changed your interests and left their club? What does that matter? It's you. It's your failure. It's your own stupid fault and it's going to happen again. She said today she wanted to meet for a drink. She didn't mean it. Who'd really want to meet with you if they knew you? And those people who want you to come for lunch next time? It's only because they don't know you. If only they knew. Stop kidding yourself. You deserve to be alone and you will be alone. Yeah, abandoned. Left. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about.

Oh no, don't try to fight this. Don't get rational on me. I'm not going to let you think your way out of this. Here. Some more stomach pain and just for a laugh let's spread it out across your whole chest. Few more beats per minute too. Palpitations! Yes, have some of those. Then you can worry yourself that you're heading for a proper heart attack. Might kill you too. But that's okay. That would be better, yes?

She doesn't love you. She's just waiting for the right time. Don't try to deny it. Don't look at the evidence. I don't care about evidence. I care about panic. Panic. PANIC. Just get on with it and panic.

Here. I'm happy to assist. We're happy to assist. Hey, I've been joined by my friends. I've got friends you know. United in a cause. You've got nothing. Don't look at them. Stop it. Don't look at her, or her, or her, or him or anyone else you might try to think of. Don't think of how much you feel at home with those writers or actors or those other nice people. Don't try to remember how she made a point of inviting you out with a few friends to celebrate her birthday and how good it was to be there. You bitch. I told you not to go. We said to stay away but you went anyway. Bitch.

We're going to talk louder. In unison. In chorus. In a total disharmony. Abandon. Pain. Sorrow. Anguish. Happy. Sad. Happy. Sad. Sadder. Sadder. Sadder still. Until all is sadness. Apart from the anguish, anxious, and what the hell is the point of it all? Don't you go hoping that the drugs are going to take you to sleep. Just imagine what we can shout at you and scream at you and even sing to you before then. And maybe we'll give you nightmares.

A few more beats per minute and would you look at this? Look at that person in your room. She hates you too. Naturally. And look at this crowd. Wandering up and down in front of your eyes as the walls close in upon you. You're going to be squashed, squeezed, all life removed. And you don't even know who you are do you? All that work you've done to work it out. You're kidding yourself. It's all pretend. Even she said that. Oh? She didn't? Really? She said that. That's how you should interpret those words. Even she doesn't think you're real and you're not. Sham. Fake. Façade hiding nothing. You're just an ignorant cipher, a null set, an emptiness wider than the sea. What are you going to fill it with tomorrow? It's all a distraction you know. Because as soon as you stop you'll be back to square one and we'll laugh at you so much tomorrow night. As you deserve.

She's going to leave. They're all going to leave. Apart from those people walking in your bedroom. Looking at you. Reaching out their hands to you. Calling to you.

It's fortunate for you perhaps that you're not even in your body and you can tell yourself that the whole thing isn't even real. Get back in your body this instant. It's not over yet bitch.

Had enough yet? We've got more. Lots more. The tales we will tell.

There's a way out of course. You know it. Remember. See here. These images. Your arms. Bloody. That's right. Cut. Cut. Cut. It's easy. How about it? We'll even go away for a while. Fetch a blade. Play with it. Stroke yourself with it. Press it in. Testing metal against flesh. And slice. Find peace.

Hey, it's better than the alternatives. Here's one. Why not go out for a walk now? What? No, we don't care at all that you're drugged and want sleep. Get up. Go walking. It's not far to that bridge over the motorway. That's nice. Or even better, that bridge over the river. Why not go there? It's pretty there and I know you love pretty things. Make up for your own ugliness. Ah, shit woman. Don't try to tell us that you know you're not ugly. Don't tell us to go away. Don't tell us that you know better. Hear us laugh as you tell us you're a good person and that people like you and that you have skills and life's worth living. Just don't. We're not going to believe you. Not when you should believe us.

How about it? One jump and it'll all be over and you won't have to hear from us ever again. No more anxiety. No more abandonment fears. No empty places. No more battles as your emotions rise and fall with everything turned up to twelve on every fall. Kill yourself girl, and we will never speak again. That'll make your life much easier.

You refuse? Idiot. Stupid bitch. Okay. If you insist. But the blade. Or just scratch yourself. Then you don't even have to get out of bed. Or hit your head or your wrist. Just do something.

Do it. Do it. And then you'll have peace.

View from the tower.  My life is very good.

The drugs kick in. Sleep wins. Peace comes without harm. Tomorrow I will fight again. Tomorrow I will take one more step to being free from the voices, free from the hell that it can be inside my head.

I will win. Rational evidence will win. I am a good person. People like me. I'm not going to be abandoned. I have skills. I have joys. I have purpose, meaning and am finding more. And I do know much of who I am – having had a long battle to find out. I'll fight my over-reactions again tomorrow. Stave off anger and try not to over-react.

I won't self-harm. I refuse. And I'm not going to kill myself no matter how loudly the voices scream or the images they show me.

Don't worry. I'm staying in one piece. I may not climb a tower tomorrow. But I will climb. And I will triumph in some little way.

One more day. One more step along the road to healing.

Tomorrow night the voices, the anxiety, the fear may strike again. But I will win. They're not real. They're just thoughts. Neurons firing and old neural pathways that haven't yet collapsed to be replaced by the life I'm choosing to live.

I know that the healing may be difficult. As I type a voice tells me it will be impossible. They lie you know, the voices. They lie. Find a small part of truth and twist it so far out of context, out of shape that even that truth is a lie. There's not one thing they say that I should believe. Not one. It doesn't matter how clever they are about it. It doesn't matter whether they're coaxing me or screaming it so loudly that I'd block my ears if it did any good. It doesn't matter what they show me. It doesn't even matter when they tell me to do things.

It's all lies. Beyond the lies, I know better.

So sleep takes me. For a while I can live in Oz. But whether I'm in Oz or Kansas or even in Newcastle Upon Tyne I know my life is good. I can kill the witch. And I can kill the cyclone in my mind.

I can. And I will.

No you can't. You ridiculous charlatan.

Yeah, I can. It's all going to be okay.

[1636 words]

The Magician, Her Hat, Tea Leaves, And The Shadow of Byker Wall

A post about the reading of tea leaves.  This is the fourth and final post of short pieces that were written in Writers' Cafe sessions this week.

Personally I don't believe in the power of the tea.  I believe in the power of the reader of the tea.  Not to read the tea of course.  But to see into a situation and form ideas and pictures based on that situation and upon human psychological skills to instinctively see or cognitively analyse and comment based on what's in a person's head rather than what's left in their tea cup.  I believe the same about other methods of divination and analysis too, from palmistry to tarot to numerology and the roll of dice.  Feel free to disagree and ascribe power to lines and cards and leaves or to a mystical, prophetic guide who places the leaves and cards in the right order for a situation.

I've been to a place sometimes and we've drawn cards to represent our lives.  Everyone goes "Wow!" at the interpretations given.  The next week we're there again.  We draw different cards.  Everyone goes "Wow!" again.

Have all of our lives changed so drastically in the course of a week?  I don't think so.

Divination, I believe, teaches us of ourselves.  It can be useful - or it can be dangerous.  Sometimes it's just a bit of fun.  And on occasion, a rarity, it can be a writing prompt.

So it was at the Writers' Cafe.  Each of us had our tea leaves read.  With mint tea because the leaves were more varied than those of the tea tea in the cafe.  The woman who runs the group read us.

Here's my cup.  I ask you.  What do you see?  A friend just saw a cup that needed cleaning.  Another friend saw Jesus - but she is a Carmelite lay sister so she sees Jesus in many things.

Our group leader saw a magician with a wand.  She decided that the magician had lost her hat.  She said other things too but as a writing prompt the magician appealed.  Can you see too?

Here's the writing, the same words as were freely written in not many minutes at the end of our session.  I gave myself a D minus for it.  People seemed to like it though.  That, I suppose, is magic.

Byker, for those who don't know, is a district in Newcastle Upon Tyne.  A children's programme was set there but not filmed there.

Byker has a wall.  The wall contains 620 flats and homes and encloses the Byker Wall estate.  The whole place is architecturally famous and is now Grade II listed.  Fame doesn't imply beauty of course.  Some very ugly places are listed.

Some will speak of the estate in terms that say "Abandon hope all ye who enter" and imply that just walking into that estate will lead to a consequence somewhere between losing your possessions and losing your life.  Others speak of the estate in terms that say "I really like it here.  There's an amazing community and loads of artists."  I find I have friends there.  It's not a rich estate.  The millionaires live in other parts of the city.  And it's had its problems.  Every impoverished city estate does.  We were told when moving to the city, "Don't, whatever you do, move to Byker."  We were taught to fear a dangerous ghetto behind the Wall.  It must be admitted that crime levels in Byker are higher than those where I currently live.  The crime map for that area has more than twice as many reported crimes as the map for this area.  But most people of course are just getting on with their lives.  And there are loads of good people in the area too.  Yes, including artists.  Including friends.

It took me six years to enter the estate.  And at that moment I fell in love.

The magician lost her hat.
But somewhere, under the shadow of Byker Wall,
Her magic will be returned to her.
In the Wall is life.  In the wall is death.
In the Wall the elemental gods play together.

Under green wood and rainbow rooftops,
Among addictions and artists,
Within the underclass and dispossessed -
The purest of humanity.
Above Tyne waters returning to ocean,
Full-felt, full-flung source of Poseidon's blessings.

Through sacred seclusion, close community,
The magician will not find her old hat.
But she'll weave, spin, breathe a hat
Fine enough that the original may be gladly forgotten.

Replaced, reborn under Byker Wall,
The magician will learn to speak.
In the new beginning was her Word.

Consequential Loss - Notes On A Radio Play And Autistic Theatre

I recently took the plunge and joined up with a theatre group for autistic people.  It's a pretty new group and the people there are varied.  There autism is as varied as they are.  What everyone shares is enthusiasm.

The core group meet currently for one day a week, being joined for the morning by a group from a local college of ESPA (Education and Services for People with Autism).  We have fun and are supported in what we do by two paid staff members who work more or less full time for the Twisting Ducks Theatre Company which is run for people with learning difficulties and (now) autism.

I feel very fortunate to be able to go and have fun with the people of Spectrum Theatre - the autistic child of the Twisting Ducks.  It is hoped that in the future some extra funding can be obtained which would mean that the work of Spectrum could develop a lot further.  Also in the near future there's going to be an eight week creative writing course - which we're really meant to call creative storytelling in recognition that there may be people on that course who have amazing imaginations but who can't write or can't write well enough to set down their fantastic stories on paper.

I'm also very fortunate in that the current funding obtained for Spectrum means that the day that's laid on for we autistic people is free of charge.

I've met some great people in Spectrum, all autistic and all experiencing joys and trials that accompany our condition.  And it's just one more way for me to open up to my own creative possibilities and the possibilities of others.  For now it is a place I will stay.  I make no predictions for the future.

Almost the first thing the core group were asked to do was to write a radio play.  Each of us would write, with the idea being that we will record the plays and put them out on a local community radio station.

I've written quite a lot in the past year, though not as much I would have liked.  But I've never attempted a play either from scratch or from adapting one of my crazy stories.

I have now written a play.  And then it had to be edited - the censor's pen had to be used.   The broadcasts would be daytime and I accidentally wrote something with adult content and language including rather more swearing than families would appreciate.  I'd written a late night show or something to adapt into a theatre piece with a 15+ age warning.

I've been my own censor though.  The fruity language has been removed or toned down and I wonder in places whether I've lost realism.  I've adjusted quite a few lines.  Watered down sex references and some imagery that the BBC controller would have banned.  I'm glad the actual plot is unchanged.  There's still the darkness and light, the despair, the betrayals, the hope.  I'm glad I haven't been asked to make the plot insipid

There's also the matter of religion.  One of the characters is a religious homophobic bigot.  I can write religious bigots.  I know the subject first hand!  The character is quite extreme but I've known people who are equally extreme and equally nasty about it too.  I thankful I didn't get quite that bad myself in my own years of religious homophobia.  I think that the character worked as I wrote her.  She's still there too.  She's surviving the censor.  But her language and bile is a little mellowed.  I also considered the intended audience and wondered whether they would be up in arms about my attack on the Christian faith.  It's not really that of course, just an attack on a particular manifestation of the faith, the version that names people like me as abominations.  For a late night broadcast or a theatre I'd let it stand.  But not for this intended broadcast.  So I've taken pains to point out that not all Christians are like that.

Since the broadcast will be in Newcastle I've pointed to a few of the churches here in which being queer won't result in the preacher abusing you or consigning you to hell for your sexuality and gender.  Who knows?  Perhaps someone will hear it who is a Christian and is queer too but hiding the truth and fighting against themselves through guilt.  Just as I did.  Perhaps someone like that will hear and something will be planted in them that helps them seek out a place where they can live their faith in more freedom.  I can live in the hope that a radio play might do some good.

I've deliberately kept the scenes simple.  Deliberately linked them with narration from the main character.  I think, as a first attempt at writing a play, it has worked out well.  Unfortunately I now want to re-edit it to put some of the fruitier language and imagery back in and have two versions of it to play with.

Each of us in that core group has written a play.  They are as varied as we are.  I've ended up being the only one of us to include nothing from the realms of science fiction and fantasy.  Much as I love those genres - and need to get back to working on my post-apocalyptic dystopian novel - I've ended up firmly rooted in the real world.  The other plays are each filled with their own surprises and it's a good thing that they are such contrasts from each other.

My first scene was initially written at a Spectrum session.  We were all told to write a scene.  One simple idea popped into my head and it just flowed with hardly another conscious thought.  Two friends meet in a cafe.  One confesses to the other that she is having an affair.  She was having it with a man named Graham.  But as I wrote his name my pen paused, almost the only break it gave to my writing hand.  My pen considered its options.  Crossed out the word Graham.  And wrote the word Erica.

Since that day I haven't made any enormous changes to the scene - just a few, arising from details the characters gave me about themselves as they wrote the rest of the play for me.  It's always nice when people can hardly believe that I've just written something from scratch in a writing session.  That happens sometimes.  Other times I can hardly write anything at all and any words that get miserably scrawled should really only be filed in the embarrassing section.

I hope that writing the play has taught me something about the process.  Something I can put to good use later.  I hope too that it will give me a little more confidence in writing conversations.  I never used to include much in the way of conversation because I didn't think I understood the rules of conversation well enough to write one.  I hope that this play is a step on the path to being able to write realistic and engaging talk.  I don't think I'm there yet.

Sometime soon I'll probably post the whole play here.  Unless I go crazy, edit it more and try and get someone more professional to record it.  That's always a possibility.

So, onwards with Spectrum.  See where it leads.  I'm guessing it may throw me in a few surprising directions.  And I'm happy with that idea.

The Jehovah's Witnesses Ask "Is The Bible Really From God?"

Warning:  This post is a self-indugent trip into one of my special interests.

 

Yesterday I accepted the Jehovah's Witness offer of a publication.  "Awake!"  It asks the question, "Is the Bible Really From God?"

 

If you happen to want to read it you can find it here.  I link to it because otherwise commenting about it as I have below would not be fair.  The magazine contents do not reflect my own opinions.

I believe the article to be almost hilarious in the points it makes.  They are points that really ought not to be made in any serious study of any ancient text, religious or secular.

The article begins by claiming the Bible (which incidentally says the sun was created after life on Earth) is scientifically accurate and therefore should be believed. As if it's meant to be science.  The writer asks the reader to "Consider examples from the fields of meteorology and genetics."  Okay, I'm game.  I'll consider them.  I'm absolutely shattered this afternoon and my head's not up to much more than playing with its continuing obsession with all things God!

Meteorology - Formation of Rain

 

The writer of the article claims that the writer of Job shows a creator who "does understand the rain cycle and saw to it that a human writer would include the facts accurately in the Bible."

 

It makes the claim based on Job 36:27-28.  My English Standard Version renders this as

 

For he draws up the drops of water;

    they distill his mist in rain,

which the skies pour down

     and drop on mankind abundantly.

 

The writer of the publication claims this shows a perfect picture of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation such as we all learn in school.  That could be an impressive thing to find in an ancient text although by the time Job was written, probably in the sixth century BCE, scholars were speculating and often understanding that rain originates from the water below being drawn up.  How could this information be included in the Bible?  It doesn't need to be some kind of prescience of science.  It can just be an idea that the writer had already encountered.

It becomes even less impressive when we realise that the words commonly translated "draws up" don't mean that at all.  Not at all.  They actually mean "draw away".  The picture here probably isn't of a properly understood water cycle at all.  In reality it probably mirrors an idea that the clouds and the rain are drawn away from a great mass of water above.

 

So it's probably not scientifically accurate.  And even if is broadly accurate it could just be reflecting a known idea.

 

It might also be fun to respond to the Witness that the words in the Bible were put into the mouth of Elihu, one of Job's friends.  God's response to his words begins, "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?"  Or that God's response in chapter 38 mentions "the springs of the sea" - echoing that idea commonly held then and for many centuries afterwards that the water on earth was also replenished by percolation.

And yet it doesn't matter.  The whole conversation is poetry not science.  As poetry it's very beautiful and the imagery is stupendous.  As science it stinks.  It's okay that it stinks.  Poetry books tend to stink as science and science books make for awful poetry.

I'd recommend reading Job.  Considering the story and playing with the concepts.  Delving into the images and ideas and being amazed at this ancient work of literature.  I say that as someone who no longer believes in the personal God the writer inspires us to follow and trust.

Genetics - Development of the Human Embryo

It quotes a verse which my Bible reads as "Your eyes saw my unformed substance," translates it as "embryo" and tries to prove from that single verse that the psalmist was well schooled in genetics! Accurate science.  The article writer admits it's poetic language but then tries to say King David, to whom the psalm is traditionally attributed, was being accurate about the human genetic code.

I think that's crazy but the Jehovah's Witness who talked to me about it yesterday until I had to rush for my bus took it totally seriously.  I used to take similar things just as serious.  When you're stuck in a dogmatic religion and believe it is the only way to truth and salvation then it's almost impossible to see through things like this.  People can gaze on open mouthed and apply reason and you won't be able to see it.  I look back at some things I used to believe and wonder how on earth I - with an IQ above 150 - ever managed to believe such unreasonable things wholeheartedly and call them reasonable.

For some reason the article writer doesn't quote the previous verse: "When I was being ... intricately woven in the depths of the earth."  I'm not sure they could claim that one as being scientifically accurate.  No geneticist says that we humans are woven in the depths of the earth.

 

It's not scientifically accurate.  Of course it isn't.  Again, it doesn't matter.  Not one bit.  Because it's poetry.  And poetry written by someone living thousands of years ago with a very different view of the world and the universe than the one we have now.

 

Part of that poetry was very important to me when I came out as transgender.  It's a part that's been important to many LGBT christians.  Verse 14 is a wonderful thing to hold onto when you've been hurt by churches for being who you are.

 

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works;

      My soul knows it very well.

 

It was very reassuring to me at the time.  I'm transgender.  God made me this way.  And that's just as wonderful as if he/she/they had made me cisgender.   I held that verse close to my heart and mind and wrote about it too.

Less important to me though were later verses in the psalm:

Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!

   O men of blood depart from me!

They speak against you with malicious intent:

   your enemies take your name in vain.

Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?

   And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?

I hate them with complete hatred;

   I count them as my enemies.

Those verses are rarely quoted.  They're not in hymns.  When the psalm was read in my old church (Metropolitan Community Church) we missed those verses out.  They are persona non grata.  We don't follow those ones.  It's just as well we don't or we might set out to be like King David and conquer and kill all the neighbouring nations who don't follow our God.  It was a different time.  If we raised up those verses we'd quickly become a Christian version of ISIS - who raise up such verses from the Qu'ran.

Those hate verses are followed by a final verse.  We read that one.  Everyone does.  It's in hymns and choruses.  We like it.

Search me, O God, and know my heart!

   Try me and know my thoughts!

And see if there be any grievous way in me,

   And lead me in the way everlasting.

 

Nowadays of course we'd say "Yes, there's a grievous way in you David.  You hate people with a different religion to you."  But let's ignore that for today.   Let's also ignore that the Hebrew word and idea could sometimes mean something very different to the word in English translation and usage - and that Jesus didn't really tell us to hate our parents even though our English Bibles tell us he did.

The poetry of the Psalms can be amazing.  With or without faith it's an amazing body of literature.  Yes, it's got those hate verses but every single ancient work has things that we would now refuse to make a part of our life.  Ancient writers, the wisest of their day, say cultural things we would now reject.  That's okay.  They are from another culture and age and there's no need to rip up the books.

The mistake made in this Jehovah's Witness publication - as in many conservative Christian or Bible-based publications - is to attempt to turn an ancient book of faith into something that it was never meant to be:  Science.

In doing so they've turned something that's often stunningly beautiful into something that deserves only to be laughed at, ridiculed and rejected.  Yes, they turn their God into a laughing stock.

I'm going to stop at that point.  I'm not going to examine the article's claim that the Bible accurately predicts the future.  I'm not going to examine the claim that the Bible answers life's big questions.  It does.  That's a given.  The scriptures of all religions answer life's big questions.  They just disagree in places on what the answer is.

I'm also not going to answer the question that's been on your lips for your entire life.  "The Sea Otter's Fur:  Was It Designed?"  The magazine doesn't answer the question either.  Disappointing!

 

You've probably been very bored reading what I've just written.  I had fun with it.  That's the nature of my obsession, my special interest.

My sadness is that some people will encounter the ludicrous scientific claims about meteorology and genetics, be amazed by them, and be one step along the way to becoming a Jehovah's Witness.  A group that wouldn't agree with what I said about LGBT Christians.  Not in the slightest.  A group that is monolithic, dogmatic and exclusivist.  Much as they smile at me in the street as they hold out their publications I would not be safe in their midst.  Not for long.  A 2014 survey showed that the Jehovah's Witnesses are the most homophobic of all major religious groups in the USA.  The best article I've found about it online is this one, simply because it quotes so many primary sources.  They've told me in the street that I'm fine, that I'd be welcome, that God loves me, that I'd be safe there.  It's a lie.  Their own writings demonstrate it to be so.

My gladness is that the Jehovah's Witnesses were not the only people offering something on the street of central Newcastle yesterday.  I took the plunge and joined a group with an offering that condemned nobody, welcomed everyone, and truly spread some love totally free from dogma and judgement.

We offered hugs.  Free hugs.  And for those who didn't want a hug a smile or a kind word.

Someone tried to offer me money.  Because they found it hard to believe people would just stand there offering something and expecting nothing, preaching nothing, embracing everyone.

That's what we did and it was an excellent time.  I say that as someone, autistic, who happens to have problems hugging people.  I'm usually a non-hugger.  But I went out hugging and it brought smiles to people and reassurance to people too the day after another terrorist attack.

I still have hug issues.  But I'd join those people and give out free hugs again in an instant.  It was like a perfect expression of love.  A piece of Biblical excellence because "perfect love casts out all fear."  Others gave a perfect expression later in the day.  I rushed for my bus to get to a community festival.  500 people attended and received something beautiful in the west end of Newcastle.  This time I was on the receiving end.

It was a fabulous day.  I saw lots of saints.  They might have a religious faith.  They might not.  It doesn't matter.  To me they are saints.