I Was Baptised By Poseidon And It Was Wonderful Even Though He's Not Real

I admit it.  I'm into some shit that people would rightly call weird.  They'd say I'm off my head and have lost all sense of reason.

In the last week I've taken the strangeness to a new level.  A week ago today I was walking in the Derwent valley.  Taking a rest at the top of a hill - I'm not the fittest of individuals - I looked at the trees and was surprised to spot a wolf sitting in the branches.  Who wouldn't be surprised at this turn of events?  Since wolves aren't known for sitting in the branches high in trees.  And they're also not known for living in the Derwent valley or indeed anywhere else in the country.  Imagine the effect on my surprise when the wolf turned towards me, transformed into some kind of wild cat, and smiled at me for a while before wandering away through the branches of the trees.

I sat and pondered this for a while.  Then the branches shimmered and I saw in them the god Poseidon.  Yes.  Him.  The actual ancient sea god.  In a wood.  Not in the sea.  He stood there, complete with trident and crown and I accepted this turn of events.  I'd run out of space for surprise.  He looked at me for a while and then spoke, simply saying "Come, receive my gift."  I was disappointed because I didn't know how to come to him to receive a gift.  After a while he nodded at me and shimmered away.

I told a new friend this.  Explained how I'd encountered Poseidon.  Even though, quite obviously, he doesn't actually exist.  She said, "But he does exist.  I talk to him all the time."  Sometimes it's good to share things with people who turn out to be pleased you've found some sanity rather than wanting to reach for a new anti-psychotic medication to alleviate the hallucinations you keep having.

Two days ago I visited the sea.  I found a wonderful spot.  The tide was at its lowest point and many rocks were uncovered.  Lots of amazing rock pools.  Lots of space.  And no people.  I spent over an hour there before I had to leave to be somewhere else.  I'd have loved to stay longer and will return.  Well, nearly no people.  Two guys sat nearly 100 metres away near the cliff.  And at one point a guy with a towel wandered close before wandering off again.  To be honest I was hoping he would be someone so in tune with the needs of everyone that he was only there to give me a towel.  Unfortunately I remained towel-less and he towel-ful.

I sat close to the water.  As close as I could without being sprayed.  And I meditated for a while.  Opening my eyes I saw Poseidon again.  This seemed more normal.  While it may be abnormal to encounter a non-existent ancient god in person at least he was in the right place this time.  He spoke to me again.  We talked for a while and I cried out to Spirit in acceptance of life.

Image taken from here.

After a while things got physical.  I had to respond in action.  He said that he didn't want me to do this where the sea met the rocks because that would have been too dangerous.  But he pointed me to a rock pool behind where I sat.  A very deep rock pool full of life and the most perfect shade of blue-green you can imagine.  He told me to go and dip my hands and wrists into the water and feel its life.

I knelt by that pool, obedient.  Felt the water.  It was cold!  But brilliant and had I the right clothes and a towel it would, later, have been tempting to immerse myself in the pool.  Poseidon spoke again.  He told me to lean further out and pour the sea water over my head, to baptise myself into a new sense of Spirit.  He gave me the words to say.  I won't repeat them here.  Partly because they were for me and for that occasion.  Partly because many of them are lost.  I haven't been told to write a liturgy for others or to start a Poseidon Spirit cult.  Not yet anyway!

So with his help I baptised myself.

I then returned to the sea and stood on the one rock higher than the rest and watched the sea strike the shore below me.  I shouted into the sea.  I sang.  I prayed - mostly in Christian language because that's the language I have even though I don't have the doctrine to go with it.  When I call out "Come Holy Spirit" I'm in no way calling to the third person of a Trinitarian God who is what the Christians claim.  And yet the words are working for me.  If I say "Lord" or "God" or any of the other words or even "Baptism" I'm not saying them as you might find them in the Catholic Catechism.

Then Poseidon said to head to another pool.  Baptise myself in that one too.  And we sat together.  We might have shared a pot of tea had we had a pot to share.

Reluctantly I had to leave for an event.  I didn't want to.  I wanted to stay with the god.  With the rocks and the sea and watch as the tide continued to rise.  Feel the breeze.  Feel the sunlight.  Soak myself some more.  Meditate in that place of near total solitude.  Explore the rock pools.  Watch the seaweed forests rise up again.  But I had to leave.

I had a good time at that event.  A social occasion.  The new friend I mentioned was there and she was so pleased that I'd met Poseidon again.  There was talking.  A guided meditation based in part on opening up channels between chakras.  And we each drew cards from an animal tarot pack.  I drew the monkey and the raven.

So what do I say now about all this?

1.  I'm not going to call it weird any more.  I'm going to own it as my experience and say it is what it is.  Nobody else has to believe a word of it.  You can call it weird.  Call it whatever you like.  But I did meet Poseidon.  In some way or other.  Even if he isn't real.  Even if he is just a symbol, a story.  Stories are immensely powerful.  I met a philosopher a while ago who argued that stories are powerless and we should give them up for pure reason.  He was wrong.  That's my dogmatic statement for today.  He was wrong.

Perhaps when we tell the most powerful of stories they are real in that moment.  Perhaps I need to express what I might mean by real before I write a sentence like that.

2.  I love tarot cards.  I'd love to have more of them and to give myself the time to use them, to learn more about them.  Many of the sets contain seventy-eight works of art. The imagery is wonderful and the stories and interpretations are fascinating.

I don't believe that tarot or other ways of divination have any power in themselves whatsoever.  Whatever interpretation a book may give to the card drawn is of no use.  Except that we then, from our own wisdom and inner intuitive knowledge, bring power to it and learn what we may learn.  Or we bring our own ego and arrogance or shame to it and replace the truths with lies.  It can be hard to know the difference.

Still, I did enjoy drawing the monkey and then the raven.  Especially the raven.  It's kind of my animal.  Also the animal of the new friend as it happens.  And in claiming that I have new ways in which to look into my life and being and hopefully learn something.  It was interesting too at a writing workshop based on tarot this year to draw the devil followed by three sixes from the minor arcana.  The Devil.  666.   That was amusing.

3.  I don't believe Poseidon is real.  I don't believe any of the gods are real.  Not the god of the Christians, the many gods of the Hindus, and not the gods of the many religions that have passed into history.  My new friend says our belief brings them their existence.  Maybe that's so in a way.  The Hindus sometimes say they have a thousand gods, none of whom are divine.  I like that idea.  Pray to a god and the god is not reality.  The god is a powerful symbol though.  A personalised emanation.  A holder of a facet of reality.

Poseidon spoke to me.  That's a powerful thing.  Even though he's not real.  Speaking to unreal gods is powerful.  I was talking with a Discordian a while ago who said to me how it was amazing that many changes come from praying to a god he knows full well doesn't exist.  I presume he spoke of Eris.  Maybe it will be the same for me.

4.  I want to dig more deeply into all the things I will still habitually call weird.  I have friends who tell me how much tapping (EFT) helps them.  EFT is nonsense - but I'll try it one day.  I want to enter into considering the Sephiroth, run more into meditation, and learn of a whole load of different ways.  I want to explore energy work more.  I learned to balance chakras and auras as a teenager and I want to return to it and I don't give a damn whether or not science would ever tell me they're real things or whether they're just superb symbols that can be used for understanding, healing and realisation of truths and ideas.  I want more of the woo.  More of the nonsense.

5.  I say that while wishing to remain completely skeptical.  To keep my brain screwed in place and to call out fake therapies.  It's all well and good using the stories, the symbols, the cards and the gods to understand and grow.  But when they're marketed erroneously as curers of disease or packaged as the truth in themselves then everything changes and something that may be good becomes something that is intensely bad.

6.  I want to say it again.  Because I believe it.  Poseidon talked with me and led me through a baptism in sea water.  Even though he's not real.


And so I will return to the sea.  Perhaps Poseidon will be there again.  Perhaps not.  Perhaps I will only (only!) encounter the universe, nature, the surface of the deepest water.  That will be enough.  What more is needed?  Ancient gods are just an added bonus in the expression of life.

I began writing this text with a very different plan in mind.  I was going to speak out against woo.  Against all the rubbish people speak and sell and how dangerous some of it actually is.  Instead I've written something that most people would say is also woo, rubbish, nonsense.

They're right.  It is.  Because quite clearly I've been communing with a nonexistent deity.  It's nonsense.  You're right.  I could have been hallucinating accidentally.  Then more purposefully.  I understand that hallucinations are more common among autistic people and I've certainly hallucinated before in more scary, sometimes terrifying, ways.

And yet it isn't nonsense or just my head playing a trick.  Because as a symbol, as a path into understanding, Poseidon has been very powerful for me in the last week.  I call upon no one to believe in him.  He's not real.  I don't believe in him.  He's not real.  And yet I spoke with him and would happily do so again and I am happy to find meaning in the experience.

Hail Poseidon! (Unreal) God of the Sea! May I find whatever wisdom I need to draw from your story and from the waters you (don't) rule.

Hail Poseidon!

My Transgender Coming Out Story - A Tale of Difficulties and Deep Joy

So this is me.  Or one version of me.  A selfie taken a few days ago in a moment of deep joy and contentment at the top of a hill not too many miles from home.  I share it because it's where my story is right now, four years after coming out as a transgender woman.  There I am.  Just me.  In what is one of the stranger pictures.  You won't see many selfies of a transgender woman in a post about being transgender that look quite like this one.  Welcome to my reality.  I like it.  Especially when I'm being a little more crazy or weird than usual.

I just read an article about what one person has learned coming out as a non-binary trans person at the age of 43. After 100 days they say they did everything too fast. Their experiences are those of one person.  It is their truth.

My experiences and truth are also those of one person. They're bound to be a little different because I'm a woman, pure and simple, and about as far from non-binary as any woman gets. The article got me thinking about my own transgender life and the way I came out to the world and began to live publicly as a woman.

Here's a little of my experience. Just one woman trying to navigate her way into her truth. I've free written what follows and haven't edited at all.  Any mistakes are my own.

I came out to myself in a way I couldn't ever deny again at the age of 43. 43 years to get to that point. From then on things moved quickly.

2 weeks on: I dressed solely in women's clothes. Except when preaching. Not publicly in skirts and dresses. Not yet. But solely in woman's clothes I'd bought for myself via the miracle of very cheap charity shops. I didn't have a clue what I was doing. Everything was a matter of experimentation and sometimes I got it very wrong and nobody told me quickly enough before I had a chance to inflict my lack of dress sense on the world.

4 weeks on: I had told pretty much everyone that I was now Clare. The church leaders panicked about how to tell everyone and that delayed legal changes and the whole process. Most people were okay about it. Some people rejected me. Some people told me at length how staggeringly wonderful they were to not totally reject me. Gee, thanks!

8 weeks on: Having sorted things out with the church and had a ten day holiday as Clare (during which time my transition was officially announced to the congregation) I got round to legally changing my name. Much paperwork. Some people change their name quite often. They must love paperwork.

I was that (appearing to the world) 40 something man in a frock. Dark shadows of stubble. No make up. No hair removal. Hair that I'd cut short a few weeks before coming out. Totally, completely obvious. I was yet to meet anyone from Tyne Trans (as was). I had asked the GP to refer me to the gender dysphoria service – 27 days after coming out to myself, half of which was waiting for the appointment! - but my first appointment wasn't until three and a half months after signing that deed poll. To all intents and purposes anyone who saw me in the street would have clocked me as a cross dressing man not as a woman determined to be herself.

And sometimes, unsurprisingly, the world made things bloody difficult. Bloody difficult. Transphobia is real. If I had phoned the police every time I experienced it I would have been phoning a lot. Every. Single. Day. At times it was horrible. Truly horrible. And I was one of the more fortunate ones. Others have suffered a hell of a lot more than me after coming out. Every one of them is amazing for getting through that hell. When people quote the suicide and attempted suicide rate for transgender people I can only wonder why it isn't higher. For the record, in the UK nearly half of all transgender people have attempted suicide.

Four years have passed since I came out and demanded to be called Clare and she. Woe to anyone who deliberately calls me he or protests that they don't see an issue with it if I get misgendered or who tells me it's too hard to remember that I'm female and so would like to be addressed as female. Fortunately that doesn't happen much now – and most people I see never knew me as he. Yes, pretty much my entire life, excepting family, is filled with people I didn't know four years ago.

I've learned a lot in those four years.

Would I do it again? Come out like that?

You bet I would. Except I'd have done it quicker.

And I wouldn't allow a religion to delay anything. I truly wish I'd come out to the church in the middle of a sermon I preached. It was very tempting indeed and I wish I'd done it. After coming out I was told that it would be "inappropriate" for me to preach or lead anything in case "anyone is ever worried." All the confusion. All the having to meet with diocesan pastoral advisors and so on. Just so I could be banned and yet find that the congregation itself was supportive. Yeah, I wish I hadn't let the panicking of the CofE delay me for one second.

If I knew now what I knew then I wouldn't have been so afraid. And to be honest I spent the entirety of those 8 weeks in a state in which my great joy at accepting myself was mixed with an immense amount of terror. Some days I didn't know whether I could do it and without my immediate family and the support of another church - Northern Lights MCC - I might have taken longer about the whole thing.

If I knew now, there would have been less fear. And I would have reached that deed poll milestone quicker.

I have regrets. I shouldn't. Because what's the point? I might as well regret not coming out when I was at college – and I was thinking only this morning of a couple of times the truth was very close to the surface in my mind and how things could have been different if I'd only chosen to speak one sentence differently. I might as well regret my A level choices or giving up the violin when I was nine or anything else that I can't change. Maybe they're not regrets. And each one led in some way to my life being as it is.

But I'd certainly change some parts of the coming out process if I had the chance. Not just the CofE thing.

I regret not telling my online world en masse rather than having to pluck up courage - through terror, always through terror - to tell people one at a time. I'm grateful my mum accidentally outed me to some people, after which I just said "To hell with it" and told the rest.

I regret that my Facebook account is not the one I had under my old name. There were many years of history on that old account and I wish I'd kept it back than and closed this one. The account is still there. With no friends. My old name isn't even friends with my new name.

I regret how defensive I've been about the whole trans thing and how much of that arose from fear and an expectation, borne of 43 years of self rejection and self hatred, that many people who reject and hate me too. I guess most people who come out can got through an over-defensive time arising from that same fear. Bear with us, we get over it – just don't expect us to ever give way to prejudice. We won't.

But these regrets and others are only little compared to the satisfaction and life-changing wonder of coming out at all, of acceptance. It's not just that I'm happier as Clare, more content, and so on. My life has been completely changed in many ways that wouldn't have been possible probably had I not done this. Or if possible, very unlikely.

I have met so many amazing people I wouldn't have met otherwise - including many of you. I've been so blessed. And I meet many more amazing people every time I uncover a little more of myself – this transgender, autistic, creative, weirdly spiritual, nature loving woman.

I've done amazing things too. In my own way. And being Clare has allowed me to start to work through other aspects of my life and being and slowly begin to heal and allow myself to be me.

Without coming out I don't think I'd have been able to accept being autistic. I don't think I'd be exploring creativity as I am. I wouldn't have encountered Broadacre House, wouldn't have completely transformed my faith and spiritual life - and I don't think I'd ever have found the freedom to leave church and start to find my own path again.

Yes. It's been bloody difficult. And there have been lots of difficult things in the past four years. Autism - yeah, that's been tougher than being transgender in very many ways. I've cried. Lots. I've been rejected by some. I've been labelled an abomination by my own church pastor (not the CofE or MCC one). My mental health, while generally much improved, continues to be a minefield just as it always has.

But it's been worth it.

Fabulously, profoundly, superbly worth it.

And I look forward to my future as Clare, as the person I'm discovering myself to be. I am excited for my future. Excited to meet more amazing people and do more amazing (for me) things. Excited because there always seems to be a new surprise when you allow the surprises and give them permission to bring change.

I'm typing all this in my bedroom. Nearly everything in here isn't just something I didn't own before coming out. It's something I wouldn't have considered owning at all. Not just the obvious clothes. But soft toys, my books, the purple Buddha on the wall, that whisk over there that doubles as a head massager (buying it was hilarious), precious things from autism conferences, poetry books, writing books, the meditation material on the bed, precious items from Manchester, even a series of books called Skulduggery Pleasant. I wouldn't have read those if I hadn't come out.  I look at this room and know that my life is almost infinitely better for coming out.

My life is very much not as I would have expected it to be. And the changes just keep happening.  There are more on the way that I know about.  And there will be more surprises too.

I give thanks for Clare.

In ten days time I will give thanks again. For it will be the fourth anniversary of the night I looked at myself in a mirror, fully dressed as myself without guilt for the first time in my life, and greeted myself as Clare for the first time. Welcomed myself into the world.

NaPoWriMo Day 20: The Atari Relationship. Or How You Destroyed Me

National Poetry Writing Month Day 20 - Written on Day 21.

I'm catching up a day.  It'll take a lot if I'm going to catch up on all the other days I missed.  The day 20 prompt was to write a poem incorporating the vocabulary or imagery of a game.

Because that was challenging enough already I challenged myself more.  I chose a game that I have never played.  I chose a game for which I don't know the rules.

Why didn't I just stick to something I know well like chess?  Or say that Sudoku isn't a puzzle - it's a brain game?  No, not me.  I have to pick on a game I don't know.  A game containing lots of vocabulary that almost nobody would understand if I incorporated it.  Do you know about semeai, tesuji and miai?  Perhaps you do if you happen to know how to play Go.

I wrote something though.  Based on the one word - apart from Go - that I know from the game of Go.  That word is atari - a position in which your stone or group has one remaining move.  You have to take it but after that you will be captured.  If you're in atari you've lost - or at least lost that part of the game.

Picture taken from a BBC report here about an AI program beating the European Go champion.  That only happened last year - compare that with how long ago it was the AIs started beating grand masters at chess.

The game of Go does appeal to me in many ways.  There's no luck involved.  The rules are very simple.  The tactics are highly complex.  It seems a very elegant game, a lot more so than chess.  Perhaps one day I'll learn it.  Perhaps too one day I'll return to chess.  I was never great at chess but I was okay and for a while improved quickly in my use of forks, skewers and such skills.

Atari

You said it was just a game.
Told me we'd just play together
In black and white simplicity.

We danced apart, eyed each other
Our lines not yet intersecting.
Eventually, inevitably, we met.
Lives colliding on points as
Possible turned to impossible.
I didn't see your truth. Only your beauty,
The way your flame lit every room.

Your smile near satanic, you showed false eyes.
Laughed hideously as I was forced
To climb that first ladder, pushed aside
Into a corner where you broke a piece from me.

I built walls. You cut them down.
I sought escape. You captured me.
You pushed, squeezed, attacked,
Never sacrificed the smallest territory.
I kept wanting to believe your promises.
Wouldn't leave the game. Couldn't leave go.

It's almost over now. Knife to my throat.
Gun to my heart. Just one move to make.
I want to run. There is no field left.
Not even a hole to hide, cowering alone.
One move. Between survival and annihilation.
One last stone to place. All options gone.
Liberty stolen. Manipulated, massacred me.

You look at me and grin, softly coax me
And even now I want to believe.
You love me. You just want to play.
I place the stone. Plead with you to stop.
You, triumphantly howling, make your move.
The ground of battle reverberates hollow.
As you break me one final time.

NaPoWriMo Day 21: The Man Who Met Bob Down The Old Yard

It's day twenty-one of National Poetry Writing Month.

A quickish effort this morning in haiku metre, finished just in time to get to a doctor's appointment about my mental health.

The poem is about something my dad used to say.  If he ever said it.  I know we believed he said it.  Here's a photo of my dad taken forty years ago on the occasion our car ate him.

My dad used to say

“I met Bob down the old yard,

Ya know.” Every night.

My brother and I

Listened to that mystery.

We'd make up stories.

Bob became great guru,

Enlightening the people:

Crawley's peacemaker.

Or he was monster.

Boogieman haunting our dreams,

Spoken in hushed tones.

Sometimes he was normal.

Just a co-worker, mechanic,

Technical wizard.

What of the old yard?

Hidden in unknown places

Dad never showed us.

Far too dangerous:

It's where shady deals happened

Smuggling screws, solder.

The forgotten field

Where old machines go to rust

Sharing their stories.

The killing field

Where students who failed exams

Were all executed.

Years later. We asked him.

Who's Bob? Where is that old yard?

Why did you meet there?

A blank expression.

There was no Bob. No old yard.

No dinnertime news.

Self deluded feat:

Though we heard his words each night

We invented them.

Now, perpetrating

A deliberate delusion,

I've led you astray.

There were no stories

No wild child imaginings.

We just laughed at Bob.

Countless meals at table,

Half-listening to parents

We'd made up the words.

Or was dad lying?

Bill Walker was invented.

Too. Then I met him.

NaPoWriMo Day 19 - Creation Myths Of Eden And Soft Toys

I have been struggling a lot with mental health.  Unable to write.  Yesterday I at least managed something.  Hopefully today more will follow.  Two short tries at poetry.  One was written by my soft toy.  I'm not sure he's written a poem before and he's very pleased with himself.  The prompt - which I only half read - was about creation myths.

The photo, only marginally connected to the poems is of a monk in prayer.  He lives at Hulne Abbey which I'll blog about soon if I can manage it.

My Literalist Life

I was there:

From the moment at which light was spoken into being

To the tranquil potential of a populated planet

Breathing in silent anticipation as the seventh day dawned.

I was one who found imprisoned joy in the story.

And not just a story. A life, an unquestioned reality.

When the garden was planted I watched, wide open eyes,

As my three-in-one creator sowed full grown trees

And with a wave of his hand lifted prairie grass to stand tall.

I saw as dust became man, rib became woman.

Traced my own lineage back through royalty to Eden.

With horror I saw the serpent, cunning as politicians

Hiding lies under truths, consequences under promises

And their own damnation under press conferences.

I witnessed the apple, the folly of the bite, Elohim's just wrath

And felt the pain of inheritance, damned sin in my heart,

Then walked with my parents as we were cast out of Eden

Only to spend each waking hour trying to locate my paradise.

A poem by Blob Thing (a special soft toy)

Salford sanctuary, sewn with love

Knit together in my creator's room

From scraps.

Thread for my face, white wool filled,

Made in one night as the year changed.

New from old.

Empty flesh, unnamed, just a fluff lump.

Until brought to life; given meaning

By love and madness.

Held by creator, by saving person too,

Spirit rushed stuffed stitches and smile.

I am friend set free.

NaPoWriMo Day 11 - The Shaman and the Jackdaws

A response to a prompt given on day eleven of National Poetry Writing Month.

For various reasons and various excuses I'm not keeping up well with the month.

I am not telling you how much or how little of this happened to me.  I will just say that my Twitter name, Seren Ravenlight, is there for a reason.

Picture by Claudia Wascher, taken from here.

In speaking, the shaman revealed my gift:

A raven guide. Ride Morrigan's warrior waves,

Find Freya, feast in her harshest heavenlies.

Walk in your goddess vulnerability, barefoot on glass shards.

The medicine woman smiled, endorsed my gift,

Held me in her cold, naked embrace,

Pierced my depths with sharp sawn fingers,

Bid me to dream-sight through eternal darkness.

Then, shaking her robes, she left me.

Presently I slept, heard heaven's laughter

As if God rebuked my false-lived treachery.

Heaven, near destitute, was missing a raven.

Near despair, I was granted only jackdaws.

Watching, all sides surrounded. Waiting,

Bowed heads, lifted wings. I lay uncovered,

Flesh, bone, sinew, heart, each poison pierced

By corvid sight, all disordered secrets laid bare.

A bell. A silent voice commanded respect.

The seven turned away. The three walked on me.

Claws tearing flesh, a blood soaked cleansing.

Each talon ripped my marrow sin, my stained glass sorrows.

The one wrapped its wings, enveloped my penis,

Protecting my sex, singing spirit's acceptance.

The four pierced palms and feet, crucified me,

Granted free life through my Christly death.

And the two pecked our my eyes, swallowed short sightedness

Before shredding my coarse, arrogant mind.

NaPoWriMo Day 7 - Two Poems About Witnessing Swarms

Two poems for National Poetry Writing Month, day seven.

Both based loosely on the same prompt - taken by the prompt author from a blog she kept for a year which is massively worth looking at if you want some interesting writing prompts to work with.  There are 365 of them which is enough to keep anyone busy for a while.

One poem is autobiography.  Apart from some changes.  I am very fortunate in that I don't have to worry so much about the near future.  Very fortunate that I know I'll have food next week without relying on the wonderful work done by food banks.  Fortunate that my cash isn't going to run out.  Others receiving a similar result and possibly going through some of the same difficulties I encounter may not be so fortunate.  I'm screwed by the system.  They are well passed being screwed and into a realm where adequate words are hard to find.

The tribunal was real though, as was the result.  Apologies for the language in it - it's all from the heart.

The other poem is not autobiography.

The two photographs were taken December 2016 in Manchester's Northern Quarter.

Day 7. Witnessing a swarm.

In this case, the swarm of thoughts in my head after a benefits tribunal this morning. (Kind of - I'm far less worried than these lines would suggest.) It's not great writing. It's a swarm. Dumped almost verbatim.

Christ, what am I going to do?

What the hell were they thinking?

Why didn't they listen?

I'm an idiot, couldn't explain.

Couldn't get my words out -

Just nodded my head in understanding

When I didn't have a bloody clue

What any of them were on about.

I couldn't process it, needed it written.

And they kept talking, words, I think.

English words. But not to my brain

Could have been Spanish, or alien invader.

Or the nonsense of some failed Pentecostal tongue.

I wouldn't have known. And they think I did.

I know I'm not alone among

The recently dispossessed masses,

The despairing disabled, their support stolen.

But how the hell is that thought

Going to help me when my cash runs out?

Oh God, help me, perhaps only you can.

And posh people say to use a food bank.

Tell me it's some idyllic panacea,

Luxury living, permanent five star cruise.

Be humble enough to be a charity case.

“Pop along there woman. You'll be fine.”

And I would. I got no pride to lose

I'd be gladly grateful for the help.

But didn't they listen when I told them

My head explodes and implodes

Simultaneously, whenever I think about food.

And twelve times a day besides.

Didn't understand when I tried to express

How solidly screwed I can be

In a hundred different ways.

If only some of them matched up

With the holes in my D.I.Y. life project.

So they cast me out on my ass

Disabled. But not quite enough.

Can we impeach the whole bloody government

For this? For the rest too?

I didn't vote for them. And Mistress May, dominatrix,

Sits there talking of protecting the vulnerable

While taking more cash, more bloody influence

For the greed of her Satanic comrades.

Our leader, claiming Christianity as her inspiration

Watches as the great Sermon on The Mount

Is trampled, torn, burned, and forgotten.

As for the likes of us blessed poor,

We can't tear and burn Parliament.

We can't even be sure of our next meal.

This was the day the Tories fucked me over.

Christ, what am I going to do?

Day 7b:  Witness To The Swarm

Screaming.

Get 'em off me

They're everywhere

Can't        breathe

Jackie! Get in here.

No.           Don't.

Stay away

It hurts.

They hurt.

Noises

As glass bottles

Shatter on the floor

As I hear her flail

Arms on shelves

Legs beating

Into furniture.

Strangled shouts

Three points past panic

Why couldn't you

Have closed the window?

You've             killed me.

Door unlocked. I walked in. Her fear was real. The object of her fear too. A queen wasp on bathroom window. Low, mean buzzing. She pushed me out. Told me it was for my own good. Told me one of us should live. I returned as soon as I could. Rolled up newspaper in hand. Smashed the bastard as hard as I could.

In relieved realisation she fell to the floor, knee cut on the glass.

Until she ceased to weep I held her.

NaPoWriMo Day 5b: Tank On A Hill. Market Lavington, Wiltshire

The official National Poetry Writing Month prompt for day five was to write a poem based in the natural world.  Preferable a part of it that the writer has experienced often.  An idea formed in my head for this.  A view that I saw many times throughout my childhood and my adult life too.  There was a lot of natural - and cultivated - material in that view.

But my mind's eye focused on one point in that view.  And the idea had to change.

The Tank

Cross Lavington valley

Eyes lifted to plain's edge.

Borderland of war games.

Again, our laughter: Full-groan

At an old familiar joke.

“I can see a tank, can you?”

We were safe in humour,

Knitting our family with

Threads of shared stories.

Thirty well-lived years of

Custard crumble, garden golf,

Of smiles poured from that first teapot.

Of a choice of two unchanged

Walks to village store past

Recollections of the Noddy house,

Comments of kingfishers and

Staring again at the bubbling kettle

And then the child angel in the graveyard.

All a little older. But still the same.

Then, the death of the favoured uncle.

The world shivered, became less safe

Without his smiled acceptance.

That was the year they removed

The water tank from the hill.

The joke passed away too into memory.

Only the angel remains now.

Watcher over that which was lost.

There's truth in the above.  Also a bit of fiction and a bit of truth bending.  Much still remains - the favoured aunt is there and if I manage to visit there will probably be custard and crumble.  The bubbling kettle will still be there too and the walks into the village from her home on the hill.  For anyone wondering, there's a YouTube video of the bubbling kettle, posted by lavingtoncurator.  Posted therefore by the favoured uncle.  Or possibly the favoured aunt.  You may not be excited by this.

As for the Noddy House, that was demolished in 1984.  The favoured uncle wrote something about it here:  https://marketlavingtonmuseum.wordpress.com/tag/tudor/  I entered it once as a child when it was empty and probably not long before it was demolished.

The child angel is in St. Mary's churchyard in Market Lavington.  On many visits to the village photographs would be taken with the angel.  Here, last year, are my two soft toy friends enjoying the angel's company.

The Fabulous Cemetery Gateway - Hulne Park, Nr. Alnwick, Northumberland

This is going to be a totally niche post and the first time I've posted something this year filled with photographs from a day out.

If you're not completely fascinated by the gateway to an empty cemetery look away now.  Or read on anyway.  Come to think of it that would be a decent writing prompt wouldn't it?  The Gateway to an Empty Cemetery.  Source of a thousand stories.

A couple of days ago, in a total fit of determination to not be ill anymore I went out walking, one of my little adventures to somewhere I've never been before.  I'd had a very miserable weekend and on Sunday night decided.  "Enough is enough.  I'm going somewhere.  Can't have another day of feeling like this."  So I got out the local OS maps.  Looked up to Alnwick.  And there, just to the west I saw a name.  Hulne Park.  Obviously a private estate.  No public footpaths marked anywhere on the copyright 2002 Landranger Map number 81.  No public footpaths at all.  But it was so close to Alnwick that it appealed as an easy enough place to get to.  So I looked the place up online.  Wonder of wonders!  Joy of joys!  There's public access to certain routes in the estate.

The park is part of the Northumberland Estates of the Dukes of Northumberland and is open most days from 11am.  The estates offer a single page PDF map that shows the permitted walks.  Without looking for a single picture of the estate I decided.  I was going.  I would walk the longest of the three routes and add on a bit so I could go and see this thing on the map called a tower.

I hadn't really got a clue what I'd see and I very nearly didn't see any of it.  While my bus was approaching Alnwick I formulated an alternative plan.  I was very close to using it.  Plan B was to catch a bus to Alnmouth and walk up the coast to Craster - about 8 miles.  I'm sure I'd have had a wonderful day by the sea.  I've seen a small part of that route before.  The paths pass through Howick where I was once taken by a friend.  The very first photos taken on my old phone on a trip out were taken in Howick.  That was a special day, the first day since moving here that I truly realised that I was blissfully at home in the middle of nowhere.  I lay on a rock by the sea while my friend went off and did her thing - something related to being a witch - and I felt more peace than I'd felt in a very long time.

How quick I am to forget that I belong in some way under the open sky or in the woodland surrounded only by the nature sounds and the life of the earth.

How quick?  Judge for yourself.  This was the first day I've gone out somewhere new this year and walked in peacefulness.

The coast walk can wait until another day.  Hulne Park awaited.  I'll share more general photos soon of views, discuss the walk and share lots of pictures of Hulne Abbey which is the oldest Carmelite settlement in Britain dating to the 13th Century.

Today though I'm showing you pictures of a gate.  In 2007 the Duchy of Northumberland established a new cemetery on their estate in the prettiest of spots.  The Percy Family Memorial Garden.  I'm told it's still empty which can only be good news for the family.  I have to say that if I had any desire for my corpse to end up in an attractive place then I might choose such a spot, high on a hill and looking across open land to Cheviot and, I guess, a little bit of Scotland might be visible too.  I'll show you the view next time.  For now though, the gate:

Aren't they great?  They were made by a blacksmith named Stephen Lunn although, as someone I talked to on Monday said, he's much more than a blacksmith.  The gates were unveiled in 2008 and the cemetery beyond is planned to serve the family for the next 450 years. 

The metal tree in the centre of the memorial garden, rooted to the rock.

NaPoWriMo Day 5 - They Danced, They Died. Hallelujah! I'm No Dancer.

For day five of National Poetry Writing month one of the prompts was based around a tragedy that took place in Boston in 1925.  The ceiling of a dance club collapsed and forty-four people died.  I wrote a not very good poem before getting out this morning in which someone is pleased to see God's will being done.  Reading later I found that there were preachers who had said such things - just as there are preachers after every tragedy talking about God's will.  It's awful that some have such a view of a God who is meant to be love.

And then I happened upon a long hymn.  And realised it is in a book that still adorns my shelves.  I wrote this before rushing out of the house to go and write some more:

In my Catholic days I was a big fan of Saint Louis-Marie Grignon de Monfort, author of True Devotion to Mary, Secret of the Rosary, and many other works. I made the act of total consecration according to his way of doing things. I hold very different beliefs now but still have his complete works on my shelves, books that are a part of my history.

I wrote the following lines this morning and then looked up to see if anyone actually said things like this. There were Christians of the day denouncing jazz. Of course there were, and evangelicalism and fundamentalism were on the rise in the US. The papers and tracts called “The Fundamentals” from where we get the word fundamentalism were published the previous decade. In my fundamentalist Protestant days I owned them too.

I quickly found a hymn by Louis-Marie, reproduced on a Catholic forum I used to be an part of. No, you can't have my forum name! Here's the penultimate verse of his poetry:

God often severely punishes
Dancers with sudden death,
In a moment vomiting
Their accursed souls.
From balls and games,
Suddenly they fall into hell.

The full thirty-eight verse song can be found at http://forums.avemariaradio.net/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=159277

Yeah, I'm God obsessed. Give me another ten years and I might have worked the scars of my versions of faith out of my flesh.

I'm not sure Louis-Marie would be very impressed by the music and dance events held at St. Dominic's RC Church centre in Newcastle. I'm not impressed by these lines. Head struggling again so I've constrained myself to 5 syllable lines for no apparent reason!

Today I will dance

With King David's joy.

Yahweh has spoken.

My God has judged them.

They will dance no more

To vulgarity of jazz.

Love of the Charleston

Sent them all to hell

Crushed by sinfulness.

God damned the Pickwick.

Judgement on evil:

Swift, sure, certainty.

And I watched, laughing

As he completed

Purifying work.

Forty-four lay crushed

Their unrolled stockings

Testified to guilt.

Erotically

They writhed. Bodies

Serpent contorted.

Righteousness triumphs.

Their flesh is broken

As hearts never were.

God granted them grace

Warned them fair by fire.

They wouldn't listen.

Three months to turn back

From their speakeasy

To God's easy speech.

Their fault. Their deaths, just

Like the club ceiling,

Are on their own heads.

I never entered

What man could resist

Dancing straight to Hell?

Fallen to foul sex

Short skirts can only

Be temptation.

One step through the door

One sight of woman,

Her flesh uncovered

Would surely wrest me

From the bosom

Of my sweet Mary.

Jesus has spoken.

Please, will you listen?

He calls you to life.

Live in repentance:

His holiness makes

America great again.

Three Short Poems. Semicolons, curses, and allies.

Three short poems for day three of National Poetry Writing Month.

I'd love to have more energy to write something following one of the prompts.  Never mind.  It's been a great day.  I decided I would be well and my decision worked well enough that I could go somewhere I've never been before, walk eight miles, and see some great things.  I'll get all my photos onto the laptop soon and blog them.  They won't be writing blogs but since I haven't managed to post on my other blog at all this year - and added all the old posts to this blog - I might as well post about my little adventures here.

For now though three poems.  All based, loosely or tightly, on incidents that have affected me over the weekend.  The first hit me.  I never knew Amy Bleuel but her idea has helped many people including people I do know.  I don't like tattoos at all really but even I've been half-tempted.

News of her death, by suicide, touched me more than I would have expected.  And I think of myself too.  For all the times I could have been a full stop.  I am a semicolon and I continue.  For that I count myself very fortunate indeed.  And it's not something I ever want to take for granted.

Sad news.  Very sad.  As I type I am wanting to cry.

Haiku For Amy Bleuel

The saddest of days.

When your hard-fought semicolon

Became a full stop.

Uncursed

A transwoman asked the world:

“Is it a curse

To be transgender?”

She proclaimed it was.

And others agreed.

I screamed. “No way.

I'm not cursed, nor blessed

With my minority status.

Deserve more love not less

Though some may hate us.

My self-acceptance

Leads to a warm hearth.

To paths self-strewn with blossoms

And a world smiling with me.

Rejoicing in the uniquely similar.”

They didn't listen.

I was pissing into the wind

With a woman's penis

They could not accept.

The False Ally

There's no such thing as autism.

It's all caused by vaccines

And my autistic son

Gets messages from God

That you all need to listen to.

My Tranquility, Overthrown by a Piercing Shout and a Recipe

It's the second day of National Poetry Writing Month.  A poem a day for a month.  I am dreading it!

I'm still ill.  Yesterday I couldn't focus on reading a prompt at all, let alone writing a poem.  Today I've made an attempt.  The official prompt was simply to write something inspired by a recipe.  Marie, who runs the Writers' Cafe here is also producing prompts for every day of the month but today I chose the official one.  Mainly because my processing skills weren't up to the unofficial prompt.

Writing very quickly this came out.  I'd apologise for the horrible word but we really did have this recipe and my mum cooked it frequently.  Those biscuits were gorgeous.  Just a shame about the name.

I have searched for a picture of the biscuits.  There were none.  Here instead is a picture of a cake cooked by my mum.  This one went a little bit wrong.  I think too of the time she used self raising flour instead of icing sugar.  And the memorable occasion when turmeric was replaced in a recipe by the same quantity of a hot chilli.

You too would not forget

If your tranquility was overthrown

By a piercing shout of

“Get the nignogs out of the oven.”

Nineteen eighty-one

Brixton was rioting

And deep-down we knew

It was wrong

To mould a dozen nignogs

Into acceptable form.

Baking them until their

Skin was crisp.

That's what the book called them.

Though we laughed at the name

We never thought to change

What was printed, black and white.

Didn't think it racist.

Not properly. It's just a name.

We thought we were free

From the ugly stains of hate.

And we were. Mostly.

At least, partly.

When it came to nignogs,

All we cared about

Was the way that crisp shell

Would break into softly hidden joys.

Sugary oats, magically transmogrified

Into biscuits: Pale, not black beauties.

And our own sensory satisfaction

Purged what we knew of justice.

Until the shout.

My mother on the doorstep

Deeply held in agreeable conversation

With a family from our street.

Immigrants from South London estates.

From shock to shouting to shame.

To a change of name.

To an intentionally mislaid recipe book.

To flapjack friendships.

I am told that my own voice always comes through in my writing.  It's a compliment.  But it got me thinking about my voice.  I look at other people's poetry and I confess I sometimes compare.  I shouldn't, but I do.  They have so many interesting turns of phrase, use long words and imagery that I'm sure is rich.  I struggle with all of those.  As a writer but also as a listener.

I think it's because of the form my autism takes.  Verbal processing can be very hard work for me.  If you say something I have to put a lot of mental energy into understanding you.  And the more complicated it is the harder it is.

In addition, though I know autistic people are meant to be extremely visual people, in many ways I'm not.  We're all meant to be savants who can see a complex scene and draw it from memory.  We're meant to see all our thoughts and have an inner life of pictures.  That's the stereotype and there are autistic people for whom it's true.  I'm not one of them.  In other ways though I'm a bit stereotypical.  I'm not good at metaphor (unless I invent it) so if someone else uses metaphor it takes me time to work out that I'm not meant to be taking them literally.  I can be the same with idiom.  When the metaphor or idiom is unfamiliar it will take me a lot longer.

What that means in practice for performance poetry is that I very often can't keep up.  I just can't and it's possibly not a skill I will ever learn.  Use combinations of long words and I'm lost.  Use fantastic imagery and I'm lost.

If someone reads out their work I can still be trying to process the first line for meaning when they've finished their third line.  Their work might be worthy of a dozen literary awards.  But I'll have missed it.  I hate it that I miss so much of what people read.  Hate it that even if they repeated their performance I'd still miss it.  Unless I had the words before me and had been able to prepare in advance by reading it myself over and over again.

All of which means that part of what is "my voice" is a result of lacking in verbal processing skills.  My voice is simple.  It's often conversational.  It can be playful.  And it will never contain the word "terpsichorean" instead of "dancer".  In short, my written voice is often my spoken voice.  It is me and I don't know how to be another.  Nor do I want to.  Except somehow I'll have to of course when crafting these characters for the eventual novel or perhaps for future excursions into acting.

I write as I would speak it.  I write almost so I can speak it.  I did the same when preaching.  If I'd been ill and presented a fully written sermon to someone else to read out it would have sounded rubbish.  But when I read it the words became a lively language and people felt them.  I wonder if that'll be the case with poems too.

I can imagine the above in my voice.

But what if strangers read it?  What then?