“Spiritual” Journeys

I have used inverted commas quotation mark here because I struggle a little with how words have in a sense become tainted by multiple usage and being bandied about as PR. Spiritual as a word has had its impact and meaning downgraded to the point of near meaninglessness.

I am going to attempt to put into words something which I have hesitated to do. It is close to impossible. This cannot be undertaken without emphasising just how important a few years of my childhood were in my development, in this life. One constellation in particular left its mark deep in my psyche.

It was by its light during an English language common entrance exam that I foresaw events near two and a half decades later. It was the harbinger and the key of a volte face in life. I left the harbour alone in my coracle adrift upon the Southern ocean lit by its solace. I left Cape Town after being burned on table mountain.

Later I had another foreboding which was also to find consummation over a similar time delay. Each of these were pivotal. That foreboding prevented me making a UCAS university choice against the advice of my school teachers.

When I was young and in an English boarding school as an expat child I got to read the lessons and the prayers in church. While the others sat with parents. It was like a duck to water that I took to the lectern and the prayer “chair” deep in the nave. There I found St Francis of Assisi.

« Seigneur, faites de moi un instrument de votre paix.
Là où il y a de la haine, que je mette l’amour. »

« C’est en pardonnant qu’on est pardonné,
c’est en mourant qu’on ressuscite à l’éternelle vie. »

This man was in tune with the Mahayana bodhisattva ideal. His words touched.

Unfortunately those with the skill of a chameleon can adopt any mask, any direction, any character they choose. Believe me I learned how to blend. And in blending one loses authentic essence.

At the end of my schooling I took general studies courses in Buddhism, cooking and Rastafarianism. Ever Jah, ever loving, ever faithful. Rastafari. I read all that I could on witchcraft and alchemy. I made “friends” with the librarian in our town.

The Buddhism was presented in an intellectual descriptive manner in which the various fetters were enumerated for debate. Although I understood, the manner was for me boring and definitional. I sensed beyond that which was being professed. It was during intense meditation sat in seiza at karate that I learned that I had in fact been meditating all of my childhood. I used to sit and observe. I used to wait. I was touched directly by the dreamtime out in the shimmering bush of western Queensland. The aboriginal pointing stick had cleaved something open.

And then when I went to university I mostly forgot. By the time I was doing my Ph.D. research I figured that I had found something I was good at. So maybe this was the future. I enjoyed “pissing about with lasers”. I was to an extent, life and soul of the party. It was only in the early nineties that I started to withdraw, as if driven by a deeper current, out into the hills, the mountains and the countryside. It set up a kind of imbalance. On the one hand was a “normal” life and career. On the other there was silence and quiet. My reading was more intellectual philosophy, science and philosophy of science. I noted that despite mundane academic achievement many of “the greats” struggled with non-salary paying bigger questions.

I was offered a choice. Fort Collins Colorado or Bern Switzerland. One of those would have brought me quicker into contact with things “spiritual” than the other. The Swiss francs were certain, so I saw the Berner Oberland and learned painfully of “qualität”. Something which I tried thenceforth to express.

In the mid nineties at the place of my prior foreboding I was brought to my knees. Despite writing excellent research proposals I was stymied and unfunded. A grudge held by a “competing” senior academic could kill a proposal with a mere word. I had a breakdown. The answer to life the universe and everything could no longer be found in the laws of quantum mechanics and thermodynamics. It seemed there was more. It was around then that my ambition faded and the picture of a life academic dimmed. I began to search in earnest. I opened myself up wide. Again I largely forgot and tried to rebuild a life after breakdown. For some unknown reason money for research and start-up came more easily. I was “successful” for a while.

In the very early part of this century I was tested by power. I had a taste of it and did not abuse. Like Galadriel I refused the ring and was no longer sorely tempted thereby. It was around this time that a series of what might be called micro-renunciations began. In which step-wise I renounced or was forced to renounce the accoutrements of normal life. Each one was more difficult and profound than the last. Slowly life was stripped of all that made it busy and hectic. Until in the middle of 2006 I renounced all and walked off into the metaphorical “wilderness”. Dramatic as that sounds, at face value it looked simple, at core it cleaved and parted, severed and up-ended.

I did not become a wandering mendicant with charnel grounds for abode nor skull cup for beverage. Though adrift I most certainly was. I had already learned as a child, the nature of impermanence. Strangely without accoutrement life did not cease, the world did not implode, nor did it stop.

When you are thrust  from an Outlook calendar ruled life, with hours dissected into segments, with meetings set for you, with each action seemingly accountable, into nothing. The meaning of time changes in an unalterable and irrevocable way. It is no longer a spreadsheet thing. The boxes, the rice paper walls of the day, dissolve.

At end of 2008 I left the map so to speak. I began a series of meditations which went beyond. There was nothing, despite my research skill, which I could find written. These “meditations” continued in the UK in houses close to civilisation yet separate in the English countryside. I can say that the rigor of these was high and they continued for many years. In around 2010-11 I began having Buddhist dreams.

In the early part of the century whilst still teaching physical chemistry I had a series of waking visions in which I had “om mane padme hum” tattooed on my forearms in Sanskrit and with me in monastic robes. These visions were sufficiently powerful to be present whilst I was lecturing Chemical Reaction Kinetics to undergraduates in South Kensington. It was around then that I got to express my compassion for others, to care for them.

Overlaid on a “Toltec” background was a distinctly Buddhist vibe.

All the while I had a seemingly normal life as a married man doing for quite a while “A” level science private tutoring. The outer world and the inner world differed and markedly so.

To me as a member of the elephant dreaming class there is no problem with the scholastic wisdom teachings of Siddartha and the more dramatic Toltec corpus. The latter is a guide, when viewed with clarity, to the navigation of glamour and illusion. There is probably only one truth expressed via many different approaches. The Tower of Babel has a lot to answer for…

This is probably enough for today…

The Old Guard and Toltecs – Speculations

The second instalment of the Old Guard series has recently hit Netflix. It has a shared plotline of sorts with the Highlander movies of ere. In this Old Guard dramatization physical plane immortals exist adjoint humanity and interact to either good or bad effect depending on mood and predilection. In Highlander in the end there can be only one in the battle between good and evil. In the Old Guard series “Andy” the main protagonist has fought to help, aid and otherwise nudge humanity in a “better” direction. Instead of reincarnating she has one contiguous and very long life in which she preserves her super model looks despite getting slashed and shot. A magical and miraculous healing occurs. She loses her regeneration powers and then regains them.

In each the burden of endless longevity / immortality is touched upon. They do not dwell overmuch on the boredom aspect rather the action and power angle. The omnipotence may appeal to the burdened and downtrodden. It may titillate the sociopath and the narcissist.

For dramatic impact pivotal points in global {human} history are referenced. An allied them is to be found in the “Assassins Creed” franchise though in this case reincarnation is invoked and a DNA bloodline is the bearer and propagator of ongoing conflicts.

It has been suggested to me that the so-called Toltecs were incarnated around pivotal times and played a role behind the scenes in the evolution of human and planetary history. Given that the technique of erasing personal history is part and parcel of the training, it is not surprising that little historical refence can be found. In the Old Guard Andy tries to avoid publicity. However in this day and age and thanks to internet monitoring and various intelligence services it is impossible to leave no trace. The times have changed.

In the Toltec tradition there is such a thing as a nagal being. The word Nagual in Spanish American is similar. The word Naga in the Indian tradition does not differ in root. In the hagiography of Buddhism Siddartha is protected by king cobra, a naga-raja, from the rain. These nagas live in the place or world of the nagas, naga-loka. Wisdom can be elicited from nagas and naga-loka. Serpents are the dreaming symbol for wisdom.

This suggests via speculation and extrapolation that a nagal being was a contemporary and perhaps companion of Shakyamuni Buddha.

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“There is unanimous agreement that Nāgārjuna (ca 150–250 CE) is the most important Buddhist philosopher after the historical Buddha himself and one of the most original and influential thinkers in the history of Indian philosophy. His philosophy of the “middle way” (madhyamaka) based around the central notion of “emptiness” (śūnyatā) influenced the Indian philosophical debate for a thousand years after his death; with the spread of Buddhism to Tibet, China, Japan and other Asian countries the writings of Nāgārjuna became an indispensable point of reference for their own philosophical inquiries. A specific reading of Nāgārjuna’s thought, called Prāsaṅgika-Madhyamaka, became the official philosophical position of Tibetan Buddhism which regards it as the pinnacle of philosophical sophistication up to the present day.”

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Nāgārjuna (नागार्जुन). – Name of an ancient Buddhist teacher of the rank of बोधिसत्त्व (bodhisattva).

Wisdom Library

The name also appears in the wider Hindu sources predating Shakyamuni Buddha

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Typically a three pronged nagal is said to distribute knowledge widely. Like a stone thrown into a pond.  If Nāgārjuna is a wider term for a nagal teacher in the Indian sub-continent then this suggests that the core Toltec and Vedic / Buddhist teachings are similarly sourced and may differ only in method of expression and verbalisation. The term is a generic and not a specific and personal name.

I personally have not found any huge glaring clashes between these philosophies. There is a marked difference in emphasis and the cultural refence points and metaphors employed.

The entertainment mentioned above is not completely inconsistent with a hierarchy of spiritual “masters” on overwatch of humanity. However in order to make it dramatically appealing they must have meaty bits and interpersonal relations such as love with hints of corporeal hanky-panky.

Too abstract and the film would not sell. The immortals have to be beautiful people if good and have ugliness if bad. One is not allowed a minger of an immortal. They must be L’Oréal advert fresh out of the shower from time to time.

Having a “hot” teacher can badly detract from learning.

It is not difficult to see that the course of human history did indeed pivot around relatively small and local acts. The execution of Jesus ended up being a game changer. The invention of antibiotics added number density to humanity.  An assassination was used as a pretext for the first world war. If there is tension a simple fuse is all that is needed to ignite. A miscalculation in a Bay of Pigs might cause a nuclear winter. The simple protection of a Buddha from the rain enabled the propagation of the teachings for mind.

Humanity is prone to flying off the handle in rage and “self-righteous” indignation. Humanity has a “cob” on and is very prone to fits of angry pique which kill hundreds of thousands.

In the absence of overwatch might the history of humanity have been even more bloody and brutal?

We are heading into unknown territories with AI and Drone-robotics. What are the two biggest markets? War and sex. Thus humanity will expend effort into developing these for profit applications. Since the theoretical abolition of slavery humanity seeks a replacement.  I read yesterday that progress toward in vitro spermatogenesis is advancing, if the same continues for human eggs it may be possible to make a human-like foetus. A synthetic human is unlikely to have an indwelling Soul. This biological dabbling and getting a blind boner for technology represents a Pandora’s box the lid of which humanity will find difficult to resist. What is unleashed now and later in this century may cease to be readily controllable. The temptation of cash and the arrogant appeal of God-like potential may lead humanity down a very dark path indeed. It may regret…

How might Andy and the Highlander come to the rescue?

Dream of the Four Pronged nagal – 30-04-2025

Here is this morning’s dream.

I am with Charlie whom I know to be an extrovert highly talkative nagal’s courier. We are in a courtyard with white stone walls some draped in rude pink bougainvillea. We are sat at a two seater small white bistro style table in the sun. He is talking animatedly and says that there are some people he would like me to meet. We are in a leafy rich suburb of Pretoria South Africa. He says again that are some people he would like me to meet, now.

The first is just around the corner. He leads me off to a small shopping / administrative area. There is a 1960s style polygon shaped building with a large, covered porch and outdoor seating. It is a community library and an outreach of the university. We enter and there are all sorts of posters in the vestibule advertising events. Behind the librarian’s desk is a medium height medium build white woman. She has an immaculate grey straight haired bob and is dressed in a well pressed blouse and trousers. There are small black butterflies as a motif on her white blouse. Around her neck on a lanyard are spectacles. Charlie introduces me and she speaks in a Germanic Dutch English accent. It is different from Afrikaans and highly educated. She says that she likes the East. I already know this, she is an Easterly Stalker who works at the university library most of the time. In her spare time, she is highly athletic and a free climber. She is lithe.

Charlie then leads me off South into a township near Cape Town. We go to a government run drop in centre / nursery. It is next to a pop-up health centre for adults with HIV. We go into the centre and I can immediately hear the booming tones of a large woman, who is telling someone off in a well humoured manner. She is laughing. As we approach, I can see a large buxom and overweight black woman with corn-row dreadlocks. She has a gold ring piercing in her left nostril and left ear. She is about six feet tall and, in all respects, larger than life. Around her are numerous toddlers and small children. It is chaotic yet somehow together. She hugs Charlie fiercely and squashes him to her bosom. When she sees me, she suddenly becomes coy and suspicious. She inspects me and breaks into a radiant ear to ear grin. There is no need for a hug because we can feel each other’s hearts. She is a Southerly Stalker.

Charlie then takes me to Western Cape to an isolated penitentiary inland from the coast. It is surrounded by razor wire and heavily guarded. We pull up to the guard house in our car. He stays in the car as only I am allowed in. The guards have been expecting me. They open the gate and let me in. I walk in unaccompanied. There are no more guards. I open the first gate and then a door. Inside in a dark room of considerable size there is an electric fence surrounding an enclosure. On it are danger high-voltage signs. I can see a man inside the enclosure. He is wearing a wide brimmed hat and a long dark brown bushwhacker’s coat. I can pass through the electric fence without any problems, with ease. I know that it does not constrain him either. We are at home in the darkness of the room. We stand brooding together in the darkness. He is a Man Behind the Scenes and I know him to be seventh ray. I can see his eyes but not his face in the darkness. We know each other very well, across lifetimes.

The dream ends.

Dream Within a Dream, Dream 21-2-2025

Here is this morning’s dream.

The dream starts in a central European city with a long and elegant history. It has a feel like old-town central Vienna. I am in an ornate and semi-antique laden room. I am sat at a low “coffee” table in a small leather bound armchair. I can smell the leather.

A man walks into the room. His is nearly as tall as the doorway and well over six feet tall. He moves with grace, poise and elegance. He has long, not quite shoulder length, luxuriant blonde hair which falls partially across his face. He looks and feels like Michael York. {Closest match}

He is expensively dressed though the clothes are not new. He has expensive English shoes on. His air is European of indeterminate nature, though slightly Scandi-Germanic. He is of noble and aristocratic stock. Although I have never met him in person I know him from my Toltec meditations fifteen years ago. He is Toltec nagal of high degree.

He sits in a large dark green leather chair alongside me. I can see a ring on his finger, a gold stud in his left ear and an expensive looking Swiss gold watch.

We are very pleased to see each other and amused at the circumstance.

He tells me that he has had a dream which he would like to discuss with me. I say that I like doing this. He knows.

He says that in the dream he goes to a tailors in St James’s London. There he is ushered into a back room for a fitting. They ask him to partially undress and then offer him a pristine dark, near jet black suit to try on. It is near a dinner jacket but not quite. The material he says was exquisite and the fit near perfect.

He says that the tailor says that they have been saving this suit for him for a long time. They have been waiting. The sleeves are ever so slightly too long. The tailor takes the jacket and scuttles off to the back room. In the meantime, an assistant removes his shirt and fits him with a crisp new white shirt without a collar. He places small ornate cufflinks to the wrists. They have an initial on which he knows is his.

The tailor returns and puts the jacket on. It now fits perfectly. He is encouraged to walk up and down the room and inspect in a mirror. As he does this, he notes in the left lower outer jacket pocket a lump. He reaches in a pulls out a fluorescent green-yellow tennis ball cut exactly in half. He puts one half in each hand and looks carefully at it. The dream ends on that note.

I say to him that a long while ago I used to frequent St James’s, implicit is not just in this lifetime.

He asks me what I make of it.

I say to him that the feeling of the tennis ball is that of all the cleavages in the world which is rife now with separation and division. That the new suit represents for him a new role which he must step into. He is ready, fit for it. He has been waiting for a long time and it now nears.

He says that this was pretty much what he thought.

He reaches into his left jacket pocket and hands to me a fluorescent green-yellow tennis ball cut exactly in half.

He jokes that wherever he goes he now keeps finding them…

The dream ends.

Impossible Conversations – No Context

One might say that I am an initiate of a certain degree in the church of physical sciences. I have a bachelor’s degree and a doctorate from a kosher university, I was at one time a member of two professional learned societies and they even let me teach for a decade or so. I have an albeit rusty context of how UK academia works. I was able to write and secure a quantum optics patent whilst “retired” and well away from the hurly burly. There is no chance that I could teach at undergraduate level these days, I might still be able to do some fancy-schmancy laser experiments. Were I to encounter someone from that world I could at least have a go at conversation, even though I no longer share the ambition or goals. There would be at least a partial context in common.

That background was held in suspicion on various courses such as foundation shamanic and I Ching. When I stayed up all night and kept the camp fire going in the middle of a wood, the would be shamans accepted me more freely. I was perhaps more rigorous and less angel-reiki-fairy. Perhaps more American Indian than they from the home counties. If you have never been in a drumming circle you have no idea what goes on there.

As a thought experiment imagine me sitting down with a university professor who had a reputation for top end molecular spectroscopy and the use of ab initio quantum calculations to elucidate intermolecular interactions and bonding. This was something that we once shared.

“Well, it has been a long while. From time to time, I see your articles. Since we last met at lot has happened to me. I have learned of a number of my previous incarnations and all the evidence points at me being a three pronged dreaming nagal of the elephant dreaming class, I am a dreamer by prediction and have been doubly severed.”

I suspect that I would have lost the professor in and around the previous incarnations bit. He was a Christian and fairly devout. It would be impossible to convey to this intelligent man what the last sentence means. I remember him as being philosophical and open minded. He could take it at face value being polite.

But where would you begin? If you read these books about Toltecs, I can visit you again in a couple of years and try to explain.

The chances are that there would be not much purpose in trying to explain. That sentence is of a different world and next to impossible to verbally contextualize. His eyes might glaze over.

So, I might change the subject and say I really enjoyed his paper on mass resolved rotational coherence stimulated Raman ion dip spectroscopy for large molecules without an absorption transition dipole moment. I would be back in context and even though I am rusty we could have an intelligent conversation which would be above the heads of many people who have never even heard of these things. I would be talking arcane chemical physics with a world expert. I still have residual arcane spectroscopy knowledge.

There are some conversations which are impossible if there is no shared context. Two ships might pass in the night oblivious of each other. Sure in their world, convinced of their reality and unaware that there are more than one reality.

The Unknown and The Unknowable

Many do not know with humility where for them the known ends and the unknown begins.

Moreover, their assessment of what is known may be inaccurate in that they imagine they know more than they actually do. Anyone who has taught undergraduate science can testify that there are many students who imagine they know more than they do. They may be confident and exhibit braggadocio concerning their knowledge. They may even pass exams and imagine a mastery over a subject when in fact they have just passed an exam. A qualification is not synonymous with full knowledge. The measured knowledge is qualified to a yard stick. Knowledge begins post exam in its subsequent application. When you have to teach something in public, then you learn. Each time you teach it a new facet, previously un-noted, may be revealed. You could say that teaching is also a process of learning for the so-called teacher.

It stands to reason then, that the scale and scope of the unknown can not even be estimated. Therefore, it cannot be factored in, in a reliable way. There may be some things, concepts and states of awareness which are unknowable, particularly so while in meaty carnate human form.

You do not know what you don’t know and are, by definition, unaware of the gaping hole in your knowledge. Though you may self-diagnose prematurely as omniscient. There are many who imagine themselves smart and with wide, deep and profound knowledge of life, the universe and everything.

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To give a trite example what it feels like to be dead is unknown when alive, yet because we all die, it is not unknowable because we all get a chance to experience it. The level to which we are conscious in the death state may be variable. We don’t know for sure.

In the new age literature, I encounter many who talk about the buddhic and atmic planes or awarenesses. There is a certainty in language which is not necessarily backed up by personal experience. It is for them a theory, a hypothesis and not an experiential reality. In the blue books opus direct and continued experience of these states, in the model hypothesis, is as a result of initiation and evolution.

Humans like to model in their own image and may draw glowing enlightened figures, perhaps partially because states of awareness and consciousness of highly abstract natures are not easily diagrammatically rendered. In the Ancient Wisdom traditions, the atmic “plane” is sometime referred to as the nirvanic plane, implying it is the awareness of the post nirvanic being lacking a causal vehicle having blown it off. They may fail to imagine awe and the austere nature of universe, perhaps they imagine a soft radiant glow, with comforting pastel shades. Cosmogenesis is not nice and fluffy; it is cosmic and violent beyond comprehension. The scope is far beyond human experience. We can just do our best to observe, model and understand.

For a scientist the use of the two dimensional nomenclature of plane is very unhelpful and distracting. Plane implies matter and physicality {excluding imaginary numbers}. When I have been reading these things, I find that the legacy nomenclature from the Victorian mediums and early twentieth century occultists off putting and something which I need to put to one side to get to the gist. The use of etheric “plane” instead of emotional is old fashioned.

I have seen the word Toltec described as man of knowledge and uttered with a bit of awe. I have yet to meet a so-called Toltec who can solve Schrödinger’s equation for a particle in a three dimensional box. Tens of thousands of undergraduates do this every year. There is a whopping great gap in knowledge of physics, chemistry, biology and engineering, in my opinion. They may have knowledge but it is far from complete.

Similarly, many scientists may profess profound knowledge. They may pooh-pooh magic, chakras, ghosts and exorcism. They may even soap box. I’ll wager that I could spend the wee small hours in a haunted house with them and have significantly less fear. Even though ghosts do not exist, of course. If I started to do a rite of exorcism, they would probably shit their pants.

Both groups have the unknown and the extent of it is also unknown. I could play on words and say that the extent of the unknown is the unknowable for any give life because we can only map out so much unknown in ~ 85 standard earth years.

I’ll make a statement; it is common for human beings to imagine themselves more knowledgeable than they actually are. There is an arrogance which is out of proportion with their tens of kilograms of meat measured against a planetary and cosmic scale. Yet they have trouble not being adamant and assertive about things which they know little or nothing about.

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Do you know where the unknown for you starts?

Have you an inkling of just how vast that unknown is for you?

Climate Change and the Atlantis Metaphor

Humans not only create Gods in their own image but Aliens too. Gods and Aliens can also be extrapolations of other known terrestrial lifeforms, animals. We project our ideas onto other putative forms. We imagine life will comply with the biochemical norms of that extant currently on our planet. We look in an astro-biological sense for water, Carbon, Nitrogen, Hydrogen and Oxygen. These are said to be the building blocks of life. Higher living things are a bag of water with some form of skeleton which reproduces sexually via internal womb like development or by means of eggs. We look for life perhaps in the so called goldilocks zone on a planet near a star. Life we imagine must be corporeal and Carbon based, we are prejudiced against Silicon. We cannot imagine a lifeform in absence of a body yet we may “believe” in God.

We do not know if this is the first and only universe or if we are in universe 2.0. We do not understand why there is so much matter and not antimatter. We do not know what dark matter and dark energy are. These are fundamental gaps in knowledge. There are things beyond our ken. We can be very arrogant and adamant.

We assert that there has never been an Atlantis despite the prevalence of deluge and inundation myths in most cultures. Nobody has ever found an Atlantean skeleton. We know less about the depths of the ocean than we do the moon.

In esoterica the kingdom of Atlantis was very highly advanced. The golden days were under the guidance of the Toltec adepts. The Atlanteans started increasingly to engage in depravity and no longer followed the “good law”. This caused its demise and disappearance below the sea. Sorcery, perverse sexual activities and evil power over practices were widespread and brought about downfall. Atlantis called forth its own submersion and destruction.

If I was emigrating from a sinking Atlantis, I would seek high ground. I might head for the Tibetan plateau.

If you look on the internet it is not a big extrapolation to say that sexual gluttony and perversions have become normalised. My generation is perhaps among the last to have grown up without smartphones and access to on line pornography in all its shades. Modern mores would seem depraved to my parents even though they had the swinging sixties. Things have taken a dark turn. The gender “debate” is not about biology. It is not filled with light and luminosity.

One could speculate that we need a cleansing flood and a reset for humanity. Perhaps we are due a mass extinction / dis-incarnation event. We could argue that by trying to fight climate change we are resisting a fully natural phenomenon in that humanity brings about its own downfall and disaster. The planet needs rid of us human-locusts and a chance to recover from us and heal itself. We are only trying to put off the inevitable…

The solution to global warming is a widespread nuclear winter. This is perhaps more likely than inundation.

Some of the floods around the world recently have been truly biblical. Things will probably ramp up even further. People moan that the government doesn’t help enough yet forget that our behaviours and lifestyle is causal of global warming.

The United Nations formed out of the brutal forge of the 1914-1945 war is losing its relevance and significance. The days of “enlightened” internationalism are splintering into nationalist popularism. The cult of the personality is again on the rise and right wing politics resurgent. Force is preferred over diplomacy.

The metaphor of Atlantis sinking under the weight of its own karma grows ever more apt….

Are we doing Groundhog Day on a planetary scale?

Boy – Italy – Cash Machine – Satellite Dish – Cats – Birds – Rose – Wolf Dreams -18-03-2024.

The first dream starts with us welcoming a young boy into our house. He is sandy haired and with freckles. It is a French house with linear stairs and the boy is of French extraction.

He goes out for the day and when we come back, he has left us an ornamental plant and a bottle of milk on the stairs.

I say to him that this is now his home and he can place the milk in the refrigerator in the kitchens alongside ours.

I wake up for a loo break and learn that my wife has not yet slept.

I am in a garage around a yard of sorts where there are various units of an artisanal nature. I notice that from time to time a model car drives across the courtyard and into one of the units. The next time this happens it is a toy Mercedes. I follow the car into the unit and it tips over slightly spilling some cuboid white crystals onto the floor.

The remote driver comes in and he sees that I have seen the drugs spill from the toy car.

He comes over to me and I explain that I was a chemistry lecturer. I point him at one of my papers on carbazole. I know what the substance is.

The next day there is another delivery and I explain to him that I am not going to bust him to the cops because I used to do drugs, weed and ‘shrooms.

He is satisfied.

At this point a large minibus pulls up and collects the wife and I. Warren Gatland is driving and we are going South over the border into an important event in Italy. Not everyone has been invited. We drive for a number of hours. The sky clears to blue and the architecture becomes Italianate.  We arrive at a magnificent walled city reminiscent of Valetta. From our approach we can marvel at the buildings.

We get out and are sitting around on a piazza. Gatland asks what wine is best to have with pasta. He goes round and people in the group give various answers including Pinot Grigio. I say Cloudy Bay from New Zealand, a Southern hemisphere wine. He agrees that this is best.

We are the on some kind of boat in an underground canal system. Either side of the boat are exquisite carvings in white marble. I wonder out loud, “how many man hours went into the carving of that goat?” We enter a white vaulted and domed space with a jetty. We disembark and arrive at the lobby of a top notch posh Italian hotel. This where we will be staying and where the event is.

I ask at the front desk if there is a cash machine.

A grey haired man in a white jacket lifts up a wooden lid to reveal a cash machine. At first attempt I cannot get my CCF card into the slot. He asks me how much money I want. I reply £100. He says that that won’t last long here, things are expensive it will be gone in a flash. I put my CCF card in and type in my real world pin which contains 3 and 5.  I ask for £200. The card reader rejects my card. I then try my HSBC gold visa with the pin which adds to 23. I ask for £300. It too is declined.

I am mildly concerned that it is a posh affair and that I have no trousers which will fit me.

At this stage there are numerous very small kittens running over my hand with the machine and playing with me. Sat outstretched on the front desk is woman in a black outfit as per Sally Bowles in Cabaret. She is holding a cigarette in a black cigarette holder. She is feline. She wants me to pat her and play with her like I am doing with the kittens.

 I get up and the grey haired man and I climb up to the top floor of the hotel. It is in need of renovation. We are trying to fix the satellite dish which is the connection for the cash machine. We go out onto the roof. I manage to dislodge the satellite dish from its fixations. I tell that man that if he can get a signal finder instrument, I will be able to realign his dish for him so that it works.

We go down into one of the rooms on the top floor. It is a bit of a state with some graffiti. In the room are two red and green birds. They are long tailed and look like miniature parakeets.

I turn to the window in the room. I open it slightly and the birds come over to my hand. One sits on my left hand and the other on the window latch. I open the window further and both birds fly out.

In the sky formed of birds I can see the distinct outline of first the yellow rose of friendship and then a wolf in a howling posture. 

I am surprised by this. It is overtly Toltec.

Dream ends.