Foray to the Interior & Who I'm Sleeping With......
Unusually for me I found myself spending several evenings in a row over the New Year period in Ubud as opposed to the somnolent charms of Snoring-on-Sea, which is where I normally sequester myself at such times. Unaccustomed as I am to such excitement I must say I much enjoyed the company and the various events I went to. Among these was the opening exhibition at the Gaya Gallery of recent works by Greek sculptor Filippos. His work in various natural materials manages to combine sacred geometry and archetypal symbols from the great traditions in a way that is always attractive and often striking. See it if you can. Such a pleasure to see pieces of real worth and talent among the kitchy caverns of New Age and touristic tack abounding in the area.
My Patent Sleeping Remedy
Perhaps it was the late nights or the rich food but I found myself lying awake on a couple of occasions putting the finishing touches to my latest technique for inducing sleep. It's been a work in progress for 18 months now and I'm pleased to say that finished or not it seems to work whenever sleep won't come. It's not really a big problem for me, I usually have little trouble falling asleep but at those times I can't drift off, counting sheep, gabbling mantras, assuming the 'corpse pose' or reiki'ing myself just don't seem to do it for me and I don't hold with sleeping pills. Here's what I came up with. It's fun and seems to work, at least for me. So I share it for what it's worth. I simply make a list of the 12 people I'd most like to have round to dinner. The only conditions are that they lived in the 20th Century and even if they couldn't speak English in real life, at this dinner party they all can. Now as I've said this is a work in progress as I keep adding and relegating people as I go along, which certainly doesn't inhibit the narcotic effect.
So here in no particular order is the list of whom I'm sleeping with once in a while. Sri Ramana Maharishi, the great Indian teacher, who lived at Tiruvanamalai in the shadow of Arunchala, the holy mountain in Southern India. Sri Ramana's austere and elegant practice of Self Enquiry is the opposite of guru flummoxery, proof against vulgarisation, even by Oshoites and New Age airheads, and valid in any tradition. Because of that face and a personal connection through Arthur Osborne and his daughter Frania. Somehow Sri Ramana has always been in my life even as a young man, when I thought little of such things. C.G. Yung, 'father' of depth psychology, who has had a most prodigious effect on our world, both professional and popular. His approach to dreams, symbols and alchemy has revivified the Western spiritual tradition for so many of us who could no longer buy the dogmatic absurdities peddled by the political hierarchies of bankrupt churches.
The novelist, journalist and critic Aldous Huxley, whose early novels I found so liberating as a teenager and whose learning and elegant prose, whether philosophical or musical continues to delight. Brugh Joy, the teacher whom I most love to work and hang out with. His mystery training has been transformative for me. It is the most exciting and enlarging experience I have undergone and works me still. To be drawn into the biggest context of which you are capable of at the time is the path of individuation. Through him I first came to the altogether delicious understanding that I need never be bored with the 2nd half of my life. And for his generosity of spirit and for being teflon-coated against devotees.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: Jesuit, philosopher and paleontologist, who combined Christian thought with modern science and traditional philosophy. His works, "The Divine Milieu" and "The Phenomenon of Man", which the Church banned from publication during his lifetime, envision a metaphysical and organic evolution of man, the ultimate convergence of which is God. How funny and how sad that his Church turns it's back on it's best minds. Well, at least they didn't burn the man, just the books. Josef Stalin. Well, I think we need a bit of shadow here and nobody did it better. An ex-seminarian Uncle Joe pushed self-interest to the utmost limits and was devastatingly honest in denying any divinity in mankind. As good a definition of evil as a pretty evil century can come up with. A must on any dinner list. Joseph Campbell, lovely man and a lovely life. His wonderful way with mankind's mythology, historic and the present day need for it, broadening the mind and blowing away the cobwebs of cant.
The Anglo-Irish poet, W.B Yeats, whose work captured the dark heart of the first half of a terrible century but whose poetry also encompassed the sublime, the esoteric and the Mystery. Robert Graves: poet, novelist and historian. For his entire Mediterranean ethos, for the seemingly sunnier aspects of The Mother and son/lover Dionysus. For freeing us from the o'erweening rule of Judaic myth and blasting pre-history wide open all the way back to Sumer. Martin Heidigger, the German philosopher who, from his beginnings in Catholic theology, became the most original 20th Century thinker. Moving through and beyond existentialist thinking, facing human death, finitude and nothingness to find an authentic sense of Being and freedom. Ken Wilber, auto-didact and thinker. For sheer fertility and fecundity of mind.
A real head case for the New Age and looking for a heart. Welcome guide for all such as I who approach the unknowable through Logos. Planting words as an oasis in the impenetrable Mystery from which can come a degree of gnosis. Science fiction writer and visionary, Arthur C. Clarke. Any man who writes science fiction into reality deserves a place at my table and has something to say. Him or Buckminster Fuller. Now I've already slipped in one over my twelve and I'm going to stretch it some more. Every pack needs a Joker and I pick Hunter S. Thompson, the Duke of Gonzo hisself. Reviewing my table I definitely feel we could do with a dose of manic subversion to leaven things a bit. Any writer who makes me laugh out loud definitely has their place in this company but Duke will have to represent them all. After a few months of this, with a few additions and relegations (and I have to say, trying to remember who I'd picked often had me in slumberland long before my table was complete) it occurred to me there was something odd about my list.
It came to me that there was not a single women on it! Since I regard myself as in service to the feminine I found this strange and I kept myself awake for quite a few nights racking my brains for some women to invite. Despite becoming the opposite of sleepy at the thought of quite a number of women, much to my surprise I found it hard to come up with any for this particular purpose. It's not that I don't like talking to women or value what they say, you understand. I do. It's just that the first 12 people who'd I'd really like to talk to about the things that interest me just happen to be men. In the end I managed to come up with just one. Nganginga, the Aboriginal elder and keeper of the Pitjantjatjara lands in Central Australia, who fought to regain and eventually led her people back onto their ancestral lands. She provides a direct link to our mythical and magical past. I can think of no other human being that combines this connection with such obvious qualities of love, wisdom and strength. She would definitely bring to the table qualities that would otherwise be sorely missed. Who would I definitely not ask? Why the Wicked Witch of Renon of course! Not someone you'd want to meet on a dark night. So there's my Dozen Plus or patent sleeping remedy. It's free, it's effective and you can design your own. As I say, sometimes I cannot even greet all my guests before I fall asleep on them. Very rude.
Other times I get so interested in what's being said I forget I'm supposed to be asleep, but pretty soon
mid-someone's sentence I keel over unconscious. Who one picks is rather a revealing exercise about oneself. But then of course whom you sleep with usually is. And now for Something Entirely Different......
I am an incurable lover of cats. I really really like them. I've never been bored by a cat, which is more than I can say about quite a few people. We have two, a Balinese black and orange whom we found seven years ago on New Year's Eve in extremis on the beach at Candidasa. She's a stubby one, that one. And a Siamese princess. All legs and creamy haunches. A real Scarlet O'Hara she is. But she's not as perfect as she thinks she is. It's obvious some Bali tom had carnal knowledge of her mum. The reason I'm telling you all this is that I have good news for all those of you who are owned by a cat. Nothing is too good for our felines and they have come to expect the very best. From stem to stern as it were. At the sterner end of things, nowhere is this more true than the litter on which they do their business. Now much as I love cats I resent having to spend Rp 50,000 for a few kilos of imported kitty litter. I am therefore delighted to report that the Bali Pet Shop now stocks 50 kilo sacks of kitty litter at the very reasonable price of Rp. 50,000, presumably made in Indonesia. I am also greatly relieved to report that our Siamese princess who, most discriminating about things, deigns to use the stuff for the intended purpose. So three cheers and an unreserved plug for Bali Pet Shops. So here's my patent remedy for falling asleep. It's free, it works and you can design your own. But beware what you find out about yourself. In my case it seems I only sleep with men and the Old Crone!
