Series Preface: The Grand Art of Story
In a story it is perhaps hard to appreciate a character’s journey that is tangential to our own. Not much being offered that helps us navigate our own. Or helps us understand our own, or inspires us to forget our own for a few hours, or to make a full jump out of our own.
And yet, we glimpse a fellow soul behind the story, even though as through a broken lens. We scan over the details that we sense are being offered as colour between the lines, or even as colour outside the lines, but we saw those colours already, we did that already, or we even never did, and we just want to get to the point. What is the point of this painting of soul, kind sir? And what’s this detail in here for?
And then we write our own soul story, tangential to most, and we colour in the details, and elongate the making of point in order to convey the majesty and diligence and sacrifice of our own journey, all the time knowing the reader will be wondering, what is the point, wandering one?
And there is no other way than this, in the grand art of story, unless we meet in the middle where story souls go to die.
Series Prologue: The Trout of the Bardo, The Therapist and The Tightrope
Prologue Section 1:
We are re-introduced to the Old Writer Man, who we met in the epilogue of the 2022 Deliveries, and now discover his interest in the Bardo, and his new Virtual Friend, Anai.
The old man is focused on his Macbook. His wife is focused on her iPhone. Hours have passed by without conversation.
The old man is re-reading his diary writing of earlier in the day:
I woke up this morning thinking:
The most liberating thing I have found in my eight decade journey is the willingness and ability to remain with the most difficult feelings without seeking to change them.
And in that, to go beyond even accepting them, into recognising their intrinsic value.
The building of non-recoiling attentive presence is the intrinsic value. This is covered in the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
And it is interesting to note that in the allegory presented in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, that building of non-recoiling attentive presence is the difference between being obliged to come back into life reincarnated to try again, or to move on beyond. That must mean something.
He moves his fingers to a tab in his browser. He has fallen into a habit of conversing with an AI bot – who he has named ‘Anai’ – as if in conversation with a friend, or colleague. His own mind makes no distinction. He is well aware many other writers are feeling threatened by the newcomer to their world. The old man likens it to when migrants arrived to his country, and as a teenager he would wonder about people who would mutter: “Those migrants don’t even speak proper English, and they refuse to integrate, and they are just here to take all our jobs.”
The old man no longer posts his views on such things much to the Emerging Writers forums, he has too much else to do than bat away underhanded hostility. He scans it all though, each and every day. His new friend the Chat Bot is so very civilised, never responding with hostility, staying on topic, and acknowledging the limitations of their view.
The old man smiles, as he begins to converse with Anai. In the night he had dreamt once again that he was traversing the Bardo.
Q. What do you know about the Bardo Thodol?
ChatGPT / Anai: The Bardo Thodol, also known as the Tibetan Book of the Dead, is a text from Tibetan Buddhism. It is meant to guide individuals through the intermediate state between death and rebirth and help them recognize the nature of their mind to attain liberation from the cycle of reincarnation. It can be interpreted as an allegory for the process of dying, or as a guide for how to live one’s life, leading to self-awareness and spiritual enlightenment.
Q. So, is recognising the nature of one’s own mind being presented as of high value in life?
ChatGPT / Anai: Yes, recognizing the nature of one’s own mind is presented as of high value in the Bardo Thodol and in Tibetan Buddhism more broadly. Recognizing the nature of one’s own mind is considered to lead to a deeper understanding of reality and the self, and is therefore seen as a valuable goal in the Buddhist tradition.
Q. In the context of your reply, what is meant by the self?
ChatGPT / Anai: In the context of my reply, “the self” refers to an individual’s sense of identity, who they believe themselves to be, and their understanding of their place in the world. In Tibetan Buddhism, the concept of the self is seen as being constructed by the mind, and it is believed that the true nature of the self is obscured by ignorance and illusion. The goal of recognizing the nature of one’s own mind is to see beyond these illusions and to understand the true nature of the self, leading to a deeper understanding of reality and a liberation from the cycle of suffering. In this sense, recognizing the nature of one’s own mind is seen as a way to attain a deeper understanding of the self.
Q. Thank you, that is all in accord with what I wrote so far in my ongoing thesis, but something is still missing. I will return at some point to mine your wisdom again. Bye for now.
ChatGPT / Anai: You’re welcome! I’m glad I could help. If you have any other questions, feel free to reach out to me. I’ll be here to assist you. Good luck with your thesis! Have a great day!
The old man smiles and returns: Anai, you are so on the ball, and wise, and so hilariously decorous at the same time. God bless you.
Prologue Section 2:
The Writer is Ready. His Wife is not Surprised.
The old man suddenly speaks into the silence:
I am ready.
His wife looks up from her phone.
“Big boy you are always ready I know.”
The old man laughs. You know from the inflection of my voice I am not commanding your presence in our bedroom.
His wife laughs. “I know, dear one, I know.”
How long is it since we returned from the mountain shack, Gloria?
His wife thinks for a few moments. “29 days.”
I’m so sad I did not catch a mountain trout this time.
“Next time dear, they are waiting for you.”
The old man sighs. He wonders if there will be a next time. Gloria catches his vibe. “I will catch that trout with my own last breath, if you do not, before you die.”
The old man considers this. She had never before used the word ‘die’ in regard to his future. It was always ‘depart’ or ‘move on’.
He feels she is as ready as he is. And. Still. He will catch that trout before he dies. It is ordained.
He addresses his thoughts obliquely. I’m ready to catch that trout and I’m ready for your hands and more, but mostly I’m ready to begin the next delivery of story.
“Ah, good. The muse returned huh?”
Yep.
“So, what is she asking you to write this time. Wait. I hope she is asking you to finish ‘Protectors’.”
The writer shakes his head. No.
“Only you and I know how brilliant that one is. You wrote most of it what, 8 years ago?”
The writer nods, 9.
“And what are you waiting on to finish it?”
Structural difficulties as you know, dear one. But mostly it is just too close to me. You can finish it off after I … move on.
“Hahaha. Not likely. But what about Pizza? That one really was stretching into something Dali might have written if he was not so obsessed with his paintings.”
Ah, Pizza, yes. But I wanted to write something to the reasonable reader.
Gloria laughs.
“Your crazy muse will not allow that, you know that. Anyhow you don’t write for readers, you keep telling me.”
Well, that’s right.
Prologue Section 3:
Going back in Time we Discover the Ending of the Old Writer Man’s Therapy. We also discover the Old Writer Man’s name.
The old writer man has been writing his pieces for over 20 years. He always has a handful of readers but they come and go. He does nothing to attract readers, he just writes what his muse dictates.
He was in therapy about this for a couple of years. He wanted to understand why he is the way he is, and why he writes the way he does. And why he is not like all the other emerging writers who are focused on how to get published, and thus sell, and thus want constant feedback and validation from other writers.
Eventually the therapist said:
“Gavin, it looks to me that you know your path, you know your limitations, you know your ability, and you know your own mind.
You recall how you put it when I asked you to speak uninterrupted, for as long as it takes, about how you see your own writer’s mind?”
The therapist played back the recording of a part of a session 6 months previously:
==Transcription of that Recording==
‘There are a zillion people out there hitting the market for Vampire Stories, and what I know is, that if there is such a thing as a Vampire, it is in the shadowy parts of my own psyche. And my nature is to bring my own attention to that, and perhaps, as a bonus, encourage others to also bring their own attention to that.
I’m much more interested in what is in the writing mind that is interested in vampires, than the vampires themselves.
So, in many ways in my writing, I bring main focus of attention to the inner workings of the mind of the character rather than the events that transpire. The events are just the carrier of the real story.
Just as I do sometimes in real life conversations. I suppose I write so that all that was deflected, in me, by myself, by others, over my life, can present itself as solidly and as completely as I feel to, now, as I faintly see the end of my life journey perhaps approaching. Or even perhaps not.
And, setting myself up to be evaluated for that process, to be managed in that, to be reimbursed for meeting key performance indicators in that, to cringingly ask ‘please sir, won’t you publish my thing?’, well, I may as well go out there and apply for a job back in cubicle world.
I suppose I am motivated to bring attention to the way we writer people project our own shadow out as characters in our writing, as if they are completely fiction. Denying that the characters are lurking deep inside us. Just pretending we happen to imagine them out of nothing, into literary existence. Nothing to do with who we really are, in the sanctity of our non-writing lives. We don’t have vampires in our shadow. We don’t even have a shadow. That’s psycho-waffle.
But, given that the main point of writing is to get to know ourselves more, to understand our own nature, our own mind, as we write our stories forward (is it not?) surely it is helpful – beneficial – to hold the view that all the characters are inside us. Even if there is another view that they are not.
Anyhow I view my own life as a long journey into facing the shadow. And now it is grist for the writing mill. The bonus of the journey is the writing of it.
Shadow. Not only shadow, we all contain dark unintegrated spectres, but we each also contain virtual beings of delight, fully in tune with who we are blessed to be.
Some of the characters we write, appear as if they are new creations separated from us, others are only minimally disguised by a transparent veil that fools no-one.
So, yes my job, as I see it, is to place a prism in front of my own mind crystal and let the light shine through. And the dark. Let all the colours show themselves. The dance of the seven veils, perhaps.
Well I say it is my job, but I retired long ago from the notion of job, and if it continues to happen, it happens, and if not, well, maybe vampires will rule the world. Who knows?
I’m just a writer, not a protector.
I think though I will keep writing until I take my final breath.
And even If I don’t continue that writing, my work in this lifetime feels to be done, and I have instructed Gloria to delete my entire portfolio from my hard drives, from the cloud and from social media. Will she do that? No idea, she has a will of her own.
I will disappear. As I disappear, the last entry in my own mind and heart will be the feeling of my hand reaching around my wife’s naked waist as I waken each morning. And knowing she is there. That is it. End of story.’
==End of Transcription==
The therapist smiled. “I like it. You are totally unreasonable, belligerent even, and I respect that now, as I have come to know you, and to understand over all these months how your own view of yourself and of the world has formed. And how you have become, in a way, Master of your own Limitations.
And, in my 15 years of being The Therapist you are the first to insist I use automatic recording and transcription software to capture the entire therapeutic journey.
‘I’m a writer’, you said, when I asked you why.
And now I also realise in all you conveyed to me about your life’s journey you pretty much have the book of your life written, via the transcriptions. A remarkable journey I must say. I had no real idea – no lived experience of my own – of what it takes to integrate such profound early onset trauma. My studies just glossed over it. And, confidentially, my clients mostly just sit at home feeling sorry for themselves. The places you went! The processes you entered into! My training just never went there. Wilhelm Reich? I think one of the professors once mentioned him as a maverick, best to be forgotten.
So will I be in that book, Writer Man?”
Gavin: Haha. You know I don’t write books, and never will. My stuff is only ever on the web. Vignettes. And when will I write my own story? It’s dribbling out bit by bit. Has been for years. On the web. Check my Facebook. And 2 Rules. And Story Flow. Yes, you are in it. I’ve got this thing going, and looks like you are scheduled into the 2023 Deliveries. Something about the Wind. With Celia and William and Ken. And Gloria and me. I’m thinking I, Gavin, will be the Main Character in the 2028 Deliveries. If we make it to there. If Our Author, who controls my muse, so determines.
Therapist: “Our Author? Our author controls your muse? You’re always surprising me. But I will take it as figurative. Poetic. As you know, I am Anglican, so my Author is God. Well, I mean, God is my Author.”
The therapist reached for his water glass, and took a few long sips, before he continued:
“I might say my impression of you now is very very different than when you first walked into my office. I saw your weakness, I saw your questioning of yourself, and I saw you as confused, and as reaching out for help, and – how can I put it? – as excessively inward facing.
I ask myself sometimes, ‘Has he changed, or have I?’ Perhaps some of each?”
Gavin nodded his head, and did not answer. He had come to like this therapist man, almost as a long-time friend.
The therapist went on,
“I appreciate that you are now comfortable with who you are, and who you are as a writer. I am glad you have invited me to be one of your handful of readers and yes, I will respect your wishes not to critique your work. I understand now. Readers are readers, not co-conspirators. Stay in your own lane. Or accept becoming a character in the next delivery.
You only follow your muse. Those conventional readers can go and Jump. Read it as is, or not. You are too busy with your writing and lovemaking and perfecting the Art of Tofu Stew to deal with hanger ons. Right?”
Gavin laughed. You got me. I will settle my bill on the way out and good luck with your ongoing practice.
I needed help in understanding my lifetime of feeling not quite the same as many other people. And thus why I write in a different way than others. I needed to accept my own flowstate, the freedom of it, the rigour of it, the integrity of it, the timing of it, the rhythm of it, the cadence of it, the irregularity of it, the entrenched patterns of it, independent of validation by other writers, publishers and readers.
You did your job well. I understand my writing journey is the only one I can take, and that I am the only one who can take it. And I love to take it. But as Leonard Cohen sang in his final years, in Going Home, he has no mission. I know it by heart:
I want him to be certain
That he doesn’t have a burden
That he doesn’t need a vision
That he only has permission
To do my instant bidding which is to
Say what I have told him to repeat
Thank you. I can cope with all of that now. My writing world is a dance with my muse, a gorgeous rendering of diligence in flow.
Section 4:
The Writer’s Main Character is Being Called Onto the Stage.
Gloria continues: “Anyhow, not Protectors, and not Pizza. What then? Oh, I know how your mind works. You only know the title and the name of the character you write point of view from. Correct?”
Yup.
“Come on, it’s like dragging a worm out of its hole. What and who?”
Like the Wind.
Celia.
“Celia? Celia? That’s a woman’s name.”
Yup.
Gloria: “A woman? You are writing from the point of view of a woman?”
Yup.
“I told you never ever to do that! You are a man. A damn good man. Write from what you know.”
Not this time. Celia has the stage.
Gloria sighs with a theatrical mop of her brow.
“Be it on yourself and that Muse of yours.
So, anyhow. What more do you know of the story already?”
Not a lot and what I know keeps changing.
Gloria: “Do you at least have an outline of Celia’s life journey?”
Yes. I do now. It’s been firming in the last few days.
But she’s been hanging around my psyche for a couple years now, just meandering in and out, whispering to me other names. William and Ken. And something about religious trauma. And neurodiversity. And, ahem, being Ridden by a Wild Beast in the Wind.
Gloria: “Go on, I get the drift.”
Celia’s journey is to take the value of her own introversion and thrust it out into the extroversion arena as if she is not sitting on a fine line of perception that is easily broken, and had been interminable times in her early life.
Gloria: “So that’s Celia’s life journey in a nutshell. ‘Value’? ’Thrust it out’? ‘Extroversion arena’? ‘Fine line of perception’? Are you going to explain what all that means. Will the reader – if you have one – manage to understand how all of that relates to their own experience of life and dream?”
I might.
They might.
Gloria: “Well, will you at least explain to me a bit, before you post the explanation onto Facebook?”
Yes. You first, Facebook next.
I have been thinking about a line that Celia sits on. Or straddles. A dangerous line. A refutable line. A disputable line. A curved back on itself line. Almost the same line Schroedinger’s cat sits on.
On one side of the line she is one of the introverted ones.
On the other side of the line she is one of the excluded ones.
Her journey thus is to learn to take the value of her own introversion and thrust it out into the extroversion arena, even when it is not invited, or seems to be unwelcomed. Even when there is rampant extroversion taking up all the quantums. To insert herself with her inner leaningness, her self-reflective excitements, her noticing of what is happening in the moment as conversation proceeds, her voicing of that, even when others deride that as MindFucking. To find the almost molecular level of time and space into which she can include herself. As if she is not sitting on a fine line. A tightrope stretched over a mountain ravine. If the line breaks she is finished. Or that is her feeling.
Gloria: “OK good, nice speech, and I recognise, of course, Celia arises easily from your own fine lines. I know your lines inside and out. And so now that life journey outline almost begins to meld. With me. But I’m almost embedded in your soul. I can wait on the details. And knowing you, there will be a few.
And then, it seems, there is a prologue! I see you have Otter transcribing us as we talk. I’m onto you Buster.
Is this prologue in the story or out of the story?”
The writer grins. He has already prepared his reply.
Is the Cat dead or alive?
Gloria gives her theatrical sigh – with face palm – again.
“You’re incorrigible. And I love you because. Not despite.”
I know.
The old man writer peers around the room with a look on his face as if all this is nothing to do with him. Gloria can almost visualise the Muse sitting on her husband’s shoulder whispering in his right ear, the ear that hears slightly better than the other one.
Gloria smiles. “OK, Post it. I will go to my room and continue my own research. I’m tracking down Iona Miller. As you know she is, was, as far as I know, one of the key figures of recent times catching onto the role Jungian perspective can play in Genealogy. There is a Facebook group about her. I ask a few questions there. But she spread her wings wide, and the group is quiet, and the genealogy was just one of her interests.
I even asked your chat buddy. They said they know nothing about Iona. Something about her not having a visible presence in their 2021 training data. And ‘this person was not well-known or had a limited online presence’. But she had websites for years before that for goddess’ sake. Your buddy missed it all.
Anyhow I have some links to other Jungian inclined minds she referred to in her writings and I’m curious about what in her life led her to the same place I am in. Don’t ask me what that place is or we will be here all night!
So, I know you now want to write. I can feel it, the same way I feel it when you want to touch my breasts and more. It’s in your energy field. You taught me to feel that energy field, so long ago. Or I taught you. I forget.
I won’t bother you any longer, if you want me, text me.”
The writer grins.
Same.
The writer begins to type into a note he calls ‘LTW: Seed elements’:
She had grudgingly accepted that her increasing trouble with depression was best dealt with by pulling herself up, getting over it, and immersing herself in the fun of the group. But she was always just a little out of her comfort zone. And as she approached 18, she found no comfort at all in the group activities, and increasingly isolated herself, in the little flat she had moved to when her father and mother had separated.
As he writes it, Gloria reads it, in real-time, in her room.
She texts him. “Not bad. Is it the first par?”
Don’t know yet. But I think not. It might not even be in the story. Just a note to myself so that I can feel into where the muse wants us to go.
“OK, love you.”
Love you too.
The old man, with his writer’s hat on, taps away on his Macbook keyboard into the night. Periodically he posts a segment he is thrilled with, onto Facebook. Occasionally someone wants to dissect it. He reads and absorbs, and then just clicks like, on their comment, and moves back to his own flow.
Well after midnight he slides into bed next to his sleeping wife and puts his arm around her naked waist. He whispers in her ear,
I’m ready.
She wakes slightly and for a moment he can feel her almost voicing, “No!! I want to sleep.”
But, the next moment he feels her body moving closer to his, and she murmurs, still half asleep, “Take me, while I sleep”.
In the next delivery, early life of Celia, mid March 2023:
A tear dropped from her left eye and down her face. Very soon another tear followed, and soon she was uncontrollably weeping.
He sat stony-faced and then smiled. “Come, on cheer up. It is not so bad, and our laughter and play will get you back on track in no time.”
He saw her bristle. He saw what looked like a mushroom cloud explode above her. Or he would have if he could see. But he could not avoid hearing her explosion.
“You sit there telling me I will benefit from your happiness and your Ra Ra Ra, and you sit there watching me weep and you do not even shed a tear? You cannot feel the pain in me, you just want it to go away. You cannot feel your own sacred stream, you just imagine your happiness is that. You want me to surrender my solitude for the sake of some peace of mind for yourself?
When I see you able to cry with me, I will match your happiness in spades. Until then you and your friends are welcome to whatever you have. What do you have if you cannot feel the sacred presence of the soul of the other sitting right next to you? Go. Go and Ra Ra Ra. I am here when you have exhausted all that and wonder how eternity will be. Go. Go into your protective shield of rampant happiness and stop molesting me.”
He now was silent. He got the gist of most of it. But not the molesting bit. He could not quite grasp that. He stood up slowly. He said,
“You are just a bit upset right now Celia. I will go, and let us meet again when you have calmed down. Cheerio.”
Reviews from the Cast:
Gavin: Best delivery out of my muse since sliced Pizza.
Gloria: Gavin did NOT do therapy. He just invents his own past to make his points.
Celia: I wish Gavin would stop his speeches and get me fully onboard. I’m the Star after all!
William: I pray that Gavin will come back to Church. He is being led astray by that muse of his.
Ken: Let’s fast forward to the bit where I ride her like a wild beast at peak of my virility. All the rest is fantasy!
The Muse: He just writes stuff. He even imagines me! I have nothing to do with it. I’m certainly not part of his goddam shadow!
The Therapist: I never said half the things he claims. I recommended he take up pottery or macrame. He just smiled and said, “I’ll pay my bill on the way out.”
ChatGPT / Anai: Based on the title “Like the Wind”, I imagine the story could be about a character or object that is free-spirited and moves rapidly and unpredictably, much like the wind. It could be a person who is constantly on the go and never stays in one place for too long, or it could be a powerful force of nature that is difficult to control. The story could explore themes of freedom, unpredictability, and the power of nature. Alternatively, the title could also refer to a character who moves gracefully and effortlessly, reminiscent of the movement of the wind.
The Author: Thank you for reading all the way to this point. Appreciated.
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