Mab of Dream

I'm starting my new job a week earlier than expected, on March 8th. I spoke to one of my new colleagues on the 'phone and it sounds like it's going to be great there. :-D

But strangeness after that call. Something just hit me and carried on hitting me - you know how 'they' say that when you are at the point of death, your life flashes before you? It was akin to that, but focussing only on achievements and times when I'd really shone. I saw myself flying high and I saw all of the hard work paying off, all of the moments of brilliance practically blinding me.

It was a bizarre feeling and I still don't know how to react to it. It feels like crisis, but it isn't. It feels a little like madness, but nothing so dramatic. Since then (about five hours ago), I've felt like I need a good long chat with someone who won't judge me (though who could judge me anymore than I could?), who'll let me chainsmoke, drink cups of tea and just cry my eyes up. But those are the reactions to tragedy, and that's not where I am. I am seeing myself, brutally and honestly, and my position in life right now, but only the good things. It's with the same brutality that you normally see your bad side or painful memories, but at the other extreme.

Also, nothing settles. You know how, in depression, your mind might flit all over the place, but it's fundamentally tearing some wound of the soul to shreds? This isn't like that, but the absolute opposite. Memories present themselves and part of me smiles, nods and says, 'Well done, cariad,' while the rest of me spins out, reeling from it.

I think I know what that is - only recently, I felt that finally I had reached the Judgement card, in the tarot journey of my life. I could look at myself, at the good and the bad, with equal grace that I judge the good and bad in others. In short, I had accepted what I am; and I was known to myself, at this stage, right now, right here, as I am, I know myself.

So, this is the World. A strange and beautiful thing. There's nothing here that I can't cope with; there's nothing that I don't already have the natural defences to see through, to accept, to enjoy, to know, to survive, to love and to live. What can't I touch, which doesn't turn to gold? And what mental armoury have I got for that? None, as yet, but I'm only just here and there's a lot to learn. It'll come. Then another Journey will begin.

I always imagined that the World state was simply a moment of glory at the end. I wasn't prepared for this. I didn't know that the World card is a learning curve all on its own. Now I know why the Fool sits on the hill and watches the world spinning round and round and round.

I wrote this, with Beethoven's 'Moonlit Sonata' going over in my head:

Can I breathe now?

Exhale.

Do I exhale now?

Exhale.

There... I exhale the breath that I've been holding

For decades; with my life unfolding

Into a stream of steady successes -

And I'm not too sure how to express this,

But I think I've begun

to fly too close to the sun.

Afterwards, I meant to go to the library and to study. There's several more shelves of religious academia to pillage. Though I made it to the library, I didn't study - not like that. I wandered ('I promise to go wandering...') and I covered every floor. I can't remember thinking much. I wasn't going over things and it felt like I floated. There are four floors to the University library and I meandered through them all, just looking.

On the fourth floor, I leaned over the balcony, at the great glass wall, and looked out over Wolverhampton. High enough up to see a fair chunk of the city, with the lights and the rush hour, and the darkness. I could only see one star, and it burnt so brightly that only staring at it for a long time convinced me that it wasn't an aeroplane. Venus? The north star? It was a proper pentagram looking star, whatever it was.

On the third floor, I found some music books and, still with 'Moonlight Sonata' in my head, I looked at the Beethoven books. I don't mean that I read them, I mean that I looked at them on the shelves. Beethoven is very close to Barrett, isn't it? 'B' and all that. With a slight shock, I suddenly saw Syd looking at me. They have three copies of 'Lost in the Woods' in there, which probably means that some class studies him. I wish I knew which one.

But there I was, staring at Syd and 'Moonlight Sonata' changed into:

'Isn't it good to be lost in the woods?

Isn't it bad, so quiet there?

In the woods...'

On the third repetition, it was as if I switched myself back on. I found myself fully aware of where I was and who I was and that it was a bit stupid to even think of studying. According to my clock on my phone, I had wandered around in that utter daze for nearly two hours.

And I was gagging for a fag.

I'm not sure what to make of all of that, just that Syd came and got me out of it again! (Thanks Syd and Ludwig for having surnames both beginning with 'B' and thank you Brianne for putting Beethoven into my mind in the first place).

I guess I'll find out as I explore my new state of mind, in the days/months/years to come. The great and powerful adventure goes on.

yours
Mab
xxxxx