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Friday, October 20, 2000
10:39 
More bad dreams last night. Dreamt of being somewhere, not sure where, lying flat on my back, naked. I was just noting with some pleasure how flat my stomach is when some woman looked at me and asked me what was wrong with me. She seemed to think I was physically disabled or something. She was asking why I was physically abnormal and I couldn't think why. Not a particularly vivid dream in my memory because I had to leap out of bed to let the men from the glaziers in to fix the hole in the conservatory roof. It was very vivid at the time, though.
I remember something about sand last night too, struggling through a desert somewhere. Not sure what was going on there. Most of my dreams last night seemed to echo my current feelings of physical and energetic deterioration.
Then I got another nasty letter from the bank this morning, despite having been extra specially careful for weeks now, and, having forgotten my PIN, been unable to take any money out of my account anyway. The memory loss is getting really bad. Getting letters from the bank really stresses me out as well.
Frood told the doctor that I'm no fun any more, that I am grumpy and irritable. I feel really bad about that, really guilty.
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Thursday, October 19, 2000
11:43
Welcome to the House of Fun.
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11:36
Ahhh. Wait now. Chronological order.
I went to Harcourt Arboretum on Tuesday. When I looked out of the window the light was quite good and I wanted to finish the film in the camera. The light wasn't so good by the time I got there, which was a shame, but it's a pretty cool place. I fell in love with a giant sequoia, because it's just so huggable. The bark is all soft and, well, nice. There are also a few peacocks wandering around, and they are quite fearless. I had a nice chat with one while a crow sat in the branches of the cedar beneath which we stood and cawed at me disapprovingly. The peacock gave me a feather.
I found some absolutely perfect fly agarics there, and took some pictures - in fact I seem to be getting better at this photography lark. My macro shots are coming out quite well, although some of the ones I took of the agarics in Shotover didn't come out quite as well as I had hoped because bits of grass got in the way. The one that came out perfectly, framed just the way I wanted it to be, with the light just right, didn't have any spots. It does look just like one of the little men from Wapaq is standing there in a big hat with a really mischievous grin though. I'm quite pleased with the way it came out. I still need to get the hang of judging which aperture to use for landscape shots (it can't just be pick the largest f-stop) and not falling prey to the desire to attempt to take pictures of the cloud structure when the sky is grey and overcast. It just doesn't work. Avoid taking pictures of things that are large and dark against a fairly flat, light grey background.
No fecky wee things in the Wittenham shots either, though they were right about the exposure compensation. Still, there is a lot of verdancy in the photos, and I think they'll do the job of showing Wyrd how the place has improved since we were there last. Whenever I can get around to scanning them.
And yes, so I went to the hospital yesterday. The pain has been getting quite intense, and in a way I was glad about that because I didn't want to see him on a good day. The hours whimpering would be worth it if something useful came out of the hospital visit.
I was pleasantly surprised. He spent about an hour talking to both Frood and myself, then gave me an examination and prodded me so that I squeaked and flinched while he told me to relax and I explained that I couldn't relax because it hurt when he poked me.
He apologised for hurting me and told me that he has seen this sort of thing before.
So I have fibromyalgia, quite severely, and some symptoms of chronic fatigue, with a few other symptoms thrown in too. This makes me, apparently a "funny person" and a bit of a problem (said in he nicest possible way). No drugs, no diet, no surgery are on offer. Apparently they take the biopsychosocial approach, and so I have to see their consultant psychiatrist who specialises in helping people recognise what aspects of their behaviour and thought patterns contribute to their ill health in these illnesses. Strictly speaking, I have medically unexplained symptoms, because they don't actually know the physical cause behind fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue. The consultant said not to worry about the cause, it wouldn't help worrying about the cause. They don't know what it is yet, but that doesn't mean there isn't one. He told me that it had been unfair of my previous doctors to tell me it was all in my head.
Yes, well, I knew that already.
Still, while the whole thing was a bit of an anti-climax after so long, and it doesn't actually help me deal with the extreme pain I currently have, it does mean that next time someone tells me it's in my head and I'm probably just depressed I can tell them what my consultant said. I was quite impressed that he spoke to Frood as much as he did - but then he buys wine from Frood occasionally, so maybe that helped. Frood, of course, has known me for a very long time, so was able to confirm that I haven't been suffering from depression for years and that prior to this I was a fairly happy, outgoing type who was quite fun. I think that made a lot of difference.
Still a bit concerned about having to see a psychiatrist, although the reasoning is sound, I don't have a problem with it. I can see that being an anally-retentive, perfectionist misanthropist could be a problem with an illness like this, but how much about me and my weirdness will she want to know?
The doctor (professor, actually) seemed almost alarmed to discover he could read my symptom diary on the web.
More dreams...
Some really nasty ones last night. I dreamed I was a teacher, or a teaching assistant at a school, and we had to travel to a foreign country (land ) to take part in an inter-school competition. I'm not sure what the competition was, exactly. There was a lot of magic being bandied about, and our kids (of about the 12-14 age range) were actually rather put off by the way the kids from this other place (the home country fielded three schools) used it so blatantly and with so much disregard. Our kids wore dark blue, one of the foreign teams wore white and red, another yellow with blue and another just red. I think there were about 6 teams there, but the other two teams have left no impact on my memory. All the kids were wearing gym kit and most of them were girls. I can't remember many boys, one or two maybe. The gym kit was rather like hockey kit - short skirt with a numbered shirt.
Basically the three foreign teams were determined to keep the prize/trophy/title in their country, and were prepared to hurt the other teams - maybe even kill them, in order to do so. This was fully sanctioned by the teachers. I remember doing a lot of running around, hiding, sneaking about, and pointing out blatant infringement of the rules - like when they claimed they were walking along the wall when the shoes were actually specially made to stick to the wall, there was no magic involved at all. Even if there had been walking along the wall was not part of the contest. I remember the strong sense of actually being in danger from these kids, but more particularly the teachers - the kids could be a problem through pure numbers, but the teachers were vicious.
The contest took place in a village where I have been before in my dreams, on the bottom slopes of a hill. I don't know who won, I was there purely to defend the children and scotch the plans of these foreign teams. I don't even know what was at stake that was so important that they would kill/maim for it. There was the distinct impression that the children of these countries had been indoctrinated into a political mindset that regarded all foreigners as inferior and expendable.
I hope we won, if only to prove that one wrong.
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Tuesday, October 17, 2000
13:32
I'm going to throw away my salty jelly today. I don't think I'm going to be needing it any more.
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12:28
I've been seeing "fast shadows" for a while now. They streak across the walls and the carpet. At first I thought they were spiders - they can be quite big, but then we have some big spiders in the house and I leave them be if Eric doesn't spot them. They look a lot like spiders. They have never been anything larger than big spider sized.
But they are too fast. Far too fast. They are not shadows of birds from outside because I see them at night too, when it's dark outside and the curtains are closed. As soon as I figured out that they are not spiders and not bird shadows I decided I didn't really want to know what they are, as they aren't doing anything to me and the house only seems to be a through-route anyway. They could have just been another one of the many things that I see.
But Frood has started seeing them too now. He pointed one out last night and I looked at him curiously and said "You are seeing them too?"
"Yes," he replied. "They're quite big, aren't they?" He watched TV for a while and then said "But that one on the wall the other week was definitely a spider."
I wonder what they are.
Hurt a lot today. The pain is getting worse. Spent hours last night with tears streaming, just because it hurt so much, whimpering and unable to stop myself. Frood had a day off but had to attend a manager's meeting in London and didn't get back until even later than usual. And this means that he only gets one proper day off this week. Want to go into town and get a tripod for the camera, but I don't want to take the bus and I'm not sure I'm up to cycling. I feel like I have been repeatedly kicked very hard in the kidneys.
I did remember last night's dreams about an hour ago, but the cup of tea I have had seems to have vaporised them. Dreamed of Andy, know that, and the emptiness I feel in waking is transferring to the Dreaming now too - oh, that's right. In part of the dream I was asked by a friend to marshal at a golf tournament in St Andrews as a favour. Wrote me a letter and said be here at this time, bring this letter. I was staying at my parents', which is about ten miles away from St Andrews. Got a lift up there with a couple of rich blokes, friends of a friend of mine who was also asked to marshal, and my friend and I wandered around a bit. We came across someone already marshalling, and to my horror he was wearing bright yellow stuff with "MARSHAL" plastered over it. He said we had to get our uniforms, and to go to reception and present the letters we had been sent. Couldn't marshal without those letters.
Of course I had forgotten mine, so when my friend (I think she was the girl who used to play 3rd viola, next to me {4th} in Fife Regional Youth Orchestra. Her name was Lucy) was given her yellow bag of marshal kit, I had to explain to the patronising, bored bitch in reception that I'd have to walk home to get my letter. She wasn't amused.
Then I realised that it was, of course, 10 miles, and so I found the two guys who had driven me up there. They were not going to give me a lift, but I did explain that twenty miles is a long way to walk and I wouldn't be coming back after the first ten. I think they were American.
Not sure where Andy fitted in to that. I think he and Tam were staying at my parents' house as well, but didn't come to the golf. That was just part of what I dreamed about last night anyway.
There was also a part where a bunch of us, including Andy, were in this weird maze-like house and there was someone trying to get us. The walls and the corridors were all curved, the rooms like small caves, the passages like burrows. Everything was white but the lighting was dim so that it looked almost grey. There were still carpets and bookcases. It was a weird place.
And the separation was there in the Dreaming too.
I've tried talking to him, I have. I guess he's just busy. That's the way it goes. I had a quick look on ICQ but no sign, so he must have things to do. It's getting so difficult to find the motivation to keep trying. Seems rather pointless. I don't actually feel that I know who he is any more.
Hospital tomorrow morning. Frood says he can come, and he's not putting up with any nonsense like last time. Not now that we're on his turf. I'm so scared I feel sick - well, more sick than I do anyway. On the one hand it's possible they will actually say "Yes, you have FMS, here's what we're going to do." But it's far more likely that they are going to say "It's probably depression and stress."
I'm so scared.
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Monday, October 16, 2000
18:02
Gods' teeth, it hurts right now.
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17:57
Ranting again...
It took me a long time to learn how to learn. No, really. It wasn't until I got onto my Master's course that I really discovered how to do it. The 2.2 I got for my first degree wasn't entirely a result of problems with my supervisor, some of it was because I didn't know how to learn.
I didn't know how to see.
If nothing else, my academic career has taught me how to increase the steepness of my learning curve and absorb information readily.
Quite often things seem painfully obvious to me although they are not obvious to others, even those who I think should know. Frood is the only exception to this - he finds even more things obvious than I do. He's a scary man.
I've written stuff, in a rambling, stream of consciousness way that has seemed pretty obvious to me, and then been told that the results are profound. This happened with the piece on the nature of sacred, which was originally a response to a question that was asked on a mailing list.
Understanding, for me, isn't a knowledge of how things work, but where they fit into the grander scheme, how it allows me to see everything else in relation to a particular thing. If I know, for instance, the hydrological cycle, I can understand things like why floods happen, and why it's important to conserve water even if it's raining. But I have the distinct gift of being able to grasp concepts readily, and the even greater gift of being able to explain anything that I understand personally into language that others can understand. I don't have to be beaten over the head with something until it sinks in (with exceptions, including anything to do with calculus, which is one of my blind spots, and I have a few of those).
I don't do ritual, but I write a damn fine one if required. I can do anything from full blown costume drama to something so elegantly minimal and freeform you would think no work had gone into it at all. Because I understand that ritual is about triggers, but, more than that, I understand that triggers are malleable things. Triggers fit into ritual, but emotion and thought pathways fit into triggers, and those change from person to person, experience to experience. You can't write a good ritual unless you see the whole picture.
I don't like reading pagan books because they tell you the how, not the why, and often they are telling you a how that seems to bear no relation to the why. They say "light a blue candle for this". Why? Because someone somewhere once used a candle, probably because they had no other light source, and because some table of correspondences somewhere says to use blue. But why does the table say blue? Correspondences are all about triggers, but you don't have to use the prescribed table if you understand that what you are trying to do is build a psychological trigger. People bind themselves into triggers by reading too much. Their triggers become limited by what they think is necessary, which in turn is a result of which Llewellyn books they have read. And sometimes those triggers don't work as well any more, because modern culture is different.
People talk about the web of life all the time, but they get stuck in O-level biology and that picture of the food web, with mackerel at the top and plankton at the bottom. The web of life is about so much more than that, it's about actions and consequences. The web of life bears more relation to chaos theory than it does to marine ecology.
I'm sure I had a point to make. Dammit, that's the rain on.
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13:40
Also freaking about my imminent visit to hospital on Wednesday morning. Looks like Frood should be able to come with me, but I've heard that before. And now that I've heard that Flo only got away with no ECT by saying she was doing her finals, when she was voluntarily in hospital for psychiatric problems, I'm even more worried about being sectioned than I was before.
Petrified, might be the phrase of choice.
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13:31
It gets quite infuriating at times.
Andy is, of course, appalled by what has happened and wants to fix things. It's not that easy. But he asks me how to do it. On the one hand he has been getting pissed off with me for reating him like a baby, or something, on the other he wants me to tell him how to do things. If he's big enough and old enough to visit Wapaq, then he should be big enough and old enough to understand the same principles I use in figuring out how to do these things.
Don't be more cautious in future out of fear of what might happen if you are not, be cautious when your understanding leads you to see the risks. Use your head.
Mulled wine and simple - the energetic solution already tried wasn't sufficient. Use something physical to anchor. Mulled wine has various connotations in this context, and might even disguise the taste of the simple, thus making it more likely to be accepted. Use energetic component so that both physical and energetic distress is subdued. Target is stronger and faster and more skilled. Minimise risk of active conflict.
Kind words and patience - trust has gone, imperatives have been withered, emotions are confused. Fear, distrust - fight or flight must be avoided.
Empathy, resonance - need lots of these because this is what has been lost. But also because it needs to be shown that it is possible, that what is there will be seen, not something else plastered over because the self is too wrapped up in the self to see others true.
Manual rebuild - lots of resonant traces in a manual rebuild. It also takes time and effort and contact. The act of doing this more important than the task itself.
Post-treatment contact - entire system likely to be unstable, target will be on limits of ability to cope emotionally. Past history and previous experiences of this nature lead to extremely delicate mental state. Leave immediately on completion the whole thing will fall apart.
Possible journey to find/recover anything lost - fragments can become lost under conditions of severe trauma, particularly during periods of extreme emotional distress. It may be that a particular aspect has become lost and will need to be brought back and used either as part of the energetic component in the drink or as part of the rebuild.
Principles. Tactics. The ideas behind this course of action are simple and obvious. Translating that understanding into a course of action is not that hard. All that is required is a thorough analysis of the situation as it stands.
This, this is what is being taught. Look, listen, feel, then think. Before deciding. And even then the decision is only really a yes or no, the exact details of the action will be dependent on circumstances at the time.
A case in point. He decides how many amanita he's going to take and when before he even has them. I still don't know - I won't know how many until it comes time, and I won't know when until they give me the nod. I have studied them and talked with their spirits for two years now. I know the risks, I have looked and learned - I even picked some before and prepared them, but they said the time wasn't right so I didn't take them. I am amenable to circumstance. Take nothing on faith. Use understanding of the principles, not learning by rote.
I don't like teaching people because the system teaches people to regurgitate facts rather than understand. I can tell people the how of a thing, but what they need to learn is the why of that thing. I can't teach that. That's internal. And sometimes I despair because I think someone has got it, someone whom I should trusts insists that he understands,and then immediately sets out and proves otherwise.
But that's the way of the world. Even people who should know better sometimes don't. Even people who should know better are people. Walking and talking and breathing. Dammit. I'm such a misanthropist. Feed me twigs and bark and steam and air.
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Sunday, October 15, 2000
19:25
Went up to Wittenham Clumps. That was where Wyrd and I introduced a colony of fecky wee things to keep the trees company. They're not easy to spot - they seem to have evolved new behaviour compared to the ones we brought in, but the trees looked a lot happier. A couple of the trees are still very tired looking, but even they are happier, although they can't see themselves recovering any time soon. It's Autumn now too, so they're all just winding down. Wandered up towards Brightlingwell Barrow, just to have a look. Someone once told me it is a spooky place, but there's not much to it. It feels rather dead. Picked up a small feather on the way back to the fort and put in one of the two holes where we originally left the faeries, just to say hello and thankyou and sorry for not visiting sooner. They like feathers, those ones. No sloes that I could see, although the hawthorn had plenty of berries. Took a few photos.
Met a couple of chaps by the stone that has the poem on it. They thought I was a man, and I corrected them. They were most contrite and seemed somewhat suprised by my coat - I was wearing my German army coat, because I'm feeling the cold a lot right now. I explained that I got it when I was doing archaeology because it's tough and warm and you can get it all muddy then throw it in the washing machine and not have to worry about it. That got them asking me about the hill fort itself, the sort of fortifications it would have had, and also about some other things, like barrows and tombs and archaeological sites around England and Ireland. They were really nice. Not often you meet people who show genuine interest like that.
The walk was exhausting, although it wasn't far. I'm stiff and so very sore all over. It's quite difficult to breathe at times. Feeling very lost and lonely. Andy messaged and said he'd been sick today, and now I'm wondering what it was that made him sick and hoping that some impetuous urge didn't cause him to take his amanita without adequate preparation. He might have discarded his twin when he discarded his paradigm, and the connection might be gone, but that doesn't mean I don't care any more. In some ways, in fact, it's harder, because I'm grieving for a lost twin while still worrying about the man who remains, even though I'm not exactly sure how I do feel about him now. Numb, I think. Shocked.
Everything hurts too much today.
I hate the idea that they are trying to make him learn to think things through properly by letting him do things that he'll regret and will hurt him. It is possible to learn from small mistakes.
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11:57
Did a volunteer training day yesterday up at the stones. Fred's a good bloke. He has a happy dog, a lurcher called Bob, who is happy despite not feeling very well right now, and his dog liked me, so that was ok. He also seemed quite on top of things, spotting a few of my guard constructs and seeming quite capable of listening to the site. Were I being paranoid I'd say that guessing that those contructs were there is an easy enough matter and the rest could be done by anyone setting out to impress, but I think those ideas are simply the usual scepticism bleeding through and a result of having a really bad night. He invited me down to visit him at his house near Chippenham - he says it's situated right over a node and is a really sound place. I think I might take him up on his offer, if only because I think I'm in love with Bob's eyebrows.
The pain hit me a couple of hours after I got back in, left me whimpering on the sofa with tears streaming. Not crying, just hurting so much my eyes were watering. It's all in my coccyx and in my abdomen, where it feels like it has been scraped out. It hurts quite a lot where the ribs feel like they are sticking out through the skin. Jess did say that there was a good chance of infection, even though she had managed to bind it. I think she was going to flush it out last night.
Last night. Last night was dreadful. I spent most of it in paroxysms of choking, unable to breathe. Frood was dead to the world, didn't notice at all. The pain was extraordinary, I think I was delirious for some of it. Certainly the boundary between dreaming and wakefulness was very much blurred.
I can't remember much of what I was dreaming about. I dreamed about Andy, and Wyrd, about a boat like a pirate's ship (in intent rather than appearance), about landing on a beach where sand drifted up against rocks. There was a small seaside town, too, where we had to go. I think we had a house there, a large one. We seemed to be part of some troubleshooting team.
I really don't remember enough about it to describe. Last night was just too awful.
I do miss him, but it's an empty feeling now. That feeling of it being too late now to do anything. Life goes on. I learned that last time, even though I'm not over that yet, not entirely. I'm getting there. I can't decide whether the fact that I haven't heard much from him since Friday makes it easier or harder. Easier one way, harder the other, I suspect.
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