So, here we go - again

R

Rahere

Active member
Yes, folks, that annual celebration of Saturnalia. Masks on, folks, you're not allowed to be unfestive. (Note: festive iced fruit cake in Sainsbury, £3.50. Non-festive, £1.50)
So, let's enjoy a Christmas Tree (oh, that festive tradition!), Santa (actually Saint Nicholas, complete with a blackface slave in the Low Countries), and - what's that I hear, enough? Tell you what, share the pain? Last year drove me to the point where I foreswore singing, a major element of my psyche, after a drunken Irishwoman told me to have a shag. Now, that's one side-effect of a prostatectomy I can't deliver on. It left me thinking, why am I doing anything to help these people? The Christ I know was born in poverty, and died a terrorist. He tells me to, but if they don't actually want me involved, the best thing is to go do my own thing and leave them to it.
Call me insensitive, but given we're now fairly sure Christ was born in July of 7 BCE, enough to have changed BC to BCE and AD to CE rather than having to repeat the Justinian redating (which remains incomplete), perhaps the best thing is to be the first to wish you a Happy Hogmanay, and back away fast from the hail of kitchen paraphernalia. After all, I just had darling daughter ask me what's wrong with starting a while sauce by adding the flour to the milk...
And for those who find it a bit much, particularly given the Advent Calendar of Horrors, you are allowed to defenestrate the radio, turn off the box, and be a total grinch! Go get started on that project you've always promised and remember, next year, it's with Added Politics, as there's a General Election due, and that's certain to merge my inner Home-Alone with the native Gomez, who was awe-struck when a school-mate nearly got shot by the Swedish Crown Prince's bodyguards. It was the annual Cadet Force inspection, and said scholar was the commander of the Guard of Honour. The Parade starts with the Inspecting Officer (the Prince) inspecting the Guard, after it's Commander has invited him to do so - and that starts with a sword salute. What nobody'd considered is that said scholar was also a member of the US Olympic Fencing Team, and the Prince therefore received a swordsman's salute - the tip nearly broke the sound barrier.
So there are worse things than hordes of drunken NTs insisting you're their best mate, which may actually be totally true.
 
jaqui said:
I'm fascinated by how you condense a dozen interesting stories into 1 post. Leaves me wanting more details.....
Click to expand...
Why not ask? I was keeping to the point, as so many of us really suffer at this time of year from the mores of a community we're not part of. This is the entire point of this community, knowing that others are in the same boat.
 
I'm not sure if/when questions would be an intrusion. So often when I've shown interest it's been received as 'rudeness'. I've managed to offend quite a few people (NT?) over the years.
 
I forgive you, m'lady. Ask away. There are some areas I won't answer, because they're covered by the Official Secrets Act, and others where I'm as injured as you, and some are socially inappropriate, such as the evident masochism in choosing to stop singing. This relates to the submissive nature of our subconscience. My focus is on defining the beat of our different drummer, more positively, and that's fast focusing on Maslow's Transceptive pinnacle. We go so far, and then get a boost once our resources are exhausted.
 
Mm… these days I really don’t think much about theories such as Maslow.
I’m curious about ‘native’ Gomez and the Swedish bodyguard story.
Transcendence ‘ trans personal’ psychology was something I had an interest 25 years ago. Not now. Now I struggle daily with ‘what is my purpose’.
 
The Swede's quite simple. After I broke down in class aged 12, I was in protective measures during breaks and lunchtime, and once I moved to the senior school, that was under the eye of someone who'd been a Guards RSM in WW2, youngest ever, now head of the school admin side. Not being someone to rest idle, I soon took over the stationery stores, then was in the first intake of 14 year olds into the CCF Battalion, the largest in the country, we had to do two years and this got it done before my O-levels. Simultaneously (not that this was a factor) my uncle was commander of the second largest unit, and represented the Cadet Forces on the Army Council! Anyway, within a year I'd become a platoon sergeant, and the trouble brigade was in my power: I didn't abuse it, but the mouse now had a voice. I've described how I'd learned full control of the gamut of tones, thanks to Sir Geraint's lady: to this I now added power, practicing bouncing Command voice off a nearby tower block over London traffic: in later years, I demonstrated this to one of the Churchwardens while waiting for the London Marathon runners on the Lower Road in Greenwich, bouncing my voice off the Blackwall Tunnel overpass. Not wanting to use an army command, I let rip with a Welsh Rugby Oggy Oggy Oggy, only to get an answer from the main field of runners 500 meters away, who'd clearly heard it despite there being a motorway in between!
As I rose in the ranks, I kept the Admin side, becoming a Regimental Quartermaster Sergeant rather than RSM, and thus it was I was running the admin for the Annual Inspection, which was a full Trooping the Colour operation, making certain the details were attended to, looking after Prince's drivers were fed and watered, for example. A valuable lesson, get to know the drivers, they spend more time with their charge than anyone else, family, secretary, you name it.
So I was watching from the sidelines when Elliot did his bit, and was present in the reception afterwards when the bodyguards were eased. Far better they do their job and hold when all's well than face a disaster, they're not toys. Indeed, with WEU, we had some of the team who'd taken the Iranians down around the place, and that allowed me to make up after turning them down: they had the Iranians, I had the Libyans. And that's exactly the point at which I say enough.
Gomez Addams is certainly a pater familias, and there's certainly something of that in those guys. It's a very odd feeling, realising your two year old daughter is being bounced on the knee of the inventor of the flashbang anti-terrorist grenade, a killer with rather a long pedigree of corpses in his wake. That I could have joined them, and in some ways did, as you cannot operate at Head of State level without innocently becoming very bad news for some and hopefully good news for more, is a reality I have to recognise. Getting a dose of the never-get-overs is no use whatsoever, and there's an element of that in the current Government, in Dominic Cummings testimony: I'm glad I was no longer in their reach, for exactly the same reason I walked on them in 1978, politicians being unworthy of our support.

The transcendent is a reality in that, for example the hint "go stand over there" which led straight to the completion of Gandhi's unfinished business. Why should it be that my interlocutor had failed to make contact for weeks until he "stumbled over" me in the local supermarket. I certainly didn't arrive with trumpets and angels, just a very grounded offer of help, requested by the mum of one of my daughter's classmates, who worked there. There was something about that quiescence which attracted my interlocutor's interest, and the less pushy I was, the more evident it became I was dark waters running deep, and when it became clear I was one of those he was trying to contact, the invitation to a working supper was undeniable. Three hours later I had the full deal, more by far than first tabled, very much motivated by my reply to their curiosity that I should have turned to prayer myself when they broke for evening prayers: I explained my prayers were that theirs be answered. It won them, and made peace in the subcontinent. Afterwards, walking home in transcendent bliss with the draft deal in my pocket, I realised the obvious question was "how on earth did that just happen", and indeed that was the very question Javier Solana asked once the thing was properly tied up: again, I'd handled ever more onerous tasks with aplomb, as none ever exceeded my experience plus a little bit of faith on top. Indeed, that then came to mind, that if stabilising one of the constant sources of friction in a whole subcontinent was the new norm, the next could only be completely apocalyptic: and so it proved. It's my normal, running the same mantra in a minor subtrack of my mind the CofE's healing sanctuary uses. My involvement there was while singing for John Rutter, the Church, St Marylebone, had long since drawn my attention, my sensitivity being to the crypt area, and so, John needing an extra support, I volunteered to do the carrying, as it would clearly be a struggle for the rather diminutive events organiser. Going downstairs, the plinth stood to one side of one of the altar areas, and so I subconsciously honoured it in passing. That would only be noticed by a sensitive, and was, she pinged me immediately, realised my vocation, and left me to it.

This in due turn led to the Maslow thesis, which was checked out by a very senior psychiatrist indeed. But, let's look at purpose. I found my vocation literally by being called to boost the path I was unwittingly already on. The question is that of the opening Chapters of the tale of Samuel in the Old Testament. Awakened by his name being called, he thought at first it was his mentor, Eli, but the latter denied it: the only other possibility was, it was literal vocation, accept it, and listen. The rest came ready-packaged. I referred to the commonality of mantra I share with St Marylebone's clerics, namely the Lord's Prayer, in it's wider context of the setting of Matthew 6. Your will be done, Boss, I'm listening. Only the Big Guy can answer your search, and you'll only hear the answer by waiting on it in faith. The study of neurotheology is looking in the wrong place, the healer systems are in the limbic, accessed by confessional repentance, and then by patient repose. Go study the healing sections of the Bible, they focus on cleansing. At the same time, I hear The Holly and The Ivy in the background, mapping your naturist focus to the Christian. Don't forget it was a Wiccan who spotted my Reiki Master's aura, and that's a combination of searching for accurate knowledge of my very evident meridian flows (more specifically, acupuncture), these being augmented from the numinous and directed by my diplomat's empathy. I share Usui's circle's focus on peacemaking.