ARTWORK BY SALLY CURD
Tuesday 29th May
Bude
On Friday I realised that I had made a proper botch job of my minor surgery – bits of the tick head were still embedded in my flesh and now the whole area looked quite infected. I decided to stay another night with Sal and Ryan, but Friday night I woke up with utterly liquid bowels, which continued for several days – and they’re still not right. I don’t know what’s going on down there, or why, but I’ve shat four colours of the rainbow these last four days. Maybe there was unicorn shit in that stream at Glenthorne?
Matthew stayed till Sunday morning and then headed off – I suggested he head to Wales and walk the Welsh coastal path, but who knows where he went? Still, I have the feeling that our paths will one day cross again, and if they don’t, somehow I know I’ll always carry him in my heart – he was one of those people, and it was one of those meetings.
Sunday afternoon I managed to drag myself down to the local community hospital, where I had my tick wound looked at, but all the nurse could do was dress the infection. “By the look of it,” she said, “you must have spent a long time trying to gouge that out,” obviously unimpressed with this particular grockle. Fortunately, there’s no ring around the wound – one of the telltale signs of Lyme diseases – and she didn’t seem to think that my diarrhoea was related.
Last night I had a bit of a mini-meltdown. I was feeling quite rough – both physically and emotionally – and was in the bathroom for the umpteenth time, and I caught sight of myself in the bathroom mirror. I looked so, so raw. I could barely hold my own gaze. And then I found myself spontaneously saying that Ho’oponopono prayer to the ghostly man who was looking back at me:
I’m sorry
Please forgive me
I love you
Thank you
I said the prayer three times, and something inside me was really touched. Simultaneously, I saw how little I truly love myself. Which was a painful thing to actually see. Well, I didn’t really see it – I glimpsed it. I glimpsed that I don’t really love myself as I am. That – at some quite deep level of my being – only certain versions of me are acceptable.
Is the challenge for me to love the man in the mirror just as he is, or for the man in the mirror to love me just as I am? Or for both of us to love one another equally? And if we both manage to love one another equally, then who is the real me?
Oh, and it had all been going pretty well.
I’ve spent a lot of the last few days either on the toilet, or lying in bed, or lying on a blanket on the fair and sunshine-dappled lawn, slowly getting skinnier and skinnier. And with plenty of time for my crazy pilgrim mind to ponder. Sal and Ryan are looking after me very sweetly, and we still manage to have more than our fair share of laughs.
This morning, for once, I had a really “good” meditation session. I know you’re not meant to label them good and bad, but I do. I came very late to the meditation party – it’s only the last four years that I’ve developed something resembling a meditation practice – but during this morning’s meditation session I experienced a stillness and peace I rarely encounter. It was such a deep, deep peace. The sort of peace I’m almost constantly hungry for. Blake’s sage advice to “kiss the joy as it flies” came to mind, but I must admit I was sorely tempted to grab it, throttle it, bottle it, and never let it go.
Some spiritual teachers say that this profound peace is always present – it’s the ocean that contains our transient waves. I kind of believe them and kind of don’t. Actually, I think I envy them more than anything else – like they’ve got something that I haven’t. Churlish, I know. Anyway, this morning I tasted a bit of their pie, and I can see why they look so happy and pleased with themselves. Especially the American ones. Although I suspect that has something to do with American dentistry, and not just their sophisticated spiritual marketing techniques.
Ah, but it does make me begin to see how immature my approach to spiritual life can be. As if the goal is to arrive, and stay, in a place of perfect peace, free of all human problems, with bright white shiny spiritual teeth. I think this is called spiritual bypassing.
Ah, what the fuck does the word “spiritual” mean, anyway? It must be one of the most misleading words in the dictionary. Second only, perhaps, to the G-word.
Ah, can the part of me that wants to be peaceful and happy ever be peaceful and happy? I don’t know if this is the sub-delirium of the diarrhoea talking, but I’m beginning to think that it can’t. What’s that line from Matthew’s Gospel? “Seek ye first the kingdom of God...” It’s not “Seek ye first your individual happiness, health and freedom.”
Hmmm. Think I’m going to test my strength tomorrow and go on a day-trip to St Nectan’s Glen. I’ve checked the bus timetables and there’s an hourly bus from Bude. But I definitely don’t feel strong enough to get back on the road with a full pack.
Last month I made myself a little copper hare to bring on the journey. She’s called Melangell – after the Welsh saint who protected a hare that was being hunted. At my eve of pilgrimage farewell party my mate Annie gave me a plastic tortoise to travel with her, and I named him Cuthbert. But I must admit, I was getting so obsessed with photographing them both that, back in Glastonbury, I ended up putting Cuthbert in my parcel of excess luggage and mailing him back to Kent. Melangell, however, remains, and I’m pleased to say that Sal and Ryan’s house is full of hare-themed artwork, most of it Sal’s – maybe all of it Sal’s. So Melangell is feeling very at home right now. And she’s definitely coming with me to St Nectan’s Glen tomorrow. God, bowels and buses willing...
Matthew stayed till Sunday morning and then headed off – I suggested he head to Wales and walk the Welsh coastal path, but who knows where he went? Still, I have the feeling that our paths will one day cross again, and if they don’t, somehow I know I’ll always carry him in my heart – he was one of those people, and it was one of those meetings.
Sunday afternoon I managed to drag myself down to the local community hospital, where I had my tick wound looked at, but all the nurse could do was dress the infection. “By the look of it,” she said, “you must have spent a long time trying to gouge that out,” obviously unimpressed with this particular grockle. Fortunately, there’s no ring around the wound – one of the telltale signs of Lyme diseases – and she didn’t seem to think that my diarrhoea was related.
Last night I had a bit of a mini-meltdown. I was feeling quite rough – both physically and emotionally – and was in the bathroom for the umpteenth time, and I caught sight of myself in the bathroom mirror. I looked so, so raw. I could barely hold my own gaze. And then I found myself spontaneously saying that Ho’oponopono prayer to the ghostly man who was looking back at me:
I’m sorry
Please forgive me
I love you
Thank you
I said the prayer three times, and something inside me was really touched. Simultaneously, I saw how little I truly love myself. Which was a painful thing to actually see. Well, I didn’t really see it – I glimpsed it. I glimpsed that I don’t really love myself as I am. That – at some quite deep level of my being – only certain versions of me are acceptable.
Is the challenge for me to love the man in the mirror just as he is, or for the man in the mirror to love me just as I am? Or for both of us to love one another equally? And if we both manage to love one another equally, then who is the real me?
Oh, and it had all been going pretty well.
I’ve spent a lot of the last few days either on the toilet, or lying in bed, or lying on a blanket on the fair and sunshine-dappled lawn, slowly getting skinnier and skinnier. And with plenty of time for my crazy pilgrim mind to ponder. Sal and Ryan are looking after me very sweetly, and we still manage to have more than our fair share of laughs.
This morning, for once, I had a really “good” meditation session. I know you’re not meant to label them good and bad, but I do. I came very late to the meditation party – it’s only the last four years that I’ve developed something resembling a meditation practice – but during this morning’s meditation session I experienced a stillness and peace I rarely encounter. It was such a deep, deep peace. The sort of peace I’m almost constantly hungry for. Blake’s sage advice to “kiss the joy as it flies” came to mind, but I must admit I was sorely tempted to grab it, throttle it, bottle it, and never let it go.
Some spiritual teachers say that this profound peace is always present – it’s the ocean that contains our transient waves. I kind of believe them and kind of don’t. Actually, I think I envy them more than anything else – like they’ve got something that I haven’t. Churlish, I know. Anyway, this morning I tasted a bit of their pie, and I can see why they look so happy and pleased with themselves. Especially the American ones. Although I suspect that has something to do with American dentistry, and not just their sophisticated spiritual marketing techniques.
Ah, but it does make me begin to see how immature my approach to spiritual life can be. As if the goal is to arrive, and stay, in a place of perfect peace, free of all human problems, with bright white shiny spiritual teeth. I think this is called spiritual bypassing.
Ah, what the fuck does the word “spiritual” mean, anyway? It must be one of the most misleading words in the dictionary. Second only, perhaps, to the G-word.
Ah, can the part of me that wants to be peaceful and happy ever be peaceful and happy? I don’t know if this is the sub-delirium of the diarrhoea talking, but I’m beginning to think that it can’t. What’s that line from Matthew’s Gospel? “Seek ye first the kingdom of God...” It’s not “Seek ye first your individual happiness, health and freedom.”
Hmmm. Think I’m going to test my strength tomorrow and go on a day-trip to St Nectan’s Glen. I’ve checked the bus timetables and there’s an hourly bus from Bude. But I definitely don’t feel strong enough to get back on the road with a full pack.
Last month I made myself a little copper hare to bring on the journey. She’s called Melangell – after the Welsh saint who protected a hare that was being hunted. At my eve of pilgrimage farewell party my mate Annie gave me a plastic tortoise to travel with her, and I named him Cuthbert. But I must admit, I was getting so obsessed with photographing them both that, back in Glastonbury, I ended up putting Cuthbert in my parcel of excess luggage and mailing him back to Kent. Melangell, however, remains, and I’m pleased to say that Sal and Ryan’s house is full of hare-themed artwork, most of it Sal’s – maybe all of it Sal’s. So Melangell is feeling very at home right now. And she’s definitely coming with me to St Nectan’s Glen tomorrow. God, bowels and buses willing...
Hare at Pennant
by Ruth Bidgood
I Hare have been the clever one,
up to my tricks, always a winner,
fooling man and beast – but not now,
not you, pretty lady, holy one.
You untwist my deviousness.
I huddle at your feet
in your garments’ folds,
and am simple hare, fool hare, hunted hare.
I have doubled and doubled,
am spent, blown, not a trick left
to baffle pursuers.
A leap of despair
has brought me to you.
Cudd fi, Melangell,
Monacella, hide me!
*
‘Seize him!’ I cried to my hounds
(the best, I had thought, in all
my princedom of Powys).
But each time I chivvied them on,
the fools came squealing and squelking back.
So I rode into tanglewood,
my huntsmen after me,
the wretched scruff-hounds skulking off;
and she was there in the glade,
still as an image, still
as her carved Christ on his cross.
I pictured her alone with me;
but this was no girl from the huts
to be gripped and thrown aside
for a paltry coin, no absent warrior’s
hungry wife. Cool as moonlight
this maiden waited on wet grass,
looking up at me with no fear, no blame,
and by her small bare feet,
panting and peeping, crouched the hare.
I saw how it would be; she’d get her land
from me, the prayer-girl, to make
a sanctuary here – and Powys
would go short of hare-meat
and the dark strong broth! I
would make my peace with the cringing dogs,
hunt forests to the north for other prey,
yet leave a thought behind me here
for her to shelter.
Cudd fi, Melangell,
Monacella, hide me!
*
One I was Great Hare
and the Moon’s companion,
and Easter’s acolyte bearing the light.
Victim, I ran charred through heath-fire,
lay bloodied in last corn.
I was warped to hold the soul of a witch:
dwindled to trickster and buffoon.
Men dodge my real, unchancy name,
calling me cat-shanks, cabbager,
dew-fellow, cat-of-the-furze,
maze-maker, leaper-to-hill.
False, broken is my boast of winning;
I crouch in dread of the fangs.
All I have been, am, she shelters.
‘Not I’, she says, ‘it is my Lord’. But she
is what I know, soft-robed saint,
gentle one, who heard my piping cry,
Cudd fi, cudd fi, Melangell,
Monacella, hide me!
by Ruth Bidgood
I Hare have been the clever one,
up to my tricks, always a winner,
fooling man and beast – but not now,
not you, pretty lady, holy one.
You untwist my deviousness.
I huddle at your feet
in your garments’ folds,
and am simple hare, fool hare, hunted hare.
I have doubled and doubled,
am spent, blown, not a trick left
to baffle pursuers.
A leap of despair
has brought me to you.
Cudd fi, Melangell,
Monacella, hide me!
*
‘Seize him!’ I cried to my hounds
(the best, I had thought, in all
my princedom of Powys).
But each time I chivvied them on,
the fools came squealing and squelking back.
So I rode into tanglewood,
my huntsmen after me,
the wretched scruff-hounds skulking off;
and she was there in the glade,
still as an image, still
as her carved Christ on his cross.
I pictured her alone with me;
but this was no girl from the huts
to be gripped and thrown aside
for a paltry coin, no absent warrior’s
hungry wife. Cool as moonlight
this maiden waited on wet grass,
looking up at me with no fear, no blame,
and by her small bare feet,
panting and peeping, crouched the hare.
I saw how it would be; she’d get her land
from me, the prayer-girl, to make
a sanctuary here – and Powys
would go short of hare-meat
and the dark strong broth! I
would make my peace with the cringing dogs,
hunt forests to the north for other prey,
yet leave a thought behind me here
for her to shelter.
Cudd fi, Melangell,
Monacella, hide me!
*
One I was Great Hare
and the Moon’s companion,
and Easter’s acolyte bearing the light.
Victim, I ran charred through heath-fire,
lay bloodied in last corn.
I was warped to hold the soul of a witch:
dwindled to trickster and buffoon.
Men dodge my real, unchancy name,
calling me cat-shanks, cabbager,
dew-fellow, cat-of-the-furze,
maze-maker, leaper-to-hill.
False, broken is my boast of winning;
I crouch in dread of the fangs.
All I have been, am, she shelters.
‘Not I’, she says, ‘it is my Lord’. But she
is what I know, soft-robed saint,
gentle one, who heard my piping cry,
Cudd fi, cudd fi, Melangell,
Monacella, hide me!
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