The Fallen~Sparrow~Hawk

Troll at the Gate                 Kirkudbridshire         February 21, 2002

Yesterday had numerological significance, 20/02/2002, a palimpsest, apparently astrologically powerful. I was sitting in Brett and Alison’ yurt at the Doon of May sipping a gin and tonic while listening to radio 2 powered by a battery. Some mod cons have sneaked into the way of life since I was last here with Nick, for a May Day gathering almost a year ago. Nevertheless, life here still revolves around water collection and wood chopping. Last night I was particularly cold and my attempts to heat the static caravan which doubles as the canteen were in vain. I think the fact that I closed the flue had something to do with killing the heat. Today is a lot more successful though the weather is a lot better. The stove takes a long time to heat the amount of metal surrounding it.

I have mastered wood chopping and Ill no doubt get through the pile I have today.

I don’t know how I feel; it is silent here far from the hustle and bustle of the peopled metropolises. So, I am feeling tentative. Hopefully money will come so I can buy provisions in a week or so. I don’t know if the check has been sent yet. The month ends soon. I don’t want to sponge off this situation and it would be ideal if I got work through translation. I should phone Temple Translations and notify them. I would want to wait till the generator was set up. With money coming in there would be more freedom and I would be able to travel about to and from here.

It is the first day of what may be my new life. I have phoned the IAA (Immigration Appellate Authority) and the (IND) Immigration Nationalities Directorate) hopefully they will provide me with work which will sustain me here allowing trips into Glasgow, Edinburgh and Stranraer for interpreting work. Temple or APA will hopefully send translation work once the laptop is up and running. Slowly, slowly. The office will be a tad cold, so, extension lead to the canteen wouldn’t go amiss.

I’m glad I have arrived in time for the wind turbine to be erected. If this works out I’ll have it all sorted. Then I’ll have to find a lover. I’ll stay faithful to Mark for the time being. I’m sure Jenny or someone can give me a lift into Stranraer in the future. I think maybe we will go out on the razz maybe. Must get a torch.

It is very windy outside; it would be great to convert it into electricity soon.

Feeling optimistic, that is if the different elements, lecky, laptop, phone, email, printer, fax, answer machine come together. I may be able to harness my writing skills and produce something of beauty. There is indeed an abundance of wood which is fantastic. I must Email Ben and Jo. I have to pay that phone bill pronto. Please money tree provide what is necessary!

Of course, what with the frenetic emotional activity that is London, Mark now seems embedded in chaos. That was me too; Alcoholic exhaustion.

Anyway, I’m not willing to trade this for the city, yet. I would like to write another book or two. I wonder what response I’ll get from Macmillan and Granta or Judy Martin. I’ll call soon enough.

So, winding down. Cabin’s warm, read, listened to the wind-up radio, write, dream, regret, think, organise, eat and burn wood. Wood chopping and water fetching are de rigueur. I fetch water from the ‘burn’ a stream which comes down through the Doon. This is, reportedly, full of minerals, whereas the nearest burn passed through the neighbouring farmers’ field and is full of chemicals. Brett pointed out the abundance of mosses and insects in the Doon stream and the lack of life in the stream running through modern agricultural land.

There is a rhythm, a daily rhythm to learn if one is to live with the maximum of warmth and comfort. Tasks, like wood cutting can take up to an hour or so and then fire building, including kindling. Cooking on the stove is a little bit longer than the conventional. Washing up is a feat itself, and I haven’t attempted a body wash yet. The toilet is a hundred yards up the track and is a conventional enamel loo perched on a high platform and all the detritus falls down a hatch in to a wheelie bin. Each time you ‘go’ you have to cover it with sawdust.

The Fallen~Sparrow~Hawk

Milkshake-slammers                      Dumfries        20 February 2002

Ahh a little bit of relaxation in Bakers Oven, erst-while Olivers Bakery. Dierk, who did tarot to an inebriated me  after 5 pints and helpings from his three whisky bottles, (He’s on the wagon) and joints. My ruling card is Judgement corresponding to number 20 which is arrived at by adding the numbers of my birth date. A tree of life, my life laid out on the carpet between us cross-legged and  though I tried hard to dismiss Dierk’s schizophrenia, it kept coming back at moments of incomprehension. I am coming into money. Hallelujah! I was represented by the Fool. I guess I do perpetuate the fool e.g. card. Hence my song;

I may play the fool

Of the painted face

The dunce at school

Earlier, the stars said Capricorn needs to be of service and though I recognise this to be true I sometimes get tired and need a refill which is why I am here.

I read Dierks; Chinese/Western star sign and, yes, he is uncommonly perceptive.

Apropos the Fool, buffoon, clown, scapegoat, grand guignol, gay, jester, there is something to be said for hiding it á la Mark. In that way you don’t have to play up to it, disrespecting yourself in order to amuse others. The fool is a defence mechanism, a way of fending off criticism and abuse and shame; not a warrior at all.  I began by joking about hetro spasms in the sixth form. Scrape it away I realise if one can love another man then it is God-given.

The local teenagers hang out shoulder to shoulder with the blue-rinse-brigade in the back of the bakery. One has purple hair, another, a boy, sports make-up; they are firmly on the road of the tea-drinking tradition. Other children, much younger, sit obediently tucking into scones, with their families. Midsteaple.

The student looking girl in front of me sits reading Geisha; she sports a red and white stripy headscarf. I’ve just heard the guy with the make-up, his voice is effeminate, he is very young. Must watch…….fledgling buffoon.

Dierk is in deep conversation with a woman from Kircowen. She specialises in Kabala of the heart; he specialises in that of the head. He, Dierk recognises he is unfinished; maybe she can fill in what’s missing. Numerology…..it’s all figures to me.

So, I would hide and in hiding, sexually would manipulate. The guys…..hang on; the Milkshake-slammers are predominantly dressed in black. One has a Curt Cobain picture on the front of his sweat shirt; the camp youth also wears black nail varnish.

One of the girls with rainbow hair has red contact lenses.

Anyway, I will soon get out on the road and head for Newton Stewart. I might try to get a lift to the Doon from David and Irma. Fingers crossed.

The Fallen~Sparrow~Hawk

Robert the Bruce                            February 19, 2002

I am content. I am on the Edinburgh to Dumfries bus about to set off. I am acting messenger between Lillian and someone, a seemingly colourful character called Dierk. “An excellent chaneller", according to Lillian; He channelled so successfully into the spirit of Robert the Bruce that he was promptly sectioned. He apparently works with Chinese astrological systems and tarot. He is trying to break all association with his homeland Germany.

Lillian gave me £20 for the journey with costs £5. After Dumfries I will make my way to Kircowen or Newton Stewart. I’ll phone. Yes, I am bringing a set of keys to Dierk borrowed by Lillian some time ago.

Martin has pin-pointed the problem faced by those at the Doon as regards there grip on the business world. Day to day existence, wood, water, food has meant that the outside world has become somewhat distant; my priority is to make sure wind power is established, get a printer and be able to liaise with the outside world.

I would like to become a broker for alternative funerals, liaising with locations, ceremonies and coffin makers for the smooth running of the event, receiving a fee from either, directly from the client or from the director.

Primarily, it will be great to generate money as a translator, while living at the Doon. Fax and printer and a wind generator. Generator ASAP.

Many of the people met seem extremely relaxed, I was going to say lackadaisical but I have been the same in London, some how ‘blocked’. I have noticed in Lillian a wanton impetuosity and dispersal of energy which exposes a weather-vane lack of direction and fragility.

I got my first site of the hills. I hope my chest clears up and the panic attacks stop. I must move into a sphere of non-stress. I noticed, when I think of unpleasant things my body panics; not nice.

I have a problem with drink, I have a drink problem. I was physically exhausted by drink, though I like it, it tends to ruin my life. I hope Mark can cope with it.

The Fallen~Sparrow~Hawk

Puer Eaternis                      Edinburgh       February 18, 2002

The only thing I would want to return to London for is Mark. I asked myself this morning I believed he loved me and given the amount of tears shed and the pain of separation I think he is suffering. There, of course, is still no promise that he won’t get back with Debbie. Should she be there then it will be extremely difficult to communicate with him, as it is now with his parents around. Maybe he will be worn out, or play the game. I do get vexed about his lack of ability to make choices. He is crippled by his niceness: passive aggressive.

Yesterday I awoke in Lillian’s room after a night of fitful sleep. Lillian belongs to the Theosophical Society in Edinburgh and she is trying, against internal opposition, to influence the ‘black’ energy that is, apparently, this city. Lillian became quite animated after watching a Discovery Channel James Burke on the Greenhouse effect and the future. She is in her late 40s and trained as an actress. She is recognisable as a Puer Eternis, eternal child, as is Martin, who has, over the years been unable to resist the urge to salvage every computer monitor thrown out by households or offices,- which has the effect of turning what would be a large Leith flat into a shrine for dead monitors, printers and modems. We moved boxes and furniture to accommodate furniture arriving from his deceased mothers’ house in London. The furniture is arriving today!!!!

It is refreshing to discuss spirituality and matters of the land. Lillian talked of the heavy energy around since September 11^th when two passenger planes were flown into the World Trade Centre killing thousands of people. I remember hearing that writers are at a loss as to what to write about in the wake of the atrocity; Reality has upstaged fiction.

I wondered, when I left if I was running away, hiding from responsibilities. As I stay here I begin to realise this is a much needed rest. A gentling of my being.

Although there is a lot of dreaming and lightness of being among the folk here; a gentle procrastination and sometimes an excuse for procrastination, they are children. Everything from house arranging to an encounter is viewed with cosmic significance, rightly or wrongly. There are a lot of people who would pooh-pooh what is perceived as airy-fairy, yet it is healthy play. Yet, like with children, there is a perceived authority against which one must rebel for it is the reason why, ’the world is going the way it is’. Capitalism, Multi-nationals; the English; imperialism; Conspiracies, Freemasons, Burocracy, all short-sighted compared to the vision of the inspired creative who is denied a look-in; fairy folk.

I trust that with each encounter I will be fed. Fed not with food but with fodder for the imagination. With the tales of journey men and women and with tales edged with bitterness at the non-concretisation of dreams, of the bitterness of children growing old visibly and wearied of the faith in the world. World-weary. Yet there will be those whose cynical rant or tantrum will demonstrate what is wrong and will illuminate in true play how to play.

The Fallen~Sparrow~Hawk

Existential Angst                             February 16, 2002

The London to Edinburgh train. I have envisaged making a break from London, a final break, for a while now. Now that I am doing it, I feel slightly sad, mostly exhausted and not a small inkling that I am, in fact, running away.

It feels like a terrible wrench. The burden that this train is carrying is heavier than my book-laden rucksack, my jalopy of a laptop and my suit put together.

I feel all the heavier because I feel spent. Spent in every sense of the word. I have tried to send out CDs to record companies, 40CDs of my music, discovered I am unloved by my mother and always will be, buried friends and listened to friends and lovers who have lost both. I have been to court cases as clerk and interpreter deciding the fate of children, criminals and immigrants. I have made hundreds of naïve phone calls following up CVs, I have sent copies of my book out and it is still out there……I have earned roughly £39 a week.

So, I’m leaving. Defeated, broke, loveless and in debt and exhausted again.

I feel empty, drained, wooden, cheap. Most of all I feel cheap. My energy has been dispersed for nothing. I cannot afford to live anywhere in London, £110, £150 a week. 24 years of age and no partner, house, money or family or anything consistent.

Mark, off the mark, more like it. If only, he could make up his mind. I could have stayed in London for him. Gone anywhere together, as couples do. What is this, people who plan to live alone, like myself,; take the path of least resistance.

Am I delusional or is there really nothing I can do. He cannot commit to me or Debbie or staying or going. He is going to miss out.

I hope God keeps me strong and protects me in Scotland.

To think I found the person I love yet I can’t have him. I just thought, some white guys assume an attitude of superiority vis-à-vis coloured guys. His exes; Diego, Bruno, me; I have shown strength I must continue.

The Fallen~Sparrow~Hawk.

May Day Eve 2001

The Door

I remember the drive up to Scotland from London with Nick at the wheel. We were such good philosophical friends; we could make a five hour drive seem like a ten minute trip as we segued from one subject seamlessly into another more abstract one, leaving behind the previous topic’s pragmatic but improbable non-tangential conclusions. We shared a deep and probing intelligence. (A year later and two days on we would be making the journey in reverse Nick at the wheel but this time I would be doing all the talking).

It was the early evening of the eve of May Day, the eve before that years’ adventure in the lowlands of Scotland. Several months prior to the journey I now recount we had been in the Mumbles area of Wales, and had found ourselves at a small live music venue or café. There, Nick befriended a man who wrote down the address of a community living in Kidcudrightshire, Dumfries and Galloway; a low-impact self-sustaining community. Nick took down the address and I remember being keen not to let that paper trail escape; it somehow fired my imagination. Usually a passive observer, I booked my seat, as it were, and we drove  to this destination to rendezvous with someone with whom we had spent no more than a few hours of an evening in conversation, Nick that is. Nick was like that, far more spontaneous than I, though I am considered pretty spontaneous, even impulsive, Nick Chow has his boot permanently packed, his car a musical chairs of passengers, his mileage clocked up with festivals, visitors to far-flung friends, his mother in Majorca, Skiing holidays and now  the May Day festival the small community holds for friends and sundry outsiders at the appropriately name The Doon of May.

We arrived under cover of night in a crunch of gravel along a track at the end of which the opaque blackness of forest rose up out of the summit of a slight incline. We halted before two large rectangular static caravans facing a desolate and ragged waste-land of clear-fell and shadows. The headlights of the car must have penetrated deep in to the forest, momentarily lighting up a sky customarily devoid of artificial light. On the eve of May the inhabitants must have been expecting a few arrival, but at this hour. Nick and I walked up the stony and winding path toward a natural dark entrance to the forest. In the darkness we passed allotments and patches of herb gardens among the rocks, bordered by improvised trellises against which grew fruit trees.

Observing the gardens we heard a faint noise ahead and looking up we saw, less than a hundred yards away, at the dark entrance to forest, two filthy men of about five foot 10, but they looked taller.  Their hair was straight but dusty and wild, their clothes covered in the grime of the earth and the forest, of wood fires and ash, of leaf and branch, nails of harvest, feet of woodland tracks and dirt  and rock, hands of dry stone walls, muscle sinews of axe-wielders, log carriers, water- carriers, wrists of foot-lathe-carpenters, legs of climbers, and long distance walkers, feet splayed by rock and ledge, caked by weather; the look of low-impact living nature children. They stood staring, white eyed in the dark, like ancient tribal gate-keepers at the edge of their territory, and my ancient memory placed a long spear cradled in each of their arms parallel with their proud and savage stance and held somewhere at  the level of the thigh.

In comparison we were civilized men meeting savages. Public school had over-prepared nick whose sense of entitlement would have seen him walk through a Zulu army.

“We’re up for the Festival, friends of Moogey” Announced Nick, disregarding their filth.

Wordlessly, they turned and imperceptibly beckoned as they lead us into the forest at a rapid pace, periodically attentive to our stumbling footfall; they guided us along barely traceable paths through low- hanging branches, over tar-black streams with the dexterity and expertise of aborigines along ancient and sacred tracks.

Later, after we had taken magic mushrooms marinated in wild honey in the ger, or yurt, a circular canvass covered structure used by the nomadic peoples of Mongolia, our two hosts served with tea from a caste iron kettle on a central wood-burning stove. Nick was getting on with one of the fellows in some strange public school language and code I didn’t care to understand. In fact, I remember, once the hallucinogen took effect, pairing us off at one point, wilfully saying. “Who will look after who?” And happy that I got the one to which I felt intuitively mutually attuned and who I felt could sense my insecurity; I needed safety.

Alone with my guide he accompanied me at dawn back up toward the Doon. On the way I tried to contain and control the effects of the mushrooms as waves of vulnerability washed over me. Through the tides of sadness and sorrow everywhere I saw monsters, in the formation of the trees. Lichen and mosses covering fallen trees presented huge monstrous frogs. My guide said I was full of negativity in seeing those things in nature and I was surprised and saddened by this and apologised. It was the culmination and result of tension, of conservatism, urban and urbane. Cynicism, of a thousand years of establishment; I couldn’t easily let go. Besides there were rules; under the increasing waves of the mushroom, much my soul ached reigning in propriety.

The Doon was a vitrified mound some ninety feet high, used as far as time out of mind for ritual and lighting of the beacon fires to warn of the approach of the enemy. After the initial sloping thirty foot climb, we reach a winding path which spiralled around the circumference of the mound gently leading to the summit. There, on its flat surface were the traces of past fires.  Covering around two hundred feet by two hundred and fifty the area was bordered by thirteen giant standing stones. These were magnificently set against a backdrop of the most brilliant constellation. My guide bid me lie down.

I was aware I was being left alone at the summit of the Doon. I lay on the bed of fresh grass gurning under the hallucinogen, beneath the violently twinkling heavens, breathlessly framed by a hall of pointing craggy fingers. It presented the optical illusion of being inside the skeletal carcass of a giant whale, or at the bottom of a huge ribbed goblet or cauldron, its’ rim, in reality a mere twenty or so feet above me, but seeming, against the unfathomable distance of the stars, to extend both upward and simultaneously outward. At one moment I felt an imperceptible movement but was uncertain if it were the shifting stars or whether the Doon itself had jolted, minutely, on some axis, like a millstone, its’ seam hidden by grasses at its’ base.

  Then I closed my eyes and the absurdity of that first encounter with the forest gatekeepers became a series of framed cartoon comical caricatures. We, Nick and myself, had been absurdly clean, almost as though we had asked to go down a working mine in white flannels and blazer. They, mud-caked wild men mirrored our scrubbed selves back to us, pristine and prissy, from a synthetic materialistic city and over-heated car, contrasted by they of the earth, forest, spring and a wild tribal past. We were absurd, not them, our pretensions, aims, everything we stood for. And now, locked in myself, bathed in hallucinogenic clarity, I laughed. Then, with the wisp of a tangy breeze from the stones singing around me, just before I went to sleep I felt a feeling one gets when a trains, travelling in the opposite directions, suddenly pass, at great speed, and a whole row of carriages flash by, thunder clap,  in an illusion of seven windows, this was not so much seen with open eyes, but perceived through the whole body, in rapid succession, seven consecutive thunderous bursts of light, then the sound of a calm sea.