Button Bridge Books

2007-10-20T08:04:00.000-01:00

Winner of short story competition

2007-08-01T10:24:00.000-01:00

The winner of our latest short story competition is Robert Ronsson with his entry 'The Flood Barrier', which is very appropriate at the moment!
If you want to see more details go to our web-site of http://www.buttonbridgebooks.co.uk/ or of Robert's other work at http://www.robertronsson.co.uk/ , he is soon to publish a new book.

He wins a copy of one of our titles by Deborah Clarke - 'Songs From The Secret Place - The Meeting of the Spirits'

Here is is - enjoy!

The Flood Barrier

"German design, German engineering, Tix. They're the only ones could have done it."
"It’s incredible," I said. "How much water is it holding back?"
"Must be millions of gallons. The forces will be immense. It's flowing past, not hitting the barrier face on but nevertheless ..."
John's voice trailed away. I looked out over the top rail of the temporary barrier, which was about shoulder height. This side, the cobbles of the roadway were damp but our feet were dry. On the other, a waist-high, hoof-less stampede of mud-thick water charged blindly to the sea. It swirled with the muffled hum of jet engines inside a sleepy 747. There was an occasional slurp as a hidden current collided with another deep in its living mass. The roadway vibrated through the thin soles of my high heels. It wasn't only the winter evening making me shiver.
"Worth the trip, Tix?" John looked down at me, his voice pitched high and his face lit with a boyish grin.
"OK, you win. I didn't believe. But this ... this is something else," I said.
We had travelled down that afternoon. The Beemer's headlights and wipers had worked full-pelt to drag us through the curtains of rain. While we were unpacking, the sky had lightened and now in the crisply damp darkness we stood in front of our Tudor-beamed riverside accommodation buttoning up for a stroll before dinner.
John took my hand and we swung along together separated from the surge only by the confection of stanchions, plates and bolts. John sprang on his toes. My scepticism had been as well-rooted as the trees that were being borne downstream. As we walked, he explained how the barrier could be erected within half a day and now gave the town's residents year-round protection.
We took the pedestrian arch under the 200-year-old bridge. I wondered fleetingly whether the barrier's designers had taken into account how the ancient stonework would be subjected to new forces created by the river's containment on one side. Of course they would, John would say if I asked him. They're German.
We stopped again to look at the view across the river. The smell from the chip shop sharpened my appetite. I shivered beneath my thick coat and clapped my hands. The strangeness of our lower bodies being below the waterline made the damp more bone-piercing.
The bank on the other side boasted no barrier and we could see threads of reflected orange from the street-lights where the river had spilled onto the road. Cars splashed down its centre creating waves on both sides. As they turned on to the incline of the bridge, their headlights speared the black sky.
"I'll just check the car's OK and we'll go back," John said. He led the way through the town to the car park beyond the barrier. We double-checked the encroaching water wouldn't maroon his precious Beemer and then wended our way down an alley back to the inn. Its Christmas-lit windows drew us in along shafts of red and gold.
We went into the bar and while John stood waiting to order I thought about my answer. My best friend Ruth couldn't keep it to herself when John had asked her to help him choose a ring and I knew it would be tonight. I felt my face flush in the room's warmth - I could put it down to the open fire. John was everything I had hoped for. He was fit, bright and he made me laugh. He pressed all the right buttons. Good job in a computer consultancy - he'd never be made redundant like my dad had been. He owned the flat I'd been virtually living in for the past three months. Did I say he was fit? I knew the answer – yes; he pressed all the right buttons.
"Will you marry me, Tix?" John's blue eyes shone. The restaurant was hot and thankfully most of the tables were now empty. He was so earnest. How could I not love him?
We sealed our engagement against the noise of the heaving river racing beneath our window. As we slept, the flood-water strained to break through on our side so it could spend a night on the town as had been its custom for centuries.
It was still dark when I woke to the new sensation of a band round my finger. The room was hot. The duvet, which had been so comforting going to bed, now lay round my legs like desert sandbags. I took a jumper and jeans into the bathroom and dressed in the light of the shaving mirror. John's tousled hair was just visible on the flowery pillow. He snuffled as I kissed him on the forehead. I picked up my coat and clicked the door shut behind me.
I pulled my belt tighter as I stepped onto the cobbles. No further panels had been added to the barrier but the water was at least a foot higher. It glinted with silver edges in the fading moonlight as eddies switched and crossed the stream but never interrupted the career southward.
I retraced our route to the bridge, this time climbing the steps to the roadway. I was alone. The shop fronts were dark. It was too early even for the church clock to be chiming the Sunday quarters. There were signs telling motorists to turn back. The road on the other side of the bridge was now impassable.
I went to the parapet over the middle of the river and watched the unstoppable passage of water and flotsam as it sped into the misty distance. To my right the barrier sliced a cliff-edge of river down to the walkway. It made an unnatural perpendicular as if space had been inverted. On the other side, the water scurried into pockets and corners seeking new sensations, new places to spend time. It was taking a diversion before rejoining the scrambling migration.
Time stopped. A sort of hypnosis set in and my body became one with the life-form thrashing beneath the ancient arches.
"Hey! Stay there! I'll join you."
I looked back towards the inn expecting to see John. My heart dipped. The road was empty.
"Ouch! That's freezing!"
I swivelled round. A man was paddling through the flooded roadway onto the bridge. His jeans were rolled up to his knees but not far enough to escape the darkening stains as his bare feet sloshed in and out of the water. He was carrying a small knapsack in both hands at shoulder height
He emerged and rolled down his jeans. He walked gingerly towards me on bare feet. His brown eyes were bright beneath curtains of black hair that fell either side of his forehead. I guessed he was about the same age as John. He looked down at me as if we were meeting again after years apart. I'd never seen him before.
"I thought I'd be on my own this time on a Sunday morning." He pulled open the top of the bag. "Coffee?"
I shook my head. I looked back towards the inn. Some of the bedrooms were showing lights. Was one of them ours?
"I make it strong. There's more than enough for two." He danced from foot to foot. "My feet are bloody freezing. I shouldn't have done that. I only came to look at the floods. Then I saw you ... I couldn’t help myself."
"Hold on a second," I said. I ran back to the bridge-closed sign. A workman had discarded some corrugated plastic packing. I took it back and laid it by the stranger's bare feet. They were almost as blue as the plastic. The first thing I really noticed about him was an absence. There were no sprouts of hair on his big toes.
"Stand on that," I said.
He bowed. "Thank you, kind lady." He straightened up and offered his hand. "That's better. I'm Tony, by the way."
"My name's Victoria. Everybody calls me Tix."
He rubbed his palms together. "Thank you, Tix. Now, coffee."
He took out a flask with two small cups. He placed them on the parapet and poured. The steam swirled into the lightening day.
I took a cup in both hands. The heat seeped through my gloves. "Thanks for this." As the first taste stung my lips I remembered I had refused when he offered it.
"Bacon sandwich?"
I shook my head and watched my breath make a pattern.
"Go on. I've made too much for just me. Eyes bigger than. I decided when I saw you alone on the bridge ... somehow ... I don't know ... you must be here for me. Whatever, you could at least help me eat my breakfast." His eyes locked on to mine and I looked away as I nodded.
There was silence. I had taken off a glove to pick up half of the sandwich. I bit into a mouthful of salty, unctuous bread. I washed it down with the bitter heat of coffee.
"Where did you come from, Tony? I didn't see a car arrive."
"I'm parked over there." He pointed to a sleek little sports car, Italian, parked on the edge of the flood. His abandoned shoes were pigeon-toed next to the driver’s door.
"I saw you come to the top of the bridge,” he said. “I was sitting there about to tuck in. When I saw you ... another flood freak, I thought."
I looked down at the writhing bulk churning beneath us. "It is amazing."
"And to think some people come to see the barrier not the river. It's like going to the zoo to see the bars instead of the animals."
"Yes." I pictured John asleep in our warm bed and shivered. Tony put out a hand and withdrew it as I leaned away from him.
"She's out on this damp morning to see the river like this ... swollen, breaking out ... powerful. It's something we have in common, I thought. We're soul mates. The least I can do is share my breakfast."
I held up the cup. "And very appreciated it is, as well."
"Anyway, Victoria ... Tix. Why are you here?" he said.
I swallowed the last salty gobbet. "I came with my boyfriend. My fiancé. We got engaged last night."
"Congratulations," he said. His voice was flat. The breeze made his eyes water.
"Doesn't look like we're soul mates after all," I said. "Or your timing would be better. It looks like you're just too late." I smiled.
He skipped only one beat. The cold made him look so serious. "Or, just in time," he said.
"I ought to be getting back," I said, turning to look at the inn. There was a figure in the doorway.
"Wait there," he said. He was already hopping back towards the flood rolling up his jeans as he ran.
"Why?" I called after him.
I caught his response over the sound of the river. "You'll see when I get back."
"You’re mad," I shouted. My words carried out over the parapet and joined the ripped-up hostages from up-river lives floating away downstream.
I wiped my mouth with the sandwich wrapping and put my gloves back on. The last dregs of coffee were cold but I welcomed the taste like an addict.
He came back carrying a book. He had the look of an eager puppy. "It’s just … I've nobody else to give this to. I'd like you to have it." He thrust the book towards me.
I read its title, Memoirs of a Shido-Joshu. The sub-title was, An English Teacher in Japan. The author’s name was Tony Robertson. I looked at the picture on the back cover. The author was standing in front of me.
"It's the first copy. I got it yesterday. It's officially published next month," he said.
"You're a writer." I said.
"Only if it sells. I'll teach again if it doesn't, here in the UK ... or maybe Europe, I don't know. I'm sort of at a cross-road. I'll let the fates decide."
"I can't take this," I said. "Not if it's your only copy."
"Seriously, you can. You must. Like I said, it's fate. Don't you think things are pre-determined? When a raindrop falls in the river in Shrewsbury it doesn't have any choice but to go with the flow and be spat out into the sea at Bristol. I thought it may have been like that ... when I saw you on the bridge. That's why I was so affected."
He shrugged, showing his open palms. "OK. It looks like I was wrong ... but there has to be some element of fate in our meeting. When a river floods, it leaves its course but only fleetingly - it always has to go back."
I laughed. "You sound like you picked up some Japanese philosophy while you were there." My hands trembled as I held the book. "OK, I'll take it. But only if you think of something appropriate to write in it for me - a Japanese proverb perhaps. A dedication. Is it a deal?"
He thought for a second. There was twinkle in his eye. He smiled and the way he looked made me think I had better head back to the inn. "Deal," he said. "But you must promise not to look until you’re back where you're staying." He took out a pen and as he wrote, his face creased with concentration. "I was thinking on my way back to the car ... what I said about going to the zoo and seeing the bars. I don't want you to think I go to zoos. I think they're cruel."
"So do I," I said.
"But I did work in the Safari Park once ... the one down the road. It was my summer job when I was at college. I was on the gates to the monkey enclosure. I should have said that coming here to see this ...” He waved the pen in the direction of the river. "Seeing this and just marvelling at the barrier, well … it's like being more interested in the gates than the animals. Maybe that analogy works better."
"You needn't have worried,” I said. "I didn't think you were a zoo freak anyway."
Tony took my gloved hand. His fingers were long like a musician's. "Well, Tix, au revoir." He handed me the book. "Remember, you're not to open it until you get back to your hotel. Promise?"
"Promise."
John was still in bed. I slipped the book into my bag and woke him.
"Where have you been?" he asked as he touched my cheek.
"For a walk," I said. "I stood on the bridge to watch the river. It's higher than yesterday."
"Don't worry, Pumpkin," he said, stroking my face with the back of his hand. "That barrier can take it."
We ate breakfast at the same table where John proposed. He called it our table. "We'll come back here for all our anniversaries and always sit at this table," he said.
"What about today?" I said. "What shall we do today?"
"What do you want to do?" he said.
"Did you know there's a Safari Park near here? We could see the animals."
"If you like," he said. "But I think you'll find it's closed for the winter. There's the steam railway. Would you like to go on a train?"
I ignored the train suggestion. "John," I said. I didn’t think I would have the opportunity so soon. I had to work to keep my voice even. "That Safari Park? How do they keep the animals in the enclosures when all the cars keep moving through? I mean, some of those animals are dangerous. What if they escape?"
"You are a silly goose," he said. He smiled. He reached across and put his hand on top of mine. "You worry about the strangest things. They have double-gate system. The gates work in sync so the enclosure is always secure. It's perfectly safe. Look, I'll show you ..."
He moved cutlery round the table top. My mind turned back to the opposite bank, where the river had broken free. It was stretching its wintry toes - blue with cold and surprisingly lacking in ugly sprouts of dark hair - into places it had never been before. What was it Tony said? When a river floods, it leaves its course but only fleetingly – it always has to go back. What did it mean for me?
I went up to pack, leaving John in the lounge catching up with the football reports in the Sunday paper. I felt in the bag for the book. I ran my palm across the front cover, turned it over and did the same to the picture on the back. Such a nice smile, I thought. I opened the book to the title page. There was no Japanese proverb. Tony's dedication was a mere two lines. It said: If I'm just in time rather than just too late, you'll need this. Underneath he had written a telephone number.

--The End—

Deborah's Visions

2006-11-20T20:21:00.000-01:00

As a result of much positive feedback from last month’s newsletter about her dream, Deborah Clarke author of ‘Songs From The Secret Place – The Meeting of the Spirits’ has agreed to give us more of her own personal recollections.
One of the comments we had came from Jayne Hall, the winner of our latest short story competiton ‘Human Nature Versus The Spirit Guide’. Jayne whose story is posted on our web-site www.buttonbridgebooks.co.uk was recently featured in the ‘Shuttle & Times’ and had this to say about Deborah’s Dream:

‘I found Deborah’s dream and story very moving and inspirational. We all appear to have our time in the wilderness (even if it sometimes lasts longer than 40 days and 40 nights!) but hopefully find different keys to help us to emerge into the light and are left stronger for having had the experience. Whilst we are in these phases we are disconnected from others, ourselves and our purpose. Deborah’s Dream appears to me a very powerful metaphor for reconnecting to source and remembering that we are all one, all doing our best in the circumstances and situations we find ourselves in, all a glorious mixture of past life, genetic and environmental factors. In her book “Songs From The Secret Place, Deborah begins to explain this process – personally I can’t wait for Book 2 when I hope she goes further. We cannot underestimate the effect we have on other people through our words, actions and life story. ‘

If you missed ‘The Dream’, it can be found at www.buttonbridgebooks.co.uk, or on this blog

VISIONS

As a result of feedback she has had from the dream, Anne has asked me to write about what happened next. Before I start I want to make it clear that this is purely an account of what I experienced, as I experienced it. I offer no interpretation or analysis because where I am now I know that what you, the reader, make of these events, will depend entirely upon your own belief system, your own internal map of ‘reality’. However what I will say is this: it has taken me the twenty years since these events occurred to fully integrate what happened. Only now, as I approach my fiftieth birthday, am I at last completely unconcerned about anyone else’s interpretation. I offer this purely in the hope that by sharing it I may inspire others like me to come out and speak what they know.
In late September 1984 I moved to the little market town of Tenbury Wells to take up a job working in an old style institution run by what was then called The Spastics Society (now known as SCOPE). I was employed to do arts based activities with people who had multiple disabilities, most of whom were wheelchair bound and also had various degrees of learning difficulties and behavioural problems ranging from mild to as bad as it gets. The institution itself was a grand old mansion called Kyre Park, set in gardens landscaped by Capability Brown. It was located in the countryside, six miles from my flat in the town and I used to cycle to and from work everyday. However, having come from living in a city, I was unaccustomed to how dark the nights were in the countryside, there was no street lighting at all on the little country roads and out there, all alone on my bicycle, it was actually quite scary. Several times I ended up in the ditch because the feeble lights on my bike simply weren’t up to the task! However one such night, when I was cursing and wrestling my bike back onto the road, I suddenly became aware of the heavens above me. It was a pitch black, crystal clear, moonless night and the glorious panorama of the star filled sky suddenly grabbed my attention. As I stood there, gazing up in awe, every fibre of my being started to vibrate like a tuning fork. I got goose bumps all over, my hair stood on end, my heart started pounding and, as I stood there utterly transfixed, I knew with absolute certainty that the sky was trying to tell me something. It was the most extraordinary experience but it was not the first time it had happened. As a child I’d had the same experience but, because this and many other out of the ordinary experiences had been dismissed as ‘imagination’, ‘making up stories’ and even ‘telling lies’, I had grown up to dismiss them myself. There was no dismissing this though and, when it happened several more times over those next two months, the only question I had was ‘Why? Why is this happening again?’ Then on New Year’s Eve 84/85, something even more intriguing happened. I was out with my new friend who, to protect his privacy, I will call Steve, though ‘new’ is a purely relative term, he was one of those people who you just know you’ve known for lifetimes and you’re simply picking up where you left off. Anyway, it was another of those amazing crystal clear, moonless nights so we decided to drive up to the highest point in the area, Clee Hill, so we could gaze at the stars as the New Year rolled in. At this point I should mention that Steve had had a new car battery installed that very morning so as we sat there, looking at the heavens, the last thing we were worried about was whether the car would start again. We sat there in silence, taking it all in, and once again I began to get this overwhelming feeling that the sky was trying to tell me something. I bought every ounce of my attention to bear, desperately trying to grasp the tantalising echoes and whisperings . . . but then something else started to happen. As I gazed at the stars a sphere of blue and white light appeared, sparkling with scintillating geometric patterns. At first I felt myself pulled by it, as if my whole being was rushing towards it, then suddenly my perception flipped inside out and I thought. “Bloody hell! I’m not rushing towards it, it’s heading straight for me!” And even if I’d wanted to get out of the way I could not have moved fast enough for, even as I realised what was happening, it hit me right between the eyes and passed straight through me as if I was completely transparent! What happened next is a bit vague and fuzzy. I recall being consumed with a strange outpouring of grief and joy in the midst of which I became aware that Steve was experiencing exactly the same thing. When we finally recovered we sat there in silence for quite some time, neither of us knowing what to say, but finally Steve said, “What the hell was that?”
I said, “I’ve got no idea.”
We sat there in stunned silence for a bit longer then Steve turned the ignition with every intention of driving us home but, yes you’ve guessed it, the car wouldn’t start! Brand new battery – dead as a dodo! Again we sat there in silence, not knowing what on earth to think, but eventually we got ourselves together and, with the help of a bunch of very worse for wear New Year revellers giving us a push back onto the road, we freewheeled down the hill and got the car going again. We hoped that was that, the car was going, the battery would recharge, end of story. Next morning however, the car was still dead as a dodo. Now highly perplexed, Steve took the battery back to the garage where they too were totally baffled. It simply would not recharge. They made several attempts throughout the day but all to no avail until, determined to figure it out, they took it to bits and discovered that all the metal components were completely buckled and distorted, rendering it quite useless. We wondered about it for a couple of days then decided to just put it down to experience, but things did not go back to normal for long. A few weeks later, shortly before my twenty-eighth birthday, I was listening to some music one night when something phenomenal started to happen. Now as I’ve already said, I’d had a certain level of psychic experience all my life but I had never experienced anything like this! It felt as if the top had been lifted right off my head and I had been plugged into the very heart of the universe. I cannot describe the intensity of the light or even begin to convey the sheer power of the pure, unbounded love that started pouring through me. It was ecstasy! It rendered me helpless with bliss. It bought me to my knees! And with it streams of information downloaded into me, the very workings of the universe revealed before my very eyes, images and concepts coming so fast that I simply couldn’t keep up. Had it only happened this once I might have been tempted to dismiss it but, over the next two years, it happened again and again and I found myself reading voraciously to try and find a language with which to capture these concepts, I sucked up quantum physics, eastern philosophy, the western mystical tradition, Jungian psychology and more. However, as much as I felt I had been waiting my whole life for this to happen, I was also in total conflict with it, for what this experience revealed to me about myself was radical, it challenged everything I had ever been led to believe about myself and for that reason I was quite convinced that I simply could not be getting the messages right. As a result, I quite frequently found myself jumping up and down in the middle of the room shouting, “No, no, no! This cannot be right! I am Deborah Clarke! I am nobody! This cannot be right!” – or words to that effect. In the end the conflict reached stalemate and I realised that whether I liked it or not, I was going to have to get help, not least because it was starting to make me physically ill. So, to cut a long story short, one day I found myself talking to one of the founders of the College of Healing at Runnings Park in Malvern. In fairness I have to point out that I was always very, very, guarded about what I said at that time, indeed it is only now that I feel comfortable about disclosing the whole truth to anybody. However, I said enough for her to come to the conclusion that I was clearly very psychic but needed to get it under control. This seemed like a reasonable analysis to me, so when she suggested that I consider doing the College of Healing training to learn how to do that very thing, it seemed like a good idea. Needless to say, nothing could have prepared me for what happened during that first week of training. It was on the final night of my stay there that it happened, although things had gradually been building towards it throughout the whole week. I’d had a lot of healing by then but far from closing me down it was opening me up even more. I did not sleep for the entire week so great was the energy shift that was building. But I was still fighting, still refusing to give in and then, on that final night, a very lovely man who I will call Benedict offered to give me a massage. I thought, ‘What the hell. I need something’ and so I agreed. All went well for about half an hour, it was exquisite, such utter and blessed relief, but Benedict became very perplexed by the amount of tension in my lumbar/sacral area. Apparently my buttocks were like rock and he began uttering more and more earnest injunctions to ‘let go’ until in the end I thought ‘Ah, what the hell, I surrender’. With that I let go and the most extraordinary thing began to happen. Phenomenal heat exploded in my coccyx and started rising up my spine. I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, this is kundalini, I’ve read about this!’ And, set in motion, there was no stopping it, not that I had any desire whatsoever to stop it. I tell you sisters; it rocked! Talk about orgasm! Imagine the most gut busting orgasm you’ve ever had and multiply it by infinity! But it’s not exploding outwards, it’s exploding up, up through your entire being, blasting every bit of resistance right out of the way and blowing your head right off! And that’s just for starters! Now I had no head there were no limits and I was flying, flying out of the room, soaring way above Malvern, winging my may through the stratosphere, and as I went I grew and grew and grew, now I was the whole world and every person that had ever lived, a million, billion lives rolling all the way back to the beginnings of civilization, then further back I was every plant species and animal there had ever been, then further back and I was the very mineral formations of this world, then the swirling gasses and the stuff of stars, the energetic matrices of galaxies, the blueprint of the very universe itself, until finally, all forms disappeared and there was nothing, nothing but pure, undifferentiated awareness, pure Presence, a velvet black, glittering Vast in which all of creation rose and fell, everything and nothing all at once.
(And people wonder why Brad Pitt leaves me cold!)
However, how I experienced this is one thing, how those around me perceived it is quite another. They were extremely concerned, they hadn’t got a clue what had happened and I was giving them no response whatsoever, principally because, at that point, there simply was no sense of ‘I’ to bring to the party. All of the hushed whisperings, the mad dashing about and the increasingly urgent calls of ‘Deborah! Deborah say something!” were of no concern, simply forms rising and falling on the face of the Deep. Then there was the awareness of being bodily manhandled and carried to the private house of one of the College tutors where another voice began demanding, ‘Who are you?’ At this point a sense of ‘I’ began to reassert itself though only in as far as to register that the question itself was completely absurd. Nevertheless, I was also becoming aware that if I did not come up with some kind of response I could be in trouble. They were scared, they clearly had no idea what had happened otherwise they would have just let me be. There was nothing wrong, absolutely nothing at all, but that was not how they were seeing it, their minds were creating quite a different story and I realised that my safety depended on finding some way to interface with their script. So with this aim in mind I plucked some words out of the sea of possibilities that I hoped might do the trick. “I am the guardian of the light,” I said, “I am the keeper of the secret knowledge.”
There was a weighty silence then the voice demanded. “Where do you come from?”
Again, this struck me as a totally absurd question but in an effort to oblige I plucked another response out of the ether and said, “Atlantis.”
There followed much earnest whispering and then the voice demanded, “Who are you now?”
Well now I was really starting to get a headache. I felt like a genie being forced back into a tiny little bottle. There was obviously a right answer to this question but I had no idea what it was and the effort of trying to figure it out was extremely painful.
Finally the voice said, “Who are you now, Deborah?”
‘O.K.,’ I thought, ‘so now I know the answer they’re looking for, but who is this Deborah?’ At that point I honestly did not know. However, the interrogation continued, I opened my eyes as requested and finally, with a supreme effort of will, I managed to locate this ‘Deborah’. They were happy then, for now I was giving them the answers they wanted to hear, but even as I delivered those answers I knew that ‘Deborah’ was nothing but a façade, an act, a part that I had been given to play, a role I inhabited in order to conform with how everyone else thought things should be. Now I had always had a sense that this was so but had assumed this to mean that there was something ‘wrong’ with me. Now I knew that there was nothing ‘wrong’ about it at all. It was right. Yes, my feeling had been right all along . . .
The full implications of this understanding did not dawn right then. Not until I went back to work the very next day did it finally hit me. To say it was weird going back to work after what I had been through is an understatement but let’s leave it at that because it’s not the important thing. The important thing is this: I walked back into Kyre Park a fundamentally changed person, my whole perception of myself had been turned inside out and I’ll admit it, I was nervous. What would they make of this new me, how would they react, how would they respond? I’ll tell you. They did not notice a blind, sodding bit of difference! My initial conversations went something like this.
“Hello Deb. Have a nice week off?”
“Amazing! Mind blowing! Absolutely the most . . . .”
“Oh that’s nice. Could you take Alan to the toilet for me?”
“???????????????????????????”
“Hello Deb. Have a good week?”
“It was the most amazing experience of my entire life!”
“Oh lovely, Jean’s waiting for you in the activities centre.”
“????????????????????????????”
You get the general idea. Not a glimmer, not a spark, not even a dim glow on the horizon . . . not, that is, until a little chap called Chris Belsten came wheeling himself down the corridor. Now, of all the residents of Kyre Park at that time, Chris was my number one fan, he adored me, he followed me everywhere, declared undying love every day and frequently proposed marriage. If anyone was going to be thrilled to see me it was Chris, however on that day he took one look at me, turned tail and bolted, just as fast as his wheelchair would carry him. Something about me had obviously frightened him to death. Everyone simply wrote it off as one of his funny turns but I was concerned. I went and found him and once again he tried to run away. He was so scared he couldn’t even look at me. It took me most of the afternoon to gradually win him back, but finally I got through to him and we had a little chat. I waited until I was able to establish eye contact and then I said, “Chris, what’s the problem? Why are you so scared?”
And he said, “It’s your eyes Debs, there’s too much light coming out of them.”
Now that’s when it hit me!
Here was this profoundly disabled man, physical impairment, learning difficulties, behavioural problems, the full works, a man whose opinions about anything were at best received with kind indulgence by the ‘able’ world, and he was the only person who could see that something had changed. He was the only one who noticed.
It was a shock, but my journey into the labyrinth was only just beginning. Over the next weeks and months I discovered that there was no way I could talk about what I had experienced without sounding like a raving lunatic. No words I used were adequate and the more I tried, the barmier it all sounded. In the end the Deborah character’s doubts, fears, conflicts and neuroses started to run the show again but what she didn’t know was that she was fighting a losing battle. Try as she might to fit everything back into nice neat boxes it was never going to happen. I smile now at some of the truly desperate measures I resorted to but once the knowing was there, there was no going back. Slowly but surely it began to work it’s magic, unravelling the web of illusion strand by strand, subversively dismantling every structure I had ever erected from this secret place within, unconscious patterns, ancestral patterns, collective patterns, archetypal patterns – a twenty year journey right into the heart of darkness . . . but that’s another story.

© Deborah Clarke

Deborah's Dream

2006-11-20T20:15:00.000-01:00

Deborah Clarke author of 'Songs From The Secret Place - The Meeting of the Spirits' very kindly gave us the details of a dream she had which began the whole process of getting her debut novel written; which we are very proud to have published. Her dream is fascinating reading:

DREAM

When I was twenty-six I had a dream. It came at what was undoubtedly the darkest time of my life. In the previous months I had taken two drug overdoses in an attempt to end a life that I experienced as utterly unbearable. In fact it is only now, twenty-four years later, that I can fully appreciate just what kind of hell I was living in then. I didn’t realise it at the time but I was trying to live a life in complete denial of who I really am. So successfully had I been brainwashed and terrorised into submission by parents, teachers, doctors, preachers and every other servant of the machine, that I had absolutely no idea what else to do but withdraw from the world completely, disappear into a secret place where none of them could find me and pray that someone or something would come to show me the way out of my misery. Perhaps the most terrifying part of it all was knowing that no one had done this to me deliberately, none of the people who had caused me to retreat from the world had consciously and with malice of forethought, set out to make my life hell. In fact they were more frightened of the state I was in than I was and that’s why I knew it was utterly pointless to keep expecting them to know how to help me. My psychiatrist said, and I quote, “You are a classic Marilyn Monroe personality and you will always need a bottle of pills close by you.” This was the best they could offer me, these ‘experts’ these people who ‘knew’ and I realised that if I kept on listening to them it would be the death of me.
So it was that I withdrew and, for an entire year, I barely emerged from the rented rooms I lived in. I had no job, no money, no friends and no idea what I needed, but something deep down inside told me to start paying attention to my dreams. I have always been a vivid and lucid dreamer, both sleeping and waking. I frequently got told off for ‘day dreaming’ at school and so I trained myself to enter my inner world whilst giving all the outward impression of being completely present and attentive. Even so this was a hollow victory, all it did was prove what I already suspected, that no one could see me, no one at all. So long as I provided an acceptable façade that was all that mattered, this other me, this other world that I experienced communion with and the ‘me’ who lived there, all of this was completely invisible to them. This I knew by the age of seven, no wonder then that grew into a deeply troubled adult. Now I know that many of you reading this will be saying, ‘Yes, yes! That’s me, that’s how I felt too!’ But back then I didn’t know there were many others like me, back then I thought I was completely on my own.
But back to the dreams, I started writing them down everyday and very soon it was taking up most of my time. It seemed that now I was really paying attention there was this great sense of urgency, something desperately trying to get through. I became very excited by what I was doing but also scared, for there was this sense of pressure and limited time, this voice inside me saying, ‘You know you can’t sit on your backside doing this for ever, my girl. Sooner or later you’re going to have to go back out there and get a job.’ I didn’t realise it then but that was the voice of my grandmother, one of the many interfering ancestors I have subsequently had to kick into touch and put straight about a few things. They all sat there like a big black cloud over my head, telling me I was just plain idle, that I didn’t know I’d been born, that what I needed was something to really worry about but, while they did their best to try to guilt and shame me back into submission, I held my ground, I had given myself a year and so the race was on. Would I find what I was looking for or would time run out before I got there?
About six months in, the breakthrough happened. I knew it even as I was dreaming it. Even as I write these words I can still feel the power of it, the overwhelming relief and gratitude for the salvation that had finally come. So here it is, this is the dream that changed everything . . .
I was way, way up high, so high up I was above the clouds, clear blue sky above me, sea of clouds rolling away to the horizon below me and a long way off in the distance, rising out of the clouds, a tall golden spire. This spire was my destination, I didn’t know why, I just knew it was where I was going, and as my eyes rested upon it I gently swayed from side to side, rocked by the motion of all those beneath me, for I was right at the top of this pillar of people, each person sitting upon the other’s shoulders as we progressed, with painstaking slowness, towards this distant spire. As I sat there, I knew that this journey had been going on for a long, long, time, so long that I had no memory of anything else, but I was happy, I was serene. Up there, right at the top, I was in my element, nothing to disturb me, nothing to distract me from doing what I did best, my eyes fixed firmly on this vision that only I could see, so that I could relay directions down through the others to the world below.
And then one day the order of things changed. One day a message came up from below, passed up through this long, long chain of people, and in my mind a voice said, “The Walker wishes to meet you.”
I was surprised. Nothing like this had ever happened before. I thought about it for a moment then sent a message back. “What is this? I am the Dreamer. Tell the Walker I cannot go down there.”
For a while everything continued as it always had, desperately slowly, but one step at a time none the less. The vision was in sight, the day would come and that was all that concerned me.
But then it happened again; another message came up from below, the same as before. “The Walker wishes to meet you.”
Now I was disconcerted. Why was this happening again? I sent another message back. “Why this again? I am the Dreamer. I cannot be distracted from the vision. My role is here. This is where I must stay. Tell the Walker I cannot go down there.”
Again everything continued as it always had, but then, yet again, this same message came up from below, “The Walker wishes to meet you.”
Well now I was angry and upset, my equilibrium disturbed. Why was the Walker persisting with this? Why was he doing this to me? I had given him my answer. Why did he refuse to accept it? So I said, “Does the Walker not know who I am? I am the Dreamer and he can’t go anywhere without me. Tell him to stop this, I must not be disturbed.”
The message went down but very quickly the reply came back. “The Walker says he knows who you are and he knows that he can’t go anywhere without you, but he also points out, with the greatest respect, that you can go nowhere without him. He asks you think about this for he will not take one more step until he meets you.”
With that, the whole pillar of people stopped moving and I sat there, overwhelmed with despair. What the Walker said was right, I knew it, but why would he hold me to ransom like this? He knew who I was. He knew that I could not live in the world down below so why did he want to force me to go there? Why did he want to put me through this? I didn’t know, but I did know that it wasn’t just me I had to think about, there were all these others with me and I had to think of them too. If I did not find some way to get us moving again we would never get to our destination and that was unthinkable. They were depending on me and I could not let them down. So it was that with great reluctance I made my decision. “Tell the Walker I am coming to meet him,” I said, and with that, I began my descent. Curling over into a foetal position I handed myself into the arms of the person beneath me and very gently, one by one they began passing me down the column towards the world below. But even before I reached the clouds I was hurting, my body crying out against the increasing dissonance and disturbance growing all around me with each pair of hands I passed through. By the time I’d passed through the clouds I was in terrible pain, the vibration generated by the world below drilling into my very bones, but now I could see a great jungle below me, hot, steaming, seething with riotous colours and sounds, a primordial chaos of jarring discords and screaming feedback. I was in agony and I hadn’t even reached the ground yet, but as I passed through the canopy and got my first glimpse of the jungle floor I could see all these wild, tribal people dancing about the bottom of the column, shrieking and whooping, drums pounding, horns blaring, pipes wailing, so nerve shatteringly loud it made my teeth ache. And then there was the sickening stench, an atmosphere so dense and thick I felt like I was drowning. As I cried out with the pain and gasped for breath my vision was now only a distant dream, all of my resources refocused into fight to breathe, every ounce of my strength redirected into the sheer battle for survival.
At last I was passed onto the jungle floor and as I lay there, utterly helpless, the great column of people came down off each other’s shoulders to join me, focusing their minds to create an aura of calm about me to afford me as much protection from the chaos as they could. I was still in pain, but now I could stand up and look around and I thought, ‘Right, I am here. Where is he?’
In response to my thought, the heaving mass of humanity parted and a great big man emerged, big boned, heavily muscled, head and shoulders taller that the rest of us, guided into the clearing by two tribal people. Well I knew he was the Walker but I was horrified. He was ragged, filthy; his hair matted and caked with mud, his body and face covered in old scars and fresh, bleeding wounds. I could barely make out his features for the filth. He looked more like some abused animal than a man . . . and then he opened his eyes.
To say that I was surprised would be an understatement. I was blown away; completely disarmed. His eyes were blue, sky blue; the exact same colour of the sky that I lived in above the clouds. And they were filled with light, clear, boundless, pristine light . . . I stepped towards him and said, “I am the Dreamer. I am here.”
He reached out towards the sound of my voice, eyes vacantly searching . . . and that’s when I realised he was blind.
The revelation tore at my heart. He was blind . . .!
I collapsed to my knees in tears, overwhelmed with emotion. Now I knew, now I understood why he wanted to meet me. I was his eyes! What I could see clearly he had to take purely on faith and trust yet still, day after day he laboured to carry us, this great big man, right at the bottom of the pillar, the whole burden resting upon his shoulders as he fought his way, step by step, through this brutal, unrelenting chaos. I was shattered, shattered, my whole universe turned inside out. Only now did I realise just how much he loved me. Yes, he loved me! And he wanted to touch me. He could never see what I could see but he wanted to touch my living presence, to know that I was real, to know that the battle he fought every day was not in vain and that I was there for him the same way that he was there for me. How could I have even thought of refusing him this, how could I?
When I looked up again he was gone, but now the others were erecting a beautiful tent all around me, a private, sacred space to make my visit here more bearable. I was deeply touched. I knew they were creating something for me that they had never had themselves. It was cool and fragrant in there and insulated from the noise outside. I waited, knowing now what would happen. Come nightfall they would bring the Walker back to me and we would make love, this was what he wanted, this was what had to happen.
Sure enough, as the moon replaced the sun, the entrance to my tent parted and he stepped inside, but now he had been bathed and massaged with healing oils, the rags and filth were gone and he wore a simple white kilt. His battle scarred skin shone like gold over muscles and sinews honed by the relentless ordeal of carrying us all upon his great, broad shoulders, his long blond hair hung in a braid down his back and, as his light filled, sky blue eyes gazed upon me I knew that he could see me now, but only my outward appearance. He still could not see what I could see and nor would he ever be able to, but that didn’t matter. He knew who I was, I was the Dreamer and he had absolute faith and trust in me and because of that I loved him; I loved him with all my heart and soul.
I smiled and beckoned him to me. He came and lay down beside me and we made love, but there was no lust, no passion, no earth shaking orgasms; just a quiet, gentle merging together into complete and utter bliss. One body, one heart, one mind, one soul – total union.
We stayed like this all night then when the morning came we separated out again but now everything was different. Now there was a new energy, a new life, a renewed sense of purpose and every one was excited to get on with the journey. So it was that the great column reassembled, the Walker with his feet planted firmly on the ground and, one by one, the members of our company climbing back up on his shoulders, each taking their position in the column until, finally, it was my turn and they passed me all they way back up to the top to my place above the clouds. We started to move again, but now we could go so much faster than before, now I had a telepathic rapport with the Walker below and my directions passed to him in an instant, rather than laboriously going through everyone in between. The golden spire still gleamed in the distance but now it was getting closer and closer and, as we stormed along, we began to sing a happy triumphant song. “We’re going home, we’re going home! Yes, yes, yes, we’re going home!” And now I could see that the spire sat atop a great golden dome and, as we got closer still, we broke through the cloud to see a massive pyramid, as tall as a mountain, rising up from the jungle floor, a single, straight stairway sweeping right from its base, all the way up to the dizzying heights of the dome at its apex. A roar of triumphant cheering came up from below. We were nearly there, nearly there! And now we seemed to be flying, speeding effortlessly towards our goal and as we arrived we all tumbled down to ground level again and began racing up the steps to the dome. No matter that the stairway was a mile high; that was nothing to us after the eternity it had taken us to get there. We were up that pyramid in no time at all, streaming through the entrance of the dome and racing out across the floor, the roof of the dome above us, polished black stone beneath our feet, its surface inlaid with a silver circle, and within that circle, a jewelled map of the stars. We all knew our positions, where we should be in this scheme of things, and we arranged ourselves accordingly around the whole circumference of the circle. Finally everyone was ready and now an expectant hush descended, I looked across to the Walker who sat directly opposite me on the other side, all light filled, shining and golden. His scars were gone and he was smiling and as our eyes locked, something started to happen. Energy started to pulse around the circle, a perfectly synchronised clockwise and counter clockwise motion, slowly and gently at first, then gathering in speed and power until it became a persistent pounding throb. The floor of the chamber began to quake and now I realised that this vast building was a vessel, a ship, and the tremors we could feel were it’s moorings unlocking in the earth below . . . and now the pounding, throbbing energy was driving us up, lifting the whole edifice up off the ground below, speed gathering, momentum building, the mounting force driving through us, singing now, the rhythmic pulsing fused into single sound, the sound thrusting us heavenwards, lifting us up, singing us high until, suddenly, we exploded away from the atmosphere and out into the stars beyond. And now the whole edifice fell away, the pyramid, the dome, the circular floor all disappearing into the firmament to leave us hanging there, free, pure beings of light. But we were not alone, oh no, the firmament was buzzing with similar beings all whizzing here and there in dinky little vehicles, brightly coloured little cars and motorbikes with smiley faces, just like children’s toys. I laughed and laughed, I couldn’t believe it. They were travelling so lightly, having so much fun! No wrathful, judgemental, terrorist of a God lived out here. And without exception they were all thrilled to see us there. They didn’t care where we’d come from they were just really glad we’d finally made it. “Welcome to the Universe!” they cried, as they speeded by. “Come on in! Welcome home!”

I woke from this dream in tears, tears of joy at what I had touched, and tears of sadness that I couldn’t stay there. When I wrote it down I was all over the place, I didn’t know what the hell had hit me, but I knew it was what I’d been waiting for. Of course those of you who have read ‘Songs from the Secret Place – Book One’ will recognise some threads of that story here, but at that time I could never have imagined that one day I would write a book. By the age of seven I had experienced enough crushing disapproval, humiliation and, on occasion, severe punishment for ‘telling lies’ and ‘making up stories’ to convince me that I must never, ever voice what I knew to the outside world, and though I wrote that dream down, not long after I destroyed the papers for fear that someone else might read it. However the memory stayed with me and even though I didn’t understand it in any rational way, I knew it was a call for things to change and that if I was ever going to figure out what was ‘wrong’ with me than I had to start going about things in a completely different way. Two years later I had gone a long way towards turning things around, I’d ditched the psychiatrist and his pills, got a new job in a new town, made new friends and got my own flat. I was settled in, sorted and thinking, “Right, what happens now?” That’s when the visions started, but that’s another story . . .

Deborah Clarke – September 2006

Winner of our Short Story Competition

2006-10-02T13:57:00.000-01:00

The winner of our summer short story competition is Jayne Hall who lives in Bewdley, Worcestershire, UK. This is her contribution, enjoy!

Human Nature Versus The Spirit Guide

“No, no, no, don’t. Don’t meet him. He’s a terrible flirt and a womaniser. He’ll only be true to you till he gets you into bed and then you’ll just become another notch on his bed post like all the others”.

Asandra noticed that Molly was putting on her best underwear, a skimpy top and swirly skirt. Her make up was applied like a model’s, her hair groomed to perfection and she smelt divine.

“This is dangerous! She’s not listening. How do I get through?” Asandra could tell that planting that nagging doubt in Molly’s head wasn’t working. It was so frustrating at times not being able to communicate in a human conventional way. And of course it was a human’s nature not to pay attention to things they didn’t want to hear. What else could she do? Action was really limited when you didn’t have a physical body or a “speaking out” voice.

Asandra had been assigned to Molly at the moment she was conceived. Her duties to begin with had been to familiarise herself with the family and when the moment came for Molly to emerge into the world, to encourage and help to spiritually push her out into the world.

All of the time Molly was growing up, Asandra had been able to provide little nudges in beneficial directions through the little voice in Molly’s head. Several times it had been necessary to “save” her from danger. Helping cars to “breathe in” to get through gaps, distracting would be assailants with a powerful psychic scream, hiding the tickets or car keys when she was heading into danger.

Mmmm….. hide the car keys. She couldn’t physically do it of course, but for a short while she could “stand in front” of them so that they were invisible to the searcher but were then eventually found exactly where they had originally been left.

There were rules associated with being a spirit guide and Asandra felt the role was actually more difficult and frustrating than being in a physical body. Yes, she’d had lifetimes in that role too and at least as a guide you retained knowledge of these to help you manage your charge.
You had to learn subtlety as a guide, subtlety and suggestion. “Concentrate Asandra, you nearly missed your chance,” she berated herself.

Molly was emerging from her bedroom and Asandra had to scoot (well sort of float actually) down to the kitchen to “sit on” the car keys.

A frustrating 20 minutes later, having made an exhaustive search of the house, Molly found her keys on the kitchen bench just where she thought she had left them. “I swear someone moved them and then put them back,” muttered Molly.

Asandra whispered furiously “Don’t meet him, don’t meet him, don’t go.” She had the satisfaction of Molly saying, “I wonder if not being able to find my keys is a sign.” “Yes, yes,” murmured Asandra gleefully. But her joy was short lived as Molly dismissed her thought and headed out of the door, a little hot as she was now late.

Asandra attached herself to Molly’s right shoulder. She saw Molly move her hand up as if to brush cobwebs off her shoulder. This movement was another source of frustration for Asandra. Molly was obviously aware of her presence but as she didn’t believe in “unseen things” of course she thought there must be some physical reason for the sensation on her shoulder.

They arrived at the wine bar on the High Street, a mere 10 minutes past the time Molly had arranged to meet Christian. This of course involved driving at break neck speed and parking in an illegal parking space. Asandra offered up a silent prayer for the deliverance of her charge and was pleasantly surprised when their first view of Christian was wrapped around a busty blonde woman.

He’d arrived 20 minutes early for the rendezvous and of course, given half an hour, he’d virtually got the blonde’s undying love and more importantly was close to access to her bedroom.

Molly stopped dead and surveyed the scene, clearly not impressed. She hadn’t had a date in months and had really thought Christian seemed promising. It looked as if other people thought the same! Molly made an instant decision (much to Asandra’s relief) and turned on her heel and left.
Asandra got ready for the recriminations and of course they came. Molly began berating herself as soon as she got into the car (which by some miracle had escaped a parking ticket). Part of her was of course angry with Christian, but the other half began a woeful tirade. “I’m not good enough”, “I’ll never find a man”, No-one will want me.” Why do humans do this reflected Asandra, someone else acted badly and they assumed it was all their fault.

Molly drove straight to her friend Maria’s house and, snivelling over a coffee, dished the dirt on Christian and held a post mortem on all her previous relationships. When sanity began to return Molly said to Maria “You know I’ve had a little voice in my head all day telling me not to meet Christian because he was a loser. I just didn’t want to listen”. Asandra thought that if she had eyebrows they would most definitely be raised at this point.

When the subject of Molly’s love life was eventually exhausted and two cups of strong coffee had been consumed, Maria changed the subject.

Molly had known Maria since they had compared the length of their gymslips at secondary school. Since then they had shared a lot of stages in their lives (and of course as is human nature the comparisons continued). They had been together through examinations, driving lessons, first boyfriends and first jobs. However, Maria had been fortunate to meet the love of her life at 24. She had married and now had a lovely lively 5 year old, who was tucked up in bed whilst this latest drama was unfolding.

She wouldn’t admit it aloud but Molly was rather jealous of Maria’s settled life. She was unaware of course that it worked both ways. Maria envied Molly’s freedom and the fact that she earned her own money and was not dependant on a man. She did intend to return to work but not until her children were less reliant on her. Yes, children not child, Maria suspected another life was at this very moment developing in her womb, although she hadn’t completely admitted it to herself let alone her husband or close friend.

Molly had been a bit concerned about her friend of late as she seemed to be, in her eyes, turning strange. Her coffee table was strewn right now with self help and positive thinking books and she was showing a great interest and trying several complementary therapies.
Maria had negotiated one night out a week with her husband and was about to embark on a new course. She chose this moment to mention it to Molly. “I’m going on a new course next week”. “Oh yes,” said Molly suspiciously. Maria took a deep breath, “Meditation and Spirituality. It sounds very interesting. Why don’t you come too?” “Hurray!” thought Asandra and immediately began drizzling subtle suggestions into Molly’s mind, “It would be good. It sounds very interesting. Go for it. Go for it.” But of course, Molly being Molly, she said, “No thank you.” Asandra was crestfallen, but then she was used to that.

Molly returned home, took off her carefully chosen, now somewhat rumpled, clothes and dived into a hot bubble bath. She lay there thinking. (It was one of the special things about being a spirit guide that you could tap into your charge’s thoughts). Molly’s went like this. “If I want the life I’ve dreamed of I need to change something, do something differently. Maybe I’m getting old and closed with my thoughts. I’m always feeling jealous of Maria’s life so she must be doing something right. Maybe I should give that course of her’s a go, after all what have I got to lose?” Molly was sure for just a split second that she could hear someone chanting “yes, yes, yes” in a jubilant voice.

A week later Molly found herself in very unfamiliar territory, she was sat on one of a collection of mismatched chairs in a room lit by candles and heady from the incense stick which was smouldering. She was aware of Maria sat next to her, but the difference was that Maria was hanging on every word the tutor uttered, whereas Molly was distracted and uncomfortable, examining the room and each of the course attendees in turn. She felt well and truly like a fish out of water, right down to what she was wearing (a grey business suit, as she’d come straight from work). Everyone else was attired in bright, ethnic style clothing with flowing skirts and baggy trousers. The majority of the participants were women, although there was a very ethnically dressed man with a balding head, who had announced in the introductions that he was a practising Pagan. Despite her initial conviction that she should be more open, Molly was feeling decidedly uncomfortable at the moment.

“Ok,” said the tutor, a mid-40s looking woman with infuriatingly long hair (Molly’s would never grow past her shoulders), “we are now going to take an inner journey to meet our spirit guides.”

“Our what?” thought Molly, but thankfully someone else in the group asked the question for her.

“Have you ever felt someone unseen was looking out for you? Providing signs and guidance, giving you an inspirational hint just when you needed it and helping you to avoid dangerous situations? Some people call this a spirit guide, some a guardian angel.”

There were various murmurings of agreement from most of the group, well actually all but Molly could think of examples of spirit guide communication or intervention. Asandra was mortified.

“Ok then,” continued the tutor, “Let’s see if we can get an insight into or even communicate with these unseen beings. If you would all like to put anything you are holding on the floor, get comfortable in your chair and close your eyes.”

“Oh well”, thought Molly, “I’ll give it a go.”

“First I would like you to check around your body for any tension, note where it is and breathe into it to release it from your muscles.” Molly found her whole body was tense - she’d hyperventilate at this rate!

“Now breathe freely and easily and concentrate all of your attention on your feet. Tense and release the muscles, now your calves…..” The relaxation continued with Molly valiantly trying to follow along with the hypnotic voice.

“I’d like you to imagine that you are walking down a staircase, a staircase with ten steps. You walk down each step on an out-breath and when you get to the bottom step you will find yourself in a favourite place of relaxation, it may be somewhere you know or somewhere you just imagine, it doesn’t really matter. Ready, 1, (pause), 2, (pause), 3, (pause), 4, (pause), 5, (pause), 6, (pause), 7, (pause), 8, (pause), 9, (pause), 10 (pause), and step off the bottom step into that place of relaxation.”

Molly was astounded to suddenly have a very clear image in her mind of the beach she used to go to as a child. There was a particular part of the beach, by a large rock, that had been her sanctuary from her parents’ disagreements and siblings' squabbles.

The tutor continued, “And now that you are in your favourite place, I would like you to invite your spirit guide or guardian angel to join you in this place. You can then ask them any questions you like, for example, about their role in your life, their opinion of your life at the moment and any guidance they may have to give you. Finally ask your guide to give you a gift which they can use as a sign to alert you to listen to their guidance.”

Maria was deep in relaxation, revelling in her favourite place of relaxation which was a cave high on a mountainside. She had purposely changed the tutor’s words for this occasion, asking if she could meet the guardian angel of her unborn child. She smiled as she met an ethereal grandmother-type lady who promised to shield her child throughout her lifetime and to make sure she was guided to golden opportunities. The gift she was given, in trust for her daughter, was a golden egg. Everything about the experience felt good, the bonus being she now knew the sex of her unborn child and her trance expression was serene.

Molly, on the other hand, having surprised herself by managing to reach her favourite place, had been almost petrified out of it by the sudden appearance of a dishevelled, curly red-headed, harassed looking woman on the beach near her rock. She had a beaming smile and advanced on Molly with her hand extended. She announced that her name was Asandra, her spirit guide and was so glad to be able to meet her at last. It all seemed very surreal, but Molly could hear the tutor reminding her of the questions to ask. She was aware vaguely of the room and Maria sat next to her, but somehow the beach and Asandra were ever more vivid and real.

“Ok,” thought Molly, “questions to ask Asandra.” “How long have you been with me as my guide? Are you with me all of the time? How do you communicate with me?” The questions seemed to endlessly flood out until Asandra finally held up her hand for Molly to stop and began to answer. “I’ve been with you since the moment you were conceived, which is when I was assigned to you. Yes, I am with you all of the time, even when you are asleep, as I am always on duty. How do I communicate with you? With great difficulty. I try and try but most of the time you ignore me. I tried to tell you not to meet Christian the other night. I told you this course would be good for you. I get very frustrated when I know I can help you but you don’t ask. That is one of the rules you see, your charge is supposed to ask for help before you can offer advice.”

“What other rules are there?” asked Molly, intrigued and amazed. Had she had a potential helper all these years and not used her?”

The voice of the tutor broke Molly’s train of thought, saying “Ok if you haven’t done so already ask your guide for a gift to be used as a sign.” Molly felt panicked, there was so much she wanted to know the answer to. “Don’t worry,” said Asandra, “We can speak later.” She pressed something into Molly’s hand. Molly looked down as the tutor began to count the group out of the trance and saw a white feather. It had of course gone when she awoke. The next moment Molly was drinking a rather weak cup of horrid coffee, aware of the other members of the group eager to share their experiences. Molly listened politely, but kept her own thoughts and experiences to herself. She was pleased that Maria had had a happy time and listened to her raptures on the way home.

Molly spent the rest of the evening distracting herself from any thoughts of the course and by the next morning it all seemed like an unreal dream. Molly went back to being Molly and made herself believe nothing had changed - unseen friends – what a load of rubbish. She made an excuse to Maria to avoid the next part of the course. Asandra was astounded and dismayed. She had thought they were making progress.

It wasn’t until Molly was out for a night with her girlfriends a few weeks later that she even thought about her strange evening. She had been flirting overtly with a guy sat at the bar when she looked down at her drink and found a small white feather floating in it. Despite the alcohol consumed and her dizzy mood something registered deep inside her. “Ok Asandra, what are you trying to tell me?” she thought. She almost fell off her chair when she was answered clearly and loudly. “He’s no good, he’s violent and a drunk, steer clear.” Molly was indignant but her mood was instantly dissolved and to break contact with the object of her flirtation she went to dance with the others. After calming down for a time she asked in her head, “Ok then, are there any nice men here?” “Of course there are.” replied Asandra.

Molly proceeded to have a fun time pointing out various men to Asandra and listening to her opinion of them. She made up her mind to just dance and talk to her girlfriends that evening, but the change had been made and Asandra was aware that from now on their dialogue would continue. At last she could do her job and help her charge towards the fulfilment of her soul purpose for this lifetime. And if Molly ignored her in future, she just needed to project a white feather into the situation and Molly would pay attention and ask questions. Hopefully!

Life Coaching using EFT

2006-09-05T13:48:00.000-01:00

I came across a guy called David Childerley yesterday who uses Emotional Freedom Technique, EFT as one tool for helping his clients in his life coaching business. EFT is used in many different ways to heal and resolve emotional and physical difficulties as well as helping to clear limiting beliefs you may have which are inhibiting your ability to get what you want in life. I will give more information in a later more comprehensive article, but you can get more details of the amazing changes and positive effects it easily achieves for people by going to http://www.emofree.com/ .David Childerley encorporates the technique into his training with a variety of companies who want help their business and their staff with development. If you want to know more, his website address is www.davidchilderley.com.
He also has a very talented wife who can naturally communicate with animals in a very special way, they tell her what is wrong and why they are suffering, so Dr Doolittle watch out!

Our essence range through star remedies

2006-09-05T13:33:00.000-01:00

If you are looking to help & attract more clients and increase your income from your existing customers, then our Abundance essence & others can help. They compliment the work you are already doing and are great to add to your healing toolkit. A risk free money back guarantee offer. For the full range go to www.star-remedies.co.uk

I am the Director of a publishing company and apart from books on healing etc.. we offer a range of healing essences, specially created by me as you we see from our web-site I am fully qualified in Vibrational Medicine and trained with Jack Temple. We have added to the essence range with our Life-Needs & Lifestyle remedies (the Abundance remedy is with these) which are brilliant for working with emotional difficulties. We also do a range that is brilliant for healing the physical body – The Body Matrix Range.

p.s. our latest Ideal Weight remedy has just this week become available.

There is no minimum order quantity with the essences, however on orders over £75 postage is free.
The essences come in grape alcohol solution in 10ml bottles, with an instruction leaflet, and start at rrp £6.97.

Wholesale is available for shops, retailers and practitioners.

We offer a risk free service, if you are not happy with the essences for any reason,return them to us after 90 days and we will refund, obviously less our postage costs. I really know they work!
We know these essences work and extremely well, we have had some brilliant testimonials already.

We produce a monthly freeE-Zine electronic newsletter sent out to our clients and subscribers, if you wish to receive a copy please leave a message on the link below.

I am a fully qualified teacher, healer and journalist and offer personal email and telephone support about the essences and their uses as part of our service.

Anne C. Mason
Director & Publisher

BA. Hons., P.G.C.E, Dip Journalism,
Dip J.T.D.A Vibrational Medicine Practitioner,
Dip M.C.O.H., EFT Practitioner, EFT Practitioner Trainer,
Emotrance Practitioner, M.A.A.M.E.T.
http://www.star-remedies.co.uk/

anne@buttonbridgebooks.co.uk
http://www.buttonbridgebooks.co.uk/

Blogs: http://www.buttonbridgebooks.blogspot.com/
http://www.batblog-the-story.blogspot.com/

World Without Aids

2006-08-29T13:18:00.000-01:00

The book 'World Without Aids' by Credence Publications is a must read for everybody. It is absolutely shocking what it reveals. It landed in my lap and I couldn't put it down, my feelings ranged from disbelief, to shock. It seems that being HIV positive has nothing whatsoever to do with AIDS and the drug companies have done a number on us all in persuading us that it is. People are dying because Doctors and health providers, good, honest caring people believe absolutely that the drugs they prescribe are helping, when in fact they are killing healthy people. You must get your hands on a copy
ISBN No: 0-9535012-5-6. More details on www.worldwithoutaids.org.

Button Bridge Books export to America

2006-08-03T08:55:00.000-01:00

Button Bridge Books have their first export order to America of their latest title 'Songs From The Secret Place - The Meeting of the Spirits' by Deborah Clarke. The order arose out of an entry on www.metaxucafe.com and things started to get moving from there.

Director of Button Bridge Books on radio

2006-07-19T11:15:00.000-01:00

Anne, Director of Button Bridge Books was on local radio yesterday Wyre FM, talking about the latest short story competition that the company is running. For further details of the competition see the web-site or blog

Songs From The Secret Place on the radio

2006-07-03T09:01:00.000-01:00

Deborah Clarke, the author of 'Songs From The Secret Place - The Meeting of the Spirits' did a radio interview about her book, which had been read by the programmes presenter Tony Fisher from BBC Radio Hereford & Worcester. He said 'fascinating read, a very spiritual story...it's a fascinating read, I really can recommend it...it's great value'.
Deborah described the book as 'in many ways it's a story, but it's also a metaphor for the human condition, for all of us, we've all found ourselves locked out from our essential self one way or another and I think a big part of the human journey is to reconnect with that, with our source and our feelings of alienation from it. So that's very much what the book is about, but in a way that I hope is very accessible to people and speaks to people's real experience...one of the really positive feedbacks that I have had from people who have read it so far is that it is so real, they find the characters completely real, completely accessible... It is very grounded in reality...'

The ISBN 0-9551788-0-0 and available from all book shops. If you have difficulty getting hold of a copy then contact Button Bridge Books by clicking on the link to our site.

Man Booker Prize Entry - Songs From The Secret Place

2006-06-29T09:06:00.000-01:00

Our latest title 'Songs From The Secret Place - The Meeting of the Spirits' by Deborah Clarke has been entered for the Man Booker Prize - www.themanbookerprize.com and we believe deserves every bit of it. There is a review on this site from a professional writer, which is worth looking at. This book is excellent and we hope the judges love it as much as we do.

Womankind

2006-06-26T12:56:00.000-01:00

I was reading today about a charity called Womankind Worldwide, which works for women in the UK but also in the developing countries. A lot of the work they do is giving support and legal advice to women who speak out against female circumcision. This is a particularly brutal form of genital mutilation and some horrendous outcomes for many of the girls concerned. Girls as young as 12 are abducted and raped and forced to marry to save the honour of their families. Many are forced to endure anal sex because they are unable to have intercourse in the normal way, because of their treatment. These women are bravely speaking out against their treatment, against accepted norms and need help and support so why not log onto their site and see if you can help them in any way - www.womankind.org.uk

Using universal energy to get published

2006-06-20T08:32:00.000-01:00

Some may or not be familiar with some of the ideas and principles of how universal energy works. For centuries people have been pointing out that we are what we think and believe, our experience is coloured by our conditioning and our conscious or unconscious patterns. My experience shows that you get what you you expect to get. If this is true, and you want to get a book published how about trying some new techniques.
If we accept the idea that we get exactly what we expect to get and that sometimes our unconscious, which has its own agenda, may not be in alignment with our conscious desires, then it makes sense to pay attention. The way we see what is happening in our unconscious is to pay close attention to what is happening in our lives, the people, events and so on and more particularly which parts of our lives are not working for us and getting us what we want.
Once we see what is being mirrored around, without judgment or blame, or feeling like we deserve this, we can then tackle bit by bit what our feelings or limiting beliefs are communicating to us, then we can start to get past our conditionings and start to get in touch with who we truly are and what we are really all about.
Then we can use techniques like EFT www.emofree.com to clear these negative feelings or beliefs. So if you want to get published and it is not happening for you, why not try reading this site, suspend disbelief and give it a go, it might suprise the hell out of you.

If you want to write

2006-06-19T09:23:00.000-01:00

Brenda Ueland writes a very good book on this topic called 'If you Want to Write - releasing your creative spirit'. However, I want to add to this. I was reading a comment this morning on www.MetaxuCafe.com . A writer was making some fair points about the way new writers are treated by some of the larger publishing houses, namely that if you don't have an agent then you won't be considered at all. A point was also made by a journalist Miller that there is an oversupply of people wanting their work published. Now, I also have an idea that belief is everything. If you believe you will succeed, if you put yourself in resonance and alignment with a thing, deal with your doubts, your negativity; an idea, a dream will manifest. So my thoughts are; if you love to write, then write for yourself, write from your heart, write from your self, to yourself. If you want it published, then keep going, put action in with that intent and never give up, don't talk yourself out of it, 'cause I bet you at the bottom of the negative belief is a fear that your work (your creative child) will not be accepted, or criticised, or putdown etc... No one ever said that publishing is ever easy either for the writer or the publisher, who after all takes the risk to put the work out there, in an already full market, at their own expense and put a lot of effort in then persuading the booksellers to take the books in the first place. Who often, will only take then on a sale or return basis. Difficult it may appear to get work published and selling, but with will, with intent, with belief, there is always a way and that way may manifest in unexpected ways...

Short Story Competition for Adults

2006-06-16T07:20:00.000-01:00

Button Bridge Books Ltd are running a summer short story competition on the theme ‘Human Nature’ for anyone aged 18 years or over. The prize is:
(1) a copy of our latest title ‘Songs From The Secret Place – The Meeting of the Spirits’ by Deborah Clarke
(2) the short story published on both our web-site and publishing blog ‘Button Bridge Books’ for three months, which is linked and syndicated to many other literary web-sites
(3) an opportunity to submit further work of book length for serious consideration for publication, either fiction or non-fiction on a spiritual/health/healing/archetypal/complementary medicine field or similar type.

The short story must be between 1500 – 3000 words in length and the closing date is the 1st September 2006. If you wish to enter please email anne@buttonbridgebooks.co.uk for an application form, which must be sent back with the story, by email attachment.

Batblog Story now on new batblog see link

2006-06-14T15:45:00.000-01:00

See Batblog for latest escapades of the Batcave

Latest Research into Emotional Freedom Technique

2006-06-14T11:23:00.000-01:00

The latest news from www.emofree.com about the benefits of EFT and the latest research:-
SUMMARY
In preliminary clinical trials involving more than 29,000 patients from 11 allied treatment centers in South America during a 14-year period, a variety of randomized, double-blind pilot studies were conducted. In one of these, approximately 5,000 patients diagnosed at intake with an anxiety disorder were randomly assigned to an experimental group (tapping) or a control group (Cognitive Behavior Therapy/medication) using standard randomization tables and, later, computerized software. Ratings were given by independent clinicians who interviewed each patient at the close of therapy, at 1 month, at 3 months, at 6 months, and at 12 months. The raters made a determination of complete remission of symptoms, partial remission of symptoms, or no clinical response. The raters did not know if the patient received CBT/medication or tapping. They knew only the initial diagnosis, the symptoms, and the severity, as judged by the intake staff. At the close of therapy:
63% of the control group were judged as having improved.
90% of the experimental group were judged as having improved.
51% of the control group were judged as being symptom free.
76% of the experimental group were judged as symptom free.
At one-year follow-up, the patients receiving tapping treatments were less prone to relapse or partial relapse than those receiving CBT/medication, as indicated by the independent raters assessments and corroborated by brain imaging and neurotransmitter profiles. In a related pilot study by the same team, the length of treatment was substantially shorter with energy therapy and related methods than with CBT/medication (mean = 3 sessions vs. mean = 15 sessions).
If subsequent research corroborates these early findings, it will be a notable development since CBT/medication is currently the established standard of care for anxiety disorders and the greater effectiveness of the energy approach suggested by this study would be highly significant. The preliminary nature of these findings must, however, be emphasized. The study was initially envisioned as an in-house assessment of a new method and was not designed with publication in mind. Not all the variables that need to be controlled in robust research were tracked, not all criteria were defined with rigorous precision, the record-keeping was relatively informal, and source data were not always maintained. Nonetheless, the studies all used randomized samples, control groups, and double blind assessment. The findings were so striking that the team decided to report them.
The principal investigator was Joaqumn Andrade, M.D. The report was written by Dr. Andrade and David Feinstein, Ph.D. The paper will appear in Energy Psychology Interactive: An Integrated Book and CD Program for Learning the Fundamentals of Energy Psychology (Ashland, OR: Innersource, in press, distributed by Norton Professional Books) by David Feinstein in consultation with Fred P. Gallo, Donna Eden, and the Energy Psychology Interactive Advisory Board.

Beatrice's blowwave

2006-06-12T09:30:00.000-01:00

Beatrice flew out of the batcave chocked up with tears. She had never felt so devastated in her life, she really thought her and Norman were going to make a go of it, she knew she was in love with him already. " It's my own fault" she said out loud, "I should have known we weren't compatible, after all he is a noctule bat and I am a soprano pipistrelle, we like ducking and diving a bit more, his flight pattern is too straightforward for my liking". As she said it she knew it wasn't true, she loved his flying in a straight line, high overhead and his sexy narrow wings and she really loved the fact he was a naturally BIG bat. She landed on the nearest oak tree branch and began to wipe her eyes with her wing.
"What's up little one" said a booming voice. Beatrice instantly recognised the tree resonance and said "oh hello, I am sorry, I am a bit upset about my boyfriend, we have just split up " she replied. The oak tree was about to reply when Tina, one of the tiny teenage bats flew and landed beside her. "Hello Beatrice" she said. "I am doing a promotional leaflet drop for the new hairdressers that has opened up called Bat Bouffant, they do hair, nails, baticures and everything, they have 20% off if you go today" and with that she flew off. Beatrice looked at the leaflet thought 'oh what the hell, I'll go for it, I need something' and with that she said goodbye to the oak and flew off to the hairdressers.
As Beatrice flew into Bat Bouffant she recognised Deb Daubenton bat. Beatrice had always liked Deb, mainly because she admired her humility and sense of humour. Because Deb was a Daubenton, she had always had naturally very hairy feet to seize the insects as she skimmed over the water surface, but the other bats had made her life a misery with all kinds of pisstakes. They had called her names like 'yeti foot' and 'wig wings'cause they couldn't believe that the hair was all her own, amongst many others. "Hello Bea" Deb said, "have you come for a Bat Blowwave?" "yes"Beatrice replied. Then out of curiosity she asked "what made you set up the salon Deb?" Deb replied "oh you know, I have spent a fortune over the years trying to keep my unruly hairy feet in trim, so I decided to train myself and help out the other Daubentons, anyway Bea, what's all this I hear about you and Norman?" Beatrice's heart sank, of course the hairdressers is the second place to find out the gossip next to the chatting in the pub, she should have thought this through. Deb could see her face drop and said "I am sorry Bea, I didn't mean to pry, come on I will give you the works, bugger those male bats, lie back and be pampered" and with that she set to work....

Norman and Beatrice have their first row

2006-06-09T07:33:00.000-01:00

While Beatrice was with Penelope and Bertram and the young Pipistrell Players Norman had been busy hunting Vyella down to ask her what the flower was she had put in his test-tube for remedy making. His instinct had been correct and she was propping up the bar Mad Maud's (the batbar where bats went to relax, have a drink and listen to the occasional solo artist. Beatrice had sung here a couple of times, she was a talented singer (soprano pipistrelle) and loved the batblues). Vyella was giggling and futtering her batlashes at a visiting bat that Norman had never seen before. "Hello Vyella, I have come to apologise" said Norman, "I was a bit rough on you" he said. "Go away Norman, I am busy" said Vyella. "Yesss go away" said the bat with a distinct Italian accent, that Vyella was talking to, his words were slurred and he looked worse for wear. "I just want to talk to you for a minute Vyella, then I will leave you to it" said Norman. Vyella, had been getting a bit bored with Vic who was visiting from Verona and all he talked about was wine this, wine that, grape this, soil that, Amerona this and Chianti Classico that, and although she had pretended to be interested she was actually very glad for the interruption. "Okay, excuse me Vic" she said and her and Norman sat down in a quiet corner.
Meanwhile Penelope had extricated Bertram from his tights, Neil the young bat dressed up as an acorn had practised his part falling out of Derek who was playing the oak tree and Beatrice had told Penelope the story so far. Beatrice was also pretty miffed that Norman had not come back to the lake to help her out of her rubber ring and felt very abandoned indeed.
Penelope listened carefully and said "look Beatrice, you can't take Vyella's word for it, Norman doesn't strike me as the type and besides he has had the hots for you for months, he was moping around and all over the place until you two got together, go and find him and talk to him". Beatrice knew she was right and flew off in search of Norman. Bertram in the meanwhile had been reading Penelope's script for her new play. "Look here sweetheart, how about we go and practise scene three in private" he said with a glint in his eye. "Besides, I need something soothing rubbed on my...." "Alright, Alright Bertam, I get the picture" Penelope interrupted, bring those icecubes from the freezer and the bowl of Strawberries" she said.....
Beatrice flew to Norman's batbooth, no sign of him there, she flew to the lake to see if he had gone back there, she flew to his roost, then her roost, then the bat library in case he was looking up an ingredient for his remedies, he was nowhere to be found. "hello Beatrice" said Tom, one of the older bats who spent his time watching the world go by and a member of the Neighbourhood Batwatch Scheme. "hello Tom, you don't happen to know where Norman is do you?" she said. "Yes Bea, he is in the bar talking to Vyella, I didn't realise that you and he had split up" he said. Beatrice could barely speak, she was clogged up now in her batthroat and about to burst into tears. Without a reply she flew into the bar to take a look for herself and sure enough there was Vyella with her batwing draped over Normans thigh and they were deep in conversation. Without stopping to think she went to the bar and ordered a pint of 'message in a bottle', she watched as the glowing fluid filled the glass, picked it up, went over to Norman and without a word tipped the lot over his head. Some of it splashed on Vyella. "You two-timing dick, you shit, what kind of bat are you!? she shouted and with that she turned on her heels and left. Norman was stunned and in shock, he had been discussing the flora and fauna of Venezuela with Vyella when suddenly he was covered in ice cold beer. As he tried to stand up he slipped on his batbum on the tiled floor of Mad Maud's, Vyella tried to steady him and landed on top of him, Pete Pipistrell who had seen what was happening shouted "it serves you right". By this time Vyella Vampire had got one of her fangs caught in Norman's leg, which looked dangerously close to his netherregions. Maud (who came from good irish stock came out from the bar and said "get out, begorrah, you are disgusting, I won't have any of those shinanigans goin on in my bar, " and with a broom in her hand she chased Norman and Vyella out of the bar, to the claps and cheers of the customers, who for the most part didn't have a clue as to what was going on but it brought some excitement and interest to the day..

Beatrice's drama

2006-06-07T07:43:00.000-01:00

Beatrice was still mad, she felt so angry and hurt at what Vyella had said. She thought her and Norman were exclusive and anyway, she didn't believe in batbonking others while she was serious with one special person and that's what she thought she had in Norman. She was ready to fly into the batcave and tell him to stick the relationship, when she stopped herself. 'I need to calm down, I need to check out Norman's side of things, before I do anything' she thought. Beatrice stopped herself so fast in mid flight that she did a loop the loop, back flip and was about to do a nosedive into a pile of batpoo that had recently been cleared out of the batcave (there had been a film crew from some TV series in, filming the batcave and they had got so fed up wading around in piles of batdroppings and all of the insects that lived in it that they decided to shovel some of this out. This had upset the insect population, who had decided to make it their business to find as many ways to get down their trousers and up their noses as possible. Clive Cockroach had managed to get so far up one of the men's legs that he had run screaming out of the batcave, ripping his trousers off shouting "help I've got a cockroach crawling around my cra..... " and filming had to stop for the day while the film crew's nerves settled). Anyhow, Beatrice managed to skid to a halt, the right way up. 'What to do to calm down...hummm.. I know I will go and chat to Penelope pipistrell and ask her advice, she has been round the block a few times, she knows a bit about men and relationships' she thought to herself.
Penelope was busy writing a new play for the drama group she ran in the Batcave. Penelope and Bertram bat had set up the Pipistrell Players some years before. They both loved drama and music and for a time Penelope had taken cello lessons with Beatrice, before she decided that her real passion was acting. It was in Penelope's mind to put on the play for the BATFA awards (Bat Association for Theatre and Film Awards) due that year. The play was broadly based on her life as an actress and contained some of the more steamier moments of her life and she was in two minds as to how much detail she should include. Others' ideas of decency had got her into trouble before. She had once put on a production called 'Fetish Fancies and other explorations' which she thought was very tame and toned down, in comparison to what she had actually got up to. But they were the critics, and the sexually repressed kicked up a stink about a scene where behind a screen voices could be heard saying 'flick your batwing there ooohh do it a bit harder... oh now the ostrich feather....now the fruit ....what do you mean you haven't got any fruit, you're a bloody fruit bat aren't you, your whole bloody life revolves around the stuff....'. The audience weren't shown any real live batbonking, but nevertheless, the protestors camped outside with boards saying 'stop the plot, we don't want this rot, we are the moral minority and consider ourselves in the majority';and in the end she had to cut the scene to please them 'cause one of her sponsers got nervous with all the bad press and chickened out. While Penelope was struggling with her dilemma, Beatrice arrived. Penelope stopped and said "bloody hell Beatrice, what's up, I can feel your anger from here" (Penelope was very sensitive energetically and could feel others' emotional fields). There was a big crash from behind and before Beatrice could answer they both looked round to see Bertram looking very dazed and staggering about. One of the younger players in their acorn costume had been practising falling from one of the other players dressed up as a tree and misjudged the distance and landed on Bertram's head. "Some nut has bashed me on the nut and now my nuts hurt" he said (the tights he was wearing for the swashbuckling scene had split his difference in all the furore)as he stood there grabbling his head and his batnuts at the same time. Both Beatrice and Penelope started to laugh, it was just the kind of diversion they both needed, "oh come here Bertam, let me sort your nuts out" said Penelope.....

Button Bridge Books: Songs From The Secret Place

2006-06-06T14:25:00.000-01:00

Button Bridge Books

Button Bridge Books: Self Matters

2006-06-06T14:08:00.000-01:00

Button Bridge Books: Self Matters

Norman's New Invention

2006-06-06T09:33:00.000-01:00

As soon as Vyella had gone, Norman started to unravel what had happened with his remedy, all that was left in the test-tube was a green unpleasant looking goo. He set about the task of starting again. "Hum, a days work down the pan," he said to himself. He was about to throw the green goo down the toilet, when he thought 'I wonder what this will do, I wished I had asked her what she had put in the test-tube'. There came a knock on the batbooth door. One of the younger bats Russell (named so because he was never able to keep still even as a tiny bat and was always foraging amongst the leaves for grubs and insects) was stood there. "Um, Norman, I saw Vyella come in here a while ago, I came to look for you but couldn't find you" he said. "You didn't happen to see if she was carrying anything did you?" said Norman. "Yes, as a matter of fact she had a big flower" he replied. "Is everything alright Norman?" said Russell, "it is now, thanks Russell" said Norman and with that Russell went back to his roost for some shut eye, he was in his teenage bat years and pretty knackered most of the time, on top of that he had a huge zit on his batnose, which he wanted to hide until it had gone down before his latest girlfriend Frennella spotted it; he was worried it would put her off.
Norman looked around for remnants of the flower, then spotted them in the corner of the batbooth. It was something he had never seen before, he needed to find out from Vyella what it was, but how? 'I know he thought, I will go and apologise to her and soften her up a bit, perhaps I was a bit harsh, I am probably scared of her still and overreacted to her come-on. I know where she will be, I will lay bets that she is in the bar'. With that he shut the batbooth door and flew off to find her.

Vyella's revenge

2006-06-05T08:51:00.000-01:00

Vyella, was sat on a tree branch, watching Beatrice fly off, she could see Beatrice was angry and upset. 'That will teach Norman for messing with me,' she thought to herself and inwardly she chuckled at the idea of Beatrice having a go at Norman. 'That will mess things up for a while, I hope she breaks up with him' she mused and she started to feel better.
"What did you do that for?" asked a deep booming voice. Vyella nearly jumped out of her skin and looked all around, but there was no-one there. "Who are you are what do you want?" she said. "Little bat, if you are going to sit on my branch communing your thoughts with me, then you must expect some comment from me" said the voice again. By this time Vyella was starting to panic, her heart was racing. "What do you mean..." then it clicked, she had heard of some of the other bats chatting to the trees, but had never done it herself before, in fact she had thought they were slightly batty. "It is none of your business what I do" Vyella replied. "You are making it my business by being here" the tree replied. By now Vyella was intrigued, she was not imagining it, she could really hear a voice and it was intelligent. Then there was a murmer of assent and she realised that all the trees around were listening and watching. Seriously shaken, but also intrigued she said "Norman bat hurt me, so I want to hurt him, it is as simple as that, there was no need to say the things he said". There was a silence, then a quiet voice said "You are not happy Vyella, you have not been for a long time I can see it in your bataura, you are not satisfied...." Vyella flinched. She started to feel really squirmy inside and she didn't like that. "I am not staying around here anymore, you are seriously wierd" and with that she flew off to the batcave to the batbar to try out some of the 'message in a bottle' and see who else was up for an afternoon of distraction. She knew of at least two other bats that she could rely on for a bit of fun....

Bat Storm

2006-06-02T07:42:00.000-01:00

Norman was by now incensed by Vyella the Vampire. "Get off me, what do you think your doing? You know I am seeing Beatrice Bat, I don't want to pick up where we left off. You bored the pants off me then and you hold no interest for me now. You have no sense of self, you just drift into being what others want you to be instead of having the courage to just be yourself. This is a big turn off. I have found someone special in Beatrice and I don't intend on ruining it, so bogoff and leave me alone". Vyella stood in complete shock. she had always depended on using her batfemininewilds to get men to want her, it had always worked; though nothing had ever lasted for very long. Here was a man turning her down and rude with it as well. "I am not staying here to be insulted, you were never that good anyway Norman, I just thought I could use you for a fill-in like last time." With that she turned on her batheels and left.
Norman was shaking with anger and fear. He had never plucked up the courage to say such a thing to anyone before, let alone a woman. Part of him was terrified and waiting for more of a backlash and another was suddenly exhilerated. He had always felt frightened of Vyella, which was part of why they had got together in the first place. He hadn't really liked her much, but felt it wasn't manly to turn down her offers for batbonks, he thought this was what male bats were supposed to do; he was also fearful of her, but he had regretted that decision from the beginning and was hugely relieved when she had left. He turned his attention to the batbooth and the disappearing green haze 'now what to do about this experiment' he thought.....
Meanwhile, Beatrice had extricated her batbum from the rubber ring, as it had deflated she was able to take off and now she was in the process of quietly drying her batbuttocks off in the forest by using her wings to fan warm air at her netherregions. She was chuckling to herself about the fabulous fun she had had wizzing along the lake at batmark10. She was considering setting up some kind of theme park rides for the others bats and deep in thought about the marketing opportunities when a voice said "Oh hello Beatrice, what are you doing?". It was Vyella, she was still miffed with Norman for the things he had said and was desperately wanting her revenge. "Oh hello Vyella, I thought you were in Venezuela?" Beatrice said, feeling uncomfortable at being found out drying her bum off. "Oh, I had a batmessage from Norman asking me to come back, he said he was missing me and wanted to pick up where we left off. He likes the more unusual batbonking with me, in fact we have just had a quicky, I am going to get my roost sorted and then we are having an insectswoop together later, I must go...." and with that, off she flew.
Beatrice felt absolutely sick to the stomach. A sinking feeling of humiliation decended upon her and then absolute murderous rage arose within her, she picked up her wings and flew towards the batcave, wrinkly bottom or not, she was going to sort this out....

Bat Brain Overload

2006-06-01T06:38:00.000-01:00

Beatrice was sat on her rubber ring, floating on the lake, quietly chuckling to herself, when she realised that she was stuck in her rubber ring. With all the batacoladas and insects she had been scoffing while her and Norman had been chatting and a bit of fluid retention , the rubber ring had welded itself to her. Now it looked like Norman was going to be a while and she was too embarassed to sonic ping to the other bats in case they all flew out to have a look and took the batpiss out of her predicament. What to do she wondered?
Meanwhile, Norman had got to his batbooth to check on the 'big bang' he had heard and opened the door. Immediately a green haze escaped through the bat door and Norman before he could stop himself, took in a breath. "Urrhhhh he said, that's disgusting, it's like the worst batfart I have have ever smelt and I have just breathed it in....." before he could continue a batshape emerged from the green haze out of his batbooth. "Hello Norman, I have been waiting for you, I got bored, so I thought I would have a play with one of your remedies and ummmh well...." It was Vyella the Vampire. She and Norman had had a bit of a batfling some months before, but although the batbonking was good, she had no conversation or interest for him. In the end she had moved on to one of the other bats and last Norman heard she had got into the more experimental side of things and flown off to Venezuela. Norman could feel the anger rising at her intrusion into his life, more than anything else he was miffed at her messing with his genius. "What do you want Vyella, I am busy and I don't want you waltzing into my private space like this." "Oh come on Norman, we have been more private than this, I thought we could pick up where we left off" she replied. She moved over to him and began stroking his batwing...
Meanwhile, Beatrice was getting a bit worried, Norman had been ages and she was getting hot under her batcollar about the rubber ring, it seemed to be tightening around her batbuttocks even more. 'Ah, she thought, it's the water, my batskin is absorbing it and swelling, I have been sat on this lake too long, I bet my batbum will be all wrinkly like a prune when I do finally manage to free myself. I will have to dry out in a warm corner and hope no-one notices.' She was also a bit worried about the fish in the lake mistaking her batbum for food, she had heard there was a big Pike in the water called Pierre (he had apparently swum from France, doing a cross channel, fish race, for international fish relations to try to mend antagonisms after the cod war (there was very nearly side taking and at one point it looked like an international fish war was about to ensue) and never wanted to go back; he couldn't stand snails for a start...)
Anyhow, Beatrice was beginning to panic when Pete Pipistrell flew over head. He had always held a candle for Beatrice and had quite a softspot for her. Beatrice called to him. After much discussion, it was decided that Pete could deflate the rubber ring by pulling out the rubber plug, that Beatrice was unable to reach. Pete pulled the plug and suddenly the rubber ring with Beatrice in it blew off across the lake like a rocket, accompanied by a big long wet rasping farting noise. "It is not me" she cried, as she shot off into the horizon.....

Floating Bats

2006-05-31T08:48:00.000-01:00

Beatrice Bat and Stormin' Norman have been floating on the lake to cool down their nether-regions. Norman has blown up two rubber rings so they could sit down while floating and chat and drink their batacoladas; while discussing whether or not it would be a good idea to move their roosts next to each other. Beatrice had persuaded Norman to do a particularly complex position from the Batasutra, which went on for nearly 3 hours, until they finally mastered it. It was a lot of fun, they both got a lot out of it, but it was time to take a pause.
Meanwhile in the batcave, strange things were happening in Norman's batbooth, where he did his experiments making batremedies. His latest 'Dick Dilator' had gone down a storm with the other bats, as it expanded batknobs by at least 10%. The main customers had been the female bats, batpheramones had been everywhere for days now, and lots of roosts had 'Do Not Disturb' signs hung up. Anyway, something was bubbling in one of Norman's test tubes, he was working on something to help with his own creative impulse, which he knew was a bit wonky; he was obsessed by work and money, instead of fun and pleasure and he knew he was trying to kick out an ancestral pattern of behaviour which had well and truly stuck in his batunconscious.
Suddenly there was a bang, a flash of light and a green gas flew out of the testtube, somebody had sabotaged his remedy and put something in it but who? Norman, hearing the bang, took to flight, but forgot that he was sat in a rubber ring, which by now was wedged around his batbum. Beatrice, nearly choked on her batacolada, then nearly choked some more from laughter at the sight of Norman flapping his wings, looking like a ring doughnut with wings, Norman finally managed to free himself and flew off to his batbooth to see what was going on.....

Beatrice Bat & Stormin Norman

2006-05-23T08:20:00.000-01:00

Beatricebat was doing her batsercise this morning, which consists of tying rubber bands to her feet, then flying out as far as she can, it is brilliant for wing strength and for stretching out those hamstrings; not to mention the powerful effect it has on her pelvic floor. The problem is that she has to be careful it doesn't end up in a bungy jump if her wings get tired, then she has to hang around boinging up and down until one of the other bats take pity on her and helps her up.
Anyway this morning her back was a bit sore and she was wondering what she could do about it. She had tried everything orthodox and non-orthodox and some things which others would consider wacky, which incidently had been more helpful and her back was much less painful now than it had ever been. This was because her particular body/mind system happened to somatise emotional pain into her body, in other words she felt emotional pain in a physical way. It was her body's way of telling her she had a problem and she was paying attention now.
It could be that she was fairly annoyed by the latest news bulletin today about the call by some of the NHS Doctors to stop allowing treatments like homeopathy on the NHS to save money. The situation may have triggered something in her unconscious and her body was responding. She herself had saved the NHS thousands of pounds in treatment costs precisely 'cause they hadn't been able to help her and homeopathy had been one of the treatments that had worked very well for her.
Why do they keep referring healthcare back to one particular model, while completely discounting hundreds and in the case of acupuncture, thousands of years of proven cures she thought? When will they ever stop and listen and realise we can use both?
She took her rubber bands off and realised her back was hurting because she was angry and she needed to do some batyoga, maybe some bat acupressure, to quiet her mind, ease the pain and bring herself back to batcentre, then see if 'Norman' was up for it (he had been having a 'hang-in' on his bat roost and not stirred from sleep yet). With a glint in her eye Beatrice flew off to the waterfall for her early morning shower.....

Self Matters

2006-05-22T13:33:00.000-01:00

I was reading a book the weekend called 'Self Matters' by Dr Phil McGraw, in my quest to examine, understand and change patterns that are not working for me in my life. I was struck by his idea that we have 10 defining moments in our lives which shape our self-concept to the present day, good or bad.
I wonder therefore, where my preoccupation with bats comes from and where this fits in and what the defining moment was, 'cause one of the things I do to amuse myself before work in the morning is do a bit of writing from my imaginary batcave and I thought I would share my latest....

'Barrybat has been stumbling around pissed again. Apparently he has set up an illegal batstill making batbooze called 'message in a bottle' the message being don't drink alcohol while hanging upside down, you lose most of it.
His secret ingredient is gloworm, it is a bit like tequila but glows in the dark and made from fruit, with a bit of batiguana in (the aroma when it is brewing is interesting). Anyway he has got a production line going. Some of the younger bats are secretly siphoning it off while Barry is sleeping it off, and taking it to their batroosts, so they can hang around on bat corners, while trying to look cool and eye up the batbabes.
Norman Bat aka 'stormin Norman' called so because of his famous bat-escapades, that is, swinging from ivy to ivy singing 'I could have flapped all night, I could have flapped all night and still come back for more' (splat..Norman has just misjudged a loop the loop and landed head first in a pile of bat poo) has decided to use 'message in a bottle' to sabotage the visiting bat flight team. They are two days away from a synchronised flight team display competition. Norman has put together an impressive display, whereby his formation 'Bewdley Bats' have been practising a hovering batsymbol with 40 other bats, but the 'Pershore Pipistrells' have been rumoured to have created a new unheard of, never seen before display, which has been kept under raps and absolutely secret.....

Navigating the bookselling business

2006-05-17T12:59:00.000-01:00

I am a great believer in the idea that what is going on in my life can also, though not always be a reflection of what is going on in my unconscious on any given day. My psyche is made up of inherited ancestral patterns, ways of being, beliefs etc.. that have gone in there either by genetics, miasms or by osmosis from my environment through childhood, as well as influences from others on my human journey.
I also have the idea that I can view what I need to examine within myself if I pay attention to what situations out there are mirroring to me, (I am talking about negative situations here) in other words, what people are in my world and what are they doing or saying.
Now after months of sending emails to one of the main UK book distributors (you have very little choice as a small publisher but to deal with them - that is unless I come up with another creative idea)and jumping through hoops to get the main buyers attention, with marketing plans etc.., they requested a copy of our first novel, which I duly sent to the person concerned, which they promptly lost. So I scratched my head, searched my feelings, meditated on it a bit and decided 'well that wasn' meant to be just yet then!' Of course the next question I then ask myself is why? Hummmm.....

2006-05-10T16:22:00.000-01:00

Songs From The Secret Place - a book that speaks to the heart and soul, but grounded in reality and very human (it contains some strong language and scenes of a sexual nature)

The book I want to tell you about is called 'Songs From The Secret Place - The Meeting of the Spirits' by Deborah Clarke. It is a story that speaks to the heart and soul, like no other I have ever read. It has a shape, a beautiful pattern and three dimensions to it, other books feel flat to me now in comparison, I love it. I want everyone to read it, love it or not, no matter, I believe it changes your perception of life forever. It is a metaphor for the human experience.

What others say about it:

"This is a wonderful book that repays reading and re-reading. On the surface it is about the Magnus family, three generations of whom live together in a large country house somewhere in the Cotswolds. They are like a pride of lions, led by Chris Eriksson, the grandfather of the pride, and the book follows the working out of both the family relationships and those close to the family.

At first they seem to be just a bunch of people loving, squabbling and fighting with one another, but as the book unfolds it is plain that the family and friends have been together in a previous incarnation and they have come together to sort out the karmic consequences of their previous encounters.

The book skilfully develops all of the fifteen main characters, whilst revealing the interrelationships between them, both in this and the past life, keeping you hooked into the story in order to discover their eventual fates. However, the book works on a number of different levels; as a story that engages our emotions by pointing us towards our own dreams and needs, which not only get exercised by reading the book but are answered by the characters in the book; it also works at a deep unconscious level to produce unexpected reactions to the storyline.

If you want to read a book of fiction that feels like fact, which engages your emotions but somehow releases you from them, that refers to the mythic world but reveals the Deep to you, then buy this book and take from it what it is offering."
Brian Ackroyd - professional writer, Worcester, UK

"The book was totally awesome, I found the characters so believable they had me crying with laughter" - Annette Francis, Kidderminster, UK

and many more testimonials, yet to be published.....