Mindfulness.
A little stroke strangeness from Bobbi.
I have a set of mystic bamboo sticks and an ancient Chinese book of magic. We live together, in a world neither quite real, nor completely imaginary.
On the way out of the city but at some distance from anything wild, somewhere between here and there, I cast the sticks, draw some lines and peer into the pages of the book.
I am carefully watched by an ancient goblin. There is something familiar about this creature.
It is the one that walks, pitter-patter, across the roof tiles in the night and leaves a green slug, as a present, in the middle of the kitchen floor.
Leaving gently and silent through the letter box after searching the house for a sock to cover a loved spouse’s unworldly head.
Tomorrow, or the day after, the sock will be discarded, pushed deep into the back of the sofa, far under the bed with the dust bunnies, or attached to a twig on the privet hedge outside.
For when a sock has been used as a hat it must be regularly replaced.
As I count around the house, all the odd socks in drawers and cupboards, I realise that this has been going on for some time.
Again, the old goblin’s wife demands a new hat.
The muddle of the night arrives and breath comes out in clouds of steamy mist.
Up on the roof across the tiles and down the chimney hole.
There’s some reindeer poo in the gutter left after Santa’s last visit.
It’s not only Santa comes this way.
Stuff the old used sock hat down back of sofa, under bed with dust bunnies, in the fridge with the kettle or on a twig in that hedge.
Pick up a fresh new hat from the sock drawer.
Running to the front door and out through the letter box.
Over to the safety of the dark under the hedge.
Mustn’t get caught.
It’s well known that humming beans eat burglars, especially Big Mac burglars.
His wife will wear this new sock hat with pride, this prize from his daring adventure.
You could measure how many exploits this venerable goblin had ventured.
Just count the total number of single socks in the house.
. . . and the kettle that turns up in the fridge?
The biscuits on the window sill behind the curtains?
The mouse in the cupboard with the plates?
Easy enough to explain and understand.
All quite logical. As are all things, pertaining to goblin matters.
The sticks say:
23 SPLITTING APART moving to 2 THE RECEPTIVE
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== == == ==A setback, a challenge.
It is pointless to dwell on what is past.
Look to the future.
Go with the flow. Listen and have confidence.
Using the sticks is laborious and slow. For thirty or forty minutes one is absorbed in an activity that removes one from the everyday. The outcome is akin to a mindfulness exercise and leaves one with something to contemplate.
keep on keepin on
